Standard practice among professional bodhrán players is to wrap the rim of the instrument with black electrical tape. That pretty much tells you all you need to know about the antiquity of that practice. But then, another standard of Irish music is the penny whistle, and Robert Clark of Manchester didn't start rolling them out of tin plate until 1840. (To be fair, fipple flutes are documented far earlier than that in the isles...back through tabor pipe and flagolet and eventually to what appears to be a bone flute discovered in a neanderthal grave.)
The earliest documentation of the gue in the Shetlands is also in the mid nineteenth century. The presumed ancestor(s) are attested to no earlier than the fifteenth century. But, again, the concept of the bowed lyre goes way, way back. So it isn't terribly presumptuous to assume something like the gue or a two-string talgaharpa -- as well as a frame drum somewhat resembling the bodhrán in shape and material if not in performance practice -- was in use by the Norse of the Viking era.
Not that I care overmuch. I'm composing a piece around my new gue, and I'll use whatever instruments sound good with it.
On reflection going for a worn, found-in-the-attic look for the gue was unsatisfying. Several people have expressed disappointment that I didn't chose to sand it down fine and give it a nice glossy coat of urethane. In all honesty, I would have had to spend a lot longer building it in the first place in order for it to stand up to that kind of detailing. In any case I still took it back to the shop and gave it another coat of polish.
Basically everything worked. It is also kinda neat that I made my own strings, meaning the only parts in it that were designed by someone else as part of a musical instrument are the pegs (and I could have carved my own.) I've been messing around with tuning to various pitches and shifting the position of the bridge. There's a fairly narrow zone of pitches where they work well on the string (not too tight, not too slack) and still sound good on the sound board. Similar constraints on the bridge placement; towards the sound hole improves the melody string at the cost of unbalancing the blend with the drone, but too far stretches the scale length until the fourth finger is no longer a comfortable reach.
The biggest problems are that the strings are a little too far apart to make it comfortable to finger both simultaneously, and the heel is awkward to clamp between the legs (as is not just standard practice, but the best position I've found so far). I've also changed to a reverse grip on the bow; jouhikko practice is apparently to use the forefinger to tension the bow string but I'm disliking the groove that puts in your finger and using the thumb works better for me.
##
Cherry did not work well for me on my first experiment with making a frame drum. I had some strips of 1/16" veneer so I soaked it and applied a heat gun used for stripping paint. It didn't bend nicely. Most of my sources lean towards dry bending, but in any case the hot pipe bending tool seems clearly superior. Fortunately one can be made with as little as a tin can and a light bulb.
There also seems to be a nearly even split between negative and positive forms. I found it a pain to shove strips of wood into a hole so next time I'll try wrapping them around a disk. But, really, I've been doing too many personal projects at work and not putting enough hours on the time card. Spent eight hours in the shop this Saturday and only four of them go on the clock.
(It also seemed to wear me out to where I never quite got it together today to go out and shoot some video. I'm anxious now to shoot the footage for Uncharted Worlds so I can go and retune the instruments from that back to either standard tuning or the Dorian mode I'm thinking of for the new piece.)
I am rather wanting a smaller, higher pitched hand drum for the new piece. That's the second reason to eventually find the time to build it (the primary reason is to learn how to bend wood). Also means buying a goat skin at some point. Oh, and the standard decoration for a bodhrán after the skin is glued down is upholstery tacks and a ribbon. Which would be a natural application for my card loom. Which I have yet to learn how to use. Which also might be short of cards to make a wide enough strip. Which would be nicest if I had a laser to run a few more off to the pattern I already have. Did I mention TheShop is closed for relocation, no other information forthcoming?
And so it goes. At least in the interim I can practice the gue. The Kreisler highway is narrow indeed on that instrument, and the zone where bow speed and pressure and tension (remember, you can adjust bow tension on the fly with a taglaharpa style bow) is equally narrow. Plus of course this is a fretless instrument, meaning muscle memory alone for where all the notes are.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Thursday, March 28, 2019
Hello World
I'm just watching a video from a bodhran maker (Irish frame drum) named Hedwitschak who lives in Bavaria and likes pizza. The bodhran appears fairly late in Ireland but frame drums are world-wide. They probably wandered into Europe from the Middle East in the medieval era, as did so many other instrument types, but the chance is they had also been developed independently -- as they were in the Americas.
Yeah. I've been making that point in the current novel. The theme to the thing is "Ownership of History" by which I mean both artifacts (qua "antiquities") and meaning (interpretations of archaeological and folkloric heritage). A lot of this one is Greek identity, both the difficult relationship modern Athenians have with their long history, and the way the classical era, particularly, has been re-purposed to the needs of other cultures; from foundational to the origin myth of Western Civilization, to fodder for modern fringe groups.
But this is the balloon perspective. On the ground, the first Athenian my protagonist has a real conversation with she mistakes for a recent immigrant. Actually, he's from an Eritrean family that's been in Greece for a couple of generations.
And it turns out her own background is typically American. That is, dad is a hulking Swede from the Midwest, and mom a small, dark, mercurial and intense central European (possibly Polish) of one or two generations back. She moved sideways from research chemist to biochemist (as did the author of my favorite chemistry blog) when she decided the traditional (according to a neighbor of mine) whiskey-and-cigarette voice of the working research chemist was all the damage her lungs needed for this lifetime.
Dad is a session jazzman. He is a musician's musician, so deeply knowledgable about theory he ended up with an amateur's interest in mathematics (basically your Martin Gardner sort of stuff). He also has ongoing health problems and had to switch to an Ashbory to save his back. So now everyone calls him for that Paul McCarthy sound, despite the fact that he can get whatever he wants out of the Ashbory and Paul used a Hoffner anyhow.
