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Chin Strap posted:Thanks for all the useful info. Hmmmm, French free-reeds. My main suggestion would be to paste pretty much what you just told us, as a new thread at concertina.net/forums, and ask advice of those gents there. Though mainly concertina, many of them know other free-reeds well, and can give you sound advice. In the interim, I found samples of French music played on all the major free-reed platforms the French use, so take a squint at these and let us know which one jumps out at you. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miTOJGvRAcM Anglo concertina playing some Breton tunes; note how bouncy the bellows are, as like a harmonica it has to change air directions to hit half its notes. That rhythmic back-forth is what defines the Anglo sound. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogGrppmCFJI&feature=related French waltz on an English concertina. Note the bellows don't change directions, and note that the scale alternates between hands, so in an A is on the left, the B will be on the right, C# back on the left, etc. A lot smoother and less-defined than Anglo. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9j8YTTT6wU I couldn't find any clips of French music on Duet concertina, but here's a Shetland tune. Note bellows don't change direction, but that he's got all the high end on the right, and on the left can back up with bass chords or runs, alternate harmonies, etc. It starts out a little minimalist, but he amps up the accompaniment as it goes through. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlNzRyehDcU French chick playing "accordéon diatonique" ("diatonic accordion", "buttonbox", "button accordion"), albeit not very smoothly. Setting aside her pauses, note how the bellows direction changes dictate the rhythm - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA17a5Xr450 Dude playing a French waltz on a diatonic accordion; again dig how the bellows direction dictates the rhythm - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os8FNAAow1o Next, Chromatic Button Accordion ("CBA"), or in French "Accordéon chromatique" French dude playing a CBA: note now how it's still buttons, but the direction doesn't change with alternating notes.  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS3MbH2iCHo And here's a traditional bandoneon playing French waltzes. Note again the air changes on the bellows, though bandoneons have enough buttons (some of which provide alternate notes, so Ds going both ways) that they can "cheat" out of a lot of the changes. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A_NutBnMqY The last item is a hybrid bandoneon. Basically a bandoneon body with a CBA keyboard. Bandoneon-ish tone but with a simpler chromatic fingering. Only the beginning of this clip gives you a good idea, as partway through he turns on a backing track and just does melody, but the opening gives you a feel for the low-end.  So far as prices: - Any of the basic concertinas start as $350ish from Concertina Connection, the hands-down choice for and 'box under $1200. These are the go-to, buy-no-other, student concertina line. - Diatonic accordions, really depends on exactly what you want, but there are a decent scattering on the used market of various types, so offhand $300-700 used. - CBAs, a brand-new Hohner 48-button (a relatively small CBA) runs a little over $1000; don't know about the used market, but presumably if you can find one used $700ish. There are a ton of funky Russian CBAs (called bayan) floating around, since Russians play them too, but I don't know anything about those, though presumably you can find dirt cheap ones if any are decent (read up!). - Bandoneon pricing I don't know a ton about either. I'm under the vague impression that a lot of people buy beater ones and the spend as much fixing them as they did buying them. I would imagine you can get into a refurbished bandoneon for $1000-2000. - Hybrid Bandoneons: there are only so makers, so new ones are quite expensive, but Harry Geuns has some import ones made that are $975 new. Not in the slightest to pressure you, since I already have a couple of guys who want to buy it off me, but I have a Geuns I paid $600 for total, and could sell it for the same price if a chromatic bandoneon speaks to you. quote:I know about that, but not how to do it. That's beside the point though, as I don't own a guitar, I just use the ones my roommate lets me use. I can't modify hers without making her upset, so that's not an option. My interests in Ukelele and Ocarina overshadow Guitar at this point thanks to this thread. Given that ocarinas are like $15-20 for a totally solid student instrument, there's really no reason not to get one. I would say though that as a lefty you should get an "inline" ocarina, the ones where your hands go below your mouth as opposed to out to the sides, at least for starters. For uke, we have a whole uke thread on the basics in A/T (should be somewhere on the first couple pages), and you really can't go wrong with uke either. If you want to play uke lefty, all you have to do is switch the strings, and depending on the seller, if they re-string the uke with decent strings before shipping (which many good sellers do) you can ask them to string one backwards for you. Uke is one of the easier guitar-like instruments, and uke skills translate to guitar pretty easily. For uke, I'd get at least a Makala ($75ish), as a $20 uke you'll outgrow in a week or two of serious playing. You're really better off getting a Makala even if it takes a few more weeks of saving up. Make sure you get one from a seller who specifies that they do "setup", that is, when they take the cheapie ukes out of the crate from China, instead of just chucking it in a USPS box to you, they test them out, tweak any problem areas, and put on good-quality strings to replace the junk stock ones. Proper setup only adds $5-10 from a good seller, and saves you getting a lemon, as well as about pays for itself in better-quality strings.  Makala soprano, and baritone Get a $15-20 ocarina now, save up and get a uke later, and you're still probably coming in under $100 for two musical instruments that can last you decades.
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Jun 30, 2011 04:15
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quote:Build my own? I like that idea a fair amount. I'm also into picking up a beginners uke, but I didn't see anything about them in the thread (am I blind?). Uke is a separate thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2690439 Uke is covered so comprehensively there, so we stuck more in this thread to odder stuff. Uke actually has a fair amount of mainstream popularity these days. Honestly, I think that a huge portion of people who "want to learn guitar" would actually be happier with uke. For just strumming out some basic chords and singing along, uke is easier to play, mellower-sounding, and more convenient than guitar. Once you get to higher skill levels, uke and guitar diverge a lot more, but at the "three-chord chump" stage they're pretty interchangeable, and uke is easier/smaller/affordable. EDIT: As a minor uke aside, note that Eddie Vedder (of Pearl Jam) just put out a solo album of pure voice and ukulele. I'm ordering it on vinyl. 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Jun 30, 2011 |
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Jun 30, 2011 05:14
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Chin Strap posted:To be quite honest, I really don't have the time to be picking up something as expensive as all that right now. My summer is being filled with moving into a new house and new pets right now, and I don't want to think about that sort of thing. I may wind up getting one of those cheapo 20 dollar ones to play around with for now. No worries, but definitely read my earlier post about QCing them to make sure you get a good one. They're neat little boxes, but the factory that makes them puts little effort into consistently tuning, so you have to either do some QC, or just have it sent straight to Irish Dancemaster for re-reeding (which again gets you a pretty good box for $100). quote:Probably at the end of the day I will wind up getting some sort of button accordion because that seems to best fit the full on style I want. Concertinas seem really cool, but if I am stuck with one squeezebox I want the kind that will let me do my own accompaniment as well. I think even bandoneons probably aren't quite as good in this regard. The primary differences in method between accordions and concertinas (broadly) is that accordions tend to keep the melody on the right hand, while the left has buttons for bass and for full chords. On concertinas, each hand has a array of individual notes, so you can certainly form chords on either hand, at whatever octave, but it's more on intertwining notes and harmonies than pure "chord*chord*chord" backing. I'd just suggest you find as many YouTube clips as you like and observe the differences, of how they accompany themselves, and the differences in bellows behavior between unisonoric and bisonoric boxes. Once the differences sink in, you'll have a good feel for the behavior of each. I would still post pretty much your exact initial question at Concertina Forum (particularly as to whether bandoneon is an option or not your thing), as well as the Free Reeds section of Chiff & Fipple forum (particularly for specifically French questions). Between those two groups you should get a really good idea for what your options are, what keys you'll want for whichever schools of French music, etc. quote:So my two last questions would be: 1. Broadly speaking, yes. The very largest diatonic accordions aren't much bigger than the smallest standard piano accordions. Regular-size 2-rows are smaller still, and there are a few makes that do quite petite 2-rows that aren't much bigger than a Cajun accordion. They're still all notably bigger than concertinas, but the small buttonboxes aren't heavy or awkward like the piano accordions are. EDIT: a basic small 12-bass piano is like 10+ pounds, while even a big Hohner Corona 3-row is 8lbs. A Hohner 2-row (Double Ray, Erica) is just over 5lbs. Just looking at the difference in photos, you get the idea for how much smaller buttonboxes are:  2. I could have sworn there was a button accordion forum, then I recalled it's a Brit one, so they used the Brit term "melodeon": http://forum.melodeon.net/ I would definitely ask folks here advice about your situation, and this is also the site where I'd go when you know what you want to buy and are ready, to check their sales ads, to read up on buying used boxes (so you're prepped for Craiglist, eBay, used music stores), etc. I've seen used Hohner Ericas go for $300-400, but you want to be sure you know what you're looking for in a used box, and also what keys you want for French music. I think, not sure, that French uses G/C or C/F 2-rows, which is good since the more common Irish and English players don't like those, so should be less competition to buy used ones. Oh, if you happen to have an iPad, TradLessons has iPad simulators for various concertinas, button accordion, as well as various bagpipes. Here's their 2-row squeezebox: http://www.tradlessons.com/Accordion.html Hope this helps; I think button accordions have a lot more character than piano, and are certainly handier. Just read up, watch a lot of YouTube clips, and ponder your options. quote:Gee, thanks thread. You've convinced me to pick up a $10 Feadóg tinwhistle and try to remember everything I barely learned with the last instrument I tried to play, a recorder in the 4th grade. For whatever reason, hating recorders with a passion is a running joke among tinwhistlers. I kinda feel that too; never really warmed to recorder, love tinwhistle. I guess it's that I associate recorder with elementary school kids honking away, or guys in poet shirts sitting in front of music stands at a Renaissance Faire. While tinwhistle I'm used to seeing in a crowded Irish pub watching some buzzed dude blurring through jigs and reels, so easy preference there.  quote:Right now I'm waiting for my roommates to leave the house so I can practice breath-control and tonguing without letting out ear-piercing shrieks between notes! Great instrument; guess SA is a good place to convince people to risk  on a life-changing experience... EDIT: If anyone needs an inexpensive autoharp, this one looks pretty clean for $57 shipped: http://cgi.ebay.com/NICE-VTG-Oscar-Schmidt-Autoharp-Case-15EBH-R-/150626500704?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item23120a0060 . EDIT2: or this one closing in 14 hours: http://cgi.ebay.com/VINTAGE-OSCAR-SCHIMDT-15-CHORDS-AUTOHARP-/220803066995?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3368e36c73 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Jul 1, 2011 |
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Jul 1, 2011 02:10
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Ratatozsk posted:I've recently started toying around with an old mandolin I dragged out of the basement. I've got a few chords down and there's a fair amount of tab to be found out on the internet to keep me busy. But for the life of me, an A chord is damned difficult. There's no way I can fret two adjacent strings with just my index (or middle) finger, but it's also a challenge to cram both of them in there to get the G and D on the same fret. I was momentarily confused, until I managed to envision what you must be doing. I take it you're trying to form the chord 2245, yes? And you're trying to use the tip of a finger to cover the 22 part. Try instead barring all the way across the 2222 with your index finger, middle on the four, ring on the 5. I'd though this was pretty much standard, but found thread at Mandolin Cafe that discusses s few options. Though I still think barring is easier for a lot of the up-the-neck chords. Do note that you can take that A shape and slide it up one fret to be a Bb, another two to C, etc. Speaking of such things, this book (mentioned earlier in the thread) is the absolute best book on mandolin chords I've ever seen. It's not so much a chord dictionary, as a little booklet about broad concepts allowing to relate and create all the possible chord formations. It's only a couple bucks, so advise you get a copy ASAP and keep it in your case. If your strings are at all tarnished/nasty, you can just get the book sent from the same seller as some fresh strings to save shipping; you might want to get a light gauge packet of strings since you're starting out.  If you haven't checked it out yet, Mandolin Cafe is the massive central forum and site for mandolin issues. quote:First the native american flute. I like the design more then the others, i think. I don't know how to judge it, but it plays well, all the holes seem to play even. other then a weird hole on the back end of the smaller pipe, it doesnt seem to do much. It reminds me alot of those train whistle toys, actually. Definitely worth the less then 40 dollars i paid for it. Any chance of some YouTubage of the flute? The hole on the back of the smaller pipe is quite possibly a tuning hole, though I could be wrong. Have you tried applying NAF fingering and seeing how the scale comes out? The small E-drone from the same seller just didn't work because the highest hole just wouldn't note properly. Maybe it's easier to get it right on a larger flute? The E-drone also had a particularly weak sound, not just the NAF breezy, but kinda weak. Would definitely be curious to see some video of yours. quote:This thread will be the death of me but you have made autoharps very interesting sounding too. I'm a singer firstly and foremost so having some sort of strummed instrument to back me up would be nice. I have arthritis though so any time I've tried to learn guitar my hands have hated me. Do the buttons on the auto harp mean that gripping isn't as much of an action with it? How often can you really find them this cheap? You find them that cheap pretty much every week. Though again note that buying used autoharps is kind of a crapshoot. Provided the body is sound, no cracks or bowing, there are a few things that could be wrong with it: - Rusted strings. If they look generally silvery/bronzy, though a bit dull, they're probably fine, or can be polished up with a little steel wool and maybe some FastFret (white mineral oil). If the strings are toast, all black and crusty, that's $40-60 for a new set of 36 strings. - Notched or missing felt. On the underside of the bars are blocks of felt which silence the strings that don't belong in the selected chord. If the felt has fallen off and gone missing, or the string has worn a deep groove into it over the years, it won't work right. Felt is $2.50/ft or so, so for a 15-bar could be $40 total if all the felt is completely shot. - The springs could theoretically be nasty/rusty, but odds are that if the instrument was stored in such terrible conditions as for the springs to rust, the body would look terrible (as did one $50 'harp I bought recently, but it's a rare model I'm refurbishing). Springs are only 68c though, so unlikely and not costly. So, assuming the body is totally fine, a used eBay autoharp could cost you $0 extra if everything is working fine, or up to $100 if everything else is shot. That's kind of a worst-case scenario, and the strings are relatively easy to visually assess condition of if the seller has a close-up, and odds aren't too high that all the felt is shot, so much as you need $10 of felt to do touch-ups on the bad bits. So I wouldn't be soul-crushed if a $50 harp turned out to need work, but I wouldn't expect it needed something more than the above, provided you see good-quality detailed pics, ask the seller any questions as needed, etc. I would give a little more value for a hard case or gig-bag, but about none for a chipboard case since it does nothing but keep the dust off it, so a pillowcase is about as good. I think for mine I'll get one of those soft padded AH gigbags, since with an AH I'm more concerned about cushioning the chord-board than I am keeping the whole thing from being smacked. Feel free to PM me if you want a second opinion as to any autoharp on eBay. I'm decent at assessing body condition from pics, though in all honesty I did get saddled with an AH that needs 50% felt replacing, but thankfully I was planning to gut most of the felt and re-chord anyway, so not a large problem. On a minor sidenote, you can also get a cheap harp with the intent of just re-strings and re-felting as a "diatonic autoharp". Depending on chord system and string condition, you can use the original strings or buy new ones, but you'll be ripping out all the felt and re-felting if you convert. To explain the difference, here's a video: Autoharp Avenue - Chromatic vs. Diatonic EDIT: do not buy any mass-market autoharp unless it's by Oscar Schmidt or by Rhythm Band/Chromaharp; they're historically the only two good mass-market makers. Don't get any OS from before the 1960s or so, aim for a 1960s-1970s harp, but try not to get one of the more recent ones (where there's a plastic cover over all the bars with buttons poking up through holes) unless you're getting a brand-new one.
