There's no strings on me

...they're all over my workbench.

So the Vorson is re-strung with D'Addario EJ22's; "Jazz Medium Gauge" nickel-wounds. I shifted them one size up because of the shorter length; B string hung as E string, etc., then tuned them to guitar top four. That means most ukulele and guitar chords translate. Downside is the lowest string is only a D, so no playing the James Bond riff on this guy.

I sort of miss the sound of the original strings -- it was bright and edgy -- but I don't miss those cheese-slicer unwound strings at all. Plays fine through a mini-Fender and with my old Boss effects unit in front of a 10W Tourbus bass amp.

I cut the bridge a little more on the chincello to make it easier to hit the middle strings. That C string has such a high profile (seriously, it's a sixteenth of an inch in diameter). It also buzzes a bit. That's the string that's really pushing it -- going down an octave and a fifth is a bit much for a violin frame. I'm hoping a stickier rosin will help that. Some people suggest turning the bow a little and that seems to help as well.

It sounds quite cool through an amp, even a mini-fender. I haven't tried any effects on it yet.

And, yeah, that's enough stringed instruments so this became my big project this week:

I also wrote it up as an Instructable. After taking the pic above, though, I increased the width to 30" and now it comfortably fits all my strings. Now all I have to do is clear the pile of electronics at the foot of the bookshelf so I can put the stand over there.

Mixing the Kykeon

Prepared Kykeon last night. It's a drink described by Homer with some evidence that it comes from the Late Bronze Age. Main ingredients are red wine, barley flour ("roasted and crushed barley groats") and goat cheese ("grated with a brazen rasp.") Honey likely also features, and that's the recipe I tried for my first attempt; a California Merlot, Spanish goat cheese, locally-made honey, and a little water.

Next time, more water. Otherwise that's a whole glass of wine and that's a lot for me. Spices are referred to but without much detail. Two names did come up; pennyroyal, and rue. Neither will be find at the typical grocery store, as they are not used in any of the common cuisines here: both are described with cautions like "use at intervals to allow the body to recover" and "may cause gastric discomfort." I suspect tree moss and oak gall are similarly hard to source. However, oregano and thyme are also possible for the mix; I'd like to try those.

How is it? Well, basically it's a thickened, sweet wine. Goat cheese does not melt, so it remains lumpy even after being stirred in. So a bit like a thin chowder. It was a bit of a Paddington Brown experience mixing it; under a low simmer it thickens surprisingly, and I kept having to cut it back. It should be thin enough to drink from a cup -- Nestor drank a cup of it. Yes, "that" Nestor's Cup.



On the other hand, my plans for a bronze sword, a trip to the Aegean, etc., are on hold while I build up my finances. I've given in. The weaver is going to be in the book. I need to shape it to allow her.

The big questions I have at the moment, then, is how far to go along the heroic axis. On the one end, the characters are relentlessly ordinary, exemplars of their time and class. On the other, they are demigods in all but name; people with the ridiculous luck and physical prowess of action movie stars. I want to aim for something between these extremes, but I don't know which end to favor.

I also don't know if gods figure in. Or if magic is real. I'm tempted to reverse myself and go with deniable magic; that the scholar has chants from ancient books but he also has herbs from the same books and the latter might have been what actually healed the wound. And so forth.

And I'm not exactly certain what the date is, either. Some of the sources I've been reading claim the widespread destruction in the Mycenaean Empire took place decades before the wave of invasions along the Anatolian coast and into the heart of the Hittite Empire. Heck, even the "Trojan War" is hardly a fixed point -- Wilusa had been attacked more than once, in both legend and archaeological evidence.

I'm not even sure of form. I seem to be looking again at three "books," each in the 30-40K range -- too short to be independent, just awkwardly long enough not to stick between a single pair of covers.



Found a source for Pennyroyal and Rue. The mistake was looking at spice shops. What I wanted was an herb shop.

Oh, yeah, and about those boat guys...

