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those old ampegs are, to quote the kiddies, "da bomb."
Originally Posted by randyc
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11-15-2009 05:46 PM
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Can't see how commence new topic,...... I have just played my 2nd gig, starting to get to grips with which scales/arpeggios can use over certain chords but question is which keys should I learn off-pat? I know c maj and a mi. For example
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Ivan:
Go back to this forum The Jazz Guitar Forum - Powered by vBulletin which is the correct place for your question. Once there, an icon at the upper left part of the page will read "new thread". Click on the icon and then post your question. You'll also need to add a title first so that people will see what your post concerns.
cheers
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There are so many good jazz guitar sounds out there, but the one I've found suits me is one with very little treble, but only 50/50 on the amp, I just roll it off quite heavily on the guitar, that seems to work quite well. But it also seems to matter rather a lot what kind of backing I have, for strings it works well with not much treble at all, probably because strings cover that part. With a band, from band in a box in my case, with piano, bass and drums, I found I had to add a little more treble, or decrease the bass a bit, otherwise it seemed a bit 'muddy'. Might be because I'm not too good at mixing, but that's what I feel about it anyway. I certainly dig mr B's tele sound, as well as a nice hollow body, but for me the LP was a real treat. It's the sound I've always searched for since I figured Jazz was it, it's simple, it just took my getting a new guitar, and there it was...
Peace
Skei (the found a home at last one)
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Here's a subtext to a lot of what I am reading in this thread and others on this forum: for each of us, there might be a "killer app" amplifier that sounds and responds the way we want, without a lot of tinkering with EQ or preamp drive or effects or whatever. At least, that's what I like to think is out there. So far, I've found amps that represent "a" killer app, but not "the" killer app: I trust that I am getting closer.
Converse to this is the feeling that some amplifiers dictate what I play, in a benevolent way. That is, while I don't THINK they sound exactly the way I want, or expect, once the guitar is plugged in and the song is under my fingers, I find myself going into areas I could not go before. The first time I played a friend's '79 Martin EM18 (look it up: interesting guitar) through his '67 Fender Super Reverb, I had that epiphany. It wasn't...quite what I thought I wanted, and yet, music flowed out of the combination.
Some of the trading I've been doing more recently has been an attempt to reproduce that ineffable feeling. I have to say, I BELIEVE I'm getting close.
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Exactly right. When I bought my D'Angelico, I had gone round to the seller's house to try a pair of Guilds (Savoy, Manhattan) but tried the D'A first through my Vox Valvetronix and fell in love (cost me many £££'s more than either of the Guilds would, but.....). Played Georgia fingerstyle, then a blues with the plec, and it all sounded so good. It wasn't what I'd been looking for, but I was glad that I found it. Originally Posted by lpdeluxe
I have of late started to use a Cube 60 with that guitar, and people have told me what a great sound comes out of that particular combination. Save my back wheen I don't need the Vox's output.
Amazingly enough, I take the same guitar to my Teacher's studio and plug it into his standard amp, a Champ 300 - and it always sounds good without my having to mess much with the controls, no matter how the last guy left it.
Guess that it's just a great guitar.Last edited by mangotango; 11-16-2009 at 07:06 AM. Reason: Why oh why can't I type things properly FIRST TIME??
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He's not kidding I'm afraid - there was a big Trad Jazz boom in the 50's and 60's in the UK, and to a certain generation of jazz fans (including my Dad!) "jazz" means this type of jazz. He still refers to anything more recent in style (Miles Davis, Charlie Parker etc.) as "that modern stuff" Originally Posted by NSJ
. You can still hear a lot of trad jazz bands at pubs up and down the country, and much of it is very good music. But I always find it funny that a bunch of middle-class British people feel qualified to judge what constitutes "real jazz"!
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Yes, this is what the rest of us are up against - you try to get a jazz gig and people expect "The Chelmer Valley Stompers" or "The Merseysippi JazzBand", all wearing matching stripey waistcoats and boaters, or somesuch. Originally Posted by Meggy
He's not kidding I'm afraid - there was a big Trad Jazz boom in the 50's and 60's in the UK, and to a certain generation of jazz fans (including my Dad!) "jazz" means this type of jazz. He still refers to anything more recent in style (Miles Davis, Charlie Parker etc.) as "that modern stuff" . You can still hear a lot of trad jazz bands at pubs up and down the country, and much of it is very good music. But I always find it funny that a bunch of middle-class British people feel qualified to judge what constitutes "real jazz"!