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Jul 1, 2011 23:38
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Chin Strap posted:Any opinions on the hand strength required though, TTFA? I can do pressing motions like the piano just fine, and even recorder i can last for a while, but the gripping required for guitar just killed my hands whenever I tried. The one I'm holding now takes maybe a little more pressure than a piano key, but a much smaller motion, and it's pretty linear. So there's barely much curve to the finger, definitely not enough to be any close to a "clench", nothing at all like playing guitar. For holding it the weight rests on the table, your body, or the shoulder-strap, so the hands/arms are non-load bearing. I tried just for kicks hitting the buttons using almost all forearm motion vice finger motion, and that works fine too. Do note also that some folks sell even lighter springs, so if you're handy and want to make it extra easy, you can just unscrew the top and put new lighter springs in (a no-skill job except for juggling the bars). You could also lower the action slightly; I haven't done it, but I don't think it's too hard, it's mainly just putting little bits of shim at the bar-ends to start them out lower and closer to the strings, so there's less motion required to press them down. Just to add some visual appeal (not that this particular model applies to Chin's questions), I submit the OS "Guitaro" model.   Basically an autoharp re-arranged to be strummed guitar-style, below the chordbars. I don't know if it came out after the Carters got folks interested in autoharp, or if it was already on the market, but they played it for some shows. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oUEqIMY8BM you can't hear the Guitaro well here, but visually here's the Carters using it. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VTqdYEPGRY Not a great clip, but one of few solo guitaro clips I could find. It's only 24 strings, mostly lower-bassy ones, so not much good for melody, but easy to strum backup on. They stopped making these at some point far in the past, but they come up on eBay for $250 or so if you strongly desire an odd-shaped autoharp strummed from a different angle.
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Jul 2, 2011 00:28
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TheShineNSB posted:"Hey goons, learn a weird musical instrument." Can't go wrong with that. What sort of music are you fixing to learn on it when you get it? Honestly, pretty much anyone coming to this thread should get either an ocarina or tinwhistle in addition to whatever else they get or don't. They're inexpensive and indestructible, and it never hurts to have some compact music gear around the house. On a slow day, you just might find yourself accidentally learning how to play it. quote:I think Chin Strap's issue is more the arthritis than needing to strengthen hand muscles. Like TTFA said, there's a still a decent amount of force required to play autoharp, but you can get away with pressing using a particular finger or thumb, or just keep your hand rigid and apply all the force using your arm. I don't know that much about arthritis so I don't know if that helps. I did a little googling on the subject, and the general consensus seems to be that people often move to autoharp if they have arthritis or similar problems. Maybelle Carter herself was, in part, known for autoharp because arthritis cut back her lead guitar playing. Do note that, in order to save arthritis on the other hand, you want to find some pick options that don't involve clenching, like a thumbpick. Some book on GoogleBooks has a description of Maybelle Carter's pick options, link here. quote:Does anyone know how the "guitar-style" dulcimers compare to the normal lap mountain/Appalachian dulcimer? I'm talking about these guys: Question from a little bit back that I'd neglected. My overall feelings on strumstick (and the dozens of other names these things are called by) is kind of mixed. They're not necessarily bad or anything, but the tiny bodies don't get a ton of tone, and they're a little trickier to play fast since dulcimer is very linear in nature, and it's harder do slide up and down a neck than it is to run your hand left-right on a lap dulcimer. Overall, these tend to be travel/fun instruments; I can think of almost nobody who plays these as serious instruments. There is one company, Olympic Musical Instruments, who makes seriously nice "walkabout dulcimers", though at the point they build them to they're basically bouzouki/mandora/octave-mandolins with diatonic fretting, so you'd be about as good just getting a bouzouki. Here's the OMC "walkabout", which are actually awfully nice for $400ish:  I wouldn't necessarly advise against getting one of the $100ish strumsticks, but I would check around at EverythingDulcimer.com to get some critique as to which makes to go with. I got some random one for $40 on eBay, and though it looks lovely, and sound's decent, the maker doesn't seem to know music that well, the headstock design is a little impractical, and the neck is simply too narrow to do any chording on. So I would definitely buy from some maker where folks on ED say "have one, and it's great." Coming right back to my general "don't buy random stuff on eBay without knowing what you're buying" theme.
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Jul 2, 2011 07:52
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screaden posted:I really want to get a bowed psaltery, but all the places I've found that are located in Australia that sell them seem waaaaay overpriced, will buying from the US be my only option for a decently priced one? We had a similar issue earlier in the thread with a goon who wanted a dulcimer, and his AU seller was offering one for $500, which is pretty steep. And in the US if you're just starting out you'd usually but a used dulcimer for $100ish, but not so many used dulcimers in Australia.  I would have no compunctions about ordering a bowed psaltery from the US. They're relatively small and sturdy, so should ship well, and there are plenty on the market. eBay usually has some decent ones, though I note that this week it's mostly one en-masse seller of generic stuff, but usually there are a scattering of used ones by major makers. Note that psaltery is kind of easy to build, so on the good side even ones by great makers aren't bad in price. Though the downside is that they're so easy you get some schucks with highschool-level woodworking skills turning out cheap clunkers, so definitely buy an instrument made by a recognised good workshop, or else don't pay more than $75 for an unknown. Oh, and well you're buying stuff from the US, try and pick up a second bow, as once you build any BP skills at all you'll want to do double-bowing. There is a forum for BP; doesn't get a ton of traffic, and made the cardinal new-forum mistake of creating too many subforums and thus dispersing their threads, but worth a shot: http://psalterystrings.ning.com/forum . Do also put a little consideration into what size you want (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass), glance around a few makers' sites and see what kind of aesthetics appeal to you, etc. quote:My .02 on harpsicles. They're a nice instrument if you don't really want to learn a lot about playing the harp. I've used them in music therapy sessions with the elderly and that's about as good as it gets. The harpsicle sound is dreadful and tinny, and for just a little more $$$ you can get a nice Dusty Strings (I have two of them) or a Blevins, which has a very lovely sound for the $$$. Though not a serious harpist, I've played both DS and Harpsicle, and the DS is definitely a great instrument, but the Harpsicle still seems a workable student piece in the mid-$300s. As noted in the thread, I have seen a little back-and-forth on harp forums as to picking it as a student model, but though the sound isn't amazing it's not any worse than a cheap guitar, and overall seems decently well-built. Given there's simply no other option under $500 except for Pakistani harps, I don't have any hesitation on mentioning to goons to read up on, and if possible try out the Harpsicle. I'm on board with the "the greatest economy comes from buying the best you can afford", and someone seriously interested would be well-advised to save up for the DS, but for a lot of instruments there is space for a starter that you'll either sell or upgrade within a year, or keep around for decades just to play casually occasionally, and Harpsicles appear to fit the bill. On the subject of Dusty Strings; if anyone is in Seattle or passing through and likes musical instruments, you really want to drop into Fremont (artsy neighborhood a bit north of downtown) and check out DS's store. Huge array of guitars, banjos, harps, both kinds of dulcimer, ukulele, etc. Also while in Fremont you can check out the neighborhoods vast array of outdoor statuary, including this post-1991 fire sale special:  And don't forget the Fremont Troll under the bridge: 
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Jul 2, 2011 17:22
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Pieuvre posted:Yo guys, lovin' this thread. This goes out to you and TheShineNSB both, as well as anyone else who used to play flute. Given the advantage you have in embrochure experience, I suggest you consider a fife. Basically a small, keyless flute. I kind of covered fifes and "band flutes" with the Irish flute section a page or two back, so same point holds. One of the good things on fifes and small flutes is that there's a variety of inexpensive makes out there. There are various small fifes, simple flutes, bamboo/cane flutes, etc. Most notably, for those of y'all trying to save money, there are a good number of fifes and small flutes under $20. One item that's gotten generally good reviews are the small fifes made by Yamaha and by Angel (formerly Aulos), which are like $7. Those two brands use a somewhat different fingering system from the Irish-type instruments, but that's an easy adaptation instrument to instrument. Word on the street is that Angel is a little better in some ways, also comes in more colours.  $7 is kind of a no-risk option, and there are a variety of other inexpensive fifes on eBay. If you see any you like, or on any other site, I'd start a thread about "Fife for former silver flute player?" on this forum: Chiff & Fipple - Flute Forum. Helpful guys, should be able to hook you up, give advice on various flute and small fife options, etc. You can, of course, just play fife in any context where you'd play tinwhistle or whatever, jam with a guitarist, etc. If you're looking for something a bit more oraganised, but not back into highschool-type band, there's always fife and drum groups around the country:  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYcx4WLHYew&feature=related A chick playing an Irish slide on her Yamaha fife That's one American fife tradition, but there's a different one which is extremely awesome and not widely known, still barely holding on in black communities in the rural South: fife and drum blues   Clips: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUjxGra9uBw Awesome gig in the Mississippi hills. Note how much it sounds like the music from the initial marching-out scene from Gangs of New York. Probably no coincidence, since those folks brought some ethnomusicological expertise in. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9WyfCGghE4&feature=related Otha Turner, the gent pictured above - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6mRdPP6wRo Archival footage from Mississippi and Jamaica Awesome tradition, and shows sides of both flutes and of African American music not normally seen. In any case, both y'all, and others, should skip a meal and buy a $7 fife just to give it a shot. EDIT: for any flautists, here's a Ralph Sweet fife in G going for less than half what they cost new (6 days left): http://cgi.ebay.com/Rosewood-Sweetheart-fife-flute-key-G-/260811987637?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cb99b1ab5. Also some British flute, which is selling for nothing, but then $15 shipping from the UK: http://cgi.ebay.com/Single-Key-Rosewood-Marching-Flute-Fife-/220807531137?pt=UK_Woodwind_Instruments&hash=item3369278a81 EDIT2: also a Graham Moore plastic Irish D flute going for $30 on C&F; someone here should get this: http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=82722 TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jul 3, 2011 |
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Jul 3, 2011 02:54
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Lacerta posted:Ordered myself a mountain dulcimer. The first time I did a cardboard dulcimer, I laid down a base of blue spraypaint, then took it out in the backyard and scattered it over with dead leaves, and then sprayed on silver. So I ended up with blue/silver leaf camouflage. There are a bunch of things you can do, clearly, including stencils and whatever else, so have fun with it. I would generally advise to do the painting prior to gluing on the fretboard, just to avoid cluttering up the area where you're actually be fingering, quote:I got my toy accordion today as a graduation present. In tuning and in structure, your box is essentally a Cajun accordion, but missing the two lowest notes and the one highest notes. I'd start up watching some YouTube videos for Cajun accordion. This one looks quite informative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGReLvJIncg  Here's what one gets for 100x the price of the toy accordion, a Marc Savoy. As a totally minor sidenote, if you've seen the film "Southern Comfort", Savoy cameo'ed as the accordion player at the dance party. Just for reference, is your toy accordion a seven key, in which the scale starts by pushing on the top button, then pulling, 2 button push/pull, 3 button push/pull, 4 button pull then push? There are some instruments in that series where the scale starts on the 3 button, and there are like two low base keys that aren't a continuous scale on 1 and 2 buttons. It'd help if you let us know how your scale is laid out. If what you have is other than a 7-button (7 buttons in a row on the right side), let us know and that'll change our advice. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Jul 3, 2011 |
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Jul 3, 2011 06:47
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Jabarto posted:I've thought it over, and I've decided that while I definitely want a kantele at some point, it's just a little more than I want to spend right now. In the meantime, I placed an order for a tinwhistle. I didn't think I'd want one until I read about its association with Irish music and the like; I really love that stuff.  No worries, no hurries. You have a target to save up for, and in the meantime you have a tinwhistle to work on, so you're in good shape. If you're interested in Scandinavian music overall, this could be a good time to start learning Finnish (and other) Scandinavian tunes on tinwhistle. Mainly, I'd go ask about it on Chiff & Fipple forum, to get a feel for where you can find some easy Scandi tunes to start on. Not too many Finnish clips of tinwhistle on YouTube: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-h8SoyT2fQ A duet of Metsäkukkia (Forest Flower Waltz) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o0T57ePUsQ Swedish polska played with a drone (by taping two tinwhistles together) So far as the kantele, like with some others above I suggest you get a jam jar or whatnot and start dropping all your loose change into it at the end of the day. If you have some spare singles from time to time, drop those in too if you can spare them. You may be pleasantly surprised as to how fast you get to $135 and can get a kantele. I would contact the maker well in advance though to find out if he has a waitlist, as it'd suck to save for two months, order, and find out you're waiting another month for delivery. Even at $2 a day you'd be set by September, so just save up and don't dip into your jar to grab a beer. We haven't really covered keyboard much (aside from piano accordion), so I wanted to hit that up. Most keyboards either aren't "weird" (being piano variants), are electronic (which I don't know well, but whoever else jump in), or are expensive (clavichords, which are awesome). There is one decently affordable and interesting keyboard choice: Harmonium  To make yet another long story short. Around the early 1800s, Whitey finally stole another idea from the Chinese and adopted the "free reed"; that is, instruments where you choose a note by directing air up one passage or another to vibrate a reed set to a fixed note: harmonicas, accordions, reed-organs, etc. Around this time, a bunch of folks were heading off to convert the swarthy heathen, and the new existence of reed organs (vice the enormous old pipe organs) made it possible to make tiny little keyboards to truck around with them. So a bunch of small suitcase-sized reed-organs, called "harmonium", ended up being taken to India. The Indian reaction was basically: "I'm not so thrilled with your whole baptism thing, but I do like your little music box." Thus was the harmonium stolen back from Whitey. Indian harmonium can't play all the complex scales of Indian solo work, so it's primarly used to back up singing, largely in Northern India and in Pakistan. The version of the instrument they adopted was the smallest type, where it's hand-pumped since pedals take up too much room. This would be a disadvantage to Westerners, since a whole hand is tied up in pumping, but since Indian accompaniment really only needs one hand, and a small box sits well on the floor, it coincidentally worked out. You can see in tons of YouTube footage how the harmonium is placed on the deck, pumped with one hand, and provides backing tracks.  Clips: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUbAZbJDJOo Okay, generally an accompaniment instrument. Here's a blazing solo backed by tabla - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=428tWaiQ53Q&feature=related Western girl playing kirtan (Hindu prayer music) backed up by herself on harmonium - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uChPFsb6wdM Sufi Muslim qawali (prayer music) backed by harmonium and tabla - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNoTEgQKE6c Cool clip of random Euro dude playing a didj and jamming on harmonium simultaneously - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kryu8Kyr2U4 Huh. Apparently, Iron Maiden cover on harmonium - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afAAltAmIzA Poet Alan Ginsberg often accompanied himself on a small harmonium he picked up in India; very minimal backup, but it adds a lot to his songs and recitations.  So far as buying one. Again, there are a ton of cheapies on eBay from $100-$200 shipped. Again, I would read up in advance; aside from general cheapness, a lot of Indian harmoniums are still made to older musical standards, so not necessarily A=440 pitched or equal temperament. Those things aren't necessarily bad at all, but it makes them hard to use with some modern fixed-pitch instruments. A=440 and equal temparament were only really decided on in the mid-1900s, and honestly kind of arbitrary, but that's what modern-make instruments are set to. In any case, you can take some risk on a cheapie (though ideally figure out who makes actual good cheapies), so long as you're mainly planning to play solo, or with instruments (like strings) that can be slightly re-tuned. If, however, you want something A=440 and ET, and overall with good quality control, you're looking around $400-500 for a good basic box. I would read up on forums like Chandrakantha (or whatever your preferred Indian forum is), though surprisingly the music gear-geeks site Gearslutz has some really informative threads on harmonium. A few reputable sellers gleaned from the above (and other experiences) include: - DMS Harmoniums, very reputable store in Deli, very experienced with worldwide customers. - The Ali Akbar College of Music school store in California So far as learning, it totally depends on what style of harmonium music you want to play. There are tons of YouTube tutorials, so if you're keen on this, go watch as many as you can, get a feel for the instrument. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jul 6, 2011 |
