musicmakingupdate&stuff

hey folks,

i got my fretless bass from freenote (jon catler & co.), and it's a
wonderful instrument. it positively sings. it's marked with different-
colored lines for 12-equal, 22-equal, and 31-equal, effectively
serving as a "generalized keyboard" for any of these tunings
depending on how the strings are tuned -- and of course you can play
in any tuning system, for example 72-equal is not too hard if you can
visualize 1/6, 1/3, or 1/2 the distance between two 12-equal lines.

since i've played fretless bass before, it only took me a week to get
back to complete fluency on the instrument, and i love it.

unfortunately, my body has developed some serious and uncomfortable
balance/movement problems, which i'm beginning to address with
professional help. 15 years of intense guitar practicing/jamming,
without ever taking a single guitar lesson, have caught up with me.
it was difficult to come to terms with this because back in college,
i was shredding on electric guitar with great technical facility,
accompanying on acoustic guitar with taste and creativity, and of
course knew lots of theory, and scoffed at the thought of taking
guitar lessons.

i first noticed the problems in my left shoulder over four years ago,
and i think i've finally realized that they stemmed from a foot
problem i developed five years ago, via poor compensatory posture --
and perhaps a knee injury from much longer ago. some two months ago,
the problems began manifesting themselves in new areas, such as my
left palm and fingers. so playing the bass, as much as i love it, is
painful, and the way i'm playing it is probably making my problems
worse.

thankfully, last month i approached a friend and guitar teacher about
my problems, and he'd been through rather similar problems, had
astounding successes (following astounding failures in comventional-
medicine physical therapy) addressing them, and as a result has
delved extremely deeply (garnering many diplomas on the way)
into "body movement" and "alexander technique". a single visit with
him was very helpful, and i have an appointment tomorrow with
a "feldenkreis" specialist he referred me to.

any advice on this from other musicians would be much appreciated --
i'm avoiding insurance-covered physical therapy and taking the
expensive "alternative" route due to advice from my friend -- other
opinions heartily welcomed and sought (dante?) . . .

i have a bunch of "stretch" gigs lined up, starting in october
(thanks for the positive feedback on the new demo -- negative
criticism welcomed too), so i'm hoping to address the problems at
least to the point where i can play guitar without pain and with
correct technique by then. afterwards, it should be a clear path
towards getting some alternate-tuned music into the repertoire of
stretch or a related side-project -- my bass player is already
playing around with the "tron bass" so i hope to start showing him
some 22-equal and 31-equal stuff before long . . . the joy of playing
music for me is so great, that when/if the discomfort goes away, i
may have to find a way to go through the rest of my life playing six,
seven, eight hours a day . . . i could imagine nothing that would
make me happier . . .

i've also been getting together with ara sarkissian to work on
microtonal music. i'd purchased a copy of fractal tune smithy for
him. when we upgraded to the latest version last month, nothing
worked and we got all sorts of error messages, which we managed to
get the program to record and send to support "at"
tunesmithy.co.uk . . . we have yet to receive a response
(robert?) . . . meanwhile, we managed to re-install the previous
version, which ran fine. while the relaying feature (the main thing
we're interested in) works better than graham's midi relay, there are
still some glitches that i can't seem to get around. for example,
when using a 12-note pelogic tuning with a marimba-like sound, and
alternating two different notes (both of which are retuned a large
amount from 12-equal), often the decay of one note will shift by a
large amount (on the order of a semitone) when the other note is
struck. changing the number of channels didn't help. i figured i'd
wait to hit robert with this about the previous version until he
responded about the latest version, but if anyone has a clue about
how to fix this, i'd be most interested to hear your thoughts . . .

finally, i just popped in the latest jeff berlin album "in harmony's
way" today (my bass player had borrowed it for a long time), and i
can't say enough about how great an album this is. (it's jazz, by the
way, no rock or fusion here -- even stern's distorted guitar is
playing essentially swing/bebop lines.) i can't think of or imagine a
better group of musicians in and for the present moment than that on
this record -- berlin, danny gottlieb, gary burton, dave liebman,
mike stern, and the unknown but brilliant Richard Drexler on piano
and upright bass. every moment on this album exudes musicality of the
highest order. i hope i'm not being too redundant by recommending it
again. it's only available directly from berlin's website:
http://www.jeffberlinmusic.com/

sorry for the self-indulgent diatribe,
your resident spawn of satan (so it says) . . .