I remember playing a gig once in Ilford, Essex. We were a quartet - gtr/keys/bs/dms - and despite the fact that we brought a decent crowd and everyone was digging our sub-metheny/ECM thang, the landlord paid us off at half-time. Why? Because he was expecting a JAZZ BAND, not "keyboards and all that b******s".
Got what he deserved - within 15 minutes of our starting to pack up, the place was empty on a Friday night; so how much did he lose in bar takings?? Sadly, a true story of British Trad Jazz attitudes.
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Sad but true indeed MT, you have my sympathy for that depressing experience. I have to admit at this point that in my youth I actually played guitar and at one point BANJO Originally Posted by mangotango
Yes, this is what the rest of us are up against - you try to get a jazz gig and people expect "The Chelmer Valley Stompers" or "The Merseysippi JazzBand", all wearing matching stripey waistcoats and boaters, or somesuch.
I remember playing a gig once in Ilford, Essex. We were a quartet - gtr/keys/bs/dms - and despite the fact that we brought a decent crowd and everyone was digging our sub-metheny/ECM thang, the landlord paid us off at half-time. Why? Because he was expecting a JAZZ BAND, not "keyboards and all that b******s".
Got what he deserved - within 15 minutes of our starting to pack up, the place was empty on a Friday night; so how much did he lose in bar takings?? Sadly, a true story of British Trad Jazz attitudes. in a trad jazz band (the shame! the shame!) and we did get a lot of gigs in pubs LOL! As I reached my twenties I got more into other things (ECM, fusion, bebop etc.) and have not played in so many pubs since!
Perhaps if you had worn the stripey waistcoats and boater hats while playing the ECM/Metheny-esque stuff you would have got away with it?
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I don't think this is universally true. There are a lot of fine contemporary-style players in the UK. I don't attend a lot of gigs, but I know of one club in the South East that tends to feature contemporary jazz and is usually packed. Originally Posted by philbert
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Yes, of course you're correct, there IS a lot of great contemporary jazz out there in the UK, up and down the country. I was just talking about a particular view that one still encounters from time to time - and things have been moving away from that view for quite a while I admit. Would not wish to give a false impression of the UK jazz scene, apologies if I did that! Originally Posted by Bill C
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Meggy - I think you've actually got a good point there. As a beginner taking up jazz as a kind of retirement project I've come across the 'stripey waistcoats and boater hats' brigade all too often. By no means universal, of course, but quite common. I've actually seen one comment that said 'our age reflects our interests' - meaning that if you didn't exclusively like British trad/dance bands from the 1950's, you weren't welcome. Serves me right for mixing with people my own age I suspect.
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Sorry for the tangent that's developed. But I always thought the word "Trad" as used by UKers translated to the word "straight ahead" here in the U.S.--i.e., jazz that swings, more or less functional harmony employed.
I didn't know it actually meant "Dixieland".
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RAQ - I've been lucky enough to become part of the Southend Jazz Co-Operative, and whereas there are plenty of retired people there, there are also plenty of younger members too. At 51, I'm kind of in the middle ground. The music tends mostly towards standards and be-bop, with some more modern stuff in there as well. It's a good mix that tries to find something for everyone, and the only person who's ever turned up in a waistcoat was me - to last year's Xmas concert. If you have a close look at my avatar piccy which is from that event, I'm wearing a (non-stripey) wesket and my Jazzbo's chapeau, purchased in Noo Awlins. And not a boater, nor a banjo in sight!
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Well, since the banjo used in jazz was a four string plectrum banjo, finger/thumb picks weren't used, so no reason he would have even considered them. Originally Posted by randyc
Brad
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A lot of this ties in nicely with the evolution of guitar amplifier designs as evidenced by the Fender amps of the 1950s and 1960s. Originally Posted by randyc
The earliest Fender designs were very simple. The preamps passed the full spectrum, altered only by simple tone controls that'd roll off treble (in some cases they'd roll off treble or bass). The mid-focused tonality was primarily a byproduct of the use of inexpensive transformers and speakers.