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Jul 3, 2011 16:21
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Grape Juice Vampire posted:It is indeed a seven button accordion. Not at all. Cecilia is a basic three-chord song, so pretty easy to back yourself up with three chords and then sing the melody. Not to over-dumb it down, but two extremes of "how to play a song" in your case would be to either play the melody (that is, note for note what Simon is singing), or else to play the chords (the accompaniment that the guitar is doing) and then sing/hum/whistle the song over your own backing. Here are the chords to Cecilia: http://www.chordie.com/chord.pere/www.willamette.edu/~jbanks/tab/sg/cecilia.pro . For you and everyone else, for almost any remotely popular song out there the search for its name and the word "chords" will find something like this. Okay, so you need a C, an F, and a G7 (or just a G). Not going to try to make you figure out the chords on your own (and I really should just write a chord chart for these things for all the noobs), but here's a good cheat-sheet with at least what the notes are: http://barrystaes.nl/melodeon/20090201%20Cheatsheet%20Mini-toy-Accordion.pdf  Okay, so a C, an F, and a G. The Cmaj chord is C, E, G, that's easy: Push 1-2-3. That is, make sure you have air in the bellows, hold down keys 1, 2, and 3 (counting from the top), and push. Bingo. Now an F chord, which is F, A, C. The problem is that the Cs are only on push, F and A only on draw, so we can fake it by doing: Pull 2-3. Next, G7 chord: a G7 is GBDF, a straight G is GBD. Looking at the chart, Push 3-6-7 gets us two Gs and a B, so that'll work. Alternately, a Pull 1-4-5 gets us some Bs and Ds. If you want to get the 7 in there, a Pull 4-5-6 gets us a rootless 7th chord. If the above is confusing you, basically ignore everything but the bolded parts: C: Push while holding 1-2-3 together. F: Pull on 2-3 G7: Pull 4-5-6, or 1-4-5, or Push 3-6-7. Try all three within the song and see which fits best. So, turning to the song (putting chords in parentheses since SA doesn't line up multiple lines well): (C) Cecilia, you're (F) breaking my (C) heart, Do this very slowly as a noob. Make sure you have about half your bellows filled with air. Again, as noted earlier in the thread, always have a button held down when moving the bellows; if you want to do so silently, use the air button. Don't force the bellows with the system sealed off, no buttons pushed, or you'll cause leaks. Now form the C (fingers on 1-2-3) and push in while singing (or speaking, or humming, or whatever) the first two words. Then pause, move your fingers to 2-3, and pull while singing "breaking my". Then switch back to C for "heart". Just do that throughout the song, and you'll be backing yourself on Celia in no time. Just take it nice and slow, don't try to do much with rhythm, don't worry if it takes you 30sec to switch chords. Just make the chords, hear how they sound as they change, and keep working that song. Does the above make sense? Give it a shot, let us know how hard/easy you find it as a noob. 
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Jul 3, 2011 16:46
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Grape Juice Vampire posted:This is so exciting. Yep, pull with the air button between notes if you're running out of air in a given direction. On the Toy, you're facing two contributing issues so far as air: you have tiny bellows, and, making the problem literally doubly worse, you have doubled reeds. Doubled reeds aren't bad per se, in fact the standard Cajun box has four reeds per note. However, the Cajun has much bigger bellows, the whole system is set up nice and tight, and it also has those four knobs up-top ("stops") that can turn on or off reeds depending how you're playing.  You can't do much about the bellows, but if you want to get more air in your box, what you can do is tape off one of each of the doubled reeds. That'll bring you down to one reed per note, and thus twice as much air. I picked up a toy accordion at a toyshop today, mainly to work up some chord chart and tabs, and also to practice some tweaking. I did recall while shopping that the solid-colour ones tend to be mostly plastic, while the ones with pearlized finishes (swirly) tend to be cheap wood with plastic coating. I prefer the latter, so if given a choice I'd suggest finding a pearly one. Mine is decently in tune, but draws too much air, and there's something wrong with one seal on the left side, so I'm getting a constant same chord in both directions. My goal in the next week or so is to film me taking the box apart and tweaking it, and put it up on YouTube as a tutorial. Did you get any chance to see if you can get the chords to Cecilia to make sense for you? quote:Speaking of button accordians, I have two out in the garage awaiting restoration if possible. I got them at a yard sale years ago, both were damaged in a fire but amazingly, still play. I'd place them as being made around 1930 or so. No pictures right now as they are packed away. That could certainly be interesting. I've talked to some accordion repairers who refuse to work on the old stuff because it's less standardised, more labour-intensive, not cost-effective, etc. On the bright side, that means old ones are cheap if you're willing to futz with repairing them just as a hobby. I wouldn't recommend it as a "great way to save money", but more a "I like tinkering with stuff and it'd be nice to have an accordion at the end." I bought one Hohner one-row from 1920 or so on eBay for $50; turns out it was in Bb (or a C that had uniformly gone flat everywhere). It didn't work much at all, and rattled horribly... but happily the rattle was caused by many of its reeds having come loose inside its guts, so not a difficult manner of picking them all up and securing them back in. Another forum guy bought it from me to fix up; I should write him and ask how it turned out. Very cute 2-stop 1-row, very compact and light.
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Jul 4, 2011 02:02
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Grape Juice Vampire posted:They did make sense. Thank you for spelling it out for me, I really appreciate it. Glad you found a good site; that should be helpful to several other folks. Also note that any instructional info you find for Cajun accordion online will largely apply to your box (though you're missing two low buttons and one high). Again note that you can play one note at a time melodies, chord accompaniment, or something in the middle where you're doing a melody while harmonising. The last being quite easy on diatonic accordions because all the harmonising notes are in the same area. I'll work at getting that tweaking tutorial up in a week or two; don't be afraid to try tweaking it; so long as you don't damage the reeds, there's not really much that you can screw up. Feel free to just pull out the four little pins holding it together, look inside and see how primitive it is. If you do upgrade down the way, you can do the reed upgrade to your current box (though I would definitely do the reeds in the coated-wood box vice a pure plastic one for (relatively) long-term durability. Alternately, some of the Hohner 2-stop models go for as little as $225 in decent playing shape, some 2-row models like the Hohner Erica go for $325ish as well, particularly if they're in CF or GC vice the DG that's more popular for Irish and English. Just depends whether you end up really attached to the little box, or want something with more power though (reasonable) added cost.  EDIT: Hohner Erica 2-row F/C going for $100ish on eBay with one day left: http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Hohner-Erica-accordion-Made-Germany-NO-RES-/220806283009?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3369147f01 . No guarantees it's perfect, but these are pretty quality boxes, and pretty standardised and thus repairable if needed, and can likely be jury-rigged to run smoother until you can get it pro-repaired later.  EDIT2: for anyone interested, I added a Table of Contents to the OP TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jul 4, 2011 |
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Jul 4, 2011 03:30
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withak posted:I just scored a pretty awesome old piano accordion off some guy on craigslist today for a lot less money than it probably should have been. Mama mia! That is a huge piano accordion. That is why I stick to buttonboxes. quote:Now I am sorely tempted to get one of those little toy button-boxes for irish music. Do note that all the toy ones are in C(ish), while you really need a D for Irish. Couple options: you can sent it to Irish Dancemaster to be converted to good quality European reeds in the key and arrangement of your choice for $100. Or, if you're handy (and I know you are) you can see if ID will just sell you the reeds and you can go rig them in yourself. Alternately, you could take out all your current reeds and shift everything down one notch so that D is your base note. That'd leave you one note short at the top, unless you take one of the reeds and tune it sharp to hit your new highest note. While you're hacking I would also convert it to single-reed (install half the reeds, and block off where the doubleds were) to save air and focus tone. Also, note above that you want to hunt down one with a pearlised finish. It used to be 90% of the eBay ones were pearlised, but now they're mostly solid-colour plastic, so you might need to check various online stores. I think the "Barcelona" and "Child Prodigy" brands are pearlised, though I'd contact the sellers to make sure those brands hadn't cheaped out too. quote:I have also played a keyless plastic M&E irish flute for quite a while now. I like it better than nearly all of the wooden ones I have played, and the wooden ones that did like better were all ones that I couldn't afford anyway. A plastic flute is great because it requires no maintenance and Glad we finally get an IF player up in here. I think it's a great instrument, and one that wouldn't occur to a lot of goons even if they like Irish music. It's pricier than a tinwhistle, but has a lot of flexibility of expression. Dammit, your post has revived my old vague interest in learning IF. I keep avoiding it, even though I already know all the fingerings, since I don't know embrochure, though I suppose it couldn't take me that long to learn. Speaking of simplicity and embrochure: Shakuhachi  The shakuhachi is a Japanese end-blown bamboo flute. It's traditionally made from the root, so very dense and heavy, and a sharp notch cut into the top onto which you blow. It only has four fingerholes and one thumbhole, in a pentatonic scale surprisingly similar to the Native American flute (though since the modern NAF is a modern congolmeration, totally possible shakuhachi influenced it). That may sound limiting, but with changes in air angle, partial-holing of the fingers, etc. a huge array of tones become available. The shakuhachi came from China around 600AD in a simpler form, and evolved in isolation in Japan. It was particularly associated with the Fuke-school Zen Buddhist monks, the komusō ("priests of nothingness"). They played the instrument as a form of meditation while wandering and begging, and are often depicted wearing baskets on their heads, done to "remove the ego".  There's a bunch of stuff further about the monks, and samurai, and shakuhachi and whatnot, but I can't tell how much of it is true history and how much breathelss otaku sperging. There's some stuff about how samurai would disguise themselves as Fuke monks to spy, and became monks after samurai orders were broken up so they could keep wandering around under a religious exemption. And even odder stuff about samurai-monks using the shakuhachi as a weapon, since it's a huge chunk of bamboo root yet not suspicious to carry around. But in any case, instrument got banned during the Meiji restoration, which put a break in its monastic tradition during which much was lost, but has since revived in both religious and secular music.  Minor aside: I fondly recall the folk novelty song about merging Baptist and Buddhist culture: clip Zen Gospel Singing If you want a shakuhachi, there are a few ways to go about it. Proper shakuhachi are surprisingly pricey since it takes a while to find the exact right kind of bamboo root, carve it right, and then the real labour comes in coating the inside with ji, a kind of paste/epoxy, to shape the bore to get the perfect tone. So around $400+ for a good traditional shakuhachi. That said, there is one very reputable make of cast-ABS shakuhachi that goes for $155 and is a noob recommendation in most discussions. There are also the more affordable ji-nashi ("without ji") which are pasteless shakuhachi where the inside isn't mucked with. As I understand it, to do really complicated high-skill stuff the paste makes a difference, but on the noob level not so much. I have two ji-nashi I got off eBay; I'd recommend the seller, but I don't see any of his stuff there this week. Ji-nashi go as low as $30-70, and there are also PVC shakuhachis for like $12, though I haven't read up on the opinion on those, who makes good ones, etc. You often see decimal numbers in shakuhachi listings, "1.9", etc.; they're measured in shaku, which is just about a foot long. 1.8 shaku are key of D, and that appears to be the most common size. If you have small hands, you should ask about the reach on 1.8 and see if your fingers can reach that far on a broomstick or something. I have a Bb which I think is 2.4, and it's a stretch for me, though not quite as bad as a Low D tinwhistle. I always like to recommend forums for anyone with an interest, as we assembled goons only know so much, and I strongly advise that folks read up and ask questions of experts as they move into a new hobby. It takes five drat minutes to register for a new forum and ask a noob question, or run an archives search, so rock it. In any case, the main current shakuhachi forum appears to be ShakuhachiForum.eu, though it's new and recommends the now-defunct ShakuhachiForum.com for archives searches. Apparently there is some massive drat drama in the English-speaking shakuhachi community, so these forums don't just die or move because of traffic, but due to flamewars, of all silly things for folks playing a Zen instrument. The following blog is impressively sperglordy, but the linked page gives a summary of the recent epic battles: ShakuhachiBeat.blogspot.com - Shakuhachi Forum shuttered for lack of decency . Overall, a paradoxically simple-yet-complex instrument with an impressive tradition. You can play it for meditation, learn the complexities of its various schools, or just learn basic blowing and fingering and learn your own way around it to jam with a guitarist. Embrochure instruments take a little more initial learning than fipple instruments, but the payoff is the level of tone control that such hands-on breathing brings you. 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jul 4, 2011 |
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Jul 4, 2011 17:53
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quote:I'm not too worried about the actual key; I doubt that I would play the thing with other people. I just want to try it. Give me a few days, and I'll figure out some Celtic tunes that don't have too large a range, and I'll write out some tabs. Not that you yourself need it, but for the various folks here starting out it might be nice to have a clearly-tabbed something more snazzy than nursery rhymes. Man Irish tunes aren't hard when played at a slow pace.  withak posted:Also, my girlfriend has a shakuhachi and I don't know if it is because it is a cheap one that she picked up somewhere or if it is normal, but that thing takes some serious wind power to play. I have played regular flute for about 20 years and that shakuhachi leaves me gasping for breath. Again, I am by no means an expert, but even as a non-winds (except for bagpipes and tinwhistle) person, I don't have inordinate trouble with breath on shakuhachi. Finding the right angle takes a moment or two, but I don't get lightheaded playing it. Any idea what make of cheapie she has, or is it unlabeled? My cheap jinhashi that works well has an outline of a bird (seagull?) on it, so if I can't find the maker on eBay later, I can probably track him down by logo. On a minor sidenote, it does bug me when makers don't sign/stamp/logo their instruments somewhere. I've seen some gorgeous dulcimers, clearly made by skilled luthiers that are simply untraceable since they have neither a label inside the body, no mark/initials on the back of the headstock, etc. Given google these days, it'd be quite easy to find a maker of a given instrument even with some vague sign.
