Microtonal Bassists

**j-raj** · #1 12-13-2004, 02:21 PM

Just curious if there are any microtonal bassists out there. Plus I would like to know of some good microtonal bassists that I should listen to.

... BTW, I'm not talking about cats that are horrible fretless players, there are too many of them out there. I really would go as far to call them microtonal. Just out of tune.

TRIPSTER · #2 12-13-2004, 07:39 PM

There's Carlo Mombelli of Italy. Almost impossible to find anything about him. I just heard of him years ago and haven't had any luck. Hopefully you will fare better. Also, I've heard of someone named Ed Bromes (SP?) that does microtonal expoits as well. Hope this helps.

chimp · #3 12-14-2004, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TRIPSTER

There's Carlo Mombelli of Italy. Almost impossible to find anything about him. I just heard of him years ago and haven't had any luck. Hopefully you will fare better. Also, I've heard of someone named Ed Bromes (SP?) that does microtonal expoits as well. Hope this helps.

Um Carlo aint from Italy hes a South African and hes pretty incredible! he lives about 30minutes away from me. hes well worth checking out hes got some major spead going aswell.

On finding his stuff good luck its not going to be easy theres a few lurking around cd stores here is SA but you would be lucky to find his stuff overseas.

**j-raj** · #4 12-14-2004, 08:10 AM

Thanks Trip, I'm going to look up both of those cats! I missed your gig when you were here in ATL (@ the Redlight Cafe), tons of bassists were digging it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ninestring

yes- I have been into "Just " intonation since the 70's. I had a 6 string bass altered to 31 tones per octave. Blues in 31 is awesome.There is a guy named Tom who once made guitars with interchangeable magnetic fret boards. The most functional bass and guitar microtonal scale is 19 tones per octave. It is closest to the tempered scale.
Unfortunately, many musicians can't "stomach" the sound of 19, let alone 31 tones per octave. There was a large micro tonal community years ago. I don't know who is into it now. Check out Harry Partch sometime.I could probably dig up the fret board scales for you. Now with CNC making fret boards are easier.

Hey Garry,

My buddy (Paul Ehrlich) up in Boston plays 22, 19 and 31 tonalities (G@#tar) and he had a fretless 4'er lined with green lines, red lines and white lines... I can't remember which colour was for which tonality, but it was a great Idea...

I think that another g@#tarist (John Catler maybe?) had a multifingerb'd'd neck and the FB's were magnetic as well... From what I understand he would just bring a few BD's with him on a gig and switch them out as he needed.

"Just" is when the frets don't go completely across, kinda like dots and dashes, right? I think that I have seen some, but tell me what you can about it.

I've actually been into Harry Partch for some time now, what an innovator! He was also a very skilled sculptor and artist. He seemed to incorporate both mediums of sculpting and instrument building when he designed instruments of microtonality.

Ed Fuqua · #5 12-14-2004, 10:18 AM

Check out this. Or Maneri's website.

Dave Grossman · #6 12-14-2004, 10:26 AM

This guy, Jeff Harrington has been doing quartertone stuff for a while now:

http://parnasse.com/jh/blog/

Some interesting stuff. Not bass though.

- Dave

**j-raj** · #7 12-14-2004, 10:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ninestring

It's nice to read this! I didn't think anyone was interested in microtonality on TB.
"Just" as in "true" intonatation hasn't been "tempered' equally to sound pretty."Mean" tone is another term.I enjoyed playing blues changes,then shifting up a fret to get the "doppler' effect .It does take a moment to get used to.
My brother actually created automated acoustic sound sculptures back in the mid 70's.There was a guy,Ivor Derrig, who made sub sonic 17+ tone guitars that were about 6' long. The "Just" intonation would place fret spacing at unequal spacing,so fingering was interesting.

i am sure somebody has at least the 19 tone measurements for a fretboard.That's closest to a regular bass spacing.I sold my 19 tone bass a while ago(couldn't find anyone who would play with me!).

Well, I've be into microtonality, granted that was due to one of my absolute best friends and influences in the Boston area (Paul, mentioned earlier), but I have only messed with the various guitars he owned. I'm glad to hear that there are bassists out there that are involved in microtonality and TB'ers that are knowledgable here.

Garry, Do you have any pix of that bass?

For those of you that are interested in Harry Partch's work: http://www.harrypartch.com

...this is an example of his marimba that he built.

As for Catler, until now I only heard/knew of him what my friend mentioned to me, here is a fretboard of his (non-magnetic board though):

Man that must have been a b!tch to do the fret work on!

Ed,

Always glad to see your posts~! Joe Maneri is Matt Maneri's dad from what I know, I used to see one of Matt's groups around Boston from time to time: Natraj (indo-fusion-jazz). Don't know enough about Joe other than he is/was a teacher at NEC and I lived in the area at that time. What I do know is that Joe is the founder of http://www.bostonmicrotonalsociety.org... I think that I'm going to be doing a bit of reading during my lunch break today

.

Nick man · #8 12-14-2004, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

Check out this. Or Maneri's website.

I didnt think I had heard microtonal music before but apparently I have.

I just read on that page that Maneri did some of the music for one of my favorite movies, "American Splendor."

Thanks for the info!

chimp · #9 12-14-2004, 12:36 PM

RE: Carlo Mombelli

i found a cd with him on it at http://www.audiophileimports.com/cgi...carlo+mombelli its him and a whole bunch of other bassits

**j-raj** · #10 12-14-2004, 03:42 PM

Here's a 12+ tonal G&L ASAT 4'er that I found on John Catler's site:

It appears that he has a deal with G&L to get various gtr's and basses in a variety of tonalities

yo Chimp, You would get a kick out of this...

this is a pic of Paul playing @ the Middle East in Cambridge, MA, granted he isn't playing a microtonaly gtr...

My friend Paul Ehrlich that I keep bringing up, called and told me that he was over at David 'Fuze' Fiuczynski's (from SHT, KiF...) and he let Fuze play his 31 tone gtr last week. Fuze was really interested in microtonality and apparently he really smoked on Paul's 31 tone.... especially for never have played one before.

chimp · #11 12-15-2004, 02:52 AM

Fuze is an amazing guitarist with lots of different ideas he is probably my favorite guitarist. My jazz band instructor met him at a festival a year or two ago and apparently he is the coolest guy ever so down to earth and realy was just a great guy. When im out of school seeing SHT will be on the top of my list for things to do.

**j-raj** · #12 12-29-2004, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chimp

RE: Carlo Mombelli

I'm interested to hear more about this cat...

chimp · #13 12-29-2004, 11:08 AM

im going to see him next month. i will try get a cd and ill give you some songs, he really is brilliant.

Passinwind · #14 12-29-2004, 11:34 AM

I didn't think anyone was interested in microtonality on TB.

Heh. I haven't seen any reason to discuss it here up to now, but I'm another former Boston resident who caught the bug while living there. I used to work at ARP building synths, and a few of us drove everyone crazy by setting up various scale systems in the employee studio.

As far as bassists, there was a guy up in northern Vermont, Bill Patton, who was doing really cool microtonal solos on his Fender fretless back in the mid-seventies. This was in pretty conventional jazz groups too. That guy was a huge influence on me, to many people's chagrin, I suppose.

Anyhow, here's the classic starting link on the subject, AFAIK: http://microtones.com/