Tension note.

What are tension notes?

Usually, we see these in jazz music. Normally, we use 1-3-5 in major chords. Occasionally, to add a little touched taste, we use 1-3-5-7, we call it major7.

For jazz players, they tend to add in more. If i draw out a scale in two octaves:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16;
where 1=8, 7=15, etc.

So jazz player sees 9, 11,13 as tension notes. Not only these, even the b7, b9, #9, b13, #13 are tension notes as well. Chords involved will be written out such as:

Cmaj9 (1-3-5-7-9 / C-E-G-B-D) or can be written as CM9 (different from c minor 9 "Cm9")

C 9 (1-3-5-7b-9 / C-E-G-Bb-D) - C dominant 9

C mM9 (1-b3-5-7-9 / C-Eb-G-B-D) - C minor major 9

G13 (1-3-5-7b-9-11-13 / G-B-D-F-A-C-E)

Gb13 (1-3-5-7b-9-11-b13 / G-B-D-F-A-C-Eb)

F9 (1-3-5-7b-9 / F-A-C-Eb-G)

So, tension notes' chords tend to have too many notes and are relatively hard to play. Hence, as in making assumptions in physics, we cut off some of the "unwanted" notes:

• The 3rd, 7th and the last tension notes are the most important amongst all others. The 3rd governs the chord's major/minor. The 7th governs the dominant7 / major7. Last tension note is the note you want if you are using such chord.

• The root can be cut off since there'll be a bassist to assist the playing. Playing root is a redundant.

• The 5th sound is not so important, as well as other "lower ranked" tension note. (For 7-9-11-13, 13 is the last tension note and 7-9-11 are the lower ranked.)

Tension notes make jazz chords very difficult to obtained by hearing, especially those root-eliminated chords.. Some chords even have two wanted tension notes, such as:

Cmaj7 (b9 b13).. These species sound pretty wierd!! LOL! But fun to have a try on it..

Augmented and Diminished scale.

Actually i'm not too sure how augmented and diminished chords are used. But, the theory is based on whole tone (WT) and half tone (HT) scale.

For diminished scale, we use whole tone half tone method:

WT-HT-WH-HT-WH-HT-WT-HT

For example, for C diminished we take:

C-D-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-Bbb-B-C (9 notes)

Same method to obtain chord, Cdim7, 1-3-5-7, C-Eb-Gb-Bbb.

OR maybe can use half tone whole tone. Try it out.. Since it already sounds wierd, i can't really differentiate the difference between the usage of WT-HT or HT-WT.

For augmented chords, we use whole tone scale:

WT-WT-WT-WT-WT-WT-WT


Caug scale:


C-D-E-F#-G#-A#-C (7 notes)


C aug means 1-3-5, C-E-G#.

Try it out! Do combing on your left hand (chord) and run up and down with the respective chord scale, should sound quite diana krall, hehe.. (but hers is much more difficult..)

Scales? These are some of what i know!

In scales, we take C major as a main reference, it's easier to imagine. Imagine on a keyboard, 'C' is the 'do', or 1st. It then continues to 'D-E-F-G-A-B'. While looking to the black key, we notice that there are black key gap in between some two adjacent white keys. In this key, it's obvious that 'E-F & B-C' have no gaps in between.

• If there is a gap, we call it wholetone (WT).

• If there is not having any gap, we call in semitone (ST) .

For any major scale, it's ascending this way:

WT-WT-ST-WT-WT-WT-ST


To makes things easy, just imagine the black keys of piano, it's exactly the same.

So, what about minor? It's something like this:


WT-ST-WT-WT-ST-WT-WT


Observe it carefully, it's actually just a shift of the major scale. Hence, we can say that if you play C major scale, but start with A (the 6th note), it's the minor scale of that particular key, in this case, A minor scale:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G

Neither sharp nor flat occurs, it's just another identical C major scale, just that there is a shift.

Same thing applies to some basic jazz mode,

Dorian: starts with 2nd.
Phrygian : starts with 3rd
Lydian : starts with 4th
Mixolydian: starts with 5th
Aeolian: starts with 6th (another name for minor scale)
Locrian : starts with 7th.

Hope that it cures the curiosity on basic scale forming.

Sad Sad Sad.