Yeah. Once Penny started talking to me, she wouldn't shut up. The next big conversation I had with her, I asked if she maybe had a stuffed animal and would bring it with her to Athens in case she got a severe case of homesickness. She told me she hadn't even looked at a stuffed animal in years but she still had Fang, a very plump white bunny she'd basically gotten from her older sister.
"What older sister?" I asked. "I thought you were an only child." Turns out no. And the ideas spilled out from there. And it does make sense; we like to think of our heroes in terms of what they are now and what they do but we are all creatures of our heritage. She grew up in a family, she has an ongoing relationship with them, and it informs her present character.
Even though none of it may show up in the book. That's the thing, you know. You always know a bit more than you actually put on paper.
Yeah. I've been making that point in the current novel. The theme to the thing is "Ownership of History" by which I mean both artifacts (qua "antiquities") and meaning (interpretations of archaeological and folkloric heritage). A lot of this one is Greek identity, both the difficult relationship modern Athenians have with their long history, and the way the classical era, particularly, has been re-purposed to the needs of other cultures; from foundational to the origin myth of Western Civilization, to fodder for modern fringe groups.
But this is the balloon perspective. On the ground, the first Athenian my protagonist has a real conversation with she mistakes for a recent immigrant. Actually, he's from an Eritrean family that's been in Greece for a couple of generations.
And it turns out her own background is typically American. That is, dad is a hulking Swede from the Midwest, and mom a small, dark, mercurial and intense central European (possibly Polish) of one or two generations back. She moved sideways from research chemist to biochemist (as did the author of my favorite chemistry blog) when she decided the traditional (according to a neighbor of mine) whiskey-and-cigarette voice of the working research chemist was all the damage her lungs needed for this lifetime.
Dad is a session jazzman. He is a musician's musician, so deeply knowledgable about theory he ended up with an amateur's interest in mathematics (basically your Martin Gardner sort of stuff). He also has ongoing health problems and had to switch to an Ashbory to save his back. So now everyone calls him for that Paul McCarthy sound, despite the fact that he can get whatever he wants out of the Ashbory and Paul used a Hoffner anyhow.
Yeah. Once Penny started talking to me, she wouldn't shut up. The next big conversation I had with her, I asked if she maybe had a stuffed animal and would bring it with her to Athens in case she got a severe case of homesickness. She told me she hadn't even looked at a stuffed animal in years but she still had Fang, a very plump white bunny she'd basically gotten from her older sister.
"What older sister?" I asked. "I thought you were an only child." Turns out no. And the ideas spilled out from there. And it does make sense; we like to think of our heroes in terms of what they are now and what they do but we are all creatures of our heritage. She grew up in a family, she has an ongoing relationship with them, and it informs her present character.
Even though none of it may show up in the book. That's the thing, you know. You always know a bit more than you actually put on paper.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
Gue Gone
Shetland Gue is done. Most of the surprises were positive. I was going for the rustic look of the Charlie Bynum museum replica; I didn't waste a lot of time with finish sanding -- in fact I sanded back the stain to mimic weathering. Used linseed oil for the finish -- although I did do a light pass of "Finish restore" to give it a bit of shine. After three days of prep the ebonizing solution did actually work, but I didn't care for how it looked on my sample piece. That's an experiment for another day.
Rather than spend forty-plus bucks on a peg shaver I used the peg hole reamer on a block of white pine and stuffed sandpaper in the resultant tapered hole to make a simple shaper for my pre-made violin pegs. They fitted nice and tight, hold tuning, and move smoothly enough to allow me to get close to pitch so that's a win.
Despite my misgivings three loops of sisal twine plus wrapping proves plenty strong and stable. (Most gue builders follow modern jouhikko practice and use a tailpiece that can be fitted with violin fine tuners. But I liked the nautical look of Charlie's stick tailpiece. That's an actual twig from the local woods, there. The standard is a tail pin, though; the only ones I've seen with holes drilled through the body are a couple of Michael J. King's builds.)
And the strings proved much easier than I'd feared. As per guidance from a jouhikko builder I wet the hank of brown Mongolian horse hair and combed it out. Then I separated the appropriate number of individual hairs, tied a figure-eight in the end and dripped superglue on the knot to secure it. Cut a slot in the end of the violin peg with the bandsaw and it was a simple matter to drop in the new string and tension it up.
My hair count for 28 for the high string and 36 for the drone. I've prepped another string at a 60-count that I may swap in to see if I can tune lower and still get a good sound. But I'm not unhappy with the pitches I get now; scale length is 19" so, unsurprisingly, it seems to want to tune to around guitar.
The other experiment is shaving the bridge -- or carving a new one. I'd like to see if a thinner, more flexible bridge produces more volume. I did find out after gluing a bass brace to the sound board that bracing a sound board generally dampens the low-order modes, producing a stronger top and a brighter sound.
The bow is also a work in progress. I need to rosin it up before I can test to see if I like the traditional jouhikko technique of tensioning the bow with your forefinger. For testing I'm using my third-best bow (the one that shipped with the Cecilio).
The next string instrument I'll tackle will probably be a ukulele. Although I have all the parts to run off a quick solid-body uke (something I've been planning for a while), I'm intrigued by classical construction and wood bending and would like to try an acoustic.
Or I'll make a hand drum. Viking drums are basically unrecorded archaeologically, but frame drums have been found in almost every culture world-wide. I could get my feet wet...wood wet...with bending by doing a frame drum, and I could use a small drum in some of the pieces I'd like to record next.
Monday, March 25, 2019
Hair Gue
Bronchitis is finally fading. Still coughing a bit but energy is back. And only six more performances to go until the kid's show is over!
