RAc

Oops! I don't know where the number "3" went, but I've edited the post, so it's there, now. And your transposed transcription confirms what I suspected, since your 5th note in measure #3 is a B, which would be a G in the key of Bb. The Bb in the copy I linked to just sounded wrong. yes, you're right needless to say... good eye (and ear).

Hi Jim, glad you like the tune. I attach the sheet music for both tunes (there shouldn't be copyright issues involved, so I make it public). The rest of your observations will be address by PM. Thanks! BTW, which Bb are you referring to? The measure number is missing in your post... the score in the Hardie book is exactly the same as yours... the firth house.pdf mfl.pdf

Hi there, this is a tune called The Firth House. I found it a few years ago in this absolutely brilliant collection: http://www.amazon.com/The-Caledonian-Companion-Alastair-Hardie/dp/0946868085 Here is my (as of yet) single voice cover: http://www.ruediger-asche.de/tidbits/fh_5_7_14.mp3 The recording on the CD that comes with the book is by Aly Bain and qualifies as one of the most beautiful musical renditions I've ever heard (he tails it with a Skinner reel named Mrs. Forbes Leith which I find too hard to play yet). I can't claim to have come even remotely close to his outstanding playing, but nevertheless I've a had a great time studying it and hopefully learned a little bit on the way. All remarks are very welcome and appreciated. Thanks for listening and enjoy, Ruediger

Excellent rendition - thanks for posting! I particularly like the ornamentation - sounds difficult as hell to play but very pleasing to the ear! Would you consider Pink's "try?" I think it might work well with your approach... Other than that, there's a lot of great contemporary pop music waiting to get covered - if you wanted to try male singer/songwriters for a change, how about Passenger's "Holes?"

I wouldn't take chances. Over the years I had to dispose of Allen wrenches, nail files and even sewing needles. Other times I got away with things I certainly wouldn't like to have certain suspiciously looking co travellers carrying on board. I guess security personell have some room for play by ear (pun intended), so if one has had a bad day or there had been an incident shortly before, there may be more stringent application rules than at other times. And no, I wouldn't try to insist on written rules. I once tried that and was politely informed that I always have the option to back off the flight... I contemplated raising a complaint, but then I thought "hey, I feel much more comfortable with those folks checking as diligently with everybody as with someone waving through a machine gun." So I happily threw away the screwdriver or whatever it was.

well, just how far does the term "TV and movie music" reach? Seriously, I'd give quite a lot to hear somebody cover the Pacman theme (one of the great pieces of music of the late 20th century imho )... yet it already qualifies me as a hopeless geezer...

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Wolf - great that you came across this wonderful exceptional album eventually. I've been a close follower of Knopfler's solo work for a long time, and I do believe that Get Lucky is one of the true gems in contemporary music as well as one of his best. Following Kill to Get Crimson, it has marked his return to a folk tradition in the best sense of the word. His most recent one, Privateering, also contains a number of very folkish songs (example given, Haul Away - absolutely stunning). Would that Knopfler got the attention he deserved as a master songwriter and story teller as well as the exceptional guitarist he is. As for your rendition - I like the ornamentation, but the song imho comes across too hurried. You need to add more breaks in between the lines to grant the lyrics space to breathe. Alternatively, slow it down a little? After all, this is a heavy song which needs time and emphasis to sink into the mind of the listener. Given that it tells the story of the slow death of a soldier in the battle field who (in my interpretation) comes to terms with the madness of it all and eventually prepares to become one with the beautiful nature that surrounds his death, every word deserves all the affection it can get. Makes sense?

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Excellent work, thanks for sharing, Alex!

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If I'm not totally mistaken, this would be Boney.

I don't think this is a good teacher. Possbily (probably) an excellent musician who has a good intuition for rhythm (otherwise he wouldn't dismiss the metronome so dogmatically), but imho, a good TEACHER also cares about his student, and if you consider it important for yourself to obtain a steady and good rhythm, he should at the very least provide alternatives to using the metronome to you. It IS true that too strict an adherence to rhythm (without paying equal attention to the other elements of the music) may leave a tune studied that way bloodless, but it is also true that a tune played without a solid rhythm is not a tune. Rhythm is the heartbeat of music, so it definitely is important to work on a solid rhythm. Of course, playing naturally is the best way, but if it doesn't come natural to an individual to keep a good and steady rhythm out of nowhere (which I believe is true for most of us), it is the teacher's responsibility to show the student alternative ways to accomplish the goal. Did he say anything else after "put that damn thing away," such as "try it this or that other way instead?"

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why, Jim, first of all many thanks for doing the right thing and splitting this issue of the original thread. I take my share of the blame for participating in taking the thread off topic. I am flattered that you trust my judgement, and I sincerely hope that your further reading of the book reinforces that trust. It is true that especially the first chapter leaves certain doubts about the seriousness of the author - for one thing, he does express very strong opinions and issues very clear and in parts insulting statements about people whose opinions he doesn't agree with, so I can see how some people might feel offended and may not be too hard pressed to keep on reading - but again I'd recommend cross reading the free pages; later chapters do go as deeply into the matter as one can ask for. And again, 100% agreement with Geoff. Music imho IS listening, so Geoff's advice (which is NOT in disagreement with the book at all, on the contrary) is perfectly on the spot. I'd even go so far as to say that a good part of becoming better at music takes place away from the instrument, for example by listening more deliberately to music on the radio or whereever it surrounds us. Thanks again!

