ldvries
Is there anybody out there - Pink Floyd (cover)
updated
It was only after I tried to figure out how to play this tune on this instrument, that I realized that the original is not played on an octave mandolin, or indeed on anything mandolin-like at all. The original is in the key of G, and this ended up in D.
There are a few videos with David Hidalgo playing it, but his fingering is completely different. He plays something that looks like a small classical guitar, but (as far as I can make out) is modified to be an 8-string baritone ukulele.
I does seem to work on this thing too, though. The only problem is that I'm now tempted to build an 8-string baritone uke as well...
This one has been on my to do list for years: the version by Neil Hannon (the original is here: youtube.com/watch?v=3bdQPhqL3xo).
Even with the lyrics and chords I couldn't quite figure out what was happening... but I think I got pretty close eventually.
And, of course, since this is the jazzy version, it should obviously be played on my jazzy archtop uke :)
I recently took a course in clock repair, where I learned some of the basics about clocks and gears and stuff. After that, I decided to take a swing at building something with gears myself. Not a clock, but something more fun, and something that doesn't need to run as smoothly and precisely as a clock should, because I don't have the machinery you need to make something as accurate as that. I need to be able to make all the bits and pieces by hand. So I tried to think of a quirky project to experiment with...
I am also a big fan of the Discworld series, by Terry Pratchett. If you don't know what I'm talking about: Look it up! Read the books! Wear the lilac!
The basic premise is explained in the first book of the series, The Colour Of Magic: "Through the fathomless depths of space swims the star turtle Great A'Tuin, bearing on its back the four giant elephants who carry on their shoulders the mass of the Discworld. A tiny sun and moon spin around them, on a complicated orbit to induce seasons [...]"
You can probably guess where this is leading: I wanted to make a Discworld Orrery. It has taken half a year, and since about a week or so, it looks like it's finished! It feels a bit rickety in places, and I am very careful when I use it, but so far, everything seems to work.
I have tried to incorporate as many facts from the books as I could. Some facts about Discworld astronomy can be found in the books from the Discworld Series itself, and also in some of the additional publications such as the Compleat Discworld Atlas and the Discworld Almanak. Not all details are covered however, and not everything makes sense when you actually do the math. As far as I know, Terry Pratchett never completely specified the way Discworld astronomy works, and a lot of the discrepancies should probably be explained away as "Because... well, magic!"
Still, we can try...
The disc's tiny orbiting sunlet maintains a fixed orbit while the majestic disc turns slowly beneath it. The disc itself revolves once every eight hundred days. This is a Celestial Year, which consists of eight seasons. The summers are those times when the sun rises or sets at the nearest point on the Rim, the winters those occasions when it rises or sets at a point around ninety degrees along the circumference. A Celestial Year is usually divided into two Common or Agricultural Years of 400 days, containing one of every season.
The mechanism is powered by turning the handle. The orbit of the sun is fixed, in the vertical plane along the spine of Great A'Tuin. The handle should be turned counterclockwise, so that the sun rises on the side of Great A'Tuin's head, and the disc spins Turnwise (clockwise, when seen from above). One turn of the handle represents one day. The sun orbits the disc once a day, and the disc makes a full turn every 800 days, one Celestial Year.
Underneath the disc, the calendar ring rotates once every Common Year, 400 days, which is divided into 13 months, consisting of 32 days each, except for the month of Ick, which only has 16 days. The months are shown on the ring, the arrow indicates the current date.
The moon also spins around the disc, approximately once a day. According to the Discworld Almanak: "The orbits of the Sun and Moon about the World, passing over and beneath it in an ellipse or flattened circle, are very similar and periodically the Moon passes so close to the Sun that one face of it is scorched. By the great foresight of the Keeper of the Geometries, the Moon spins in its path so that this is always the same face, which by now is quite blackened. And thus, when this face revolves towards the world, are the Phases or Aspects of the Moon caused."
In my model, the lunar orbit lies in a vertical plane that rotates once every 63.6(...) days. The indicator on the base of the orrery shows the phase of the moon. Full moon occurs when the lunar orbit plane coincides with the solar orbit plane, which is when the moon may be close to the sun for an extended period of time. New moon occurs when the lunar orbit is perpendicular to the solar one. This way, the time between two full moons comes to 31.8(...) days: almost, but not exactly one month. I didn't want it to be exactly 32 days, otherwise the lunar and solar orbits would match up too perfectly. Similarly, the moon orbits the disc in almost, but not exactly one day, to cause some variation in the relative positions of the sun and moon.
