Musical Sketches

Her Slave

2011-08-05T09:53:00.009+02:00

Just a quickie :)

Well SHA one of the bands i play in entered a Music competition recently ... (we came 4th ;) ).

Anyways one of our fans, Mike Berry took this vid, so this is just a little post to put it up there.

My wife Muriel on keyboards, my bro-in-law Clive on guitar and vox and my good buddy Craig on drums, and me on bass of course :) .

Enjoy

A little study in E Flat

2010-12-02T08:46:00.004+02:00

Ok, I'm back with a study just before X-mass.

This is in Eflat Major (as the title says :) and has three main parts.

1) A bit of "clawhammer" with the Right Hand to start with.
2) A "tapping" section
3) Lastly finishing off with harmonics.

This is still a work in progress, and that's my excuse for some of the rough edges on the mp3 example that you can find here.

Eflat Major study mp3

pdf is here

Tone wise I have VERY old strings on ... not my fault I can't seem to get D'Addario EXL165 bass strings anywhere in Cape Town for some reason (quite miffed) and this is what I use ... any donations welcome :) .

I use a GT-PRO into REAPER, the latter I've mentioned before, and I'm still blown by what it can do ... everything I need so far and more besides, for the GT-PRO I tweaked a patch I found somewhere on the net GT_Pro-Jazz.mid GT_Pro-Jazz.gtl and kicked off the delay.

There are a few gotchas in this piece.

Section 1) I use my RH index, middle and thumb for all but the string skipping section where I use my ring finger instead of my middle.

Section 2) Apart from where it goes down to B it's a "Victor Wooten" type pattern that recurs in major and minor arpeggios.

Section 3) I really struggled and failed with my software to notate this nicely, so you'll just have to do the best you can listening to the mp3.
The first harmonics can be natural at the 5th fret ...or... fretted at 5 and pinched at 24 which you need to do anyways for the others (ie. fret at 6 and pinch at 25) the high harmonics are pinched near around 32 or so ... near my neck pickup, you'll just have to find it for yourself. The LAST harmonic may be resolved easily by fretting the G# and pinching the high note ... or in a more flashy manner, reach over with your RH and a) tune up the string : b) grab the string behind the fretted note and bend (it's surprising how FAR you have to bend it for a semi-tone)

If anyone reads, and can make sense of this, have fun with it, comments appreciated.

A coupla tunes

2010-09-05T11:14:00.004+02:00

Hi again,
After the (by now usual) long silence - been a bit (real world) busy in the meantime, here are a couple of tunes I've been working on.

The Elephant Song I did with Hugh Coutts, a really cool songwriter, he played guitars and sang, in a few different keys :) before we settled here.
He recorded the guitar and vocal tracks at home then brought them to me, I added and mixed the rest with a bit of backwards and forwards in between.
I'm more of an engineer than a producer when it comes to recording so I took it to a good buddy of mine Pete Stanford who then added a few deft touches, whilst giving me a lesson in things audio, thanks Pete, and here it is, comments welcome.

Looking Back (at you) I did with Lamecia who I used to play with back in the late '90s, her voice always impressed me, but we lost touch for years, then we connected again (via FaceBook), she said she has some songs, so I said lets do it.
This is one of quite a few songs, but The BarleyCorn was having a song-writing competition and as this was the one nearest completion we entered it. Again any comments welcome.

Just in-case the above links to the tunes don't work properly, you should be able to find them here.
http://www.reverbnation.com/hhhza

'till I next add something ...

Reaper

2010-03-07T11:50:00.000+02:00

Hi again,
Just thought I'd share my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

Well mostly the software, I'm totally converted to REAPER as my main editor.
It's fast - no long boot up and snappy when editing.
It's tiny - less than 6Mb, the size of an mp3 and it has a demo song included.
It's amazing - remarkable programing skills here with a vibrant, caring community and forum.
It's cheap

I use it both in WinXP when I need all the bells and whistles plugins and rewire, but it's really comfortable in Linux using wine-ASIO (see this thread ) which is the setup I use for my live recordings at The Barleycorn.
With REAPER's keyboard shortcuts and a CLI (Command Line Interface) I don't need a mouse to get around.

Been a LONG time

2010-02-15T08:59:00.003+02:00

Well it's been a long time since I updated this blog, kinda like a diary when you're busy you haven't the time to write it down.
So ... the desk is working fine and I'm recording The Barleycorn every Monday as well as playing there a couple of times.
My original band (we do some Hendrix/Muddy Waters etc. covers as well) SHA (Sherwood, Haylett, Angilley) is practising more regularly.

This is our video of Quirky

You can hear more SHA songs on reverbnation.com as well as some studio (Gello) stuff.

