zbd1960

Oddly, the viola da gamba (viol) which I also play, uses underhand bow. But in the viol world, it's not referred to as 'German' as it was the standard. There are different 'holds' the English one is the one advocated by Christopher Simpson, there is the French Forqueray hold, which mostly differs by rotating the wrist to apply more pressure on the bow hair. With the viol, your middle finger rests on the hair and so rotating the wrist anti-clock adds pressure to the bow hair.

Hi, welcome

As someone who plays bass, and in particular also plays baritone sax (which weighs 8kg) getting straps etc right is important if you don't want neck/back issues in the future. You cannot eliminate the weight of the bass as we have yet to work out how to alter that aspect of physics. With the bari, I cannot take that weight on a strap (I can't with a tenor sax either which is half the weight) as the pressure on the nape of the neck is too much. I also cannot use the usual alternative which is a 'strap' that sits on the shoulders, as it's still too heavy. That means using a harness - there are different types of these, some of which means no weight on neck/shoulders at all (weight is transferred to a hip belt). There are some very expensive options - there is a sax 'stand' that holds the sax in place and you wheel it into position to play (seated). They cost £00s For bass I use 4" wide straps which have substantial padding, which distribute the weight over a larger area. There are harness type straps but I've never used one so I can't say how good/bad they are.

I know.... I keep thinking about upgrading my cello bow. At the moment it's a Durfler bow with pernambuco stick, which was £450 back in 2011. I tried some bows up to £2,000 a few years ago but none 'spoke' to me.... I have a feeling I wasn't looking in the right price range...

The current issues in the US are a more extreme version of what we've had, which to avoid further comment I'll just call the "EU issue". The underlying issues are complex, multi-faceted, and have been decades in the making. A big part of the issue is the disconnect between metropolitan elites and everyone else. In the UK this manifests itself in particular as the Westminster Bubble where the movers and shakers think that London is the centre of the universe and are oblivious to the the fact that the rest of the UK is not the same as London. Someone suggests major infrastructure projects for the London area and no-one bats an eyelid over the costs and planning is sorted out. Suggest infrastructure improvements/needs elsewhere and all of a sudden it's "too costly", "not needed", "can't approve that" etc. A66 upgrade locally being a particular bone of contention. Politicians in the centre get obsessed with the minutiae of their little world and fail to understand the real needs of the people outside. For a while, perhaps decades, voter inertia and party loyalties prevail and obscure to the centre what is going on. At some point the disconnect leads to a rupture. Some demagogue comes along and tells people they're not listened to and they have a brand of snake oil that will fix everything... Of course they are liars and charlatans. Unfortunately, for a while it will work unless serious effort is put into countering it.

You'll need a proper string specialist/dealer. They are thin on the ground and due to high street costs, some are now home based. There's Tim Toft in Stone in Staffs for example who does have a large shop and on-site team of luthiers.

As a cellist, I'm safe... it's the trombone players you have to watch

Ditto - I just couldn't face the drive from North Lakes and trains not a viable option either. Only real option would have been an overnight stay

US poultry is not raised in the same standard of conditions as the UK and EU (and elsewhere). Battery/cage farming is standard and the chlorination is done to nuke bugs. It's also why eggs have to be chilled in US as the washing process removes the protective outer layers of the shell.

Hi, welcome.

All three music things I currently do (two choirs and an orchestra) did not meet last week due to half term.... I have NEVER understood this nonsense. Almost no-one in any of the groups has school age children. OK one group rehearses in a school, so I get that one, but the others? What's the obsession with working around school term dates, it's not the C19th? Mutter, mutter, drifts off into corner...

Are you sure it wasn't a treble viol (viola da gamba) as they have frets?

Yep. It's just another version of management's tendency to take "the computers says..." uninformed approach. I worked in data warehousing for quite a while. Idiots in suits would write and run their own queries and just assume that the 'answer' was right, without understanding the data. Understanding is crucial. I had to explain to one genius that his query's output was a heap of steaming ordure. I had to point out that according to his query the number of active customers exceeded the population of the UK.

As a now retired IT guy I get frustrated with the use of the term "AI". The media, inevitably, misuses the term, and PR/marketing departments hype it death. In most cases, AI is a series of algorithms backed up by a large database and a rule set. It is not 'intelligent' it's just quick at searching. We've got the same issue with AI that we've had with previous technology shifts. In the 50s everything was 'atomic' or 'rocket', in the 60s we start to see "Twenty-first century", in the 80s everything had to be labelled 'digital', in the late 90s it was "e-...." and then with Apple it became "i-....". Now it's "AI". The stuff it's good at is pattern recognition and it's going to be a big help with processing scans for cancers etc. The big area of concern at the moment is no-one has worked out how or what needs regulating about it. As with any technology there is potential for harm as well as good. The issue at the moment is 'deep fakes'.

