zbd1960

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

What incredibly sad news. Thoughts go out to all those that knew him.

Reading music is like learning to read - it's not an instant process. As children we probably all had similar experiences of being taught what letters looked like, how they sounded in various contexts. For reading, started with simple books - not Tolstoy or Conrad... It's the same with music. When I was about 11 and started to learn to read music properly at school it took a while. I started to borrow miniature scores from the local library and then try to follow the cello line whilst listening to it. Something I'd recommend to people is to get used to just reading along whilst listening. You can download scores or individual parts for most classical music that is out of copyright from IMSLP. Just being able to follow along helps a lot. In amateur orchestras, string players will often "busk" the tricky passages until they've got their heads and fingers around them. Got a passage of lots of semi-quavers? Simplify it and maybe only play the start of each group of 4 or each quaver... I was faced with sight-reading this at the first rehearsal of the new term last week. Can I play some of it at sight? Yes. Can I play all of it at sight? No. You'll notice it spends a lot of time in the tenor clef for added entertainment value. It's the end of the Romeo an dJuliet overture by Tchaikovsky.

As someone who has 'come across' from the 'other side' I'll add some thoughts. I'm assuming we're dealing with some sort of community orchestra with assorted strings, woodwind, brass, and percussion. Most community groups like this are people's first foray into group music making. There are some issues facing noobs: early stage string players are going to want to play in keys between 2 flats and 2 sharps, so Bb, F, C, G, and D major (and associated minors). Wind and brass instruments have different challenges. If they play C instruments (e.g. flute, oboe, bassoon) they'll be happy with the same keys. Most orchestral transposing instruments (e.g. clarinet, trumpet) are in Bb and they prefer flat keys since for example D maj concert means they'll be playing in E maj - 4 sharps. Community orchestras will probably have saxes as well and alto and baritone are Eb instruments, so that D major is now B major - 5 sharps. French horn players inhabit a different universe. This is why arrangements for such groups will mean that they are probably not in the original keys. An orchestral 'string bass' part is going to be for standard bass tuning. In the early stages, arrangements are going to be simplified and that will include the rhythms used as well as the keys. When I started playing cello and sax in my 50s, I joined a community orchestra, so I encountered all of the above. Even as a beginner I soon found we were playing film or musical theatre medleys which for cello could be in 4 or 5 flats (Ab and Db for example) or 4 sharps. For alto sax, an Eb instrument, if the strings were in 3 sharps - I was in 6... Added challenge as a cellist (also bassoons and trombones): we often have to play in tenor clef (C4 clef). If this is all new, then it is going to be disconcerting until you adjust to it. You have to accept that in the early stages you will be playing simplified arrangements and they may not 'sound right'. Novice brass/wind players tend to be able to play more complex music much quicker than string players as they don't have the added challenge of managing a bow as well as learning fingering.

Part of that is likely to be not wanting to buy specialist equipment / facilities, and part because they don't think that aspect is something that they are good at

A luthier is a maker/repairer of stringed instruments that includes all the descendants of the vihuela: that's viols (viola da gamba), and guitars. In addition it includes the members of the lute and violin families etc. Traditionally, luthiers were trained via apprenticeship to a master luthier. In the UK formal training is run by places such as Newark and West Dean.

Hi, welcome

OK so music resumption expectations did not entirely pan out last week... Orchestra is Tuesday evenings and that doesn't resume until this coming Tuesday. Programme will include Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. The community choir did not resume as planned due to it being based in a village hall in the sticks and they've still got 30cm of snow. I had my weekly organ practice in a local church, which was making a good impression of being a freezer. Choral society did resume so we had a look at the material for the next concert, which is the Rutter Requiem plus and assortment of typical cathedral anthems e.g. Parry's I was Glad, Stanford's Beati Quorum Via, etc. I've sung almost all of the choral repertoire before at some point. The Rutter I have done at least twice - 1996 and 2005 (I always buy my own copy of works and make a note of when I've performed them). I am of the opinion I did it a third time, but I've no note of that. It might have been a workshop day. Several of Rutter's styles of writing are on display, plus a section of one movement is almost pure Herbert Howells. Of the eight anthems, there's only two I don't think I've sung before. Several will be tricky to pull off as they are either written for double choir, or in straight 8 parts. At the moment, there is no outlet for sax or bass.

Thanks - yes, I've used that site.

ha ha ha

The orchestra I play in is in Carlisle, but there's no wind band etc that I can find there - odd given it's twice the size of Chester.