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good idea geo, save us messin' up book discussion threads.

Wow it's good to hear from someone who's heard of Michael Hedges.

i became a life long Hedges fan about 4 bars into

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3nFkH8TIp4

then i got aerial boundaries and thought, wow this guy found a jack socket marked "collective unconscious" and just plugged straight in.

faint heart ne'er won fair maiden and fortune favours the brave, Hedges is a lion.

...saw him in Ashland, Ore. about six months or a year before his death.

now i'm turning green with envy

was he doing any of that amazing "dry" humour? he always gets me laughing.

Lately I'm trying to play the drum part of Time Out by Dave Brubeck.

ahhhh Brubeck

gotta quote Fagen

I hear you're mad about Brubeck
I like your eyes, I like him too
He's an artist, a pioneer
We've got to have some music on the new frontier

ahhh drums

you know Jeff Beck thinks it pointless to even think about a tour if you cant get a good drummer.

Holdsworth says it's often the drummer firing that gives him the impetus and leading where to go.

over the years i have noticed the same, good listening musical drummer and 90% of your troubles are over.

but when it comes to odd signatures Virgil Donati seems to have it down.

It's in 5/4 time signature, which kind of messes with my brain.

i reckon if you just listen to and play 5/4 for an hour or so a day for 6 months it'll seem a lot more natural

i was listening to Parker's interview (very awesome)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3W8Ff_4oFg

when asked about his facility he mentions playing 11 to 15 hrs a day for 3 or 4 years

if you improvise it really helps

set up a sparse loop of 5/4 (maybe just a simple bass line and a shaker) and let it run then just jam over it again and again till you feel physically ill, then as soon as the nausea wears off grab the sticks and have at it again

i'm exactly the same, i played 4/4 so long it got ingrained

but i was always a Tull fan so thankfully i was aware that 4 wasn't the only number that needed investigating.

and i listened to "one of a kind" by Bruford so much that i wrote a song in 7/4 and didn't realise it was in 7/4 until i started to sequence it.

that must be key

to spend so much time in the non 4/4 signature that it feels like 4

but unfortunately for me "time is the enemy" (except when it's kept by a good drummer)

i cant think of playing with time without thinking of Vinnie Colaiuta in

Attack Of The 20lb Pizza

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-Ptb_BmD-0

see if you can last till 2:39 in and what happens next is just a thrill!

try counting as it plays OMG!!!

here's a vid of the great VC talkin' about a sting tune in 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3uQmDS_9iI

Youkrst, your post will take days for me to dissect. Good stuff there.

Basically I'm a terrible drummer who easily gets in over his head. I can play the basic 5/4 rhythm with some consistency. You're right, I just need to keep playing until it feels sort of normal. The next step is to add the left hand playing the snare and here's where mind explodes. This guy does a great job breaking it down for me. About the 7:40 mark is where he talks about the snare.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xeDntw_-Y

I'm a lifelong Tull fanatic. I saw them on their 'A' tour back in the 1980s and have seen them at least three more times. Most recently Ian Anderson and company (he has dropped the Jethro Tull name altogether) played in my small town last year. I used to love the band all the way up to Heavy Horses and then I lost interest. But then about ten years back, I listened to Broadsword and the Beast and that rekindled my interest in the band's later work. Since then, Ian Anderrson has done some fantastic solo work, especially Divinities: Twelve Dances with God and The Secret Language of Birds, which is sort of classical music.

My favorite current artists are probably Richard Thompson and Mark Knopfler of Dire Straights fame, both of whom are still steadily putting out great music. And I dearly love the music of Steve Hackett, who plays a very eclectic epic and 'cinematic' style. Also Robyn Hitchcock. Lately I've been going nuts with R.EM.

As for jazz, I like a lot of Zappa's stuff and Brubeck, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Duke Ellington, Kenny Barron trio, Mike Holober, Pat Metheny, and the amazing Bela Fleck to name a few. A real gem I discovered through the late Bob Parlocha's jazz show is Larry Vuckovich. He plays original classic jazz style compositions if you like the melodic kind of jazz like Brubeck. He's in his 80s, but still alive and kicking.

