Ultra Hi-Fi, Part 3: The Difference Made by a Balanced Signal Path
Just as in music, the secret to creating a great-sounding audio system is balance. If two singers are harmonizing a melody but one is louder than the other, the balance is off — and it’s noticeable. Creating the ultimate Hi-Fi system requires that same kind of attention to detail.
The new Yamaha 5000 Series of flagship high fidelity audio components are designed to allow you to listen to music as the artist intended. They include the GT-5000 turntable, C-5000 preamplifier and M-5000 amplifier, which utilize an end-to-end balanced signal chain to deliver pristine audio to your loudspeakers — especially when used with our advanced NS-5000 speakers. In this article, we’ll explain the benefits of a balanced signal path.
A balanced signal path is established when an audio signal travels from its source (such as a turntable or CD player) to its final destination (your ears) while being isolated from potential noise in the audio ground circuit.
Unbalanced signal paths are susceptible to signal noise caused by electrical and magnetic interference because they offer only a single audio connection, encased in an outer conductor ground shield. RCA cables are widely considered the industry standard for unbalanced audio connections. They are used in many Hi-Fi systems, as well as by many gaming systems, turntables, sound bars and AV receivers. These kinds of interconnections generally offer satisfactory sound quality. However, when striving for the purest sound possible, a balanced signal path is a better way to go.
This requires that all audio stages be balanced, from source to preamplifier to amplifier, as well as the speakers themselves. Balanced circuitry requires twice the electronics, with hot (plus) and cold (minus) paths that mirror each other to completely isolate the audio signal from the ground.
Accordingly, you’ll need to use cables with XLR (External Line Return) connectors to route signal between your audio components. These are the same types of cables used in live sound and recording to connect microphones, effects processors, audio interfaces and other line-level devices to mixing boards — and to connect output signal from the mixing board to power amplifiers. When used for home audio, they typically connect a source to a preamplifier and amplifier — for example, the GT-5000 turntable into a C-5000 preamp and then an M-5000 amp.
As shown in the illustration on the right, XLR connectors come in two varieties: male and female, with the male type used when sending signal, and the female type used when receiving signal. Regardless of the “gender” of the connector, each contains three contact points (“pins”). One pin carries hot (plus) signal, while the other carries cold (minus) signal. These are mirror images of each other (which results in greatly reduced noise), and both are electrically isolated from the ground reference on the third pin. As with most interconnecting cables, thicker conductors provide greater shielding of the audio signal to establish lower noise along a greater distance. For added reliability, the connectors are often equipped with locks to keep them in position for a more reliable connection.
Establishing a balanced signal path is not a guaranteed route to the perfect high fidelity audio system – but it’ll definitely get you in the ballpark. By using balanced interconnections and high end components (like the Yamaha 5000 Series), you’ll be entering a world of True Sound in no time.
Check out our other Ultra Hi-Fi blog articles:
Part 1: The Difference a Tonearm Makes
Part 2: The Difference Made by Speaker Driver Materials
Part 4: Going Beyond Perfection
For more information about balanced and unbalanced cables and connectors, read our “Interconnections 101” blog posting.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha 5000 Flagship Hi-Fi Series.
How to Improve Your Piano and Digital Keyboard Technique, Part 2
In Part 1 of this two-part series, we shared some tips for practicing basic scales. Here, we’ll explore advanced scales and arpeggiated chords, as well as providing some exercises for your weakest fingers.
Practice More Interesting Scales
Let’s face it: Whether you’re a beginner or a professional keyboardist, the major scale is boring. To hold your interest, I suggest you instead practice more colorful scales — the ones that will form the most important part of your musical vocabulary during performance. These include the various modes of the major and minor scale, as well as more exotic ones. Here are some good scale/mode choices you should consider practicing, along with an audio clip that lets you hear what they sound like:
These modes become even more applicable to your playing if you think of a key center, or chord quality that you would likely play them against. In general, I find that any scale run that starts from the root note of the chord will sound uninteresting — it’s much more colorful to play lines that begin on any other note. For example, starting a C scale on the third note (the E) is called Phrygian Mode, and all too often students are taught to think of it simply as an exotic color for an E minor chord. But play it against a C major seventh chord and it sounds very “inside” and much more interesting. As a bonus, since it’s based on the C major scale, you can use the same fingering (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on).
Or try the C scale starting on the G (called the Mixolydian Mode) — again, a much nicer run to play against a C chord than the more pedestrian C major scale.
Take this approach, and you’ll be thinking about more colorful harmony and note choices when you practice your scales. For example, try recording some sustained chords and then practice various scales/modes against them — a great way to train your ears to hear the results of those choices. Technique and advanced harmony at the same time: Win/Win!
Arpeggiated Chords
The same concepts can be applied to arpeggiating chords. Just as major scales can be yawn-inducing, simple triad arpeggios starting on the root tone of a chord are not the most interesting “vocabulary” to use in your playing. Instead, try using inversions; you’ll find that applying a different triad against any given chord will make your lines more colorful. Here are a few examples:
Arpeggiated sixth chords and seventh chords make for even more interesting runs that you can use in your playing. While obviously more difficult, they are also more rewarding. When doing these exercises, I like to think of each hand differently. For example, arpeggios starting on non-root tones played with the right hand can sound great. Here are some ideas to get you started:
I also like to apply the concept of arpeggiating a different chord quality against a key center using sixth and seventh chords, like these examples:
As for the left hand, try playing arpeggiated chords starting on the root note as a support for right hand melodies and chordal movement. As you progress, try skipping some notes towards the bottom, and perhaps fill in some more as you go higher. Here are a few ideas:
Working the Weakest Fingers
In any practice session, it’s important that you set aside time to strengthen and attain fluidity with your weakest fingers (which will almost certainly be the ring finger and pinky). My advice is to play exercises geared towards working those fingers, as opposed to playing long technical études that happen to include some attention to them. Here are a few such exercises I’ve devised that focus directly on those weaker fingers of both hands, inspired by my early Hanon studies and other books. Be sure to play them slowly at first, concentrating on the evenness of all the notes:
All audio clips are played on a Yamaha P-515.
Check out our other Well-Rounded Keyboardist postings.
Click here for more information about Yamaha keyboard instruments.
Winter Weather Care for Woodwind and String Instruments
The late fall and winter months are the most dangerous time of year for wooden instruments, particularly if you live in the northern half of the U.S., where temperature and humidity changes are the most extreme. During this period, woodwind instruments are at a higher risk for cracking, and tenon and socket fit issues may arise. Similarly, parts of string instruments may shrink, crack or shift position at this time. Musicians must pay special attention to the effects of weather and take appropriate measures to ensure their instruments make it through the winter months.
Wood, a material that was once alive and full of water, never loses its ability to react to the moisture in its surroundings. When it absorbs water, it expands and when it dries again, it contracts. While temperature has some effect on wood, moisture has a more pronounced effect. Extreme heat causes absorbed water to evaporate and the wood shrinks rapidly. Extreme cold causes absorbed water to expand, which, in turn, causes the wood to expand as well. Wood can crack when it expands or contracts too quickly or unevenly.
How to Care for Woodwinds in Winter
Although no one can guarantee that a woodwind joint will not crack, following these recommendations will reduce the possibility significantly:
– Play the instrument gradually. Many musicians underestimate the need to break in a woodwind instrument and swab it consistently to help control moisture in the bore. When first playing a new instrument (or one that has been that has been fitted with a new replacement joint or allowed to dry out while stored for more than a few weeks), play it gradually. For example, play the instrument for 5 – 10 minutes during the first session, then swab it out, including the tenons and sockets where the end grain can absorb moisture more easily. Then after the instrument sits for at least 4 – 6 hours, play it again, adding 5 or so minutes to each session. After playing it gradually for a week to 10 days, playing for longer periods should not cause a radical change in the wood’s moisture level, and therefore is less likely to cause problems. If this strict schedule is not possible, at least be sure not to play for more than just a few minutes the first day, with a quick swab at the end of the session.
– When playing for long periods of time, swab the instrument out more frequently. A “handkerchief”-style swab will often do a better job than many other types. Having more than one swab on hand is a good way to ensure that you can pull a dry swab through instead of a damp one.
– Never attempt to force a tight swab through a joint. Before the bottom end of the swab disappears into the joint, stop pulling it through so it can still be removed from the instrument if necessary.
– Avoid playing the instrument when it is cold to the touch. It needs to warm up to the temperature of the room or outdoor environment — gradually if possible — before warm air is blown through it. Hold the instrument under a jacket or let it sit in the room for at least 20 – 30 minutes before playing.
– In dry conditions, place a small humidifier in the accessory area of the case. These are available at most music stores.
– Ensure the interior bore is properly oiled. Generally, the treated wood of a new Yamaha woodwind instrument or joint doesn’t need further treating, but if the interior bore gets a very dull, dry look, careful application of bore oil can keep the wood sealed. A properly oiled bore allows only a small amount of condensation from playing to enter the instrument. Bore oiling is best left to a skilled technician, however, as applying too much can create problems. Note: All Yamaha Duet+ clarinets and Yamaha Duet+ oboes with lined joints should never have their bores oiled due to the possibility of adverse chemical reactions.
How to Care for String Instruments in Winter
Like woodwinds, members of the acoustic violin family are also subject to the effects of changes in temperature and humidity that accompany winter weather. In northern geographical areas, the wood parts of the instrument can shrink and shift position as environments become drier due to the heating of homes and buildings — something that can even change the weight and the sound of your instrument. The further north in the U.S. you are, the more extreme the changes in temperature and humidity. In some regions, the temperature can fluctuate from 100 degrees plus with high humidity in summer to well below zero and extremely dry in the depths of winter. These huge changes pose danger to the health of your string instrument. In more temperate climates with less drastic temperature and humidity changes, there is less worry.
Here are some tips:
– Avoid quick changes in temperature. Don’t leave your string instrument out in the cold, and let the instrument slowly warm to room temperature in its case before opening the case and handling.
– Invest in a good quality hygrometer to monitor the humidity in your instrument’s environment. The storage area for a violin should ideally be kept at the same humidity year-round. The humidity of the environment in which the instrument is stored should be maintained at around 45% — or at least in the 40% to 60% range, depending on your local conditions.
– Use a furnace-mounted humidifier at your home, or a free-standing humidifier in an orchestra room. These can help keep the environment from getting too dry, which can result in cracks in the wood … unless you get lucky and the water-soluble glue in the instrument gives way to alleviate the stress, in which case the seam can usually be re-glued quite easily. There are also commercially available internal humidifiers made of rubber tubes and other materials, but these must be used with care. Too much water in these products can drip into the instrument and damage the instrument by opening seams held by water-soluble glue.
Keeping a close eye on the temperature and humidity during the winter months and taking a few simple precautions will go a long way towards maintaining the health of your woodwind and string instruments year-round. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Click here for more information about Yamaha wind instruments.
Click here for more information about Yamaha woodwind swabs and maintenance supplies.
Click here for more information about Yamaha string instruments.
Practice Exercises for the Beginning Drummer
One of the keys to success on any instrument is consistent practice. If you make time every day to work on your chops, you’ll see much faster improvement than if you “binge” practice a few days a month. Setting aside 30 just minutes per day can help you make great improvements over the long haul.
In this article, we’ll present some basic exercises that can benefit any drummer. They provide a way to loosen up your drumming muscles while working on time, coordination and independence.
Practice these exercises along with a metronome, starting with a speed of around 70 BPM (beats per minute) for most of them. (All Yamaha electronic drum kits provide built-in metronomes.) If you feel that’s too fast for you, then by all means slow things down. These workouts are not about speed. They’re about producing deliberate drum strokes that are consistent in volume and timbre, and making sure they are locked in with the metronome.
When the patterns and coordination become second nature, you can speed them up. Don’t be frustrated by playing slowly. It’s actually a lot easier to play fast than it is to play slow, and starting slowly builds a good foundation.
We’ll use a bass clef for notation. A note on the first space indicates a kick drum stroke, and a note in the third space indicates a snare drum stroke:
The first five of these exercises are in 4/4 time, but the last three have different time signatures. As with any practice routine, try to find a quiet space where you won’t be distracted or interrupted.
