Pandora Radio: a pedantic vent

Recently a friend described Pandora Radio's classification ontology as just wrong, but with no explanation. Needing something a little more concrete than "just wrong", I've started more actively looking at the tags that have been applied to some of the tunes that get put in front of me, both good and bad. Based on just a little of this, I must conclude that Nathan has a point. Today, Pandora selected a John Zorn piece based on a stated series of about twelve tags, not one of which could not also be applied to drippy lounge jazz, three-chord folk, or pretty much anything from the Classical period.

If they can't even figure out what makes John Zorn unique, then maybe several months of my whac-a-moling piano trios, Kenny G knockoffs and folk'n'blues singers really doesn't teach them anything.  (Okay, I admit I'm demanding when it comes to stylists.  But seriously, has it not yet occurred to the "intelligence engine" that I have reliably whacked EVERY SINGLE vocal tune that has come across my screen, usually within five seconds of hearing the singer's voice?  No, I've got nothing against singing, but see, I'd like this to be an instrumental station.  That would seem to be a rather fundamental sort of tag, don'tcha think?  But no, and it's invariably with the blues and folk singers.  Guys, I don't need Pandora radio to get my fill of that, ya dig?)


That said, it seems to come in spurts.  It will stick on the "percussive acoustic guitar" theme for a little while, then a Davy Graham tune will go by and suddenly the folkies and bluesmen show up.  Whac, whac, whac, this is not a blues station, people!  Then it kicks loose and goes to a Dan Crary, maybe the flamenco/Spanish guitarists for a while, then Avishai Cohen or John Zorn show up, and then it's on with the piano trios and the sheer noisemakers who thought they had John Coltrane or Ornette Coleman totally figured out. Whac, whac, whac.

Sigh.  Mostly it's just a minor irritation, from someone who always seems to be firmly ademographic.  In the end I'm still mostly happy with Pandora.  Thus far I like the interface a LOT better than last.fm, and I'll always be indebted to Pandora for awakening me to what Michael Hedges first suggested to my unsuspecting mind.

Instrument tunings - happy tweaking

Per that last post, it took me longer to get strings on things than I'd expected, and in the interim a couple of things have happened that have made me decide to tweak things a bit.  Lemme 'splain.  (No, there is too much.  Lemme sum up.  Yes, I assure you, the following is a summary.)

Ovation.  I'd planned to change this one's tuning to work on an Antoine Dufour tune, but then I started working on Aerial Boundaries again, and nope, this sucker's staying in that tuning for a little while longer!  And, since Dufour has several pieces that will work with standard tuning and a detuned sixth string (std, drop D, drop C), I'll use a single, other instrument to work on those.  (And now, I've found it, sitting right in front of me.)

Classical.  Steve Bambakidis donated me the beaten-up classical guitar that he had no use for, and I've been trying to figure out what to do with it.  It's rough, but then am I not experimenting?  Anyway, I'd thought I'd tune that up to work on Antoine Dufour's piece "Scratch" (via which I would learn how he approaches fingerstyle, and also learn about not only capoing, but partial capoing), but in stringing things up with a set of nylons, the limitations became obvious.  Neck is far from perfect, action is not at all ideal, the body fret is of course at 12, and there's a lot going on in "Scratch" that definitively takes advantage of steel strings.  And trying to bring a nylon sixth string out of a standard-tension set down to C2 is just...uh...optimistic.  But!  Now with the burrs on the frets cleaned up a little bit, the neck (really) rough-leveled and a new set of strings, and a decent action in first and second positions, what if I just make this instrument a standard-tuning knockabout?  It can serve for guests who want/need standard tuning, and I can use it with all the standard-tuning resources I have for learning standard approaches to fingerstyle/Celtic.  I'll just treat EADGBE as another alternate tuning to learn.  (I might even some day get jiggy with it and try all fourths, EADGCF, because I'm just that way, and you can get all fourths without bending much.  :-)  Anyway, the tuning is now standard and the strings are standard-tension ("High Tension") at 43w-35w-30w-40p-32p-28p.

SoloEtte.  I've not been perfectly happy with the Bb5 tuning on this axe (it's really cool in a few contexts, but it just feels like too much of a one-trick pony), and so this will become the "learn Dufour" instrument, starting with the "Scratch" tuning (C2-A2-D3-G3-B3-E4) and then migrate to the other pieces;  it will be nice to have an instrument that I can work with late at night without upsetting people.  I'm happy with this idea.  Gauges are 59w-46w-30w-22w-12p-10p.

Fretless.  Likewise, I've not been perfectly happy with either the NST tuning on this instrument, nor with the various half-assed options I've worked with so far.  So, until I get the chance to fashion another nut/saddle combination (and as a teaser, there is a whole lot of head noise going on about that concept), I'm going to try out DADGAD, but with a twist.  I'm going to do "CGCGFC", instead, both going down a whole step and swapping out the whole-step interval but keeping the pitches the same.  This little tweak will give me the chance to try out the sus4 tuning concept while still retaining:

• Three adjacent pairs of general-purpose intervals, for scale work in different registers.  (Three of those, strings 6-5, 4-3, and 2-1, are a fifth apart, allowing one-octave-over-two-strings, and one of those, strings 5-4, is a fourth, both leading out of a fifth interval and into another one.
• Top three strings defining the essential sus4 chord for the tuning.
• Root on top.
• Bottom strings defining a power chord.

