Do you play a musical instrument?

When I had a bass in the house it was always in the same room as the replay!

And yes it resonated!

Not much, and nothing that spoiled natural instruments, but the room was more dead without it.

See the picture earlier of a bass in the corner. the normal way to keep them safe.

ATB from Geeorge

No not heavy at all.

At least not a fine instrument.

It is not widely know, but on fine old instruments, the back of a flat backed bass is actually thinner than that of a back of a fine violin - perhaps 4 mm. - and the front at its thickest is usually only half as thick again as a violin. Maybe 9 or 11 mm.

In other words the instrument lives on the edge structurally. 

I remember an idiot who used to call himself Prof. John Tavare, used to do a stage skit where he stood on top of a double bass. Of course it was a East German student bass made of plywood glued with cascemite, and thus would likely impede a small car. A fine instrument is not comparable in structural strength or weight. 

Often the padded bag used for transport will weight quite a lot more than the instrument it marginally protects.

I always used a canvass cover as there is almost as much protection and a fraction of the weight to carry.

Large rigid cases are used for transport on ships and trains, and at one time these were made of wood, and were a two man lift. They were called coffins!

ATB from George

Running in takes years.

I had a bass made in 1995, which was pleasant from the start and was marvellous five years later. In a hundred years it will be even better.

And the set-up is far more interesting than hifi.

Choice of strings, positioning the [movable]. sound post, placing the movable bridge in exactly the right place, are the three main areas which affect the optimisation, but really they are very sensitive to temperature and humidity as well. Even a change in the weather can have an effect. 

ATB from George

George, I think you will find the run in time on your bass drastically reduced if you leave it switched on all the time!

Or store it and play it in a humidor! 

Dear Dr Mark,

It is true that any stringed instrument [violin family mainly], the more they are played the better they project. But the improvements in the early years is down to the seasonal cycle so that the improvements occur annually over the first two or three years. This is because the wood de-stresses, and so vibrates more freely. The less wood in the instrument, the more responsive it is in any case. 

Another myth is that the varnish "improves" the tone. the reverse is the case. It dulls the sound. The best varnish is the softest. So an oil based finish is better than a spirit or synthetic ...

The best a very immature instrument will play is when it is "in the white," or before the varnish is applied. At this stage the new instrument will be set up with strings and any modifications to the planned set-up made. It will be a good two years before the instrument will be as vibrant again after varnishing.

Dear Joe,

In houses with central heating, instruments are sometimes stored in a case with a humidifier, so as to keep the humidity more even during the time when the heating creates an excessively dry atmosphere, which can produce enough shrinkage to cause cracking in the table [front] and the back.

I have never had central heating when I had a bass in the house. Another method is to hang a humidifier through one of the "f-holes" so as to keep the humidity slightly higher inside the instrument.

Jpking aside, keeping a stringed instrument on the top-line is a work of dedication.

ATB from George

Joking aside George, I've done a bit of woodworking in my home shop and I understand the role humidity and temperature play in obtaining and maintaining long-term, quality joinery in furniture. A delicate, stringed, wooden instrument may well exhibit the epitome of craftsmanship in specialized woodworking. Emoticon aside, my comment about storing the instrument in the humidor was more than half-hearted, although playing it in one was certainly said in jest.

I've enjoyed reading your contributions here and appreciate your response .

George - I was only teasing because of your position on leaving Naim equipment switched on, but I am very familiar with that of which you speak, because guitars, especially acoustics, and even more especially classical instruments, have many of the same "break-in" characteristics that you describe for your bass.

Char Wallah :  It seems I am just a beginner with regards to Naim ownership, especially seeing as I am the owner of the starter set,  Nait 5i-2/cd5i-2/naca5/Nm2s. (que, 500 series owners gaffawing into their pimm's).  My previous set up was a little Denon separates system (more gaffawing) from the late nineties that got rave reviews, although it was decidedly budget. It was ok, but quite bright  and with the Gale 3040 speakers I was using, it lacked any substantial bass.

