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Earbrass

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    Learn to play by ear

    in Theory and Technique

    Posted

    Just now, phnod said:

    A perfect 4th is always between the root note and the other note?

    No. It's just the size of the gap between 2 notes. The "root" changes with the key you're playing in, but the size of the gap between any 2 given notes is independent of the key (at least in equal temperament tunings, which is what we overwhelmingly use). A perfect 4th is a 5 semitone (or 5 fret) gap. 

    Learn to play by ear

    in Theory and Technique

    Posted

    My advice would be to start by learning to recognise the different musical intervals. It can be helpful to have memorised examples of each (eg perfect 4th - first 2 notes of Away in a Manger, perfect 5th - first 2 notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra (2001: a Space Odyssey theme) and so on). Good luck!

    • Thanks 1

    My Nyckelharpas

    in Other Instruments

    Posted · Edited by Earbrass

    You can bow up to 2 strings at once (or 3 if you have your bow very slack). You can bow only the four main strings - the other 12 strings are sympathetic, and usually tuned in a chromatic scale, so equally good for all keys. Pressing a key  moves a piece of dowel against the string, stopping it at the appropriate length - like moving frets against the string instead of the other way around. Traditional Swedish tuning is (low to high) C-G-C-A, but some players, especially those from a violin or viola background prefer have the second string a D rather than a C, thus giving straight fifths - C-G-D-A - pitched like a viola. The traditional design has 3 row of keys, one for each of the top 3 strings - so the lowest string can function only as a drone on its open note, but these days more builders, especially perhaps those continental builders outside Sweden, are also producing more "4 row" harpas, on which there 4 rows of keys, one for each of the main strings.  

    Swedish tune anyone?

    in Share Your Music

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Brook_fan said:

    I absolutely adore Swedish music- the Swedish traditional band Vasen for instance are one of my favourite bands. Love the use of synth bass together with the nickelharpa.  

    Robbie

    Hi Robbie, thanks very much for your comments. Yes, big fan of Väsen myself, and have seen them live a couple of times. I was lucky enough to attend a nyckelharpa masterclass by Olov Johansson when they came over and played a gig in Shoreham-by-Sea in 2016 - I had only been playing the instrument a little while, and he was very patient and helpful.

    Music Related Lockdown Discoveries

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, yorks5stringer said:

    After graduating from college in electronics in the early 70’s, I enrolled into The Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, Wales where I was living at the time. The WCM&D then had a very conservative view on music. They did not even consider the bass guitar a real instrument! So I opted for learning the Upright Bass classical-style and taught by Earnest C. Haigh. (He was an 81-year old musician with 60 years of bass playing experience and a former principle bassist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra).

    I was playing in Rock, R&B and Jazz groups in bars, nightclubs and did some studio work for the BBC TV company in order to pay for my music tuition. One thing that had always frustrated me was that the current equipment for bass players was never up to the sound that was in my mind. It seemed that there was always a disconnection between the equipment and me. So I started to modify my basses and amplification on the search of the Holy Grail of great bass tone. I learnt about loudspeakers from a true pioneer of audio, the late Mr. Reginald Solomon. A cinema – sound engineer, who worked most of his life for Western Electric. (W.E. was the original founder of the pro-sound industry). This led me to becoming a pro-sound engineer working first for Vitavox, a respected and old British Loudspeaker company that manufactured huge horn cinema speakers. After this I started my own sound reinforcement company in London. Two things stayed with me, my fascination for bass playing and sound. I was building a lot of my own recording equipment in my studio then. The speakers I used for near-field monitoring were my own design. These later became the Acoustic Energy AE1’s now considered a milestone in the evolution of hi-fi and also in the recording industry. GRP records (a renowned Jazz label) used AE speakers and even eventually the famed Abbey Road studios too. 

     In 1990 I moved to USA and worked briefly for Boston Acoustics in New England designing their premier loudspeaker range, the Lynnfield series. In 1994 I founded Platinum Audio, which made expensive home hi-fi speakers and studio monitors. In that period I designed probably the worlds most expensive and massive home loudspeaker system: the Air-Pulse, which sold for $175,000 a pair! The Japan Audio Society praised the Air-Pulse as the best loudspeaker ever developed in the 100-year history of loudspeakers! 

    ...and you only discovered all this during the lockdown? Must have been quite an afternoon on Google. 

    • Haha 2

    My Nyckelharpas

    in Other Instruments

    Posted · Edited by Earbrass

    On 14/04/2020 at 11:00, haruki said:

    They are amazing instruments....

    Funnily enough my double bass teacher is better known for her nyckelharpa playing - she's a great all round musician and plays all kinds of things (swedish bagpipes anyone) but  her music degree was on double bass........

    http://www.swan-dyer.co.uk/n

    Yes, I know Vicki (nyckelharpa is a small world!) - I first played a nyckelharpa at her house, before buying one of my own. She's a great player and has done a lot to popularise the instrument in the UK.

    • Thanks 1

    My Nyckelharpas

    in Other Instruments

    Posted · Edited by Earbrass

    Here are my nyckelharpas. The acoustic one was built by Kjell Lundvall in 2015, and the solid body was by Olla Plahn, 2019, and features a piezo pickup under the bridge and a built-in preamp.  The "band" pickup on the Lundvall harpa is used for live performances - for recording I find a ribbon mic gives the best results - an example can be heard here: 

     

    P1020401_small.JPG

    • Like 1

    Swedish tune anyone?

    in Share Your Music

    Posted · Edited by Earbrass

    Some of you....a few of you....one or two..OK none of you probably remember that I submitted a tune for the December covers challenge and came joint first with several others. Well, I have been tweaking it quite a bit since then, and I think this is the final version. So, here is my version of "Kadrilj efter Birger Törnkvist". 

     

    • Like 3

    Gigs cancelled due to virus...

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I was all set for a short trip to Finland at the start of April to see 3 gigs on 3 consecutive nights as part of the JuuriJuhla festival in Espoo. Now the whole festival has been cancelled. Slightly bizarrely, our language classes at the Finnish Institute in Kings Cross have also been cancelled because of the Finnish government's decision to halt public gatherings. 

    I was there when.......

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Earbrass

    6 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

    Incidentally, and seeing as this is a genuine "I Was There" thread, can I just point out that I am one of the very few people (relatively speaking) who actually SAW King Arthur On Ice at the Wembley Pool.

    Seriously.

    Accept no substitutes.

    Far more people have claimed that they were there than could possibly have attended one of the three (count them, three) shows that Wakeman played. He even riffs a chapter about this very subject in his Grumpy Old Rock Star book.

    But I was there and I saw it.

     

    Me too.  I think it was May 1975??? I seem to remember attending 3 big gigs in the one month - Led Zep at Earls Court, Yes at QPR and Wakeman at Wembley. Two of them were excellent.....

    I was there when.......

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Earbrass

    Saw Pink Floyd in 1974 at Wembley Empire Pool, as it then was; they played a couple of tracks nobody had heard from their forthcoming album, including "Shine On You Crazy Diamond".

    I was also at the Stone Roses gig at Alexander Palace in 1989 - taken by a younger colleague eager to introduce me (already an old fart at 29) to the "new" music.

    EDIT - just remembered, I saw Bob Marley and the Wailers in Brighton on his last ever tour in July 1980, just a few months before he passed away.

    • Like 1

    What's your Day time / main job

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, owen said:

    Hurd.

    Douglas Hurd.

     I suppose that makes mine a Damien, then 😎.

    The most interesting / worthwhile job I ever had was teaching philosophy to undergrads at Cambridge University  - not full time, just did a few hours a week whilst a graduate student. After that there was about 35 years spent as a computer programmer, mostly in the city, which depending how you look at it was either a tedious waste of a lifetime or a dead cushy way of earning decent money which left enough time and energy to pursue other interests (mostly musical) in my spare time. These have included working as a composer in a very modest way for theatre, film, contemporary dance and TV - never getting anywhere near being able to make a living out of it - I'm really not very good - but making a nice bit of cash here and there from the best jobs (though many were unpaid). Retired last summer at 59. Hoorah! Now combining looking after our three geriatric cats (this takes more time and energy than I could ever have imagined) with playing nyckelharpa for a bizarre and theatrical 2-man morris side and also in Scandinavian music sessions, a bit of home recording for my own amusement and trying to learn Finnish.  

    • Like 4
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