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Jul 4, 2011 18:36
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quote:Also, the Japanese priest playing the flute while wearing the basket on his head looks like he paying a bar bet. I imagine that's how most school of Japanese zen started out: "okay, whoever is the last to finish his skin of rice-wine has to go and tell the shogun a nonsensical story about oxen and cherry trees; ready, chug!" Velvet Sparrow posted:Hey, this is identical to one of the charred button accordians I have out in the garage! If it was exposed to heat, my main concern would be the condition of the wax holding the reeds onto their blocks, and the condition of the flapper valves. If the reeds are all present (somewhere rattling around the body, decently in tune, the bellows can be made airtight-ish, the rest seems pretty DIY-able. The model is a HA-112 (if it has 2 stops) or 113/114 if it has 3 or 4 stops (those knobs on top). Okay, I hacked my toy accordion from yesterday. Went in and repaired one internal key that had fallen off and was letting a left-hand chord sound constantly. Then I did a 10-second single-reed conversion by just putting a piece of masking tape down one side of the reedblock. It's helping already, I get a lot more air now. Still not a ton, and you have to be pretty deliberate about playing with the bellows pretty wide open to have maneuver space, but it's a lot better. I'll transcribe some more tabs for that Wordpress site later, but here's a quicky tab of the Irish tune Road to Lisdoonvarna. Here's a guy playing it on a 2-row: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl8fL5kUFhI Basic melody with no harmonising or ornaments: Road to Lisdoonvarna - note in Irish song you generally play the A part twice, then B part twice, back to A part, etc. So they're not "parts" like duet, but more like phases of the tune. A part: -1 -3 -3 3 -3 -4 4 / 2 3 3 -3 3 1 -1 2 -1 1 / -1 -3 -3 3 -3 -4 4 / -4 4 -4 -3 3 -3 -1 -1 / B part: -5 5 -6 5 -5 4 -3 -3 -4 4 / -4 3 3 -3 -4 4 -4 4 -3 / -5 5 -6 5 -5 4 -3 -3 -4 4 / -4 4 -4 -3 3 -3 -1 -1 Someone else savvy try that out and tell me if you concur, but that should be about it. EDIT: still have dozens of instruments to cover, and a few guest goons who are dragging their feet on coming in for their specialties. Does anyone have any particular requests for things they want covered sooner rather than later? TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jul 5, 2011 |
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Jul 5, 2011 00:09
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GrAviTy84 posted:I'm contemplating using a current recording project I'm working on to justify buying a banjo. For reference I am a guitar player. Because of this, I'm thinking of getting a 6 string guitjo, but as I was researching, people kept saying that these are never going to be able to completely emulate the 5 string banjo. I know it has something to do with that weird halfway-up-the-neck 5th string, but I can't seem to find any specifics of how close I can get the guitjo to emulate banjo sounds. So I guess what I'm asking for is specifics about the banjo and what can't the 6 string do that the 5 string can. I need to go hassle the banjo-playing goon who's supposed to drop into this thread, but I reckon I can cover this one. In terms of pure tone, sure a plucked string on a guitjo/gitjo/banjitar sounds pretty much like a plucked banjo string, but the banjo "sound" is defined by the picking styles, which aren't exactly replicable on a guitar. You can tune a guitar banjo-ish (basically an Open-G tuning, and variants thereof), but as you note the drone string (short fifth string on the left) plays a big role in the sound. Broadly, broadly speaking there are two major schools of American five-string banjo: clawhammer and bluegrass/Scruggs style. Clawhammer (related to frailing) is the older style, and the bluegrass style was invented in the mid-1900s by a guy named Scruggs. You can do apply some banjo techniques to guitar, and on banjitar it would sound similar to banjo, but to a careful listener it'd be clear that you were playing guitar (a banjo-sounding guitar) with banjo-influenced techniques, vice a banjo. Long/short, there's a reason a guitjo is generally a novelty instrument; there aren't really many (any?) serious players who specialise in guitjo, and it's generally seen as somewhat of a cheap attempt on the part of guitar players to sound banjo-ish without actually learning banjo. If I were you, I'd just break down and get an inexpensive banjo. You'll learn some really interesting technique ideas from the transition, and there are tons of affordable and used banjos out there, while for guitjos there are only a few makers, fewer decent makers, and few on the used market. You're going to get a much better bang for your buck getting an actual banjo, and can probably find a serviceable one for $100ish used. You can get a Deering Goodtime (the gold-standard noob banjo) for low-$300s used, while I'd be leery of the cheapie (Savannah, Dean, etc) banjitars in that price-range. I'll go ping that banjo goon for more data, but you get the general idea. 
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Jul 6, 2011 00:23
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quote:Especially if it is a more celtic type piece which doesn't really use that 5th string at all since they are played on 4 strings. Okay, this school I know a little bit: Celtic banjo is a whole 'nother thing. It's more like melodic mandolin playing (with a pick) than anything in American 5-string banjo. It's only "banjo" in the sense that it's played on an instrument with a membrane head, but otherwise not any closer to, and arguably further from, Scruggs banjo than guitar fingerpicking is. Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNkaLGf5ziQ Two Irish reels on tenor banjo, again note flatpicking style quite unlike Old-Time or Bluegrass banjo. Jarmotion posted:Just don't get a cheap banjo like Tap sad, cheap banjos/resonator instruments sound really cheap. Meaning "don't get a Deering GT" or "don't go any cheaper than a Deering GT"? Fully admit that banjo is not my strong point, plus I'm a fringe opinion because my main/only banjo is a fretless Appalachian with nylon strings. I do desperately want another banjo though, but I want a fretless Appalachian bass banjo: EDIT: Dammit, I know exactly what I want, have seen them at festivals and played in shops: those all-wood, scooped-neck, really huge banjos with gut/nylon strings. Will go track down exactly what they're called so I can post pics/clips. EDIT2: In the meantime, here's a Jeff Menzies gourd banjo to tide y'all over. With apologies to our bluegrass brethren, primitive banjos are the best banjos. 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Jul 6, 2011 |
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Jul 6, 2011 00:53
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Xiahou Dun posted:Actually, if anyone has experience, what's the take on resonator-mandolins?  EDIT: Lovely overview page with thumbnails for each maker: http://www.mandolincafe.com/archives/builders/resonator.html Pretty straightforward, there are really only two echelons of reso-mandolins these days: - $350ish Asian imports, absolutely all of which are identical semi-copies of 1930s National mandolin. Sold under various names: Johnson, Ashbury, Recording King, Republic. All basically the same, though Republic might occasionally have some bonus features due to the Texan importer being able to get the Chinese to occasionally make some design tweaks for them. - $1000-2000 custom or semi-custom mandos from the US, UK, France, Australia, New Zealand. The main one you hear about is National, which run $1800 and are amazingly gorgeous and everyone who owns one spergs about it incessantly. Donmo from Australia gets good reviews ($1300ish plus insane shipping) with cool galvanised finishes, Beltona from New Zealand ($1500) are lightweight fibreglass, etc. The only wildcards to the above (that jump to mind) are Wailing Guitars of the UK and the US Commodium. The Wailings look cool, but the sound is apparently iffy and they weigh an absolute ton. The Commodium is pretty odd, but apparently a lot of people like them, and at $800 they may be reasonable. So far as the Red Chinee resos: opinion is mixed. Some people find them to be quite reasonable for the price, others just can't warm to the tone and sell them. I think I've tried the mandos a few times, but I've owned several of the reso ukuleles. My impression was that they have a decent gritty/dirty sound, so not really a clean reso sound, but if you want something more bluesy-grimy it might actually suit well. If you were to get one, I would read up on the tweaks folks have made to them: with $30 for a new cone, $50 for new tuners, and some judicious tweaking of the action, you might actually come up with something pretty enjoyable. As a minor sidenote, the imports are solid metal bodies. Do not drop one. Do not ask how I know this, but it does involve a girl. This is a $5 pint of Old Crow bourbon:  And this is a $300 bottle of 30yr single-malt:  And this is some weird bottle labeled in Armenian that your buddy smuggled back from a backpacking trip through Syria, where you have no idea what the hell it is but it is pretty tasty: 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Jul 6, 2011 |
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Jul 6, 2011 06:40
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Chin Strap posted:Okay, I bought one of those 20 plastic squeeze boxes blind online (and it turns out one of the plastic ones at that, oh well), and it has a lot of problems. The two reeds on the 1 button are almost a half step out of tune with each other, one of the buttons makes no noise at all, and the chord buttons are either half functioning or non functioning. Yeah I can send it to Irish Dancemaster to get it done for real, but I want to just mess around with repairing it, because I'd rather spend the real money towards an actual button accordion in a month or so. So TTFA, any good tutorials for beginner repair? These are definitely a crapshoot buying blind; as mentioned earlier in the thread my preferred method is to find a store with 12 of them, play them all, and choose the best one. In your case, your first priority is to crack this puppy open. There will be four round-head pins arrayed around the 7-button side: get a tool and pull them all out. The best tool for this is a small pincer, but you can use whatever works. Once you pull those four out, the whole right end will slide off the bellows. You can now see the reed arrays on both sides, and can remove them easily if need be by just unscrewing the little brackets that hold them in. If there is any chance that there might also be trouble with the key arms or pads, you can take a small screwdriver and unscrew the little screen sitting above the 7 buttons, and the floorplate on the botton down by the bass/chord. Once you take the screws out of the floorplate, you might need to take a small pointy thing and lever it up, as it fits in their kind of snug. Each button is just a spring-loaded lever which lifts up a pad to uncover a hole which leads up to a specific set of reeds. The buttons are probably okay as long as each one lifts its pad, and as long as the pad sees to come down flush covering its hole when not depressed. If you had a button/pad problem, it'd probably manifest itself as a note that won't stop. If your bass and chord aren't sounding, there are a couple options: 1) the reeds are missing 2) the reed comb isn't snug against its holes, so air isn't forced to pass through its reeds 3) the keys aren't lifting the pads and so the holes are staying closed. And various variants on this, but you get the idea. There are only physically so many possible things that could be going on. So far as the pair with too much warble (reeds tuned too far apart). Pick the reed that sounds most in-tune with the others, and cover up the other one with a piece of masking tape or something. In general, while you have it open I suggest you tape off half your reeds, as the single reeds sound cleaner and use half as much air. For the melody notes that aren't sounding at all, check to see if your seals are gumming them up somehow, or there's crap stuck in them, etc. Fix what you can at first, and then put it back together and see if it's much better. While you're in there, look for any gaps where air may be leaking or avoiding going where it's supposed to. Note that getting the four pins back in is the biggest pain of the process, since you need to line them up carefully and then whack them in with a hard object. While doing so, make sure the little rubber seal between keypad and bellows is lined up straight, since it it's untucked you'll have terribly low pressure until you set it right again. Once you convert it to single reed and seal it back up, you should feel a significant difference in bellows tension. The bellows will be a little stiff when new, and also don't be afraid to use the air button even while playing a note. Say you're pulling out a D and know you need a nice long C next, use the air button so that you go almost all the way open on your D-pull, leaving you plenty of room for a long close to C. If you need an extra-long C, briefly let up your C button, quickly hit Air and pull out a few inches to buy more room. Again, these are crude little critters, but anyone capable of operating a screwdriver and a roll of tape can work on them, and they give a general good feel of the basics of squeezeboxes for $20. I do mean to make a full YouTube tutorial of how to do this, if anyone else is interested in this process. Chinstrap, have you figured out what kind of squeezebox you're inclined to get down the road?