But I was introduced to Naim by a friend who has all naim, pre/power combo 152 (I think?!) flatcap, cdx, naca5, Arrivas.   So I've had a little bit of schooling.

George and Dr Mark: I have to agree on the set up/bedding in thing you describe, the Gibson to your left (on my icon) is a 2009 model I bought from a little guitar shop, that just played so much better than the ones I had tried at the music wholesalers, Brand new they can feel and play awfully, high action, bad intonation, etc , Yes, Fettled and restrung is definitely better than just shipped in and hung.

But if you look at the Bumf on the Gibson website on these guitars it mentions the thin lacquer used to improve resonance, 335 and 339.

I spent as much on this with Amp and leads as I did my black boxes, So I suppose that pretty much states how my priorities lie.          Regards Jim

Heard this and thought of the great brewer of tea:

'Rhythm is both the song's manical and it''s demonic charge.
It is the original breath, it is the whisper of unremitting demand.
What do you still want to be said of the singer?
What do you think you can still draw from my lips?
Exact presence that no fantasy can represent.'

As slaves to the rhythm, are we capable of drawing a distinction between fantasy and presence? Is the musical presence so  fantastical that our senses are overloaded beyond clear distinction?

Jimmy, it would seem that you clearly can distinguish and your prioritisation of making music first hand does not seem such a strange course of action to me. 

Yes, Char Wallah, like yourself I still use my Denon as a bedroom system, and managed to acquire an old aiwa turntable for free, this has dampened down the brightness and I have put the Gales right up against a back wall to improve the lows, Its just the job for playing my old records.

Vinyl purists would say that I need to buy an Lp12 or a rega and incorporate it into my naim system, But I am still of the 80s conceived opinion that compact disc is actually an improvement over vinyl. Besides,   My record collection is fairly modest with no first pressings and some quite badly scratched.  I mean I get the warmth thing, but the clinical aspect to CD is, for me, a fair trade off for all the crackling , that no turntable will get rid of completely no matter how good.

With regard to playing an instrument , I don't feel the need to express in a philosophical way what it means, I just love it, I find it relaxing. Listening to music is great , but playing it has a slightly more rewarding side. Playing cover versions is par for the course really, Three blind mice would have been my first attempt, We don't give a child an instrument and say "play whatever you like". We encourage them to learn something that has gone before, I might find a chord that is harmonically beautiful that has almost certainly likely to have been played before, But if I play it in a different way with some different notes around it then have I written new music?

We may have come to a point in our musical evolution where most sonically complimentary chord structures and sounds have already been explored on mainstream instruments.  Which is perhaps why tribute acts are so popular in small venues. (Actually my brother is the guitarist of a Steely Dan tribute band, and before the inevitable backlash, I'll just say that let's not forget that the classical music of the old masters is probably being played as we speak/I type by tribute ORCHESTRAS.) sorry bit defensive there but I don't know why they get such bad press, some are really good. Having to play most of an artists back catalogue sometimes (mostly in my brothers case) by session musicians with different styles deserves a pat on the back. Well I would but I am a bit jealous... 

Regards Jim

Nothng wrong with tribute bands or orchestras: they keep the music live after the first event.

I like the point about how musicians start out by using well known repertoire, it provides the foundations for experimentation, which then leads to the sort of musical creativity/discovery  you're talking about. So, in a sense, you have created new music, albeit a variation on a theme. A bit like jazz, really, or Vaughan Williams, or Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Absolutely Loki, an artist or in my case a guitarist has to know a B flat major 7 flat 5 from an A major 7 to be able to find his or her own angle so to speak, it may take months or years even, of deliberating around a chord structure to find a new sound that appeals to them.

And the best of musicians are the ones who say they are "always learning".

Char Wallah: With respect, Prince probably has a team of agents help him come up with new ways of helping him sell records but to be fair, his musical accomplishments are above the norm for his genre, I remember his early guitar work for purple rain was very hendrixy.