After over a year of research I am no clearer about the Late Bronze Age Collapse than I was when I started. And, yes, this is partially because it is complicated. Very complicated. But the larger reason is because there is no academic consensus. Textual evidence is sparse and often untrustworthy, and archaeological evidence is selective -- in mostly the wrong ways.

In another direction, I've been unable to find any significance in whatever spot I pick out along a somewhat arbitrary line drawn from strictly historical to nearly pure fantasy. There doesn't seem to be a clear advantage in mechanical plotting, in market, in research effort, anything. Best I can say is that you could impose an arrow of "serious" vs. "light-hearted" along that same axis, but even that is arbitrary.

Oh, I suppose I could say that researching something that is archaeologically defensible would probably be more expensive. The references are more likely behind paywalls, in journals, in books that cost in the hundreds of dollars. Renting Hercules Conquers Atlantis would be a bit cheaper.

And, oh, the questions. The Mycenaean weavers are documented in palace records as being paid in grain. Which doesn't by itself make a meal. So one presumes some of one's grain ration would be traded for vegetables, olive oil, etc. To a state-run store? To local farmers in a barter system? I tend towards the former because of the way the Mycenaeans seemed to have their finger in everything. Which makes one suspect strongly there were official rules, and there was graft by said officials, and there were regulations attempting to control said graft, and the whole thing became as complex and dysfunctional as the Soviet economy at its worst.

But is this really defensible? You get glimmers of similar processes happening in Egypt, amid the workers at the Valley of Kings.

So many questions. Many of the weavers had children. Did the fathers work? Were they raised communally? Was being childless looked down upon? Some of them entered the country as slaves. Were there slaves in the weaving hall? Were they manumitted? How "free" were the "free" workers, anyhow?





So call that the "Real History" version. Keep the action around Knossos, at least for one book. Tell the story of the late bronze age within this teacup, and from the perspective of someone who never has the ear of kings.

Step two is spice it up a little; add revolution and secret cults and the coming of the Sea People. Plus add the Egyptian Scribe to our cast, at least.

Then there's the "Tale of..." version. Real people are documented as having made some pretty crazy journeys during the period. So Knossos is merely the start point of a tour of more than one hot spot of the Mediterranean. This is still ordinary people, but now getting into extraordinary scrapes (well, extraordinary in peaceful times. During the Collapse, crazy things happen to lots of people.)

Step past that is when these perhaps-lucky protagonists become Hero Protagonists. They become larger-than-life people that can survive escapades others might not. The Cretan becomes a seer, the scribe becomes healer and scholar, the Athenian becomes a mini-Xenephon.

Then add more magic. In this version, there are forces afoot, perhaps greater dangers lurking behind the visible destruction and conquests. The scholar can now work magic and everyone becomes impossibly skilled at arms.

And at some nebulous point here I have to drop my current cast and start working with people that vaguely resemble those of the Trojan War epics. Because now we move the Trojan War into the main focus. First version of that is new technologies; something new in the Troad that causes the Mycenae to have to go all 300 on them...or start up their Apollo program and start getting Steampunk Roman. This is the purest "Baen Books" version, where the historicity of almost everything is sort of defensible -- at least until things go East.

Then we stop worrying about most links to history and just wholesale enlist Homer's cast and throw them up against Atlantis.

And finally we toss out even those sources and we end up with demigods and heroes from across Greek mythology confronting a Disney version of Atlantis. (And, yet, we are still closer to known history than Xena, Warrior Princess).




So I guess I know one other thing. Wilusa (Troy) is one kind of story. Atlantis is another. And the two don't meet. So if I want to play with my weaver of Knossos, Atlantis, and yes probably most named characters of the Trojan War, are off the plate.

Feadóg Night

The current song is not going to sound good. But it is a good project.

You'd think that such a simple tune, I could just record the parts in and fix anything that needed fixing in the mix. I hope one day I'll be able to work that way. I'm getting better at holding multiple lines and basic harmonies in my head. But the details of an arrangement still need better tools. One of these days, also, I'll be doing that on paper. This time, I'm back to the old trick of making a MIDI mock-up and problem-solving the arrangement there.