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Jul 7, 2011 02:44
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Chin Strap posted:Thanks for the info may try it tomorrow. I'm going to get some sort of button accordion. If it is diatonic or chromatic I'm not sure yet. The chromatic ones seems good but so big. For diatonics, I'd take a hard look at the Hohner Erica, or if one row will do you the HA-112. The dude at Irish Dancemaster and I have talked shop on and off, and he's just not a fan of the HA-112 for various technical reasons, but as a casual player I simply loved it. Very lightweight and trim instruments, and they look awesome. If you get a an HA-112, eBay is probably your best bet. I would be not at all shy to ask the seller if you can hear it played over the phone to see how the tuning is, as getting an HA-112. Getting a complete and total re-reed would be $300ish, tuning a few reeds might be affordable though. Usually I find HA-112s by searching "hohner -piano" (if I'm willing to look through a few pages) or "hohner (button*, cajun) if I'm just perusing a few listings. There's also the Hohner Pokerwork and Vienna (I think the use those same names for the 1-row versions) but those I just found a bit clunkier, and I think they're tuned wetter too (more warble). EDIT: Dammit withak, you're about to make me blow $380 on an Irish flute. Dick.  EDIT: If anyone likes tinwhistles, but wants a nice low tone, there's a used Kerry Low D tinwhistle up on C&F, and it comes with a case too, for just $60 total. I have this exact model and am most happy with it: http://forums.chiffandfipple.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=83065 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Jul 7, 2011 |
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Jul 7, 2011 03:50
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Darth Windu posted:Is it possible to get fairly cheap brass instruments? I remember looking around on Ebay for a flugelhorn when I got into Beirut, as I used to play trumpet and find I much prefer the sound of the fluge. Does it count as a weird instrument? I know about zero about brass, but we have had one or two brass goons poke their heads in here. If you have archives or can get clever with google, you might be able to track down a flugelhorn-playing goon and PM him to drop in here. So far as fiddle: fiddle has a pretty steep learning curve, and more than most any other instrument you will sound like rear end for at least a few weeks until you get even the basics of the technique down. If you're really adamant about learning fiddle, by all means shop around to get a decent used violin, watch a bunch of YouTube tutorials (and maybe get some actual lessons, whether in person or Skype), and suck up the irritation of the learning curve. I'm not saying "don't do it", I'm saying "don't just casually ramble into fiddle playing" since it'll take a certain amount of dedication to build the initial momentum, more than most any other Western string instrument.  quote:OH MY GOD I'm getting this as soon as I get home tonight! I love accordions, with a particular love of conjunto & norteño music as well as Cajun & zydeco. This looks like it's a good starter for a lark. Thanks! Definitely report back and let us know how it works for you. If you decide you're getting even more interested in Mexican accordion styles, do note that Hohner's budget three-row models are actually pretty reasonable: the Panther goes as low as mid-$300s, and the Compadre a couple hundred more. I've just glanced at a few reviews of the Panther, but they seem generally positive of this Chinese-contract import. Several folks mentioned that some people save money by buying a Panther and replacing the reeds with set of German Hohner Corona reeds (which cost more than the Panther does) to end up with a $700ish instrument pretty much as good as the $1200 Hohner Corona. I've seen Panthers in pawnshops in Texas, and if you live in a border state you might be able to find a deal on one at a pawnshop or on Craigslist. Just don't buy any generic three-rows unless you can read good things about the make online. In any case, just a couple Hohner model names you may want to read up on.  
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Jul 7, 2011 07:07
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GrAviTy84 posted:I'm contemplating using a current recording project I'm working on to justify buying a banjo. For reference I am a guitar player. Thinking further on it, tenor banjo might be one of your better options:  Tenor banjos have four strings, generally a shorter neck than 5-strings, and can be tuned GDAE (like a mandolin or fiddle) CGDA (like a mandoa or viola) or DGBE (like the top 4 strings of a guitar). In this last case, you'd have a tuning you're quite familiar with, and be able to apply "Scruggs-style guitar" techniques, rolling fingers and all, just as well as you would be able to on guitjo. The advantages would be better selection of tenors at better prices, better ergonomics, and though you'd be "missing" your E and A strings, those strings on the guitjo are a dead giveaway for "this is a banjo guitar, not a banjo" since banjos just don't have that low end the guitjo has. Several online shops have Deering Goodtime 17-fret tenors for $379 shipped, or you might be able to find a used one, or buy a reputable brand of used off eBay or the classifieds at the Banjo Hangout forum. It'd be more versatile as well, since after this project you could always use it for Irish pub sessions by playing it with a flatpick, and in general they (especially the open-back versions) are lightier and handier than a guitjo. Not to hate on guitjo, but it kind of is a bastard novelty instrument. Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbSZA228ixk Irish tune Banish Misfortune played (albeit slowly) on Irish tenor banjo quote:Also are there any reputable non-ebay sources for used squeezeboxes? I'm kind of sick of the whole ebay bidding game and would pay a bit more to buy from a trusted source. Hmm... Elderly gets some used buttonboxes, and the shop The Button Box in MA I think carries used, though I don't see them listed on their site. There's also Liberty Bellows in Philly. Aside from stores, you could also put a WTB ad at the classifieds pages for Chiff & Fipple, Melodeon Forum, and The Session. Among models worth noting: both Weltmeister and Silvetta (both German) make pretty nice one-rows, arguably better than Hohner, and can occasionally be found at quite reasonable prices. Though I'm having trouble finding Silvettas online at the moment, except for Sam Ash selling their 3-rows for $499; they are supposed to be very light and compact though. I was thinking for you, that if your hands are okay with the back and forth of diatonic (the bellows on the toy are rather stiff, so if those don't flare up your hands, a good used accordion will be even better), and weight/size is a premium, the HA-112 is really worth looking at. They're very light, and if the key of G suits you (either because it fits the French genres you like, or if key is less vital to you) those do tend to sell for the least since Cajuns want C (though its not a proper Cajun accordion) and Irish players jump all over the Ds. quote:Finally got around to doing this. Changing to single reed made the melody buttons sound way cleaner. On the other side, the chord button sounds fine but the bass button is really out of tune. Any quick thing I can do to fix that? Depends how much dicking you want to do. You can, at risk of ruining the reed (no huge loss) either sandpaper/file the end a little bit to raise the pitch, or put a blob of superglue on the tip to lower the pitch. Though Irish Dancemaster mentioned in an email to me today that there's really only so much you can do with the reeds, as they're not as predictable/mod-able as real accordion reeds. Personally, I don't really use the basses for the styles I play, so I mainly just focus on getting the 7-side right, and single-reeding is the single biggest improvement there. I still wouldn't discount concertina, particularly since size is one of your issues. If you're ever in the area of any folk shop, go by a festival, or can find someone on Concertina Forum who lives close enough to you to let you try one, you might find that interesting. One really off-the-wall option: both Stagi and Paolo Soprani (and maybe others) made the "organetto abruzzese":  It's a 1.5 row, 4-bass diatonic accordion in a concertina body. Italian dance instrument, and there was last year one French musician who dropped in who had one and loved it. You'd really have to ask on Concertina Forum where you'd go about finding one, but it's an interesting compromise between buttonbox layout and concertina size. quote:Now, how would I best go about actually learning to play [tinwhistle]? It came with a grip chart, but nothing else. Not that it would have helped, because I have literally never played an instrument before and can't read notes. Any recommendations, maybe some simple sheets and instructions on how to read them? I was hoping Mrady might drop be, since he/she is the resident expert. Failing that, I can give some very basics here, and a more general advice to just google "tinwhistle tutorial" or "pennywhistle tutorial" and scope through the plentiful free instruction online. Not to shrug the work of guessing which ones are good onto you, but I doubt there are many terrible ones, especially at the noob level, so it's just a matter of finding one you like. This one is free and looks pretty solid for basic scale: http://www.whistletutor.com Quick semi-important thing: is your Clarke in C or D? It should be marked as a small letter on the front of the body. If it's C, just note that most instruction will be in D, so you can still apply all the same fingerings and whatnot, you just won't be playing exactly the same notes as the video. Oh, and is your Clarke a "Sweetone", a "Meg" or the old-school black one where the head is part of the metal body and kind of squarish? They're all good, just curious. So far as learning to read music, a huge number of tinwhistle players (and probably a lot of Irish musicians in general) can't read music, so I wouldn't sweat it at all. If you feel like learning it later, that's fine, but don't feel even slightly obliged to learn music. There are many online video clips of someone playing slowly with the camera focused on their fingers, so you can play along. Almost every fingering a beginner uses is just raising each finger in succession, so it's not like you even have a mix of closed and open, it's just a matter of which hole is the lowest closed one. The only exception that matters much to a noob is C, which is fingered oxxooo, so there's literally only one fingering that's any more complicated than xxxxoo or xxoooo. At any rate, learning by ear is far, far, far more useful for traditional music than learning to read "the dots", as written music is often disparagingly called by trad musicians. I would watch some videos on basic scales and such, and then find some tutorials on YouTube or wherever of people very slowly playing easy songs (like Amazing Grace, here). Before you start on that though, I would spend a day or two just doing breathing and some basic scales. Getting breath pressure right is fundamental (and not terribly hard) and will minimise the sounds-like-rear end shrieking. Stick the whistle in your mouth, cover all the holes fully (not pressing hard, just covering completely) and blow as softly as you can, so softly you just hear air flow through. Then increase your breath pressure until you get your lowest note, and hold it for several seconds. Keep doing that a bit until you can reliably hold a steady note and do it repeatably. Then do some scales, start doing basic video lessons. The main thing you want to avoid is just blasting air into it and shrieking, so better to underblow than overblow. Keep the whistle sitting handy to wherever you are in your place, and just pick it up every so often throughout the day. If you play even just five minutes a half-dozen times during the day, you'll make huge progress in your first week. Like most everything in this thread, 10min a day for a week is way better than an hour only once a week. Just pick it up whenever the slightest mood strikes you, set it down once it's not fun, and pick it up again an hour or two later. I would also sign up for and introduce yourself on the Chiff & Fipple forum, maybe tell them what kind of music you're interested in, ask for tips and favourite training videos, etc. There's a wealth of info out there for free, it's a pretty hard instrument to go wrong with (except for overblowing it into a shriek), almost indestructible barring crushing, and 'whistlers are pretty friendly and helpful folks. Again segueing, for anyone here learning tinwhistle: it is totally cool to just stick with tinwhistle, but if you get pretty decent tinwhistle chops and branch out, your skills and repertoire will cross over very neatly to Irish uilleann pipes and to Irish flute, so if those appeal to you, and you become a decent 'whistle player (which can happy awfully fast), bear in mind the leg-up you have. For Irish flute in particular, fingering is basically identical. The upside of Irish flute is that you get a lovely range far lower than tinwhistle, and much more control of tone; if a tinwhistle is an automatic transmission, an Irish flute is a stick-shift. Uillean takes a bit more transition, since you're dealing with reeds and have to learn how to use bag and bellows, but tinwhistle crosses over enough in fingering skills that it's basically a pratice instrument for the uilleann.  (as discussed on page 1 or so, student uilleanns with chanter only run mid $300s for a self-assemble kit, or $500 for fully assembled)
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Jul 8, 2011 06:17
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HELP, MY ARM-- posted:Reading this thread has been awesome and I learned a ton, like I really really want a Hang. However, because I don't have 500-2000 to drop on one, I've looked elsewhere to fulfill my musical needs. Did you see the HAPI drum a few pages back? They're similar but $300ish. Clip.  quote:I'm ogling the Chinese Flute(dizi): http://www.eason.com.sg/products/dizi/dxh%28d%29.jsp  Looks to be pretty similar to any other bamboo flute, so fingering should be pretty easy, and embrochure is just a matter or working to learn the breath angles until you get it. So steeper learning curve than fipple flutes (tinwhistle, NAF), but nothing that people don't self-learn all the time. So far as getting one: I'd ask at Flute Portal about who's a good quality seller/make. If you're into the Chinese thing, or find the dizi has a distinct tone you like more than other bamboo flutes, sure, get a dizi. However, if it either sounds pretty close to other bamboo flutes, or you don't have an interest in specifically Chinese stuff, you might want to just get a good American bamboo flute with six holes, so that all the fingerings for tinwhistle and the like will be the same, you can easily use tinwhistle online learning, etc. I see Erik the Flutemaker mentioned a bunch on Chiff & Fipple and Flute Portal as a go-to guy for bamboo flutes. He makes a huge variety, most of which are quite affordable ($25-75). If you're not set on dizi/Chinese specifically, I'd go to either of those two forums and get a feel for whether Erik's flutes would suit you, and if so which model/key for the kind of music you want to play. What kind of music do you plan to play? EDIT: I looked into it, and the main distinctive thing about dizi (and the reason its proportions look odd) is that it has this extra hole for a vibrating membrane which affects the tone:  Personally, I didn't hear that difference really jump out at me in YouTube clips, though maybe I need to do some comparison listening. But if that feature appeals to you, find a good-quality dizi. Otherwise, regular bamboo flute with standard Western 6-hole fingering. EDIT2: so far as upkeep, for bamboo same as for wood, you mainly want to swab it out after playing to get out your condensed spit, oil it up a few times a year, and don't store it assembled since that can compress the cork/wrap in the joints (depending on how your joints are made). Here's a little maintenance summary and you can find more by just googling "bamboo flute maintenance" or "wood flute maintenance". TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jul 8, 2011 |
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Jul 8, 2011 07:29
