• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Has Anyone Delved Into Microtones?

#44
BarfanyShart said:
Microtonal music p!$$es me off SO BAD. You start playing a DB at 10 years old, and they keep HARPING on you about "playing in tune." So you spend hours and hours every day trying to get EVERY little note on that big fingerboard EXXAAACTLY in the right intonation - AND I DON'T CARE that it doesn't sound right with that piano, CUZ THAT PIANO IS CLEARLY OUT OF TUNE... Then 15 years later you're in graduate school and they suddenly want to teach you about this FRIGGIN' GENIUS who F#$%ed a PIANO so that it can play "microtonal music" - and how this is the FUTURE OF MUSIC, and we all gotta learn how to play MICROTONAL MUSIC NOW... like, what do you think I've been doing MY WHOLE LIFE? I've been playing the WRONG NOTES MOST OF THE TIME - THIS WHOLE TIME ... and NOBODY EVEN NOTICED!!!!
Click to expand...
And you know ANOTHER thing that P@#$S me off about the microtonal music is all the little squiggly frets the guitarists want to add in BETWEEN THEIR FRETS ... how friggin stupid are THESE guys? If you wanna play "THE-NOTES-IN-BETWEEN-THE-NOTES", them notes are IN BETWEEN your frets ... if you wanna get to THOSE NOTES, you gotta TAKE THE FRETS OFF, not add MORE FRETS!!! Look at the Con-sarn DOUBLE BASS - the thing is 40+ INCHES of NOTES IN BETWEEN NOTES! Those darn notes are so COMMON on the DB, you can't get away from them. My teacher used to HIT ME WITH A BASS BOW for messin' with them notes, and now they're givin' people FRIGGEN DEGREES IN THE MICROTONAL MUSIC! Not me, though, nope ... I don't mess with them notes ... THEY HURT! BUT HEY, you know, whatever ... we're MAKIN' ART OVER HERE ... so stop tellin' me I gotta play "in tune," dude, cuz' I don't even know what that means ... you just gotta OPEN YOUR MIND, man ... AND STOP HITTIN' ME WITH A FRIGGIN' BASS BOW!!!
 
  • Like
Reactions: teh-slb
#47
Koshchei said:
I try to work it in subtly.

For example, if I have to cross a tone in three subdivisions, I might walk it up microtonally rather than jumping around or repeating notes: C | + 1/4 tone | + 3/8 tone (C# + 1/8th of a tone) | + 3/8 tone = D. I find that by switching to 3/8 of a tone from a 1/4 tone, I create a feeling of momentum which masks the fact that I just played three very "in-between" notes. Instead, people only notice the very smooth melodic contour and the strong false-supermajor resolution.

Props to Jacob Collier who I lifted the idea from.
Click to expand...
That is a wonderful idea, I might have to implement some of that in my playing.
 
#48
I experimented with 24 tone music on the Chapman Stick. I tuned one side down a quarter tone from the other side. Below is the video. Most people hated it :) In the description I have a link to the music written out on two staves to show how I approached the two sides as one instrument. I haven't revisited this experiment since ... and I probably never will.

 
  • Like
Reactions: lucas303, Bob_Ross and HG1180
#49
It's very cultural IMO. A born and raised westerner might not appreciate or feel eastern music the same way a local does, and vice versa naturally. Even different microtonalities will sound "off" or "weird" to some Eastern people. Same with the rhythm. I had an Argentinean friend who is a music major. Although she is a great cellist, she couldn't clap to a 9/8 compound meter easily. A regular eastern person NOT educated in music will do it automatically.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jerry
#51
bass12 said:
I was going to post the link to FreeNote and mention Hansford but you beat me to both. :) I’ve played the bass in that video and have discussed just intonation with Hansford on numerous occasions. Interesting stuff but not really my cup of tea. My nightmare is to be stuck on a gig with only a JI bass at my disposal. :laugh:
Click to expand...

Cool. Many years ago, Hanny was one of my first two bass guitar teachers, both very serious. He was brilliant and back then was a kindly maniac. Truly cosmopolitan, he was a total playboy musician and ladies man.

We would drive to his country home in his little sports car (an Alfa Romeo, I think, though I wasn't into cars yet then), where he would force me to listen to Van Halen and Billy Joel as part of my studies. Haha! Hanny was so into it. In hindsight I realize that he saw the value in aspects of music and music making that I would not be able to appreciate until years later.
 
#52
rwkeating said:
I experimented with 24 tone music on the Chapman Stick. I tuned one side down a quarter tone from the other side. Below is the video. Most people hated it :) In the description I have a link to the music written out on two staves to show how I approached the two sides as one instrument. I haven't revisited this experiment since ... and I probably never will.

Click to expand...

I quite like that actually, the abundance of intentional dissonance is very interesting, also very nice Stick! Ive always wanted to play around with one.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rwkeating
#53
Snaxster said:
Cool. Many years ago, Hanny was one of my first two bass guitar teachers, both very serious. He was brilliant and back then was a kindly maniac. Truly cosmopolitan, he was a total playboy musician and ladies man.

We would drive to his country home in his little sports car (an Alfa Romeo, I think, though I wasn't into cars yet then), where he would force me to listen to Van Halen and Billy Joel as part of my studies. Haha! Hanny was so into it. In hindsight I realize that he saw the value in aspects of music and music making that I would not be able to appreciate until years later.
Click to expand...
Nice! He’s a good guy. Where was he living when you studied with him?
 
#55
HG1180 said:
I write this thread whilst listening to the entirety of the album Flying Microtonal Banana by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, which is only my most current dive into the vast world of microtonal music, now, I know that there are a few EDM producers that have used (and possibly) still use microtones in their music, I know that a grand majority of microtonal music belongs to the culture of the Middle East, Asia, and India. With this being said, have any of you on TalkBass delved into microtonal music? What about playing this kind of music? How did you do it if so?

Here’s a link to the album I’m listening to if anyone hasn’t heard of them:



Additionally, I know that there is a production guitar that comes equipped with microtonal frets, (22 tone I believe). Does anyone know of a production microtonal bass? Or a company that would be willing to make one?

Heres the guitar:
Hi-Flyer Phase 4 MT
Click to expand...


‘Unfortunately I’ve been totally immersed in western music for the last 67 1/2 years. I’t’s just a little to hard to suspend my disbelief that a micro tone is really in tune.
 
#56
In the late 80s I found a vinyl EP in the discount bin called Invalid Link Removed. It was my first exposure to microtonal scales used in rock. I recall it being fairly straightforward country boogie and blues, and the tonality it sound off at times but otherwise it wasn't actually all that weird.

Been decades since I've heard it (I lost it and all my other vinyl to a basement flood), and had to check Discogs just now to be sure I hadn't imagined it. Nobody's posted a rip of it on Youtube as far as I can tell.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back