Still lots of fun wrestling transpositions around to try to fit melodic patterns of the original into the playable ranges of my chosen instruments. And more work trying to figure out underlying harmonies. I really need to arrange things so I have a full keyboard to work with. It is so much faster discovering harmonies on a piano, instead of trying to hack them out by recording one voice at a time off a 2-octave controller keyboard.

One of the pieces I've been listening to -- "Awakening" from Izetta -- does stuff with harmonic progression I can only guess at. First there's a sequence which appears to be walking down through the chords towards the root. But one step short of resolving, it does a totally unprepared leap to an apparently unrelated key. And seemingly to the V chord, because it then moves up to a Dominant VII and does a big complicated glissando ending with a fermata. And then hits you with the root of the new key just when you can't wait any longer for the resolution. Which is used for the main theme...except that there's another shift (emphasis on the IV? Another key change? I don't have enough theory to tell) that sort of leans back towards the original key/puts it into a sort of minor mode. When it finally resolves back it does so in a greater and more complete manner than the simple heroism the first progression of the main theme was pointing to.

And this hits the underlying story elements perfectly. Izetta is a wild card, something that takes the existing situation/original chord progression and throws a monkey wrench into it. But her victory march turns melancholic the same way Reality Ensues in the storyline, resolving in a plainer heroism that recognizes sacrifice and loss as well as heroics.



So, yeah, I've got a whole lot of musical theory to learn. And the related skills of reading and writing and transposition and ear training.

In addition to the instrumentation. I think I've figured it out. I never wanted to play an instrument. I wanted to play music. And I'm too impatient to get the skills to where I could join a band, so it becomes up to me to compose and arrange and perform everything.

The Bb tin whistle arrived in the mail. Fingering exactly the same as the D whistle, just a wider stance of the grip. And the Vorson. I plugged it into the all-purpose amp, and ran it through an old Boss pedal I was last using as a telephone effect on some show long ago. I like it, and not just because of the generously wide neck (compared to the JR2). Tons of sustain and the finger tremolo I learned on other instruments sounds great.

Of course I'm re-stringing it. It's strung and tuned like a tenor ukulele, and I'm going for guitar. Probably the top four but I need to think about that. Also need a hardier pick.

On the chincello side, stickier rosin at the very least (it is hard work getting the lower strings to play). Lots of chincellists use a cello or at least a viola bow for this reason (just like most Vorson owners re-tune to guitar, usually with new strings -- D'addario seems a popular choice.) Plus, like the reviews noted, the frets could use some dressing so it is worth taking the strings off and doing a little work there.

That's a ridiculous number of instruments, though. I have hopes of being able to focus on one or two at a time as projects come to me. However. The Terminator "Folk Cover" is currently using bodhran, tin whistle, folk guitar, violin, and chincello (plus crumhorn pretending to be bagpipes).

Actually, though, it isn't as bad as it seems. Most of it crosses over; the folk guitar is mostly a larger ukulele; fretting skills and many of the chords translate straight across. Electric guitar is really just new tonal options and a different focus on picking and fretting techniques out of the same box. Same for bass, really. Fingering and tonguing carry through across most of the winds, with the only real outlier being the trumpet (what with valves, slotting, and of course embouchure).

But this goes back to how I approached my first instruments. Way back on recorder, I wasn't content to play the basic tunes. I experimented with and developed (some) skill in trills, vibrato, flutter tongue, multiphonics, glissando, and even tried out "chanter" style fingering (using the pad of the finger instead of the tip). On ukulele, I learned about and tried out slides, lift off's and hammer ons, ras strumming, forefinger and thumb strum as well as finger picking and even attempted claw-hammer. So many of the special techniques asked of guitar, bass, tin whistle, even trumpet were already something I'd tried. Heck, I'd even messed around with slotting on both natural horns and pieces of pipe.

In any case. Unless I have a sudden uncontrollable urge to get a Xaphon or a Pbone, I'm done with buying instruments. Now it's all about the accessories....

Oh yeah. And next shop project? A case rack.

Silence Must Fall

Tried out Yamaha Silent Brass for the trumpet. Not bad. Not bad at all.

