zbd1960

I've ditched Spotify as its coverage of classical is poor - limited choice of performances of works and poorly catalogued. Trying out Primephonic... so listening to the recently issues performance of the Bach Well Tempered Clavier book 2 played by the Phantasm viol consort, which is proving enjoyable.

Amongst my musical interests, I play sax and I run a sax ensemble, which is currently an octet on 2 sops, 2 altos, 2 tenors, and 2 baritones. We haven't met for over a year due to lockdown and our rehearsal venue is currently a vaccination centre, so we can't resume until September. I sometimes make arrangements for the group as it's not easy to find stuff for sax ensembles and it can get very expensive very quickly. I most often go for short Renaissance dance pieces like works by the English composer Holborne since I have a set of his works published in 1599... (I like to keep up-to-date with musical fashions...). I've just been listening to some recent recordings of music from the same period by Michael Pratetorius and for some of the movements they 'played' with it and replaced the violone (double bass viol) with electric bass etc. and it was quite good. So, I'm thinking of making some arrangements now which I can a part for me to play on bass. The main challenge is that if I look at a facsimile edition of the Praetorius, it it will be in all sorts of weird clefs (e.g. the G1 French violin clef) and weird time signature notation (e.g. prolation etc). And no bar lines... You can see all of this in this example

They have a stupendous workshop. They seem to get their wood in just planks from the timber supplier and have to remove the bark etc. It's interesting to see the precision with which they fix the wood to the CNC router table

I've watched a number of their videos in the last few weeks. It's interesting to see how their CNC techniques have evolved.

Hi, welcome

Amongst the weird things I do is play the viola da gamba aka viol. The double bass viol is the violone and is the ancestor of the upright double bass. There are some right weird options with viols for tuning - partly because there was no standardisation in the early days over sizes/tunings. They all have 6 strings (mostly), so the bass which is cello sized is DGCEAD and the tenor is a 4th up at GCFADG (treble is octave above bass and violone octave below tenor). But you'll sometimes encounter an 'alto' tuned B upwards... Then there's the lyra viol. This is usually a bass viol that is played using lute tablature rather than staff notation. These can be in all sorts of tunings and the tuning is indicated at the start of the piece. I've played some lyra viol music - it is brain warping.... there's a video in this link which is informative. https://earlymusicshop.com/blogs/viola-da-gamba/introducing-the-lyra-viol

This seems to have been the issue when Apple updated the OS to Big Sur at the end of last year

I have a nice full size Yamaha upright piano... 🙂 I'm not a brilliant pianist. I would probably aim at 4 octave device, as I can see 25 key one being a bit limiting. I'm a novice at using this technology, so want something to enable me to key in music but also provide some control over the DAW. So, some level of functionality, compatibility with Logic Pro X and Big Sur, four octaves. Having spent a lot of time these last few days going through reviews and user guides online, I may need to spend a little more.

I flagged them up as they seem to have some compatibility issues with the Mac Big Sur OS... not sure if it's been resolved or not.

Useful info. I've been down some YT rabbit holes today... One thing that has popped up is that M-Audio doesn't seem to get on very well with Big Sur OS on Mac - looks like it's pending an update from M-Audio. I had an awful experience with my NAS storage which is Western Digital when Big Sur was launched.

This is now fraud and there is little excuse for you not to be refunded

I have a Mac mini and a MacBook Pro. I'm thinking of getting Logic Pro, but I'll need a midi keyboard. Not an area of expertise! Prefer to spend less than £100. I'm guessing any midi keyboard will work (since 'midi' is a standard...). Does anyone have suggestions or recommendations? Thanks.

This is the seller's problem - not yours!

My turntable was picked up on Friday for a service (suspension tune, new springs etc) so without it for a week or so.

I just want to check that you are aware that there are two different bow holds for bass? There's the overhand that's similar to cello and there's underhand aka German bow hold which is similar to how you play the viola da gamba?

Yes, of the various shapes of bass, single cut is not at the top of my preferred list... but this is a nice looking beast

hmmm.... I'm OK at making things like lemon drizzle cake, tea loaf, Victoria sponge, chocolate fudge cake... less so at cake disguised as works of art... 🎂🍰🧁

I'm not planning on bringing kit at the moment.... but I can make cake...

I've played quite a few TV / film tunes in various concerts over the years on both cello and tenor sax. One really good one from 60s/70s (which I've not played) is Department S

Genius bars are open - not sure if you need to book an appointment in advance

I agree with the comments about Avid - despite the economic cost of the loss I had to stop using Sibelius when Avid took it over. With regard to Macs... I worked in IT for nearly 40 years (big mainframe type stuff) and used Windows based desktops / laptops in the office and at home from around the early 90s. At home, I really lost my rag with Windows 10 - the never-ending updates, the instability, the crashes, the bugs, lack of drivers or the need to update drivers when you buy some kit... I switched to using a Mac at home in 2018, buying a 2 year-old MacBook Pro. Yes, it's slightly different to Windows, but tbh it's not a lot different. Overall the Mac has been significantly more stable and far fewer issues to run than a Windows machine. Has it been faultless? No, but there have been few problems and readily sorted. My most significant issue wasn't the Mac's fault but third party - I would avoid using Western Digital NAS devices as they seem to pay zero attention to OS upgrades and you run the risk of losing access to your data for a protracted period (I lost access to my NAS for two months due to WD not updating).

I want to come to this - not sure it's worth me bringing any kit though?

Congratulations - sounds like me going to interview with my portfolio of images a couple of years ago for my photography course (I'm over 60 and currently a full-time student...). I'm sure you'll have a really good time.

I've noticed that a lot of guitar/bass/sax players get a little tongue-tied around reading notation. Think of it this way: at its base, there are only 7 distinct note names A - G, plus a further mix of sharps/flats to make up the total of 2 semi-tones. Create a bunch of flash cards with a bass clef and a note on one side and the note name on the other, covering two octaves from the low E. Shuffle the deck and randomly test yourself on a handful once or twice a day. You'll soon pick that up. The other part is rhythm notation and things like Kodàly can help with that. You can download classical scores from ISMLP and follow the bass line whilst listening to the piece. Sight-reading is just a matter of doing it. Usual advice from those doing music grades is that sight-reading ability is about 2 grades lower than your current playing ability.

Take it easy and in the words of Arthur Dent: Don't Panic. They're not looking to trip you up, just assess where you sit. They're going to be interested in making sure they fill all their spaces - you're auditioning them as well. Hope it goes well. I'll post separately about reading notation.