Earbrass

Thinking a bit more about livestreamed gigs, what about having hybrid gigs, where a small, socially-distanced live audience is augmented by selling online tickets too? This could possibly make gigs in small venues financially viable where they wouldn't otherwise be with distancing regs, and give the online experience more atmosphere at the same time. Again, it's just a thought, and hopefully others will have other, better, thoughts - what's needed now is some imagination and some new approaches, rather than just waiting for things to return to "normal".

I understand what you are saying, and I agree that a livestreamed gig is not a complete or perfect replacement for live gigs, and also with Ambient's point about it working better for some genres than others, but I also remember when videos first came out that people said it would never replace the experience of watching a film on a big screen amidst a large audience, and indeed it hasn't completely replaced it. However there is now a lot of money in the home cinema market, both with DVDs and streamed content, and I think that any musician wondering where their income is going to come from in a post-covid world would do well to consider whether they could use the new technology as a part of their work - not necessarily giving up live gigs altogether, but maybe using some combination of the two to enhance their profile and income.

Since the crisis began, I have seen some wonderful livestreamed gigs from several of my favourite artists. Such gigs offer advantages for both the audience and performers. As a virtual gig-goer, I did not need to travel (the gigs I watched were from Finland, but they could have been from almost anywhere in the world), I didn't have to deal with the idiocy of fellow gig-goers playing constantly with their mobile phones, I could watch them whenever and wherever I wanted, pause them for a loo-break or to put the kettle on, and the sound was excellent, and not at the mercy of room acoustics or dodgy PAs. Performers can play a gig to a virtually unlimited audience - it's just up to them how many people they can attract. No need for much of the heavy gear they usually have to lug around, or for anti-social levels of volume which have increasingly made small venues less viable in our overcrowded cities. No having to deal with drunken punters falling into their gear, asking for requests, or to be allowed to sing or otherwise making a nuisance of themselves. The gigs I have seen were free, or in one case with optional tickets for those wishing to support the artists financially, but they could be monetised fairly simply (much as online music lessons have been). Just as watching films at home is steadily replacing trips to the cinema, perhaps this could be the future trend for many gigs, and those bands that learn to exploit the new technology fastest could be ahead of the game. Just a thought.

I wouldn't bank on it - the description says "A UNIQUE '54 PRECISION/JAZZ BASS HYBRID!" - so presumably they only made the one.

I suspect that people who play in bands are going to be more motivated to return to gigging than audiences will be to return to attending.

P necks are thicker, so they need to use more wood. That stuff doesn't grow on trees y'know.

Left one is smiley, right one is gritting its teeth.

No. It's just the size of the gap between 2 notes. The "root" changes with the key you're playing in, but the size of the gap between any 2 given notes is independent of the key (at least in equal temperament tunings, which is what we overwhelmingly use). A perfect 4th is a 5 semitone (or 5 fret) gap.

My advice would be to start by learning to recognise the different musical intervals. It can be helpful to have memorised examples of each (eg perfect 4th - first 2 notes of Away in a Manger, perfect 5th - first 2 notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra (2001: a Space Odyssey theme) and so on). Good luck!

"Version" is about right. Sorry, but I think she completely ruins it. Catherine Bott / Christopher Hogwood / The Academy of Ancient Music FTW.

When I am Laid in Earth (Purcell's Dido and Aeneas) Gloomy Sunday - Diamanda Galas Follow those with one of mine, so any attendees can reflect that it's actually no great loss after all.

My GAS rule of thumb: give it 3 months - if I still want it after that I'll usually get it, but often I've lost interest and started GASsing for something different by then.

You can bow up to 2 strings at once (or 3 if you have your bow very slack). You can bow only the four main strings - the other 12 strings are sympathetic, and usually tuned in a chromatic scale, so equally good for all keys. Pressing a key moves a piece of dowel against the string, stopping it at the appropriate length - like moving frets against the string instead of the other way around. Traditional Swedish tuning is (low to high) C-G-C-A, but some players, especially those from a violin or viola background prefer have the second string a D rather than a C, thus giving straight fifths - C-G-D-A - pitched like a viola. The traditional design has 3 row of keys, one for each of the top 3 strings - so the lowest string can function only as a drone on its open note, but these days more builders, especially perhaps those continental builders outside Sweden, are also producing more "4 row" harpas, on which there 4 rows of keys, one for each of the main strings.

I wonder why you think it acceptable to express and incite hatred of a group of people based purely on their age, when I'm sure you'd condemn similar treatment based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

Hi Robbie, thanks very much for your comments. Yes, big fan of Väsen myself, and have seen them live a couple of times. I was lucky enough to attend a nyckelharpa masterclass by Olov Johansson when they came over and played a gig in Shoreham-by-Sea in 2016 - I had only been playing the instrument a little while, and he was very patient and helpful.

...and you only discovered all this during the lockdown? Must have been quite an afternoon on Google.

Yes, I know Vicki (nyckelharpa is a small world!) - I first played a nyckelharpa at her house, before buying one of my own. She's a great player and has done a lot to popularise the instrument in the UK.

Here are my nyckelharpas. The acoustic one was built by Kjell Lundvall in 2015, and the solid body was by Olla Plahn, 2019, and features a piezo pickup under the bridge and a built-in preamp. The "band" pickup on the Lundvall harpa is used for live performances - for recording I find a ribbon mic gives the best results - an example can be heard here:

Some of you....a few of you....one or two..OK none of you probably remember that I submitted a tune for the December covers challenge and came joint first with several others. Well, I have been tweaking it quite a bit since then, and I think this is the final version. So, here is my version of "Kadrilj efter Birger Törnkvist".

Camel?

"The very beadsmen learn to bend their bows Of double-fatal yew against thy state." Shakespeare's Richard II (3.2.120)

Otis Luxton, in Lavenham: http://www.luxtoninstruments.co.uk/about/

😂 and ewww!