Ben’s Blog

Hard at work on Suite # 5 now, while also working on 6’s difficult prelude and trying to keep suites 1-4 in playable shape.

The Gavotte 2 from Suite 5 is great. I’m trying to work through it in kind of a Jas0n B3cker style, the way he cruises through Caprice # 5 so smoothly. I sure have a long way to go, better team up with my metronome. Gavotte 2 from Suite 5

One thing that helps is worth sharing. Notice that I don’t “shift” at all until I hit the low C. When I say “shift” I mean, I don’t leave my basic position. I stretch to hit the B natural on the A string a few times, but I don’t leave my basic 5-fret position.

Not to name drop, but to give credit where credit is due, in 1993 I took a week-long seminar with Micha3l Manr1ng. One thing he showed us was covering a 5-fret position, which really opens up the neck in one position-with stretching-not shifting to get extra notes.

That’s a concept I use all the time, and especially on this Gavotte.

bentorrey :: Apr.29.2007 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »

I love this tune. Charlie Haden is another real hero of mine. What a fantastic musician/composer/bassist.

I’d like to work on a set of variations on a theme for Silence on solo bass. Maybe starting like this:

Silence, chorded
Silence, arpeggiated
Silence, tap slow
Silence, tap faster octaves at end

bentorrey :: Apr.29.2007 :: The Quantity... :: No Comments »

I’ve was working on arrangements of Asturias back in 95-97, but dropped the piece for a long time (since I dropped playing just about altogether from 99-04). Lately I’ve been hacking through bits of it on my EAB.

Some of it sounds OK, although with the EAB unamplified and recorded via my digital camera (30 seconds max record length) these aren’t good audio quality clips. In particular, when I tap the higher octave B’s (23rd fret C string and 21 fret D string) and belt the low E (open) you can’t hear the B’s at all.

Anyway, when I record # 5, I’ll hack a bit of this to get a better idea of how the arrangement is sounding.

For now, have a listen:

Asturias Part 1
Asturias Part 2
Asturias Part 3

BTW, if you like that unpolished type of junk, join my friends list on YouTube. My YouTube id is bentorrey. I put up a lot of junk in the private videos section.

bentorrey :: Apr.22.2007 :: The Quantity... :: No Comments »

We’ve been considering a digital piano for a long time. I was set on a $400 Casio CDP-100, but after playing the Yamaha YDP213 at our local Guitar Center we had to upsize to that. What a great little digital piano!! We love it.

Great sound and feel. It also has some features right on board that are great for me. For one, it has a metronome. Since my timing is so bad on any instrument I play, I find that really helpful. It also has a record feature so I can listen back and hear just how bad my timing is.

So, so great to have a piano around the house. Here’s a quick clip recorded on my digital camera, so don’t take this as a reliable sound sample. bachwtcpreludeinc.wmv

bentorrey :: Apr.19.2007 :: Instruments :: No Comments »

So, here I am, sweating bullets, it’s April 18th…and I’ve got something “overdue”. Taxes? No, we settled with the feds months ago. Rather my “Project Barto” entry is “due” for the month. Geez that came up quick!

I’ve worked on parts of the bourree in d minor from Sonata # 36 off and on for awhile, and decided to go after the first part for this month’s Project Barto entry.

First off, if you haven’t bought all 8 volumes of Robert Barto’s Weiss Sonatas for Lute, I highly recommend it. They’re on iTunes for $5.99 per, so that would be an incredibly good use of $48 in my opinion.

Anyway, he of course plays this piece brilliantly, with a great tempo and pulse, great dynamics and tonal color. I especially like how he creates differentiation in the 2nd repeat of part 2 by arpeggiating some chords. A brilliant master of his instrument and of this music.

Anyway, so my PC is all messed up, and I can’t record any music on it now. So, had to use my digital camera to get a quick video snippet, and it stopped recording for some reason near the end.

I start out fingerpicking, and then switch to tapping to get a thicker octaves sound on the F/A G-/Bb progression there. I’ve got to work on the dynamics there leading up to that part and the transition. I’ve also tapped the first part, but it sounds a bit thin on the EAB, but it would make for an easier transition.

I think if I can get the notes under my fingers a bit more, this might be a nice piece for bass. The “measuring stick” though will be if I can make it listenable, regardless of the instrument. Nobody cares if its hard to play on bass, I’ve got to make it sound like good music no matter how difficult the translation to bass might be. That’s the challenge.

Anyway, have a look at a junk AVI clip and PDF of the arrangement. I’ll post back with part II and better recordings of this piece soon.

bentorrey :: Apr.18.2007 :: Project Barto :: No Comments »

I met up with Michael Mayo over at Emerson on April 10, 2007 to record Cello Suite # 4 which you can hear at http://bentorrey.com:2112/music/jsbenny/suite04.htm

Overall, not very happy with this (draft) recording. A lot of i for interference (from Barry Green’s great P=p-i equation from the Inner Game of Music). In fact, on several takes I’d say “OK, let me noodle a minute”, then I’d play a piece (just about) perfectly. Then I’d say, “OK let’s do a take”, and next thing you know I’m making mistakes on the same part I just played perfectly.

That can only get better as I focus more on p, preparation. One thing I know I have to do better on is memorization. I need to be able to play these from memory. Most big flub-ups happen when I may have a hard shift and am not able to focus on it because I’m looking at a score. I’ve tried hard to memorize these, but I think I may have stuffed too much computer junk into my brain. Or I may need to study how to memorize pieces. I don’t think I’ve ever really thought much about that topic-and that’s worth doing and reading about. Back to the Inner Game book.

All that being said, I think Suite # 4 represents a big step in many ways. As I looked at the waveforms of some of the tracks, I could visually see a larger dynamic range. I think the articulation is improving, there’s more range and variation in tone. The pulse and flow improved.

I think there’s one measure in the Sarabande that I’m truly proud of. The measure with the F major chord in first inversion going to a Bb chord with the melody moving slowly to the flatted 7th before resolving to the Bb chord. That measure really sings!

And that’s what drives me. The idea that I can have an entire recording of measures like that if I continue the work.

Suite # 4 wasn’t pretty, have a listen and you’ll agree, but I can’t wait to record it again-because it’s going to be great!!!

bentorrey :: Apr.12.2007 :: The Quantity... :: No Comments »