1. Loosen Up Your Hands
Exercise 1 offers a good way to loosen up your hands. This is a single stroke roll, alternating one stroke from each hand, with a kick drum on the 1 and 3 of each measure to get your foot into the habit of playing the downbeat. Try to keep your hands at equal height above the snare drum, and snap your wrist back to the same starting position after each hit. Pay close attention to the timing on the 1 and 3 when the metronome, kick and snare all hit together, and listen carefully. You should not hear any flams:
2. Double Your Stroke
Exercise 2 is a variation on the double-stroke roll (“mama-daddy”), again with a kick drum on the downbeats. Listen carefully to the second stroke from each hand and make sure that it’s at the same volume as the first stroke from that hand. If the second stroke is softer or louder, make sure that your hand is returning to the same position every time:
3. Triplet Time
Exercise 3 is a triple stroke roll. Go for equal spacing between each stroke as well as tight timing between the hand and foot on the downbeats. You may find this exercise a bit easier than the previous ones because the quarter note is divided into three instead of two — meaning that there’s less time between each stroke:
4. Get Funky
Exercise 4 is the classic paradiddle. This is one of my favorites because once you’re comfortable doing it with both hands on the snare drum, you can move one hand to the high hat or ride cymbal, creating some funky grooves:
5. Kick That Funk
Exercise 5 is similar to Exercise 4 but adds a kick drum on the downbeats. This can throw some people for a loop because your foot will land with the opposite hand on the 3 of every measure, but it’s a good introduction to coordinating your limbs and getting out of the habit of always playing the right foot on the same beat as the right hand. Beware of the left hand not landing at the same time as the right foot (or vice versa for you left-handed drummers):
6. Swinging Waltz
Exercise 6 is the first one that doesn’t use a 4/4 time signature — instead, it’s in 3/4. You might notice that the suggested tempo is 140 BPM, which may sound kind of scary. But due to the change in time signature, 140 BPM is actually very manageable. When you start to get this one down, you’ll feel it swing like a waltz (ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three …). This is another drill where you can move one hand to different components of the drum kit and create some really interesting patterns. For example, try moving your right hand to the floor tom (left hand if you’re a lefty drummer) and see what happens!
7. Alternate Strokes
Exercise 7 is in 6/8 time, with a suggested starting tempo of 80 BPM. It helps develop your ability to alternate strokes between your hands and foot. This one is deceptively simple, with the tricky part coming at the end of measure 2 when the pattern repeats. That’s the spot where you may want to start the pattern again with your right hand — but be sure to start it with your left hand instead:
8. Get Independent
This last exercise builds on the previous one but drops the kick drum into the middle of the pattern. It helps build independence by moving notes between your hands and foot. This drill can take a bit more work than the other ones, so don’t worry if you need to slow down the tempo to get comfortable. Remember, it’s not about the speed.
You can use all of these exercises as a way to build your drumming abilities, but even when you’ve mastered them, they can be useful as a warmup for other practice routines. What’s even more fun is moving your hands around to different components of the drum kit, which can help you create some very cool grooves and fills.
Click here for more information about Yamaha electronic drum kits.
A Guide To Adjusting Saxophone Neck Screws
The harder we tighten our sax’s neck screw, the better the neck will fit, right? Wrong!
The saxophone neck tenon — the bottom portion of the neck that is inserted into the body of the saxophone — is designed to fit securely into the receiver, where the body of the instrument meets the neck, just like any metal tenon such as a flute headjoint or footjoint. The function of the neck screw is to add an extra bit of security needed to keep the neck aligned with the body tube, ensuring correct operation of the octave key. The slot that is pinched together when the screw is tightened only runs about one third of the length of the tenon, leaving two thirds unchanged when the screw is tightened.
Yamaha neck screws and tenons are designed with this in mind. Both their Standard and Custom saxophones are all manufactured with reinforced neck tenons and neck screws. These design features help aid the longevity of the instrument and ensure a properly functioning connection between the neck and the body.
So how much should you tighten your saxophone neck screw? Just a few turns until you feel comfortable resistance, but not excessively tight. (If you overtighten, the receiver will distort and may not seal well … and the screw itself may break!) Remember, the function of the neck screw is to keep the neck aligned so the octave key will work properly. There’s no need to crank it too tightly.
If the neck still moves when your neck screw is snug but not excessively tight, the tenon should be refitted by a skilled technician.
Click here for more information about Yamaha saxophones.
Giving Is Receiving
When the holiday season nears, it’s a good time to reflect upon the spirit of giving. I’ve come to the conclusion that it can definitely be more rewarding than receiving, and I’ve found that the act of putting musical instruments in particular in the hands of kids (and adults too) has especially profound and lasting effects on their lives.
For several years now, I have been asking friends and family (I even ask myself!) if they have any spare instruments that are being unused. More people than you might think have unplayed guitars or basses sitting sadly in a dark closet, gathering dust. When I get these instruments, I seek out an individual or group who needs them so I can donate to what I call “the cause.” Whenever possible, I show the recipients how to play a few notes or chords to give them a nudge to create in their own way. I derive immense satisfaction from knowing that these instruments now have a new life and can potentially bring a world of positive experiences to their new owners.
Since I started playing at a young age, the guitar has always been something I could turn to, both in the good times and the bad. I still turn to my it when I want a moment of peace or need to clear my head. Creating music has been a lifelong blessing and that’s exactly why I want to share that feeling by giving instruments to others.
Besides just feeling good in the soul, giving offers both mental and physical rewards. “The simple act of giving can feel quite satisfying,” notes doctoral student Jo Cutler in her online Impakter article entitled The Neuroscience of Philanthropy. “This feeling is known as ‘warm glow,’” she continues, “and it activates the striatum and other reward-related areas of the brain.” Cutler goes on to explain that the brain scans that served as the basis for her study were divided into two types. The first were from participants that gave strategically — in other words, to get a defined benefit in return for the gift. The others were collected when people gave altruistically — such as anonymous donations or charity. The conclusion? Both strategic and altruistic generosity activated reward regions in the brain.
This is something I know to be true from personal experience. Several years ago, I was traveling abroad for the holidays with a friend whose mother was suffering from early stages of Alzheimer’s. Her daughter had brought with her a small travel guitar, and when I played it during our visit, I noticed how the mother, who was already starting to lose the ability to communicate, had a certain look of wonderment on her face — a look I will never forget.
I decided to try an experiment. I tuned the guitar to an open D (DADGAD) so that no fretting was required to make a chord, and then I gently placed the guitar in the mother’s lap. Standing behind her, I took her arm and hand and began to show her how to strum. She immediately caught on and lit up brighter than a thousand Christmas trees. For the remainder of our visit, she continued to strum that guitar and make joyous noise with it just about every day. It was an easy decision for her daughter to leave the guitar with her as a gift.
My friend’s sister later told me what a difference that guitar made to her mother’s well-being long after we left. In fact, when the mother made a visit to her native country some time later, she requested that the instrument accompany her. The simple act of putting an instrument in someone’s hands brought so much happiness to a person in need — and it made no difference whatsoever that she didn’t know how to play it.
That said, knowing how to play even a few notes on an instrument can have lasting effects. An online Guardian Students article points out that “playing a musical instrument is a rich and complex experience that involves integrating information from the senses of vision, hearing, and touch, as well as fine movements, and learning to do so can induce long-lasting changes in the brain.” The author also notes that “musicians provide a natural laboratory in which neuroscientists can study how such changes — referred to as experience-dependent plasticity [or neuroplasticity] — occur across their lifespan.”
The gift of an instrument can open up a lifetime of music making, so if you have any old guitars, basses, keyboards, drums, saxophones, clarinets, flutes, violins, violas or other unused musical gear lying around, consider finding someone who might benefit from it. Or you could just visit your music store and surprise someone with a new instrument. Either way, they win and you win. Giving truly is receiving!
Top 10 Things to Know About Audio Networking
There’s a lot of talk these days about audio networking. Just as a computer network allows multiple computers to share information, an audio network allows multiple audio devices like mixers, power amplifiers and loudspeakers to share the same digital audio signals. A network provides an efficient and versatile way for audio to be exchanged between these devices.
In the past, audio networks were primarily used to create large-scale systems for commercial production facilities, schools or stadiums. Now network ports are showing up on all sorts of audio products, including those designed for use in small venues such as clubs.
Ready to learn more? Here are the top ten things you need to know:
1. Network Channel Count May Vary
There are many different audio networks available. Some carry as few as a couple of channels of digital audio, while others can carry as many as 512 channels. Sample rates range from 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz, but in general the channel count decreases at higher sample rates. Audio signals are treated just like data, so multiple devices can access the same audio at the same time, and simultaneously route it to different places.
2. Audio Networks Are Wired, Not Wireless
Wi-Fi® is not currently used for audio networking because it is too slow to carry multiple channels of digital audio. (This is something that will likely change in the future.) Another issue with Wi-Fi is that it is not secure from hackers or other sources of interference that could interrupt or compromise the network. Wired networks are much more secure.
Analog audio connections require one cable per audio channel but an audio network needs only one cable for many channels of audio. Most audio networks borrow Ethernet connectivity from the computer industry, using RJ45 jacks and CAT5e/6 cable for the connections. That’s why networked audio is sometimes referred to as “AoIP” (Audio over IP). However, it’s important to remember that networked audio is not Ethernet.
That said, at least one type of audio network, called MADI (short for Multichannel Audio Digital Interface), uses coaxial or fiber optic cable for connections.
3. Know the Difference Between RJ45 and etherCON
RJ45 connectors were originally designed for permanent installations. The etherCON connector — which is a standard RJ45 ethernet connector inside a metal XLR shell — is a durable network connector that can stand up to the rigors of the road. You’ll find etherCON connectors on Yamaha QL and CL Series mixers. Don’t try to plug it into a microphone input!
4. Always Use an Appropriate Switch
As in a computer network, multiple audio devices are attached to the network using a network switch. However, standard Ethernet switches are not suitable for audio network purposes, so it’s important to verify that the switch you plan to use is up to the task. For example, Yamaha SWP1 Series network switches were designed specifically to reliably handle the traffic created by audio networking.
5. Audio Quality Doesn’t Degrade Over a Network
The majority of audio networks can easily distribute audio across 300 feet of CAT5e/6 cable. Since the signal is digital, the network is less likely to pick up interference from radio or TV stations, or degrade audio quality.
6. Audio Networks are Bidirectional and Expandable
Once two pieces of audio gear are networked, you can easily exchange audio in either direction without worrying about the gender of the connector. Need to change the direction of a source or reroute it to another destination? You can do so via software, without moving a single connector.
A big advantage of routing audio via a network is that you can expand your existing system simply by adding another device. For example, let’s suppose you start with a Yamaha QL1 mixer, which has 16 mic/line inputs and 8 outputs. If in the future you need more inputs, you can create a simple network by connecting the QL1 to a Yamaha Ri8-D input rack to expand the system to 24 inputs:
7. Audio Networks Enable Easy Patching
Another huge benefit of an audio network is that the network can “split” an audio signal and simultaneously route it to multiple destinations. This enables you to, for example, patch a microphone into one mixer for the front-of-house mix and simultaneously send it to a separate monitor mixer for the musician mixes. You won’t need a cumbersome analog mic splitter to accomplish this, and that eliminates extra steps in the signal path:
8. It’s Easy to Carry a Spare Snake
Analog audio snakes (bundled cables with connectors at either end) are expensive, cumbersome and heavy. The more channels supported by an analog snake, the heavier and bulkier the cable. CAT 5e/6 cable is relatively cheap, easy to find, and lightweight so it’s easy to carry a spare snake with you to a gig.
9. Networks Play in Different Sandboxes
There are dozens of different audio networks, many of which were created by manufacturers for use with their own equipment. These networks generally do not talk to each other, so until recently there was little probability that a mixing console from Manufacturer A could work on the same network as a power amplifier from Manufacturer B.
