YTSEJAM Digest 4357 Today's Topics: 1) Guitar Questions and Answers by "Thomas Forcier" 2) Re: Liquid Tension Experiment by "Dream Theater" 3) Supergroups & MP by email_address_removed 4) 12th Notes, 7 Worlds by email_address_removed 5) Pat Metheny and Jazz by "Christopher Ptacek" 6) Re: Arrrggghh no more 12th notes by Andrew Coutermarsh 7) cdnow discount? by email_address_removed 8) Re: 12th Notes, 7 Worlds by Andrew Coutermarsh 9) Stained Glass release date by "D. Frantz" 10) Re: 12th notes by Steven Zebrowski 11) $10 off at Music Boulevard by email_address_removed 12) 5/12 Is Easy As Pie by email_address_removed 13) Re: 12th notes by Andrew Coutermarsh 14) NO SUCH THING!!! Sheesh! by "Max Amundo" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:26:11 -0400 From: "Thomas Forcier" To: Subject: Guitar Questions and Answers Message-ID: Okay... There's been a lot of really useless and uninformative posts in the last week, so who am I not to chip in? First, I would like to respond to Mr. Ptacek, who was in search of a decent hollow-body jazz guitar. I'll say one thing off the bat: have you checked the newsgroups and Harmony Central? Reviews and input from theses sources have helped me greatly on similar issues. That being said, and your spending limit hitting $2000 (I assume you're talking "new" only?), I think it either has to be the Ibanez PM or a Yamaha AE. That I know of, these are the only companies that get under $2000 for a nice hollow-body. Well, there's Epiphone too, but people seem to have a stigma about Epiphone. As for what to consider, there you've got me. I like to play with these at the stores, but I never actually researched buying one, as I never will have $2000 for a geetar. But above that cutoff, I understand Gibson and Gretsch are the gospel in hollow-bodies. I have the latest Guitar Player Buyer's Guide, so if you need a check on a suggested retail price, let me know. Now, back to my own questions: I guess its time I started thinking about a new amp. D'oh! I love my solid state Fender's distortion, but the clean just ain't cutting it. So what should I consider? I hear Peavey and Carvin are good for the price. I figure I could get $400-500 trade in on my combo amp and 4x12, so above that, I'd have MAYBE $300 more I could add. So in the $600-700 range, what kind of tube head half-stack could I get? And the first person to say Crate gets a knuckle sandwich. :) What I want from a head: min. 75 watts, two channels, reverb, gain, master volume. That should do it! I'm pretty sure Marshall is out of the question due to price. And I'd rather go half-stack than combo, but that doesn't mean I'd ignore suggestions to that end. Thanks! Stodgers is goin' shoppin'! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 19:46:09 PDT From: "Dream Theater" To: email_address_removed Subject: Re: Liquid Tension Experiment Message-ID: Probably the best album of all time in my opinion. It's got the best of all worlds: Paradigm Shift starts off the album a blazin', with a killer 16th note progression played by Mike and John, which is probably in a tempo of about 200bpm! :), then slips into this trippy islandy type song. It's funny, it's SERIOUS, it's a perfect masterpiece and display of the members' talents! Definitely worth the price of the CD. Mike >Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 21:54:05 -0700 (PDT) >Reply-To: email_address_removed >From: "Christopher Stearns" >To: Multiple recipients of list >Subject: Liquid Tension Experiment > > >Just curious if anyone heard this project yet, and what their reviews are >on it > > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:49:45 EDT From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Cc: email_address_removed Subject: Supergroups & MP Message-ID: Hey Skadz, Can you make sure this gets posted on the jam. Everytime I try to post something, it bounces back for some reason.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---------------------------------------------- A few days ago on the Bitche Jam, Michael Patrick posted: "THIS SUCKS. Hey, dump Portnoy and get Paul Craddick (could there be a more under-appreciated player out there?) to do it. Seriously, I LOVE Mike' playing, and I realize that this is going to be total flame-bait, but why does every supergroup now revolve around him? Well, I can answer that myself: Mike (and DT's reputation) sells records. It's tough to be us, isn't it? Mike" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- Hi Mike, Well, you win the "let's piss Mike Portnoy off in order to bring him out of lurk mode" award of the week.. The reason "every Supergroup now revolves around" me, is because I am the one taking the time to put them together!!!!!!! I assembled LTE project from scratch and also conceived & assembled this new project lineup that will hopefully come off...