Body of the Shetland Gue is done. Stained it today, and slapped on a coat of linseed oil (or as some of the woodies call it, "BLO.") I'm trying for a bit of a rustic look for it. I was hoping that by staining it, then sanding off some of the stain and re-staining, I'd get a nice weathered look. Doesn't seem to be quite happening. Also learned of a new trick; ebonizing wood with a ferric oxide solution, which can be made by sticking steel wool in vinegar until it turns into rust then mixing that with strong tea (no, seriously). Unfortunately it takes weeks and I don't have the patience to do that this time around.
Bought some cheap violin tuning pegs. I did get a peg hole reamer, and some rosewood to mess around with hand-carving, but shaping the pegs themselves requires an additional tool that starts in the high forty bucks and is well over a hundred by the time you arrive at Stew-Mac. The pegs seem to fit nicely. I have no idea if they'll actually let me tune, though (that majority of Jouhikko/Talharpa builders use violin fine tuners in their tailpieces. Most of them use nylon strings, too -- horsehair is not exactly stable in changing humidity.)
I also wasted some time twisting sisal twine into cordage. My instinct says it still won't take the load. I know one instrument builder who got rawhide strips by cutting up a dog's chew toy (no, he didn't take it from the poor dog. He bought his own). After snapping both leather and nylon I went to steel wire on the tailpiece of my Sutton Hoo lyre. But there's a museum replica build of a Shetland Gue that has a really lovely stick-and-twine tailpiece and I wanted to try to capture that look.
Or...maybe it's sinew on that replica. And I think I have a spool of that left over from trying to fashion a tool roll for my "abo" flint knapping set.
Yeah, so this is even more an experimental instrument. I think the stresses are larger (although the actual string loading is probably less), I know the body is thinner, this is also using pegs for the first time, and has bracing on the sound board. I do at least have a few decades of experience with making things out of wood so I have some instinct for grain and splitting and how stain behaves and so on, but I've been watching a lot of videos and it is alarming how many other things builders are worrying about, from acoustics of tone wood to book-ending patterns to differential swelling in changing humidity.
I've been following several ukulele and lute builds. For as cheap and simple as a uke looks, there's a lot going on inside there. All sorts of bracing and backing and dove-tails and so on. And that's without even laminate necks and perfling and...
So the Gue may not sound good. It may even explode when I put it under tension. Which is why I'm trying not to sweat the fine polish on this one.
##
Meanwhile the novel is back in Atlantis. Atlantis is coming at me three ways. There's the student film Penny made, with her playing an Adventure Archaeologist poking around a ruin looking for clues. And there's a later conversation in which she is interesting and informed. And there is a possible later book in which she is hired (more like pressured) to find the place for real.
And finds something. Not the Atlantis either of them expect, perhaps not an Atlantis at all. So that goes into the mix, too.
So the student film needs to stand as an example of how far she has come since then, but still have some ideas that are interesting enough to explore later. And I've been toying with throwing in the Sea Peoples (because everything goes better with Sea Peoples) but they and the Bronze Age Collapse are just too far off topic for the central mystery of the novel (that is, the so-called Dorian Invasion of some 400-600 years later).
The only thing I've narrowed down is that the Minoans are a blind lead. Everyone goes to the Minoans, and everyone mentions Thera, but the Minoans weren't Atlantis and that's that.
I'm also still trying to define Penny's character, her voice, her background, her appearance. I was talking to her today, asking her how she would describe herself. She described her hair as "coarse, black." And then said, unprompted, "I hate my hair."
Um, really? That didn't even feel in character. I asked her to expand, and she said, "My friends with fine, straight hair say they'd trade anything to have my hair. I say they're full of shit." Okay...that sounded in character. Penny will snark at any excuse, and I know it is a thing for many women to be always judging themselves, holding up their own appearance to some impossible benchmark, but actually hating any part of herself...well, that just isn't her.
So, I guess that's progress. But at this point I need to see how she functions in actual story. I need to write actual scenes, not notes. Which means solving Atlantis.
Body of the Shetland Gue is done. Stained it today, and slapped on a coat of linseed oil (or as some of the woodies call it, "BLO.") I'm trying for a bit of a rustic look for it. I was hoping that by staining it, then sanding off some of the stain and re-staining, I'd get a nice weathered look. Doesn't seem to be quite happening. Also learned of a new trick; ebonizing wood with a ferric oxide solution, which can be made by sticking steel wool in vinegar until it turns into rust then mixing that with strong tea (no, seriously). Unfortunately it takes weeks and I don't have the patience to do that this time around.
Bought some cheap violin tuning pegs. I did get a peg hole reamer, and some rosewood to mess around with hand-carving, but shaping the pegs themselves requires an additional tool that starts in the high forty bucks and is well over a hundred by the time you arrive at Stew-Mac. The pegs seem to fit nicely. I have no idea if they'll actually let me tune, though (that majority of Jouhikko/Talharpa builders use violin fine tuners in their tailpieces. Most of them use nylon strings, too -- horsehair is not exactly stable in changing humidity.)
I also wasted some time twisting sisal twine into cordage. My instinct says it still won't take the load. I know one instrument builder who got rawhide strips by cutting up a dog's chew toy (no, he didn't take it from the poor dog. He bought his own). After snapping both leather and nylon I went to steel wire on the tailpiece of my Sutton Hoo lyre. But there's a museum replica build of a Shetland Gue that has a really lovely stick-and-twine tailpiece and I wanted to try to capture that look.
Or...maybe it's sinew on that replica. And I think I have a spool of that left over from trying to fashion a tool roll for my "abo" flint knapping set.
Yeah, so this is even more an experimental instrument. I think the stresses are larger (although the actual string loading is probably less), I know the body is thinner, this is also using pegs for the first time, and has bracing on the sound board. I do at least have a few decades of experience with making things out of wood so I have some instinct for grain and splitting and how stain behaves and so on, but I've been watching a lot of videos and it is alarming how many other things builders are worrying about, from acoustics of tone wood to book-ending patterns to differential swelling in changing humidity.
