In Shape == Tired

I haven't posted much lately - and haven't picked up the guitar much either. My enthusiasm seems to have disappeared along with the cold weather. I'm riding my bike every day. A week ago Thursday Pete and Gary and I went from Sunshine Bicycle went on what Tony described as 'an epic ride'. Thursday night is usually Paris Mountain night. This Thursday thunderstorms rode in during the afternoon, but we thought there might be a break in the clouds, and off we went. Only us three. Usually we get 10 or more on these rides. After an hour, at the foot of the mountain, the temperature dropped, the thunder cracked, and the rain let loose. My shoes were immediately filled with water. We started the climb; my legs were stiff - heck, my whole body felt like a crowbar in the cold rain. Tony and Gary are pretty strong riders; it was an effort to follow them.

Tremblin' Whomp

I previously posted about mastering the 12-string Tremolo study, but after all the writing I've done about it while working on it, now that it is finished I'd like to give some more details and post the score.

Although the idea for the piece came to me while pursuing the wily 91 hertz resonance that fell right on the open A of the LKSM-12, my goal while writing was two-fold: first, to practice tremolo without having to play Recuerdos del Alhambra (watch about 50 performances on YouTube and you will probably lose your desire to learn this piece), and secondly, to find out if a tremolo had any place in the 12-string repertoire.

In this piece the tremolo takes place exclusively on octave course strings. The unison strings are only used in the chord arpeggios. I found it very difficult to do the traditional right hand fingering pima on the double courses other that the highest one, so I used a fingering that is gaining popularity - pimi. Even this took several weeks before I could get any speed with clarity on inner courses. This fingering is indicated in the score, but tab unfortunately doesn't seem to have a way to indicate this. The fingering is consistent throughout the piece, so this isn't a deal breaker.


The tab is here, and the score is here.
The piece is on SoundClick...here.

Mastering a Song

I like to post songs to Soundclick once in a while, but can't afford to hire Jon at Naiant Studio for every little song, so I'm trying fix it up myself. I know it's not going to be the same quality, but what can you do.

I just posted a 12-String Tremolo Study; the working title was Tremblin' Whomp. I've learned enough about the recording studio to know that there are resonance issues at 58 hertz and the response below about 200 hertz is a few db too high. So, I put a sharp notch at 58 hertz in the jamin EQ graph, and added light compression under 200 hertz. I also added a couple of db to the EQ graph over 10 k.hz; my hearing is seriously deficient in this range, but Jon has mentioned a couple of times in the past this adds some nice sparke to my 12-string recording.

Finger Crutch

What can I say? Some people need mechanical aids.


I can't stop my pinkie from straightening out while playing difficult passages, but this device seems to work. It's a tiny section of bicycle inner-tube that fits over the tip of the pinkie, and it is stapled to a strip of Velcro. I don't know if I can ever play correctly without it, but I can feel that I'm using different muscles and it is a little tiring at first.

Plus Ça Change

After days and days of too much fun with Acousoft, I found the best position in the room to record, and it's...about where I was recording months ago. At least my ears agreed with the science.

There is a definite 58 hertz major resonance in the room, and a smaller one at 71 hertz and another at about 91 hertz; despite many broad band traps in the corners they are still there. I think that removing these completely will require many more panels of mineral wool and 703. But for now the best I can do for recording is to find a spot where they aren't prominent, and this I did.

Joshua Bell's Subway Concert

I'm not sure if this is encouraging or discouraging to an unappreciated musician.
Premier violinist Joshua Bell, playing Johann Sebastien Bach's Chaconne on his multi-million dollar Strad anonymously in a D.C. subway stop...what happened?