Yahoo Tuning Groups Ultimate Backup tuning Perpendicular Guitar Frettings

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:
> Jacky wrote,
>
> >What would be (if any) some good ratio derived perpendicular
> >frettings for the guitar to achieve "just" or "near just" chords
for
> >a moveable fret guitar?
>
> David Canright (http://www.mbay.net/~anne/david/guitar/index.htm)
came up
> with some good ideas here, (see though there is a vast array of
> possibilities depending on the specifics of what you're going for
(e.g.,
> what open string tunings, what melodic constraints, etc.). I'd be
happy to
> explore the possibilities with you. The Shrutar I recently posted
about will
> also have some near-just chords, and be amenable to raga.

Paul,

Thanks! Going there now.

I was actually inspired to ask you this question after your post
about your Shrutar, which does indeed sound interesting!

Jacky Ligon

P.S. Have you been able to capture any mp3s of your band you spoke of
(with Didjeridoo)? Would really love to hear this!!!

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

>P.S. Have you been able to capture any mp3s of your band you spoke of
>(with Didjeridoo)? Would really love to hear this!!!

Not yet -- though I did put them on MiniDisk a while back and sent them to
John Starrett in the hopes that he would be able to do that, but he
couldn't. Perhaps he could send to MiniDisks to you or someone who can?

P.S. I just got a ring modulator effect, and it's really fun to play with
with the 22-tone guitar, since you can get really close to the first 12
harmonics on it. Set the modulation frequency to a low note on the guitar,
then play any harmonic of that note, and what you hear is the next lower
harmonic and the next higher harmonic (since you get the sum and difference
frequencies). Other near-ratios of the modulation frequency (like 4/3, 5/3,
and 7/6) will produce recognizable results, while other notes will give you
extremely wacky inharmonic sounds. So playing melodic phrases ends up
sounding like something from another planet (or a "deranged computer" and
"twistedly mathematical" as the instruction manual says) -- very cool!

🔗ligonj@northstate.net

--- In tuning@egroups.com, "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@A...> wrote:
> >P.S. Have you been able to capture any mp3s of your band you spoke
of
> >(with Didjeridoo)? Would really love to hear this!!!
>
> Not yet -- though I did put them on MiniDisk a while back and sent
them to
> John Starrett in the hopes that he would be able to do that, but he
> couldn't. Perhaps he could send to MiniDisks to you or someone who
can?

Paul,

If I had a mini disk player, I'd happily convert them to mp3, just to
get to hear them, but unfortunately I don't. I might recommend that
if you still have access to the recorder that these pieces were
recorded on, you could as a "quick and dirty" solution, play the
output of the mini-disk into just about any common stock sound card,
using the Windows recorder - then covert your waves to mp3 from
there.

Man, that's too bad!!! I was really wanting to check out
the "improvising Paul Erlich"!

>
> P.S. I just got a ring modulator effect, and it's really fun to
play with
> with the 22-tone guitar, since you can get really close to the
first 12
> harmonics on it. Set the modulation frequency to a low note on the
guitar,
> then play any harmonic of that note, and what you hear is the next
lower
> harmonic and the next higher harmonic (since you get the sum and
difference
> frequencies). Other near-ratios of the modulation frequency (like
4/3, 5/3,
> and 7/6) will produce recognizable results, while other notes will
give you
> extremely wacky inharmonic sounds. So playing melodic phrases ends
up
> sounding like something from another planet (or a "deranged
computer" and
> "twistedly mathematical" as the instruction manual says) -- very
cool!

This does sound great! I've always loved ring modulation, although
I've never had a stand alone stomp-box. One of the most masterful
performers I've seen use one is John McLaughlin, who I saw a few
years back with Dennis Chambers (one unbelievable MOTORCYCLE!!!!) and
Joey DeFrancesco (12 tET or not, this guy is a freaking Gold Plated
Harley too!!!). Anyway McLaughlin made extremely tasteful use of this
during the show.

Back in the days when my old partner Duke and I used to do this sort
of Fred Frith (Guitars on Table)/Derek Bailey inspired free form
improv music, we would achieve myriad of unusual sounds by
using "Prepared Guitars", in which there would be various kinds of
objects shoved in, or interwoven between the strings - such as paper
clips, cord, rubber stoppers or paper strips - and then stroked or
tortured with various implements (drum sticks, acrylic rod slide,
hair brush - whatever). I even had some wind up toys that could be
laid on the neck, which would contort and strain when lodged between
the strings (These toys were a real riot in live performance too!
Especially my Godzilla wind-up, which exuded sparks from its mouth.
Folks would laugh uncontrollably, which was ok for my kind of show.).
It was really a rich time of exploring "extended" techniques for the
guitar, and it became such an ingrained vocabulary, that I could
easily do it today. Some of the most compelling sounds you could get
were with a simple paper clip interwoven twixt the strings - and
moved to harmonic "sweet spots", giving a sound very similar to a
gong. Also pouring stuff on guitars to get random effects was a
common technique I recall.

I went to the David Canright site and was most impressed. David is
indeed one industrious fellow. My word! A 38 tones to the 2/1
fretting!! About made my heart stop! As I read further I saw some
things that I felt would be more feasible for me. Looks like a
standard guitar tuning would be out the window.