I've been following several ukulele and lute builds. For as cheap and simple as a uke looks, there's a lot going on inside there. All sorts of bracing and backing and dove-tails and so on. And that's without even laminate necks and perfling and...
So the Gue may not sound good. It may even explode when I put it under tension. Which is why I'm trying not to sweat the fine polish on this one.
##
Meanwhile the novel is back in Atlantis. Atlantis is coming at me three ways. There's the student film Penny made, with her playing an Adventure Archaeologist poking around a ruin looking for clues. And there's a later conversation in which she is interesting and informed. And there is a possible later book in which she is hired (more like pressured) to find the place for real.
And finds something. Not the Atlantis either of them expect, perhaps not an Atlantis at all. So that goes into the mix, too.
So the student film needs to stand as an example of how far she has come since then, but still have some ideas that are interesting enough to explore later. And I've been toying with throwing in the Sea Peoples (because everything goes better with Sea Peoples) but they and the Bronze Age Collapse are just too far off topic for the central mystery of the novel (that is, the so-called Dorian Invasion of some 400-600 years later).
The only thing I've narrowed down is that the Minoans are a blind lead. Everyone goes to the Minoans, and everyone mentions Thera, but the Minoans weren't Atlantis and that's that.
I'm also still trying to define Penny's character, her voice, her background, her appearance. I was talking to her today, asking her how she would describe herself. She described her hair as "coarse, black." And then said, unprompted, "I hate my hair."
Um, really? That didn't even feel in character. I asked her to expand, and she said, "My friends with fine, straight hair say they'd trade anything to have my hair. I say they're full of shit." Okay...that sounded in character. Penny will snark at any excuse, and I know it is a thing for many women to be always judging themselves, holding up their own appearance to some impossible benchmark, but actually hating any part of herself...well, that just isn't her.
So, I guess that's progress. But at this point I need to see how she functions in actual story. I need to write actual scenes, not notes. Which means solving Atlantis.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
Gue news
So of course it didn't last.
Saturday was also two performances of the kid's show. Under two hours drive out, over three back, making about a ten hour day. Walked into the woods on the way back to collect some sticks for a lyre bow.
Mixed on an unfamiliar board (Behringer X32, not actually that different in concept than the Yamaha LS9 I spent so many years on). The real problem was having no sound check. Not the first time I've had to deal with this, though. I was able to fire up the board long enough to play a sample of the backing track and thus set my rough master level and gain staging.
Took the spare body pack up to the booth and that gave me a ballpark trim and fader setting. So then I roughed in the rest of the mix levels based entirely on dressing room chatter. The first minute of the show was of course a mad scramble as I trimmed up everything to where it actually needed to be but having that ballpark and making sure I'd gain-staged to where the signals would be a useable level (not on the verge of clipping, not at the bottom of the fader travel either), really helps.
Sunday walked around the lake. Had a slight cough but didn't think much of it.
Saturday was also two performances of the kid's show. Under two hours drive out, over three back, making about a ten hour day. Walked into the woods on the way back to collect some sticks for a lyre bow.
Mixed on an unfamiliar board (Behringer X32, not actually that different in concept than the Yamaha LS9 I spent so many years on). The real problem was having no sound check. Not the first time I've had to deal with this, though. I was able to fire up the board long enough to play a sample of the backing track and thus set my rough master level and gain staging.
Took the spare body pack up to the booth and that gave me a ballpark trim and fader setting. So then I roughed in the rest of the mix levels based entirely on dressing room chatter. The first minute of the show was of course a mad scramble as I trimmed up everything to where it actually needed to be but having that ballpark and making sure I'd gain-staged to where the signals would be a useable level (not on the verge of clipping, not at the bottom of the fader travel either), really helps.
Sunday walked around the lake. Had a slight cough but didn't think much of it.
Woke up early on Monday, walked to work, carved out the sound box on my Shetland Gue during break and almost put in a full day. But was starting to really hack and wheeze. Crawled home, threw the HEPA filter on turbo mode, and collapsed on the futon.
Bronchial cold. Didn't kill my energy so bad, but really took the inspiration out of doing anything when every time I got my blood moving I'd go into a paroxysm of coughing. Of course Tuesday was another performance so I suffered through that then crawled back into bed.
Today, I'm taking off work completely.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
So up he rose to run once more
Finally over the 'flu and in the middle of that excess of vigor that comes sometimes. So did something I've been dreaming of for a while. Literally. I have this recurring dream where I wake up well before dawn and decide to go out for a run.
It went better than I'd feared. My endurance is shit right now. Could only run a block or two before I had to drop to a walk. But after a few rounds of that I caught a glimpse of the "zone." My heart finally answered the engine-room telegraph, the bounce came into my stride, etc. I erred on the side of cautious for this first time out, of course. And I'll have to see how my legs feel two days from now. But I'm aiming to do it again. (Plus now that the rain is over, resume walking to work on alternate days).
Started building a Shetland Gue. Made the mock-up above to check dimensions. This may look crude, but it is capturing bridge placement, scale length, "action" height, string access, foot shape. I built it to be comfortable held between the legs (seated), and close to vertical, with the supporting hand on the near pillar and the bow at right angles to the string. (I've noticed in videos, though, that many players hold it far off vertical and often bow cross-wise to the strings.)
There's an intentional modification to the traditional design on this one; I opened up the access hole to allow fingering up to the first octave (I also spaced the strings to allow placing the hand between the strings...some players do this to finger the drone string in addition to the melody string).
I did more research on tonewoods, including what woods are native to Scotland, but since this is more an experiment than a fancy instrument I went with white pine once more. I'm pushing the capabilities of that wood, though; taking the back and sides down to around 1/4" (the soundboard is once again 3/16" basswood, but I'm going to experiment with a bass brace on it).
