zbd1960

You do encounter some very good musicians busking from time-to-time. I know several that do busk, mostly to raise money for charity but I do know that they're competent players. The notable thing about the good players is that they're not usually very loud... In the summer months we get a busker who appears in the town centre and he just sits there all day endlessly repeating the same things. This drives the staff in the shops mad. There is an issue I think with amplified busking. The usual issue applies here - whatever laws/regulations exist are woefully out-of-date and not relevant. Most councils haven't got the funds to have an environmental officer wandering around with a calibrated SPL meter. A simple option to help protect the sanity of those who work adjacent to such things is to time limit playing in a location. I'm not sure how easy it is to deal with volume levels.

I have a new music project underway, which I started on nearly a year ago. I'm not going to go into any detail yet - there will be a 'big reveal' in a few weeks' time. The project has involved some electronics and sound equipment, I will say that much.

In a different musical universe... one of the choirs I sing with rehearses Wednesday evenings. I joined them last September. I'm a competent bass/baritone singer - I can sight read to a reasonable extent, but I'm not perfect and not at cathedral lay clerk standard.... I'm finding it tough going though. I have sung all the stuff for the next concert previously, so it's not new to me. The reasons it's tough going are various. I'm not keen on the MD's approach - partly I think he's an arrogant arse. As someone who has been chair of several choirs we'd be having words if I chair here. He doesn't seem to understand that a lot of the choir are not sight-readers. The main issue with the basses is none of them is very strong and they're struggling, not helped by the MD's way of working. I'll do the concert next month and move on, it's not worth the hassle.

Oh yes - one of the Prokofiev pieces went into treble clef as well as tenor - up to the E on the top space of the treble clef... As for the number of key changes - don't ask... lots of them - 5 sharps appeared later.

I was out with the cello last night for an orchestral concert in Carlisle. Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. Here's the opening page of the first piece. I think the double bass part is similar.

I play viol. I started in bass but play mostly tenor

Oddly, the viola da gamba (viol) which I also play, uses underhand bow. But in the viol world, it's not referred to as 'German' as it was the standard. There are different 'holds' the English one is the one advocated by Christopher Simpson, there is the French Forqueray hold, which mostly differs by rotating the wrist to apply more pressure on the bow hair. With the viol, your middle finger rests on the hair and so rotating the wrist anti-clock adds pressure to the bow hair.

Hi, welcome

As someone who plays bass, and in particular also plays baritone sax (which weighs 8kg) getting straps etc right is important if you don't want neck/back issues in the future. You cannot eliminate the weight of the bass as we have yet to work out how to alter that aspect of physics. With the bari, I cannot take that weight on a strap (I can't with a tenor sax either which is half the weight) as the pressure on the nape of the neck is too much. I also cannot use the usual alternative which is a 'strap' that sits on the shoulders, as it's still too heavy. That means using a harness - there are different types of these, some of which means no weight on neck/shoulders at all (weight is transferred to a hip belt). There are some very expensive options - there is a sax 'stand' that holds the sax in place and you wheel it into position to play (seated). They cost £00s For bass I use 4" wide straps which have substantial padding, which distribute the weight over a larger area. There are harness type straps but I've never used one so I can't say how good/bad they are.

I know.... I keep thinking about upgrading my cello bow. At the moment it's a Durfler bow with pernambuco stick, which was £450 back in 2011. I tried some bows up to £2,000 a few years ago but none 'spoke' to me.... I have a feeling I wasn't looking in the right price range...

You'll need a proper string specialist/dealer. They are thin on the ground and due to high street costs, some are now home based. There's Tim Toft in Stone in Staffs for example who does have a large shop and on-site team of luthiers.

As a cellist, I'm safe... it's the trombone players you have to watch

Ditto - I just couldn't face the drive from North Lakes and trains not a viable option either. Only real option would have been an overnight stay

Hi, welcome.

All three music things I currently do (two choirs and an orchestra) did not meet last week due to half term.... I have NEVER understood this nonsense. Almost no-one in any of the groups has school age children. OK one group rehearses in a school, so I get that one, but the others? What's the obsession with working around school term dates, it's not the C19th? Mutter, mutter, drifts off into corner...