That’s where Dante® comes in. This is a network standard that has been adopted by more than 400 manufacturers, including Yamaha. Any Dante-equipped device can communicate with another Dante-equipped device on a Dante network.
10. AES67 Can Play A Role Too
In an effort to reduce confusion and encourage communication between devices from different manufacturers, the Audio Engineering Society developed a set of guidelines a few years ago called AES67. Audio devices employing different networks but adhering to AES67 rules can work together and exchange data on the same network. AES67 is slowly being incorporated into existing audio equipment.
Photograph courtesy of the author.
The Song Remembers When
I was born in 1966, the same year that “Eleanor Rigby” and the album Revolver went to Number 1 for The Beatles. I grew up listening to (arguably) some of the best music and songwriting we will ever know. To me, artists from that era seemed to capture who they were in their songs, with a unique sound that could be identified immediately, from the very first listening. In those days, record companies, management and publicists invested considerable time into developing an artist’s craft, their songs and image to try to build a lasting career and a legacy of timeless, classic recordings.
I also feel very fortunate to have experienced music in pretty much all of its deliverable formats. (Okay, I wasn’t around for Edison wax cylinders.) Vinyl records — singles and albums — were played at home, while eight-track cartridges provided a way to listen to your favorite tunes in your car … until cassettes came along in the 1970s. (They were used at home as well as in cars.) I remember playing my cassettes over and over again until they were worn out. The audio quality wasn’t great, but the songs and the emotions they represented for me as a teenager outweighed the playback deficiencies.
The “Big Bang” of the digital audio revolution started in the early eighties with the release of the Compact Disc (CD). Audiophiles argued that digital music sounded sterile and cold in comparison to the “warmth” of vinyl and other analog-based formats, but CDs won the day and became extremely popular for nearly three decades.
We now consume our music through digital download or streaming services. Hard copy of musical artistry has taken a back seat to binary files that we cannot hold or enjoy in physical form. I used to love looking at cover art and reading the album liner notes on a vinyl record or CD booklet. I’d study the studio locations and credits to see who wrote and played on the songs. Holding a physical product in my hands gave the music and artist more value to me. I’d invested my hard-earned wages in these tangible items and was proud to have them in my collection.
Putting Together Your Repertoire
For my live performances, I’ve adopted a repertoire of songs that most audiences know and love. These include “Tracks Of My Tears,” “My Girl” and “Midnight Train To Georgia” from the MotownⓇ songbook; “Mainstreet,” “Shooting Star” and “Free Fallin’” as classic rock selections; and pop culture favorites “Say,” “Sweet Dreams” and “Shallow.” I want to keep these incredible songs alive in the hearts of my audience and allow them to re-visit the moments in time when those tunes were popular and an integral part of their lives. As Tricia Yearwood so beautifully put it, the song remembers when.
I was told one evening by an audience member that I’d made his and his wife’s vacation by playing their favorite song (“Drive,” by The Cars) on their anniversary — obviously a very special moment to them, all wrapped up in the melody and lyrical sentiment of that song.
Give Each Song Your Personal Spin
As an artist, I like to take a classic song and craft my own version of it. That way, you can bring your own personal melodic and harmonic sensibilities to the table while still paying homage to the original version. I’ll never be able to sing like Smokey Robinson or Tom Petty, and I’m pretty sure my audiences don’t expect me to. However, they do appreciate hearing new interpretations of hit songs by the artists they love.
I find the best way to approach this is to begin by learning the chords and harmonic structure of each section and then re-harmonizing the progressions with small changes to the original voicings. (I always sing the melody over the new changes to make sure it still works.) Re-harmonization can be as simple as taking a Major triad and changing it to a Major 7th chord, or substituting the Major triad for its relative Minor triad. (For more information, see my two-part blog posting about Major Scale Modes.)
Obviously, there are many ways to re-harmonize a chord progression — too many to detail here. The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to necessarily play the guitar parts exactly as performed on the original recording. Just learn the chords and begin crafting your own version of the song. If you’d like to play the signature hooks, riffs and melodies, you can work those into your arrangement at a later date. Personally, I like to continue refining my versions of classic songs over time. I let them evolve in the same way that I evolve and progress as a musician.
The Video
This is my version of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine,” as performed at a recent Yamaha Guitars clinic at Replay Guitar Exchange in Tampa. If you’re familiar with the original, you can tell that I’ve taken several liberties with the chords, key, tempo and melody … yet I’ve still retained the essence of the song. You’ll also notice that I reference the vocal melody at the beginning of my guitar solo (and again in the reprise) to give the listener a smooth transition into an improvised section.
I have to confess that I fell in love with the Yamaha SA2200 guitar that I’m playing in the video. This is one of the company’s classic custom-crafted archtop semi-acoustic guitars, made in Japan. The SA2200 has a long pedigree and fine tone quality, with Yamaha Alnico V humbucker pickups and coil-tappable tone pots. It has a sycamore top, body and sides and a soft maple center block, with a mahogany neck, an ebony fingerboard and your choice of two gorgeous sunburst finishes.
The Wrap-Up
Music and the way we listen to it continues to go through a constant evolution of delivery platforms. Nostalgia for the retro wave of vinyl releases from new and old artists alike is increasingly popular, and the classic songs of a bygone era remain fondly within our hearts. Yet there is, and always will be, a place for great new music!
In a similar way, guitar aficionados continue to appreciate vintage designs even when delivered in a modern package, as is the case with the SA2200. I hope we get to see more of the same for a long time to come.
Photographs courtesy of the author.
Check out Robbie’s other postings.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha SA2200.
Ultra Hi-Fi, Part 2: The Difference Made by Speaker Driver Materials
Imagine a Hi-Fi experience like no other, where every detail is heard and you are fully engulfed in the sound of your favorite artists as if they were right there in the room with you. This is the experience that all exceptional speakers should provide. But not every speaker is built the same way. In order to create the foundation for great sound, great speaker drivers need to be made of a durable, lightweight, yet stiff material.
There are a variety of different materials that are used in speaker drivers, including paper, metal (such as aluminum or titanium), polypropylene, beryllium and Kevlar. Each impacts the sound differently, and so the choice of material is largely determined by the sonic signature the design engineers are seeking. Yamaha Soavo NS-F901 speakers, for example, incorporate A-PMD (advanced polymer-injected mica diaphragm) midrange drivers and woofer. This material is extremely lightweight yet rigid and stable, allowing for a smooth sound and fast response. By contrast, Yamaha NS-F310 Floorstanding HD Music speakers use aluminum dual cone drivers. These are designed to reproduce the full, dynamic sound of HD sources and deliver a clear, high-resolution bass sound.
Beryllium is used in many high-end speaker drivers. This material has the high-speed acoustic velocity suitable for a tweeter and mid-range dome but is too delicate to use for a woofer, making it challenging to timbre-match all the drivers. For that reason, speakers with beryllium tweeter/dome drivers usually incorporate a different material (such as aluminum or paper) for the woofer.
And then there’s ZYLON® — an ultra-strong synthetic fiber with exceptionally high acoustic velocity, double that of titanium or magnesium and comparable to that of beryllium. Lightweight and flexible, ZYLON (also known as PBO) has a tensile strength of 5.8 GPa (Gigapascals), which is 1.6 times that of Kevlar® and very stiff. Officially deemed the world’s strongest synthetic fiber by the American Chemical Society, ZYLON is used in a wide range of applications, including Formula One™ race cars, police officer body armor and NASA for high-altitude data collection balloons.
And now it’s used for speaker drivers too! In fact, ZYLON is used in all three drivers within the new Yamaha NS-5000 speaker (part of our 5000 Series of flagship Hi-Fi components): the 1″ tweeter, 3″ mid-range and 12″ woofer. The result is an expanded frequency range with a more unified tone color across the entire frequency spectrum and a more balanced sound than would be possible if a mix of materials were used for the tweeter, mid-range dome and woofer.
The ZYLON for these diaphragms is manufactured in an ultra-precise production process, made in cooperation with Yamaha Fine Technologies, a maker of wood panels of luxury passenger cars and advanced factory automation products. And, although each driver in the NS-5000 is made of 100% ZYLON, each is woven specifically for its usage and is molded from the diaphragm to the surround (edge), with a different thread count for each. This helps the NS-5000 deliver a smooth response at all audio frequencies and allows more information to be accurately reproduced during playback.
Balance, power and clarity are just a few of the attributes that made ZYLON the optimal choice for the NS-5000. We encourage you to listen for yourself so you can hear just how good it sounds!
Check out our other Ultra Hi-Fi blog articles:
Part 1: The Difference a Tonearm Makes
Part 3: The Difference Made by a Balanced Signal Path
Part 4: Going Beyond Perfection
Click here for more information about Yamaha NS-5000 3-way bookshelf speakers.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha 5000 Flagship Hi-Fi Series.
Access Title IV-A Funds and Build a Stronger Music Program
You have grand plans for your program, but money is tight. In 2015, music educators celebrated the passing of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which calls for a “well-rounded education” that includes music and the arts.
But it’s been almost five years since ESSA was signed into law, and your program is working to stretch every dollar.
ESSA included Title IV-A funds that school districts can apply to meet the mandates of the law. Allocation of these funds began in 2017.
How can you navigate through the red tape to access these Title IV-A funds? Where can you find information about ESSA and Title IV-A? What information is available that you can use when presenting your music program’s needs to school and district administrators? How can you become a music advocate?
What is Title IV-A?
Title IV-A (read the complete Title IV law here) is currently funded at $1.16 billion but was authorized at $1.6 billion each year. It is a formula grant program that provides funding for three broad categories:
- Well-Rounded Education: includes music, art, health education, physical education CTE (Career and Technical Education) and more.
- Safe and Healthy Schools: includes mental health services, violence prevention, safety initiatives and more.
- Technology: includes instructional support, professional development, personalized learning, digital devices and more.
Get a printable fact sheet from the Title IV-A Coalition here.
How can Title IV-A funding be used to help music programs?
As a music teacher, you can be a part of the process to bring these authorized dollars to your district and program.
There are many qualified needs that can apply to your school or district. Funding can be applied to many things, including:
- Teacher Professional Development such as clinics, in-service, workshops
- Adding or Expanding Music Courses such as guitar program, piano lab, etc.
- Supplies and Textbooks like sheet music, stands and accessories
- Musical Instruments such as strings, band, percussion, keyboards
- Technology Programs like music notation, audio editing, audio listening equipment
- Facilities Upgrades like acoustic panels, storage units
Here are some program need examples in the Guidance for Music Education from the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) and National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS).
How does Title IV-A funding work?
The Title IV-A funding rules are divided into two tiers:
- If your allocation is below $30,000, you do not have do an assessment and can spend funds in any of the three categories listed above, but with a 15% cap on Technology.
- If your allocation is above $30,000, you will need to do a needs assessment. You must show that 20% of the funds will go to Well-Rounded Program needs, 20% to Safe and Healthy Schools and the remaining 60% can go to all three areas with at least some going to Technology.
How do I start?
The basic steps to access Title IV-A funding are:
- Start with a music needs assessment
- Meet with your fellow music teachers, principal, district coordinators and your state education coordinator. Find your state Title IV coordinator here.
- Keep going! Applying for funding is an annual and ongoing process. If you aren’t 100% successful at first, just keep trying. You can also continue to expand on your initial efforts.
In short, here is what the process looks like:
ESSA and Title IV Resources
NAfME has built helpful toolkits and resources:
The NAMM Foundation has additional toolkits and resources:
Here’s a Funding Resource Guide Handout that points you to articles and additional information about federal funds for music education.
Where can I see funding data?
How and where has ESSA been implemented and how has funding been applied?
The National Arts Education Data Project is collecting and visualizing interactive arts data funding for many states. The project plans to complete all states’ arts education data by 2022.
Use this data to help support the needs of your music program when you talk to leadership at your school, district and state.
Read Music Achievement Council Educational Advisor Marcia Neel’s advice on how best to use stats at SBO Magazine.
How can I become more active as an advocate?
What does being a music education advocate entail? Here are a couple of stories of advocacy at the state and federal levels.