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MrGreenShirt posted:Oh thank god. I've gotten pretty good with following tablature notation in the practice book that came with my feadog whistle, but I've never been able to see standard musical notation as anything more than undecipherable dots on strings. Sheet music is a crutch if you're playing trad. I see no problem with a solid ear-player learning dots, primarily so you can open up huge books of written music like O'Neill's Music of Ireland (1,850 tunes) and learn tunes that simply aren't available on recordings. But otherwise it's about always better to hear someone play it, as there are tons of trad nuances that just can't be captured in writing. That's one thing (among many) I dislike about much of American public school music education: since it's classical and/or ensemble music, it teaches a slavish devotion to written notes; I'm always haranguing my teenage cousin for her utter refusal to try improvisation. Hell, the girl won't even transpose unless she has it written down first. On a related note, as a teenager doing Irish jamming with my friends, it drove me crazy that my girlfriend, trying to fiddle for us, could not drop all her silly classical habits like vibrato, and didn't seem to grasp how inappropriate her refusal to adapt her playing style was. quote:It took me a week or so, but I've gotten the hang of all the notes now up to A and B, (or XXOOOO and XOOOOO), in the upper D octave which sound like train whistles for some reason. Maybe I'm still not blowing hard enough. Wait, you're playing XXOOOO on the first overblow? Instead, shift gears down to a lower fingering, but overblow one notch higher to jump a fifth and start from there at XXXXXX. quote:So, can anyone recommend any cool Irish jigs for me to learn? I'm currently working on speeding up my fingering of "The Irish Washerwoman" and I'm hoping to challenge myself further. Swallowtail Jig. Myself, I prefer slides and reels, and almost always the minor key ones. Do note, Irish tends to use the Dorian minor, so on a D whistle instead of playing in B Minor (the normal relative key to D), you play in E Dorian Minor. The normal Western Em would be playing up the scale from E, but playing the Cnat (oxxooo). On the E Dorian Minor, however, you leave the C#, so finger everything just as if you were playing in Dmaj, but your E (xxxxxo) is your keynote. For any novice whistlers reading, if the above is Greek to you, don't sweat it in the slightest. You will eventually learn all this stuff by doing, even if you never learn the technical jargon to explain it, you will certainly hear/feel it just by playing it enough. Same for any other genre you learn. In any event, for popular slides and reels that you're likely to hear at sessions, try learning Road to Lisdoonvarna (reel) and O'Keefe's Slide (really stiff playing, I just can't find a good whistle version). If you want something where you have to factor in a chromatic note (switching between C# and Cnat at different points in the tune), I like Banish Misfortune (also a jig). Note in that last clip, a single melody instrument and bodhran go really well together. Just me personally, I'm not a fan of excessive harmonisation/chords in Irish. I don't care for guitars in sessions (unless they're flatpicking melodies or doing DADGAD or droning or something), just strumming away on chords. Bodhran with one fiddle or flute/whistle sounds great, and you can get the dark and driving sound that I love in Irish more than any other sound it has.  Given all the interest in tinwhistle so far, I'm surprised nobody's asked more about bodhran yet. It is a pretty awesome style of drum, and though its widespared role in Irish music is relatively recent (and huge amounts of its modern technique are modern virtuosic innovations), it seems to have become integral to aspects of the tradition. Though it still ticks me off to see it used in movies as though modern bodhran went all the way back to 1200 AD. The movie Braveheart is pretty much one long agonised groan for anyone into historiocity. Anyway, bodhran can be pretty cool. The only problem is that random chumps assume it's got to be easy because, hey, it's just a drum, and then try to play along with sessions before they have any skills. Not to dissuade anyone from learning, just saying take it seriously and know when you're not ready for prime-time. As an example, here's some serious bodhran skills: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ChbigufBC8&feature=related John Joe Kelly Bodhran also sounds great even just backing up singing with no other instruments: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44IxVw7Qt4Q Kevin Conneff playing while singing  Again, as with everything above, if you're interested in bodhran, read up at Chiff & Fipple or The Session to figure out a good starter brand; don't just buy some tourist cheapie with a Guinness logo at your local Irish 'n' Scottish Stuff store. I do note also that when I was a teenager almost all the bodhrans I saw had the crosspiece on the back, while these days it seems the ones with an open back and a thumbhole have become dominant for various reasons of developing playing styles. Interesting seeing the trend change to the "Kerry style" bodhran. 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 08:54 on Jul 8, 2011 |
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Jul 8, 2011 08:45
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Cardiovorax posted:It's a D-scale Sweetone. I made sure to check for that because someone mentioned that it was apparently the most popular kind to play. Should make finding tutorials a bit easier drat glad you read that part of the thread. I always fear someone's going to get a C and get all mopey that they "wasted" $6. Honestly, I never really cared for Cs; D is classic, Bb is pretty cool and the lowest whistle that's still cheap, and I like both Low F and High F. Low F is just about as big as I can go and still use standard finger position (vice "piper's grip" for the really big 'whistles), and High F is high, but somehow not as shrieky as the High G one step above it. quote:Thank you, that looks like it will all be very helpful, especially the advice on actually getting a proper sound out of my flute. I'll make sure to check out the forum you recommended as well. Yeah, breathing is the key. I wouldn't even try to do other stuff until you can breathe a smooth, pretty note. Then scales, then tunes. quote:I'm afraid I won't be able to get much regular practice in before semester break, because I live in a dorm with fairly thin walls. It's like 80 degrees outside. Don't be all neckbeardy, go to the park and get some fresh air. quote:It's good to know that I probably won't need to know notation, although I think I'll endeavour to learn it anyways. Never hurts, but I'd focus on getting good at playing first, rather than put the cart before the horse. Doesn't do much good to read if you can't competently play what you're reading. quote:I might want to graduate to a different instrument once I get the hang of actually playing a blowing instrument; a relative of mine used to play semi-professionally and I'm fairly sure he still has his old concert flute around. I've always loved those things, but could never bring up the time or money for some proper instructions. No doubt, even if you transition you'll still have whistle skills, and the whistle skills will be a great foundation for whatever else you learn. I'm biased towards keyless Irish flutes, but just try as many things as appeal to you until you find what clicks.  quote:I'm eying the Egyptian flute and love minor keys. Do realise that you can play in minor keys on "major key" flutes (and vice versa, though I think playing minors on a major is easier). For example, as mentioned above on pennywhistle, to play Dmaj you start the scale on xxxxxx, while to play Em you just start on xxxxxo, so pretty easy. Generally speaking you can play quite a few different scales on a given flute, depending on which note you start your scale on, and also by techniques to shift the pitches of fingerholes by fork-fingering (like oxxooo) and half-holing (shading part of the hole with the pad of your finger vice covering it). TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Jul 8, 2011 |
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Jul 8, 2011 08:52
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Okay, not as weird as some of these other items, but relatively unusual and worth learning. Mandolin  The mandolin has eight strings, but doubled close enough together that they're fingered and treated as four single strings. This doubling adds a lot of volume to a small instrument, and also gives a sort of shimmery feel to the notes. It's tuned the same as a violin, GDAE, so if you ever played violin you can probably figure out quickly how all the melodies you know transfer over right away. I actually learned a little history while preparing this section, as I didn't know exactly how the mando came to the US. Turns out in the 1880s there was an ensemble of Spanish musicians who did a bunch of sold-out concerts in the US, playing a mandolin-like instrument. This kicked off a trend, and for a while the mando was popular, but more in a pop music and semi-classical kind of bow-tie setting. At some point in the early 20th century, various hilbilly bands were using mandolin, but mainly as a lame backup instrument you give to your least talented young cousin to strum quietly on. One of those young strummers, however, was Bill Monroe. I won't go into the whole story here, but basically he completely changed mandolin technique, became the head of a chart-topping band, and literally invented the genre called "Bluegrass".  He basically single-handedly made the mando cool, and now it's a staple of bluegrass, as well as popular in Irish, jazz, indie bands, and a cameo performer in tons of other genres. It has a lot of bright high end, with a little bit of rumbly low, it can be played lightning fast, and it has great control over its chording which allows real complexity of rhythm. Let us pause for a moment and observe: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NcCgsAMxhs&playnext=1&list=PLB3CCB517D38566C6 The Man himself. For context, mandolin tends to do "chop" rhythm chords when backing. The stand-up bass is like a drummer's kick-bass doing the downbeat, *boom*, and the mandolin is like the snare, going *chuck* on the upbeat. Note the other distinctive feature of bluegrass is the "breaks", having a bunch of solos for most of the band, which is a cool way to hear each instrument come in. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKvDtWeyO5c An actual music video of Jerry Garcia backed up by David Grisman, a master mandolinist who often dropped in to help out the dead, but is in his own right one of the best players since Monroe. Slower song, so less lightning, but more groove. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z3A5Tgy47M Modern Irish mandolinist Andy Irvine, back when he played for Planxty in the 1970s - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xfy9W9my_w Mandolin is what defines a lot of Led Zeppelin tracks, like Battle of Evermore; here Page plays solo for a documentary.  Okay, so what if you want to get one? The good news is that decent starter mandos are pretty affordable, and there's also a huge repository of advice at the forum Mandolin Cafe. Last year I emailed a sailor I was working with in Afghanistan over cheap-but-decent starter mandos, below is what I dug up: quote:Did some reading-up on the forums at MandolinCafe.com (the main internet mando disccusion forum), and it seemed the hands-down recommendations for inexpensive starter mandolins were the Rover and the Kentucky. With a decent starter mando from a reputable seller, gig bag, picks and strap, and some books, you could have a hell of a good settup for under $299.  So, that's the basics of cheap starters, and scads more info on the forum. Definitely get the pocket chord book, it's simply the best. Overall, it's a versatile instrument with a lot of character, and equally good at adding rhythm-heavy backup or blistering solos. Compact, works fine with small hands, inexpensive, and can fit into most kinds of music out there. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jul 9, 2011 |
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Jul 9, 2011 01:29
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Xiahou Dun posted:poo poo, I didn't think it was obscure enough or I would've done it. Should I do bouzouki or mandocello then? Dang, I'd asked for someone to do it from NMD:ML, but nobody turned up, so I jumped on it. Yeah, if you want to do CBOM and mandocello (maybe toss in a shout for mandola too?) that'd be awesome. I believe withak plays a bouzouki (well, I sold him one I got in a pawnshop, so I assume he plays it), so he may come in in a bit, but feel free to take the lead on it. Can I suggest one mandocello clip? quote:if anyone is interested in balalaika, in my limited experience it is hard to find ones with decent tuners. ... i found some better replacement tuners here http://www.imperskaya.com/tuning_pegs.htm but you have to check the peg spacing, etc. there's a lot of variation in balalaika design. Great find, dude! lovely tuners are all too common, but on a lot of instruments really easy to replace; balalaika not so much since you need a really long shaft on the lowest key. If folks can't find tuners that fit right, and have a not-valuable balalaika, you can always just get some decent banjo or ukulele friction tuners, since those just go straight through the back and so the wide head won't matter:  Next instrument, since I can't find any goon that plays them except the one on Pg1 who's learning this summer: Hammered dulcimer  Very old instrument, found in Europe well back into the Middle Ages, and probably comes from Persia originally. Over time, it spread across most of Europe and Asia; I don't know for sure, but I believe it was brought to the US by German immigrants, as it seems well-established in Pennsylvania and the like. The instrument is essentially an ancestor of the piano: a big zither you hit with hammers. You can't hammer a normal zither very well since the strings are close together, but on a HD the strings angle up and down, so they stagger themselves making individual pairs of strings easier to hit. It's not a difficult instrument to start on; basically it's like playing piano with two fingers. You can play awfully fast once you get going, and it's a pretty cool feeling to have those hammers bouncing from one string to the next. In the US it's mainly used for Celtic and a bit for Old Time, though it's actually quite a flexible instrument overall. Though I enjoy playing HD, I have trouble finding recordings I like of it, since too many people that own them like to play Ye Olde Dance of Ye Lame Faeries and such kind of movie-soundtrack ambient "Celtic" stuff I can't stand. The instrument does, however, sound extremely awesome for darker, or avant-gardier stuff; it can be quite chillingly stark as a solo instrument.  Here's my attempt to find clips that don't spoil a good instrument: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQIeV7cf-5w&feature=related a couple Irish jigs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrKfyjE0DYg a little Old Time hymn music; I had read that some itinerant preachers used to haul small hammered dulcimers around, as it was more portable than an organ yet classier than the devil's instruments like the fiddle. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSZWsKYZ4Ew Persian santoor backed up by a tonbak drum - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J99dDdCotPg And here's some edgy neo-classical So far as finding one, these critters are surprisingly affordable given their size and all the strings going every which way. I'll go out on a limb and say that they're easy to build, basically a box that you put a bunch of pre-made bridges and tuning pins onto, and you're set. You can buy very reputable major-player (Dusty Strings) student HDs for like $500 new, and there are plenty of smaller makers making 15/14 HDs (that is, 15 sets of treble strings, 14 of bass) for $300ish, 12/11s for $200ish, and 9/8 "backpacker dulcimers" under $200. Backpacker dulcimers are quite cute, and about the size of a laptop so a bit more doable for dorm students; limited scale, but all the skills would cross over to a larger if you upgrade once you have more space/money. I would just, like most things, avoid buying anything where you can't go on the Everything Dulcimer forum and find real players saying "yeah, I got a Model Y and I love it!". They're also so affordable there's no point buying crappy imports (setting aside imports of actual serious Persian or Indian instruments), since you can get them hand-made in the US by folks with an actual reputation to uphold for totally reasonable prices. My folks had one years ago they bought randomly out of the newspaper classifieds, and it was fun, but I move a lot these days and don't have a huge place, though after writing this I'm (dammit) taking a hard look at a little 9/8 backpacker that I can just slide under the bed in a case when not using. Today I did also get another instrument that I ordered after running across it while working on this thread, so I've been rocking a Meinl fibreglass udu drum this afternoon. I also have a couple more things in the mail coming to me that I'll share later.
