Ben’s Blog

When I read Allison Crum’s great book on viola da gamba ‘Play the Viol’, I got really interested in studying the lyra viol material. I found my way to the The Manchester Lyra-Viol Manuscript, and it is tons of fun! You can find selections online on the Viola da Gamba Society’s website.

Selected sections on the website include both French tablature and regular notation versions, so it’s a great way to improve your French tablature reading.

The selected pieces are presented in three easy tunings. Most are in standard gamba tuning “FFEFF”*, so on a gamba, D-G-C-E-A-D low to high. Then there’s a few in a slight variant of that, “FFEFH”, so C-G-C-E-A-D low-to-high on a gamba. Then a few more in Lyra Way tuning, FEFHF, which would be C-F-C-F-A-D low to high.

Don’t have a viol to try these on? Don’t fret it! Just take your six-string bass and capo at the 12th fret, or your nylon string guitar. So for your guitar (all low to high), E-A-D-F#-B-E for the first tuning, D-A-D-F#-B-E for the second tuning and D-G-D-G-B-E for the third tuning.

Here’s a snippet of III-13 A Saraband by Willm Kinglake on my nylon string.

I couldn’t help ending with a bit of Dan Fogelberg’s classic “Longer” as a bit of a tribute to his passing a few weeks ago. What a great songwriter and musician! This guitar was also bought on the occassion of my good friends’ Frank and Lisa’s wedding in 2001, at which we played “Longer”. (Longer is played D-G-D-G-B-D so very close to Lyra Waye tuning).

* until you understand French tablature, tuning designations like this won’t make much sense, after which they will make perfect sense. They always go high to low though, and they just indicate what fret you would tune the string above to.

bentorrey :: Dec.27.2007 :: Gamba, Instruments, Repertoire :: No Comments »

Add this to the list of very cool stuff that Jason Heath has pointed me to: Bass Musician Magazine.

Jason is a staff writer for the magazine. Really cool publication! Definitely check it out!

Very well done, presenting a ton of really good information on a great variety of topics.

bentorrey :: Dec.26.2007 :: Stocking the Pond, Filling the Well :: No Comments »

This is an interesting story. My high D string was coming undone on my gamba, and I asked my teacher for some ideas of where to get some strings. She gave me Chris Henriksen’s number, said he sells strings, and that he’s also a lute player.

“A lute player? Very cool!”. I’d been studying a few of the Weiss pieces and had been really thinking a lot about adding some of the lute repertoire to my solo bass rep, and even beyond that, I’ve been thinking about renting a lute for awhile. Possibly even for the early music ensemble next semester, since the gamba isn’t available.

I called Chris up, gave him the measurements on my gamba for the string, and arranged a lesson.

So, got the string and then I played a few of the pieces in my repertoire (I brought my Dean EAB) including some of the Sor and Bach that I play. I told him that my focus on bass currently is to find more repertoire that I can play.

He listened for a bit and then said, “Give me that thing”. He proceeded to tune the the top 4 strings like a Renaissance guitar, so A D F# B. He then grabbed a book of tablature pieces (French style) for 4-string Renaissance guitar and just started reading. He played it without a capo, all the way down in first position on my EAB, but SOMEHOW it didn’t sound muddy at all. It sounded great. I’m still not sure how he got it to not sound muddy. Something in his right-hand articulation. Putting a whole lot of force straight down when striking the strings, rather than more of a rest-stroke type of motion or just a light pluck seems to help.

I’ve done this type of lessons with guitarists before, and it’s always interesting. However, Chris’ take on my playing and suggested repertoire was different. I think being a lute player and early instrument and early repertoire expert may be the difference. I’ve got several guitar books of Renaissance music for guitar, and on the cover is a Renaissance guitar, but by the time the music is arranged for 6-string guitar it’s not very playable on bass. But, going to the source of this music isn’t something I would have considered before.

Here’s a prelude by Adrian Le Roy. To read French tablature, there’s a few great articles online, and the Wikipedia tablature article is a decent place to start. So, a is your open string, b first fret, c second fret and so on. You’ll have trouble reading the difference between C’s and E’s. Rhythms written above, if they don’t change play the same note value.

What I’d like to do is get about 15 minutes worth of this stuff put together for a mini-set. I think that would go nice between some of the other classical stuff that I do. Not only from a period perspective, but also from a range perspective. Great to find some music (and a style of playing really) that works in that low register.

Lots of work to do yet, but here’s two quick videos of the beginning and end part to give you a flavor of the approach.

bentorrey :: Dec.23.2007 :: Repertoire, Stocking the Pond, Filling the Well :: No Comments »

I recently saw the most amazing DVD, The Return of Billy McLaughlin.

Billy McLaughlin is a touch-style guitarist who was diagnosed with focal dystonia, and eventually lost almost complete control of his left hand ring and pinky fingers.

What he accomplishes is an amazing comeback by learning to play left-handed, allowing him to fret notes with all 4 fingers of his right hand, use 2 fingers in his left hand, and put the guitar in a different sort of overhand position.

It’s an amazing story of overcoming an adversity by sheer power of will.

The DVD is apparently hard to get because of some hang up with the record label, but the snippet on YouTube will give you the basic elements of the story!

Go Billy! Thanks for being an absolute inspiration!

More info at www.billymacmusic.com

bentorrey :: Dec.18.2007 :: Stocking the Pond, Filling the Well :: No Comments »

This is a good example of why I like to record practice snippets. When I recorded this a few weeks back I wasn’t very happy with it, but now listening back with a few week’s separation from it, I’d have to say that I think this piece would make a nice addition to my repertoire if I could clean it up just a bit.

This piece of course sounds best fingerpicked, but it’s almost impossible to sustain the voices correctly if you do that, so I’ve tapped it here, and would probably use a tapped version in my repertoire.