For that matter, I have several of Bob Parlocha's radio programs from the 1990s' if you're interested.

My experience with jazz has been extremely inconsistent, but I've stumbled on to a few fantastic albums over the years that I'll recommend at some point.

geo wrote:Youkrst, your post will take days for me to dissect. Good stuff there.

Basically I'm a terrible drummer who easily gets in over his head. I can play the basic 5/4 rhythm with some consistency. You're right, I just need to keep playing until it feels sort of normal. The next step is to add the left hand playing the snare and here's where mind explodes.

Hi Geo, I don't know if you are familiar with Salf Keita's terrific award winning album Moffou. If not,with your interest in drumming and percussion I think you would like it.

Here's my favourite track Madan with Keita's powerful vocals,great female backing vocals and pulsating rhythm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hjb_5MaBpk

I'm not a jazz purist and don't find a lot of it all accessible though I did like Bill Frisell's History,Mystery album.

From the Yogi Berra Dictionary of Jazz:

Jazz:
90% of all Jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, it’s right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it's wrong.

Syncopation:
That's when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In Jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be Jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those other kinds.

Improvisation:
When a jazz musician plays something in front of jazz fans that he don’t know how to play but they all think he knows how to play it because they don’t know how it goes either. In case there’s someone in the audience who isn’t a jazz fan and actually knows how it goes, the musician plays a lot of extra notes to make him forget how it goes too. That’s why there’s bop.

Bop:
That's when you add in exactly one million extra notes to a song that don't need it then you play those notes too fast while drifting in and out of tune to prove you're so good that you don't need to play it right.

Swing:
That’s when you take a song that’s not jazz and make it sound like jazz if jazz actually sounded like anything.

Flatted Fifth:
That’s when you play the fifth note of a chord lower than it’s supposed to be so that it will sound the way it’s not supposed to sound to evoke the proper emotions the song ain’t supposed to have.

Blue Note:
Same thing as a flatted fifth but the reason behind it is that scales sound all out of whack if you play ‘em the way they’re supposed to sound so the classical guys straightened ‘em out by making ‘em sound they way they ain’t supposed to so people wouldn’t plug their ears when they heard it. Then the jazz guys came along and made ‘em all out of whack again and jazz fans loved it so that all the classical guys wasted their time for no good reason.

Hot Club:
Jazz the way the Gypsy guys play it only they don’t have no drummer which is good because jazz drummers have to figure out what they’re supposed to do back there anywhere. They can’t keep time because jazz fans hate that and none of the other musicians would listen to him anyway so the Gypsy guys just figured to get rid of the drummer and let him make no difference in someone else’s band. Chet Baker once said he never heard a jazz drummer who sounds as good as no drummer which is the only thing any jazz musician ever said that makes any sense to me.

Smooth Jazz:
That’s jazz with all the jazz removed so that normal people can listen to it and pretend they’re real jazz fans. Real jazz fans have very acute hearing and hear stuff in music everyone else ignores because it’s annoying. That’s all the stuff that needs to be in real jazz so real jazz musicians can play it wrong otherwise smooth jazz fans would find it listenable and become real jazz fans then real jazz fans would have to start putting annoying stuff back into smooth jazz so they can find it listenable so real jazz should just stay real jazz and smooth jazz should just stay smooth jazz otherwise there would be a lot of confusion.

Free Jazz:
Free jazz is what happens when guys who already play everything wrong play super wrong so that jazz fans will think they’re sounding super right than they were when they were just playing regular wrong to sound regular right now making the regular right sound super wrong.

