March 19th, 2008 Jon
There’s some video up on the Guitar Player magazine website (www.guitarplayertv.com) that shows Matt Blackett demonstrating some chords on the FreeNote 12-Tone Ultra Plus guitar. He plays some Just Intonation Harmonic 7th chords and compares them to standard 7th chords, and he’s using a tone with a lot of distortion, so the curdled sound of the standard 7th chords is pretty obvious against the pure sound of the Just 7ths. He doesn’t play any Harmonic 11th or 13th chords, or any of the other available chords such as half minor, neutral, many minor, super major seventh, cluster chords, etc. but it’s a nice demo of one aspect of the fretting system.
The 13 O’Clock Blues Band played last night, we were playing the piece ‘Parallel Blues’ which uses Harmonic Rhythm. It seems that this concept of each Harmonic having it’s own rhythm is as fundamentally important as tuning, but is even more hidden and underground. Very few composers seem to have used this principle. Keeping 1/1 as the basis, it’s upper octave, 4/1, is used in this piece as the main rhythmic bar. Against this, the third Harmonic, 3, can be played in any of it’s octaves as 3, 6, or 12, etc. Playing it as 12 against the original pulse of 4 strongly suggests a 12/8 blues. This is in keeping with the Harmonic 7th chord, the first 7th chord in Nature and also widely approximated as the ‘blues chord’. It appears that the feeling of blues has been around for a long time!
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February 2nd, 2008 Jon
Just got back from rehearsal with La Monte Young’s Just Alap Raga Ensemble. The performances start next week. There are four vocalists, and I am playing the FreeNote Fretless Sustainer guitar as well as using a looper to fill up the sound. There seems to be no end to the different layers and melodies that can be generated in a raga. It’s also nice to play something that was conceived in Just Intonation centuries ago. The piece is 2 1/2 hours long, and it’s challenging just to control the Sustainer for that long without something squealing.
We also had a rehearsal this week with the 13 O’Clock Blues Band, where we were dealing with Harmonic Rhythm. This grants each Harmonic it’s own rhythm, so for example the 8th Harmonic is hit 8 times per bar while the 9th Harmonic is hit 9 times per bar, etc. We’re doing this in a blues context and performing at the Blue Apple Blues Fest on April 3rd at Crash Mansion, should be fun.
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December 17th, 2007 Jon
We were at Excello Recording Studio in Brooklyn this weekend working on the second Willie McBlind record. Babe did some cool vocals and Lorne Watson added some extra percussion. He brought some cowbells and we were able to get them in tune with a couple of different chords, so the pitch of the cowbell changes with the chords - I’ve always wanted to do that! Not always easy since we tune our A reference pitch to 426.7hz (so that the B is in tune with the hum). It was a pleasure working with multi-talented Hugh Pool at the board, and Lorne’s groove had everyone yelling, “More Cowbell, I need More Cowbell”!
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December 10th, 2007 Jon
Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury was just performed in NYC at the Japan Society, we saw the closing night show on Saturday. Seeing Partch done complete with staging, choreography, and all the original instruments is rare enough, and this piece hasn’t been done like this since its’ premier in 1969. It was inspiring to see and hear the musical instruments/sculptures that he built to play his 43-tone Just Intonation music, and musical director Dean Drummond and crew did an incredible job. The choreography and performers were also excellent. This was really a once in a lifetime experience that transported the audience to a new world. Bravo!
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December 7th, 2007 Jon
A review of the 12-Tone Ultra Plus guitar came out this week in Guitar Player magazine (January ‘08 issue). The picture was cool and reviewer Matt Blackett had some nice things to say. He describes hearing a Harmonic 7th chord for the first time as ‘a pretty amazing experience’. It reminded me of the times when I’ve seen people play a pure Just Intonation 7th chord for the first time, it usually elicits a strong reaction as they realize that this powerful chord of Nature has been kept off of our instruments, out of our theory, and most have even been unaware of its’ existence.
The funniest part of the review was that the facing page contained a review of a leather gig bag which got an Editor’s Pick award. Maybe we’re trying too hard!
The January ‘08 issue of Downbeat magazine also just came out, it has a review of the Willie McBlind cd that’s very positive. It was cool that the reviewer, Frank-John Hadley, noticed the Harmonic 13th chords in the opening track, Chicken. Microtonal music needs more intelligent reviewers like this who listen to the music more than once before they write.
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