zbd1960

1 hour ago, Woodwind said:

As someone that has had a very unusual musical journey (and hope it continues to surprise me) I've enjoyed reading through this thread.

 

 

All the best with your BA show.

 

On a slight tangent - apologies if I missed it if it was mentioned earlier, do you tune your bass guitar in 5ths?

 

When I was looking for a new way to write and wanted to distance myself from the double bass (which I'd been forced to stope due to injury), I started tuning my bass guitar in 5ths an octave below the cello.

Thanks for the comments. No, I tune my basses as standard in 4ths and leave the 5ths to the cello. 

Musicians with questionable behaviour... It was ever thus. For reference, I suggest Gesualdo, Renaissance composer... murderer...

I submit my final project in the next few days for my BA in Digital Imaging and Photography. The course has taken me in some unusual directions. I regard myself as a landscape photographer primarily, so do street, documentary etc photography has been a challenge and a different tack. I also have ended up making my own photobooks, so I've been getting to grips with bookbinding as well.

My final project is a 'Leporello' format book - a concertina folded print. The print is 14 metres long. It's printed on inkjet paper, so folding it has been a major challenge....

The project is based around the the Chester Centurions, a rugby team in Chester and I've worked with both the touch and union teams.

The work of my colleagues and I will be exhibited at the Open Eye Gallery at the Pier Head in Liverpool. My book will be 'pasted' to the wall as a single large print 14m long... There is a private viewing from 5pm to 7pm on Wednesday 24th May (all welcome - it's free). It will be on show until the close on Sunday 28th. I expect to be on site some of Sat and Sun as well as the opening.

If anyone is around, it would be good to see people.

My camera is a mirrorless Nikon Z6, which can do 4K video. I think the video length limit is 30 mins. You can plug in an external mike. Or, you can record sound separately on a digital recorder then sync it in post-production using editing software. Just be aware that video, especially 4K eats storage. You'll need both a big memory card and a fast one.  

18 hours ago, Leonard Smalls said:

 

And anything that uses "Quantum" in their marketing and blurb is usually a purveyor of pseudo-science...

Or "e-", "i-", "digital-" etc. Recent additions to the list include "eco-" and "green-"

Rehearsals resumed last night. Sight reading of Beethoven's overture 'Coriolan'... fiendish cello part with a lot of very non-standard arpeggios needing an awful lot of shifting.

More snake oil - they need to go and join the chakra alignment fraternity and take the correct set of crystals with them.  

I would agree with those recommending getting a teacher to get started with bowing. If you're going 'French' route, then grip will be similar to what I use on cello, which is NOT the same as how a violinist or violist holds and uses a bow. There are a lot of aspects to bowing and having someone get your basic technique off to a good start will save you a great deal of trouble down the line. 

One of the thing about being a cellist in several orchestras is you don't usually do that many gigs. Most amateur orchestras follow academic 'terms' with a term of weekly rehearsals and a concert at the end. There are huge problems with this pattern since it means, for example, that most choirs and orchestras in an area have their concerts at more-or-less the same time (one committee I was on liaised with other groups in the area to avoid concert dates clashing).

My two orchestras at the moment don't in fact do that many concerts. Both will only have one this year: one at the end of June, and the other in early July. Both will be after I've moved house and I'll be about 150 miles away... What is particularly frustrating is both gigs are much later than you'd expect the 'summer' term concert to be.      

Most adults lose the top octave (nominally above 10kHz) by the age of 25...

Yes, "flute a bec" is a recorder. The 'transverse flute' which is what we understand by the word 'flute' didn't really take off until the C18th.

8 hours ago, NickA said:

Second that.  And you'd have to lose C, C#, D, D# on the bottom string, rendering much cello music unplayable ...

 

I'm intrigued by the existence of 4ths tuned string sets though and off to read up.

 

As a cellist originally, I tried tuning my first bass guitar in 5ths ... didn't last tho.

Yeah the spacing at the low end is too wide to make that viable 

All my instruments are with Allianz. I have three policies with them: one for cellos, one for saxes, one for basses and associated gear. I did have to claim on the cello one a few years ago when the cello fell over, which snapped the bridge, took the finger board off and did a lot of cosmetic damage. All sorted with luthier and no hassle. 

I didn't really start playing cello until I was over 50. Fortunately, I could already read music, so I had none of the issues around that. You can make decent progress with the right teacher. I'd also strongly recommend joining your local community orchestra/band/group. Playing with others like that can really help you to improve.