Cool jazz:
Jazz that tries to sound right without sounding wrong except it was invented by the same guys who invented playing jazz wrong to sound right.

geo, wow! lemme take this in for a second

we both love Hedges and Tull, we both love Thompson and Knopfler, we love Hackett, both love Bela Fleck, both love Metheny, both love Zappa Evans Duke Miles...

awesome, guess that makes us brothers

i'll check out some of the other names you mentioned that i am less familiar with Robyn Hitchcock (heard but not listened yet) R.E.M. of course i have heard many times and taught to many students but not really listened to that closely, Holober and Barron i've heard of but not heard yet, and Yukovich is a new one on me, i'll track him down, and i'll have to check out Parlocha's show.

geo wrote:My experience with jazz has been extremely inconsistent

yeah there is a lot of wearying jazz music around (like every genre). Jazz that is more a participator sport than a spectator sport, if i want to hear bad jazz i can listen to myself practice keyboards i don't need someone to record an album of it.

you have to go with what connects in the moment, plenty of fish in the sea, i mean look at some of the masters you've already listed, so why would we waste time on stuff you cant connect with if you haven't yet found some of the giants who are plentiful, and raring to go thankfully.

geo wrote:but I've stumbled on to a few fantastic albums over the years that I'll recommend at some point.

please do, after all we seem to have a lot of albums in common.

Flann wrote:though I did like Bill Frisell's History,Mystery album.

awesome! gotta love Frisell. quirky as and so very deeply human.

Flann wrote:I'm not a jazz purist

i've never met a Jazz master who IS a purist, if you are a jazz purist you probably don't know jazz.

every Jazz master i've ever really loved has been open, wide open to anything, just listen to the quotes masters throw into their solo's, you got Tatum doing Dvorak etc etc

they say things like "there is only two kinds of music" and "i love it all" "everything i ever heard" that sort of thing, i would venture to say that purism will stop you becoming the player you ought to be, ie. the best you can.

quite often the great stylists arrive from blending two previously disassociated streams, fascinating stuff.

to me purism is the opposite of jazz, thus rendering "jazz purist" an oxymoron and a jazz purist simply a moron.

@DB many a true word spoken in jest indeed

geo i was working on your 5/4 thing (i actually found the vid and guessed you might be using it)

i was really tired and couldn't marshall my chops so i tried an old technique

you turn the pattern into a vocal phrase and sing it internally or right out loud as you play, it works well.

makes it less mental more natural, speech centres are strong and wired different, always good to get the jump on your brain, the analytical part i mean, as indispensible as it is at times, one must occasionaly remove it from the front seat so as to stop it taking over the company.

so i had

oo-oong ba-bah che chaa

you can do it for the whole groove or just the snare, hat or whatever.

you see it all the time, they all do it.

some would say Jarrett does it too much and too loud, i can't hear the frickin' piano Keith, there's some inane mumbler making weird vocal noises

the indians have this stuff down, check it out,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGTuaj4 ... F106F072B4

see 2:30 in

remember

if you can't say it you can't play it.

of course you might not want to go as far as these two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZKywkkv_SQ

Ian Anderrson has done some fantastic solo work, especially Divinities: Twelve Dances with God

Anderson is genius

The minstrel in the gallery looked down on the
rabbit-run.
And threw away his looking-glass - saw his face in
everyone.

geo wrote:I listened to Broadsword and the Beast

i loved Beastie from that album, lemme put them lyrics up, i just love 'em

"Beastie"

From early days of infancy, through trembling years
of youth, long murky middle-age and final hours
long in the tooth, he is the hundred names of terror ---
creature you love the least. Picture his name before
you and exorcise the beast.

He roved up and down through history --- spectre
with tales to tell. In the darkness when the
campfire's dead --- to each his private hell. If you look
behind your shoulder as you feel his eyes to feast, you
can witness now the everchanging nature of the beast.

Beastie

If you wear a warmer sporran, you can keep the foe at
bay. You can pop those pills and visit some
psychiatrist who'll say --- There's nothing I can do
for you, everywhere's a danger zone. I'd love to help
get rid of it, but I've got one of my own.

