The earliest surviving musical document is from the fifth-century tragedian Euripides' play Orestes. A notoriously avant-garde composer, Euripides-scholars presume.
Now, imagine that it is the year 4515, and future people begin excavating the musical remains of the past. Add the following wrinkle to this scenario that all that survived of the Beatles songs were a few of the lyrics, and all that remained of Pink Floyd's The Wall were the words and not the music. Would it be possible to recover the rhythms and melodies from these scraps?
Yes, we are told. We could reconstruct the music, rediscover the instruments that played them, and hear the words once again in their proper setting. I imagine the reconstructed Beatles might end up sounding nothing like themselves, but then again, now that scholars have begun to recover the music of ancient Greek tragedy from a few fragments of text, surely those future historians could remake "Love Me Do" . . .
|
If you liked this edition of
Mike Overly's
12 Tone Music Newsletter, forward it to your friends. and
'til next time, play and have fun, I'll be listening!
|
|
|
|
|
The guitar slide has been with us for a long time, and it won't be going away anytime soon. Guitarists have been using slides to add soulful expression to their playing since around the time when the small body "blues box" or parlor guitar was the norm, and it has since been used on other guitars like regular acoustics, resonators, cigar box guitars and even electric guitars ever since. From blues, to country, folk to world music, even rock and pop - all have benefited from a great slide lick or two, and as such the guitar slide is very much as relevant today as it was in the past. Here you will find . . .
|
|
IN THE BASSMENT
Nothin' like a little James Jamerson on a Fender P Bass! Here's a really cool collection of 30 Motown bass lines that should inspire you to pick up your bass and play some hits!
|
A lot of times, when you cut a string straight, if the windings unwind a little bit the string will go dead. So you want to make sure nothing like that happens. Watch John Carruthers demonstrate, in this how-to video, the steps to take when restringing your bass guitar . . .
|
As I may have mentioned before, when I was in high school I took lessons from former Miles Davis guitarist Dave Creamer. I was getting into arpeggios, and he taught me about intervallic arpeggios. Funny story: When I found these intervallic arpeggios that I had written back in the day, I had sort of forgotten what the definition was. I Googled it and all that came up was "Jason Becker on Intervallic Arpeggios." This led me to believe that Dave Creamer invented the term. I think the basic idea is . . .
|
|
GREAT GEAR
Equalization plays an important role in all aspects of music production, and amplified instruments like electric guitars are not exempt from it. As a result, majority of amps and stompbox effects are bundled with built-in EQ, either through a basic tone knob, 3-band EQ, or other more powerful slider type EQs. Because of these built-in EQ effects, many guitarists have skipped on standalone EQs, leaving them unaware of the advantages that dedicated EQ pedals provide.
|
|
ARTIST AWARENESS
In 1950 Howard moved to Los Angeles and began working with musicians, arrangers and songwriters including Neal Hefti, Henry Mancini. In 1956, he signed with Verve Records and around that time he decided to concentrate on recording, a direction he would continue until the early 1970s. Roberts played rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass and was known for his heavy use of the Gibson L5. From the late 1960s, Roberts began to focus on teaching rather than recording. He co-founded GIT, now known as the Musicians Institute and his philosophy remains an integral part of the curriculum. Roberts passed away June 28, 1992 at the age of 62.
|
|
|
|
|
