Ben’s Blog

I’m definitely both a Rush fan and a packrat. Here’s an old picture of me I found from 9th grade with my Hold Your Fire tour t-shirt that I probably still have somewhere.

On the music stand? An ambitious Steve Vai transcription of a Billy Sheehan solo called Billy’s Boogie that I actually found a few weeks ago. I found a binder of that and a pile of other great stuff from various magazines in the 80’s (God I miss that decade!).

Anyway, I haven’t posted much lute stuff. I’m still on such a learning curve, but here’s a quick snippet of Broon’s Bane, one of my favorite Rush pieces.

bentorrey :: Apr.27.2008 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »

We got a high def TV in February (wait there’s relevance coming!) and although we have just the basic over the air stations with our $12/month cable, we get the extra high definition stations. Our favorite is GBH Create, 44.3. What a station! They have everything on there from great travel shows to painting shows to home fix-up shows. It’s really great stuff, focused on how-to type shows. Definitely worth getting a high def tuner.

One thing that is noticeably absent though is a music show. What I’d really like to see is a music workshop type of show. One week Celtic jams, the next week working on Bach, followed by Klezmer music, then a Baltic music special, etc, etc. Interviews in a constructive workshop-type setting with engaging performers of various types of music, with a focus on the ‘do-it yourselfer’s out there, and getting right into playing–not just watching. I would love to see something like that.

I think sometimes there’s too much of a focus on “finished product” with music. You see great performances by great artists, but you don’t see enough of the learning process. I put out a lot of junk and videos that aren’t meant to be a “final product”. The Bach 896 video that I did is a good example. That’s a really bad take that I chopped up and threw online, but I’m sure it’s been interesting to a few players. I hope it’s been helpful, and I’m glad I put it out there (although I can’t actually watch it. I literally turn the sound off when I hit it to approve comments.).

bentorrey :: Apr.21.2008 :: W.O.T. (Way Off Topic) or is it? :: No Comments »

Renaud Garcia-Fons is such an amazing player, an endless source of inspiration.

I was working through Ghazali from Oriental Bass on my EAB. That f minor chord he hits at the end is just amazing.

I figure he must play the low F with the left thumb, then hits the open C string, then hits the Ab harmonic with his right hand, fretting the Ab at the first fret, then playing the harmonic with the right hand second finger after placing his right thumb on the Ab harmonic.

A pretty cool move on an electric, I’ll certainly use it, but the fact that he pulls it off on an upright is just incredible.

Very nice to see him get some coverage in BP magazine in the current issue.

bentorrey :: Apr.20.2008 :: Stocking the Pond, Filling the Well :: No Comments »

A few weeks ago I got a really cool fortune with my take out lunch. It said: “Some people never have anything except ideas. Go do it.”

Boy, that really hit me, and was perfectly timed. As I scanned through my head for all the ideas I’ve had in the last 2 or 3 years, it seems I haven’t done most of them.

One in particular stood out. It was over a year ago that I took the ECC Intro to Suzuki method at Longy. But, I haven’t taken any more classes since then to work toward my certification. My idea is to start a small Suzuki method school right here in Malden, as a part-time thing, a “passion project” if you will.

I’m glad I got this fortune when I did. I’ve spent some time in the last few weeks working over my project summary documents and definitely will move this project from the idea phase to the next phase very soon.

bentorrey :: Apr.12.2008 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »

I’ve been taking an intro to Tai Chi class over the last 6 weeks. Very cool stuff. I really like the focus on the fundamentals.
I’m starting to see a lot of synergies between that focus on fundamentals in tai chi and where I need to be focusing with my musical studies, and I’ll give a brief example now.

There’s this one move where you raise your right leg up and move forward with all your weight in the left leg. When I watch the instructor, his right leg comes all the way up and is parallel to the floor. When I watch that movement, I think to myself, “OK, that’s how high the right leg needs to go.” But, he’s perfectly balanced when doing so. When I try that, I almost fall over to the left. In the last class he mentioned that a basic principle is balance. It’s not a basic principle that the leg comes up all the way until it’s parallel with the floor. Yeah, it looks graceful and you eventually want to get there for a “perfect form”, but the basic principles need to be followed.

Similarly, I had a great lesson with my lute teacher a few weeks ago. I brought in some of the Dowland pieces I’ve been working on. Specifically with Flow My Tears similar thing on fundamentals came up. I was cooking along with the A section there, and then in the last measure hit a real train wreck trying to voice that V chord as written. Chris gave me some great coaching there about that awkward voicing by focusing me on the fundamentals. The pulse, timing, the accompaniment, the song, these are the fundamentals, not voicing that chord exactly as written. It’s so much simpler to leave out the 5th in the voicing, which allows you to really nail that nice decorative melody up top that needs to be in focus as the singer catches her breath.

It’s all a focus on fundamentals. I’ll see my excellent teacher playing the voicing exactly as written, and he can play it without issue at all, but for me, I need to be rearranging things and simplifying things in a way that allows the fundamentals to come through.

I should be able to do that at this stage in my study, but seem to keep needing reminders about that.
That reminds me of that great chapter in the Listening Book, “There’s Not Much to Learn But It Takes a Long Time”.

bentorrey :: Apr.05.2008 :: Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »