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Post by John B on Apr 13, 2007 19:22:58 GMT -5
P.S. Bill, Tim, and El, I don't hear any phonebooks in your playing.
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Post by timfarney on Apr 13, 2007 19:26:45 GMT -5
Yes it is limited. But I can get there by turning two keys -- much cheaper and easier than buying a baritone guitar. And you are so very right about a nice electric rig. Makes me want to pull the Deluxe Reverb out of the closet. What are you using for an electric set-up?
Tim
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Post by Tim Alexander (fmrly. Camalex) on Apr 13, 2007 19:29:16 GMT -5
"El -- are you kidding? Okay -- use a baritone guitar using standard tuning intervals. Your lowest C is 6th string first fret. You can work the rest out. Point is that it can be done."
Are you kidding david? CGEGCE played on a baritone in "standard tuning relationships" or
Standard: E A D G B E drop-step D G C F A D drop - 2step C F Bb Eb G C El's chord C G E G C E
Somebody double check my fret counting -- Perhaps david you can double check this to -- I am not sure how you play this -- perhaps you can identify the fingers you'd use.
Low C - 6th string open G - fretted at 2nd fret E - fretted at 6th fret G - fretted at 4th fret C - fretted at 5th fret E - fretted at 4th fret
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Post by timfarney on Apr 13, 2007 19:37:01 GMT -5
P.S. Bill, Tim, and El, I don't hear any phonebooks in your playing. Actually, as I think back on a some of the "modern fingerstyle," whatever that means, music I've heard, I kinda get the yellow pages point. Thing is, that's just lazy writing, and it's the author's fault, not the tuning's. Dull, predictable, deriviative, incoehesive melodies can just as easily be created in standard tuning. I've done it. Tim
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Post by Supertramp78 on Apr 13, 2007 20:00:04 GMT -5
I really like the argument that it is stupid to tune a guitar to a different tuning when all you have to do to avoid that is .... buy a different instrument
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 5:35:42 GMT -5
Cheney -- I suspect that you are attributing your horseshit post to me. So try to get your thoughts together before you turn strident. I NEVER made that argument and your post offends me.
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Post by j on Apr 14, 2007 5:36:55 GMT -5
Tim, that's right about the chord.
To me the easiest way to see if it's playable or not in standard would be to examine the lowest and highest notes first, and then to double check how the open/closed intervals fall (closed chords are arranged in stacked thirds)
Here we have an open fifth in the bass (C-G), then a leap of a sixth (G-E) and then the chord rolls out in "closed" successive thirds. The closest thing you could play rensembling it in standard tuning would be this
4 5 4 6 7 0
But you're missing the open fifth in the lowest two voices, and it would soud very, very different. An open fifth in such a low range is what makes those chords sound "piano like" and un-guitaristic.
Ironically, though, that same chord is easily playable in Drop D
2 3 2 4 0 0
only of course the lowest pitch is a D rather than a C.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 5:45:17 GMT -5
WTF? Use a baritone guitar -- tuning = BEADF#B
The chord then is 13x211 What the heck is hard about that?
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Post by j on Apr 14, 2007 5:47:34 GMT -5
no it's not.
You have the tonic in the top voice. the chord has the third. (edited for goofyness)
And this
13x215
wouldn't work either, because it's missing a voice (the tonic immediately above the top voice, making the top three voices in closed thirds arrangement)
These are not subtle differences. We're talking about substantially different sounds. If you CAN'T hear the difference between
xxx104 and
xxx454
then it's a different story altogether.
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Post by timfarney on Apr 14, 2007 5:59:42 GMT -5
Cheney -- I suspect that you are attributing your horseshit post to me. So try to get your thoughts together before you turn strident. I NEVER made that argument and your post offends me. I suppose Cheney was responding to my, post, not yours, David... Your position that any interval that can be played in altered tunings could easily be played on either a regular or baritone guitar tuned to standard intervals, was bound to get that response in some form. So far it has all been good-natured. No need to get offended. At any rate, I'm glad you raised the issue. It has turned a simple cry for help from Cribbs into a long and interesting thread with a lot of music in it. That's a good thing. Tim
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 6:32:33 GMT -5
Tim -- Sorry, I didn't intentionally ignore your question about my electric rig. First, thanks for axing. I have a luthier friend (he's a minister and builds fantastic electric guitars) who built "Grape Jelly". Its absolutely unique from the pickups to the finish. I also picked up a Danelectro with lipstick tube pickups and a Bigsby whammy bar -- soooo sexy. Lastly, I purchased from Musician's Friend (same company as Guitar Center) a Fender product for $99. Its a retro but DAYUM! it sounds fantastic! What really makes this guitar (the cheapest one of the bunch) stand out is the neck -- all maple (I never realized how much easier it is for me to take in the fret field with a blond neck).
On edit, I think the salient point to the electric rig is that for a minimal investment, you get in return a very sophisticated musical palate that is much easier to play and much more musically useful that that which can be achieved with an acoustic instrument at any price level. You will never see a whammy bar on an acoustice guitar.
And I've got the COOLEST amp! Called the V-Ampire from Behringer. There are so many features on the dang thing that I have yet to learn them all. It can model 14 classic amps and the effects are so crisp and clean.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 6:36:51 GMT -5
J -- sorry but I disagree. I placed thc C on top because of efficiency. The omitted note was done because is was repetative. And just when did it become necessary to articulate every string in this contest? I voiced the chord and dropped out one repetative note. I stand by the point.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 6:43:02 GMT -5
The subject of "standard" tuning vs. alternative tunings is a great one, to be sure, and I'm a poster child for strongly resisting the need to re-tune the guitar at all--not even to dropped D. I felt that way for a period of about 20 years, from the mid-1960's to the mid-1980's.
