Contrabass Digest

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1999-11-08

 
From: "David Neubauer" <dnmagic@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Forbidden Planet
Date: Sun, 7 Nov 1999 20:31:42 -0800
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Ah.  Bebe married my uncle about 20 years ago, a very nice, modest
woman (in fact, I didn't know she was 'that' Bebe Barron until about 6
months ago when they had a special showing of Forbidden Planet in
downtown LA with all the surviving cast and crew in attendance).
Great CD!

David Neubauer
www.dnmagic.com

> >Grant, do you remember reading about Bebe Barron, one of the pioneers
> >of electronic music?  She and her (then) husband Louis did the first
> >electronic film score, "Forbidden Planet" for MGM?
>
> Doesn't ring a bell here.  I'm not sure if that's because its been 20+
> years, or if its because the prof (John Steele Ritter) wasn't interested in
> "conventional" uses of electronic music.  He was far more interested in
> doing things with synths and tape that were completely different from
> conventional instruments: he'd take Subotnik over Tomita any day.
> Interesting, for a guy who would take off for a couple of weeks to
> accompany Jean-Pierre Rampal on the harpsichord...
>
> Grant
> ________________________________________________________
> Grant D. Green           gdgreen@contrabass.com
> http://www.contrabass.com/
> Filling in on sarrusophone

---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 11:25:24 +0000 (GMT)
From: Dafydd y garreg wen <mavnw@csv.warwick.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: CB Listening (speaker choice.)
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

On Sat, 6 Nov 1999, Jim Katz wrote:
>  My first really good system sported a pair of EV Sentry 4 speakers.
> What were they, about 200lbs or so each in weight.  I was always
> disappointed because while they sounded great very loud, I never had a
> place big enough to crank them up.

Not exactly the same idea, but I have a friend who, when still living at
home, had a recording of something of which his speakers left him
unsatisfied at the bass end. What was his ingenious solution? To drill a
hole in his loft door, mount the woofers in that, and use the whole room
beyond as a resonating cavity as he pumped up the volume mightily. He only
stopped when he noticed cracks appearing in the ceiling below.
His parents were not particularly pleased about this...

Dave Taylor
 

---------------------------------------------------------

From: <Colin.HARRIS@dfee.gov.uk>
Subject: Tuba mp3 files.
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 11:44:16 -0000
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

To repay my debt to this mailing list, I have uploaded a few MP3 files of me
delving into the depths of my Eb tuba and G trombone as follows:

http://www.backworth.org.uk/tuba%20eb%20scale.mp3 (352 KB) is a 4 octave
scale starting on Eb above the bass clef or top C in treble clef and going
down to the lowest Eb (or double pedal C), 4th lower than the bottom A on a
piano. Please note that this Eb (or C) is not a true note - acoustically the
lowest note on the instrument is the E or (C#) a semitone above (fundamental
pitch - all vales engaged).

http://www.backworth.org.uk/tuba%20eb%20lower.mp3 (558 KB)is a chromatic
scale of Eb (or C)starting on Eb one ledger line below the bass clef stave,
or bottom C in treble clef, for 2 octaves, and a 2 octave scale of Eb (or C)
in the same register.

http://www.backworth.org.uk/tuba%20sing%20and%20play.mp3 (236
KB)demonstrates the possibilities of simultaneous singing and playing on a
tuba.  Notice due to me being a crap singer, that the last note, a unison Eb
(or C) has "beats" until it settles.  This is due to me being out of tune
for a bit!

and

http://www.backworth.org.uk/g%20trom%20scale%20and%20pedals.mp3 (246 KB) is
a quick blart on the band's G trombone.  It is a little out of tune, due to
the fact I have not quite found the positions yet on the beast, but its
narrow bore makes the end product sound very treblely and a little coarse
when compared with modern bass trombone sounds.  Having said that, it blows
a lot easier than a large bore Bb/F, again probably due to the bore size.
 

If anyone has any suggestions for more files (and before you say it, neither
instrument will fit) or comments, I will add them next time I am playing
with my tape recorder.

Colin Harris
Eb Bass
Backworth Colliery Band
http://www.backworth.org.uk
See "A Day in the Life of Backworth Colliery Band" at
http://www.backworth.org.uk/life.htm
---------------------------------------------------------

From: Heliconman@aol.com
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 11:31:13 EST
Subject: Re: electronic music
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

In a message dated 11/07/1999 12:01:21 PM Eastern Standard Time,
gdgreen@contrabass.com writes:

<< Doesn't ring a bell here.  I'm not sure if that's because its been 20+
 years, or if its because the prof (John Steele Ritter) wasn't interested in
 "conventional" uses of electronic music.  He was far more interested in
 doing things with synths and tape that were completely different from
 conventional instruments: he'd take Subotnik over Tomita any day.
 Interesting, for a guy who would take off for a couple of weeks to
 accompany Jean-Pierre Rampal on the harpsichord...
 