(not neccessarily on Magna Carta) If you'd prefer me to take TIME OFF like everybody else (instead of working on the new Dream Theater Live CD's and video, the '98 Xmas CD, the new LTE CD, drum clinics and my next "supergroup" project), I could use the break with my family... I thought the fans enjoyed and appreciated all of the time I put in for them!! : ) Besides....I don't think Paul Craddick is available at the moment or else I would have given him some of my workload! : ) Mike Portnoy ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:55:10 EDT From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: 12th Notes, 7 Worlds Message-ID: 1 measure. 4 beats per measure. 3 notes per beat. Twelve notes total. TWELFTH NOTES. It's your language, ladies and gentlemen.* It's your music, too. If some jackass can play in a time signature that isn't 4/4 and go "I think I'll call it... PROGRESSIVE!" then YOU have the right to say something even simpler than that by piecing together THIS ---> "Twelve notes per measure... Equally dispersed...Three notes per beat... I think I'll call them... TWELFTH NOTES!" 44 notes per measure played evenly over 4 beats equals 11th notes. It's that simple. Do something wild and crazy today, step outside the rules as they were written and FILL IN the rules that Bach never got around to. To say I have to break down everything into 8ths or 16ths (or dotted 16ths) is tantamount to saying what I type here ought to be translated into Latin because the basics are where it's at and tradition should never ADVANCE. Saying 12th notes don't exist, or shouldn't exist, or that only an idiot would use such a phrase, is about as rich as saying "Don't learn guitar tablature! Don't use it! Guitar tab is bad for you! It will RUIN YOU as a musician!" If I can write the word "can't" instead of "cannot," or "cannot" instead of "can not," I can write "12th notes." And for anyone wondering about Eric Johnson's "Seven Worlds," it's not a new release. It's not a pre-release. It's not a best-of collection. It IS a re- release of his first album of material from I think 1961. He's 7 years old on the album, which is why it's called "Seven Worlds," and he does a duet with Scott Rockenfeld's dad, who was only 9 at the time. John Kalodner produced it. He was 14 years old. Bafu Vai *this would be a good line to quote by itself, for all you angry United Kingdomers who like to point out that English doesn't belong to any stupid American.** **this would be a good time to remember that those United Kingdomers came along one day and bastardized the mother tongue, LATIN, into that horse-crap dialect we today refer to as "English."*** ***this would be a good time to gedda sedda bedda clubsgonna findthe kindwith tiny nubsjust somy handsaren't always flyin' offthe backswing. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:11:49 -0500 From: "Christopher Ptacek" To: Subject: Pat Metheny and Jazz Message-ID: <000e01bdfca0$8c59bc60$message_id_removed> I don't believe ANY professor taught Pat Metheny how to play guitar. If you read his bio, he has had ONE SEMESTER of guitar in school, in which he got a C or a D. Furthermore, it was classical guitar, and he doesn't play classical. Some Miami folk use him as a reference for their school (because that's where he did his one whole semester of guitar study)... it sort of cracks me up, especially since there have been so many maniacs coming out of that school. Anyways, I wouldn't use the graduates as a reference on choosing a school. Use the faculty's accomplishments, reputations, abilities, and the students' and grads' opinions of the school. Anyone who trades their soul for an instrument can become great, with or without school (as JP and Metheny prove). School just functions as insurance, and a jump start. As for music schools, if I wasn't here, I would really like to check out Bloomington Indiana. I dunno if I'd wanna be at Berklee (don't know enough about it) but I know anyone would benefit from all the competition and all of the opportunities to jam out there. Finally, CJ, swing is not 12th notes. Swing eighth notes are the same theoretical value as standard eighths. There will still only be 8 per measure in 4/4. They are sometimes written as an eighth note triplet with the first two notes tied, but even that is rare, because that's not swing. Swing is not that easy. Listen to Wes Montgomery, Bobby Broom, Miles, Coltrane, Bird... they all swing totally differently. You can swing ahead of the beat, behind the beat, or even on top of the beat. Swinging might even be defined as playing with time (dragging and rushing), so that you keep the time, but completely own the rhythm to the extent that you can play totally off the beat, and know where the beat is and how to get it back. - Chris Tyranny ROOLS. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:05:28 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Coutermarsh To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: Arrrggghh no more 12th notes Message-ID: . I said it before and I'll say it again. Are you sure you're NOT thinking of 12/8? That's the ONLY way I could possibly think you're trying to incorporate swing notes and the number twelve into ANYTHING. If you asked somebody to play swing eighth notes and then write down what they played, they would write down eighth notes. Then they would write "swing" at the top of the music to indicate that those eighth notes were to be swung. Yes, swung eighth notes ARE akin to quarter note triplet/eighth note triplet combos. But you DON'T rename them 12th notes! Just because there are twelve in a measure means NOTHING! Trust me. If you took a piece of music with a 5/12 measure in to a trained musician, music theory teacher, or professional performer, the first thing they'd say would be something like "What the hell is this?!" I've been studying music ever since I was 4 years old. Not just banging on a piano, mind you, but actual STUDIES. Now I may not be the best performer, but I am considered one of the top music theory students in my college (which may not be big, but we have some real talent). That may not mean a whit to you, but you gotta believe me, so we can stop these insane threads... There is NO such thing as a twelfth note, no matter what the rhythm is. Notation goes in the following order: whole, half, quarter, sixteenth, thirty-second, sixty-fourth, etc. They go in the order that you'd split something in half (or in threes). You CANNOT get a twelfth from splitting one of those note values that I mentioned up there in half or threes. It's just NOT possible. So PLEASE believe me when I tell you this, because it's true. ------------------------------------------- Andrew Coutermarsh email_address_removed http://cout.ml.org/ <== My webpage! ------------------------------------------- "Friends are people who help you move. But REAL friend help you move BODIES." ------------------------------------------- On Tue, 20 Oct 1998, cjstearns wrote: > > I said it before and I'll say it again cause I keep seeing the same thing > over and over again. A 12 note is jazz and blues style note ask a jazz > musician to play eight notes he will not play them straight tied triplets > is the best way to describe it, it is not mathmatically correct. At the > top of a music page it will usually say swing. > > Nobody must read these things > CJBass > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:07:02 EDT From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: cdnow discount? Message-ID: Sorry guys...I know we've been over this, but can someone post the address for the $10 discount at cdnow? Much appreciated, -Kyle NP: Radakka-Requiem for the Innocent ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:17:08 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Coutermarsh To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: 12th Notes, 7 Worlds Message-ID: > 1 measure. 4 beats per measure. 3 notes per beat. Twelve notes total. > TWELFTH NOTES. THAT'S IT! I've finally realized what you're having the problem understanding is. When you determine a time signature, you're not discussing how many notes per measure there are. You're discussing HOW MANY NOTES PER BEAT there are. For example: 4/4 - Four beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat. That's fine for simple meter. But when you get into compound meter, you have to multiply the number in the bottom by three. Example: 6/8 - TWO beats per measure, dotted eighth gets the beat. If you were to talk twelfth notes, where does the beat divide? If you had 5/12, there would be NO way to divide the beat. In a compound meter (such as 12/8), you would have twelve total eighth notes per measure, but they would be broken down into four groups of three. We're agreed there, right? But if you had 5/12... Which, as you say, is the same as an eighth note in 12/8 time... You already have everything broken down, so there isn't any way that you can break it down further. So remember, meter isn't counted by the measure, but by the beat. That's where the discrepancies are coming from: because some of us are thinking beat-wise, and some are thinking measure-wise. BTW, sorry for writing two posts about the same subject ten minutes apart, I hadn't read all of my messages when I wrote the first one. :) ------------------------------------------- Andrew Coutermarsh email_address_removed http://cout.ml.org/ <== My webpage! ------------------------------------------- "Every day I break my previous record for the most consecutive days I've been alive." -- George Carlin ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 22:21:00 -0500 (CDT) From: "D. Frantz" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Stained Glass release date Message-ID: Does anyone know of Scarred Records has opened pre-ordering for Stained Glass yet? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:22:40 -0400 From: Steven Zebrowski To: email_address_removed Subject: Re: 12th notes Message-ID: 12th notes? Dey ain't no sich thang. At 07:30 PM 10/20/98 -0700, you wrote: >Really, you can use ANY notation to write music, just as long as your >performers know what you are intending for them to play. As far as >tradition goes, there are certain standards, but as they say, rules are >meant to be broken. NO! rules were NOT made to be broken. that's for lazy people who don't want to follow them. >Well, if you guys are worried about 9/8 timming, then u have seen nothing >yet? Working in an Ethnic band, odd beats are thown at me all the time. > 9/8, 9/4, 7/8, 7/4, 5/8, 5/4, 11/8, 13/8 and so on, I think u get the >picture. Yep, and they're all perfectly valid, often used, and completely UNIVERSALLY understandable which is the REASON for standardized music notation (that, incedentally, doesn't include 12th notes). Anyone happen to know the name of the guy who invented the standard of moveable type for musical notation? (Hint: he's Italian, and on this list the name should be right on the tip of your tongues.) >Music is a mathematical concept, it pays well if u were good at >your revision in Junior High School. AMEN. this is the bottom line. Didn't Billy Sheehan say once, "If you think, you stink." Well, FUCK Billy Sheehan. What the hell does he know? Not music. True, you shouldn't think about your technical performance, but when you hear a great jazz (or rock, metal, bluegrass, classical) musician improvise, you can bet your ASS that he knows EXACTLY what is going on in the music at that moment. How does he know? He's THINKING! >Okay, I've had this discussion with Bafu, and I think I can clear this up a >bit. BAFU IS NO FUCKING GUARANTEE!!!!!!! :) >/me is a music major at NIU, and a guitarist of 10 years And THAT's why Ptacek knows what he's talking about. /me is a music major at University of Maryland, and a singer of about 7 years. Steve Z ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:37:22 -0400 From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: $10 off at Music Boulevard Message-ID: Hello, I don't post here much, but I figured I'd let everyone know about another Music Boulevard discount (especially if you want to preorder the Dream Theater cd). And this is off of ANY order, there's no minimum like the latest CDNow discount ($19.99 +). The URL is: http://www.musicblvd.com/dominion/ The offer ends October 31st, so go soon. :) Irene ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:36:12 EDT From: email_address_removed To: email_address_removed Subject: 5/12 Is Easy As Pie Message-ID: > From: "Max Amundo" > Subject: 12th note and crap... > > A dotted 16th is a dotted 16th. Your logic is reminiscent of Aristotle. A is A. None can argue with that. > And no way of adding or counting can get 5/12, because it doesn't work > that way. It's not really a fraction. It's this simple. 5/12 isn't really a fraction? I cut a pie into 12 pieces. I take 5 of them and give them to Yngwie Malmsteen for his pre-show snack. What fraction of the total pie have I given to Yngwie? > 5/12 means that there are 5 beats in a measure and the 12th NOTE gets > the beat. If they were all dotted 16ths, they would use a different > note. But that doesn't matter anyway. A group of a dozen trumpet players plays the first five notes of a C major scale over and over. They play C, D, E, F, G, then C, D, E, F, G, over and over for 5 minutes. On every 12th note, a man with gigantic cymbals in his hand CRASHES them together. Is it obvious that there are five beats going on here per measure? And that every 12th beat is accented? I'm not saying this cacophony would be easy to dance to, nor am I saying that such an exercise would be musically pleasurable to the ears, but you're saying something "can't" exist when it's *very* easy to synthesize. > I'm sure a lot of you guts already know this, but for those who don't > (which sounds like a majority), they wouldn't use a different number > anyway. %/12 implies that the _12th note_, and none other, gets the > beat. And the fact is THERE IS NO 12th NOTE! Who assigns "the beat?" I'll tell you. The person with the EARS. Anyone who has ever tapped their left and right hands simultaneously o the different rhythms at the beginning of "The Mirror" could probably wedge a waltz into a 4/4 piece of music. Tap 4 beats with one hand and in the same length of time tap 3 with the other, both hands tapping at an even pace. I can do it, I'm sure you can too. In fact I can wedge 4 beats where there should be 3. Pantera and Helmet can provide good examples. The question is, if I don't have Dream Theater backing me up, but just have my hands banging on the hood of a police officer's car as he checks my pants for concealed weapons, which of my hands gets "the beat?" How can I tell which one is dominant? Is it the one that's louder? Faster? Is the losing hand the one that the police officer draws behind my back first for the handcuffs, leaving the other one to bang away on the hood in a triumphant 4 or 3 beats per mental "Mirror" measure? Can you agree that "the beat" is assigned by the person doing the listening, and that two people can hear two different beats while listening to the same piece of music, and that just maybe if I wanted to hear 5/12 I could do so? > It's nice to think about counting weird, but it simply does not work > that way. 5/12 does not exist. But 5/2 does, and it IS very rare and > unique, as most would just make it 5/4... Counting or thinking or playing a 5/12 rhythm is an abstract procedure. Aristotle wasn't very abstract, but Pythagoras was. Those two didn't see eye to eye. What "doesn't exist" in this case is not 