We jammed some at the guitarists birthday (Clive Haylett) here is a clip with his son Arlo playing accoustic.

I am also working in a cover / corporate band called July Crisis for which there is a Facebook video of our first gig but I've no idea how to embed it, no doubt more gigs and vids will follow.

I also have a couple of ideas for tunes which I will put up here as soon as I have time to lay them down.

That's about it for now, will try and keep this more up-to-date but no promises.

...up and running again

2009-07-25T09:52:00.003+02:00

Following on from my previous post re "shit happens ...", owing to the money collected from the benefit, and a top up from my studio partner we have another VS1880 (which saves having to learn new stuff), and I'm getting a second hand laptop soon, so we're back at the Barleycorn as well as being able to record bands live again.

Almost up to speed re the gear stolen (also bought a car) fortunately it's a buyers market ATM, but altogether a hefty dent to the finances.

Anyways ... life goes on ... and it's not looking too bad :)

I'll try to start putting music up here again soon ... 'till then.

Shit happens but life goes on.

2009-06-24T10:50:00.004+02:00

Yep, again there's a long pause between blogs, I guess that's just the way it is.

Anyways, this isn't really a musical entry, just a note to myself and any who read this that a few weeks ago I was robbed at gunpoint of my car, recording gear (Roland VS1880 / IBM T43 Laptop) plus mics, leads etc. wallet (R120.00) and cellphone (contacts backed up to laptop :( ), but I didn't get a scratch other than going through the emotions, so as the title says - Shit happens but life goes on.

This happened on my way to recording the Barleycorn Sessions a folksy kinda get together every Monday evening round the corner from where I live.

These guys are amazing, they really appreciated what we were doing (recording the seperate tracks for a remix if wanted and a live mp3 for the artists) so they held a benefit gig to help recoup some of our losses... wow I've never had a benefit gig before and was really touched, about R3000 was raised which won't cover much but was a really sweet thought.

Anyways I'm back to researching what's out there that can record about 8tracks at once, so far the pick of the current bunch seems to be the Yamaha AW1600, and perhaps a netbook for the mp3's.
Will get back one day to let any who read this know how things worked out, any suggestions would be really appreciated.

'till next time .....

oct 08 67 2

2009-02-25T19:39:00.002+02:00

Recently I was looking at one of the other music collaboration sites, I've explored
kompoz.com, they do have a better gadget to share your music with, it's still not ideal but here it is.

Notice that the title of this tune is a date, the originator of this tune "themeeksheep" is way prolific and has a bunch of tunes on kompoz just waiting to be finished off with a few takers here and there so I have my doubts that this will see much more action but IMO it's a nice groove and I had fun playing guitar all over it. (click on the gadget to go to the project page, from there you should find my guitar mix... I did say it wasn't yet ideal (for me - yet) )

Do it

2009-02-12T12:43:00.006+02:00

OK, this is a new song, rather nice, but what is stumping me is that I cant seem to embed/include the rss from other sites into the body of this blog ... WTF.
Adding the whole page is clumsy, there's got to be an easier way.

I eventually found Google Gadgets...
http://www.google.com/webmasters/gadgets/

which allows you to add gadgets to your web site, they don't show in preview of blogger being script based but then blogger and google know about each other so maybe thats why ... anyways after much anguish on my part it works..... so.

New song, new mission, lets see what happens.

For You

2009-02-11T14:14:00.005+02:00

Mid Feb and my first post of the year ... very slack ... but I have an excuse and a plan,
I've been pretty busy collaborating on indaba.com but they don't yet have a widget that I can plant here.
If anyone could let me know how to embed RSS into here I would be grateful for that to, but until then I just figure I will iframe the whole page if that works ... so ....

Recently one of the collaborations I was working on finished (was "published") so here it is

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

My first published indaba tune ... hope you enjoy it.

Last tunes for the year

2008-12-28T10:47:00.008+02:00

Hi again,

Please click here to listen to tunes.

This is probably my last post for the year, been quite productive even if this blog does not really reflect it ... other than by its absence of entries.

Anyways I'm quite impressed with reverbnations management tools, so I've created my own hhh profile

The couple of songs in there to get it going were recorded mostly just to have fun and learn some tools at the studio - hence Gello.
Gello Studios

Elliot doing most of the sequencing and keys, John doing vox, his son Matt on lead guitar, myself on bass and rhythm and Matts Gfriend doing fem vox.