A shocking message from my mom yesterday night. My one of my musical tutor, Uncle Benny Ng just passed away. It was a very shocking news, three days back i just called him up and talked to him regarding the woodwind performance during the Christmas. Two weeks back we were still talking to each other in the church camp at port dickson. He looked very healthy. This is such a sudden breaking news.

He is my tutor on clarinet. He plays clarinet and alto saxophone in big band. He has a plenty of precious big band orchestration scores, bought in during the 50's or 60's, if i'm not mistaken. A soloist on jazz for both of his instruments too. He then did some research on the way all those orchestration instruments goes harmony and sounds nice. Having all sort of information, knowledge and experience in big band orchestration (anything, from woodwind tenor sax to brass trombone to string violins), he is one of the rare musician in this country.

During the classes with him, he actually taught me how to appreciate music, especially the classical and big band orchestration style music. And why is emotion in music so important. If not, i may still stop at the level, "technique good means music good".

So, he always tell me to reinforce the church band. He said just chords will not serve well, must put in some harmony and feel or emotion (spiritually). Actually, harmony is a much deeper knowledge then mere chords. In fact, the major and minor chords, although is the main building blocks of music, it was already outdated before baroque music. It was used during the renaissance period. We, usually, don't see any harmony on piano as the purely major or minor straight forward three notes 1-3-5 chords. at least it'll be inversions. Harmony is much harder. But it's just too hard for me, i'm still finding a way to arrange even a simple duets, not to say a orchesration...

Hope that god will be with his family to comfort them..

Rest in peace, Uncle Benny!

Brief intro to soud.

hmm...

All sound come out of vibration of a material, and it travels through air. So, you can't hear any sound in vacuum.

When a material vibrates, it has its vibration rate. This is proportional to the frequency. Human only listen to frequency from 35Hz to 20kHz.

35Hz is something very bassy, 20kHz is very high pitch. So, it's actually inaudible for older people. We human is very sensitive to sound around 1kHz, our speaking voice is approximately in those range as well.

Everything vibrates, but they don’t produce the same sound. Every material has its own characteristic on the vibration they produce and its effects on air. For example, you tie a string on a material, and apply some tension on it. Tension makes sure that you won’t get anything too bass till inaudible, since at least we need 60 cycles per second of vibrations. If you tie it to

a glass, it may sound ‘glassy’. Tie it on a wood, you may find it ‘woody’. And, tie it on a table and it’ll become louder (because table has a depth, just like the different sounds produced by an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar.

So, take guitar as an example. The sound come out of it depends not only on its wood. It depends also on its inner brace and dimensions design. Yet, wood

really affect much of the tonal quality. However, some guitar manufacturers, such as the Ovation USA, are using the helicopter blade material to replace the wood of the guitar’s body. Also, if Taylor and Martin both using the same grade’s wood to build a guitar, it won’t sound the same, because the design each of them using are so different. If considering the string? But the main point here is that all these sounds very different form the plain pure sine wave.

This is what we call musical instrument.

This can be imagined as few waves, each with its own frequency and amplitude (loudness) all blended up together. And this will give out something very special. For any two instruments, they’ll sound maybe very different or slightly different. Again, this is caused by the dimension of the ‘guitar sound box-its inner resonance’, the strings used and the wood. There are many other factors as well.

Same thing applies to speakers. But for speaker, it’s much more difficult to design (I think so), because it has to be able to reproduce full range frequencies.

Just a share of knowledge! Found these online.

The limits in music??!

What’s the least division of frequency that human’s ear hear? Is it okay to further divide what we hear in a chromatic scale? I’m not so sure, but then if the frequency between two adjacent notes is almost or smaller than the ‘theoretical least division’, it’ll sound very smooth. But, not every instrument will be able to play it. This is because for any instrument, if the frequency is divided into a very small division, it causes the main characteristic of each instrument to break down, since every instrument’s frequency is combined by countless types of frequencies.

Or maybe we should say that human ear will not be sensitive enough to differentiate these small parts. Any instrument that plays it will sound almost the same. And, we won’t like it very much, because it’s not arpeggio, nor octave.

The question comes back to how we judge an instrument? A good violin should sound a bit ‘rough (woody) but smooth’. This kind of characteristic is mainly caused by the characteristic of materials (wood) used. We can say that this is actually a slight ‘out of tune’ frequency that blend together with the correct frequencies. It means that there is a lowest possible limit, if we don’t want to get a pure waveform in the violin. To carve a good violin, you need maple at the back end, and spruce at the top. Good guitar needs a spruce top as well, and an Indiana rosewood body.