You can also join the Coalition on Coalitions through the NAMM Foundation. Also check out the NAfME Grassroots Action Center and the Title IV Coalition.
Yamaha is an active advocate for music education, and we want to empower music educators to strengthen their programs in any way we can. Please register for the Yamaha Educator newsletter to read up on advocacy, professional development, information about instruments, resources, partnerships in education and more. Join the Yamaha Music Educator Community on Facebook or email us at educators@yamaha.com.
Golden Slumbers
I’m finishing my coffee. I’m entertaining a second cup. I’m procrastinating. Last night I texted a to-do list to myself but I’m having trouble getting started.
I was looking forward to some of those entries — especially working on that new song. That’s never really “work” anyway but I just can’t concentrate.
I click on the lyric. I consider the font. But I can’t go any further than that. It’s strange because I’m usually pretty sharp in the morning. It’s my most creative time of day — when a brain full of clutter hasn’t accumulated … yet.
By afternoon, nothing’s changed. Whatever it is I do manage to get done, I’m not doing well. I run a stop sign. I can’t do simple addition, follow a recipe. Why did I come into this room anyway?
I’m paranoid that my low-function is a sign of something serious. I take a few deep breaths and then I recall: Ya know, Shelly, you went to bed at 2 a.m. last night, didn’t you? Woke up at 6. Hmm. That’s definitely not enough shut down. Of course! My batteries are drained.
You know what I’m talking about. Getting a good night’s sleep can mean the difference between playing your A-game and not playing a game at all. Sure, you can force yourself to finish that song but you’re supposed to enjoy being creative. It’s not supposed to be torture.
A well-rested mind and body affects creativity. I don’t say this as an expert who studies the science behind this statement but as a creator who’s witnessed the correlation over the years.
Many of us believe we’ll be more productive if we have more awake time but that’s not necessarily true. In fact, we often have to sleep more because apparently we get a lot accomplished while under the covers.
Paul McCartney came up with “Yesterday” in a dream (even if it was originally titled “Scrambled Eggs”) and Keith Richards heard the riff to “Satisfaction” while in repose. I’d say those are two great reasons to take a nap.
Maybe they were in a state of hypnagogia — the dreamlike transition between waking and sleep that allows the mind to wander. During this state, our brains take involuntary detours that lead us to locate missing pieces to puzzles we might not have the freedom to find when we’re conscious. In other words, our dreams make connections between things we might never connect while we’re awake. What’s more, concentrating on a specific problem (i.e., the sum-up line at the end of a song hook) right before going to bed can trigger the unconscious mind to try and solve it during sleep.
Wow. Yawn! Where are my PJs?
I know that I’m at my best at sunrise because of the proximity to recent sleep. That said, some of us are night owls. Our own personal windows of energy depend on our unique circadian rhythm — a 24-hour internal clock that cycles between sleepiness and alertness and affects our ability to function at our highest level. Going to bed and waking up at the same time every day regulates us. But no matter the rhythm, as long as we put in the hours we’re not going to feel the ebbs and flows as deeply.
I’ve heard this all before. But it’s days like these, when I’m staring at the bottom of my coffee cup wondering why I can’t get started, that I remember to remember: When your song remains unfinished and you’re sure you don’t have the right stuff — that you’re a fake, a fluke, a phony, that you simply get lucky from time to time — don’t panic! Give yourself a break and do something else that doesn’t require cognitive acuity.
It’s getting late, so once again I’ll trust in the well-tested notion that, with a lavender pillow on my eyes (so the first morning light doesn’t rob me of an extra crucial hour) and those squishy little puffs in my ears, tonight I’ll have another chance to fall into that beautiful necessary disconnect and wake up eight hours later, rejuvenated and hopefully feeling like a brand new me.
Photo courtesy of the author.
Introducing the Alto Venova™
In 2017, Yamaha introduced the Venova™ — an innovative “casual wind instrument” that blends the simplicity of a recorder with the sound of a saxophone.
Now there’s the YVS-120 Alto Venova. Like the original Venova, it offers an ABS resin body that is smaller, lighter and more durable than conventional wind instruments. However, the new model offers a larger body design for a lower sound range and a more mellow tone.
Like its predecessor, the Alto Venova features a unique branched-pipe structure that produces a rich timbre with plenty of dynamic control. Its easy, recorder-style fingering makes it ideal for inexperienced musicians looking to experiment with a single reed instrument, while seasoned players will appreciate the addition of a real alto saxophone mouthpiece and reed which allows for better control of its sound and pitch.
If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with playing a saxophone, or used to play and want to come back, the Alto Venova is a great way to test the waters without worrying about a heavy and fragile “real” sax. If you’re already a player, the Alto Venova can be a great travel companion to take along to the beach, on vacation, or wherever your music leads you.
Key features include:
– Lightweight and portable enough to be played anywhere
– Water washable, unlike conventional wind instruments
– Simple fingering similar to recorders
– Sounds like a saxophone
– Fully chromatic two octave range
– Upper and lower sections can be separated for easy cleaning
– Comes with an alto sax mouthpiece, ligature, synthetic reed, mouthpiece cap and a durable carrying case with strap
Ready to learn more? Check out the tutorial videos.
Check out these related blog articles:
How Can a Plastic Tube Sound Like A Saxophone?
“I’m a HERO” Program and the Venova
Click here to learn more about the Yamaha Alto Venova.
Finding Your Own Way
Someone recently said to me that true genius is defined as an artist who reaches their limitations. Ultimately, I do not think there are limitations.
Actually, I believe that anything is possible. Whether that thing is worth working on may be up for debate, but I’ve seen players who work on some difficult piece, and it’s an amazing triumph when they finally can play it. That said, if you listen to someone play Bach on bass when it was written for harpsichord, it may not sound that good. It’s an incredible accomplishment, though.
The pursuit is what matters. I’ve learned a lot of pieces written for other instruments, and they always lead me to new, fertile ground on the bass. Sometimes it helps with composition and songwriting, other times with how I approach a transition or a voicing.
Limitations exist to be broken. Regardless of the instrument, if you look hard enough you’ll always find someone who has pushed beyond perceived limitations and blows everyone away. People heard Chuck Berry and thought it was the greatest electric guitar work they’d ever hear. Then, along came the Ventures. Then Hendrix. Then came Ritchie Blackmore, John McLaughlin, Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, Alan Holdsworth … and then someone else and someone else and someone else — and it’s still happening today.
Again, anything is possible. It may take you a while, but if you climb up the mountain one step at a time you’ll eventually get to the top. I never considered anything out of my range, although a couple of times when I was confronted with an impossible piece I’d start second-guessing myself. But I’ve learned that if I stick with it, I’ll finally figure out a way to get those notes off that board of wood and strings. Don’t think in terms of limitations. If you hit a wall, you learn how to innovate, and you go around that wall on a path you didn’t know existed … and maybe no one else did, either.
Part of figuring out your own way is to play. And by play, I mean play a lot. I started out in an 11-piece band, and for our first paying gig, each member received $2.95 at the end of the night because the band was so big, we had to rent a U-Haul to get the gear there. Eventually, I joined a bar band that eventually turned into Talas. We played constantly. High school dances, weddings, store openings, clubs, every night of the week. We did 21 nights in a row at one point. All that experience onstage every night in front of people went into my bass playing. It didn’t come from spending my time in a bedroom with YouTube.
My generation, we played live constantly. I never saw Saturday Night Live because we always played every Saturday night. People always would talk about the jokes, and I’d say, “What is this show? I’ve never seen it.” Every band I know that became successful started as a cover band. The Beatles, Van Halen, AC/DC, Oasis – all those guys were out in clubs playing covers. That’s how you learn to play, and that’s what makes your writing chops great, because you know how to put a chorus after a verse and a bridge in-between. You learn how to write a song that will entertain people and keep them on their feet.
People often joke about the bass player being the tall guy in the back bobbing his head and not doing much. But this is show business, and I love to play, and I love being onstage. It was great when I finally joined a three-piece band with lots of space to move around. I wasn’t jammed in like I had been in the horn band I started out with, and that gave me space to express myself. Here’s how I looked at it: The first live show I ever saw was Jimi Hendrix — I didn’t think I wasn’t allowed to do that on bass. People were roaring, and I thought, “I want to do that too.” So I did.
It’s not just about fun. The stage isn’t for having fun. It’s for performing. I want to put on a great show, and when you do, you have fun. Put on an amazing show that people love and they will come back to see you again. When you’re up there, 3 – 4 sets a night, even on a Monday night, and there’s one table with two people, and there’s four waitresses, you still have to perform as though it was a packed house.
So when you see me having fun up on stage, it’s a result of evolution. I’m working hard, and through the years, by doing my thing, all that stuff is what comes out. I don’t have a “bass-face” that I put on to be showy. I can’t even dance. There’s no theatrics involved — it’s genuine and spontaneous. Practicing the look on your face, or the way you move, would be the equivalent of hearing a joke and thinking about how you should laugh —completely unnatural and against artistic expression.
Take David Lee Roth. Dave is a master showman, and he’s still my hero. The things he does are from his heart and soul. A lot of things he says are completely scripted, but what he does comes from 1940s entertainment. When you’re in front of a crowd, you don’t necessarily want to make stuff up, because you don’t know what’s going to work or not. When you go out to see a comedian one night and then see them the next night, it’s the same jokes. They modify them a little, but it’s the same. Once you’ve got a joke that works, you stick with it.
So, the first time Dave screamed, “Look at all the people here tonight!” the crowd went nuts. And it’s still hilarious. At the arena level, you can’t take the kind of chances you can at a club. When you play at a club, sometimes it’s your friends in the crowd. People are ordering drinks and not listening. You can get away with a lot of nonsense and foolishness, but if you tried it in an arena, it would be met with blank stares and silence.
Dave has got it down to an exact science. What you do and how you speak when you’re in front of 20,000 people matters: You never say anything that can’t be answered by a positive, uproarious “Yes!” from the audience. I remember one show where I was playing with someone else and the guy asked the audience, “Are we having a good time, or what?” No one knew how to answer “Or what?” There’s a lot to it, and Dave is the grand master. I learned so much from him — it was a free Ph.D. in Show Business.
After decades of gigs, I still love walking up those stairs to that insane cheering and roaring. It’s an incredible payoff for 50 years of hard work and playing, and I feel I’m being overpaid sometimes. It’s an incredible experience, and my plan is to do it for a long time to come!
Photos by Josh Withers and courtesy of Billy Sheehan.
For more information, go to billysheehan.com.
Click here to learn more about the Yamaha Attitude Limited 3 Billy Sheehan Signature Bass.
Using Pitch Correction Effectively
Thanks to the continuing advances in digital audio technology, tools for correcting the pitch of audio (a process generally called “pitch correction” or “tuning”) have become more powerful, easier to use and more affordable. Pitch correction is now commonly part of the workflow in both home and commercial studios. While there are various standalone software products dedicated to this task, several DAWs, including Steinberg Cubase Pro, include their own pitch correction features.
Pitch correction (which is usually used for vocal tuning but can also be applied to monophonic instruments) is sometimes used not only correctively, but creatively as well. You’ve probably heard pop or R&B songs in which the singer’s voice seems to glide from note to note. That sound is sometimes called the “Cher Effect” because it was first introduced by the singer Cher back in 1998 and used heavily on her hit single “I Believe.”
Some pitch correction software is designed for real time application, allowing it to be used during recording or even live performance. Depending on how badly the singer is out of tune, that approach can work. But it’s more often used off-line (that is, applied during mixing), which takes a lot more effort but allows for more precision and subtlety.
For this type of pitch correction, the small details vary from one brand of software to the next, but the basic concepts are pretty much the same. In Cubase Pro, the pitch correction tools are found in a feature called VariAudio.
Segmented Reality
The first step for any pitch correction software is to analyze the audio track (vocal or monophonic instrument) you want to process:
Once the analysis is complete, the software represents the notes in the track as a series of rectangular segments. Similar to what you’d see in a MIDI piano-roll-style editor, each segment’s horizontal length is based on its duration, and its vertical placement corresponds to its pitch.