Online Music Collaborations

2008-11-29T08:48:00.005+02:00

Hey again,
Just an update, I've been looking at doing collaborative stuff over the internet recently, and it's quite exciting what's out there at the moment. Here are a few I've found :

Indabamusic:
This is kinda close to my heart as indaba means "discuss" in ndebele/zulu so it has a african feel to it right away ... I mean this in a good way :) ... anyways it seems more geared toward remixing ... several competitions with Name artists 3eb, K-OS, etc. but regular musos are very welcome ... I've seen Vernon Ried, (from Living Color ... one of my favourite bands) wicked!
Anyways here's my profile
http://www.indabamusic.com/people/714866974
Basically you have what are called sessions, you can preview whatever the owner feels is a good example of the song, if you like it and are signed up you can then download whatever is available to work on, bring that into your own DAW (Digital Audio Workstation ... Cubase Reaper GarageBand Pro-Tools etc.) and submit an audition, once accepted the rest of the tracks / mixes are then unlocked for you to contribute further.
There is a limit on how much you can download per month (this is very african) you can pay for more.
It also has a shout box to allow members of the session to communicate nicely.

Kompoz
This site took me a little longer to figure out, also a very vibrant community, also running remix competitions (eg. Rudy Sarzo - Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourn)
It has quite a bit more AJAX (web2 technology) which IMO is a double edged sword, anyways they have various projects which again you can preview, but once you're logged in you can download any available track (ie - no audition) to start with it's best to get the lot as they are zipped together along with license notes (Creative Commons).
Once you are in the detail of a project you can preview any of the tracks uploaded so far, and for each track there is a play, download and comment count, there is also a recent activity box and a forum dealing with the project.
Again you're expected to do your own thing with the track on your own DAW but there is a sync track they recommend you use to keep things together ... seems to work nicely except that they use a sine wave, I've since made my own (version1..0) using a square wave pulsing A440 @120BPM, this should [being square] match up much easier.
http://www.backstage.co.za/gareth/data/blog/sync-01.mp3
One other nice thing is that they've incorporated google maps so you can see where the other members are from.
Anyways here's my profile:http://www.kompoz.com/compose-collaborate/profile.member?memberId=7895

Riffworld

This was the first collaboration tool I looked at, but then I was searching for collaborative music software as opposed to a site, so this is a 98MB download before you get started, the T4 is free, but they >>really<< want you to buy the full version, it's tied in somehow with the Line6 POD, which I don't have, but it does give an indication of quality.
Anyways, first you download the software (PC or Mac ) and register on the site ( I'm at http://www.riffworld.com/Members/hiphophippie) then fire it up. Basically it's a simplish DAW that works around phrases, (riffcasts) as these are short and centrally stored in it's own format it can be near realtime with your riffcast appearing to all logged into that session pretty soon, this (riffcast) can then be looped, mixed whatever with results being available to all quite quickly.
This does however have a SERIOUS BUG unfortunately, in that you can't save the raw data, you can export the mix, but the riffs are kept online. (as far as I can work out)

On all the sites the folks are friendly (so far), encouraging and range in style and competency so you can find your own level and learn from all around.
Creative Commons seems to be the license of choice when there's one to choose.

quirky

2008-10-19T14:18:00.003+02:00

Ok, hello hi again,
Tho' this blog has been quiet I have been a little busy ...
I've moved house, tho I'm still in Cape Town South Africa ... which has had it's own power/political etc... crisies and drama, thogh we live to tell the tail.
Anyways, since I started this blog my brother in law and a buddy heard some of the stuff, so we decided to record it and see where it goes, Ive been looking around for how to host stuff, so this is more or less a test to check out how it embeds from reverbnation.com.

I will be adding more tunes and see how that goes ... who knows perhaps thois space will become busy again. :)

Explosion in Am7

2008-03-19T17:51:00.002+02:00

Dear Diary, this has been quite a hectic month so ....

Anyways, I met this nice chap Arjun on the SA Guitar Forum, he doesn't live too far away, we're both free during the day, so we had a jam.
This isn't a sketch as much as a snippet of the stuff we were doing.

Explosion in Am7
This is a wma file Am7 Dm7 at 95bpm
Arjun playing rhythm and lead guitars, myself bass, Reason3 (Dr Rex) drums.

Here's the forum's thread.

I'll let the tune talk for me, and just say we had some fun, he really liked the tone of the GT-Pro and I got off on his playing ability.

There will hopefully be another tune another time ... watch this space ...

lil loop

2008-02-26T08:42:00.003+02:00

On http://www.guitarforum.co.za they are running a little competition for a theme tune and yesterday Sepheritoh came up with a cool idea around the South Africa Guitar Forum.

So building on this I spent a loopy afternoon recycling a drum loop to 110bpm.
Then a clean dry bass line, it will be nice if someone uses this, it's played a bit off the beat but is split on the beat so it can be worked easily.
Then lastly the sketch.

If you're interested the posting is here.