The reason was a kind of practical syllogism:
1. Standard is popular.
2. There are a lot of tunes in standard I might like to learn. Ergo,
3. Why screw around with re-tuning the guitar?
I think that's a fully legitimate and practical place to start, and maybe, for some people, end.
What rocked my world was simply hearing the way the guitar sounded when played by Dave Evans in CGDGAD tuning on the CD called Irish Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, and Airs (1979, Kicking Mule, reissued on Shanachie 97011)
I had never heard guitar sound like that, and I liked the sound. In fact, I loved the sound. Up until Pierre Bensusan's standard-tuning cut on his recent CD Altiplanos, I had really never heard anybody play in standard tuning with that sound--with the possible exception of Seth Austen, who, in the late 1980's, was working to achieve a certain harplike sonority in standard at that time.
So, the issue to me was what the ears heard, and not some kind of issue of guitar purity or something like that. (In fact, I think I've read that standard really wasn't the first guitar tuning anyway; someone would have to verify that for me.)
Regarding Steve Baughman's point, I actually have interacted with Steve on this. While he addresses the method of composition--kind of trial-and-error-- I took the liberty of gently rephrasing his very helpful admonition from "don't let your fingers do the walking" to "don't let your fingers do the listening". There is probably more repetitious/non-evocative music in standard than there is in alternative tunings.
Happy Sat. Morning, all.
El
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 6:55:02 GMT -5
Morning El.
Your point about achieving a sound - a unique sonority - begs the biggest, and as yet unstated, issue - melody.
The intervalic relationships regardless of tuning seek to enhance the achievement of memorable melody enhanced harmonically by playing relevant tones. Melody is still the heart and sole of what the musician is striving to express.
Melody works within certain tonal frames -- scales. Past that, though, is the inate sense of melody and rythym that is the essence of the musician. And for me, that has been a long, long struggle. I cannot even begin to articulate the rules of melody-making in improvisation (face it, even in composing, one always begins improvisationally).
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Post by timfarney on Apr 14, 2007 7:09:45 GMT -5
You're right, David, that a relatively simple electric rig can deliver a wide variety of sounds. Add in something like a modeling amp or pedal, with lots of effects, and the variety is huge. Unfortunately I've not really taken advantage of that, either. My electric rig is very simple. I own a POD. I own some pedals. I never use them. I plug a G&L ASAT Junior directly into a Deluxe Reverb. I like it there. It's a warm, comfortable place. Tim
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Post by Doug on Apr 14, 2007 7:12:36 GMT -5
Ya'll have gotten way beyond my plunking.
I just plunk along and entertain the drunks.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 8:34:33 GMT -5
Morning El. Your point about achieving a sound - a unique sonority - begs the biggest, and as yet unstated, issue - melody. The intervalic relationships regardless of tuning seek to enhance the achievement of memorable melody enhanced harmonically by playing relevant tones. Melody is still the heart and sole of what the musician is striving to express. Melody works within certain tonal frames -- scales. Past that, though, is the inate sense of melody and rythym that is the essence of the musician. And for me, that has been a long, long struggle. I cannot even begin to articulate the rules of melody-making in improvisation (face it, even in composing, one always begins improvisationally). I don't see how I begged any question in what I wrote. And since I am a melody-driven player, if you have heard any of my music, how the melody sounds on the guitar is critical to me--in the area of overtones, string choices, playing in different registers, and keys selected. I didn't mean to write or imply that sound is everything, irrespective of what is played. El
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Post by Tim Alexander (fmrly. Camalex) on Apr 14, 2007 9:26:54 GMT -5
David -- the ear loves intervals. Anything I can do to play new and interesting intervals in the context of a strong melody, I am going to do that. AS we all know, te guitar can only play sustain 6 notes at a time and unless you're playing strictly chords, altering the guitar's tuning can give your left hand the chance to move around the neck to positions you'd never be able to reach in time or cleanly. If you think of the guitar as a six string harp you'll understand that sustaining a fretted note is not always achieved if you must move your left hand to fret the next note far away on the fret board. Also, you must understand that middle C played on the 2nd sring/1st fret sounds different on an acoustic that middle C played on the 3rd string/5th fret or the 4th string/10fret. Playing middle C in different locations on the neck gives you different opportunities with open and other fretted strings.
The notion that "anything in your tuning" can be played in standard may be true. But I know it can't always be played as well. Different strokes.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 10:42:15 GMT -5
Thanks for the edit Tim. I perceived that initially as a bit snippy. Would you also concede that chords in an alternative tuning can't be played as well as in standard tuning?
El -- From your post this morning, as well as the context of this thread, melody WAS NOT being discussed. Your post did not suggest that you were referencing melody in any way. No offense, but I don't share your interest in your musical niche. Consequently, I don't spend alot of time with your music so I would not have known that you are melody-driven. Why would you presume that I would know that?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2007 10:55:42 GMT -5
Thanks for the edit Tim. I perceived that initially as a bit snippy. Would you also concede that chords in an alternative tuning can't be played as well as in standard tuning? El -- From your post this morning, as well as the context of this thread, melody WAS NOT being discussed. Your post did not suggest that you were referencing melody in any way. No offense, but I don't share your interest in your musical niche. Consequently, I don't spend alot of time with your music so I would not have known that you are melody-driven. Why would you presume that I would know that? I didn't. I don't know you, so how would I have any idea of your musical preferences. Don't project presumptions on me. E
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