With regard to the Beethoven piece you mention , i don't have it to be perfectly honest ,(but soon will ) But feel it is a very personal thing for musician or non musician alike, for instance a non muso may be able to get to a different level emotionally with the SOUND of the music but a cellist Eg,may REALLY enjoy the expertly played track on his or her chosen instrument.

My brother as mentioned earlier wouldn't subscribe to being a big fan of the music of Frank Zappa (rip) claiming his fretwork as not that of a serious guitarist and yet it was out of his record collection that I discovered him as a teen in the early eighties.

Aside from the sometimes distasteful lyrics I find a wonderful Avant garde composer capable of truly magical pieces, almost all of which (I later found out) were sheet written in tablature etc.

Just get a copy of "One size fits all" , slip it onto your turntable/CD transport, turn it up, and enjoy.

Regards Jim

One Size Fits All may be his best.

Check out Live at the Roxy & Elsewhere also.

And he IS a d@mn good guitarist - not in the super virtuoso class, but he never considered himself a guitarist, but rather a composer whose primary instrument was the guitar. 

Some of his solos are very visceral and can carry you away, which is what music is about.  (Check out "Watermelon in Easter Hay" for one of many such examples.)

And he can crank out a pretty d@mn good rock solo too:

Q: Who wants to sound anything like Hendrix, other than Hendrix himself ?

A: either the budding guitarist trying to forge his own style by exploring and experimenting with the best techniques of his forbears, or the hifi enthusiast trying to recreate something of that performance in his listening den.

Surely all orchestras playing (at least dead composers works) are cover bands? 

Certainly plenty of room for cover bands we enjoy several, if you missed a band during their time then a great way to still hear their music live.

Also some bands can become their own cover bands if enough members have passed on or are still arguing over who owns the name.

"There is altogether too much irony in Zappa's work, and not enough music."

Congratulations for one of the most incorrect posts ever on this forum.  I'm sure the lack of music is exactly what drew the top flight musicians with whom he played to be in his band.

Go watch his son's band play his stuff, and then tell me there isn't much music - they are all musician's musicians, as were Frank's bands.

I play bass. 

4 string MIM Fender Jazz bass in sunburst

5 string Sterling by Music Man Sub-Ray 5 in black

4 string Schecter Fretless Jazz bass in green stain

played through a Orange Orange Crush CR50BX w/ Lava cables

Cover bands are still bands

Zappa rules

Orchestra is fun to listen to

la la la

music is music and there is always one other person that enjoys it besides yourself.

Cruisin' is a mini homage to doo-wop, which Frank loved (it was his favorite, along with Varese & Stravinsky) and in fact he had a massive doo-wop collection of records (as in many, many thousands.)

Contrast that with the Waka-Jawaka & Grand Wazoo periods.

Frank fired his whole first band because they were not technically adept enough to play his stuff, and Ian Underwood had to teach everyone the scores from wrote because he was a true, mufti-instrumentalist and musician.  Tommy Tedesco dropped in once to offer his services, because he thought it would be fun, and soon found out he had to work his @ss off to play Frank's stuff, because it was so technically difficult...this from one of the top session guitarists of all time.

Money & fame?  Frank didn't have a lot of either during his career - he was often on the edge of financial disaster, and as for fame - I mean seriously?

You might want to do some reading on his life & career, because I think you would find it illuminating.  I can recommend some:

Electric Don Quixote by Slaven

The Real Frank Zappa Book - Zappa & Occhiogrosso

Zappa by Miles

Zappa The Hard Way by Greenway

No Commercial Potential by Walley

And go see Dweezil doing "Zappa Plays Zappa" and let me know what you think about the musicianship.  It is top flight and very difficult:

The essential part starts at 0:56

No messiah status, Char, not here.  Just a great musician/composer who did something unlike anyone in rock music ever did before or since.  Being a genius does not make one a saint or a messiah.  You were the one who said there was little music, which is just not the case. 