Once you've got past the basics of coordinating fingering with left hand and basic bowing with right hand, you'll make good progress. 

Personally I wouldn't tune in 4ths as that would make using any fingering marked in a part useless and for me would add layers of confusion.      

On 25/02/2023 at 09:20, LukeFRC said:

If you stick "Nottingham" at the start of the thread title you might get more ppl spotting it... "Midlands" is a large area, sometimes with slightly odd accents, while Nottingham is a big city just off the M1 and easier to get too as a concept

Optimistic... It's a pain in the butt to get to from the north end of Shropshire in the north Midlands as it's all cross-country so-called A roads... 

I hope to make it... but it's very close to my final project submissions for my degree AND I'm moving house... Will update on that nearer the time. 

"Okay, I want good walking bass line...", tick

"Improvise bridge passage in style of a Bach fugue.." tick

Has to be Nina Simone

I'm sure what I'm going to say won't be a surprise to regular gigging players... I was at my nephew's weddign at the weekend and they had a live function band: singer, guitar, bass, drummer. They were using IEM. I don't know what THEY were hearing, but what WE were hearing was utterly abysmal. The drummer blasted everything else out of sight - it completely dominated the sound to the point thta hearing much else was tricky. A lot of people commented on it, not just me.

My guess is they adjusted the IEM to suit what they wanted, but no one checked what it sounded like. We were all moved to a different room whilst they set up so they had a chance to do a sound check.

The constant incessant very hard hitting of the drums was just unbearable.  

I had my hearing tested at local opticians (yeah, I know... they seem to be the default option these days). Fortunately, the only issue was what you'd expect, loss of the top octave, but most of us lose that by the time we're 25... Whilst I've never had a formal diagnosis, I suspect I have some symptoms of 'confusional deafness' which is the ability to discriminate one sound from another - e.g. one voice when there's other noises around. 

On 10/01/2023 at 19:15, BassTractor said:

I hold life too dearly to click on that link. 

I know better than to click on that link... 😇

I haven't posted for a while... being a full-time student I had major projects to get in for the end of the semester and that included my dissertation...

Music has been low key as Monday orchestra finished for Christmas at the beginning of December and Chester was the same. It all kicked off last Saturday though as the Chester one hosted a 'play day'. This is where people sign-up for a day of playing something. In this case it was three of Haydn's early symphonies: 6, 7, and 8 known as Morning, Noon, and Night. Stylistically, these are more akin to concerti grossi but in the classical style. The concerto grosso was a late baroque form where you had a group of soloists (the 'concertante' group) and the accompanying orchestra (the 'ripieno'). Handel wrote two well-known sets, and those by Corelli are well-known as well.

Haydn was writing these in 1761, so he's definitely writing in the style of the early classical era and not baroque, but the format of the symphonies is more like a concerto grosso as there are designated soloists in most movements. Some of the solos are highly virtuosic. I had one of the less virtuosic ones in #8 which was in the slow movement.

I was solo together with a violin and a bassoon.

There were two solos for double bass in there as well, which is extremely unusual for this time.

Haydn is a lot of fun. He spent two extensive periods in London in the 1790s and he seems to have been very popular. He seems to have been one of history's "nice guys".

Below is a recording of #8 - the last movement (about 18 minutes in) is a depiction of a storm.

7 hours ago, bass_dinger said:

Calling the non rock n roll bassist, @zbd1960

You rang? 🙂

OK, interesting thread... Yes, Haydn wrote 104 numbered symphonies - there are various other bits and pieces making the grand total anything up to about 110... but 104 is the standard list. 104 is known as the London symphony, as that was where it had its first performance and it's fun to play.

I was playing Haydn 6, 7, and 8 at the weekend in a workshop - great fun and there are two bass solos in there...

Okay, suggestions of 'what' to listen to.... There are good suggestions above. I always sit someone down and I do a musical history tour to cover of the various genres and try to find a style or period that someone likes. Loosely speaking, the music falls into various time boxes, bear in mind these often overlap in time by a lot...: medieval (pre 1400); renaissance c.1400 - 1600; baroque 1600 - 1750; classical 1750 - 1820; romantic 1820 - tricky... roughly 1900. You've got impressionists writing in late C19th (not romantic) and Richard Strauss writing up until 1949. Anyway, styles explode in late C19th.