Did most of the power tool work yesterday and probably should have glued and clamped the body then, but I felt like smoothing out the chamber a little more first. But then, the horsehair (for strings) doesn't arrive until next Friday so there's plenty of time to finish the rest.
Uncharted Worlds is done. Good enough. Cut the violin part, played with the mixdown. Really, it should have been an octave down. That's a danger of working from a MIDI file. By the time I'd compared with the original recording, my instrumentation was set.
Lessons learned. I'd really like to have another piece recorded by Tuesday but I can't think of anything that's close enough. Terminator is still struggling -- I want to try the Shetland Gue on that one and see if it solves any of the problems I'm having. At least the trumpet has come along to the point where I should be able to do that part of the Hellboy cover cleanly. Latest exercise has been rolling up and down the partials as fast as I can, top to bottom and back again.
But I have two performances today, I might want to go into the shop Sunday and put a couple more hours on the timeclock, and I might be walking to work Monday...
It went better than I'd feared. My endurance is shit right now. Could only run a block or two before I had to drop to a walk. But after a few rounds of that I caught a glimpse of the "zone." My heart finally answered the engine-room telegraph, the bounce came into my stride, etc. I erred on the side of cautious for this first time out, of course. And I'll have to see how my legs feel two days from now. But I'm aiming to do it again. (Plus now that the rain is over, resume walking to work on alternate days).
Started building a Shetland Gue. Made the mock-up above to check dimensions. This may look crude, but it is capturing bridge placement, scale length, "action" height, string access, foot shape. I built it to be comfortable held between the legs (seated), and close to vertical, with the supporting hand on the near pillar and the bow at right angles to the string. (I've noticed in videos, though, that many players hold it far off vertical and often bow cross-wise to the strings.)
There's an intentional modification to the traditional design on this one; I opened up the access hole to allow fingering up to the first octave (I also spaced the strings to allow placing the hand between the strings...some players do this to finger the drone string in addition to the melody string).
I did more research on tonewoods, including what woods are native to Scotland, but since this is more an experiment than a fancy instrument I went with white pine once more. I'm pushing the capabilities of that wood, though; taking the back and sides down to around 1/4" (the soundboard is once again 3/16" basswood, but I'm going to experiment with a bass brace on it).
Did most of the power tool work yesterday and probably should have glued and clamped the body then, but I felt like smoothing out the chamber a little more first. But then, the horsehair (for strings) doesn't arrive until next Friday so there's plenty of time to finish the rest.
Uncharted Worlds is done. Good enough. Cut the violin part, played with the mixdown. Really, it should have been an octave down. That's a danger of working from a MIDI file. By the time I'd compared with the original recording, my instrumentation was set.
Lessons learned. I'd really like to have another piece recorded by Tuesday but I can't think of anything that's close enough. Terminator is still struggling -- I want to try the Shetland Gue on that one and see if it solves any of the problems I'm having. At least the trumpet has come along to the point where I should be able to do that part of the Hellboy cover cleanly. Latest exercise has been rolling up and down the partials as fast as I can, top to bottom and back again.
But I have two performances today, I might want to go into the shop Sunday and put a couple more hours on the timeclock, and I might be walking to work Monday...
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
Likely to be bitten by a Gue
I'm working on the final mixdown of Uncharted Worlds. Re-recorded the fiddle part on the steel-string JP2, using a capo for the very first time ever. (Usually I retune, but this was played way up near the 12th fret).
The violin part is not working and I may abandon it. Here's the thing; you do home composing with MIDI instruments, you tend to write for strings as if they were a synthesizer pad. So long sustained notes. Which is not exactly easy on a single violin. Certainly not at my level, where each direction change is quite audible. (It's the violin equivalent of running out of breath on a long note).
Also I suspect that it may not be possible to have a part there. The piece as written has a lot of suspect harmonies already. You don't notice because these are fast arpeggios; a maze of twisty little passages, all similar. So all those out-of-chord tones come across as passing tones. Put one of the notes in a long sustained violin passage, though, and you start to notice the bass and the soprano recorder part are in disagreement and there are minor seconds everywhere.
Still, it is something I'd like to try to conquer. If not for this piece, for another. So I'm spending practice sessions just playing single notes over and over, trying for smooth starts and silent bow changes. And, of course, work on my vibrato some more. (Recent experiment demonstrates that hand vibrato might be superior on the chin-cello. Those heavy strings and consequent heavy bow pressure are not as compatible with proper arm vibrato).
And then there's another alternative. Above is a Shetland Gue; this picture being a museum replica by Charlie Bynum. It probably came to the islands North of Scotland with the Vikings, and is strongly related to the Finnish Jouhikko, as well as the Estonian Talharpa, and is a representative of a wide-spread family of bowed lyres (among which belongs the Cretan Lira, which looks rather more violin-like but shares the lack of a fingerboard with the strings being stopped by a light touch on the side).
Unlike the similar-looking plucked lyre of which examples were found in Trondheim and in the Sutton Hoo ship burial, there exist only period descriptions of the Gue. It appears to have had two horsehair strings tuned a fourth (or fifth) apart.
So, yeah. I've ordered the proper black Mongolian horse hair, and a peg hole reamer which just showed up today, but otherwise intend for my first attempt to do a simple pine body.
One thing I won't do right away is put the final mix up on YouTube. I'm not going to get as elaborate with the video but between weather and time and all I'd really rather be recording the next piece in the list rather than traipsing around the woods with a camera.
The violin part is not working and I may abandon it. Here's the thing; you do home composing with MIDI instruments, you tend to write for strings as if they were a synthesizer pad. So long sustained notes. Which is not exactly easy on a single violin. Certainly not at my level, where each direction change is quite audible. (It's the violin equivalent of running out of breath on a long note).
