March 5th, 2010 Jon
The new Pitch cd is out, called ‘Gems’, and it features a half-hour performance of Harry Partch’s U.S. Highball. This was recorded live in the studio, with Johnny Reinhard on voice, Joshua Pierce on chromelodeon, Skip La Plante on Kithara, and myself on guitar. Harry Partch was a central figure in tuning, and his book ‘Genesis of a Music’ is highly recommended to anyone seriously interested in the subject.
U.S. Highball was inspired by a transcontinental train trip during Partch’s hobo days. This is an early quartet version, still in Partch’s 43-tone Just Intonation. The tuning is used masterfully to convey the sounds and feelings of hitching a ride on the rails across the country. It is expressive, humorous, and unique, and sheds a different light on what Partch himself considered his most creative work. It is available from the American Festival of Microtonal Music website, and we should be getting some copies on the FreeNote store soon.
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November 10th, 2009 Jon
We just got back from the Great American Guitar Show in PA, it was a hoot. There was a lot of activity at the FreeNote booth, and our luthier Darren did a great job prepping the guitars and necks. On display were Ultra Plus, 19-tone, and fretless necks and complete guitars in all price ranges. Many of the people walking by during the demo had never seen or heard of any other fretting system besides standard. There were many questions, like ‘how do you fit your fingers in the small spaces between some of the frets?’ (You don’t have to, your finger just has to stop at the right place). Also, ‘what style of music is this for?’ As with standard fretting, any style of music can be played using alternate tuning systems. Rock styles can benefit from the purely in tune notes that allow new, unheard power chords. Jazz players can find new chord progressions and melodies to play over. Blues players can play all the blues notes as chords and fretted pitches. Folk and country players can play simple, solid in tune chords. And avant garde players can go wild. Some players showed up who knew us, or who knew of Just Intonation or Harry Partch. Rob Birch had actually played the Marimba Eroica in the Partch Ensemble at college, this is the marimba that is so low pitched that it really can’t be recorded, it must be heard in person. Rob was one of the players who got a great deal on a FreeNote guitar at the show, and we wish him and the others all the best and look forward to hearing some of the new sounds they come up with. The next performances with La Monte Young’s Just Alap Raga Ensemble start this week, on Friday the 13th. This time we are doing Raga Darbari, which is in a 7-limit Aeolian minor, using 7/4 for the seventh and 7/6 for the half minor third. This one is just fretless Sustainer guitar with voices and tabla. Naren Budhkar is the tabla player, he really has a great feel, and one of the best things about playing this music is that the drums are tuned and play in the same key as the piece. This is such an important concept, as it never made sense to me that the drummers in American music are the only ones who don’t have to play in tune! Tuning a drum set to the key of the song is something I started doing on the Cowpeople record. When using a more Just tuning system, it can really make a difference when the drums are in tune, and it also allows the drummer to play melodically.
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August 17th, 2009 Jon
In the October 2009 issue of Guitar Player magazine, when asked what new gear discoveries he’s excited about, Steve Vai mentions that he’s using the bent fret True Temperament necks on his 2 favorite guitars (pg. 61). These necks attempt to address some of the intonation problems found on a standard guitar neck. The bent frets do not provide pure Just Intonation pitches, or any new pitch identities, but it is a step in the right direction. The problems of standard fretting are being acknowledged by one of the most visible guitarists around.
Some of Vai’s statements are misleading. He states, “The tempered scale is sort of out of tune with itself. If you tune a piano to a C chord, and then play an F chord, one will sound out of tune.”
Actually, the tempered scale is in tune with itself, but out of tune with the natural Harmonic Series. And if you tune a pure C chord on a piano, you can also tune a pure F chord and both will be perfectly in tune with no conflict. You could even tune a pure G chord and that would be in tune as well. The problem would arise on a chord like D, as the D note from the G chord would be out of tune with the A note from the F chord. This is why more than 12 pitches are needed to play music in tune.
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June 29th, 2009 Jon
We are back from the MicroTime Tour. Part of the funding requirements included speaking to the audience before some of the shows, and this proved to be an effective way to get people to understand the music they were about to hear. Few listeners have a deep understanding of the Harmonic Series, fewer still know about Just Intonation tuning systems, and almost no one seems to know about Just Intonation Rhythm. And although these can be developed into a fabric of great complexity, the basic concepts and their Natural origins can be illuminated more simply. Most people are surprised to hear that Nature has a tuning system that contains beautiful chords that remain mostly unheard, as well as rhythms that have groove and humor. Another part of the talks that seemed to resonate with the audiences was the Difference Tone demonstration, where I played two high Harmonic Series pitches and produced a moving bass line of Difference Tones that was not actually being played, but was easily heard as I changed one of the high pitches.
It turns out that the only people who seem to know something about Harmonic Rhythms are scientists who are working with what they call Harmonics Theory. This has been used to predict the existence of particles that were previously not predicted, and were later proven to be exist. It has also been used in determining the distances between galaxies. The scientists that adhere to this theory feel that all is vibration, and that Harmonic Theory is the Universal organizer. To quote Ray Tomes, “The universe is a musical instrument and everything in it is vibrating in tune with the larger things that contain it. I belive that there are no other laws in the universe than this. All the other laws of physics appear to be the result of the wave structure that leads to the Harmonic law”. This seems in keeping with the current String Theory which has been at the leading edge of physics for some time. Harmonic Theory may even be the ‘Theory of Everything’ that Einstein searched for most of his life.