----- Original Message -----
From: "paulerlich" <paul@...>

> hey folks,
>
> i got my fretless bass from freenote (jon catler & co.), and it's a
> wonderful instrument. it positively sings. it's marked with different-
> colored lines for 12-equal, 22-equal, and 31-equal, effectively
> serving as a "generalized keyboard" for any of these tunings
> depending on how the strings are tuned -- and of course you can play
> in any tuning system, for example 72-equal is not too hard if you can
> visualize 1/6, 1/3, or 1/2 the distance between two 12-equal lines.

I don't have lines on my fretless, but I can find the quarter tones.

> since i've played fretless bass before, it only took me a week to get
> back to complete fluency on the instrument, and i love it.
>
> unfortunately, my body has developed some serious and uncomfortable
> balance/movement problems, which i'm beginning to address with

> any advice on this from other musicians would be much appreciated --
> i'm avoiding insurance-covered physical therapy and taking the
> expensive "alternative" route due to advice from my friend -- other
> opinions heartily welcomed and sought (dante?) . . .

I had shoulder problems in my 20's, some of them stopped when I
went from playing rock to attempting to play Jazz. I started sitting
down when I played, but still had problems. Later whenever I
felt something coming on, any sign of my shoulder starting
to bother me, I'd take Echinacea & Goldenseal complex
and it would go away (worked for me, don't know if
it'll work for you).

> i have a bunch of "stretch" gigs lined up,

It's real important to stretch before playing. Playing guitar
is an activity much like exercising or playing a sport. If
you don't exercise, you're gonna hurt yourself.

Still playing with Dave LaRue?

* David Beardsley
* http://biink.com
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

--- In metatuning@y..., "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@e...> wrote:
> on 8/7/02 4:23 PM, paulerlich at paul@s... wrote:
>
> > i'm avoiding insurance-covered physical therapy and taking the
> > expensive "alternative" route due to advice from my friend --
other
> > opinions heartily welcomed and sought
>
> You might try acupuncture for any injuries due to repetitive
motion, unusual
> stress patterns, and so forth. It usually works faster if you do it
in
> conjunction with an herbal prescription.
>
> - Jeff

thanks jeff -- what appeals to me about the body-movement approach is
that it addresses the root causes of the strain, so that one might re-
train oneself to move correctly and not endure further injury in the
future. actually, the feldenkrais phd i'm seeing tomorrow uses a
holistic mind-body approach, so if psychological stress is at or near
the root of these problems, that should get addressed as well. i've
been referred to some myofascial practitioners for the relief of pain
in the meantime -- this i believe is closely related to acupuncture
(with its focus on meridians and such), but is a bit more oriented
around anatomy rather than mysterious forces about which i have some
skepticism.

i'll keep your suggestions in mind, though, as i have yet to go
through any of these procedures, and certainly what works and what
doesn't work may come as a surprise to me.

thanks again!

--- In metatuning@y..., David Beardsley <db@b...> wrote:

> > i have a bunch of "stretch" gigs lined up,
>
> It's real important to stretch before playing. Playing guitar
> is an activity much like exercising or playing a sport. If
> you don't exercise, you're gonna hurt yourself.

this is true, though i was told that, like physical therapy with its
emphasis on strengthening, overstretching problem areas can be quite
damaging in the early stages of correcting a movement problem. i'm
sure i'll learn more about this as time goes on . . .

> Still playing with Dave LaRue?

heh heh. ya know, there are two famous bands now called slipknot, and
i bet there's another david beardsley out there somewhere too.