On the "silent" side, it lets through more noise than the LotFancy trumpet mute I had been using. Still good enough for practicing in a small apartment, though. The other half of the Yamaha, however, is the built-in mic and pocket amplifier, with Yamaha's touted "Brass Resonance Modeling."

Which works to a point. The sound is clear and removes the major problem with a practice mute; that you can't hear yourself. There's enough there to work on tone, and the back pressure isn't too bad. It's good enough to be scary; over the first run with it you'll find yourself pulling off the headphones just to make sure you aren't blasting the neighbors with a full-open horn. It isn't quite the true trumpet sound, however. More like a cornet. Or maybe a straight mute.

Still, it is good enough to record with, and that makes my tin whistle the instrument most in need of a rehearsal space. Err, and the violin. I just realized I effectively no longer have an e-violin. Not that it mattered, as what I needed to progress was the acoustic violin. And the same objections to trying to practice with a mute, or when I can't open up and play out, are still there. So I may be renting rehearsal space yet.




A thought for Yamaha; if they can do acoustic modeling of a trumpet, putting back in what is lost to the mute, they should be able to do the same for an e-violin or chincello. It isn't so bad on the violin, but cello suffers from that lack of body resonances when done with a solid-body instrument and piezo pickups.



Tin whistle and guitar are coming along. On the guitar, I'm slowly managing to get just enough of the tips of my fingers between those tight strings (3/4 scale guitar, remember) to finger-pick properly. It looks like it will come, with more time. On the tin whistle, starting to get the ornaments, and the breath control.

And sight-reading. That was unexpected. On literature written for the tin whistle, there's few or no accidentals and with some exceptions the hole pattern even matches up with counting bar lines. I'm getting to the point where I just play whatever is on the sheet music without going through the usual mental gymnastics of figuring out which note it is, what the fingering is, etc.



So with the chincello and a little octave-shifted trumpet I can fill out my symphonic resources. I've pretty much got the instrumentation to move forward and do some music. Now it is all about practice. Or more to the point, working up some new pieces and getting the experience I need (which very much includes practice in reading, writing, and transposing) that way.



The Feadóg and the Vorson showed up today as well. Now I've really got some tonal options. Unfortunately the work week just caught up to me so today's accomplishments are going to be sprawling on the couch under a quilt reading schlock SF.

And when I feel better, I need another set of strings and a new pick.

How low can you go

The octave strings arrived today, and they don't sound half-bad through my little Ashdown 10W bass amp. Had to open up the peg holes* and cut wider grooves in the bridge, and after trying them out went back and re-shaped the bridge to give it more curve.

The Sensicores are on the Cecilio and I'm still thinking about moving the Alphayue's to the Pfetchner...and the pellet with the poison's in the chalice from the palace.

I'll tell you this, though; even a chin-cello is a workout! You've got to really grind that bow in on the lower strings. And fret with a firmer grip, too. Good thing I've been working those muscles on the steel strings of a folk guitar.

Working on "Concerning Hobbits" now with the penny whistle. Not just because it's popular, I hasten to add. Although the plethora of samples and instructional videos doesn't hurt. But because I've got sheet music that writes out all the ornaments; every grace note, every slide. Because what I'm after here is getting into my fingers and my brain the idioms of tin whistle playing.

Terminator is going more slowly. I've been under the weather, the weather has been over the top, and as a result I've mostly been working or sleeping, not doing music. I've got a new idea on the piece, though. I'm going to give up on trying to mimic the original, and am doing a free interpretation of the basic elements.

Three reasons. One is what's the use of doing a cover on folk instrument if you are going to hide their identity with electronic processing? Another is I literally could not perform some of the parts I wanted and I decided I was against faking it with editing. Last is I want to learn more about arranging in a Celtic/Folk/pop style, more than I want to learn how to copy what Brad Fiedel could do with 80's synthesizers.



*getting down into the guts of the pegbox on the Cecilio has helped me grasp just how (relatively) cheap and shoddy the construction is, from materials to fit to final finish. My other violin is a 1970's German-made student violin constructed in vast quantities for the school trade and from $400 to $600 on the used market today. But every bit, from the fit of the pegs to the material of the bridge is almost beyond comparison.