Exactly, hence my post.............it was clearly an over-simplification but in the context of how this thread arose perhaps more helpful than this........ Robin certainly. Wasn't meant to be helpful in the first place, just illustrative. Have a nice day!

True. In the first chapter, he sketches the framework for his further elaborations, and that goes pretty far. One may or may not like his approach, but as the book moves on, it becomes really meaningful. You may want to jump to the section on scales (I did because that was mostly interesting to me in the free section). Based upon the argument that humans sense harmony in sound via even mathemical fractions between frequencies, he derives scales first mathematically, then elaborates on the darn phytagorean second and explains on the fly why different cultures build music on different kinds of scales and where the smallest common denominator ist (the "unversal harmonic reception.") It doesn't get more down to the point than that. But anyways, everything I sum up can only be a poor attempt to explain what he explains best. I do hope that what wayne Chase writes makes sense to you as well. All the best!

Absolutely. There is little left to add to THAT insight... It's just that music is one of those weird languages that are natural and easy to grasp and comprehend passively but very hard to use actively. To let the listening experience guide the learning process imho is one of the fundamental truths of music (which is why recording oneself and listening to the recording is one of the basic techniques one should cultivate in the learning process).

Since you contradict yourself just two sentences later, I think I don't need to point out that this is an invalid oversimplification. Seriously, there's never an "all you need to know." While I don't disagree with anything Geoff or David sketched out, it's far from the "whole picture" (certainly wasn't ever meant to be near in the first place). For example, you have to match the accompaniment with the melody. It's tempting to overdouse a simple melody with a complex counter pointed bass line; that's only fun to listen to for a little while, but after that it becomes cumbersome. For simple melodies, it's fine to break the oom-pah rules every once in a while (for example, a rule is "don't use thirds in the bass." True, but every once in a while it doesn't hurt to accompany a transition dominant-tonic at the end of a phrase with the third of the dominant which leads nicely into the root note of the tonic), but it's almost more important to keep the listening experience as a whole in mind, keeping an appropriate balance between the different voices. My suspicion is that most listeners (including myself) are much more confortable with a solidly played tune in which the melody leads and the accompaniment serves than with a complex polyphonic arrangement. But this again is only a crude rule of thumb; there are plenty of examples of very well done complex variations of "simple" melodies. On complex melodies, on the other hand, you have many more colors and options at your disposition in the first place, so there's many more options to decorate the accompaniment without sacrificing the melody. Also, bass lines can be employed to add rhythmic variations and emphases to a piece; for example, a piece that has a strong off beat feeling may very well benefit form a pah-OOM type of bass line (or even one that leaves out the basses on 1 and 3 altogether). Another simple way to add an interesting groove could be, for example, to defer the pah by half a beat (of course, this should only be employed for certain tunes; don't try this on reels I would assume?) These are only two of many points that defy your statement that "all one needs to know" has been written by Geoff and David. It hasn't, and I don't think they ever intended to. Lots can be added, although for a first approximation, they certainly did very good ground work.

I'm sorry, Geoff, I have to disagree. A harmony line made up of random notes that happen to be part of the "right" chord is not likely to be interesting (or, therefore, satisfying). A harmony line should be, first and foremost, a line. It should make musical sense and tell its own story. It should have stress points and releases that complement the stresses and releases in the melody line. The harmony line given for this tune is a perfect example. It stands by itself as a coherent musical line, but juxtaposed with the melody, the two add up to more than their sum. In many places the harmony line moves when the melody has held notes and stands still when the melody moves. In other places it dances with the melody in parallel thirds, alternating between major and minor thirds. Think horizontally (where is the line going?) rather than vertically (how do all the notes playing at a particular moment sound together?). I'd chose dissonance and a good line every time over consonance and a line where each note is unrelated to the next. this may be (likely is) OT, but I can't help but pitch in a recommendation for a remarkable book on music theory I've come across recently: www.howmusicreallyworks.com The book addresses (among many other things) the issues you bring up from a biological/evolutionary angle (along the lines of why and how humans developed a musical sense in the first place, how humans experience sound, music and harmony and how to instrumentalize this as a practitioning musician). It's the book I'd been waiting for for 30+ years, answering a lot o questions I didn't even know I had,. Highly recommended!

<never mind, i can take a hint...>

Uhm, I think that would be taking it a little too far... first of all, anybody is free to work on any time at any time (that's sort of what the Runners Up Subforum is all about, isn't it, and already that one is fairly orphaned), and secondly, to me the TOTM is also about widening the musical horizon, thus being forced to work on tunes one normally isn't exposed to, so wouldn't this be counter productive? Then, given that the TOTM regulars has reduced to +- a dozen, spiltting this contributorship even further would yield even fewer comparison opportunities... Lastly, Jim is already doing a lot of work keeping the TOTM up, let's not overstrech his enthusiasm I'd think?... ;-)

How about hop and skype?