My Ex-Wife Wouldn't Have Allowed This

I moved my small venue rig into the livingroom for a few days to fine tune the sounds for the fretted Glissentar.

"But honey, it's the largest room in the house, and I need the space to work the sounds out!"

Nope. That would never fly.



Of course, she wouldn't have let me hang my classic 1970's Damon Howatt Hunter recurve bow on the wall either.

I wasn't cut out for marriage. That was a liberating revelation when it first occurred to me.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, of course, I was married at the time. LOL!

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It turns out that only the major mode triple time syncopated Reductios work on the guitar vis-a-vis fingering: I was afraid of that. I could change the duple time major mode versions' syncopation chains to follow the pattern of the triple time ones, but it kind of wastes the entire idea if I do that, and all of the minor mode versions are still out of bounds. So, I'm just going to stick with the four basic versions and forget about all of the versions with the syncope chains for the time being. Pity: They sound very nice in the sequencer. But, I learned something about four-voice contrapuntal writing for the guitar in the process: The fingering limitations are nearly crippling, which makes the challenge all the more alluring. I'll let this experience ripen in my subconscious, and return to it at a later date.

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I had a major breakthrough with the fretted Glissentar's MPX-G2 programs: By adding a little more stereo detune chorus I was able to significantly broaden the sound, and it smoothed out the touchy dynamics to boot. It's kind of bass-akwards to be dealing with too much dynamic response, but such a thing is possible with the Carlos CP-1A. One thing I did not want to do was to have to resort to any compression or limiting: I took years to expunge all of that from my sound, and I ain't goin' back.

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John: If I were to recommend just one counterpoint book, it would be Kent Kennan's Counterpoint, ISBN 0-13-184235-8. That being said, I have almost every counterpoint book that exists in the English language, and I've studied them all. Not only do each of them have some nugget or other to contribute, but counterpoint is a subject that requires three things to master: Repetition, repetition, and repetition.

Remember that there are two generas: Modal or Strict Style Counterpoint, and Tonal or Free Style Counterpoint (Also called seventeenth and eighteent century counterpoint, respectively). Kennan is free style. Mann's translation of Fux is indespensible for the historical perspective on modal counterpoint (Alfred Mann The Study of Counterpoint, ISBN 0-393-00277-2), and Benjamin has good books on each style.

Try to go for a variety of sources. That helped me a lot. Good luck.

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Nice 3-D effect on this Mandelbrot image.



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So profoundly true.

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Reductio ad Absurdum: The Series

One of the things I stress to my students is that they should write a lot of miniatures, and preferrably several series of miniatures. It is especially useful if the series can fulfill dual purposes, and be both technical studies for the guitar and compositional studies as well. An added bonus - and one of my personal requirements for any studies that I write - is if the resulting series of studies are "good enough" to be worthy of performance.

Over the years I have written almost ten series of miniatures, and these little sets of studies invariably lead to increased technical mastery of the guitar, increased compositional technique, and - perhaps most importantly - larger and more significant works. I'm not sure where this series will lead compositionally, but I do know all of these pieces will end up in my performance set.

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As I mentioned previously, this set deals with dualities: The duality between the major and minor modes, the duality between triple and duple time, and the duality between 4-3 syncopes and 2-3 syncopes. The resulting twelve pieces are only about thirty seconds in performance time, and they are all on the pitch level of A (Which is the only place these four-voice contrapuntal studies will work on the guitar due to fingering considerations).

The set with the first two variables is ordered as follows:

01) Modus et Tempus Perfectum, or A major in triple time.

02) Modus et Tempus Imperfectum, or A minor and duple time.

03) Modus Imperfectum et Tempus Perfectum, or A minor in triple time.

04) Modus Perfectum et Tempus Imperfectum, or A major in duple time.

As you can see, the time alternates between triple and duple, but the mode has two minor versions sandwiched between the majors. This allows for the beginning and end of the series to be in the major mode, though the opening tempus is perfect, and the closing tempus is imperfect. This is cool, because the imperfect versions - in both modus and tempus - are the more "interesting" ones, as you will see.

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So, here are the four basic templates:









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Once this is worked out, the next step is to apply the syncopation chains. Please note that I have not added the left hand fingerings to these yet, and I may have to add a rest or two if I can't maintain the purity of the music due to fingering considerations. I was fortunate that the basic major and minor fingerings did not require any compromises to the purity of the musical conception, but adding the syncopes may end that string of luck. This is one of the nice things about this project: My idea of fingering possibilities on the guitar - already at a high level of understanding after thirty years of playing - will take another step forward.