5/12 but your ability to think in the abstract and make 5/12 possible. > Trust me on that. I'm only posting because after I thought the issue was > resolved, several people keep trying to explain it away. Trust me, 5/12 does > NOT exist. Trust me, you've never heard 5/12 before, and even if a band played it for you you'd probably refuse to believe your senses were accurate. I first heard 5/12 in a circle of conga drummers in Olympia, Washington in 1994. Yes I was playing a conga drum. I had just finished transcribing part of Steve Vai's "The Attitude Song" and still had the time signature in my head. Someone pointed at me between songs (strictly drum music) and said, "What tempo YOU wan' do? Got favorite riddim?" I said "7-16!" which meant 7/16 for you fraction-dependent readers. (Earlier in the evening the girl next to me had referred to 4/4 as "the mother rhythm." I asked her why, she didn't know, she just said that was how it was. So after shouting "7-16" I added "You know, the second-cousin rhythm! Let's go!") Anyway, the woman said "Forget 7-16, check DIS." and she signaled to some guys on her right and began what was a repeating pattern of 5 hits, with every 12th hit being accented by her accompanying conga drummers. Keep in mind, the only way this was consciously possible was if each drummer, be he/she a 5-hitter or a 12-hitter, focused ONLY on what he/she was doing and DIDN'T try to work out the math and "oversee" everyone else's parts. Basically the loud, large woman in the center was keeping her mind and hands on playing 5 hits over and over, and the people around her were counting to 12 each time. This band had no conductor, and they didn't signal each other while playing. In fact, some of them closed their eyes. My point is, they did it, and it wasn't meant to be danced to, it was meant to put listeners into a trance, drummers into states of total concentration. Some folks started screaming that what they were hearing "didn't exist" and ran out of the room vomiting blood and clawing their ears off. Perhaps they had already heard the second-cousin rhythm and knew it wasn't 5/12, but 7/13. Bafu Vai ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 23:52:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Andrew Coutermarsh To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: Re: 12th notes Message-ID: On Tue, 20 Oct 1998, Steven Zebrowski wrote: > Anyone happen to know the name of the guy who invented the standard of > moveable type for musical notation? (Hint: he's Italian, and on this list > the name should be right on the tip of your tongues.) > > Steve Z Ooh! Ooh! Mr. Kotter! Mr. Kotter! I know the answer to this one, but it has nothing to do with this list, it has more to do with my Finale notation program. The name of the font used for notation is called... (drumroll please!) "Petrucci." ------------------------------------------- Andrew Coutermarsh email_address_removed http://cout.ml.org/ <== My webpage! ------------------------------------------- "I'm not a vegetarian because I like plants. I'm a vegetarian because I hate animals." ------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 00:18:40 PDT From: "Max Amundo" To: email_address_removed Subject: NO SUCH THING!!! Sheesh! Message-ID: Earle Jason said: >>>Lookin' at my dream theater tabulature, I notice that a lot of times, triplets are used that break a QUARTER note into 3 pieces, or 12th (maybe "dodecets"?) NOTES. By saying a theme repeats every time 5 of these mutha fuckas pass by, isn't that 5/12 timing? Looking at my Yngwie tabulature, I notice that a lot of times, he takes a quarter note and instead of breaking it into 2 pieces (EIGHTS), he breaks it into 5 (TENTH Notes). Play these twice as fast (like our good ol' herring-choking buddy loves to do) and you have TWENTIETH notes. Be a completely self-indulgent prog freak and make a theme repeat every 9 or so of these notes, and you got 9/20 time sig. I fail to see how any fraction is un-realizable using this methodology. I guess it just ain't kosher to have something in the denominatorthat ain't a power of 2.<<< Well, it's a nice thought, but it just doesn't work that way. If it did, you would be correct. However, the only notes are whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, and so-on. If it were a math thing, you could put 5/12, or 9/20. But it's not like that. They would just make it 5/8 or 5/16. I still think they saw 5/2. It's not a matter of education or closed-mindedness. There simply ARE no other notes. It HAS to be a power of 2. Maybe you don't like it, but that's just the way it is. You can divide quarter notes any way you want, but they are still quarter notes. And sixteenth-note triplets are SIXTEENTH-NOTE triplets. Once again, the lower number tells which WRITTEN, POSSIBLE note, however you choose to divive it, gets the beat. Sheesh! -maX And I hope The Cow God NEVER IN HELL stops using his "Moo." or his "***END OF TRANSMISSION***". I've noticed he has at times... Moo on! ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ End of YTSEJAM Digest 4357 **************************