Bettina

2008-02-22T04:31:00.002+02:00

Ok, here's an oldish one (circa '94) called Bettina, it's pretty much a bass solo at the moment and started out as a tapping exercise, tho' it did come up as an intro for a tune called "Vibe" from one of my previous bands, so anything is possible.

For now I just did a quick take from memory... and then found that the tabbed version is not quite the same... but anyways...As with most of the stuff on this blog it's the ideas that count, polish can happen later if there's interest.

After my last attempt at formatting, the TAB it's now a plain text file, this can be opened with any word processor.
Bettina.tab

For the samplers out there this is a clean chorused bass at 120bpm.
Bettina.mp3

Lastly I've included the GT-Pro patch I used for this tune, after my last blog this now includes the loudness patch (FM curve) on FX1 which is set to off as default.
I use a Behringer FCB1010 midi foot pedal to change patches and such. For simplicitys' sake I currently use it on it's default V-Amp setting (1+6), if you have one of these also then rocking Expression Pedal A will bring up a dirtier/dryer tone with a Wha on Expression Pedal B.
Bettina.gtl

GT-Pro Setup and patches

2008-02-14T08:51:00.006+02:00

Just recently I got a Boss GT-Pro fx-rack to work with which is what I'm using ATM to record (via USB) my sketches.
This is unit has some great guitar sounds but not much for a bassist, it is however very configurable if a little noisy.
This page has some good advice which now makes the GT-Pro much quieter.

I was going to include a couple of my bass patches but after reading about the Fletcher Munson curve (the difference in tone at different volumes) originally here for the line6 pod and then here for the GT-Pro.

Basically the frequencies are :

Low cut filter 55hz
Low Eq +12
Low Mid Eq Center 4khz, Q8, -4
High Mid Eq Center 8khz, Q16, +8
High Eq +12
High Cut Filter 11khz

This has given me pause to revisit my patches so I will post them at another time.

A bit with a Bass

2008-02-07T15:03:00.000+02:00

Right Oh,
After doing the A Study thing, I decided to try a bass line for it, so here it is complete with the drumbeat that I used for a metronome.

A Study with bass

If you would like the bass tab or solo'd mp3 leave a comment.

A study

2008-02-04T15:42:00.000+02:00

Ok, to kick things off here is a kinda study in A major.

Right click here to download.

For anyone wanting to use the sample it's a clean(ish) guitar at 100 bpm.

For guitarists here's the TAB, once you get the idea, feel free to play around your own self. I find using a half barre (chord) most of the time make it easier.

Phrase 1
E||------------------------|----------------------|------------------------|
B||--10----10----9----9----|--7----7----9----9----|--10----10----9----9----|
G||---9-----9----9----9----|--7----7----9----9----|---9-----9----9----9----|
D||--11----11----9----9----|--7----7----9----9----|--11----11----9----9----|
A||---0--------------------|--0-------------------|---0--------------------|
E||------------------------|----------------------|------------------------|

E Change A Change
---------------------|----------------4----|----------------5----|
--7----7----5--------|--5-------------5----|--5-------------5----|
--7----7----6--------|--4-------------4----|--6-------------6----|
--7----7----7--------|--6------------------|--7------------------|
--0------------------|-----------7---------|--0--------0---------|
---------------------|--0------------------|---------------------|

Phrase 2 Nice Open Chord
----------------------|-----------------------|--------------0-----------|
--2---------3----5----|-------5----3--3--2----|-----------3-----3--------|
--2---------2----4----|-------4----2--2--2----|--------0-----------0-----|
--2---------4----6----|-------6----4--4--2----|-----4-----------------4--|
--0----0--------------|--0--------------------|--0-----------------------|
----------------------|-----------------------|--------------------------|

A to End
--------------------------|--5----------------||
-----------2--3--5--3--2--|--2----------------||
--------2-----------------|--2----------------||
-----2--------------------|-------------------||
--0-----------------------|--0----------------||
--------------------------|-------------------||

A bit about

2008-02-03T20:53:00.002+02:00

This blog is an experiment on a number of levels.

I am a bassist based in Cape Town South Africa, I recorded with a couple of bands in the mid '90s.
A few older mp3s.

My main instrument is an Ibanez Musician/Roadster which is a four string bass with 24 frets, and passive pickups but active electronics and so can be played either way. I mostly play passive but find the active useful if the sound dudes is having trouble.

This blog, TABs mixes etc. are, unless otherwise mentioned, licensed under Creative Commons SA. which means that you may use them in anyway you like, but you must credit its origins, ie you put a link to your site in the mp3 comment field and on your site you place a link to this page. I think that’s how it works. It is also share alike so others can do the same with your work based or borrowed from this.

Please If i have misinterpreted or left something out post a comment, but if nothing else the above should state the intent.

Also should you want higher quality samples, other mixes, or something else similar to what is here, by all means ask.