Focusing on the Harmonic Rhythms at multiple gigs with the 13 O’Clock Blues Band on this tour enabled the whole group to get to another level in executing the rhythms. Joseph Leibhart and Dane Johnson provided skilful and inspired playing, bassist Mat Fieldes rose to the occasion with his usually solid style combined with great musical understanding, and drummer Lorne Watson shined on both drums and Kalimba. Babe Borden surpassed herself again with monumental energy and explosive performances on autoharp and vocals. My deepest appreciation goes to these musicians, and thanks to everyone who did sound, booked gigs, and did promo etc. A great way to kick off the summer!
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June 15th, 2009 Jon
Is this the end of music as we know it? So asked a music writer from the south after hearing the Bad Thing cd. He feels that the band is ‘taking this music in an entirely new direction’. This writer has a feel for the blues, as well as an understanding of the role that blues music has played in shaping the music of our time.
Blues was the fuel that propelled the rock revolution. From the blues, rock took the beats, the tonality, the blue notes, the stage antics, and the lyrical themes. These were the elements that would revolutionize music. The early blues players didn’t have electronic tuners, they tuned their guitars to an open chord and played with a slide. They were microtonal at a time when most American music wasn’t (and still isn’t). Musicians like Charlie Patton and Blind Willie Johnson had a keener sense of pitch than is displayed by most modern day musicians. Patton was like an early rock star, playing guitar between his legs and behind his back, living life in his own way, and finding refuge in the music from the pain of his Black/Indian mixed heritage. Many forget how revolutionary this music was in its time. The shuffle rhythms, the 13 1/2 bar forms, the bent notes he would hit with his slide and voice, had not yet found their way into mainstream music. The blues was, from its inception, a rebellious and progressive musical style.
There are some, known as blues nazis, who profess that they like only the ‘old fashioned blues’. These people really have no perspective on the music, and limited knowledge of the early masters. Then, blues was not restricted to 12 bars, or 12 pitches. And being hammered into a formula is a sure way to kill the music. Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf kick started Rock and Roll by bringing their music to Chicago and plugging in, setting the template for the rock bands to follow. The Rolling Stones named their band after one of Muddy’s songs, (a one chord stomper) and used old blues songs for their early repertoire. Hendrix started off his Monterey Pop Festival performance with Wolf’s Killing Floor. Led Zeppelin used Water’s version of Willie Dixon’s You Need Love for Whole Lotta Love, (and eventually paid Willie for it). These facts also derail claims by supposed ‘new music’ people who feel that the blues can offer nothing new to music. In truth, the blues has always been fertile ground for musical innovation. Cranked tube amplifier distortion first heard on blues records is now standard, as is the tonality established by the early blues players. Today, the 13 O’Clock Blues Band is playing Harmonic Music with Harmonic Rhythms that have seldom if ever been heard before. And a simple blues album by Willie McBlind may turn out to be the most harmonically advanced release of the year. Maybe this is the start of the end of music as we know it.
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April 14th, 2009 Jon
The new Willie McBlind cd, Bad Thing, is completed. This was recorded in Brooklyn, and a few of the songs were mixed by Jim Gaines in Memphis. Jim has worked on a lot of great records, including Stevie Ray Vaughn’s last two, and many with Santana, Journey, etc. He took a liking to our music and was a pleasure to work with.
Also finished the La Monte Young gigs at the Guggenheim in NYC. They built a Dream House inside one of the galleries, and that is where we played. As the Dream House on Church st. is running concurrently, this was the first time that there has been two Dream Houses in one city at the same time. The performances went well, and the extra rehearsals allowed us to dig deeper into the raga.
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March 9th, 2009 Jon
There’s a recent book out called Ramblin’ On My Mind:New Perspectives On The Blues, edited by David Evans. The first chapter is by Gerhard Kubik and deals with the origins of the blues scale. Kubik uses blues great Skip James and his song Devil Got My Woman and analyzes the pitches to show that Skip seems to be using an 11-limit Just Intonation scale! As Skip is a cornerstone of the blues and a strong influence on Robert Johnson and many others, seeing how he bases his most classic song in 11-limit JI is quite eye-opening (so much for anyone who questioned playing blues in Just Intonation!).
At the end of the chapter, Kubik talks about how, in a study of 50 blues singers, the male singers who use the word ‘Man’ tend to sing it on the root pitch, and if they use the word ‘Woman’ (or ‘Devil’) they tend to sing it on a blue note like the flat seventh or flat minor third. The female singers, however, did the opposite, and tended to sing the word ‘Woman’ on the tonic and the word ‘Man’ (or ‘Devil’) on the blue notes. This seems to be an example of Harmonic Lyrics, where each pitch has a natural meaning and a verbal association. This ties in with Harmonic Rhythm, where each pitch has it’s own natural rhythm.
In the 13 O’Clock Blues Band, I have developed this concept in the Man/Woman Boogie, a long form piece that uses Harmonic Music, Harmonic Rhythm, and Harmonic Lyrics. We did the first performance of the piece a few weeks ago, and we are developing it for a series of gigs in June. I’ve always felt that pitch had meaning. In 12-Equal, as the pitches are hammered out into equal values, the meaning is obscured. Not only has the concept of in-tune, Harmonic Music been kept hidden from most people, the concepts of Harmonic Rhythm and Harmonic Lyrics are almost completely unknown. It is time for a change.
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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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