----- Original Message -----
From: "paulerlich" <paul@...>

I wrote:

> > Still playing with Dave LaRue?
>
> heh heh. ya know, there are two famous bands now called slipknot, and
> i bet there's another david beardsley out there somewhere too.

Ah! But we have different middle names!

A drummer I used to play with '75-'86 ended up in
a band with a singer named David Beardsley for a while.

For a while there was a DB living in New Brunswick, NJ
when I was in the mid-'80s.

And there's a drummer with the same name in Seattle.

* David Beardsley
* http://biink.com
* http://mp3.com/davidbeardsley

Actually Feldenkreis is one of the best methods of treating any repeated motion
treatment. Usually they are certified and insurance will pay for it. I have
used it in more than one occasion and know quite a few musicians that have used
it to great advantage!

"X. J. Scott" wrote:

> on 8/7/02 4:23 PM, paulerlich at paul@... wrote:
>
> > i'm avoiding insurance-covered physical therapy and taking the
> > expensive "alternative" route due to advice from my friend -- other
> > opinions heartily welcomed and sought
>
> You might try acupuncture for any injuries due to repetitive motion, unusual
> stress patterns, and so forth. It usually works faster if you do it in
> conjunction with an herbal prescription.
>
> - Jeff
>
>

-- Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria island
http://www.anaphoria.com

The Wandering Medicine Show
Wed. 8-9 KXLU 88.9 fm

--- In metatuning@y..., "paulerlich" <paul@s...> wrote:

/metatuning/topicId_2948.html#2948

>
> sorry for the self-indulgent diatribe,
> your resident spawn of satan (so it says) . . .

***Hi Paul!

Congrats on your cool new guitar, and good luck with taking care of
the medical stuff!!!

Joseph

--- In metatuning@y..., Kraig Grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:

> Actually Feldenkreis is one of the best methods of treating any
repeated motion
> treatment. Usually they are certified and insurance will pay for
it. I have
> used it in more than one occasion and know quite a few musicians
that have used
> it to great advantage!

my appointment is in an hour and the guy, a phd, was a student of
feldenkreis himself. i was told insurance won't cover it but i'll be
sure to verify this before i plunk down my $$$. thanks
kraig!!!!!!!!!!!!

on 8/7/02 6:21 PM, paulerlich at paul@... wrote:

> thanks jeff -- what appeals to me about the body-movement approach is
> that it addresses the root causes of the strain, so that one might re-
> train oneself to move correctly and not endure further injury in the
> future. actually, the feldenkrais phd i'm seeing tomorrow uses a
> holistic mind-body approach, so if psychological stress is at or near
> the root of these problems, that should get addressed as well.

I only know a little about Feldenkrais -- talked to a lady who was a
certified practitioner at a health fair a few months back where we both had
tables. From what I understand of it, it seems quite good -- one is
encouraged to become aware of and in touch with all parts of his body and
use this information to develop new ways of moving.

> i've
> been referred to some myofascial practitioners for the relief of pain
> in the meantime -- this i believe is closely related to acupuncture
> (with its focus on meridians and such),

Have never heard of myofascial. Is that needles in the face?
If they are using needles, make sure they are nationally certified and state
licensed.

> but is a bit more oriented
> around anatomy rather than mysterious forces about which i have some
> skepticism.

Acupuncture has been around for over 4000 years because it works and is
entirely scientific.

> i'll keep your suggestions in mind, though, as i have yet to go
> through any of these procedures, and certainly what works and what
> doesn't work may come as a surprise to me.

OK.

- Jeff

--- In metatuning@y..., "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@e...> wrote:

> > i've
> > been referred to some myofascial practitioners for the relief of
pain
> > in the meantime -- this i believe is closely related to
acupuncture
> > (with its focus on meridians and such),
>
> Have never heard of myofascial. Is that needles in the face?

nope. (you can easily look it up -- try google)