Pure wave = the whole orchestra will sound like computer generated sine waves..

There is also a limit in musical tuning. For every frequency division on every adjacent note, they cannot be perfectly divided. Hence, some says that B flat is the weakest key. This shows that it’s meaningless to further separate the note into a smaller portion, since we can’t even notice the non linear division of notes, most people can’t get a perfect major key scale, what if we say about chromatics and higher division than chromatics?

Some argue also that maybe there will be a better material to build a better sensitivity instruments, (no sine waves orchestra, but slight different superimposed waves). In this case, like i say before, we will need a whole new theory. Just like how Einstein broke Newton’s law, not easy!

It's all bout taste 2.

If we don't want to equalize the positioning, want to make it 'live', it is not possible as well, since 'live' itself is already isn't that 'live'. Only if we decide that what we hear in a concert to be a reference of 'live'.

Concert and real unplug acoustic (like how we play at house) are very different. The sound we equalize in concert shows is a lot more than what we did in an CD album. Live stages forbid any acoustic feedback. To achieve this, especially on a large stage or hall, it's virtually impossible without any EQ. But it's different in recording studio.

But concert tends to be more 'powerful' than CD, because the artists want to create a more lively concert, for their fans to 'get high'.

It's just like preaching on stage and writing books. Both content are the same, just that the presenting style different.

SO, back to it.. If 4 person play band in a room. All set their sound to what they like, will it sounds great?

• If it sounds bad, they need some equalization so that they don't eat up other member's main frequency.

• If it sounds great.. EQ is not needed.

Brass band, Big band, Classical orchestra sounds very nice unplug and unEQed.

Why? How?

Their skills? Our system's problem causes us not to originally reproduce the sound?

Some people like Rock, Noisy music, Some like live with lots of dance music, Some like jazz quartet-passion but quiet. Some like classical violin solo, some like orchestra, the louder the better, but do not like rock. Some like songs recorded in 50's methods, they say got feel...

It's all bout taste, it's art anyway.

It's all bout taste 1.

Suppose you have an instrument, if you want to record it, some usual methods are:

• Mic it (closely or far).
• Connect line out from that instrument (if it has one) to a mixer.
• take both natural sound and line out sound (mic+pickup).
• etc..

Which will you chose?

In the 40's, mostly they mic the guitar. Recently get an album with plenty of Robert Johnson songs inside. Yes! the legendary blues guitarist, playing his legendary skills on Gibson L-1. I thought it'll be fantastic. But when I play the CD, i realized that it was recorded on 1936... It shouldn't sound awesome..

That time, there were LP, that is, Long Play. I believe, if they were to record just ONE song into ONE LP, it should sound nice. But since it's a 'Long' Play, they were trying to compress everything into one LP. So, what they did?

• Cut off the bass frequencies, because bass frequencies carries the heaviest memory.
• But it really sounds bad.. Again, the engineers those days did something:
• Boost back the low frequencies on the phonograph itself. But, it didn't sounds that awesome as well, yet at least better.

If a LP recorded with just ONE song, i think it should sound very nice, seriously, since it manage to play even the ultrasonic range. We must ask Phil Jones from AAD about why is this so.. He is an expert, tons of researches on speakers' behaviour on this company.

Hence, equalization makes the early 40's recordings very unpleasant to listen to.

Today? We equalize(EQ) the sound as well. But does it sounds better? Some yes , some not so..

The dilemma are:

• If i want to record a guitar sound, should i place my mic in front of the guitar? Or at the sound hole? Or 45 degree to the sound hole? Or to the bridge? Or through a warm sound amplifier? Or through line out? Or through line out via my favorite Boss direct box? * Every sounds are different.

• If we want to record what exactly our ear hears, we place double mics at ear level. Will it records ambient noise? Will it be lack of bass? Will it left out the 'pick' sound?.....

• If we record with mic, which mic? Some laggy mics produce 'warm' sound. Some ultra-fast-reaction mics produce too 'dry' the sound. Some bass are heavy, Some mid range frequencies are full. How?

It's all depends on the artist. Know why Jimi Hendrix's Strat can be tuned to such a powerful state? Why my Yamaha never ever get BBKing's Gibson sweet sound? Know why people buy Steinway and Sons and not multi-purpose Clavinova even the price are 10 times more?

