Tips, Techniques, Examples about my favorite musical instrument, the Twelve-String Guitar.

If you play guitar check out Playing Technique, or Strings / Setup. There are also some interesting posts about guitars at, you guessed it, Guitars.

If you want to spread your musical talents around, you will find some good info at Recording.

Marketing - meh - I'm probably the world's best bad example. Although you could find funny stuff there.

I've made some music videos through the years, and you can find them and other interesting music at Music I Like, Music I Play.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Musings while not playing

The giant finger still hurts - but on the bright side I get to listen up to lots of new music.
My friend Mike, the musician who owns Sunshine Cycles and who turned me on to Nick Drake, lent me Alexi Murdoch's Time Without Consequence, eerily like Nick Drake, but really good in his own right. Listened once, will listen again. I like the dissonance in the simple arrangements. Mike knows music, particularly odd pop music, and is forever turning me on the the saddest truck driving drunk dog lost ballads, sobered up British instrumentalists, Scottish and Irish pop - just great stuff. I try to reciprocate, but he's usually heard them. Bob Marley is my latest offering - I got some CD's to replace the LP's still in pristine condition: Burnin' and Natty Dread. A combo of less precise hearing, and a no more Single A tube amps or custom dipole speakers takes some impact from the music.


Another new cyclist on the Saturday power rides is musician Dr. Gary Robinson, We got around to talking Bach, the Art of the Fugue, Well Tempered Clavier, etc.


Mike plays Bass, one of his son's is a dynamite bass player. Gary plays, of all things, a xylophone. I wonder what some of the canons of Der Kunst Der Fugue would sound like arranged for those instruments - of course including a 12-string


I've always liked Glenn Gould's versions of Sebastian Bach. He turned me on to Freidrich Gulda. Amazing difference. They have the same hyper-realistic separation of voices, but Gulda's has much more musical dynamics and phrasing and some tempo changes that verge on precious. It's hard to listen to Gould now. I've got some more Gulda / Bach coming.

Here's from one of the customer comments:

The disc contains these works:

* English Suite No.2 in A minor, BWV 807 (Studio D-Radio Berlin, 30.10 1966) AAA Mono

* Italian Concerto in F, BWV 971 (Studio DeutschlandRadio Berlin-Lankwitz, 10.11. 1970) AAA Stereo

* Toccata in C minor, BWV 911 (live Trieste 14.3. 1955; Private recording by Friedrich Gulda) AAA Mono

* English Suite No.3 in G minor, BWV 808 (Sender Freies Berlin (SFB)-Studio Berlin, 27.10. 1969) AAA Stereo

* Capriccio in B flat, BWV 992 "On the departure of a dear brother" (live Uppsala, Sweden, 5.4. 1959; Private recording by Friedrich Gulda) AAA Mono

* Prelude and Fugue (by Friedrich Gulda) (live Philharmonie Berlin, 24.10. 1969, DeutschlandRadio) AAA Stereo


The sound quality is generally very good to excellent. The playing is superb. I'm no Bach aficionado so I cannot compare his performances to other pianist, but I'm a great fan of Gulda and very happy with this disc.

The album comes with an essay by Gulda's son Paul who mentions that most of Gulda's live performances were recorded and that a box of some 90 tapes remains, which, hopefully, means that we can look forward to more records by this outstanding artist.

Total Playing Time: [1:11:48]

I'll be seeing a hand specialist soon. In the meantime, this post is brought to you by the letters Huperzine and Galantimine. Like a fool I mixed them, and they opened up my mind. Now people just get uglier and I have no sense of time.

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