However, the similarity ends there, because you’ll notice that many of these so-called “pitch” segments are a little off from center, lying closer to one note but not dead on. What’s more, you’ll see squiggly lines running through each segment. These indicate the pitch variations leading into, within, and at the end of each note. In Cubase Pro, these are referred to as pitch curves. They’ll be present with any singer, but can get extreme with an inexperienced vocalist whose pitch is less than accurate:
Pitch correction software lets you move the pitch segments to the center of their corresponding pitches (thus tuning them), and also makes it possible to straighten out the pitch curves. Generally, you don’t want to completely straighten them or you’ll remove the singer’s feel from the recording. If you do correct all the segments and completely straighten the pitch curves, you’ll end up with something a lot closer to the “Cher Effect:”
It’s a Snap
Your pitch correction software will most likely have a feature called “pitch snap” or “pitch quantize.” This constrains the segments you’re tuning — whether you’re dragging them individually or through some global process — so that they can only be moved to the center of a note’s pitch.
Cubase Pro offers two types of pitch snap: Absolute and Relative. In Absolute mode, when you move a segment vertically (that is, from one pitch to another), you’ll only be able to drag it to the pitch center. Relative lets you move a note to a different pitch (for example, from B♭ to C), and have it stay the same relative distance from the pitch center as it was on the original note.
Alternatively, you can turn pitch snap off entirely so that the segments can be moved around freely. If you have a good ear, this can be an effective way to work … if your software allows you to hear the pitch of a note when you click on it (in Cubase, this is done by turning on the Acoustic Feedback option), and you check your work against a reference instrument from the song.
It’s critical to understand that a pitch correction display shows two variables: the segment’s vertical position vis-a-vis the pitch center of the note, and the degree of variation in the pitch curve. Often, you’ll quantize the segments but still hear notes that sound wrong. That’s because the singer’s pitch is wavering or moving during the note, as shown in the illustration below:
Most of the time, you’ll want to fix pitch issues with as little processing as possible. The pitch curve represents the nuances of that performance, so you have to be careful how much you straighten it.
Step by Step
Here’s a suggested workflow for pitch correcting a vocal track:
1. Have your software do its analysis of the audio to be corrected.
2. Mute all tracks except the one you’re correcting, along with one reference instrument.
3. Make sure your DAW is set to let you hear a note when you click on it. (In Cubase, that means turning on the Acoustic Feedback feature.)
4. Zoom in so that the notes are pretty big on the screen, so you can see what you’re doing.
5. You can first try a global correction, which is much faster but not as accurate because it doesn’t impact the pitch curves. Turn on pitch snap (in Cubase Pro, use Absolute mode), select all the segments, and apply the selected pitch quantization to all of them at once.
6. Listen to the entire part, with your reference instrument (or all the tracks) on, and see how it sounds. Most likely, global correction won’t be enough, so you’ll have to go through the song one phrase at a time. The problem notes will be the ones that have the most extreme pitch curves.
7. Assuming your pitch correction software lets you split segments, divide the notes that are still out of tune into smaller segments, cutting at the apex or bottom of the pitch curves. (The new segments created are often higher or lower in pitch than the original notes.) The splits won’t be audible, but they allow you to individually tune the separate parts of a wavering note without affecting the in-tune parts:
8. Drag the newly created segments to the center of their target pitches and listen again.
9. If some notes still sound wrong, straighten their pitch curves by a small amount and see if that helps. If not, go a little further with the straightening. Sometimes you can get away with completely straightening a small segment — one that you split from a longer note — without it sounding weird. That should be a last resort, however.
10. Work your way through the part, tuning all problem notes until the entire track has been addressed.
Effective pitch correction can be a slow process — one that can’t be rushed. But if you do a careful and thorough job, it can be well worth the time expended, because the recorded vocal will often sound significantly better than it did before. If your goal is perfection, it’s a great tool to add to your arsenal.
Check out our other Recording Basics postings.
Click here for more information about Steinberg Cubase.
Get More From Your MONTAGE, MODX and CP88/CP73
Yamaha has announced operating system updates for MONTAGE and MODX synthesizers, as well as for CP88/CP73 Series Stage Pianos. Each OS update incorporated feedback from our synth user community and is completely free.
Let’s take a closer look at the new capabilities added by each.
MONTAGE OS v3.0 and MODX OS v2.0
The new OS updates bring these two synthesizers much closer together in terms of operation. The only difference is that MODX doesn’t have the MONTAGE DAW Remote mode … yet! Other than that, MONTAGE OS v3.0 and MODX OS v2.0 offer the same basic features. Check out this overview from Yamaha synth specialist Dom Sigalas:
One of the big new features in MONTAGE OS v3.0 (in response to requests from many MONTAGE users) is the addition of a Pattern Sequencer. This is not only great for sequencing your favorite tunes but can also be used to create arrangements on the fly. In this video, Yamaha synth specialist Blake Angelos shows you how it works:
MONTAGE OS v3.0 also provides new Performances, a new MIDI mode, and extended synth features such as a Wave Folder effect that’s like a distortion, but instead of “clipping” the waveform it “folds” it back into itself; a VCM Mini Filter and Mini Booster for classic, fat and smooth analog-style tone shaping; and an Extended LFO for adding variety from slow and subtle to fast and edgy. Here’s a video that demonstrates these features:
Also be sure to check out our artist interview videos featuring Tori Letzler, Michael Patrick and Avery*Sunshine talking about the new MONTAGE White with OS v3.0.
Go to YamahaSynth.com to learn more, or, if you’re ready to jump in, download the new OS for MONTAGE here and MODX here.
CP OS v1.5
CP OS v1.5 for the CP88 and CP73 Stage Piano adds many new Voices and Live Set Sounds, including 30 to the Sub Section. These focus on the support sounds keyboard players need, such as bass, leads, pads, brass and more. Check out this demo with Yamaha synth specialist Blake Angelos and keyboardist Manuele Montesanti:
In addition, the new OS expands the control capabilities of these instruments and adds several shortcuts for even faster navigation. You can download CP OS v1.5 here.
Click here to visit yamahasynth.com
Click here for more information about MONTAGE.
Click here for more information about MODX.
Click here for more information about CP88 / CP73 Series Stage Pianos.
Listening Inside the Music
Empathy. It’s a necessary component to successful interpersonal relationships, both personal and business. You and the other person in the equation won’t always see eye to eye, and unless you want to constantly be embroiled in disputes and bad feelings (which is a terrible way to live), you’d better develop the ability to see things from the other person’s point of view … even if you don’t necessarily agree with them.
In music, the ability to listen from other perspectives is equally important. Perhaps the hook in that song isn’t all that compelling. Perhaps the vocal is a little flat. Perhaps the tempo is shifting slightly in the first movement. Perhaps the entrance of the strings is a bit too strident.
A word of caution, though: Beware the More-Me Syndrome — something that’s familiar to every live sound or recording engineer. It goes like this: the singer wants more vocal, the guitarist wants more guitar, the drummer more drums, yadda yadda yadda. The problem is, if you simply accede to all of these demands, you end up raising everyone’s levels and the end result is a mix that is exactly the same, only louder — in other words, an exercise in futility.
Nonetheless, it’s always helpful to find a way to listen to music through other people’s ears. Or, as the late, great audio engineer Ed Cherney termed it, “listening inside the music.” I once asked Ed to elaborate. His explanation: “I’m talking about things like finding that guitar line that’s inside [one part of a song] and then finding its counter-line — being able to isolate and identify the different things that are happening in the context of the entire spectrum.”
Developing that ability — what some call critical listening — is no easy task. It does seem as if some people are born with “golden ears,” but there’s ample evidence that it’s a skill that can be learned too. Either way, it often takes many years to perfect.
“It takes a long time to learn how to pick out the balances and the timbre and the interplay between the instruments, and to make sense out of it,” Cherney told me. He attributed his own critical listening skills to a long apprenticeship he served with legendary recordist Bruce Swedien and the equally legendary producer Quincy Jones — the team that crafted most of Michael Jackson’s mega-hits in the 1980s. “The thing is,” Ed explained, “guys like me and a lot of my contemporaries worked under engineers that started in the ’40s and ’50s — the guys who built the gear that they used and went from big bands to symphonies to rockabilly and country, then eventually to rock and roll; guys who saw the technology evolve. Sitting behind the Bruce Swediens and the Phil Ramones and the Al Schmitts, we learned how to listen. It was when I worked for Bruce that I learned how to listen through someone else’s ears. I would sit behind him and listen through his ears during every mic change, every turn of a knob, every tweak of a reverb.
“Over a period of twenty years,” Ed added with his trademark self-deprecating humor, “you start to get the hang of it.” Certainly in his case it did, as evidenced by Cherney’s stellar 40+ year career that included recording Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Sting, Willie Nelson and many other superstars.
The bottom line is this: Seeking and nurturing musical empathy is a critical aspect not only to your development as a musician, but to your appreciation of music overall. There are no shortcuts, but it’s a skill that’s guaranteed to pay multiple dividends over the course of a lifetime.
Photo courtesy of edcherney.com
Get Your Party Started with the MusicCast VINYL 500
Ever notice how a turntable quickly becomes the centerpiece of any party? Add a stack of vinyl records and you have an instant conversation starter. And if you ask your friends to bring their favorite albums, you’ve got a party activity that everyone will get in on.
The festivities will be even better if you choose the right turntable. Steeped in the Yamaha tradition of accuracy and sonic purity, the new, snowy white version of the MusicCast VINYL 500 is much more than a pretty turntable: It’s a pretty MusicCast turntable — and one of the first and only Wi-Fi® turntables.
You can use the VINYL 500 as a classic turntable with its built-in phono preamp and a set of wired speakers — no need for a stereo receiver. But thanks to Wi-Fi, that’s just the beginning of its capabilities. For example, you can share the music of every guest’s favorite album to wireless MusicCast speakers, receivers or sound bars in other rooms of your house … and you can stream your party playlists from popular streaming services too! With the free MusicCast Controller app, you can move from room to room, mingling with your friends while you control the music from your phone and share it with the rest of the house. (No, the app can’t flip the album for you. You still have to do that yourself.) You can even use Alexa and Google Assistant devices to voice control playback of music from streaming services through the VINYL 500, or ask Siri to control it via AirPlay 2.
The MusicCast VINYL 500 not only sounds great, it’s great looking too, so you’ll want to show it off … and since it’s wireless, you can put it anywhere in your home. Just add a pair of wireless MusicCast speakers for a powerful stereo system without clutter, giving you more room for that dance floor or game of Twister. Minimalists rejoice!
So share the MusicCast VINYL 500 with your friends at your next party, or gift it to them for the holidays, or any time of year.
To learn more about turntables and vinyl, check out these blog posts:
Appreciating Vinyl Records … and the Best Way to Enjoy Them
Jeff Coffin Video Series, Part 1: Shopping for Vinyl
Jeff Coffin Video Series, Part 2: Caring for Vinyl
Spotlight on Vinyl Subscription Services
Ultra Hi-Fi, Part 1: The Difference a Tonearm Makes
Already have a receiver and want to add a turntable to your system? Learn how here.
See why it’s time to get your vinyl collection out of your attic (or your parents’ attic) here.
Wondering where the best place to put your turntable is? Find out here.
Scary in Surround Sound
It took less than 20 years for cell phones to become an integral part of our lives. Home theater enthusiasts could say the same thing about surround sound.
The first movie to incorporate surround sound was Disney’s Fantasia in 1941. Audiences in theaters all around the world were mesmerized as the “Flight of the Bumblebee” buzzed all around them. In the 1990s, Dolby brought that experience to the home with Dolby Digital 5.1-channel surround sound. Since then, many of us have become so used to surround sound that watching movies and shows with the sound just coming from TV speakers leaves us flat.
Horror movies and TV shows in particular rely on audio to create the haunting, immersive scenes that fans both dread and crave. If you don’t think surround sound multiplies the fear factor, try listening to these eight gems of the genre in standard two-channel sound and then compare it to experiencing them in surround sound.