Leo Fender seemed to believe that distortion was an undesirable byproduct of playing his amps too loud, and advised guitarists to turn down their amps to avoid distortion. The realities of volume on the bandstand, coupled with the inefficient early amplifier designs, forced guitarists to push the amps harder than they "should" have been pushed and learn to deal with the resulting mid-focussed, slightly-distorted sound.
Through the 1960s Fender not only introduced higher-powered amplifiers, but also refined and revoiced their preamp designs to increase apparent volume. The now-classic Fender blackface tone stack attenuates the midrange energy of the guitar, while the positioning of that circuitry reduces the tendency of the preamp to distort. The resulting tone is much crisper and better able to compete with the cymbal wash of the music of the day.
A little bit of both, I think. Part of it is due to our love of familiarity. Another part, though, is probably inherent in the way we perceive different frequencies.Or do they ?
That’s what I’m asking myself now ... am I perpetuating a sound that came about purely by accident or is this “The Tone” that is most psychoaccoustically pleasing for our form of music ?
I really believe that the typical listener cares about the song. Lyrics, arrangement, feel, etc. I suspect that if you asked a non-guitarist about the guitar tone in a particular tune, they'd probably wonder whether it was a trick question. "Well, it sounds like a guitar... why?"I've often wondered if the average listener cares about 'tone'. Is it really the melody,phrasing,the emotion conveyed by the artist etc that really sticks in one's mind? A song reaches at you from the distant past and touches you,except that this time around it's a different interpretation,maybe on another instrument.
Maybe. Or maybe it's a result of having too many available options. If our instruments and accessories were significantly more expensive, or if we had far fewer choices, perhaps we'd concentrate on the music.Maybe it's just us aspiring musicians sweating it about the 'tone' and in a never ending search for that 'perfect tone'!
I first learned to play guitar in the mid-1960s. I was interested in the pop music of the time, which was already starting to utilize effects through studio trickery and effects pedals. As a youngster living in a rural area I had neither the financial means nor the access to stores that I would have needed in order to explore "tones". As a result I was far more motivated to learn songs while adapting them to the tonality that my own equipment was capable of producing.
I play a lot of close intervals and dissonant chords and haven't personally haven't found your argument regarding treble roll-off to be true. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
What I do find is that intonation problems become all the more critical when my playing involves close intervals and dissonance. I play with a very bright sound which is mitigated a bit by playing using mostly the pads of my fingers with just a bit of nail for emphasis. When my strings (round wound) get "old" (more than approximately 20 to 30 hours of playing time) I notice that close and dissonant intervals no longer sound right.
I think what might be happening is that the upper harmonic structure is the first to go out of tune with old strings (due to work-hardening of the steel core, deformation of the windings and accumulation of crud and corrosion). Perhaps we mask these problems by rolling off the treble. I prefer to change the strings.
I don't know if I'd make the same argument w.r.t. playing flat-wound strings. I simply don't have enough experience to comment.
I have pretty much the same reaction to that style of music. I'm able to appreciate the craft that goes into the performance without being especially fond of the music. Originally Posted by lpdeluxe
My own musical universe begins with classical music, not jazz. I only began trying to appreciate jazz a decade ago.This is a peek into the alternate universe, where players did not grow up listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford, and Mundell Lowe, and Barney Kessel, and you and I can name many more. Are we a dying breed? If our preferences are informed by familiarity, AND the music with which we are familiar is no longer popular (or even played), that may be the case.
However, it's clear that my earliest musical experiences have colored my appreciation of different kinds of sounds. I really don't care for the unnatural emphasis of bass and treble frequencies, the extreme compression and distortion or the slavish adherence to mechanical tempo, timing and pitch found so often in modern pop music. I strongly prefer "natural" performances.