They want that sound. They tuned the tone till what they want.

If the recording studio were to ask Mr B to record via the studio ultra expensive rack system+guitar amp, Mr B will stick to his maybe not so expensive old lovely sweet amp. Musicians, is that so?

So, it's all bout taste.

Live, Records and acoustic. Why so difference?

What we hear in recording studio, in live concert and purely acoustic presentation, are they the same?
The answer is certainly, NO!

In recording studio, they provide the best ambient acoustic for different instrument.

• They use best instruments.

• They use the best microphone to pick up signals from instruments.

• They use the best balanced/digitized mixer to mix all the instrument together.

• Then, pan to left or right the position of each instrument.Trying to get the most real positioning.
  

• Then, equalize if they feel all sounds are blended up till some instrument could not stand out.

• They use the best monitor (but those with weak bass) to examine the clearance.

• Then they cut off the unwanted acoustic noise of each songs.

• Remix it into 24bit, full bandwidth, burn to CD with the best machine.

• Remixed and equalized means not original already.

• sell.

So, what bout live?

• They use the best instruments also.

• But the room ambient is not that desired kind, but is also the one that recording studio can never ever achieve.

• They use the best microphone, and signal cable,

• But they need to control feedback.

• Hence, a parabolic equalizer is introduced to each instrument, to cut off the aggressive feedback frequency.
• They cut off the ultra low frequency to increase the clearance of each instrument, since the ambient is big, the audience at back row will only hear some annoying ultra low bass.

• It become narrow bandwidth.

• It doesn't sound original after all these major 'operation', Especially if the instrument used is not having a good pickup.

• Some very pro pro audio master use stereo in their concert, hence they can pan the position of each instrument.

Acoustic presentation?

• Normal instruments, no mic, low volume (CD volume), no feedback.

• Every instruments' position is clearly heard.

• But the volume may not be balanced or even.

• PA system or mixer is unavoidable if blending guitar into a brass band or string band.

• It's the most natural sound.

So, people prefer live or concert? It depends. If he wants ultimate clear sound, like what you expect to hear the difference between Martin guitar and Taylor's guitar, then CD is the choice.

If you prefer Live mood, the sense of 'big', you'll like to choose concert.

No one can overtake anyone. Even with the best audio equipment!

Pi- a- no....ba da ba pa ba.... I'm lovin' It.....!!

I love piano, like many other do.

I was at my church that day, a night in year 2004. Service was over and most of the members gone home. I saw the digital piano sitting right beside me. I'd never ever touch it before, since i'm a guitarist and piano....

....When i was in primary three, i learnt some basic. It wasn't even grade 1, it was so called LEVEL 1. It was really boring, i have to say (and i understand why a lot of children don't really like piano, especially at lower grade. The song are made easy, but it doesn't really sound that good. I stopped it after three weeks. LOL (Not even one month)!!.....

Don't know why, mayb out of curiosity, i turn on the main power switch and pressed some key on it. A little girl came, and she just pressed on the 'demo' button.

Can you imagine? A digital piano connected to the main PA, through the FOH speakers amplified by the Peavey-made-in-USA mixer rated at 110W r.m.s, and my church is no bigger that 100 people venue..... It was loud! LOUD!

Chopin Fantaisie Impromptu in C#m just flying all over the place, like a dancing elephant LOL, till now still i remember that tune, in fact i like it very much. LOL!

It just sounds like waterfall, ya.. or .. like kinda... fantasy! Thinking out of the box and stuff like that. Chopin is really a genius in piano indeed!

So, i started piano (in fact keyboard) from a beginner training course provided by church. I learnt pop songs, which i managed to convert straight away from guitar chords and style.

So, i picked up my piano. I keep improvising, hoping one day i can play my tune and compose my tune which sounds like waterfall, something modern that chopin never saw before, and not following any theory.. ?? It's just a dream that drives me to continue my piano, and absorbing new stuff!

By the way, Jazz is just like Taylor's series or Gamma function etc.. (just learnt today at skol, LOL). Too many theories it has, and at last, when all blend together, you can just play any notes u like, provided it sounds nice. Ya, that's music, sounds GOOD...

Jay Chow vs LeeHom? I Think..

"Jay Chow and LeeHom, the most famous superstar cum singer cum copmoser in chinese music, who is better?" someone asked me. And naturally, there is no answer for this!