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Here are the four versions with the 4-3 syncopation chains added:









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In the second and eleventh measures of the above versions, you'll notice that the shorter rhytmic value comes first in the leading voice: I did this to get the 7-6 syncopes in measures eight and seventeen (The second of which is, obviously, a multiple suspension), the resulting resolution and rhythm of which provides for a better end to the phrases. Just setting that up taught me that a rhythmic point of resistance near the launch of a melodic trajectory is a compelling device: You hardly ever hear this in western music (Or, at least, I can't recall any examples of it at the moment).

Note here that the counterpoint is generating the rhythm, and the palindromic nature of that rhythm - combined with the palindromic canon(s) - creates a solid inevitability to the overall effect. Though simple, these rhythms are compelling precicely because they are being generated by the music: The rhythm is organic on a very basic and inescapable level.

Remembering that I said that the imperfect (2/4) versions were "more interesting": The 3/4 versions simply launch into a surface rhythm of constant quarter notes, and dissolve back out of that; but the 2/4 versions create a more complex cumulative rhythmic palindrome, which creates a superior rhythmic cadential effect.

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Here are the four original versions with the 2-3 syncopes added:









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I have more hope that the 4-3 syncopes will be more easily executable on the guitar, as seconds are notoriously problematic. However, I am dealing with a lot of open strings, so I could yet be pleasantly surprised. The next step will to be to play through the versions with the syncopations to see.

As I said, I plan to add these - or at least some of them - to my set. Since I have my set organized into suites, and since these suites begin in A minor and follow the circle of thirds, these little mini-fugues will act as interludes and an axial ground to my set. The prelude to interlude (fuga) group for my set from beginning to intermission will look like this:

01) Suite in A minor/Reductio in A major

02) Suite in C major/Reductio in A minor

03) Suite in E minor/Reductio in A minor

04) Suite in G major/Reductio in A major

05) Suite in B minor/Reductio in A major

06) Suite in D major/Reductio in A minor

07) Suite in F-sharp minor/Reductio in A minor

08) Suite in A major/Reductio in A major

Cool, huh? I love it when a plan falls together. After my break the set continues on to B major, so I could get all twelve in if they happen to work out, but the A minor to A major segment is really nice with this organizational device thrown in.

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This fractal is not a Mandelbrot set, but its duality fit in with today's theme nicely.



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How about some variations on this theme?

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Huckleberry the Bald...

... playing the fretted Glissentar with the Carlos CP-1A in it at my gig tonight.



The Yamaha AS-108 II mini-PA speakers in my small venue rig require very different tone settings because - like all Yamaha speakers - they are overly bright. It will take a while to fine tune the sound, but it is SO much better than before. I'm ordering the top o' the line CP-1 for one of my Murrays, and then I'll have an acoustic I can play through my sound systems too.

Will wonders never cease?

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Classic Mandelbrot:



As you can see, the traditional rendering eliminates the three-dimensionality of it.

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Plenty of three-dimensionality here!

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Review: Carlos CP-1A Professional Acoustic Guitar Pickup

Here's a prediction: I'm going to run out of superlatives and descriptive adjectives before this post is finished: This pickup is THAT good.

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From the American Guitar Center website:



The Carlos CP-1A Professional under-saddle endpin-jack acoustic guitar pickup is the brainchild of guitarist, luthier, technician... Let's just call him a Renaissance Man, OK?... Carlos Juan. According to everything I read on his websites (His personal site and the American Guitar Center site), the coaxial pickup he designed mated with his proprietary preamp circuit is designed to provide previously unavailable dynamic range and fullness of tone.

Color me skeptical: As an electric nylon string player for over fifteen years, I can assure you that ALL undersaddle transducers have limited dynamic ranges - they sound like there is a compressor or limiter in the signal path - and a sound that is thin in comparison with the sound of a good acoustic classical guitar. In fact, it was my disgust with the thin and pinched sound of the L.R. Baggs piezoelectric ribbon transducer system that came stock on my Glissentar that lead me to perform this experiment. I was hopeful, but not overly so.

Man, was I in for a surprise.

As soon as the new strings had settled down enough that I could play a few pieces before needing to re-tune the axe, I started playing it through the programs I had previously worked up for the fretted Glissentar (Using the Baggs system) in my Lexicon MPX-G2 (Which I run through a Bryston 3B-NPB and a pair of Tannoy's in my studio). Good Lord! The thing sounds HUGE! I mean, GARGANTUAN!