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As always, TDD, brings some interesting points to the discussion ! There is lot a lot to think about in just a few sentences ... Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil
I THINK that what Mr. B was referring to was dissonances caused by third order (and higher order) multi-tone distortion. One might introduce something like an inversion of a major ninth chord, that places the ninth and the root only two notes apart, for example ...
If the guitar mechanical characteristics OR the pickups were not linear, then any number of products will be generated that are only two tones apart from ALL of the fretted notes. Now that would be very close to laying both hands FLAT on a piano keyboard and mashing down all the notes at once.
Except for the fact that, in the previous "example", all of the notes would be the same amplitude, while in the case of multi-tone distortion, the distortion products are always lower amplitude than the fundamental notes provided that one is playing within the linear region of the instrument.
(BTW, this same phenomenum is even MORE obvious with a guitar amplifier operated in a non-linear fashion. If you set up your amplifier for lots of compression, then play just about any chord that consists of more than two notes, it's going to sound awful ! That's due to all of the other multi-tone higher order distortion tones being simulataneously produced.)
I'm going to write an entire thread about this, if I get my thoughts organized and set up a few simulations or actual measurements ...
OK, moving on to an even more fascinating portion of TDD's posts, regarding the aging of strings and their (possible) inability to play in-tune harmonics. I confess, this has never occurred to me and it sort of leaves me speechless from the implications ... In a much earlier incarnation of my career, I was a mechanical engineer, I should be able to comment on this extemporaneously all day long but I need to think about it more.
Instinct tells me that it's impossible for a harmonic to be out of tune with the fundamental frequency, because that defies the equation that predicts the frequency of harmonics, which would be something like:
nF, (n+1)f, (n+2)f ......... and so forth. "F" being the frequency of the fundamental tone and "n" being an integer. An integer, by definition, can have no fractional part, it's just ..... well .... INTEGRAL
Having said that, I have read many articles on "fractional n frequency synthesis", which is a different subject completely but could relate to this ...
There are a couple of other phenomena that could be suggested if one first could prove that a harmonic is not integrally related to its fundamental. The problem here is there is no hard fact supporting the original statement (which doesn't mean that the statement isn't true).
Thanks, TDD, I'll keep on thinking about this topic, very interesting.
Cheers,
randyc
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As it happens, I was listening to live performances of classical music for a number of years before I picked up guitar, but I played only in a pop-based styles, other than learning some Carcassi etudes when I was younger and eager to master technique.
But I still, very clearly, remember the first time I cranked my venerable Silvertone 1484 up loud. I had just gotten my first good electric, a Chet Atkins Country Gent, and we were playing outside at a party, when I turned the amp up past the range in which I been doing my "living room gigs." To this day I recall the sensation of having a guitar suddenly begin (as it seemed) to speak to me. Later, when I got better, and more affluent, I decided to "upgrade" from the Twin Twelve and soon discovered that the old beast did better what I wanted an amp to do than any of the modern, channel switching, high gain, high power wonders.
As I said earlier today on the home recording thread here, I prefer to let music speak for itself -- and that tends to minimize my dependence on distortion or other effects (although, give me the right song, and I'll wear out my wah pedal on it -- my guilty pleasure).
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Yes, Physics 101 tells us that the overtone sequence is composed of integral multiples of the fundamental. This, however, is based upon the assumption of a perfectly elastic string. Originally Posted by randyc
OK, moving on to an even more fascinating portion of TDD's posts, regarding the aging of strings and their (possible) inability to play in-tune harmonics. I confess, this has never occurred to me and it sort of leaves me speechless from the implications ... In a much earlier incarnation of my career, I was a mechanical engineer, I should be able to comment on this extemporaneously all day long but I need to think about it more.
Instinct tells me that it's impossible for a harmonic to be out of tune with the fundamental frequency, because that defies the equation that predicts the frequency of harmonics, which would be something like:
nF, (n+1)f, (n+2)f ......... and so forth. "F" being the frequency of the fundamental tone and "n" being an integer. An integer, by definition, can have no fractional part, it's just ..... well .... INTEGRAL
A real string has a certain amount of stiffness. This affects the frequencies of the upper partials.
I first noticed this back in the mid-1970s when I was prototyping a guitar synthesizer. I was working on a pitch extractor and noticed on the oscilloscope that the overtones weren't quite at the same frequency as the fundamental; they "moved" relative to the fundamental.