Let's talk about music. Ignoring what's their paper and certs, education, etc, both of them shows equal talent on music.

When Jay first pop out from nowhere, his music is mainly on funk and rap genre, which is quite similar to the Western music. Yet, from his second album onwards, his music is damn creative, i will say, the whole experience of the song is like.. 'watching a movie'!!! It's because a lot of his composing is made up by great varieties of harmonic style, which was mainly used in classical music. Next thing, don't know up until which album (sorry for that!! lol), he convert again, to the romance classical style, aka 'the Chopin style'+'Chinese Tradition'. Impressed. At least no composer in chinese music ever did that in pop music. And it sounds great! LOL, in fact, his one is already not a typical pop music, it's his music.. Jay Chow's music.

And it's very different form the western music as well.
it doesn't require much instrument skills and technique, yet it sounds nice and harmony, and most importantly, cool and trendy aka 'classical music which is trendy'! But one drawback. The recent album sounds like.. a repitition of another album??

LeeHom? Ya, no doubt he is as good. Every album having new idea'ssss'. Every idea is genuine. People tends to copy his stuff, because it's special. His main composing style is to combine chinese music with the Western 'black' music (which i like more), and quite good his job. And his composing, I'd never heard before (such as the mongolian, chinked out etc)! And it's 'LeeHom's style'...

If compared, Jay improvises white music and blend in rap and chinese music. LeeHom improvises black music and blend in chinese music and some classical composing technique also.

So, there is no winner or loser. One same objective there did: To introduce the Chinese Music to the world!

LOL, but a lot of people don't know how to appreciate their work, and their efforts. Usually those songs which is composed with great skills and effort are those that public dislike the most.LOL

Anyway, Jay and LeeHom, continue your work ! U guys did great music!

Yet another kind of musi'que'.

I was amazed by this tought: "Is there any other kind of music, which is different from the music we currently have?"

From the past, the renaissance, classical, romance, delta blues.....till the current pop, every single piece of music are made no more than those '8 notes', a.k.a. "do re mi fa sol la ti do", or if we consider the sharp and flat, 12 notes. Every single piece, even for the Ancient chinese music, it was so. I saw before, a Song Dynasty emporer trying to get the 8th notes with a flute. The book said that he found the 8th note!!, yet it's actually the higher octave's 'do'. So there is no other rule than 12 notes rule.

Some gutarist or trumpetist managed to do some pitch tuning job, such as guitar string bending or over blowing the harmonics and stufff like that. These are only some approcaching method we use to enter an actual note, and it occurs ocassionally without ant proper theory.

So, is there any kind of music in this world that divide one key to more than 12 notes, say, 24 notes? I heard this kind of music for the 1st time during my school's music club Annual Meeting.

We call it experimental music.

I went and listen, not much different.(perhaps i still haven't found those songs which really shows the different.)

It divide one key into maybe 13 notes or 26 notes? It'll sound more like what we call polyphonic ringtones.. I'm thinking, if one day we can divide a musical instrument into 64 notes, when playing it, it should really sounds like what we call bird sing. (sounds really like the real bird.) or other natural phenomenon.

1st instrument to be used in this kind of music is those fretless string instrument, or some wind instruments which the notes is mainly controlled by lips.

But it's really too hard to do this kind of music, seriously. 12 notes on 'bumblebee' needs a pro pianist already, if i say, 64 notes? should be piano pro Pro PRO!!!

HaHa, current music is not so not nice actually, and the effort to defind a new music theory is not that easy though, it has more notes with more harmony forms...

One thing to mention, during the past, Van Gogh trying mimic the scene to the most in his painting. However, during his older age, he prefer Impressionist. Yes! less colour, more inner meaning. This is what we want in art, the hidden meaning ( shakespeare's are like that as well).

So music, the more complicated the better or the more harmony the better ? more notes better or more inner meaning better?

It depends on who you are and how's your taste!

Music Physics Litreature Art!!

Music- my favourite de-stress dessert. From cd to instruments, from jazz to classic. Bravo!

Physics- i wish to learn them all! it's interesting, and it shows how 'I' is actually should written as 'i'! (not imaginary.. but it means 'small').

Litreature=Art= Another part of our life. Nowadays people focuses on logic and maths, Art and litreature are neglected (but luckily, not fully). Sigh!!!

That's it!

i'm new, hope that we can share stuff and enjoy together!