For 'easy listening' the baroque era is good. It splits into three roughly 50 year periods: early (1600), middle (1650), late (1700). Late is where your well-known composers are: Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel. Music of this era has a strong structure with a bass line that is controlling what is going on. Suggestions: JS Bach - Brandenburg concertos, Orchestral Suites, harpsichord and oboe concertos. Organ music try the trio sonatas

And less well-known items such as the toccata and fugue in F.

Vivaldi ignore the usual suspects and listen to concerto sets like La Stravaganza or La Cetera, or the Concerto di Amsterdam. Telemann wrote a lot... his Tafelmusic (table music) is good. Handel try the Concerti Grossi - there's the opus 3 and opus 6 sets of those, the 'concerti a due cori' are fun (wait until the horns come in...).

English baroque composers include Avison, who was from Durham.

Early baroque tends to be dominated by French and Italian composers - a lot of good recommendations in earlier posts. The Monteverdi Vespers are fun to sing.

I will write a couple more posts covering different periods. If you want the 'heavy metal' department of classical music... then you're looking at things like Wagner (Entry to Valhalla from Das Rheingold), Siegfried's Funeral Music etc, Bruckner (symphonies 4 and 7 perhaps), Tchaikovsky symphonies 4, 5, and 6. Big music with tunes - Dvorak symphonies 7, 8 and 9. Really big orchestras - Mahler. Possibly symphonies 4 and 5.

I'll write more later... 

Some of the stories here have all the hallmarks of people having to fulfil "performance targets" or else... which is why I detest them because they distort behaviours. Instead of doing what is right or best, people do whatever it takes to tick the box. It's stupid. 

Apart from Royal Mail and Parcel Force, none of the other couriers are covered by any form of regulatory oversight. I had an outrageous experience with DPD over the last few weeks - I won't bore you here about it. I have written to my MP asking that courier companies are subjected to a review by the competitions authority as I believe we have a complex monopoly in operation to the detriment of customers, business that use them, as well as the zero hours contracts in use. They should be brought under the same rules as govern RM/PF or they have an unfair advantage in the market place, especially as they are not obliged to provide a universal service.  

OK 16" viola... enjoy.  I did think about playing the viola, but I found the left arm position tricky. I'd strongly recommend getting some lessons from a teacher, not least to avoid long-term arm/neck/shoulder issues. Getting the set-up right is critical. I do play instruments that use alto clef (tenor and bass viol). I think you will need to read notation (stand to be corrected if I'm speaking from a position of ignorance!) as I think that you will struggle to find tab for it. I doubt there is lute tablature written for it (which there is for the viol).

For clarity for me - are you talking a standard (apart from the five strings) sized viola that you play with a bow? I'm assuming 'yes'. I'm a cellist and obviously the viola is similar in that it's tuned an octave higher. The two obvious issues are they are tuned in fifths not fourths and they're usually fretless... so 'fretted' is new to me. Five string cellos (and presumably violas) were a thing in the cross-over period from the demise of the viola da gamba and the rise of the violin family around the mid to late baroque period.  

What is not obvious is that instruments like violas are not symmetrical. You cannot just 'flip' the strings around. It has a bass side and a treble side. There is a bass bar on the inside of the top (on conventional acoustic instruments anyway). The finger board and the bridge are not symmetrical. The reasons for that are mostly to do with bowing.

There are fingering patterns for cello but unlike the bass they are not quite as 'fixed' (because of the tuning in fifths). Viola fingering is not the same as cello fingering. On a cello for scales, apart from some open string ones, the 'standard' pattern is to use 1, extended 2, and 4. If I were to play E major two octaves starting on the C string it would be:

C string: 1E 2F# 4G#, shift back whole tone

G string: 1A 2B 4C#, shift back a semi-tone

D string: 1D# 2E 4F#, shift forwards and stay on D string 1G# 2A 4B, shift back

A string: 1C# 3D# 4E

Above that E you're in 'upper positions' and fingering pattern for an octave changes to 12 shift 12 shift 123 because fingering is now nearer to violin fingering as the spacing has narrowed a lot.

The awkward thing there is the 2 shifts needed on the D string.You could avoid that by opting for the open A string and putting 1 on the B, 3 on C# then small shift to 1D# 2E.

Viola is not as large as a cello so you might use 'violin' fingering which is different - because they're smaller, you can have semi-tone or tone between all fingers, which you cannot do on a cello.

The elephant in the room: viola uses a C clef - C3 aka alto clef. For entertainment, cellos use bass (F4), tenor (C4) and treble (G2)... 

Hopefully someone more familiar with the 5 string viola will be along to provide better info.