I later discussed this with a college math professor who introduced me to the notion of the imperfectly elastic string.
Nowadays it's fairly easy to find this information via a Google search. As little as ten years ago, though, I found it difficult to find any text which acknowledged the phenomenon.
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Randy, here's a reference:
http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2008/isbn9789...9512292431.pdf
Start reading at page 31. The punch line is at the bottom of page 36.
This paper is also interesting:
http://lib.tkk.fi/Diss/2002/isbn9512...9512261901.pdf
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Fascinating .... the source work seems to have been done by Fletcher. Unless I can find him at the library, a quick internet search suggests that I buy his book (not going to happen).
On the bottom of pg 37 of your first reference is the expression for Fletcher's "inharmonicity coefficient" - the amount by which the harmonic frequency varies from n x fundamental:
B = (E*A/T) * (pi*k/L)^2 where E is Young's modulus, A is area, T is tension, k is radius of gyration, pi is pi and L is length.
It's a very simple expression BUT the only property not related to geometry (or tension) is Young's modulus, which is constant, regardless of age of the material ... From a long ago class, Young's modulus (the ratio of stress to strain) is only VALID within the material elastic limits so .... I don't see why this equation is suggested since non-linear behavior is the cause of frequency shift. But then again, I don't know how this equation is used, so I should just shut up until I know more.
(I don't dispute your initial statement but this equation doesn't support it. However, I skimmed the preceding pages, so I'll look at them more carefully in a bit. Most probably there is an expression there that supports the assertion ... )
Incidentally, I pulled out my FEA program manual, I was going to run a quick simulation on the guitar string and examine the harmonics. LOL, when I bought the program, I cut down the cost by eliminating three of the available modules that I would NEVER use - nonlinear mechanical analysis was one of them
Haven't looked at the second paper yet.
Cheers, thanks again for the reference,
Randyc
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After thinking about this a bit ....
From the Finnish PhD dissertation:
"As opposed to ideal strings, real strings are not perfectly flexible, but possess some bending stiffness. This means that in addition to the string tension T, there is another restoring force that tends to keep the string in its equilibrium position. In practice, the stiffness causes dispersion, i.e. harmonic frequencies become stretched so that the upper partials end up higher in frequency when compared to the perfectly harmonic case. Stiffness plays a major role in the vibration of thick strings, such as those used in the piano, but it is not important for guitar strings due to their smaller diameter" [Järveläinen and Karjalainen, 2006].
There are a couple of things here that are questionable/arguable, ignoring whether this effect is applicable to guitar strings or not. What got my attention was the statement about stiffness and dispersion. I agree that one is caused by the other but I disagree that the assertion about harmonic frequencies necessarily follows.
I'm a microwave guy and dispersion is something that I've dealt with throughout my career, especially when using dispersive, non-TEM transmission line structures (e.g. "microstrip"). Where I disagree with the Finnish authors is that I would argue that rather than harmonic frequency changing , harmonic wavelength has to change.
If I'm allowed the flexibility of making a little comparison to suit my background I'd like to make an electromagnetic wave analogous to the author's sound wave and a dielectric (plastic) transmission medium analogous to his steel string transmission medium. Before anyone points this out to me, I'm aware of an ambiguity in my argument:
Sound travels at different velocities in different media while electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light, which is fixed and immutable.
Consider this example: a cw electromagnetic wave (a "signal") propogated in air approaches and enters a block of plastic, a thick one. The plastic block has a perfect dielectric constant of 4 and we have the ability to make the following measurements
1. The propagation velocity of the wave in air.
2. The propagation velocity of the wave in the plastic block.
3. The frequency of the wave in air.
4. The frequency of the wave in the plastic block.
5. The wavelength of the wave in air.
6. The wavelength of the wave in the plastic block
If all six of those measurements were made, the results would show that:
1. Frequency is unchanged, whether in air or in dielectric.
2. Propagation velocity is unchanged, whether in air or in dielectric.
3. The wavelength of the wave is doubled when it enters the dielectric block, compared to its length in air.
If the experiment were repeated, adding significant second harmonic content "distorting" the cw signal, the same results could be predicted (e.g. only the second harmonic wavelength would change as it entered a different medium).