Also I suspect that it may not be possible to have a part there. The piece as written has a lot of suspect harmonies already. You don't notice because these are fast arpeggios; a maze of twisty little passages, all similar. So all those out-of-chord tones come across as passing tones. Put one of the notes in a long sustained violin passage, though, and you start to notice the bass and the soprano recorder part are in disagreement and there are minor seconds everywhere.
Still, it is something I'd like to try to conquer. If not for this piece, for another. So I'm spending practice sessions just playing single notes over and over, trying for smooth starts and silent bow changes. And, of course, work on my vibrato some more. (Recent experiment demonstrates that hand vibrato might be superior on the chin-cello. Those heavy strings and consequent heavy bow pressure are not as compatible with proper arm vibrato).
And then there's another alternative. Above is a Shetland Gue; this picture being a museum replica by Charlie Bynum. It probably came to the islands North of Scotland with the Vikings, and is strongly related to the Finnish Jouhikko, as well as the Estonian Talharpa, and is a representative of a wide-spread family of bowed lyres (among which belongs the Cretan Lira, which looks rather more violin-like but shares the lack of a fingerboard with the strings being stopped by a light touch on the side).
Unlike the similar-looking plucked lyre of which examples were found in Trondheim and in the Sutton Hoo ship burial, there exist only period descriptions of the Gue. It appears to have had two horsehair strings tuned a fourth (or fifth) apart.
So, yeah. I've ordered the proper black Mongolian horse hair, and a peg hole reamer which just showed up today, but otherwise intend for my first attempt to do a simple pine body.
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Were there time enough, and worlds
Rough mix of Uncharted Worlds is done.
Good thing to have done at this point. Recording can be very informative of all the places your skills are lacking. Too informative. Since I'm mixing down in Reaper I have tools at hand that show me just exactly how far off pitch I am, and how far away from the beat I strayed. All those irregularities are mercilessly graphed out in full color right there on the display of the DAW.
Yeah, so much for "simple" string parts. Those long legato lines are murder. I need to spend a lot of practice time just working on clean bowing, silent direction changes, clean starts, etc. And vibrato. My vibrato also needs lots of work.
Related to that, I'm used to practicing. Which means, stopping to find my pitches, stopping for breath, stopping and going back when I drop a note. Can't do that while tape is rolling. One of the unhappy discoveries on this one was while I was rolling the recorder (soprano and tenor) parts in I discovered they were so long I couldn't actually do them on a single breath as I'd been "rehearsing." Because like I said, in rehearsals I stopped when and where I needed to.
Another thing about recording is that it can make it difficult to hear your own instrument. Especially on a project like this, where I'm not memorizing each part over endless practice sessions, I'm dependent on having the temp track playing in my headphones so I can get the notes right. And of course you are listening to the metronome and trying to stay on it. With all that, you tend to miss a lot of errors of intonation and articulation.
Another discovery. It is good to start recording parts early instead of trying to get the MIDI mock-up perfect. I mentioned recorders above; turns out the tenor part was too low for my Low D penny whistle (which is what I'd planned in the mockup.) Fortunately I had that new tenor recorder, never used before, and I think recorders actually work better.
I mentioned earlier that col legno was how I intended to approach one fast, extremely high (C7) part. Well...on the mic, the strike of the wood was overpowering that A string (I was way up in fifth position on it). So went to bowing instead. Which doesn't, really, blend. Similarly, I had a steel-string acoustic guitar in the mock-up but the new tenor ukulele (currently tuned to guitar top four) has a robust enough sound it worked great.
So, yeah. The two pieces on the top of the table right now, I'm going to experiment with the actual instruments earlier in the process. Perhaps unfortunately, they are not "Bardic covers." Instead I'm looking at electric guitar, trumpet, sax...and more violin. And bass, which I did use for the Galaxy Map song...but it was a really, really easy (and not terribly idiomatic) part.
Good thing to have done at this point. Recording can be very informative of all the places your skills are lacking. Too informative. Since I'm mixing down in Reaper I have tools at hand that show me just exactly how far off pitch I am, and how far away from the beat I strayed. All those irregularities are mercilessly graphed out in full color right there on the display of the DAW.
Yeah, so much for "simple" string parts. Those long legato lines are murder. I need to spend a lot of practice time just working on clean bowing, silent direction changes, clean starts, etc. And vibrato. My vibrato also needs lots of work.
Related to that, I'm used to practicing. Which means, stopping to find my pitches, stopping for breath, stopping and going back when I drop a note. Can't do that while tape is rolling. One of the unhappy discoveries on this one was while I was rolling the recorder (soprano and tenor) parts in I discovered they were so long I couldn't actually do them on a single breath as I'd been "rehearsing." Because like I said, in rehearsals I stopped when and where I needed to.
Another thing about recording is that it can make it difficult to hear your own instrument. Especially on a project like this, where I'm not memorizing each part over endless practice sessions, I'm dependent on having the temp track playing in my headphones so I can get the notes right. And of course you are listening to the metronome and trying to stay on it. With all that, you tend to miss a lot of errors of intonation and articulation.
Another discovery. It is good to start recording parts early instead of trying to get the MIDI mock-up perfect. I mentioned recorders above; turns out the tenor part was too low for my Low D penny whistle (which is what I'd planned in the mockup.) Fortunately I had that new tenor recorder, never used before, and I think recorders actually work better.
I mentioned earlier that col legno was how I intended to approach one fast, extremely high (C7) part. Well...on the mic, the strike of the wood was overpowering that A string (I was way up in fifth position on it). So went to bowing instead. Which doesn't, really, blend. Similarly, I had a steel-string acoustic guitar in the mock-up but the new tenor ukulele (currently tuned to guitar top four) has a robust enough sound it worked great.