 Grant
  >>

There are a lot of people who believe in not using synths to immitate
conventional instruments but using them for their own unique voices. Of
course in the early days of analog synths the ability to accurately immitate
a real instrument wasn't very good, but still, a lot of people tried to do it
anyway. Maybe it was a good exercise for the synthesist to learn how to
"build" a sound but it was REALLY hard to get an accurate immitation. To his
credit, Tomita did use many unique, non-immitative voices in his renderings
of classical music, although the timbres were perhaps very much in the same
ballpark as the conventional instrument the piece was scored for. Just to
keep this thread in the CB vein, I had the pleasure of working for Aries
Music and ARP Instruments here in eastern Massachusetts and I frequently had
a fair amount of time to sit and play with the instruments during lunch
(picture me with a sandwich in my left hand, patch cords around my neck,
while tweeking knobs and switches and playing with my right!) or after work.
At the ARP showroom studio, about once a week I'd stay after work for hours
(missing the local bus and having to walk a couple of hours to get home) just
to play with the dozen or so ARP synths and sequencers and Mutron effects
pedals (ARP was manufacturing them after the original company went bust). My
favorite sounds on the Aries and ARP synths were the bass notes! They could
range from a warm sounding hum to a snotty, rip-snorting resonant growl that
any funk band would have loved. It was much more fun to design unique sounds
than to immitate! The real trick was to record all the settings of the sound
once you found something you really liked so you could recreate it later. But
the natural tendency was to continue to alter the sound to see what else you
could do with it without stopping to fill out a patch sheet. Creativity runs
wild!
And what could be more contrabass than those Low Frequency Oscillators?!!
---------------------------------------------------------

From: <Colin.HARRIS@dfee.gov.uk>
Subject: Favourite contrabassic moments in orchestral music:
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 16:45:05 -0000
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Favourite contrabassic moments in orchestral music:
 


Any more?

Colin Harris
Eb Bass
Backworth Colliery Band
http://www.backworth.org.uk
See "A Day in the Life of Backworth Colliery Band" at
http://www.backworth.org.uk/life.htm
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 12:12:22 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: electronic music
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

>There are a lot of people who believe in not using synths to immitate
>conventional instruments but using them for their own unique voices. Of
>course in the early days of analog synths the ability to accurately immitate
>a real instrument wasn't very good, but still, a lot of people tried to do it
>anyway. Maybe it was a good exercise for the synthesist to learn how to
>"build" a sound but it was REALLY hard to get an accurate immitation. To his

We had an Arp 2600, an Arp 2500 (a modular system, where the modules
were patched together using matrix switches), and 2 or 3 open-reel
tape decks.  The 2500 had a split keyboard (enabling one to control
one synth with the lower half of the keyboard, and the other synth
with the upper half) and a sequencer module (an analog sequencer,
having three columns of 10 knobs: you could set it to play all 30
knobs in sequence at a given tempo, or use one column for pitch,
another for filter setting, and the third for duration, or just about
any other controllable parameter).  I was mainly interested in making
new timbres, and using them in conjunction with conventional
instruments or in synthetic choirs.  I have a whole series of
improvisations I did by recording a sequencer ostinato while
improvising on both halves of the keyboard, then overdubbing three
more tracks of two-handed improvisation.

While those were my favorite works, the instructor preferred one I
had done using a bassoon reed and tape manipulation (heavy tape echo,
and speed variation), another using a short George Carlin fragment
that flanged, and one that essentially ran the Arp 2600 on automatic
(using one of the LFOs to trigger envelopes, and having the envelope
control the oscillator pitch - or something like that).

>Music and ARP Instruments here in eastern Massachusetts and I frequently had
>a fair amount of time to sit and play with the instruments during lunch
>(picture me with a sandwich in my left hand, patch cords around my neck,
>while tweeking knobs and switches and playing with my right!) or after work.
>At the ARP showroom studio, about once a week I'd stay after work for hours
>(missing the local bus and having to walk a couple of hours to get home) just
>to play with the dozen or so ARP synths and sequencers and Mutron effects
>pedals (ARP was manufacturing them after the original company went bust). My
>favorite sounds on the Aries and ARP synths were the bass notes! They could
>range from a warm sounding hum to a snotty, rip-snorting resonant growl that
>any funk band would have loved. It was much more fun to design unique sounds
>than to immitate! The real trick was to record all the settings of the sound
>once you found something you really liked so you could recreate it later. But
>the natural tendency was to continue to alter the sound to see what else you
>could do with it without stopping to fill out a patch sheet. Creativity runs
>wild!
>And what could be more contrabass than those Low Frequency Oscillators?!!

Sounds wonderful!  Our class consisted of a 1-hour (maybe 2) lecture
on Friday afternoons, followed by essentially unlimited lab time.
Many evenings I went to the lab right after dinner, and stayed until
2 or 3 AM.

Grant

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant Green            gdgreen@contrabass.com
                     http://www.contrabass.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 12:16:17 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: Favourite contrabassic moments in orchestral music:
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

>Favourite contrabassic moments in orchestral music:
>
>Opening of Also Sprach Zarathrustra (Strauss), and double bass solo part of
>fugue later on (has parts tuned down to low B as well!)
>Brass Choral part in Mov. 4 of Brahms 1st Symphony in C Minor.
 


Grant

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant Green            gdgreen@contrabass.com
                     http://www.contrabass.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 12:17:43 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: Tuba mp3 files.
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

>To repay my debt to this mailing list, I have uploaded a few MP3 files of me
>delving into the depths of my Eb tuba and G trombone as follows:

Sounds good!  I had to paste the URLs directly into Quicktime to get
them downloaded, but it eventually worked.

Grant

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant Green            gdgreen@contrabass.com
                     http://www.contrabass.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---------------------------------------------------------

From: "Pinkosky, Paul M" <pmpinkosky@saintfrancis.com>
Subject: Electronic 32's on Pipe Organs
Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 16:12:39 -0600
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Does anyone have any experience with Electronic 32's on an otherwise all
pipe instrument?  I play a 68 rank Wicks/McMannis at my church, and the 32's
are fairly docile...I'd like something that packs a punch, but we have space
limitations.

I've never heard a digital 32' and wasn't sure of their effectiveness.

Thanks...

Paul Pinkosky
Tulsa, OK
 


 
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