I think it will be fun to play with this.  Since it's really tough to grab lots of strings at the same time for a chord on the fretless, having good open strings to work with should prove interesting.  We'll see!  (To document:  strings are flatwound steels for the basses--50, 40, and 30 at the moment--and plain steel trebles in 16, 17 and 13 for this experiment.  If this works out, I may be able to get away with using heavier strings.  I'm thinking of something like 56fw-42fw-30fw-18fw-20fw-16p;  that might be really rich in the harmonics!)

Anyway, now I can say that there are two instruments in the house that are in their natural tunings.  That's okay, I haven't lost my mind--yet.  :-)

Current instrument tunings

Because it really is kinda funny.  Eight stringed instruments in the house, eight different tunings.  Only one instrument is in its natural tuning.

Here's where they're at:

• Mandolin:  G3-D4-A4-E5 (natural tuning)
• Strat:  C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4 (Guitar Craft standard tuning)
• Fretless:  Bb1-F2-C3-G3-D4-G4 (experiment - 5ths with 4th on top)
• Banjo:  G4-G2-D3-Bb3-F4 (experiment - open Gm7)
• SoloEtte:  Bb1-F2-Bb2-F3-Bb3-F4 (experiment - open Bb5)
• Ibanez dreadnought:  B1-F#2-D3-F#3-C#4-C#4 ("Raindigger" tuning - open Bm9)
• Ovation:  C2-C3-D3-G3-A3-D4 ("Aerial Boundaries" tuning)
• Classical:  C2-A2-D3-G3-B3-E4 ("Scratch" tuning:  partial capo on 3fr, strings 1-5)

I guess we'll see what changes first!  :-)

Dufour resources

Just so I've got access to them here...  :-)

The genre: 'violent acoustic' guitar

The final thought in that last post got me thinking.   So the genre, for lack of a better term, is either "percussive acoustic" or (per Michael Hedges) "violent acoustic".  Right now at least--these folks are still delightfully new to me--the critic in me would say:

• Andy McKee and Antoine Dufour are the standout composers.  There is certainly some head music in there, but (like Michael Hedges) there is also some music in there.
• Andy McKee and Don Ross can set the groove like no one else.
• Antoine Dufour steals the show for the mind-boggling  (and I do mean ridiculous) technique.
• Erik Mongrain is a mood master, and rates honorable mention on both some compositions and grooves.  He also appears to be a comfortable improviser.  His new "lap-tapping" direction should prove to be really interesting.
  
• Kaki King is the one most likely to throw in the sort of tongue-in-cheek tonal abuse that I love so much.  I think she may be the premier improviser, at least in my sense of the word.
  
• Don Ross is the ambassador, the salesman.  I think he's also been the one most encumbered with comparisons to Michael Hedges, which is unfair.
  
• Andy McKee is the Sam Bush of the genre.  You just can not help but smile when you watch him play.  He writes fantastic songs and he's just plain fun.
  
• Stephen Bennett is like the Jon Anderson of the genre--he's the spirit lifter.  A beautiful aesthetic and apparently a heavy influence on several of the above.
• Preston Reed is the workhorse.  He's been doing this for quite a while, he's solid and really fun to either watch or hear.
  

There are lots of others;  I'm happy to say that the genre is alive and well.  Among the crowd there are many different styles and unique voices, and my brain is still leaking trying to grasp everything that I'm hearing.  It's quite possible that the above comments might change in a few months--what I can say is that if they do, it will only be because of some jaw-dropping music.  :-)

___________________
Of interest:  I'm not yet aware of any fretless players in here.  Yes, I know that frets give the percussive effects a great deal of their identity, but I can assure you that both fretless and nylon strings can produce similar effects.  Kaki King aside, there also seems to be a great deal of room for melodic improvisation in here, and I am curious to see where my love of double-harmonic scales might lead--fretted or fretless.

It's a hell of a time for innovation on the basic instrument.  Keep in mind that Pandora radio has also brought me to Dan Crary during this same time, and as astonishing as his work is (still can't believe I went this many years without noticing it--especially his 12-string work and some stellar compositions), what I just can't stop churning through is the genre Michael Hedges brought to the mainstream.

Wow!

Antoine Dufour

I think my brain just sprung a leak.  HFS:



Among the heavy hitters operating today, Dufour stands out to me both for his absolutely mesmerising technical virtuosity, and also his compositional skills.  Right now I'd give him top bill in composition along with Andy McKee.

Erik Mongrain

Credit Pandora radio for getting Erik Mongrain in front of me. After the third or fourth "Man, what is this? I gotta know!" in which his name was the answer, I took a look on YouTube.

Wow.

I think we've got another heavy hitter out there. His voice is unique, and how's this for creating a mood:



Add to Antoine Dufour, Andy McKee, Don Ross, and of course Michael Hedges.  Great innovators are at work now!