Are you sure it wasn't a treble viol (viola da gamba) as they have frets?

Yep. It's just another version of management's tendency to take "the computers says..." uninformed approach. I worked in data warehousing for quite a while. Idiots in suits would write and run their own queries and just assume that the 'answer' was right, without understanding the data. Understanding is crucial. I had to explain to one genius that his query's output was a heap of steaming ordure. I had to point out that according to his query the number of active customers exceeded the population of the UK.

As a now retired IT guy I get frustrated with the use of the term "AI". The media, inevitably, misuses the term, and PR/marketing departments hype it death. In most cases, AI is a series of algorithms backed up by a large database and a rule set. It is not 'intelligent' it's just quick at searching. We've got the same issue with AI that we've had with previous technology shifts. In the 50s everything was 'atomic' or 'rocket', in the 60s we start to see "Twenty-first century", in the 80s everything had to be labelled 'digital', in the late 90s it was "e-...." and then with Apple it became "i-....". Now it's "AI". The stuff it's good at is pattern recognition and it's going to be a big help with processing scans for cancers etc. The big area of concern at the moment is no-one has worked out how or what needs regulating about it. As with any technology there is potential for harm as well as good. The issue at the moment is 'deep fakes'.

The Early Music Shop stocks a lot of early music for all sorts of instruments. https://earlymusicshop.com

Yes, it's a common misconception. Bach knew about ET but didn't like it. He devised his own temperament which is what he used on his own harpsichords. Unfortunately, there is no record of 'what' it was. There were 'well tempered' tunings. There are various rabbit holes you can go down looking into this subject. Early Music Source is a good channel for sensible discussion on these things, e.g.

Actually, your explanation was pretty good - I tend to get too technical.... Thank you for the offer - I only have tenor viol these days as I sold my bass viol before the house move. Playford and Praetorius are good 🙂

As an early music (i.e. pre-1750) enthusiast, the issue of tuning and temperaments comes up all the time. Equal temperament is a fudge to get around that the maths doesn't quite work. If you stack 8 perfect fifths on top of each other, you should go up 5 octaves, but you don't.... that's the Pythamgorean comma that @Rosie C mentioned. ET has been known about since the 1600s but it didn't come into a more general use until late in the C19th and primarily for pianos. It is possible to tell from early recordings of pianos made in the late C19th that they were not tuned in ET - which is what everyone assumed until recently. Rose mentioned the book about ET, which I have and it's a useful introduction to the subject. There's also the book "Lies my music teach told me". There were a lot of alternative temperaments about and that's what Bach's 48 preludes and fugues in the Well Tempered Clavier are about. "Well tempered" is NOT equal temperament but a tuning that plays 'well' in a lot of keys. The ET fudge is to divide the octave in 12 equal sized semi-tones, which means that they are each the 12th root of 2 apart. The problem is that some of these gaps are bigger than they should be (e.g. the major third) and some are narrower than they should be (e.g. perfect fifth). A surprising example of people that use 'just' intonation is barbershop quartet singers. They do not use ET which is why their chords 'ping' the way they do. On my viol, the frets are lengths of gut string tied around the neck and then moved into place for tuning. On certain frets, you 'split' the two windings on the fret so that you can play e.g. C# flatter and Db sharper...

Correct because in equal temperament the major third is too wide and bordering on being out-of-tune. For enharmonic equivalents, #s should be flatter and bs should be sharper. I'm an early music enthusiast, so I play the viol as well, which means consort music. I have a lot of consort music which comes with both viol and recorder parts in the various clefs.

Orchestra rehearsal last nigh - Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. Lots of challenges including treble clef and tricky rhythms. This couple of pages features a lot of tenor clef.

Just back from orchestra rehearsal. Some tough stuff this term. Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet overture is very demanding as is the ballet music for Sleeping Beauty. The Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet ballet music takes no prisoners. The cello part goes from bass clef straight to treble, no messing with tenor clef and up to the E a 10th above middle C