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Jul 9, 2011 21:46
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quote:Ordered it today. Can't wait for it to come!!! Awesome! Hayden duet is a really intuitive layout, so I imagine you'll be figuring it out most quickly. This fingering system was apparently invented in the 1970s of so by a British concertina player, Hayden, who had a sudden brainstorm. He got some maker to start producing "Hayden duet system" boxes, and then years later folks discovered that a Swiss designer named Wicki had invented the exact same thing in the 1880s, but nobody has ever found any boxes actually made with Wicki's system, so its unknown if they were all lost/destroyed/coverted to other systems, or whether he just never sold anyone on the idea. Looking forward to hearing how it strikes you when it comes in. The guy who runs Concertina Connection also builds these, in case you ever feel like spending 20 times as much:  Lovely though. Cardiovorax posted:Is it normal for a Clarke to sound kind of rough and squeaky with all its holes open? I've been doing breathing and the basic scales and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, but the higher notes sound really horrible and indistinct to my ears. Hmm, I tried this on a few of my other whistles (albeit in different keys). Trying to keep myself from instinctively adjusting breath pressure to mellow the tone, my Generation can be a little rough if I don't adjust breath, whereas my Susato is slick no matter what. Again, I don't really care for Susatos, but they are drat smooth. What I would suggest is that you experiment with breath on that specific note, trying all different pressures and seeing if you can mellow it out. If so, then it's just a matter of learning, over time, to adjust your breath slightly for various notes, which becomes instinctive. If no matter how you blow it it sound a little rough, then that's just the way it be, and not a dealbreaker or anything, just a characteristic. On a concertina sidenote:  MIDI controller built in the Hayden concertina system, just some pieces of wood and wiring. Unfortunately the site with the plans and writeup is down, but if someone is genuinely interested we can use the Wayback, or I can check on the Concertina Forum and see if anyone has it downloaded.
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Jul 10, 2011 04:42
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BIGFOOT PEE BED posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RfkgsMENx8 Let the record show, however, that the serpent is loving amazing.. M Godard is now, hands down, my favourite brass player.  We covered the serpent a few pages back; one of y'all brass players should definitely take this up, especially since there's a good make for just $600ish these days. quote:I played with a toy button box today and have learned that (like harmonica) I totally cannot wrap my head around the idea of having two different notes come out of one key. :-/ Depends how it clicks for the individual; it can be very intuitive, especially for harmonies. I kind of have a similar thing, but where I have no problem picking out melodies/harmonies on diatonic accordion, but somehow can't play Anglo concertina at all, despite it being essentially the same thing in a different layout. Weird. But in your case at least you're consistent. If you want a concertina, you're going to need to go Duet or English instead. quote:Any suggestions for a collection of simple tunes to learn to play? I would like to expand my folk music repetoire anyway. For Duet concertina, I started out droning on the left hand while playing melodies over that on the right, then moved 2-3 chord songs doing 2-finger chords on the left and melody on the right... and I honestly haven't gone much further than that since concertina is a minor secondary hobby for me, and the above is plenty for basic backup/jams. So far as tunes, I'm a big fan of drony/dark stuff on concertina, and Shape Note melodies work great for that. My first recommendation would be Idumea (sometimes called by its first line "O am I born to die?"). You need one note below the keynote, so I'd play it first in Dm, so the words "oh am" are D, and then C for the start of "I", then D then F. You can probably figure out the whole rest of the melody from there. On the left hand, drone on the lowest D and A. If you want to make it a 2-chord, drop to C and G as your ear indicates a chord change. Here's an interesting clip of several versions of Idumea, some of which sound like they might be concertina. I can't believe I haven't seen this clip before (2008 upload), and I'm going to promptly order the album this came from, and look into the band's other works. Another tune that works well with a straight drone is Sergeant MacKenzie (also called "Cauld, Cauld Ground" by people apparently unable to use Google to look up song titles). For starters, just ignore the pipe intro and just play the melody with a single drone. Do note this a recently-composed song by a Canadian folk musician, whose grandfather was bayoneted to death in WWI, but still a great tune, and one a wider audience might be familiar with. When I was first in Afghanistan, 82d Airborne was using this as a funeral song, which fit quite well. If you want to see it in context of the battle scene that made it famous, clip here (requires log-in for violence). There are a bunch of other tunes I like to play, but a lot of them just aren't up on YouTube at all, so I need to get off my tail and record myself playing. I also do a pretty fun version of Akon's I'm So Paid on Duet concertina, so I need to upload that too. Oh, for a fun three-chord bluegrass piece with good rhythmic possibilities, try the spiritual Blood of the Lamb. We've been pretty weak on electronic instruments since Pg1 when we had theremin. There was a goon who was going to come in and do electronic stuff, but he hasn't popped in yet, so I'll do an easy one: Stylophone  The stylophone is, per Wiki, a "miniature stylus-operated synthesizer". Basically, you put the stylus on a portion of the keypad, it closes a circuit and produces a note. You can tap or slide to other notes, etc. So it's purely a melodic instrument, chromatic though not huge range. It was primarily made as a novelty/toy, and lasted on the market from 1968-1975. Despite it being mostly a novelty, it showed up in a goodly number of recordings by actual bands: David Bowie, Erasure, Marilyn Manson, They Might Be Giants, Kraftwerk, etc. For most of those folks, I think they were using vintage models, which used to go for near $100 on eBay at one point. However, in 2007 a company bought the rights and brought it back into production, so you can get them at Urban Outfitters for $25 or so. Note that Jack White played one on a Raconteurs album, so you can still find some Limited Edition Raconteur's Model variants online, as well as a ton of YouTube clips from a stylophone contest the Raconteurs did.  These are very easy to play, and with a little skill can be pretty cool. Also a fun instrument just for playing along with your stereo, since they're chromatic, always in tune, and handy. For $25, you can't go too wrong. Clips: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkTQsOQLEeU An early Brett Domino piece, so nowhere near as polished or goofy as his later stuff, but it's all stylophone accompaniment of the sort anyone here could learn in short order. Make sure to watch his other videos for more complicated electronic stuff. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juD3nWpUunU Original 1960s instructional record by Rolf Harris - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHgziac87-Y TMBG doing Particle Man with stylophone (though honestly a bit spastic, homeboy needs more practice) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaXFsygp93Q&feature=related Stylophone ensemble: Albinoni's Adagio. Low-res, apparently filmed on a train, but somehow captivating EDIT: There is a stylophone website, Stylophonica.com. Not too amazing, and their forum is pretty dead, but still some useful info. Plus you could always just post in their semi-dead forum for kicks and see what turns up. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 10, 2011 |
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Jul 10, 2011 17:33
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withak posted:There is an Andean flute where you blow across a notch in the end. Agree, my first thought was that it's probably a quena: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quena  If yours is hard to play, it's a toss-up between "you're not doing it right" and "it's a decorative tourist item that's not really playable." Only way to find out is to buy yourself (or build yourself) a decent quena and see if you can play. For those inclined, handy, or cheap, you can make a quena for about a buck's worth of PVC, a pocketknife, sandpaper, and maybe a scissors (in place of a drill). I'd had good luck in the past drilling fingerholes in a piece of PVC by sipping one blade of a scissor in a hole and them smoothing it out. Here's a pic of someone's finished one:  You can do the same for shakuhachi actually (which is blown in a very similar manner): http://www.fides.dti.ne.jp/~sogawa/englishpagepvc.html http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-Shakuhachi/  Looking at the shakuhachi forum, I found it interesting that their main recommendations for noobs were "spend $500-1000+ on a carefully handmade bamboo shakuhachi from some master-crafstman in Japan" or "get a piece of PVC and a pocketknife and get busy." In fairness, these were instruments traditionally handmade by wandering monks, so I'm guessing huge numbers of old-school shakuhachi were pretty rough affairs, so I'd submit it's not at all against the spirit of the instrument to just make one from available materials and start zenning out.   EDIT: Any of y'all who have eBay accounts, one small thing if you feel like helping smack people who are dicks there: certain musical terms, particularly those for some foreign instruments, tend to be spammed into listing titles. For example, I'm looking for "harmonium" (those little Indian pump organs), and some asshat has a listing for a bass sitar entitled "SURBAHAR~BASS SITAR~SAROD~TANPURA~VEENA~TABLA~HARMONIUM". Clearly, his item is only the first two of those, not a harmonium, not a tabla (drum), etc. If you run across such things, please open the auction, select "Report item", and then choose "Listing practices", "Search and browse manipulation", and "keyword spamming." Doing so will help alert eBay that these jerks are messing up their search engine by dumping everything India-related together instead of showing sarods to sarod seekers, etc. Not a huge deal, but if you're on eBay anyway it'd be cool to pitch in on. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:25 on Mar 20, 2012 |
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Jul 11, 2011 00:50
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In keeping with the Stylophone's theme of "toys for adults": Oh, and by the way, I somehow managed to acquire a ridiculous number of Stylophones, and if my idea works I should have x times absurd number of them in a few weeks. I'm cornering the market on these bitches. Toy piano  Various toy keyboard instruments (harpsichords, clavichords, etc) were made in history, probably going back as far as the 1600s or so when the instrument really took prominence (wild guessing here). But in any case, by the late 1800s factories were making them, but with, of all dumb things for a child's toy, glass bars as the resonating piece. Yep, child's toy where little hammers hit glass bars. Then in the late 1800s a Kraut immigrant named Albert Schoenhut was working at Wannamaker's department store in Philadelphia, fixing all the broken toy pianos they imported, and suddenly got the idea to use thin steel rods to produce the notes instead of glass. The Schoenhut company is still making toy pianos 140 years later. The toy piano is pretty much a steel-bar xylophone with little levered keys on it. Push the key, it swing a hammer that hits a steel rod and sets it vibrating to the pitch determined by its length. Pretty simple, pretty durable. Like most things, some proto-hipsters got a hold of them and said "whoa, wouldn't it be totally random to record songs with these?" (or however hipsters talked in the 1950s). So then we get the likes of John Cage and... a whole massive list of avant garde pianists I've never heard of, but apparently they're very famous, using the toy piano in compositions. So far as more modern bands using toy piano: Tom Waits, Primus, B-52s, Agitpop, Evanescence, Radiohead, Warren Zevon, Tori Amos, Sigur Rós, Vampire Weekend, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Old Canes, and The Dresden Dolls.  So far as brands, the main serious makers are Schoenut (reorganised but still pumping 'em out) and Jaymar (bought out by Schoenhut). Wiki also mentions Hering (Haring?) in Brasil and Zeada in China, but I know nothing about those. Toy pianos come in various sizes, from flat tabletop ones the size of a laptop, to upright tabletops, to stand-alone tiny spinets and grand pianos. I'd say your best bet is to go on eBay and get a used Schoenhut or Jaymar, get a new Schoenhut from whatever kids' retailer. The two main pianos are pretty well made (for toys) and aren't necessarily cheap-cheap. It's about $50 for a new upright-tabletop Schoenhut, which isn't bad.  Most of the clips of these are avant-gardey stuff, so if you're into that, you're drat set: Clips: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIPtKgGedsk "Mozart's Piano Sonata No.11 "Alla Turca" played by Eiko Sudoh - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A2RRiimbW0 John Cage's "Suite for Toy Piano" played by Ellen Chen - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bea3eTKN3nA&feature=related Matthew McConnell's "Concerto for Toy Piano" with a dude playing a little tiny piano in front of an orchestra
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Jul 11, 2011 04:31
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The Letter A posted:I have been playing ukulele for a few years now, and that is a ton of fun, but I figured last week it was time to try something new. That'd be an Apple Creek then, right? Get tuned up, start just experimenting with it, in all the different tunings. Recall that the tuning defines the scale, so DAD and CAD will give you entirely different sounds on the dulcimer. On YouTube, check out the Dulcimerica podcast series, and also dig up the free online book In Search of the Wild Dulcimer, the hippie classic. Do you know what kind of music you intend to play on it?