So, yeah. The two pieces on the top of the table right now, I'm going to experiment with the actual instruments earlier in the process. Perhaps unfortunately, they are not "Bardic covers." Instead I'm looking at electric guitar, trumpet, sax...and more violin. And bass, which I did use for the Galaxy Map song...but it was a really, really easy (and not terribly idiomatic) part.
Thursday, March 7, 2019
no title
Second performance down. I'll be glad when this show is over. Not that I dislike the show, but I'm still struggling with a bad cold, there's still a big mess from the building fire, and the heavy seasonal rains are upon us (at least things have temporarily slowed down at work -- but every day I take off is a day I don't get paid for).But I wouldn't be me if I wasn't also writing a novel and trying to record a song.
So, yeah, at least I can Commander Data it (the running gag in Star Trek, the Next Generation was that the android would read five hundred books on the subject, only to -- of course -- continue to miss the point.) Which is why I'm reading about more recent Greek history now, Greece under Ottoman and Venetian rule, and eventually some Captain Michalis and other literature.
And it turns out I was in the wrong octaves on Uncharted Worlds. It's a basic problem with MIDI; there's little agreement on whether to use C3 or C4 as Middle C. Worse, some instruments are essentially transposing; that is, the bass in a software synthesizer might play an octave or three below where it is notated. So I did a spot-by-spot check on voicing against the OST (Original Sound Track recording) and adjusted. Played that back and didn't like it. So now I'm up in the air about what ranges I'll actually be using. And I've become sensitized to elements of the original arrangement that I now am struggling to try to include in my cover.
After a much-needed nap I recorded the bass part as warm-up, then tried a new shot at the Mini-Hoo part. Turns out the next part is almost playable on the new uke so I'm strongly tempted to keep practicing until I can actually do it cleanly enough to record. Otherwise, it is dropping to 75% tempo and recording at that...which is probably going to be necessary for the much faster "B" section.
In a totally different direction, messed around with a cover of the titles to Otherworld, an obscure and short-lived television series of the 1980's. Different instrumentation challenges on this one so was fun to play around with for a bit.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
Too many notes
Really thought I would be able to start recording parts for Uncharted Worlds today. First track is easy on the Mini-Hoo (even though I have to play it down a fourth because I can't tune the strings that high). After practicing it for a while at faster and faster tempos I decided to split the next track (guitar for this one -- the new ukulele would make it easier but I like the sound of the Yamaha steel string here). Of course there's a B part in this track which I'm still working on.
The bass and "bell" should be easy enough. The next track, though, turned out to be pitched above what I had available; it is above the fifteenth and last fret on my Soprano uke. The pitches are reachable on the violin A string, but pizz is too soft up there. Well, turns out col legno battuto does the trick (if your musical Italian is lacking, that means strike the string with the back of the bow).
And then there's another part I haven't even figured out what instrument to assign it to. So...between all that, and stringing up the new uke, and lingering head cold, and upstairs tenants practicing their Ceili (well, that's what it sounds like), nothing got recorded.
(Yeah, so it is sold as a tenor and shipped with nylon strings. Turns out to be a 17" scale length, which is correct for tenor, but the pack of Aquila Nylgut I got -- tenor, low G -- started snapping when I tried to bring them to pitch. I compromised by moving the highest string back one and putting the nylon back on, but that wasn't wonderful. So put the Aquilas back on and tuned to guitar top four, like my Vorson electric uke. The low G is a little unhappy all the way down at D but it is a wire-wound and can deal. And it was worth it...it is a lot louder now and has a wonderful tone.)
And I spent the weekend charting circles around the large thematic issues I identified in the novel. This is stuff the outline allowed me to skate around, as that was primarily concerned with story beats. So far in five thousand words of Socratic whatever I've managed only two lines in bold face.
I've been trying to determine what it is about a adventure archaeologist story that is attractive. I've identified possible elements but haven't quite defined them; if, say, large constructed but abandoned spaces (aka "tombs" in the parlance of Tomb Raider) are an element, can urban archaeology apply? It can have all the physical difficulties and dangers of traversal, the loneliness, markings of a previous culture to decipher, etc.
The main thing I figured out is that for various reasons (contract with the reader, the concept of the Big Early Concession), I have to be implicit that at least one entity that acts like Homer's Athena is active and can do things that are as yet unexplained. And this doesn't actually change the plot at all. I already had Penny's thoughts wandering in this direction while she's struggling to keep afloat in the Adriatic, and a specific late incident where people refer to a rousing speech she doesn't remember actually giving.
And, yes, what Athena actually is, how many of them there may be, what cultures they may be invested in (or not), is still up for grabs. In fact, I have a strong feeling that though I want to explore more of that mystery in a later book, actually nailing them down to specifics would end up being a disappointment. (In large part, because when a writer tries to do in the wizard by explaining that it was really all holograms and nanotechnology, they've really just replaced an unexplained with an inadequately explained. You might as well say, "it was all done with mirrors" for all that you've actually brought it back to the rational world.)
Saturday, March 2, 2019
Unresearching
I'm still struggling with a lingering cold (sinus headache, frequent coughing) that makes it difficult to concentrate on creative work. So I sit around read. Which is the last thing I need at the moment.
Ideas are easy to come by. Nailing them down and making them work and getting them on paper is hard. I sometimes think writing is easier when you know less. Or as Sam Starfall put it, his lies come easier when he doesn't know what's impossible. The argument here is that of the perfect being the enemy of the good; better to create something, anything, than to wait forever for a perfection that will never come.
So doing more research just leads to more ideas, more directions to explore, more things you might want to fold into the mix. What I really need to do at the moment is un-research.
Speaking of which.
I'm focusing this week on Uncharted Worlds (the Galaxy Map song). I thought it would be simple. The voicing and arrangement mostly is. But the parts turn out to be more challenging.