There's a beast upon my shoulder and a fiend upon
my back. Feel his burning breath a heaving, smoke
oozing from his stack. And he moves beneath the
covers or he lies below the bed. He's the beast upon
your shoulder. He's the price upon your head. He's
the lonely fear of dying, and for some, of living too.
He's your private nightmare pricking. He'd just love
to turn the screw. So stand as one defiant --- yes, and
let your voices swell. Stare that beastie in the face
and really give him hell.

and of course that leads straight to Hedges' "face yourself"

Face Yourself

Now or never
Face yourself
No one else will do
Face your weakness
Face your pest
Let your scars show through
It's now or never
Don't look back
Just say you're gone
Gone away
Drawn away

Binary numbers
Media Masse'
I let my mind thumb through
Off/on
I'm off on
Sit Com
My cathode eyes obey
Zero/one/zero
Nineteen eighty-four
Just say I'm gone
Gone away
Drawn away

Face yourself
Face yourself
Face yourself

I have a lover
She drew me up
Out of my little world
We talk together
We touch our souls
We share a common ground
If you see Sonya
or any glitter girls
Just say I'm gone
Gone away
I was drawn away

Face yourself

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7rzoI0QRMI

DB Roy wrote:From the Yogi Berra Dictionary of Jazz . . .

That was hilarious. The thing about jazz is I don't know what's going on half the time, but I still like it. Maybe it works more on a subconscious level. I think many of these jazz musicians work on a higher plane than the rest of us.

This video is one of the best I've ever seen that goes through a sort of history of drums from rock to fusion and everything in between. Really cool video.

Oops, forgot to link the video. Here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFcp_NQ8oHE

My custom-made bass. I commissioned a master luthier named Dan Seabolt in Muskegon to build me a bass. He builds violins, ukes, mandos, guitars, cellos, violas, harp-guitars and what have you. I specified my bass to have medieval motifs because I feel like I was alive back in that period ever since I was 4 or 5 years old. So, yes, I have a fondness for medieval music and have played in ensembles (even though the double bass didn't exist in medieval times). The tailpiece, in case you're wondering, is carved like a castle tower with battlements. That was actually Dan's idea. We worked together on the knight's helmet scroll. The paintings on back were done by a lady I've never met but Dan hires her to oil paint on instruments and then he varnishes o'er it to make it permanent. That's called an Occitan cross which dates from France from the 12th century. She added in the fleur-de-lys motifs on her own and they look stunning.

The bass is a gamben form (no violin corners), a 7/8 size. Today, most basses are 3/4 and I do have a 3/4 size bass. But 7/8 gives you that BIG, DEEP, yawning sound when you bow on it and I need that for classical ensembles and orchestral things. Bach sounds great on it. It's a bit difficult to play jazz on it because the fingerboard is so big as opposed to a 3/4 but I manage it. It was good trade-off. The fingerboard is ebony, the belly is European spruce, the ribs are tiger maple. The bass is varnished in the fashion of the early violin-makers and not the way they are generally varnished today. I told him I wanted it a shade of a medieval monk's tunic and he blended that up. Thin coat so that the original blondeness of the wood shows through. $20,000.

The pickup is a Yamahiko from Japan--the best pickup on the market and for $700, it had better be! You have to order them from Japan and you need a Paypal account to do it. I never took possession of it. When I ordered it, I had it delivered straight to Dan's studio. A luthier has to install it because it must be custom fitted for each bass.

The bow is hand carved by Dan from pernambuco wood from Brazil--considered the ultimate bow wood. The frog--the thing with the shield on it--is made of mammoth ivory as regular elephant ivory is illegal for obvious reasons. No mammoths died to make my bow, I quite assure you. It's light and perfectly balanced and gives the most graceful, beautiful sound. $4500.

It's my life and my love. I play it in a kind of ecstasy and people always say that it is the most beautiful bass they've ever seen. it makes walls throb and when I amplify it, it's like there really is a god. I figure if nothing else, I've left this beautiful work of art to the world when I die but I often wonder who will get it.

GORGEOUS!! just gorgeous

mmmm ebony

mmmm that pickup looks scrumptious

congrats DB, you did it right

DB wrote: I play it in a kind of ecstasy

and there's the proof.