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Jul 12, 2011 00:54
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Angra Mainyu posted:If anyone wants pictures you'll have to pm me on how the hell to do it. http://tinypic.com/ If your pics are large, use the Resize menu to shrink them down to 800x600 or smaller. Awesome, glad you're enjoying it. First musical instrument ever? Are you mostly improvising on it, or have you tried yet to learn any American Indian tunes, or any other tunes (like some old hymns and whatnot) that fit that scale well? quote:The ID of the flute has not been sanded out which I could theorize would help tone and might be a feature on higher end flutes Not necessarily; a rough interior affects the tone, sometimes in positive ways, so it's entirely possible that the ID is deliberately left unsanded so as to mellow out the tone. At the other extreme, plastic instruments can often sound too "clean", so people will actually rough up the inside of plastic didjs, flutes, etc. to add some "fuzz" to the sound. quote:I'd be happy to come back and write up any other electronic instruments you might want to hear about, Awesome, do you have any opinions on the Korg Monotron, Korg Kaossilator, and the Rebirth app for the iPhone? Any position on how those would be as starter instruments for noobs looking to try out electronic instruments? Any other cool iPhone/iPad musical apps? I've been curious about DigiDrummer, since it's used in various Brett Domino tracks. Moving back into the acoustic stuff I know better: Bağlama (often called Saz by Westerners. The "ğ" is silent)  The bağlama is a Turkish instrument, part of a larger family of similar instruments throughout the Northern Middle East and Central Asia. It seems to be part of the Persian family from which the dutar and setar come from, but hell, that's most things with strings in Asia. In any case, it's a bowl-like body with a long skinny neck, with six or seven strings strung in pairs. The frets, unlike what we're used to, are tied on pieces of cord (fishing line these days), so they're movable and adjustable. They also have more frets than a comparable Western instrument would have, in order to play some of the smaller tones of Middle Eastern scales. For those interested in taking it up, you'd probably have an easier time learning foreign music on this than many other instruments, being that it's fretted, so the finger positions are quite well-defined. And even if you don't get into specifically regional music, it just sounds drat good in general. It's surprisingly akin to playing an upright Appalachian dulcimer in concept, though a wirier but richer sound.  Clips: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i89BHMQWIc&feature=related A dude who looks oddly like Alice Cooper improvising on baglama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=809qWrlxnMg A Kurdish saz player hanging out at home - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXdsU1J3rfo A Swedish Jojkpolska on baglama, illustrating that completely unrelated types of music sound great on this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSyatsFM2Aw Dude with a guitar slide doing baglama blues Overall, if you're not too focused on actually learning a foreign style of music, the basics of this aren't much harder than dulcimer, overall easier than guitar due to fewer strings, and definitely a very distinctive sound. So far as where to get them, I had an opinion, read some folks online arguing against, then read some folks arguing for it and came back around. Long/short, for a baglama, I'd risk getting a cheapie from a reputable seller. They're like $89 for a small cura saz (which are still pretty good-sized, and its pronounced "jura") from Lark in the Morning, who I wouldn't normally recommend, but I owned one of their sazlar in the past and it was a great bang for the buck. Honestly, saz is kind of hard to dick up, all things being relative. I'd even risk getting one on eBay if the guy had good enough feedback for selling other baglamas. As one guy on Mike's Ouds said: "I was repairing an $800 baglama that had cracked its back, and it was a pain removing the rosette, getting inside it and all. And it occurred to me that at that price you could get a dozen from Lark in the Morning, keep the best one, and give the rest away." Truth. If you're European (and this might even be a good deal for Americans), there's http://saz-hamburg.de/ . I don't know of them directly, and they sell some ouds that are probably cheaper than you want to be buying, but I wouldn't feel uncomfortable risking $100 on a baglama from them. They have curas for €45, larger sizes for €119. For Americans, if you are so incredibly enamored of baglama that $600+ doesn't sound bad at all, these guys have a strong recommendation from folks at Mike's Oud Forum: http://www.touchtheearth.com/saz.htm  TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Jul 12, 2011 |
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Jul 12, 2011 03:55
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Xenoid posted:TapTheForwardAssist could you do that American-South instrument that is a bucket upside down with a string on the top? That has always fascinated me.. Right-o. Washtub bass (or "gut bucket", Anglos have the equivalent "tea chest bass", tons of other variants)  In America, the washtub bass is the standard low-end instrument for jug-bands. The Brits used the tea-chest bass in the same way for the later genre called skiffle. In whatever case, it's a version of one of the earliest musical instruments ever, the musical bow. Same basic principle, vibrating piece of string, flexing an arm to change its tension, but with the added bonus of a resonating body to amplify the sound. quote:Not that we're anywhere near to exhausting the list of weird/less common musical instruments, but any chance at a write-up on jaw harps or harmonicas? We briefly covered harmonicas way back on the first few pages, but feel free to PM him to bring it back in. I can cover jawharps in a bit; might cover them at the same time as musical bows since they're pretty similar. At its simplest, a washtub bass is a upside-down bucket with a hole in it, a string secured through the hole and at the other end to the top of a broomstick. The stick is then placed against the body (in most designs), levered to stretch the string, and the string is then either plucked or hit with a stick or whichever.  So far as getting one, illiterate farmers in areas so remote that they saved every glass jar and piece of twine managed to make these, so I don't see any reason folks here couldn't scrounge up some materials. As long as you have the basic idea down, you can't go too wrong. So far as instructions, take your pick: http://www.jugstore.com/washtub.html http://tubotonia.freehomepage.com/tublinks.html#plans http://www.myspace.com/thekahunacowboysjugband/blog/292154552 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUs4xxhoQKs Don't overthink this poo poo. So far as variants, plenty of them. Particularly cool is the whamola which has a lever handle rather than angling the stick:  There are also folks who add a fretboard to a washtub bass, but for my money that's kind of getting away from the classic design. If you want to finger your bass, maybe make a bottle bass. This site is in Polish, but it's not like the text matters.  If you would rather buy than DIY (or just want to get the idea for another design), the folks at Bogdon Bass make a ready-made kit for building a cardboard bass:  Unfortunately, it's hard to really hear bass well through tiny laptop speakers, so you might need to rearrange your listening settup to enjoy some of these: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6cTbaBApM4&feature=related Good but short demo of a carboard bass - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_2AgJh078g&feature=related Electric whamola - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ixgeQawY9Q&feature=related Acoustic whamola - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt3a8mflFsQ&feature=related Really cool bottle bass clip by that Polish guy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYA-6hWqifk&feature=related interesting washtub variant, appears to get some great tone/volume I looked through a lot of clips trying to find just pure washtub bass, but most of the clips I looked at either the mixing was too bad to hear it properly, or the people were so annoying I wanted to knock their teeth in. I am totally open to having the best washtub bass video clip if anyone wants to find the best one and bring it back here. quote:The [Native American] flute fingering is not as straightforward as I thought, but I am adjusting. Just got my NAF in the mail today: Northern Spirit, made from ABS plastic. The simplest version of the pentatonic scale is really easy to finger, but as I mess with it (haven't bothered looking at a fingering chart), I'm struck by the variety of chromatic possibilities from cross fingering. These things cross finger (i.e. hit middle notes by an interspersed mix of open and closed fingers) really easily and cleanly, so I can already puzzle out a blues scale by switching fingers around. These are also much harder to over-blow than a tinwhistle, to the point it takes me real effort to hit the next octave. That double-chamber design really mellows out the tone, and adds a lot of stability to the bass octave. Glad to see more goons taking up NAF; if you want to learn an instrument, but are really intimidated by most of these, NAF is one of the easiest wind instruments to learn the basics on. It can do a lot of fancy things down the road, but as a starter piece it almost takes deliberate effort to sound bad on. Angry Mainyu, is your girlfriend no longer fretting, now that she's heard how chill NAF is to have around the house? TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Jul 13, 2011 |
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Jul 13, 2011 03:07
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Angra Mainyu posted:She's much more relaxed now that she has heard it. The NAF is also pretty easy to play quietly, which is nice. Just a quick question on cross-fingerings: does the following produce a clean-sounding blues scale for you? XXX XXX XXX XXO XXX XOO XXX OXO XXX OOO XOX OOO OOX OOO quote:She's much more relaxed now that she has heard it. The NAF is also pretty easy to play quietly, which is nice. Awesome, maybe you can use your good example to convert her too. Also, if you can impress/romance her with it, it'll make buying a drone flute all the easier when the time comes.
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Jul 13, 2011 03:56
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Angra Mainyu posted:EEWWWW that sounds bad, but maybe I don't know exactly what blues scale is... For the last three, are you sure you're not doing this on the top hand? XXX XOX OOX Generally speaking, the hole third from top is the one that's optional/extra, so a lot of folks, on their most basic fingering, leave that finger down the entire time, or in some cases even cover it up with a bit of tape or band of material (rubber, leather) so they don't need to pay attention to the extra hole. quote:I play up the fact that flutes were originally played as part of the courtship process. Gets me doe eyes approximately 25% of the time.  On a less romantic note, I noted that how I set down my ABS flute makes a difference; if I set it down wrong the spit pools and blocks the airflow. I know with wooden flutes it's pretty important to let them rest every 30min or so (people that play for hours generally have several flutes and switch between them), and to set them in a fashion so they dry out properly when not in use. On plastic ones, spit isn't going to damage it, but since it has no absorptive ability the spit does pool fast if you let it. I'm used to that on pennywhistle, but for that you just flick your wrist sharply and knock the spit onto the ground. Good thing most Irish pub sessions aren't overly class affairs. EDIT1: a clip on playing blues on NAF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY0wA1nRiro EDIT2: And a bit more medium-skill since it involves partial-holing, but here's a clip on playing a Middle Eastern scale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dynKXvS4_4 TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Jul 13, 2011 |
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Jul 13, 2011 04:13
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Got to dash out to the motorbike to take a friend to go get Japanese noodles, so I"ll make this a quick one, since there's basically one maker and this is a variant of an established instrument: Didjeribone The didjeribone is a variant on the Australian Aboriginal didgeridoo, invented by a white Australian dude probably around the 1970s or so. As noted earlier in this thread, though didj has its unique musical role, it's not always easy to use in other styles of music. It doesn't change tones a lot (and not particularly tunable), it's mostly a drone with a whole lot of interesting effects. Along comes this Charles McMahon, and combines the didj with trombone. Bam:  In this pic, you can see the yellow inner and red outer tubes, which can slide against each other to lengthen or shorten the tube, and thus change the note. This was (and apparently is) a bit controversial, as there were some who felt he was dicking with an ancient and primal religious instrument, but McMahon and others say that there are traditional Aboriginal musicians who think it's just a brilliant idea, so it just depends who you talk to. I haven't played a ton of didj, and haven't tried one of these, but given that you could certainly play it without moving the slide, at least at first, I don't reckon it'd be any harder than any other didj. Note too that even if you didn't want to slide while playing, you could use the slide to tune it to a specific song and then leave it in place. They actually sell a cheaper version for doing just that, with a less-efficient slidy bit but with a locking mechanism to hold it in place once you've tuned it. So far as getting one, there might be some knockoffs out there, and you could probably build one (though getting it to slide as smoothly as you like is probably trickier than you think), but the primary company is the one making McMahon's original design, and I can't fault him for doing good business on a pretty clever idea: http://www.didjeribone.net/. AUS$160 shipped worldwide.  Yes, that's McMahon. Bet the dude has some stories... Clips: - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZifAZBgHBQ&feature=related McMahon himself demo'ing the instruent, and his "Face Bass" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFyc4xOIi_k Another, trippier, McMahon - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MfV8fo0dDo&feature=related Tjupurru is a young Aboriginal musician, here doing some looping tracks during performance - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44aXY1uSrBU&feature=related Ordinary dude beatboxing on didjeribone, so a cool combo of techniques Filthy hippy instrument? Sure. Fun? Definitely. I have to admit this is another instrument tempting me (stand by in a week or two for pics of how much crap I've acquired while working this thread). The main limit of didj for me was its, well, limits in terms of tone, as doing endless variations on a drone is a bit much even for me. But I am deficient in the brass instrument department, and this seems a cool way to get in some low-end and be able to play along with a wide variety of keys, since as a slide instrument it can play in any key just by ear. Have any of our few resident goon didj players tried these out? I wish there was some way I could cross-post this in TCC, as wherever stoners are gathered you're guaranteed to find a didj player (and a djembe player), so I'll see what I can dig up. By the by, this page is overall worth reading for didj variants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_didgeridoo_designs
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Jul 14, 2011 00:39
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BigHustle posted:
Groovy. What kind of music are you going to play on it? Not to commit you to a LiveJournal post, but if you have any comment on how you came to choose autoharp as your next endeavor, that's be useful quote:The strings are tarnished as hell, so those are going to have to be replaced. I can pick up a set of strings online for $60, which will still leave me having spent about half the cost of a new one. Hay goon, before you go spending cash, might want to ascertain how bad your tarnishing is. Are we taking "grayish and a little scratchy" or are we talking "black and crusty" or "red and flaky"? If more the first of these, try googling up "tarnished strings", "cleaning autoharp strings" and other such keywords. You might be able, depending, to take a few bucks' worth of steel wool and white mineral oil and polish up your strings decently. I was hanging out with a friend yesterday, and brought over an NAF to show her, thinking I could let her try it and see if she liked it. Before I even mentioned having an NAF, or having one with me, we were talking about learning instruments, and she says "yeah, I think it'd be cool to learn one of those Native American flutes." So I felt pretty slick when I hauled it out of the backpack and said "oh, like this one I brought for you to try out?" In fairness, it wasn't that amazing of a guess since she's a filthy hippy, but the timing was pretty cool. It's a Northern Spirit flute, made from ABS plastic so not pretty but conveniently durable: 
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Jul 14, 2011 13:35
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Sounds like you're on good track then; will be cool to see how you end up adapting autoharp to your sound and ergonomics. And yeah, if you can buff up the strings a little that'll save you some expense in the interim. I'll do a new instrument tomorrow, but just wanted to do a quick follow-up on the didjeribone: Didjflute Though I'm sure there must have been other people who've tried this, I've only run across one selling them commercially so far. Basically, a didge with finger-holes:  There's a sound-clip on the manufacturer's site (http://www.didjbox.com/flute.php), but that aside the only YouTube clip I can find is, bizarrely, a clip of someone playing it for their dog, and only the dog is shown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrvlc1nSw3I The main maker has plastic ones for $50, which doesn't sound bad. They don't have much range, just C-D-E-F-G, but that's five times as many notes as a regular didj has. Overall ran across a few other interesting didj variants while searching. Didges that double-back on themselves to save length seem pretty cool, and there are a few makers who make didges where the exit ends up pointing back at the player's face so that they can hear themselves play; one model is appropriately called the "mindblower". If anyone has a didj or has a filthy hippie friend with a didj, I do recommend "didj massage". You can get a pretty cool feeling from just the bass washing over your skin: 
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Jul 15, 2011 00:38
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