The first motif sounds wonderful on the Mini-Hoo. Except that I can't play it at pitch. A lyre isn't fretted, and when I tried to tune the strings up to the proper pitches I snapped the top string. So...I've tuned it a fourth below, will record it that way and pitch-shift it in Reaper.
The next part in line sounds really wonderful on my Yamaha 3/4 folk guitar. But I can't play that one at tempo. At this point I'm feeling like I'll play it the fastest that still has grace and expression and...fix it in Reaper.
Might as well give up pretending I could do the thing in concert (as in, play all the parts as written). Which is fine. Instead of carefully trimming a one-bar xylophone until it is at the exact right pitch, I'll just use close enough and tune it digitally. Thing is, the part I'm struggling with isn't even the fastest part. There's a 32nd-note sequence that I could realistically only play on the keyboard.
And, yeah, a nice harpsichord patch would work well acoustically. It sort of breaks the "bardic instrument" thing but I've already introduced chin-cello to the picture. And for this piece, steel-string guitar (acceptable) and electric bass (less so). Maybe I can record it in two takes, playing half the notes each time.
Sigh. And the kid's show (which ended up doing four dress rehearsals -- six hours each in an unheated building. Did I mention I have a cold now?) is apparently not going to pay me until closing night. Including reimbursing me for the new set of speakers I went out of pocket for. Between show and sick my work hours have suffered so my short-term finances are not happy. Which means despite this being one of the pieces I wanted the Baroque-elele for, this is probably a bad time to drop the cash on that.
And of course I looked at harps again. Remember what I said above about research being easier than concentrating on actually getting stuff done? So...doing the Goddess Harp as a laser harp is a cute idea but amber laser diodes are...pricey. Really pricey. Besides, my whole quest on acoustic instruments has been because of the inflection they provide. There might be a way of getting more data out of a laser harp so notes sounded different depending on how you air-plucked them, but...
So back to trying to figure out how to do it acoustically. Really acoustically. Now, it has the general shape of a lyre but there's two sticking points; there's no visible tuning pegs, and the trick of a lyre is that the strings run over a bridge which presses on a soundboard (as opposed to a true harp, where the strings are actually anchored in the soundboard).
Oh, yeah, and I looked at some harp-builder's sites and there's some real interesting math. Here's the thing; your basic "Celtic" harp ends up putting about 900 lbs tension on the frame. You've actually got to engineer the things to take that sort of stress (my Sutton Hoo style lyre, I'd originally tied to the endpin with a doubled length of leather lacing. That snapped and good when I tuned up to pitch).
Ideas are easy to come by. Nailing them down and making them work and getting them on paper is hard. I sometimes think writing is easier when you know less. Or as Sam Starfall put it, his lies come easier when he doesn't know what's impossible. The argument here is that of the perfect being the enemy of the good; better to create something, anything, than to wait forever for a perfection that will never come.
So doing more research just leads to more ideas, more directions to explore, more things you might want to fold into the mix. What I really need to do at the moment is un-research.
Speaking of which.
I'm focusing this week on Uncharted Worlds (the Galaxy Map song). I thought it would be simple. The voicing and arrangement mostly is. But the parts turn out to be more challenging.
The first motif sounds wonderful on the Mini-Hoo. Except that I can't play it at pitch. A lyre isn't fretted, and when I tried to tune the strings up to the proper pitches I snapped the top string. So...I've tuned it a fourth below, will record it that way and pitch-shift it in Reaper.
The next part in line sounds really wonderful on my Yamaha 3/4 folk guitar. But I can't play that one at tempo. At this point I'm feeling like I'll play it the fastest that still has grace and expression and...fix it in Reaper.
Might as well give up pretending I could do the thing in concert (as in, play all the parts as written). Which is fine. Instead of carefully trimming a one-bar xylophone until it is at the exact right pitch, I'll just use close enough and tune it digitally. Thing is, the part I'm struggling with isn't even the fastest part. There's a 32nd-note sequence that I could realistically only play on the keyboard.
And, yeah, a nice harpsichord patch would work well acoustically. It sort of breaks the "bardic instrument" thing but I've already introduced chin-cello to the picture. And for this piece, steel-string guitar (acceptable) and electric bass (less so). Maybe I can record it in two takes, playing half the notes each time.
Sigh. And the kid's show (which ended up doing four dress rehearsals -- six hours each in an unheated building. Did I mention I have a cold now?) is apparently not going to pay me until closing night. Including reimbursing me for the new set of speakers I went out of pocket for. Between show and sick my work hours have suffered so my short-term finances are not happy. Which means despite this being one of the pieces I wanted the Baroque-elele for, this is probably a bad time to drop the cash on that.
And of course I looked at harps again. Remember what I said above about research being easier than concentrating on actually getting stuff done? So...doing the Goddess Harp as a laser harp is a cute idea but amber laser diodes are...pricey. Really pricey. Besides, my whole quest on acoustic instruments has been because of the inflection they provide. There might be a way of getting more data out of a laser harp so notes sounded different depending on how you air-plucked them, but...
So back to trying to figure out how to do it acoustically. Really acoustically. Now, it has the general shape of a lyre but there's two sticking points; there's no visible tuning pegs, and the trick of a lyre is that the strings run over a bridge which presses on a soundboard (as opposed to a true harp, where the strings are actually anchored in the soundboard).
Oh, yeah, and I looked at some harp-builder's sites and there's some real interesting math. Here's the thing; your basic "Celtic" harp ends up putting about 900 lbs tension on the frame. You've actually got to engineer the things to take that sort of stress (my Sutton Hoo style lyre, I'd originally tied to the endpin with a doubled length of leather lacing. That snapped and good when I tuned up to pitch).
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