Prior to VAT the UK had Purchase Tax and post war there was a variant/band called Luxury Tax. The latter killed the hat trade for example as it was high - 33% I think. It was abolished in 1973.

The Early Music Shop stocks a lot of early music for all sorts of instruments. https://earlymusicshop.com

Yes, it's a common misconception. Bach knew about ET but didn't like it. He devised his own temperament which is what he used on his own harpsichords. Unfortunately, there is no record of 'what' it was. There were 'well tempered' tunings. There are various rabbit holes you can go down looking into this subject. Early Music Source is a good channel for sensible discussion on these things, e.g.

Actually, your explanation was pretty good - I tend to get too technical.... Thank you for the offer - I only have tenor viol these days as I sold my bass viol before the house move. Playford and Praetorius are good 🙂

As an early music (i.e. pre-1750) enthusiast, the issue of tuning and temperaments comes up all the time. Equal temperament is a fudge to get around that the maths doesn't quite work. If you stack 8 perfect fifths on top of each other, you should go up 5 octaves, but you don't.... that's the Pythamgorean comma that @Rosie C mentioned. ET has been known about since the 1600s but it didn't come into a more general use until late in the C19th and primarily for pianos. It is possible to tell from early recordings of pianos made in the late C19th that they were not tuned in ET - which is what everyone assumed until recently. Rose mentioned the book about ET, which I have and it's a useful introduction to the subject. There's also the book "Lies my music teach told me". There were a lot of alternative temperaments about and that's what Bach's 48 preludes and fugues in the Well Tempered Clavier are about. "Well tempered" is NOT equal temperament but a tuning that plays 'well' in a lot of keys. The ET fudge is to divide the octave in 12 equal sized semi-tones, which means that they are each the 12th root of 2 apart. The problem is that some of these gaps are bigger than they should be (e.g. the major third) and some are narrower than they should be (e.g. perfect fifth). A surprising example of people that use 'just' intonation is barbershop quartet singers. They do not use ET which is why their chords 'ping' the way they do. On my viol, the frets are lengths of gut string tied around the neck and then moved into place for tuning. On certain frets, you 'split' the two windings on the fret so that you can play e.g. C# flatter and Db sharper...

Correct because in equal temperament the major third is too wide and bordering on being out-of-tune. For enharmonic equivalents, #s should be flatter and bs should be sharper. I'm an early music enthusiast, so I play the viol as well, which means consort music. I have a lot of consort music which comes with both viol and recorder parts in the various clefs.

Orchestra rehearsal last nigh - Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. Lots of challenges including treble clef and tricky rhythms. This couple of pages features a lot of tenor clef.

Protectionism doesn't work, and was a major cause of the depression when the US did similar in 1929... If your country is able to source, supply, and make everything, but prices are being undercut by 'dumping' |(something China has indulged in) then that is a valid case where tariffs would make some sense as it would encourage use of local resources. However, that is not where the world is. No-one - not US, not Europe, not UK - has all the resources they need to make things, has the manufacturing capability to make things, has the infrastructure to make things. Tariffs will not work in this scenario. It is highly inflationary. It will do a lot of damage to many economies, many of which still have not recovered from the impact of Covid. Many economies, e.g. UK, are now service based economies not manufacturing based. Such economies cannot avoid importing components and finished goods.

Just back from orchestra rehearsal. Some tough stuff this term. Tchaikovsky Romeo and Juliet overture is very demanding as is the ballet music for Sleeping Beauty. The Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet ballet music takes no prisoners. The cello part goes from bass clef straight to treble, no messing with tenor clef and up to the E a 10th above middle C

What incredibly sad news. Thoughts go out to all those that knew him.

Reading music is like learning to read - it's not an instant process. As children we probably all had similar experiences of being taught what letters looked like, how they sounded in various contexts. For reading, started with simple books - not Tolstoy or Conrad... It's the same with music. When I was about 11 and started to learn to read music properly at school it took a while. I started to borrow miniature scores from the local library and then try to follow the cello line whilst listening to it. Something I'd recommend to people is to get used to just reading along whilst listening. You can download scores or individual parts for most classical music that is out of copyright from IMSLP. Just being able to follow along helps a lot. In amateur orchestras, string players will often "busk" the tricky passages until they've got their heads and fingers around them. Got a passage of lots of semi-quavers? Simplify it and maybe only play the start of each group of 4 or each quaver... I was faced with sight-reading this at the first rehearsal of the new term last week. Can I play some of it at sight? Yes. Can I play all of it at sight? No. You'll notice it spends a lot of time in the tenor clef for added entertainment value. It's the end of the Romeo an dJuliet overture by Tchaikovsky.