If the dielectric plastic block was then made "dispersive" (lossy) and the experiments were repeated, then three things would be notable:
1. As in the above cases, the fundamental and harmonic wavelengths would lengthen when entering the dielectric medium.
2. There would be a phase-shift in the wave as it passed through the dielectric medium, the amount of the phase shift would be determined by the amount of loss of the medium.
3. we haven't mentioned "loss" in the above examples because we assumed a “perfect” dielectric but in this example, the amplitude of the cw wave would be diminished by its passage through a dispersive medium.
OK, having made this particular argument, let me take the other position.
Back in the day of .010 inch diameter first strings, I frequently noted that a vigorous pick attack would pull the skinny little strings off key. (I don't mean out of tune, like stretching the string to the point that re-tuning is required. I mean an instantaneous "sharpening" of the plucked note, just a momentary one, decaying quickly back into tune …) I imagine a few of you have also noticed that when you were playing pointy guitars with scrawny strings.
Never thought much about that particular problem/phenomenom before. But as TDD suggested, the explanation lies in the non-linear behavior of the guitar string. I doubt that it has much to do with the stiffness of the string, as the Finnish author of the referenced paper has suggested. I think the answer is a lot simpler than that …
Recall in the post above where I commented on Fletcher's equation that predicts "inharmonicity coefficient", and I mentioned Young's modulus as being the only non-geometric variable besides tension, and that it only applied in the material linear region ? Keeping that in mind, bear with me …
I once calculated, as a matter of interest, that the stress on one of those "slinky" strings could be well in excess of 100,000 PSI (pounds per square inch). That's the STATIC pressure - the attack of the pick and it's affect on string stress has to be ADDED to it.
I'm going to make a simple suggestion that, for the case I just pointed out, a heavy attack on an already highly-stressed string will drive the material modulus (ratio of stress to strain) well past the elastic limit, which modifies the normally fixed value of Young's Modulus.
I believe that it would be a simple matter to offer a mathematical proof, as well, simply by calculating static stress, calculating dynamic stress, comparing the sum of the two with the yield point of the music wire. If the total stress approaches the material yield point then Young's Modulus is no longer applicable and non-linear approximations must be made for the natural frequency of the string.
I'm not going to do that analysis … it would take some time and I really think that only two or three people would be even slightly interested J If I'd purchased the nonlinear analysis for my FEA program, I could have done all this in about ten minutes. Oh well !
Getting back to TDD's original statement regarding older strings … Using Fletcher's terminology, perhaps the inharmonicity of older strings can be explained by gradual stretching as a string ages, fractionally reducing the diameter of the string cores (they are very tiny, the windings aren't stressed at all, just the cores). As core diameter dimishes, stress goes up by the fourth power. It wouldn't take much to pass the elastic limit to the point where Young's Modulus is no longer accurate.
Oh yes, one more thing: Fletcher's "inharmonicity constant" does not refer necessarily to variation in harmonic frequency. Fletcher, being an engineer/physicist type, could be using the "harmony" term simply to describe a pleasing sound and could apply to the fundamental frequency.
PS: I shouldn't have so quickly postulated that variation in Young's Modulus was causing my example of the heavily-plucked string to "sharpen" momentarily. Actually Occam's Razor might suggest that, if the pick attack was really vicious, I might be changing the initial tension on the string, therefore momentarily altering the pitch.
PPS: This is really an interesting thread - it's come a LONG way from my initial intent but in a GOOD long way. I'm adding an experiment or two on the roundtuit list. Inquiring minds want to know about these things ! Thanks everyone - TDD: some good stuff.Last edited by randyc; 11-16-2009 at 11:48 PM. Reason: add PS, add PPS
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LOL ! Brad you deflated my helium balloon ... I was trying to be funny ... I'll look for YOU the next time that I need a "straight man", OK ? Originally Posted by brad4d8
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Randy, thanks for talking that through. I've learned a lot.
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Me, too. Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil
DON'T get caught in technical conversations with engineers.
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