The first thing I had to do was adjust the settings on the CP-1A's preamp. There are to mini-pots: One for gain, and the other for mid boost. I ended up with the gain wide open - it's got more output than the Baggs system, but not quite as much as the RMC Polydrive (I wanted to match them as closly as possible, since I switch guitars during my set) - and the mid boost on about 25%. Any more than about half-way with the mid boost and the sound became harsh on the Glissentar (But never did it get the irritating nasal quality that virtually all piezoelectric units suffer from in their midranges).

Next, I had to adjust the tone settings on the Lexicon's preamp. Interestingly, both the Baggs and the Carlos "wanted" the tone control settings in the same ballpark: For the Baggs it was Bass= +7, Mid= -1, and Treble= +3, while the Carlos settled in at Bass= +9, Mid= -3, and Treble= +1. That is the only thing that is even remotely similar about these units, though.

Even though the Baggs system has onboard tone controls, I could NEVER get it to sound "big" at all. It always sounded anemic, small, and like it was suffering from a head cold. With just gain and mid boost, the Carlos sounds infinitely "larger." Larger on a cosmic scale! And the TONE! The tone is round, smooth, full, and rich; and yet somehow... SOMEHOW, the sound allows for the perfect seperation of the strings into individual voices (Something VERY important to me, since I play a lot of countrapuntal music). And remember, this is a fretted eleven-string Glissentar, so we're talking about double-string COURSES, and the sound is still perfectly defined. I can even concentrate on a SINGLE STRING within a course, if I want to!!! It is simply a stunning piece of work, this pickup.

Carlos wasn't lying about the dynamic range, either. From the softest pianissimo fingernail whispers to the most agressive string snaps, the CP-1A responds by telling the most intimate secrets, or with shouts which sound nearly like explosions. NO PICKUP - not for electric guitar, not for steel string guitar, not for any kind of guitar - can match this unit's dynamic range. Period. Hell, a lot of mics aren't nearly this good.

At first, the sensitivity of the thing confounded me - I felt kinda klutzy with it - but within an hour I was achieving expressive nuances that were formerly in the realm of my dreams alone. Simply... marvelous.

The problem with this unit? The problem is that there is no problem. This means, of course, that my decades old dream of amplifying my two Anthony Gaillard Murray concert acoustic classicals is now within reach. Nothing I've ever heard up to this point was even CLOSE to sounding good enough to consider modifying one of my treasured acoustics for. Carlos Juan has changed my thinking about several things, and I cannot thank him enough for GIVING me this CP-1A to experiment with in the fretted Glissentar. I'm very grateful. Beyond grateful.

I'm afraid to even ask how much two of these are going to cost me:



LOL!

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Since the preamp had to be inserted from the outside, I had to glue it in (After I made the preamp adjustments, of course). I used wood glue that is water soluable so that if I ever need to remove it, I can.



I can actually adjust the gain mini-pot through the old battery holder cutout, but the mid boost is hidden within the channel I drilled out for the preamp. I just ended up applying a strip of velcro tape to the back of the large plastic cover for battery placement: It's big enough for both batteries. By replacing the stock plastic battery housing with a simple cap-type 9v connector, I was able to enable both pickup systems to function simultaneously, as I previously intended.

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Many classic Mandelbrot renditions tend to downplay or even elominate the three dimensional nature of the geometry, but not this "Buddhabrot" image.

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My townhouse is a bit messy. Think I'll do a bit of housework.



Some help would be nice, but I think my mind might turn to things other than housework.

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Some Days ARE Better than Others

Got up at 5:30; Practiced for a couple of hours; Did 1,680 reps in two hours twenty minutes on my Bowflex, and then the doorbell rang. It was the mailman with a package from Stuttgart, Germany...

I guess I need to rewind a bit.

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A couple of posts back I mentioned that I was planning to install a B-Band electret transducer in my fretted Glissentar because I had come to hate the stock L.R. Baggs piezo ribbon transducer so much. Well, as fate would have it, I was telling this to my lifelong friend Mike Brannon of the Synergy Jazz Quartet, and he said, "Why don't you use a Carlos; They re the best under-saddle transducers in the world." I had never even heard of them.