And Crusin' is an homage of sorts (albeit a satirical one, as FZ hated "love lyrics") - as I said, it was his favorite type of music with a doo wop record collection in the thousands.  It's actually all part of a longer related material that includes "We're Only In It For The Money" & "Uncle Meat" (which is a album with which I am not so enamored.)  All this earlier stuff is IMO, the weakest stuff he ever put out, as he hit his stride musically and in terms of personnel after this.  I seldom listen to anything that chronologically came before Hot Rats, as it just isn't that compelling.

And pointing to the farce of the corporate music world and pop culture is laudable - your point about Joe's Garage is spot on.  But that doesn't make it not music.  He has 97 albums released (35 after he passed away) - there's a lot of satire, but a lot more music.  Music that is difficult for the average semi-troglodyte to understand.  But as  a guy who loves guitar, I think he writes some killer stuff.  I always thought of him as a guy with crazy lyrics until my early 20's, but my brother played other stuff and it was an epiphany as to his musicianship and guitar playing.

And hardly anyone listens to him - but they love American Idol and that sort of claptrap.  I work with people who listen on headphones much of the day, and only one of them can I talk with about music, because the rest just don't get it; be it FZ, Mozart, Duke Ellington, or many others...they like what the radio and TV tell them to like.

That is my fave as well - which includes the 2 albums to which I referred at the beginning.  Ruth & Ian Underwood, Chester Thompson, etc, and then later with the Bozzio/Cucarullo/Colaiuta etc bands...although FZ himself thought his final band (for which he cancelled the remainder of what turned out to be his final tour when he discovered all the infighting and subterfuge between the band members) was his best.

I once found online (many years ago) the diary kept by Mike Keneally about that tour - it was really interesting, albeit sad.  He seemed to get along with both camps, but there were a lot of squabbles, most revolving around Scott Thunes role as musical director for the group.  Lots of petty, junior-high level bickering and cliques.  When FZ found out what was going on, he cancelled everything almost immediately...he was trying to run a professional organization, not a baby-sitting assignment.

And go see Dweezil doing "Zappa Plays Zappa" and let me know what you think about the musicianship.

And now I understand playing in sevens, and can hear it in the music. I had no idea before. Just fast notes. Here we have the musician teaching the listener to understand and appreciate the riff. A new angle on the musician/Hifi enthusiast link.

Thanks for the vids Dr Mark,

I have the 3 album boxed set Joes Garage amongst the" modest "LP collection I mentioned earlier, i swapped with a mate for a copy of Zeppelins," Song remains the same",(got a better deal methinks,its in really good nick too.) And I know exactly what you mean by"carries you away", I think that "Ambient domains" and "Panchromatic resonance" are good descriptions of the dreamscapes Zappa was able to paint with his attacking style.

Black napkins, and the solo in the middle of Yo mama Are also good examples of this, able to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

But a personal favourite would be on "He used to cut the grass", the  piece just after Moon does her "knowledge is not wisdom" bit.

And I think you are spot on about the level of musicianship on offer here especially with the later bands, George dukes piano work on apostrophe is superb.

I'm sorry Char but I think there is a lot of joy here, apologies to the fans of, but don't you think that there is a cheesy insincerity to the love songs of Barry manilow or this side of the pond Chris de Burgh,

Go to the gig, play some easy chords with some smoochy lyrics, let the middle aged housewives throw their underwear and more importantly their MONEY at you, then drive home to your multi million dollar pad.

I don't think frank was ever hatefully sneering at anyone that didn't deserve it,

It wasn't frank that was extorting money out of god fearing Americans through the use of TV

He just highlighted these things to those of us with the nous to know better,

And as for messiah status, there is an interview on you tube with frank towards the end of his life where he is evidently quite poorly, when asked how he would like to be remembered, he answered "It doesn't matter".

Some human being,  Regards Jim

Brilliant post Jim.

Tony

PS.  I should feel sorry for the bloke that got that LZ album, but I don't. Terrible recording!