Lack of Posts

not because I'm not playing 12-string; more because I'm afraid of being read as an airhead. Too much tweaking, not enough composing.

For example, I was so sure about the "Finally, the Sound I've been Looking For". Turns out, meh, not so much. I'm vacillating between 2 and 3 steps down using Medium Elixirs. 2 steps down rings pretty nice, 3 steps is easier on the old hands.

midi2ly - lilypond

I like lilypond a lot. But it sometimes is disconcerting when you convert a midi to lilypond notation. Parts are missing, notes are wrong. This seems to happen when the midi is quantized, or made from a live performance. The converter seems to have trouble knowing which measure the note is in, and it sometimes gives up altogether.

Still, lilypond is one heck of a music engraving program.

"Ringing" 12-strings

Why do they ring? Maybe one reason is the odd arrangement of octave pairs and unison pairs. The two highest courses are unisons ("e' e' and b b" at concert pitch). The other 4 courses are usually octave pairs. So when you play this:


It sounds like this:



Sweet!

UPDATE: Just to clarify, I think the unisons on the first and second course enhance the effect of the octave courses. The intervals are more interesting. Above, for example, the fifths are getting more 'juice' than the thirds. If all the strings were octaves you wouldn't get this.