Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
too bad son nee boh no did n’t
watch out for that tree
but i say
it’s O K
bet ter him than me.
get it?—
how ’bout now? :
who says zarathustra is a
better man than me?
friedrich N
I E T
Z S C H E
okay. if that doesn’t do it
for you, you’re too young.
I M I N U R U
O Y O Y O Y
I M I
U R U
Y O Y O Y.
see you next week.
up top, th’ “2-string saints”—
you know the one… how i want
to be in that number… oh when
the saints go mar, ching, in.
that one.
below that, fresh today (and indeed
*unfinished* if i have anything to
say about it): drone-string willie.
here is the you-tube: blind willie mc~tell
with guitar-giant mark knopfler
on guitar & dylan on piano & vocals.
wow.
aren’t they great. back to me.
the thing here is, there’s this
guitar right here with only two
strings. and, as it turns out,
even *that’s* too complicated
(for my purpose right now): so.
let the low (“6th”) string just
*drone on* and bang out the melody
on the high string (the “5th”).
one can use big sweeping right-hand
“strums” in doing this; much easier
than some brain-torture right-hand
*finger-picking* arrangement, say,
and more *fun* (and, undoubtedly,
more *filmic* in case one should
ever stand on a stage again…). but
really, the point… *a* point…
is that one can begin to get some
*feeling* into the g-d d-mn thing.
like all blues songs this songs about
how much it hurts to play this song.
a kid with a hammer thinks
everything looks like a nail
when you most need to succeed
that’s when you’ll fail
then when you knead the dough
the check’s in the mail
so you can’t raise the bail
and you rot in jail
if you give just a little
they want a lot
then they’ll be back for stuff
you ain’t even got
you get to the end of the page
and make a big ink-blot
right when a thing gets ripe
it starts to rot
(
you do what they told you to do
to get through but ya don’t
you get er alone an yr hopin she will
but she won’t
just when you think you can’t lose
you find you can’t win
just when you think you’re out
they pull ya back in
)
i don’t know the name of the tune,
so here it is in one-string code.
0 0 E 9 7 5
E E 9 7 5 4
9 9 7 5 4 2
2 4 4 5 7
.
the bold-face means “+12”, btw.
of course i’m not going to try to render
the three-string “tabs” into HTML.
but they’ve been there the longest.
the single-string arrangement typed out
above, & found at the bottom of the page,
came quite bit later. the lyrics were
in-between. anyhow. what i *haven’t*
done here… but have recently *taken*
to doing… is to put in the “fingering”.
as you can kind of see in this post
from earlier today, the notation here
is {o, i, m, a} for “open”, “index”,
“middle”, and “annular” (i.e. “ring”).
it meant something else when i learned it
from a pro guitar teacher but never mind.
it works if you work it.
G G A G C B
G G A G D C
G G A G E C B A
F F E C D C
(
G A G B . . . )
all from vlorbik’s diner
(blog by me 2009–2016). see yesterday’s post
for similar stuff from here.
08/03/09 no promises to keep: into the music.
08/12/09 blues of the hour: lyrics (12 lines).
08/19/09 lies of the program theory-&-technique in teaching.
09/02/09 letting i dare not… songwriting notes.
09/03/09 wet snotty bawling: french musical; 10-beat scansion.
09/09/09 a baby ovation: playing out; funny tunings.
03/05/10 365 days: a guitar named “woody”.
03/11/10 like it’s 2011: lyrics (12 lines). the party never ends.
04/10/10 not for auction:home-painted guitar (& link to a better).
04/10/10 front room (w/ guitarist): me & woody (photo).
04/24/10 4mad1: photo; lyrics (doggerel).
02/10/11 open a vein: me-on-“soundcloud” announced.
03/28/11 3 blind mice: new on s’cloud.
05/25/11 4-string guitar: s’cloud again.
06/12/11 like a frog: link to video of me (!)
08/24/11 your weary tune: once upon a time there was a robot.
quitting here for now. here’s
the whole thing.
(with brief comments)
01/13/11 our medium is handwriting: (3) photos of hand-drawn fretboards; diagrams-into-code.
01/18/11 time considered as a mod-12 sequence: improvised web-typographic diagrams for the guitar neck; rambling.
