Although I have done it all these thirty years or more, although I live my life surrounded by other people who are always doing it, still I think that there are few activities so worthy of inspection as the reading of novels.
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Fiddling
I've played violin for a bit more than 30 years -- except that for about 20 of them, I wasn't playing violin. Suzuki lessons from about 5 years old to about 14 years old, quit in disgust, took it back up when I was 35. I have a lot of fun with it nowadays.
If you're looking for abc notation of fiddle tunes, be sure to check out The Fiddler's Companion.
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
Exciting -- the DVD of me and Jerry playing last Thursday arrived in the mail. Thanks, Vinnie! If I can figure out how to convert DVD to MPEG and edit it, and get Jerry's permission, I will post a copy of the performance. Some of it sounds very nice.
Update: Rob has helped me convert the DVD files to AVI format -- this evening I will post a couple of them.
posted evening of January second, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Music
So I came up with a melody that's quite different from the ones I have been playing, and just wondering whether it's actually original with me. I know I hear a lot of jazz tunes that I forget the name of and maybe even that I have heard them before -- indeed I thought of this tune while I was whistling to myself an old Dixieland standard that I do not know the name of. (I have included a short, rough recording of that tune at the end of the tape -- if anyone could clue me in about the title I'd really appreciate it. I don't know what it is about jazz that makes it difficult for me to retain information about the songs.) My question to you: is this tune (which I'm calling "Looking for David" for the time being) a new song, or something I am lifting from elsewhere?
posted evening of January second, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Songs
I worked out a fiddle part to "Bed on Your Floor" -- here is ABC format, here is PDF. I try to write out as close as possible to what I'm playing on my fiddle; it puzzles me that so few of the notes actually start on a downbeat. (Well this has been true of the songs I have transcribed in 2/4 and 4/4 time; the songs in 3/8 and 12/8 seem to be more dominated by downbeats.) Nearly every note of this song that is not the first note of a measure starts on an upbeat or a quarter-beat. -- Well maybe that is an exaggeration. But still, there is a lot of syncopation. I don't think I've ever seen the rhythm pattern in the first, 3rd and 4th measures written out.
Some miscellaneous stuff for you tonight, with annotations.
The first two tracks are "Weary Day" and "The Louisville Burglar", from my and Jerry's set at the open mic last week. Still haven't got the video sorted out. Track 3 is my arrangement of "K.C. Moan" by the Memphis Jug Band (and famously covered by the Dead, a-and I know this song first and best in its performance by Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band) -- this is a song we are working on, Jerry sings it much better than I do so just think of the vocals as a placeholder.
Track 4 I would like to know what you think about: It is the next iteration of the song I posted the other day calling it "a variation on Dvorák's 'Humoresque'" -- that description was not a very apt one then and it is works even less well with the current version. The song is definitely a different one from the source. I am calling it "Creepy Charlie" and I just have no idea what kind of music it is. So if it makes you think of anything could you leave a comment? Thanks.
Hmm... and looking at them side by side now, I notice that my "K.C. Moan" part is almost note for note the same as my "Bed on Your Floor" part in a different key and with two extra bars inserted. Which, well, they are pretty similar songs I guess.
I think I am not going to do any more Songs posts until I buy a microphone and an audio processor. I have been planning to do this sometime soon -- I think I will feel much better about the music I am posting if the audio quality is a little better. What I have been doing up till now counts as a sort of a proof of concept -- the concept is pretty well proven.
If any of you have got advice about what sort of mics and audio converter I ought to buy, please leave them in comments, or e-mail me if you prefer. I will be most grateful.
This afternoon I thought of a short tune. Played around with it on my violin and I came to realize that it integrates really well with "After Midnight".
I came up with guitar chords to accompany "Creepy Charlie" -- I am looking forward to recording the piece with viola and guitar, and maybe to writing a "b" part as well. (In the recording I posted the other day, there is something that sounds like it might be a "b" part but I think it is actually just a second voice on the "a" part. This is something I don't know how to figure out.)
Update: bullet two is no longer operative; I have ordered an Edirol E-MU EM8740 audio interface (which I will call "emu") and a pair of Behringer C2 microphones.
posted evening of January 7th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Guitar
Here are Jerry and me playing at the Maplewood open mic:
(YouTube is being a little unresponsive today; if one or both of the videos do not show, try again later.)
Weary Day
The Louisville Burglar
Thanks to Vinnie Video for taping the show, and to my co-worker Rob for helping me figure out how to get clips on YouTube. (The process: Handbrake to convert DVD to AVI, and AVITrimmer to extract clips.)
This afternoon is the first meeting of the chamber music workshop for the spring. In the fall, we played Corelli's Concerto Grosso Opus 6 #7 -- and I've gotta say, I don't think too much of it as a piece of music. It is in 6 movements; and none of the movements individually nor the group of them considered together feels like a song to me. There are interesting bits and pieces but it seems like they could be rearranged in a different order or portions cut out, without materially affecting the experience of the piece. I find this to be true both of playing the concerto and of listening to it on tape.
This term we are playing Holst's Brook Green Suite and at least from listening to the tape, I think it is going to be a lot more fun -- its three movements taken together really form an organic whole that I can identify with. The pause between the second and third movements holds as much suspense as the pause in the opening of "The Yip Song". I'm looking forward to playing it.
I am playing viola this time! I'm very excited about that. I've been practicing the viola part to the first movement and it seems like it will be within my ability, though the reading is going to be a bit of a stretch. I'm having a hard time hearing the viola part on the tape -- I guess my ears are more used to listening to the melody.
(What I mean, I guess, is that the Holst is definitely something I would recommend to a friend for listening; the Corelli, not. But Mike tells me other songs by Corelli are very good, so I should reserve judgement on the composer.)
Hmm: Turns out once you start worrying about what the music is actually going to sound like, this recording stuff gets exponentially more tricky. I am not going to put any recordings up for a little while yet, until I've (a) really gotten the hang of the software and (b) reacquainted myself a bit more with my guitar. My idea is, guitar and possibly vocals on one take, viola and/or violin dubbed on top of that. The guitar will be better for keeping a beat than a click track. But my fingers are still getting used to the idea.
Note to anyone thinking about putting a small recording studio together: the "Creative Professional E-MU 0202" is not actually that much cheaper than the "Edirol UA-25" when you consider that you will need to buy a phantom power source and extra cords; and its two inputs are not identical like the Edirol's are.
The Luddite Robot has a video of some very fine jazz violin playing by Joe Venuti. In comments, twindowlicker posts a link to some recordings of Stuff Smith.
