Clusters

[Daniel Schell]

Hi new music lovers

As jean_Alexi from Lausane ended up the thread on tuning in fifths-fourths with a question on clusters. I think it is a better idea to open a new thread on that subject.

Clusters of two notes with one hand on one region
You can sort of do clusters on the tiptar tuned in fourths.
It has to be done on two adjacent string with two separate fingers, usually 4 & 1.
You can do easily C D or C Db.
And you can even do a unisson C C with a large spread.
It offers a very interesting sound because a unique pitch is played with two different sounds.
I learned this technique from Frank Jolliffe. Don't know if he invented it. He was even doing tremolos.

Three or possibly four notes with two hands on one region
Now if you use two hands, you could easily do, on three adjacent strings:
RH plays C Db
LH plays D
OR
RH plays C D
LH plays Db
and so on

Clusters on two-regions
On two regions instruments you can even find other possibilities
for instance
RH on melody region plays C D
LH on Bass region plays Db Eb

An that would be a four notes cluster.

With his nose, Jimmy Hendrix would have managed to add a fifth note to this cluster.

[jean_alexis]

I see. You need two hands.

I tried to play minor 7th with a 2nd minor in the middle (between the 3rd and the 9th). It was too much of a stretch for me for being steady :).

Funny to note that it's the opposite of the piano where you need one hand for close voicings and 2 hands for open voicings.

Jean-Alexis

[GaryOpenhill]

Originally posted by jean_alexis
I see. You need two hands.

I tried to play minor 7th with a 2nd minor in the middle (between the 3rd and the 9th). It was too much of a stretch for me for being steady :).

Funny to note that it's the opposite of the piano where you need one hand for close voicings and 2 hands for open voicings.

Jean-Alexis

Minor sevenths chords, major sevenths chords can easily be done in the M3 tuning, all in one hand and with all four tones in a stack: 1, 3, 5, 7.

Also 1,2,3 clusters or a nice 2,3,5 in the melody hand, over a open root/ 5th ( and 3d if u like) in the "bass" hand and stuff like that are easy and natural in this tuning. For me, I think it is interesting enough to test.

I now tune my new megatar in a M3 variant tuning (traktor must think i'm NUTS, but is way to polite to say anything!)
And it looks like it will stay that way.

(i think i'm the only person in the world that use this particular tuning...i dont know if thats a good thing :( ...BTW, i've recently tuned it this way after months of thinking and experimenting on guitars and home made tappers. I'm not saying i can play it very well yet! :P )

[PhoBucket]

Gary,

I'm very interested in hearing how the results are coming. I have recently switched my 6 string bass to M3, and have been devising a tuning for Megatar (someday I will get one, really) that covers 5 octaves in M3, with overlapping middle strings. What M3 tuning are you using? Do you have any overlapping between hands? Do you stagger the hands (ex LH C-E-G#, RH D-F#-A#)?

There's a link somewhere on this site to Ralph Patt, a guitarist using major 3rds, not tapping though.

Brian Berge (http://lilytears.com/arts/music/guitar/methods/intro/3rds.htm) also has a little info on it.

So cool. :cool: Million questions for you.

BTW, I can send you a spreadsheet with C Note patterns colored by octave for a bunch of M3 tunings (mirrored, cross, uncrossed, 8,10,11,12 strings, different overlapping points/intervals).

[traktor]

Originally posted by GaryOpenhill
Minor sevenths chords, major sevenths chords can easily be done in the M3 tuning, all in one hand and with all four tones in a stack: 1, 3, 5, 7. Actually, all the four-note seventh chords plus diminished chords can be done with one hand inside a string-set tuned in fourths.

All fingers fall on a diagonal, hitting major and minor thirds as needed to build the chord, straight up from the root. See this old Stick lesson for right hand --

http://www.traktortopaz.com/resource/lessons/shoppers/Shopper_36.PDF

If you examine graphs A, B, and C -- which are C7, Cmin7, and CMaj7 -- you are looking at the third, the fifth, and the seventh. In this particular lesson the root was omitted, on the theory that generally your left-hand bass is covering the root just fine. But the root for each of these chords is easily played with the little finger of the right hand.

Caveat -- This works swell for the right hand located in the upper part of the melody string-set. Down near the nut, the stretch becomes pretty great. Also, if you attempt to play these four-note shapes on the bass strings, the angle is not as natural for the left hand, going against the easy angle of the fingers as it were.

But I'd again raise the question -- does a two handed player, or anybody who's playing with a bassline, really need to re-create the root in the melody/harmony hand?

[jean_alexis]

Well, no, I rarely play the root in the left hand. And not always the fifth.

(Right now i'm tapping the bass with the right hand on a 8 string tuned in fourth).

But I do add extensions (9,13 ...)

I'm not much experienced yet. But I found that on the top of the neck, some chords are impossible to play because of stretch, I don't have example right now, I'm far from the guitar.

Also playing a 4 note chord voicing, followed by a 3 note voicing may sound flat.

At least, some maj13 chords are very easy :) (7,3,13,9 = all perfect fourth)
(or maj6 (3,6,9,5)).

