BBC documentary about Sister Rosetta Tharpe this Friday. Of course it’s on BBC 4 which I don’t get :mad: I s’pose it may turn up on BBC 2 eventually.
They had a clip of her on the Today program (Radio 4) this morning, I’d say Chuck Berry owes her rather a lot.
I never heard of her before. That’s just odd. Thank you, Clanger, for introducing me to someone new and interesting.
Yay - can I see that in the US in any way?
Here’s an old thread I started about Sister Rosetta
I wanted to drop a quick mention of a book I got for Christmas - Fretboard Harmony, by Jeffrey McFadden. This is the published version of the hand-written textbook I used when I studied fretboard harmony with the author. I’m honoured to have been mentioned in the acknowledgements -
On second thought, if he said ‘diligent work’, that doesn’t include me at all… 
So this is a fantastic book for several reasons. The first 25 pages are devoted to intervals, including exercises to find the shape of all intervals within the octave, then to the exploration of chords. This is an ideal way to work out the completion of the fretboard. From there, it moves into simple and then complex concepts of harmonization. While this will never replace textbooks on the theory of classical music such as Piston’s Harmony or Aldwell’s ‘Harmony and Voice Leading’, now for the first time ever, guitarists can study the subject of harmony with examples taken from their own literature.
(It used to drive me crazy in theory class when the prof. would toss out “Oh, Lisa, there’s an example of this in the Chopin you’re playing at the moment. Michael, that Mozart you sight-read for me did this as well. Too bad you other musicians and singers will never be able to grasp theory the way that pianists do.” Steam comes out of my ears just remembering!)
There’s no question that this is aimed at the classical player - it’s only in notation, the discussion of harmony centres around 19th century practice, the examples are all drawn from classical pieces - and yet, I’d recommend this book to anyone, if only for the first 80 pages on interval, chords and practical exercises to find them all. Even if you don’t read notation yet, this would be a great book with which to learn. A biased, yet enthusiastic endorsment.
Well, I’m back from camping and I gave the Journey of the sorcerer a go. The first thing I did was print out some of the replies you guys gave me on the last page, which I promptly left sitting on the bed for the whole week. Oops.
I did manage to find an old tab for a 5 string banjo in Cm Tuning, which I managed to retune to after I realised that the G string remains the same and everything adjusts round that. For the drone, (tuned to C) I at first just played it on the 3rd fret of the 5th string until I had a :smack: moment and tuned down that one too so that it was a full octave (or 2?) below what was played in the recorded version, and played it open.
Once I had all that done I got it quickly to the point where I was able to stumble through it for my friends who actually recognised it! Excellent!
This is probably the first song I’ve played properly in non-standard tuning, so it was a real kick to actually learn something new for the first time in ages. And since I managed to also leave my tuner at home, it was a real vindication of my tuning abilities!
Wordman lets us know about a newly available DVD of Albert King and SRV jamming together, here.
Eh, who cares? If you’re a guitarist you’re better off learning the Nashville system, which pianists won’t understand the way guitarists intuitively can.
Did anybody else go to NAMM this weekend? The amount of gear was overwhelming. One interesting instrument was a double-necked acoustic guitar: one nylon string and one steel string neck. Here’s the twist: it was double-sided (one sound hole on each side). You have to flip it over to play the other neck. I don’t know how practical that is, but I thought it was pretty creative.
I went to the Stanley Clarke session but he was sick; his replacement was Darryl Jones. It was cool hearing about his experiences with the Stones, Sting, Miles, etc.
Any musician can learn and use the Nashville system. It’s just a chord chart with some specific symbols and rules. However, from what I’ve heard, unless you are playing in Nashville, there is really no need to learn the system. On the other hand, learning basic theory like scale and chord construction, the chordal scale, keys and transposing, intervals, modes, and how these relate to your instrument are much more important and part of the [never-ending] process of becoming a more educated and well-rounded musician.
I didn’t go, but Premier Guitar magazine is sending out daily updates. I haven’t been reading them. I worry about my GAS at places like NAMM. So many great ideas looking for problems I didn’t realize I had. Gotta be careful 
Humorous clip - about 2 minutes - enjoy.
Nice one.
Hey, Wordman, or whoever is interested, I’ve got a question:
What are the Amp food groups? You know, class A, class B, AB, dual rectifier, yadayada. I’ve found descriptions of what these designs are, but why are they used and for what style of music or playing or tone or whatever are each useful? (Ignoring modeling etc, of course.) I mean, I know what a Fender will generally sound like, vs a Marshall. But in broader swatches than just brand names, what are these different designs and how do they matter? If it makes sense to break the answer into groups of amp vendors, that’s fine too.
I am going to have to ponder this - I am pushed for time over the next few days and then going to Chicago for the bulk of next week (but I am visiting the Chicago Music Exchange while I am there - a high-end dealer with extensive vintage stuff and lots of new toys to check out. Yay.)
More importantly, I gotta think about what I can say that matters. I always come at amps via the Power Tube and Make/Model - and the 4 Main flavors are Fender Tweed, Marshall, Fender Blackface and Vox…while I know that Class, push/pull circuit, use of rectifier (a Recti amp is kinda like a Super Strat - a Tier 2 specialized food group…) all matter, I haven’t really dug into why…
Lemme thing about this…while this is marinating, any other amp (especially tube amp) thoughts and questions folks are pondering? squeegee, you’ve seen this, but in case others haven’t, here is a link to an earlier thread on Tube amps vs. solid state…
Remember my Vox list, Wordman? I could probably dig it up again. It’s segregated in a useful manner.