I have made several other considerations, concessions and choices during the build, but I won't go into all of that here. I only hope I won't come across some detail that doesn't fit my model the next time I reread the series...
It works, more or less, although I would have liked to get some more bass notes in here and there.
As a mandolin is tuned the same as a violin, and a mandola is tuned like a viola, this one is tuned like a cello, an octave below the viola. (N.B.: Excuse the typo in the video itself at 0:06 - it's not tuned C-G-E-A, but C-G-D-A...)
I didn't really build very much on this one; I mainly used prefabricated parts, and modified some where necessary.
Just to see if it would be possible.
I still need to learn how to get any music out of it...
And I suppose a genuine vintage Supro Lapsteel pickup would sound infinitely better.
But still, it's good to have an electric guitar in open tuning lying around.
It's based on a Gibson RD-model. Walnut body, mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard. It has two fairly basic pickups, stacked pots (volume and tone for each pickup), and it is HEAVY...
Luckily I hardly ever play standing up.
So it's an electric mandola, with Telecaster (Deluxe) body, with the F-style scroll in the shoulder.
Purpleheart top, alder body, maple neck.
Handmade pickups, one humbucker and one P90-ish single coil. But only four pole pieces, so maybe I should call it a P60 or something.
Things sound less shrill on this than on a mandolin, but my hands still feel a bit cramped. Maybe I'll go for a mandocello at some point...
And if you mess around on it for a while, you can suddenly stumble across a tune that is more or less in the perfect key for this :)
Finally, this is the project they have ended up on: a mini Les Paul model guitar.
Mini humbuckers, 17" scale, figured maple top with burgundy red stain, walnut body, and tuned from B to b'. So, it's sort of like an "octave baritone guitar". If that makes any sense...
About "The secret of Monkey Island": I love this game (still replay it occasionally) and the theme song is great! The bridge part should really be an octave higher, but... what can I say... I play like a dairy farmer...
I finished this one a while ago, but the pickups were a bit too narrow. They didn't pick up the sound of the outer two strings very well, which is a bit of a problem when you only have three...
So I made some new pickups, larger ones, and this seems to work better. Still some room for improvement, but good enough for a demo.
Do not mistake it for a musical instrument!
Let's call it a Les Parlor...
This explains why I haven't been able to play guitar properly for a while. When I reach over the body, my shoulder hurts.
There are some ways to work around it, with a foot rest, and putting the guitar on my left leg, and sitting up straight, looking like a real guitarist... But I also want to be able to sit back on the couch and just noodle a bit!
Luckily however, I have also just finished my latest experimental build, and the timing couldn't be more perfect.
It's a small parlor-ish nylon string guitar, with an arm bevel. And, as it turns out: I can still play this one!
The only thing I still have to try out is whether it is sturdy enough to take along on vacation.
But it turned out quite well in the end, I think.
And it's a good excuse to go looking for more ukulele tabs. Who knows, I might even get into the jazzy stuff a bit more...
EDIT: Re-post... I initially uploaded the raw laptop recording, not the one with the better audio track on top...
The body consists of a frame of cheap pine, covered with hardboard on both sides. It has two lipstick pickups, wired in series, and a wraparound bridge.
Lends itself quite well for surf music, if you add enough reverb and stuff like that :)
I thought my latest project would be rather suitable for this kind of thing. And it turns out that it is!
Although it also turns out that it doesn't necessarily need to sound quite so medieval...
I particularly like the fact that the melody is almost entirely not on the top string (which is where the melody is usually played on a dulcimer)
At first, I thought a dulcimer was a bit of a sissy instrument, but then I came across Sam Edelston's channel (look for ContemporaryDulcimer here on Youtube) with his arrangements of popular songs for dulcimer, and I decided I should have one of those as well...
There was a bit of trial and error in the build, and it's probably not entirely constructed as it should be, but I think it turned out nice.
Next challenge: looking for more songs to play on this thing! It's fun trying to figure out how close you can get using only three strings...
I'm no bass player, but this is fun to experiment with!
And no, this may not be the best or the easiest way to start out with, but who cares... :)
So this is version 2.0, in shiny Pelham Blue. Of course I should have done this song on the Weissenborn, but I needed something relatively easy for a quick demo :)
The pickups are also home-made. Originally it only had the bridge pickup, but that sound was too thin, especially on the highest strings, where the pickup is so close to the bridge that it hardly picks up any string vibrations. So I added the neck pickup as well, with a slide switch. A real tele-switch would have been too big, but this sort of looks the part as well.