Mike went on to tell me he uses one on his steel string acoustic, and another friend of ours Robert Cordero, uses one on his Flamenco guitar. I had no idea, but evidently this is THE unit the Flamenco cats swear by. Well, Mike and I go back over twenty-five years and I trust him, so I paid a visit to Carlos Juan's American Guitar Center website.

After reading up on all of the various units, I saw that the CP-1A endpin unit would probably be the best for my application, but I still had some doubts about it (They are much more expensive than the B-Band units are, and while a $109.00 mistake is liveable, a $300.00 mistake is harder to swallow). So, I decided to use the contact form and e-mail the American Guitar Center guys and explain my situation.

After letting them know I was working on an experimental eleven-string guitar, they very generously offered TO SEND ME ONE FREE OF CHARGE TO TRY OUT!!! You could have knocked me over with a feather.

OK. We're back to today.

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The Carlos unit is on the left. Oh yeah: One of my students lent me his John Stowell book and DVD to chack out. He's an amazing jazz guitarist; one of the top ten of all time by my reconning.



There was no way the stock battery housing could stay, so... *snip*... it's gone.



No way I could keep the screw-on housing on the Carlos either because I had to insert it from the outside in, versus the inside out. So... *snip*... I had to detatch the battery connector from it too. I left the Baggs ribbon transducer in place: I just drilled another hole at the high string end of the saddle and put the Carlos unit on top of it. Not too often a guy gets to take a power drill to a guitar. It was fun.



The Carlos unit is about 1/8" thick, so I had to sand the saddle down. I was wanting to raise the action a tad anyway.



As is always the case with the Glissentar, the real pain in the patoot was changing the strings: That took twice as long as installing the pickup! The combination I have now works great: Savarez Alliance High Tension Carbon Fiber B's and E's, the regular Glissentar wound A's, D's and G's (Made by D'Addario), and a Hannabach .047 Super High Tension low E.

The tubes of glass beeds are for the treble strings: I knot them behind the beads, and they never slip out of the pins.



Strings are on. Almost done.



As you can see, the housing for the stock battery had to go. I think I will move it to the middle of the large plastic plate, and then both systems will be available should I want them. Not sure where the new battery will end up, but it works fine in my lap for testing purposes. The battery cuttout also allows me to reach the micro-pots for gain and mid boost easily while I work out the gain, effects settings, and EQ's in my Lexicon MPX-G2. I want to match the level with the RMC Polydrive in the Grand Concert SA, which the Baggs was too wimpy to do. With this set on 50%, it's already much stronger than the Baggs!

When the strings settle in, I'll have a review of how it sounds.



Not TOO many leftover parts. LOL!

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Two super-massive, super-dense bodies on a death spiral into each other in the heart of a neighboring galaxy. The color is artificial: Blue is super-heated plasma that surrounds the bodies for over a lightyear (!), while pink represents the polar jets of ejecta from the "black holes." There are positively gargantuan forces at work in the universe!

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Every now and again, life is all sweetness and light.

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Reductio Fingerings II

Ha! This is my 200th post to MMM. Believe I'll celebrate with a brew or two. Anyway...

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The Fuga: Reductio ad Absurdum theme is now going to become a series of compositional/technical studies for the guitar, and not a variation set as I had previously thought (Except for in the wind quartet version, of course).

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I enjoy writing sets of closely related pieces, and have done a lot of it in the past. Previous sets I've written have included:


1) Six Studies on an E-Axis

Open string studies for guitar using the open high E-string in two-voice counterpoint.

2) Six Studies on a B-Axis

Ditto the above using the open B-string.

3) Six Studies on a G-Axis

Ditto with the open G-string.

4) Twelve Figuration Preludes

Homophonic studies for the guitar in five-part harmony. This will eventually be 24 studies, I think.

5) Three Lineal Studies

Another set I'm currently writing, which is linear compound lines based on four-part harmony using Schillinger circular transformation voice leading: Impossible on the guitar any other way. There will be between six and twelve of these eventually.

The Eighteen Axial Studies and Twelve Figuration Preludes make up the core of my set. MIDI and PDF files of them are here, if you'd like to download them.

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For this set of irreducible four-voice fugues, the final set will number twelve, as you will see.

Here is the first one:



The variation tactic I'm taking for the set has two essential primary variables: That of mode, and that of time. I'm being Hucbaldian about the whole thing by using the terms tempus perfectum and tempus imperfectum as the ancients did, but the concept of modus perfectum/imperfectum is something that is modern, and relates to post-modal harmonic practice.