Clean 1: Roland Jazz Chorus
Clean 2: Fender Twin
Blues 1: Fender Blackface
Blues 2: Fender Tweed
Blues 3: Vox AC30
Crunch 1: Vox AC30TB
Crunch 2: Marshall Stack
3 hi-gain models (still unknown)
Drive: Dumble
So, there you go. Vox breaks it up into Clean, Blues, Crunch, and Hi-Gain. (And Dumble Overdrive) Note that the Blues ones are also the most famous classic Rock amps.
Let’s assume I don’t it sounds familiar but I couldn’t find it if I was asked - could you dig it up?
ETA: Simul-post. Ah, there you go - the dial-up settings on the Vox digital modeler…yep, pretty much in line with the 4 Groups I listed…
…now more pondering required…
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you have, WordMan. Perhaps the question I’m asking – how & why amp classes matter to tone – doesn’t really lend itself to a reasonable answer. If you think it makes more sense to frame the discussion around your four basic amp types & tube selection, that’s fine.
Your post confuses me. I mean, you must know what the Nashville system is because it’s in your screen name. And yet…
Nashville is different from standard notation because it implies a different way of thinking. Standard notation is intimately connected to the piano keyboard – it puts a premium on showing you the actual notes, which is what you want on a keyboard. Nashville, in contrast, gives you the note (or chord) in relation to the root.
That’s much more intuitive for guitarists, because scales and chords on a guitar are shapes that can be moved up and down the neck. An E shaped barre chord is the same thing no matter where you play it, only the starting position changes (fifth fret on the sixth string for A, seventh fret for B, etc). That parallels the way you’d write it out in the Nashville system. But it’s not so intuitive for a piano player, who must change the fingering whenever the key shifts.
Nashville also relates more closely to song structure. I is always your tonic, V is your dominant, VI is your relative minor, and so on. That kind of composition theory stuff is quite handy if you also write songs, which a lot of guitar players do in the context of popular music.
So no, there’s no need to use Nashville outside of Nashville. When it comes to it, I don’t really need to do anything except sleep, eat, and pay taxes. But as a guitar player, why wouldn’t I use it? It beats the heck out of looking at a page of standard notation. And if someone turns around and says, “Can we change that to G? The singer can’t hit the high notes,” it won’t bother me in the slightest.
I have no idea where you get the idea that learning the Nashville system would preclude learning basic chords and scales, keys, transposing, intervals, and how these relate to my instrument. If anything, Nashville assumes much more basic knowledge than does standard notation. Look at classical musicians, who are brought up entirely in the tradition of standard notation. Take their sheet music away from them and they can’t play a note – they don’t have a clue how scales and chords and keys relate in a particular piece of music, they just read the notes off the score. Compare that to those old Jazz players who could hear a chord sequence once then improvise a part that matched perfectly. Some of them, like Carol Kaye, advocate the Nashville system.
The Nashville system uses arabic numbers to name chords: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, not the standard roman numerals. Not a big deal, just sayin’.
I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same thing. The NS is not just naming scale degrees by numbers - this is a basic part of music theory that every literate musician should really take the time to learn. The NS is a notation system that uses arabic numbers AND different symbols (diamond, triangles, underlines, etc. to represent rhythms, minor chords, etc.) to create a chord chart that can easily be transposed.
I live in L.A. and have played all sorts of gigs. If I’m doing musical theatre, I’m reading standard notation from a book. On a jazz gig, I’m reading chord charts out of the Real Book. When playing original songs, I’ll be given a chord chart in one form or another. If I’m reading a tune from a P/V/G book, I look at the chords and the piano’s bass staff (I’m a bassist). If I ever have to transpose, I simply change the chords accordingly. No one has ever handed me a chart in Nashville notation and I’m sure that is the case with 99% of musicians. I don’t have much experience doing freelance studio work, but I don’t think it is used in the studios out here.
The NS is not a different way of thinking, it’s just a different way of putting musical ideas on paper. Standard notation is not intimately connected to the piano - most instruments can be notated this way. And piano players use NS also. I’m not knocking it; I’m just saying that it is more effective to give a non-reading guitarist a properly formatted chord chart on staff paper than to use the NS.
I’ve taken lessons from Carol Kaye. I have many of her books and DVDs. She is a proponent of standard notation and solfeggio, not the NS. Go to her website’s forum. All discussions about changes are done with the standard roman numerals and chord names. If she used it in the studios, it was an aberration.
Learning the NS does not preclude learning those other concepts. Learning anything musical is great in my book…the Nashville system, reading fly shit, playing “Smoke on the Water,” whatever. It all boils down to ease of communication and frequency of use. If your circle of musicians uses NS, by all means use it. I’m just saying that for 99% of musicians in most situations, a chart done in NS is not going to be as helpful as a simple chord chart. It’s just not used that much outside of the studios of Nashville.
I’m curious - what kind of playing are you doing where you are either given or are writing charts using the NS? Any of your charts scanned online?