But still, this was too much fun, so I uploaded it anyway.
I don't really understand why there aren't any decent tabs for this piece. I tried to figure it out using some screen prints with the chords in it, and added a few bits from several other YouTube clips. Got quite close, I think. (And before anyone asks: no, I haven't taken the time yet to write out the tab myself...)
The original is too fast for me, but at this speed it already sounds fun :)
And yes: The gimmick with the 2 capos may look impressive, but when you think about it, it doesn't really complicate matters...
So, to compare it with how it used to sound, I did the same piece again. (For the old one, see: youtube.com/watch?v=QC_hnjNUYM0 )
Sounds like is has more treble, which is good. And also, I think I'm closer to the right tuning and tempo this time ;-)
If I read it correctly, it was written by Jerry Reed, but played by Chet Atkins on the CD ("Me and Jerry/Me and Chet")
I thought this was a nice one to try on my nylon archtop; a bit in between classical and fingerstyle.
Someday, I should get myself the official tab, if I can find it... This is not quite what it sounds like on the CD. (And not just because I'm not Chet Atkins or Jerry Reed...)
I'm still getting used to playing this thing; it has a very... let's say "precise" sound. How to explain this... I think the sound it gives is exactly what you play. So if you play something correctly, it comes out great. But any and all mistakes you make are also painfully obvious.
I have some other guitars that let me get away with sloppier playing ;-)
I first heard this song (You're Sixteen, by the Sherman Brothers) on a CD called "Poppin' Guitars", with a bunch of their other songs, arranged for fingerstyle guitar. This one was played by Greg Hawkes, on a ukulele (or four or five, by the sound of it). I tried to emulate two...
It has a 5-way switch, which gives you the following pickup combinations:
1 - Neck humbucker
2 - Neck single coil
3 - Neck single coil, in parallel with bridge single coil
4 - Bridge humbucker
5 - Bridge single coil
I always thought they were a little weak (especially #5), and after I learned a bit about the different ways you can combine pickups, I finally decided to let my soldering iron do its worst...
Apart from the 5-way switch, it now has a push-pull switch under the tone-pot which gives you 5 more sounds. (Well, 4, actually.)
I did this modification years ago (it was more or less the start of my guitar-tinkering hobby), but the sound clip I made at the time was very rudimentary. So, this is the new and improved demo clip.
It's the same riff, repeated 10 times. First, you can hear the 5 standard combinations (see above). And then, with the tone knob pulled out, the switch moves back up again:
5 - Bridge single coil, in parallel with neck humbucker
4 - Bridge humbucker, in parallel with neck humbucker
3 - Neck single coil, in parallel with bridge single coil. So no change here (I couldn't think of another combination without messing up the original circuit)
2 - Neck single coil, in series with bridge single coil
1 - Neck humbucker, in series with bridge single coil
This is my latest project: a neck-through, thinline guitar, played with the Little Angel chorus pedal - one of the results of my latest hobby: making guitar pedals :-D
I think it sounds a bit like a Hammond organ, so I tried to figure out a fingerstyle arrangement for "Hillbillies From Outer Space" by the Vaughan Brothers... Skipped a few lines, but it's close enough.
I repeated the second section, and made a few other minor adjustments to the tab.
I'm still in a very experimental phase with this new project. Not very experienced yet, but it's fun to play with!
I heard this song on a demo-CD that came with a book about the guitars built by luthier Danny Ferrington. This was actually a demo of a bass that he built, but on a guitar it works as well...
No tabs, just an approximation by ear, and the original track had some more backing and stuff, so on my own it doesn't sound too elaborate. But you get the idea, hopefully...
It turned out better than I expected. There still are some flaws in it, but the finishing looks better than in my previous attempts. Also, it sounds different from the others. Less bass, more treble, which is a welcome change. Fresher, sparklier than I'm used to.
It may still need a bit of tweaking, but I'm happy with the result so far!
So, there you go... Happy holidays and all that!
I recorded this one through my acoustic amp; the guitar has an under-saddle piezo pickup and an internal microphone. I think I should experiment some more with the knobs, it sounds a bit plasticky at the moment. But it does bring out the harmonics better.
The Danzas Españolas (Op. 37) by Enrique Granados were originally composed for piano, but they work excellent on guitar as well!