I only admit of two modes: major and minor. The so-called modal degrees can be inflected in whatever way the composer wishes. The perfect arrangement has major triads on the cardinal degrees of I, IV, and V. Conversely, the imperfect arrangement has minor triads on those degrees, and inflections must be used to get leading tone/dominant harmony effects at cadential points. These two approaches give the modern Ionian and Aolean modes (Which are not the same as the old Church Modes of the same names).

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Logically, this one is now number two:



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Both of these work out so that the music can remain in its pure form: No concessions were required to play them on the guitar.

When I came up with the original version, I said it was like a musical Mandelbrot set, but that isn't really an accurate analogy. Now that we are working with dualities, they remind me more of the classic thespian masks.



The joker in the middle can only be me.

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Obviously the perfect/imperfect forms of mode and time can be mixed, which will yeild four variants. Since the fingerings for the major and minor will remain the same through the change in time signature, once first two are learned, the second pair are no problem. I'll be putting those together next.

Beyond the four versions I will have at that point, 4-3 and 2-3 syncopes can be introduced as well. That will add eight more variants for the total of twelve.

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Not only will this exercise reveal some compositional truths to me, and not only will learning them help my guitar technique out, but additional possibilities for the guitar itself will become apparent. As logic would have it, I wrote nothing but two-part counterpoint for the guitar for several years before anything with three voices occured to me. Now, I have gotten to a four-part contrapuntal theme - something I didn't really expect would ever happen - and so new horizons are opening up. This joins nicely with the five-voice harmonic technique I had developed for the guitar back in my jazz days, and furthered with the Figuration Preludes when I switched over to traditional writing.

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Even though the mistique of black holes may have vanished, the newly-categorized super-dense bodies will still be able to cause gravitational lensing, which this is an artist's rendition of. If there was a super-dense body between you and the Milky Way, it might look something like this.

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I think women ought to have hips, don't you?



Hips like those would cause gravitational lensing all on their own.

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P.S. I'm experimenting with my Smugmug display sizes because they reduced their default "Large" size so much that the music is hard to read. If your browser has any problems with the page, please comment or e-mail me. Thanks.

George

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Reductio Fingerings

I have now learned the Reductio theme and entered the fingering. There are not any position indicators, because the tessitura of the piece doesn't require anything above the fifth fret. Fortunately, I had to make exactly zero concessions to the guitar: The music remained absolutely pure, which is rare. Usually, something can't be sustained and attacks must be repeated &c., but not in this case.

The possibility exists for this to be played in either A minor or A major, and in either duple or triple time. I have yet to investigate whether the major mode version can be played in as pure a form as this minor mode example, but I believe that it can. Next, I plan to make two versions: This one in A minor and tempus imperfectum (Which I'll probably change to 4/4), and a second in A major and in tempus perfectum (In 3/4).

Even though the performance time is only circa thirty seconds, the piece makes a nice and effective interlude between pairs of faster pieces on the same pitch level. So, the plan is to have one placed in the A minor suite in my set (Which is the opening suite that I play), and the other in the A major suite (Which is the last suite I play before my break).

There is also the possibility of using 4-3 and 2-3 suspension chains due to the series of parallel thirds in the theme, but that would preclude playing the piece pure, as some re-articulations would be inevitable. I'll explore that possibility, but first things first: When I have these both comfortably integrated into my set, then I'll worry about that.


Here it is, all eighteen bars of it:



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Anyone out there old enough and geeky enough to remember this?



Well, it turns out that there are no such things as black holes as traditionally defined: A singularity of infinite density. Evidently, there is another resistive force which precludes total gravitational collapse. There can still be super-dense bodies which are more dense than a neutron star - and they still have the property of gravity so great that even light cannot escape - but beneath the "event horizon" (Which may be similar to a "crust" it is now speculated) is an object with both mass and volume. Interestingly - to me anyway - Einstein did not believe that black holes could exist either, even though his theories predicted the possibility for them.

You know what this means, don't you? No, no: Forget the insignificant fact that there will have to be a wholescale revision of astrophysics; That's small potatoes. This means that the entire Star Trek universe will have to be re-thought!!! What will we do without singularities, wormholes, and cosmic string fragments?! I mean, Romulan ships are powered by an artificial singularity which provides the required gravity well.

This is a tragedy of epic proportions, the surface of which I have not even glimpsed (Because it does not reflect light!).

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Ever notice how chicks who ride horses have the most amazing buns? I have.

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