1. We Can Get Crazy – Us (2019)
This scene from director / screenwriter Jordan Peele’s second outing is no ordinary “get off my lawn” moment. When dad Gabe Wilson grabs a baseball bat and goes out to his driveway to defend his family from mysterious doppelgängers, you just want to scream, “Get out!” Check it out here.
2. Diner Scene – Brightburn (2019)
In this take on the Superman legend, Brandon Breyer is an alien boy who crash-landed on Earth and was raised by adoptive parents … but is decidedly not using his superpowers for the good of humanity. In this scene, he’s taking sadistic revenge on a local waitress. Just because a scene features the usual ploys — from flickering lights to a gruesome injury to a poorly chosen hiding place — doesn’t mean it’s not effective. Check it out here.
3. Samara Comes to You – The Ring (2002)
Remember the days of video rental stores and “Be kind, rewind?” The video tape in this movie is not very forgiving. Everyone who watches it receives a phone call telling them that they only have one week to live. In this scene, time runs out for one of the characters trying to figure out how to beat the curse. Check it out here.
4. Jangly Man Trailer – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
This trailer features a never-before-seen monster that is a combination of several stories from the controversial children’s book series. Although this movie also features standard horror movie elements, they’re standard for a reason: they work. The end result is that you root for the group of resourceful misfit teens who open the wrong book. Check it out here.
5. Final Trailer – Doctor Sleep (2019)
In this much-anticipated sequel to the 1980 classic The Shining, Ewan Macgregor plays Dan Torrance, the boy from the original movie, now all grown up and seemingly recovered from that harrowing year at the Overlook Hotel. His fragile peace is shattered when he meets Abra and is irresistibly drawn back into a life-and-death struggle over the Shining. Check it out here.
6. Peter Breaks His Nose – Hereditary (2018)
Toni Collette’s remarkable performance sets the tone for this movie about a woman grieving over the loss of her mentally disturbed mother and the ensuing events that befall her family. Her teenaged son Peter experiences the chilling effect of the family’s emotional inheritance in this extraordinary classroom scene. Check it out here.
7. The Rains of Castamere (The Red Wedding) – Game of Thrones: Season 3, Episode 9 (2013)
There were many plot twists and turns, and numerous favorite characters met their untimely ends during Game of Thrones’ eight groundbreaking seasons. This scene is one of the most jaw‑dropping. When a wedding guest is wearing chain mail under his clothes, it’s never a good thing. Check it out here.
8. Dustin and Suzie Sing the NeverEnding Story Song – Stranger Things: Season 3, Episode 8 (2019)
What’s more terrifying than being forced to sing a sappy love song to your Suzie-Poo in front of all your friends while you’re trying to save the world? Enjoy a lighthearted moment from this usually serious show. Check it out here.
If you’re there for the scare, surround sound is a must. So fire up your 5.1-channel home theater system and treat yourself to a frightening movie night!
For more scary clips, click here.
Want to set up a wireless 5.1-channel home theater? Learn how here.
The Modern Drum Set, Part 1: The Snare Drum
In this multi-part series, we take a closeup look at each of the components of the modern drum set.
The modern drum set is made up of a variety of components, including snare drum, bass drum (sometimes called “kick” drum), toms and cymbals. The snare drum is unique among the drums because it is the only one that has a set of snares stretched across the bottom head — finely coiled wires or springs that vibrate against the bottom head when the drum is hit, giving the snare drum its characteristic “snap” or “sizzle.”
Snare drums are used in popular music as well as in jazz and classical music. Along with the kick drum, the snare drum is the most important component in a drum set. In contemporary music, it provides the all-important “backbeat” on the two and four of a measure, while the kick drum typically plays on the one and three.
A Long History
It’s hard to imagine music without snare drums, but did you know that its origin can be traced all the way back to the 1300s? In those days, a drum known as the tabor — a double-headed wood drum with one or more snares stretched across the bottom head — was used by drum corps for communication purposes.
At around the same time, Swiss drum and fife corps were using the Basel drum, predecessor to the field drum, which made its way from Europe to North America in the 1600s. Soon after that, the snare drum debuted in concert halls. Brass shells started to appear in the mid-18th century, and the 1800s brought significant developments in construction, such as single-ply shells and wood hoops.
The snare strainer (also called a “throw-off”) arrived in the late 1800s/early 1900s; this allowed the snares to be quickly engaged or disengaged. Innovations that followed include flanged metal hoops, welded brass shells, and self-aligning lugs that made tensioning easier while reducing the possibility of stripped threads. Throughout the late 1900s and 2000s, the variety of materials used in the construction of snare drum shells broadened to include exotic woods and metals.
Fast Forward
These days, snare drums are available in a mind-boggling assortment of sizes and materials.
The traditional diameter for a snare drum is 14 inches, but you’ll find models with diameters of 12, 13 and 15 inches too, in depths ranging from 3.5 to 8 inches. As head size increases you’ll get a lower pitch with the same tension on the drum head. Generally, the deeper the shell and the larger the diameter, the lower the fundamental pitch of the drum.
The thickness of a shell also affects a drum’s fundamental pitch, with thinner shells typically producing lower fundamentals (there are exceptions). Drums with lower pitch are usually louder and capable of greater projection. That may be why some drummers even add snares to floor toms!
Are You a Metalhead?
Snare drum shells are available in both wood and metal. The three most popular metals are aluminum, steel and brass. Aluminum, used in Yamaha Recording Custom Aluminum snare drums, is the lightest of the these metals. It produces a dry, bright sound with a crisp response and a short sustain that may not need damping. Aluminum is durable and resistant to corrosion so it requires little maintenance.
Steel is heavier and has a more aggressive attack than aluminum. It accentuates the mid and high frequencies and produces more resonance (and ring) than aluminum, so you may need to apply damping. Steel shells like those used in Yamaha Recording Custom Stainless Steel and Stage Custom Steel snares are generally louder than brass or aluminum.
Brass snare drums such as Yamaha Recording Custom Brass snares have a dry, articulate sound that’s darker than steel or aluminum, somewhere in-between metal and wood. It’s the most responsive metal for a snare drum shell, producing a rich, warm tone with a sharp crack, dark overtones and more low end than other metals. It’s more resonant than aluminum and often needs damping. Brass snare shells may have a lacquer coating to prevent corrosion.
Other metals used for snare drum shells include bronze and copper. A bronze shell will be loud and crisp with a dark tone and a low fundamental note, while copper has a tone between metal and wood, with a pronounced low end. It’s a relatively soft metal, so care should be taken with those kinds of snare drums during setup and transport to prevent damage.
Any of these metals can be either cast or spun into shells. Cast shells tend to be louder and have a higher fundamental pitch with longer sustain, while spun shells are thinner, have a larger tuning range and often have a center bead for added strength.
What Wood Would You Like?
Wood shells are usually made from multiple thin layers of wood called “plies.” These plies are glued together and arranged with alternating grain to add thickness, stability and strength. Wood shells can also be made from a single steam-bent piece of solid wood, or from blocks of wood glued together. In general, thicker wood shells have greater projection and volume, but thinner shells are more resonant.
Maple, birch, oak and beech are the most popular woods used for snare drum shells. Maple shells have a warm low end, balanced low and high frequencies, and slightly boosted mid frequencies. It’s a great wood for all-around drums and is used by Yamaha Tour Custom snare drums.
Birch is used to make the shells in Yamaha Recording Custom snares. This type of wood emphasizes the low and high frequencies, giving a bright, lively sound with slightly reduced mid frequencies. Birch also projects very well and can easily cut through a mix.
Oak produces a round tone, mellow highs, and an extended, warm low end with plenty of volume and projection. Yamaha Live Custom Hybrid Oak snare drums are made from a sandwich of oak plies surrounding a dense phenolic layer — a design that emphasizes attack while increasing the drum’s dynamic range.
Other woods used to manufacture snare drum shells include beech, mahogany, and poplar. Beech is similar to birch but has a warmer tone with boosted lows and mids relative to the high frequencies. Mahogany has a mellow high end, reduced but resonant mids, robust lows, and projects less than birch. Snare shells can also be constructed from plies of different wood. Poplar is a relatively soft wood often used in a sandwich between layers of mahogany, resulting in a vintage drum sound with a full, rich timbre.
Yamaha Absolute Hybrid snare drums have a core ply of wenge (a very hard and heavy wood) sandwiched between plies of maple, known for its clear tone.
Synthetic, Too
Though far less popular than wood and metal, snare drum shells can also be made from synthetic materials such as carbon fiber, acrylic or fiberglass. Acrylic shells have a warm high end and plenty of presence. Fiberglass has an even balance of low, mid and high frequencies with excellent projection. Carbon fiber makes for a very strong shell with a good balance between mids and highs, and a slight emphasis in the low end.
Choosing any drum is a very personal choice, and there’s no one “perfect” snare drum for every purpose, which is why many drummers own several of them. But do some listening and auditioning at your local music dealer, and you’ll find one that’s right for you.
The Videos
Yamaha snare drums are available in a variety of sizes and shell materials so you can create your own signature sound for any style of music. Here’s a video that lets you compare the sound of many of them:
… and here’s a video that lets you compare the individual sound characteristics of various metal shell Yamaha Recording Custom Series snare drums:
Click here for Part 2: The bass drum.
Click here for Part 3: Toms.
Click here for Part 4: Foot pedals.
Click here for Part 5: Cymbals and hardware.
Click here for more information about Yamaha snare drums.
How to Improve Your Piano and Digital Keyboard Technique, Part 1
Players of every level should always work on their technique as a part of their practice regime. The most common approaches include working on scales, arpeggios and technique études like Hanon, Czerny, Cramer, Dohnanyi and Tausig, as well as difficult passages from music you are working on. For the beginner, these are essential activities. But as you progress further as a player I suggest you consider a more focused direction for improving your technique.
It’s actually very simple: work on those things that you will actually incorporate into your playing!
Think about it. Why spend precious time playing lots of notes and phrases that you would never repeat during a performance? While it’s certainly not time wasted, it’s also time not being used to execute the vocabulary that you will be relying on. In this article, I’ll share some of my concepts for making practicing more musical, and more applicable to your performing needs.
Practicing Scales
Learning and practicing scales are the fundamentals of piano study. Scales not only teach you about key signatures and fingering basics, they also help you develop a good legato touch. Here are some of the approaches I take:
– Most pianists practice scales with both hands together, running each over several octaves. But I like to start by playing scales one hand at a time. This allows me to focus on how well I am connecting the notes, and on not dropping my wrist when I cross my thumb under, which will produce an unwanted accented note. If you practice scales with both hands together, the more dominant hand often covers up the weaker hand, so you may not notice when these accents occur. In addition, your stronger hand can likely play faster than the other one, so practicing scales one hand at a time allows you to work at different tempos to push your technique.
– Try playing each scale at different dynamic levels. It’s a completely different experience to play fast and quiet at the same time. Here’s an audio example that demonstrates this technique:
– After working on playing well-connected notes, try playing the scale with a different, slightly detached articulation — one that’s not completely staccato, but with some space between each note. Then try a more separated, staccato touch, as demonstrated in this audio clip:
– Try playing with a crescendo while going up, and a decrescendo while going down. Then reverse that approach:
In addition to the above tips, I recommend practicing with a metronome or a drum groove of some sort. This allows you to also work on your timing. To make things even more productive, I like to do the following:
– Play two octaves as eighth notes against the click or pulse (two notes to each click/beat).
– Next, switch to three octaves as triplets against the pulse (i.e., three notes against the pulse). Focus on making the switch from two to three notes as accurately as possible.
– Finally, go to four octaves of sixteenth notes (i.e., four notes to the beat). Again, focus on switching your rhythm precisely:
Keep mixing it up between these ranges/timings. In this way you are working on rhythm as well as finger dexterity. Here’s an audio clip that demonstrates this technique:
– More advanced players should work on playing two-handed scales in sixths, or in thirds. These are a type of run that you might well use while playing, especially as part of the ending of a tune:
Here’s an audio clip that demonstrates this technique:
Click here for Part 2.
All audio played on a Yamaha P-515.
Check out our other Well-Rounded Keyboardist postings.
Click here for more information about Yamaha keyboard instruments.