01/26/11 music theory ramble: long. “sunshine of your love” in relative-vlorbik notation. (much) more.
08/19/14 songwriting 201you know my methods, watson.
11/28/15 mel bay upside down left hand photo’ed (repeatedly) fretting strings strung for the right hand; unrelated 10-for-maria math-ramble.
11/11/16 gaff my wheel (2009): song lyrics.
02/03/17 hell hound on my trail: big 2-tone chart: weird tuning.
02/05/17 down to the crossroad: another (“spanish” tuning).
for several weeks now, i’ve played a half-hour or more,
pretty routinely, almost every day. naturally, i’ve
made improvements.
the thing is… and it’s a *startling* thing… again
and again i’ll get this feeling of “this is the best
i’ve ever done in my whole life”. not *every* time…
oh, hell-no. but, weirdly-often. several times a week.
and it’s probably even true. sometimes.
what is *undeniably* true: the skin on my fingertips
is a lot better prepared to bang on steel strings than
ever before. and the muscles of my left forearm… and
those of my left hand itself… are usually at least a
little bit sore…
and i *like* it this way. now this. for all my *hugely*
improved techniques… too many to mention… it doggone
it *feels* just like it did in the 70’s when i was first
banging it out three chords at a time. which, in case it
isn’t obvious, is a great feeling.
yadda. i used to like blogging.
now i mostly like filling in crossword puzzles.
at least one stranger “liked” last week’s
hell hound on my trail, so here’s another
guitar-neck diagram in the same format.
this one’s in “open G” tuning: DGDGBD
(“dog dug bed”). in key-neutral notation
one has 0-5-12-17-21-24 (“half steps” above
the lowest note). (the thing to memorize
here is probably the gaps-between-strings:
5, 7; 5, 4, 3 [“twelve & twelve”; there are
(of course) 12 half-steps… guitar frets
or piano keys for example… in an “octave”];
in the same notation, the “open D” tuning
from the previous slide would be “7,5;4,3,5”.)
adding “7” (and reducing mod-12 again) gives us
7-0-7-0-4-7; the point of this admittedly rather
weird-looking move is that the “tonic note”
for the open chord (“G” in the dog-dug-bed
notation) is placed at the “zero” for the system.
(“open D” is 0-7-0-4-7-0 in this format; the
tonic note falls on the high and low strings.)
my source informs me that open-G tuning is also
known as “spanish” tuning; a little experience
shows me that it’s even more convenient for
noodling-about-on-three-strings. that is all.
here’s a diagram showing some of the notes for
a guitar tuned in “open D” tuning. i posted it
if f-book not long ago but of course one soon
loses all track of whatever is posted there.
three “inside strings” (the 3, 4, & 5; marked
here with a purple “{” [a “set-bracket” to me;
i’m given to understand that typographers call
it a “brace”])…
three “inside strings”, i say, can be played
as shown here to produce “the same” major chord
(the 0, 4, and 7 from a 12-note scale) in
three different “inversions” (namely, 7-0-4, 0-4-7,
and 4-7-0).
meanwhile, quasi-random bangings of the “outside”
strings—i like to use my thumb for these some-
times—particularly at frets 5, 7, & 12—will
blend in nicely and one needn’t worry much about
“muting” strings-not-played.
Here we go again
It’s another phony friend
Pretending that they’re oh so glad
They’ve found ya
Until you can escape
It’s emotional rape
You haven’t got a chance
When they’re all around ya
And they always seem to know
Right where to find me
And start right in
To own me or define me
I will somehow make ’em see
That that can never be
Get Away From Me With Your Lies
GAFMWYL Mister Salesman
GAFMWYL You flirt, you tease
GAFMWYL You politician
Get away from me you dread disease
Pretty please
Get away from me
With your phony sympathy
I can see what you want
In your eyes
All you want from me
Is that I should agree
That I’m the kind of guy
You should despise
But you really oughta pick
A better victim
Some sucker who won’t even know
You’ve picked him
I will somehow make you see
That your victim can’t be me
So get away from me
With your lies
Posted by r. r. vlorbik at 2:18 PM
(last year’s model.)
the livingston review 