So I'm getting new insights into the instrument-shaped object. I am still on the fence about ISO's, and there isn't a single simple answer. I can't disagree with the objections made about cheap instruments, but I also have to stick an oar in and say that there are companies like Cecilio and Roosebeck and there are people who, if not for them, wouldn't have an instrument at all.

Myself among that list.

Cats Go Down Alleys

St Patrick's Day and I'm practicing penny whistle (also known as tin whistle, irish whistle, etc.)

Sort of. I was listening to some random stuff and thought it might be fun to cover the Terminator main theme using folk instruments. In any case it was time to get to know the tin whistle. I'm learning "Washerwoman" for speed and "Misty Mountains Cold" for long legato passages.

The tin whistle is stubbornly diatonic; out-of-scale notes usually require difficult half-holing, although there are a couple of cross fingerings possible. Because of the way the overblow happens, though, there is some funny fingering around the octave break. "Ornaments" is a bit of a misnomer, also; the instrument is generally not tongued, so accenting the notes in legato lines is done by adding cuts and strikes and trills.

And while I'm on scales...still lots of fun relating between different instruments. Most of them are not transposing, but many of the ones I'm working with have a practical range of about two octaves so it is a lot of fun to try to find matching pitches.

That and changing between different string patterns; the JR2 -- which I am slowly getting used to despite the cramped nut width of 1.6875" -- is E, A, D, G, B, E, the Ubass is the standard E, A, D, G (Elves And Dwarves Gather) an octave below those same strings on the guitar. And of course the ukulele is on G, C, A, E with the typical "re-entrant" tuning that makes the C the lowest string.

Then violin at G, D, A, E -- the viola is pitched a fifth below, the cello a fifth below that, so the new strings I'm having shipped will be C, G, D, A -- that top string at two scale tones below Middle C. I'll be putting the Sensicore's on the Cecilio, then possibly switch the Alphayue's to the Pfetchner to see if I get a sweeter tone there. I also have a two-dollar set of Pesca's I may try out on the JR2 if I get really tired of cutting my fingers fretting those steel strings (I do love the tone, though).

With that, and the Yamaha mute I've also got coming in the mail, I'm down to only a handful of instruments that need a practice room. I can even record most of what I've got at home, which is a lot more practical than any of the alternatives. In addition. I had to make a personal visit to find out but the local Guitar Center has piano rooms for $10/hour. And they are just down the road from my workplace.




On that home front, however. The Terminator title has a hard-panned drum. I tried taping lapel mics an inch from the head (which meant I also spent a part of St Patrick's Day with soldering iron repairing mic elements) but that didn't get the necessary separation. I tried recording one half of the drums at a time but that weird meter is bad enough (I've tried it in 6/8 and 5/4 but nothing really lines up right). Finally damped the bodhran with a t-shirt then manually panned all the beats in Reaper automation. No amount of effects, however, would make them sound like the original drums -- and adding a bunch of effects seems contrary to the idea of doing on folk instruments in the first place, nicht was?

For the low pad, I am not running out to get Great Highland Pipes -- so I'm simulating bagpipe drone with digitally manipulated crumhorn. It sounds...okay.

I've seen various interpretations of the little synth arpeggiation that happens a few bars before the drums enter. I tried doing it finger-tapping on the guitar and I don't really care for that, either. Basically, the mix isn't working, not as a slavish copy of the material that's in the original.

So best bet is to do a free interpretation of the musical ideas. Which really seems to cry for some serious fiddle and whistle work as well as folk guitar. None of which I'm good at, not yet. Practicing parts is no good. I need to learn some traditional pieces and get decent at playing them so I can internalize the construction and techniques.

Well, the octave strings don't show up until next week, anyhow. And the "high" Bb Feadóg is coming by Royal Mail and will be another week again.

Maybe I should jump on another piece. The Hellboy theme is kind of cute for bass guitar and brass and a little cello might finish it up. I'm feeling very amateur at the moment, though. The practice is not going well.