A Bassist’s Guide to Compression
Using compression on your bass is the musical equivalent of putting salt in food. If you’ve never tried it, you probably think your sound is fine without it. But once you succumb to the intrigue and finally figure out how to add just the right amount, you’ll probably feel as though you can’t live without it.
Just a pinch of compression helps emphasize unique characteristics of your bass and tone that may not have been obvious beforehand. Even a small taste may make your bland bass sound bolder. But as with salt, too much of it can be overwhelming, leaving you with a sound that’s unappealing.
Don’t Get Lost in the Shuffle
Let audio snobs argue over whether compression is an effect or not. All I know is, it’s an essential tool that has helped me craft my signature bass sound. I started using compression many years ago when I was playing in an instrumental trio and found my bass lines getting lost all too often behind the wall of guitar and drums. In particular, when things went from loud to soft, then back to loud again, I could tell from the stage that my bass sound wasn’t keeping up. I was getting stepped on, and so I needed to take back the space that was rightfully mine to occupy.
I knew that compression could help me even out my level, add some punchiness, and would enable me to lighten my attack without my volume dropping so that my bass would be clearly audible in the mix no matter else what was going on. However, my bass rig at the time was inadequate, so I went out and bought an Ampeg SVT-4 PRO. On top of having gobs of tone and power to play with, this bass amp head comes equipped with a high quality built-in compression circuit that helped put me back on level ground with my bandmates. Ever since then, I’ve always used some sort of compression in my signal chain.
Why Compress?
Some bassists use compression to control their overall volume. Others use it to contain the dynamics of their attack. Sometimes it’s employed to add punchiness or sustain; other times, to help meld the bass’ fundamental note to the concussive impact of the kick drum — a very important part of rock music. Some players use compression as a form of EQ, to warm up their sound or give it a retro feel, with that super-beefy, flatwound thumping groove … sometimes accompanied by an obvious pumping effect.
You might even have compression on your bass without even knowing it! Many live sound and recording engineers don’t hesitate to apply whatever type and amount of compression they think is appropriate … and they may or may not bother to tell you about it. They use it for the same reasons you would: to keep your bass level steady and hot, yet free from clipping and distortion.
The Shape of Things to Come
Compressors used to be big, bulky analog devices, but today they come in many shapes and sizes. Some stompboxes are dedicated to that one task, but many times you’ll find you need the flexibility, capability and control baked into a user-tweakable patch in a multi-effects processor like the Line 6 HX Effects.
Some bass amps (like the previously mentioned Ampeg SVT-4 PRO) come with compression as a built-in feature, but other times you may want a dedicated compressor with more bells and whistles, such as a standalone rack unit or a software plug-in.
Basic Settings
Here are brief explanations of basic compression parameters and some suggestions for how they can be tweaked to help you get the most out of your bass sound:
– Threshold. This determines the level at which compression kicks in. Any time your signal is louder than the threshold you set, the volume will be reduced (i.e., compressed). In a sense, less is more here — the lower the threshold, the greater the degree of compression. Setting the threshold high results in only compressing the loudest notes that you play, meaning that your dynamics will stay natural-sounding. The higher the threshold, the more your dynamics will be squashed.
– Ratio. The higher the ratio setting, the greater the amount of compression that’s applied to the signal (over the threshold you set). Think of it as somewhat of a magnifier, in the sense that the ratio determines how much your signal is reduced. A ratio of 2:1 cuts the volume above the threshold by half, while a 10:1 ratio will squash it tenfold (in other words, a +10dB signal will be reduced down to just +1dB). In essence, the higher the ratio, the more consistent your volume will be, allowing your sound to be turned up in the mix. If you want to absolutely limit the volume of your signal (to protect your speaker, for example), you can set the ratio to ∞:1 (infinity to 1), but most bass players choose a ratio somewhere between 2:1 and 4:1 to get the benefit of some peak reduction without losing all of their dynamics.
– Attack. This is measured in milliseconds, and determines how quickly the peak is reduced. Short attack times rein in your initial transients (i.e., when you dig in with a pick over a neck-position pickup or do a slap or pop) to smooth your sound by keeping things tamped down and under control. However, if the attack is too fast, all peaks will be affected, and your bass will sound unnatural. Slow/long attack times will allow you to coax more sustain out of your bass, but at the expense of allowing most or all transients to pass through unscathed.
– Release. Sometimes referred to as decay, this setting dictates how quickly the compression lets up. Since the optimum release time depends largely upon tempo and genre, the key here is experimentation. Properly set release times can effectively add sustain to your notes, but if you set the release time incorrectly you’ll end up drawing attention to string noise as you move between frets.
– Hard knee / Soft knee. A hard knee setting causes compression to kick as soon as your signal has crossed the threshold, immediately reducing the signal at the ratio you set. A soft knee setting gradually increases compression as your signal reaches the threshold, resulting in a smoother, more natural sound that helps maintain your dynamics.
Last but not least, keep in mind that there are many different types of compressors, including VCA, FET, optical and Vari-Mu — and the best one for your bass sound is a subjective decision. (Click here for our “Why Compress” blog posting, which provides a description of each.)
If you know your bass sounds great when you’re playing on your own but can’t be heard clearly in band situations, that’s a red flag telling you that you should strongly consider adding compression to your sound. And even if that’s not the case, compression is well worth checking out, as it’s capable of improving almost any bass sound when used correctly. What are you waiting for?
Check out this related posting: “A Guitarist’s Guide to Compression.”
Click here for more information about Yamaha basses.
Click here for more information about Ampeg bass amps.
A Guitarist’s Guide to Compression
Compressors are powerful tools that can significantly shape the dynamics of your guitar playing — and therefore your overall sound — both onstage and in the studio. In this posting, we’ll discuss the use of compression in both environments.
Compressors Onstage
Your onstage compressor will most likely be a pedal or stompbox, mainly because of their convenience (among other things, they allow compression to be turned on and off easily with a tap of the toe). Like any compressor, these devices are designed to alter the dynamic range of an audio signal; in other words, they reduce the difference in level between the loudest and softest notes. As a result, quieter notes seem louder, particularly if you’re using the pedal’s gain control (sometimes called “makeup gain,” “level” or “volume”) to compensate by raising the overall signal.
Compression also tends to soften the attack of the notes because it’s squashing down the transients, which are the peaks that initially occur when your pick or finger plucks (or strums) the strings. This can help take the edge off a loud guitar, making it more pleasing to the ear and less biting.
Some compressor pedals have controls that let you set the attack time. However, you have to be careful because if the attack of the compressor is too fast, the transients can be reduced to excess, resulting in a dull tone. The slower you set the attack time, the longer it takes for the compressor to react to a note, so more of the transient gets through. If it’s too slow, however, there will be little compression at all, so some experimentation is usually necessary to determine the right amount. Bear in mind that the optimum attack time may change from song to song, and possibly from guitar to guitar as well.
If your compressor pedal doesn’t offer an attack control but you find that your sound is getting too dull, lowering the overall compression (via a knob called “sustain,” “compression” or “sensitivity”) will usually alleviate the problem.
Even with moderate settings that keep your transients mainly intact (which is often the best way to go during live performance), a compressor pedal is going to thin out your tone to some degree. It’s a tradeoff for the benefits of reduced dynamic range and added sustain.
In the following image, you can clearly see the transients at the beginning of the notes and the effect of a compressor with a fast attack:
Sustainability
Sustain is, of course, a hugely important part of electric guitar tone. High-gain guitar notes sustain naturally, but if you’re using a clean tone, the notes will decay quickly and therefore sound relatively staccato. However, if you compress the signal, it will add sustain to your clean tone, because it makes the quieter parts of the notes — including their decay — louder in comparison. And even though a compressor’s effect is often more noticeable on clean tones, it also helps with distorted and overdriven sounds, giving them extra sustain and making it easier to play harmonics.
Because its gain circuit can amplify the signal, you can also use your compressor pedal as a pure boost effect, with or without compression. This is particularly useful when you’re playing through a tube amp because the higher-than-normal levels coming out of your pedalboard will drive the amp harder, which will create more tube saturation.
Pedalboard Placement
There’s general agreement among guitarists and guitar experts that you should place your compressor pedal at the beginning of the signal chain on your pedalboard. Such placement ensures that the compressor will be reacting directly to your dynamics before the signal gets affected by the other pedals:
There’s another, even more important reason for this kind of placement: Since a compressor brings out the quieter parts of the audio, it will also accentuate any noise in the signal. Therefore, you want it before any distortion or overdrive pedals, both of which tend to add hiss and hum; if the compressor were to be placed after those kinds of pedals, it would make the noise louder.
In the Studio
If you’re recording your guitar through an amp and are using a compressor pedal to help create your sound, then everything we’ve already discussed is still relevant. But if you’re mixing a guitar track that’s already been recorded, there are some differences in the application of compression.
A studio compressor’s overall purpose is the same as that of a compressor pedal: to reduce dynamic range. However, compressors designed for recording and mixing — whether plug-in or hardware-based — usually offer more precise parameter control:
For one thing, they almost always offer attack and release controls. The vast majority of studio compressors also have both ratio and threshold controls, rather than a single knob to govern the amount of compression, as is found on most pedals. This combination lets you more precisely set the amount of compression and how loud a note must be in order to initiate gain reduction.
Flavors and Colors
For practical reasons, most guitarists have just one compressor in their pedalboard when playing live. But in the studio, between your DAW and any third-party standalone plug-ins you may own, you likely have access to several types of compressors. There are a number of standard compressor designs, based on analog compressors (which plug-ins often emulate), each with its own distinct sonic characteristics. These include VCA, FET, optical and Variable-Mu. (Click here to read about different types of compressors.)
You can also find many compressor plug-ins that are circuit-for-circuit digital emulations of classic analog compressors. The good ones provide tonal coloring that closely replicates that of the original analog hardware.
Often, in a mix situation, I use a vintage compressor plug-in for both dynamic control and coloration. I’ve found that replications of the classic Teletronix LA-2A (such as the Tube Compressor in Steinberg Cubase) sound great on guitar parts, giving them a warm sheen. (The LA-2A was an optical compressor with a tube amplification stage.) Many people also like software emulations of FET compressors such as the UREI 1176 on guitar because they can be set to sound aggressive and even add some saturation at high settings. (Examples include Cubase’s Vintage Compressor MKIII or the Yamaha 276.) In the hands of a skilled recording engineer, even outrageous compressor settings can be made to sound good!
Whether you play live or in the studio, compression can be a critical tool for shaping your tone. If you haven’t experimented with a compressor, you should definitely give it a try and see how you like it. Odds are, you’ll find that it improves your sound more often than not.
Check out this related posting: “A Bassist’s Guide to Compression.”
Click here for more information about Yamaha guitars.
San Holo: Dancing to His Own Tune
You could describe electronic artist San Holo’s music and production style with many adjectives, but “derivative” would definitely not be one of them. Quite the opposite: his approach is thoroughly original and decidedly non-conformist.
For one thing, although Holo is part of the modern electronic music world — a place where most songs are written inside of digital recording software — he takes a distinctly analog approach. “Most of my songwriting starts on guitar,” he says, “whether acoustic or electric. I like to figure out a song on the guitar first before I grab my laptop and produce and record everything.”
In addition, a big part of his production process involves running sounds through a tape echo to add analog flavor. Not a tape echo plug-in, mind you: he uses an actual vintage tape echo unit. “I usually set the feedback and delay to zero,” he explains, “so I just have the sound of the tape to make it a bit warbly and gritty.”
Holo’s music has been described as belonging to the subgenre called Future Bass, but he’s evolving it into something newer. “It’s a mix of EDM, indie and post-rock,” he tells us. “I like to call it Post-EDM. The combination of electronic beats with sparkly guitar is what I look for most.”
While you might think this kind of non-standard production style might work against Holo, just the opposite has occurred. Indeed, his rise to prominence has been rapid: He was voted New Artist of the Year in the 2017 Electronic Music Awards, and that same year his album 1 reached #7 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart.
