Sunday, December 03, 2006

The E-string on bass, the thickest lowest string, has a tendency to clang on the frets when it is plucked because of its girth and width of vibration. This is problematic in some music. There are few things you can do to make this sound better.

For this reason, the E-string is now the Trick String. If you're playing on the Trick String, you should do tricks. Pull the string to the side as it vibrates, slide your fingers along it as you pluck it, scrape the pick or your nails on the string coils, or do something else that make the music more than just a single pluck. Furthermore, that string is so low in comparison to most other music that it will stand out anyway, so no sense in letting that contrast go to waste.

Unfortunately, on these strings a single note does not arrive. The Hz vibration from the string oscillates up and down as the string revibrates. This actually produces a series of similar notes. The music is played on a wave, and any note that you strike in a song is a point on that wave.

I've had difficulty resonating a good bass line with a complex 3 or 4 note chord from an acoustic. The bass must hit at least one of those notes dead on every time, and with the many notes it is a complex shift that a single or double note bass stroke cannot easily duplicate. If the bass then goes off on single note whopping it's simplicity will be heavily contrasted with the multi note chord. It may be best to play a predictable or background or support line here with unemphasized interference/resonation between the instruments. Or to write the music first and stick to that. Jamming freelance in that manner seems odd.

You might also want to try this neat combo: 1A, 3D. You're going to want to be able to stretch over 2 frets and hit 1 & 4 a string apart. This is possible for a man with reasonably sized hands to do with the pointer and pinky. Work on your pinky muscles and tendons. It will be improbable to do this on the Trick String.

The notes in a song are points on a wave. The wave is important, not particularly the notes. As long as the/a good wave is represented by the notes, the song is clear. Not every song is well demarcated by notes, and not every note is necessary nor fluff in a good song. A fretless bass is a good way to address this matter, in the hands of a skilled musician or a youngin playing around with math and music. The piano is brutally distinct in this respect, although the notes could be considered even fractions which the song's wave can divide or round its sound into.

Let me hear a blending over time of the notes in a classical score. What would it be like if the notes melted into one another like a color/music wheel X performance? Some stringed instruments with sliding fingers seem able to do this, but each pluck is still a demarcation.

I will make an instrument that is permanently ringing while it is on. Then the note will be grasped and slid on the string/s. It will be an upright-standing instrument. Foot pedals might stop or start the notes on the strings, and the hands would select the notes. Furthermore, the instrument could be turned to pluck mode for demarcation. I'd call it the bassomer.


It has also been said that if you cover a song you must make it dramatically different in some way. We will have heavy metal Beatles. I want lines and words changed, bridges changed, new solos, and basically for it to be seen that the song was well reupholstered.

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