I would like to explore this. Especially armed with the knowledge of
someone who's already been there like yourself and David. I can see
that this is going to take some planning, and I would like to as a
side project for myself, come up with a way to analyze the
possibilities before I commit to stringing the guitar with a non-
standard stringing.

Thanks kindly,

Jacky Ligon

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

Jacky Ligon wrote,

>Paul,

>If I had a mini disk player, I'd happily convert them to mp3, just to
>get to hear them, but unfortunately I don't. I might recommend that
>if you still have access to the recorder that these pieces were
>recorded on, you could as a "quick and dirty" solution, play the
>output of the mini-disk into just about any common stock sound card,
>using the Windows recorder - then covert your waves to mp3 from
>there.

Well, hopefully John Starrett can find someone who can do this, or send the
MiniDisks to someone who can . . .

>Man, that's too bad!!! I was really wanting to check out
>the "improvising Paul Erlich"!

For a random sample of "improvising in 12-tET Paul Erlich", go to
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/186/stretch_boston.html.

>Looks like a
>standard guitar tuning would be out the window.

Well it depends on how far you're willing to stretch the definition of
"standard guitar tuning" (oh no, not another definitional debate!), but the
standard guitar tuning really does presuppose some form of meantone tuning,
since the major third between two adjacent open strings, plus the four
fourths between the other pairs of adjacent strings, has to equal two
octaves. So for JI that's more JI than meantone, standard tuning is out the
window. JI guitar meister Jon Catler uses "standard tuning" but with a 27:20
interval between his D and G strings (and tunes his B to the 60-cycle hum).

Thanks for sharing your "prepared guitar" experiences too . . . that was
fun!

🔗ligonj@northstate.net

🔗Paul H. Erlich <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>

🔗D.Stearns <STEARNS@CAPECOD.NET>

Paul Erlich wrote,

<< I just got a ring modulator effect, >>

Cool, I know Moog has a fairly new series of analog modular effects
out -- including a low pass filter, ring modulator, and analog
delay -- that are all pretty reasonably priced.

I really love the unpredictability and general alien buzz/fry of ring
modulators... they'll eat most any sound source and spit something
interesting out too...

Bostonian Scott Dakota, who does the engineering and mixing on my
stuff, is really into making and modifying his own effects. One of
these was a frightfully temperamental ring modulator that he rigged up
out of a Boss auto-pan stomp box... we used that one a lot!

It's all the Orpheus section of "Day Walks In" -- check the very, very
end (with good speakers and in stereo), it's a little ring modulator
homage to the Orpheus text:

Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain-tops that freeze,
Bow themselves, when he did sing:
To his music, plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art:
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or, hearing, die.

"One Step from the Street" has this same homemade ring modulator on
the bass and drums in the third and fourth sections -- check that
resonant pong in the kick! You can also here the really garish
auto-pan aspect on the turntable's sirens in the opening section as
well... though all of this is utterly nonexistent on a LO-FI mp3 play
and bad computer speakers.

<http://stations.mp3s.com/stations/55/117_west_great_western.html>

--Dan Stearns

🔗M. Edward Borasky <znmeb@teleport.com>

> Cool, I know Moog has a fairly new series of analog modular effects
> out -- including a low pass filter, ring modulator, and analog
> delay -- that are all pretty reasonably priced.
>
> I really love the unpredictability and general alien buzz/fry of ring
> modulators... they'll eat most any sound source and spit something
> interesting out too...

Ah, sweet nostalgia! :-) First the Moog theremin and now ring modulators ...
you're bringing back fond memories of my experiments in electronic and
computer music in the 1960s and 1970s. I don't remember where I found the
circuit, but I built a diode-bridge ring modulator way back then. I had
(still have, actually :-) a sine and square wave signal generator. That went
into one side of the ring modulator, and sounds recorded directly off the
speakers of a computer went into the other side. I didn't have any filters,
though. Most everything else I did with two dual-speed (3.75 ips and 7.5
ips) tape recorders, one of which could be configured as an echo generator.

So what is happening here? Are contemporary musicians and composers
re-discovering the limited and finicky tools of the past (musique concrete,
analog componentry, etc.) and ignoring the wondrous digital technologies
that I could only dream about back in those days when I was a poor graduate
student? I can understand it in the case of Bob Moog; one of his articles on
theremin construction that I saw on the web dates back to 1954, about five
years before I discovered electronic music in the form of Alwin Nikolai's
work. But my dreams were always of digital music -- tools like CSound/SAOL,
CDP, the WX5 and VL70-m and so forth. What a difference five years can make!

> Bostonian Scott Dakota, who does the engineering and mixing on my
> stuff, is really into making and modifying his own effects. One of
> these was a frightfully temperamental ring modulator that he rigged up
> out of a Boss auto-pan stomp box... we used that one a lot!

There's an interesting parallel here with some of the theory of chaos and
artificial life. Do a web search for "life on the edge of chaos" and you'll
find some very interesting things.
--
M. Edward Borasky
mailto:znmeb@teleport.com
http://www.borasky-research.com/

"There's No Fuel Like an Old Fuel" -- National Coal Institute