[jean_alexis]

Well we are now talking of 4th voicings :).
The original post was about clusters, or vocings with 2nd of minor 2nd in it. (the sound of these intervals are really interesting).

[PhoBucket]

I'm finding that the 3rds tuning helps for some of the closed pianistic type voicings.

Ex. for a C7alt LH 1-b7 RH #9-3-b5

The right hand still a stretch even in M3 tuning listed above. I don't think I could pull it off in P4 tuning. Of course there are other ways to voice the chord, like LH 1-(b5) RH 3-b7-#9, but that has a different sound and different voice leading options.

I'm also curious about mixing a P5 bass tuning with a M3 melody, but that would make my head explode at this point, so I'm avoiding it until I've had much more experience with the M3 tuning.

[GaryOpenhill]

Originally posted by PhoBucket
Gary,

I'm very interested in hearing how the results are coming. I have recently switched my 6 string bass to M3, and have been devising a tuning for Megatar (someday I will get one, really) that covers 5 octaves in M3, with overlapping middle strings. What M3 tuning are you using? Do you have any overlapping between hands? Do you stagger the hands (ex LH C-E-G#, RH D-F#-A#)?



Hi Pho,

Thanks for all the feed back. Thats so cool that you're checking out M3 too!

I recevied my Megatar "dark dragon" recently, and i am totally happy with it. To me it is perfect also because it is easy to try out all kinds of setups on it. And Traktor gives excellent support. They also delivers faster than anyone on the planet.


I actually had it from C1, E1, #G1.... straith up to C4. But that gives ten strings, and i hate to not use all the twelve strings!
So i put on a (very) fat bass string and a 008.5 ( i think) as well. So as seen on [i]second fret[/i ] it is tuned from #G0 up to E4. (like this: #G0, C1, E1, #G2, C2, E2, #G2, C3, E3, #G3, C4, E4 )

The bass string sounds i bit like "BLOINGGGGRINGINRGINGINGIRNINGIN", but i can live with it for now. I mean it playes well, but the tones are so deep that i don't know if i'll ever use them. (kinda like the 4-5 deepest keys on a piano. They're there, but you almost never play them unless you want to scare someone)

Btw, i have problems working out the best string gauges for this tuning, so please help me someone if you can!!!

No don't bump hands because......and hold on to your hats....it is all inverted. Yes one region, inverted. The deepest string to the left (seen from the player), the lighest string to the right.

This inverted M3 i havn't seen it before, thats why i think i may be the first one using it (and the last maybe....)

Most tappers have half of the board mirrored, either the melody or the bass side. I don't like mirrored (traktor helped me a lot to understand this), but i LOVE the logic of a whole one region fretboard with no overlap. Chord patterns and scales are the same all over the thing...thats neat to my brain.

To me theres a certian familiarity in playing the ligher tones as you move "down" the strings. Maybe it because this is how we read letters every day, i don't know.

Of course there is a gap between string 6 and 7, since the instrument is first of all made for two regions tunings. But personally i can live with that!


Btw, i love the string spacing on the megatar. It suites me very well. I can't understand how they can cope with those other twelve-stringed tappers, with spacings like 0.7 cm etc. Are they starving themself to get slim fingers? Thats just wrong. :P

I like playing uncrossed too, it feels nice to the hands playing melody lines, but i had problems doing certian chords having all the tones sounding, because the fingers hit the strings more flat and tend to kill the tones on the underlying strings.

I not trying to convert anyone to this tuning, of course, but i find it interesting and it seem to suit me better than other tunings.


There's a link somewhere on this site to Ralph Patt, a guitarist using major 3rds, not tapping though.


Yeah, i contacted him actually and he gave som nice feedback. He's a good man. He actually has been playing jazz using M3 tuning on his 7 or 8 string el-guitars for 35 years or something.



BTW, I can send you a spreadsheet with C Note patterns colored by octave for a bunch of M3 tunings (mirrored, cross, uncrossed, 8,10,11,12 strings, different overlapping points/intervals). [/B]

Do you really have it worked out for M3 12 strings inverted??? :O

BTw, there are other reasons why i like M3 too, but i don't want to sound like i'm giving a lecture or selling something .

[GaryOpenhill]

Originally posted by traktor


But I'd again raise the question -- does a two handed player, or anybody who's playing with a bassline, really need to re-create the root in the melody/harmony hand?

For me personally, yes absolutely. I like f.inst to move between chords over a repeating bass patter ostinato.

For inst. think about this simple thing: Having a steady bass beat made up from only root and fifth (C/G) in the bass hand...
and then with the other hand doing for instance chord cycle like this over that: Fmaj7, e7, d7, Cmaj7.

Don't tell me that doesn't sound great on a tapper!! But omitting the root here will totally change the meaning of it. Removing any other note will make it sound thin.

You are of course right that this can be played on a 4ths tuning, but for me the strech can become a little to difficult. However, I can play these chords extremly easy near the nut, where it sounds warm with long sustain. Works of course best on a dark wood megatar. :)


But this is just my opinion and i am totally green compared to y'all....

[Bearguitars]

there is a geat site devoted to the 3th tunning on the 7string guitar:

http://www.m3guitar.com/


hope, it helps,

SIGGI

http://www.geocities.com/bearguitars/