In terms of recorded versions, I have this on a Laserlight ‘guitar favorites’ type CD that I got decades ago. Not sure the player, but he/she really rocks it. Nice piece!

bentorrey :: Dec.15.2007 :: Repertoire :: No Comments »

I’m very honored to have two tracks from my 1996 recording played at the end of Jason Heath’s Contrabass Conversations Podcast # 52. Thanks Jason! Really enjoyed the Virginia Dixon interview too. I’m definitely interested in pursuing a Suzuki certification, probably on guitar first, or maybe recorder.

So, anyway, on the tracks, Jason selected Sor # 4 from the 20 Studies, and the Bach Prelude in C Minor (BWV 999).

# 4 of the 20 Studies is really a pretty easy translation to bass. I had put that in Finale years ago, and had a decent arrangement at one point, but can’t find it. Really simple though, I’ve just dropped the bass line an octave and play the rest as close to written as I can. On my 6 tuned B-C.

And, love that C minor prelude, wish I could tackle the fugue that comes right after, but anyway. This one is a lot more complicated to play on bass. I’ll use what I tend to call “Wally Voss” voicings there to start. So, lowest and highest notes tapped with the left hand, and middle notes tapped with the right. I change that up in a lot places, but that might get you started. Both tracks would be decent sample lesson topics, so maybe I’ll do that down the road.

bentorrey :: Dec.15.2007 :: Repertoire :: No Comments »

Barrios is one of my favorite composers. A few years ago I got the Mel Bay Barrios Volume 1 book, which really gives you a taste for the full book. I’ve wanted to read Six Silver Moonbeams for a long time, and finally picked it up at the library after trying to find a print edition for awhile.

It’s an absolutely delightful read. When it comes to composition, I’ve always felt that the greatest composition come from life inspiration (of course right?). It’s so fun to read about the sources of inspiration for my favorite Barrios pieces. I hope one day to contribute some music to the universe, and Barrios’ approach to composition is a guide for me. It’s almost more like “transcribing” or “channeling” an experience that comes through you. This gets back to the Artist’s Way stuff and the belief in The Creator as the source of everything, not yourself necessarily. This is important stuff for me to revisit because my compositional “blockage” was one of 2 key reasons that I stopped playing music altogether in late 1997. More on that later.

As to Barrios on bass, geez-um, not much of it translates over very easily. I’ve played snippets of lots of tunes. The latest two measures that I spent 2 hours trying to work on was one of my favorite compositions, Julia Florida. What a pretty piece! I can actually play the first few measures on my 6 tuned E-F, I’ll record that sometime.

Here’s a snippet of the beginning of Las Abejas played on my Dean acoustic electric bass. That’s a really handy fingering for that i iv v65, and really allows it to be played almost at tempo. The only trick is when you end up on the A major chord V chord and need to come down the arpeggio there from the top A, you have to start that with pinky of left hand, since there’s no time to move.

Anyway, here’s a GP5 of the 4 measures, and a PDF. I’ve notated left hand fingerings below the staff and right-hand above.

So, if you like that, only 36 measures to go, lol. In the meantime, get on YouTube and check out Nukebass’s version for bass!

Wow, very humbling. Nice job Nukebass!

bentorrey :: Dec.07.2007 :: Books I Enjoy(ed)/Will Enjoy :: No Comments »

I’m really excited about this and meant to post last week. I’ll be playing with the Tufts Early Music Ensemble at the beautiful new Distler Performance Hall at Tufts this Wednesday night, 12/5/2007.

It should be a lot of fun. I’ll definitely get a good audio recording off the board, and I’ll have a video recording too.

The new hall has really interesting acoustics. No joke about 3.5 seconds of reverb. I’d really like to do a set of solo gamba music in there. Something to work toward for sure.

But, in terms of my return to music and the process with the Artist’s Way, it is still a really important milestone: it’s really the first concert that I’ve played since the summer of ‘97 when I played the Bizet Symphony and a few other great pieces with the Longy summer orchestra.

I’m really looking forward to it.

bentorrey :: Dec.03.2007 :: Stocking the Pond, Filling the Well :: No Comments »

I was talking about Metallica with a few coworkers awhile back. We all agreed the old albums totally rock it. At one point our conversation turned to the artist’s rights thing, and one of my coworkers expressed disdain for the band’s position. “They’re loaded. What are they complaining about?”

I don’t know Metallica’s exact position on the matter, but from what I hear I completely agree with them.

I’ve always believed that you need to support the art you like. “File Sharing” applications are “file stealing” applications in my mind.

But, as I thought about it some more, I thought about YouTube. What percent of the great videos I’ve seen online are copyright violations? Most definitely a huge percentage!

And, that brings up that fine line that I don’t fully understand my own position on. Take the case of the Testament Live in London DVD. Now, I was searching YouTube for Testament stuff, and found a clip of the Live in London DVD. Now, this is interesting because I didn’t know that DVD was out at all. So, now that I know it’s out, I can buy it, but I found out about it on YouTube.

But, take the artist’s perspective. So, this video has been watched over 28,000 times already. The problem is if you can watch it for free, who’s going to buy it? Answer, the dedicated or those that understand artist issues. (I bought my copy already)

It’s a weird balancing act between exposure and financial benefit.

If you switch over to thinking like a “content producer” rather than a consumer, it gets even more interesting. For awhile I’ve wanted to produce a set of two handed tapping bass repertoire videos. Now, if I did this it would probably sell 10-20 copies anyway. But, the thought of someone taking that content and then uploading it to YouTube makes you simply not want to produce any content.

Copyright matters.

bentorrey :: Dec.02.2007 :: W.O.T. (Way Off Topic) or is it? :: No Comments »