Back in the Day
Holo grew up in Holland and started his musical career by studying guitar at the Rotterdam Pop Academy, which is part of a larger music conservatory. During his time there, it became clear to him that his musical sensibilities were different than most of his peers.
“All of the other guitar students wanted to be like Jimi Hendrix. I wanted to do something different, so I started playing around with music production and experimenting with different lo-fi sounds,” he says. “At some point, you’ve got to find your own sound [so] you might as well just create something that’s your own.” His search for new sounds led to an interest in electronic music. “I would sneak into the production classes and see what they were doing on their laptops, on music production software.”
His deviation from the rock ‘n’ roll orthodoxy didn’t receive a lot of support from his peers. “I remember [bringing] my first electronic EP to a rehearsal. [My bandmates] looked at me like I was the devil or something,” he recalls.
“Whenever you’re trying to do something new, people will always see it as weird,” he adds. “Because in the end, weird is just different. People are not used to it. At some point, it’s so rewarding to see that when you do something weird, it becomes a thing, and you actually own it. I like that. I think that’s my main goal for making music: to keep pushing myself and my music forward instead of just copying the same thing over and over again.”
Seeing the Light
Perhaps Holo’s most impressive achievement to date is the song “Light,” which he released in 2017 and now has over 148 million streams on Spotify alone. Fittingly, one of the instruments he used to build the tracks for that song was a Yamaha VSS-30: an old consumer keyboard from the late 1980s that features a crude (by today’s technology) 8-bit sampler. That keyboard has now become a fixture in Holo’s workflow.
The VSS-30 has a number of preset sounds, which Holo describes as “kind of cheesy, but pretty cool.” But it’s the instrument’s sampling, which records for under two seconds through a built-in microphone and then maps whatever it captured onto the keyboard, that Holo has found to be so useful and inspiring.
“The coolest thing about the sample function,” Holo says, “is that you can select about seven effects. You have a fuzz; you have a reverse effect; you have a U-Turn effect that makes [the sample] go forward and then backward. The most important effect on there is the fuzz. It’s something you don’t see a lot on samplers. The fuzz transforms your voice literally into a saw-wave synth. Very gritty. Very beautiful.”
Check out the video:
hey beautiful people. this was one of the first sounds that inspired me to write light????. do you have a special memory linked to this song? tell me about it 🙂
xo ~ san pic.twitter.com/F2ip6alUIH
— San Holo ???? (80%) (@sanholobeats) May 15, 2019
bitbird
Holo now has his own record label called bitbird, through which he releases his own projects as well as that of others. “We were originally an electronic label, but these days we release classical music, too, and electronic, trap beats and singer-songwriter music,” he says. “As long as we feel [the artists] have a vision and want to do something different. I like hearing things that make me go, “Hey, this is something I haven’t heard before, and this might expand my mind a little bit.”
Naturally, Holo appreciates his success, but says that even without it, he’d still be a musician. “I’m truly humbled by the fact that I get to do what I do, but I would be doing the same thing if I wasn’t that well-known. I just love making music. It’s the only way I know how to live and really the only thing I know how to do.”
San recently visited Synth Space — a specially designed room at Yamaha USA headquarters in Buena Park, California that houses a large collection of vintage Yamaha synthesizers — where he had a chance to compare the sound of his VSS-30 with other synths of the era.
As for what’s next, he reports that he’s been working on new San Holo music. When asked whether he’s been using the VSS-30 in his writing, he says with a laugh, “Man, it’s all over the place!”
Photographs courtesy of Heroic Family.
Learn more about San Holo at sanholo.com and on
Outside Influence
When the weather turns cooler, I spend more time indoors. That may seem obvious, but over the years I’ve increasingly found myself taking advantage of that time to push the boundaries of learning my craft. This includes intensive practice of my primary instrument, the guitar, but also the study of keyboards, orchestration, arranging, recording, mixing and production. Perhaps more importantly, besides directly seeking to improve those skill sets, I also take classes outside of those worlds. I’ve found that those outside studies actually help my craft by allowing me to examine things in a different and deeper way.
One of the most interesting of those was an online photography course with the great Annie Liebovitz, who has taken some of the most iconic rock pictures of all time. I like to learn from those who excel at what they do, and when she talked about self-reflection, it resonated strongly with me. Afterwards, I did just that — I went back and listened to a number of my older compositions. Wow, what an ear-opener! What I heard, clear as day, was the advancement of my skills as a composer and guitarist, as well as the evolution of my mixing and production chops.
I’ve also taken online classes in the field of cooking. From Gordon Ramsay to Massimo Bottura, observing how others work can help you think about how you work. (And since I like to cook, it has made my friends and family happy too!) After taking some of these classes, I came to the realization that my style of musical creativity is actually very similar to my style of cooking. I use as many of the best ingredients as possible, make sure I have the right tools, and rely on a combination of instinct and skill. Often, when a song is not quite done, I’ll think of what a final touch of finishing “salt” might be added to make it pop … just like a great dish in the kitchen.
Another interesting online course I took was conducted by the commander of the International Space Station. I’m a longtime space fanatic, and I have an app on my smartphone that tracks the ISS and tells me when it’s flying overhead. (At those times, if the weather cooperates, you can actually see it!) While the class was full of amazing facts about how the space station works, how they dock to it, and even how they walk in space, I use its lessons for different purposes. First and foremost, I apply them to cutting through professional problems. It seems to me that if we can fly people in space and shuttle them back and forth at will, our brains must have powers almost beyond our imagination. Thinking this way makes my “problems” seem small in comparison, and therefore quite solvable. But I also use the lessons for pure inspiration. When I listen to stories about how we plan to get to Mars, I know I can fix that computer problem holding up my mix session that day.
I also like to watch TED Talks about subjects I know little or nothing about. I approach them with an open mind, absorbing new ways of thinking and looking at problems and solutions that might not have occurred to me otherwise. Watching Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s talk on creativity and leadership, for example, helped me contemplate different ways to incorporate team members in my own work.
An online MindTools article entitled New Ideas — Strategies and Techniques suggests that you “mix your media.” The author explains the concept this way: “Radical ideas can arise from tackling problems in unusual ways. A great way to do this is to apply different types of creativity — don’t just talk or write about your plans, explore them through music, painting, photography, sculpture … whatever enables you to express yourself. Fresh thinking can emerge when you let your creative juices flow.”
I find that the combination of direct studies along with those outside of your field blend together to make for a more well-rounded musical approach. It helps you reach beyond your set ways and comfort zone and acts as a spur on creativity. Whether you’re creating just for fun or are doing it on a fulltime professional level, think about how you might use outside influences to help you go deeper into your music. It’s a worthwhile and rewarding pursuit!
Using Pads In Live Sound
An important part of creating a good live sound mix is avoiding distortion, and that usually starts with the input to your mixer. As we saw in a previous Tools of the Trade blog post about gain staging, using the correct inputs and setting proper levels is a big help, but what happens when you’ve done all that and still hear distortion?
That’s where a pad can come to the rescue.
A pad is a switch found on the input channels of many mixers, including all Yamaha MG and MGP Series models. Typically located near the microphone input, it attenuates (reduces) the signal from a microphone before it reaches the mic preamp circuitry inside the mixer:
The reason you’d want to attenuate a signal coming from a microphone is simple: Some sources from the stage — for example, kick drum — are very loud! Making matters worse, kick drum mics are usually placed right in front of, or even inside, the drum. That combination can create a signal so strong that it overloads the mic preamp in the mixer.
You may be thinking “Well, that’s why there’s a gain control; I can simply turn down the gain.” However, even with the gain all the way down you may still see the peak light flashing and hear distortion. That’s where a pad comes in: It prevents the signal from overloading the mic preamp. It’s not unusual to use pads on kick, snare and tom microphones, as well as on mics placed right up against the grille of large guitar stacks.
Proper Pad Usage
That said, it’s important that you always first try to set proper level with the pad switched off. That’s because, if you’re dealing with a weak signal and the pad is on, you’ll need to bring the gain way up, and that can add noise. Use the technique for setting input level described in the previously mentioned Tools of the Trade post, and see if you can get the meter to read a good level. More importantly, listen to the signal to make sure that you don’t hear any distortion. If you’ve turned the gain down all the way and the meter is still in the red (or you’re hearing distortion), it’s time to employ the pad. When you turn on the pad, you should expect to see the level drop quite a bit. Simply use the gain control to restore a good level.
Caution: Avoid turning the pad on and off while the fader is up. If you have a kick drum playing through the PA when you turn off the pad, for example, the level of the channel will suddenly increase, and that will not only throw a scare into anyone nearby, it can damage your speakers as well as, possibly, your ears!
How Hot is Too Hot?
The pad switch on Yamaha MG and MGP mixers provides 26 dB of attenuation, which is sufficient to eliminate preamp overload in most cases. There are, however, a few rare situations where even that may not be enough attenuation, particularly when using microphones that have a very high output level (such as condenser mics) and are placed on extremely loud sources. Those kinds of mics sometimes have a very “hot” (high) output level — one that can overload a microphone input — and that’s why many condensers have their own built-in pad:
Microphone pads may simply be labeled “Pad” or they may be labeled with just a number, such as “-10 dB,” indicating the amount of attenuation. In some cases, the pad switch may have multiple settings such as -10 dB or -20 dB. To make sure that you don’t add noise by cranking the gain of the mic preamp too high, always use the lowest pad setting that eliminates the distortion.
If you’re using such a mic and are running into distortion problems, start with the microphone pad off, listen to the signal and watch the meter or peak light. If it indicates an overload (or you hear distortion), then switch the microphone pad on to reduce the signal before it even reaches the mixer. Sometimes you may hear distortion from a condenser mic even if the signal level looks weak on the meter. That could mean that the source is actually overloading the electronics inside the microphone. In such cases, turning on the mic’s pad will usually solve the problem.
Get in Line
In cases where the mixer and microphone both lack a pad, you can use a device called an inline pad. This is typically a small metal tube or box with an XLR male connector at one end and an XLR female connector at the other end. Inside is a simple electronic circuit that reduces the signal:
Many inline pads can be plugged right into the XLR jack on the mixer, and then you can plug a microphone cable into the pad. In some instances, XLR cables are used to make the connection. Inline pads do not require any sort of power source.
The amount of attenuation offered by an inline pad is usually shown on the outside. The attenuation amounts are usually fixed at a specific value, but some are variable. Typical values are -10, -20, and -30 dB.
If you’re shopping for an inline pad, don’t skimp on a cheap one that may color the sound of the microphone or prevent phantom power from passing. These devices are not particularly expensive, with prices starting at around $20 for a good one, so I recommend carrying a few of them in your gig bag — you never know when you may need one!
A pad is something you may not need on every gig, but when you’re dealing with loud sounds captured by mics placed close to the source, it will help keep your signal distortion-free. Happy attenuating!
Photographs courtesy of the author.
Ultra Hi-Fi, Part 1: The Difference a Tonearm Makes
This four-part series will touch on topics that will help you achieve your goal of creating the perfect audio system — what we call “Ultra Hi-Fi.” The first of these is about tonearms. But before we get to that, let’s cover some turntable basics.
A turntable consists of the following components:
– A chassis, or plinth.
– A platter that rotates via a belt drive or direct drive.
– A slip mat that rests on top of the platter (which acts as the cushion between the record and platter).
– A tonearm, which rests on a pivoting fulcrum, back-ended by a counterweight and front-ended by a headshell that houses the phono cartridge.
When a needle is dropped onto a record, it generates a tiny electrical signal that is equivalent to (i.e., an analog of) the dynamic content in the bottom of the grooves that represent recorded music. The cleaner the record, the better chance you have to capture every detail of the music. (Click here to learn more about how to clean your vinyl collection.)
If you’re a person who collect records to experience music as the artist intended, you need to pay particular attention to the tonearm you’re using. The main function of the tonearm is to keep the cartridge in a steady position as the record spins, at the same time allowing it to be flexible enough to move inward to the middle of the record while keeping the needle centered in the groove.
This is where the shape of the tonearm comes in. Here are the three standard types of tonearms and how they impact turntable performance:
Straight Type
There are short and long straight tonearms available. The longer ones rely on an anti-skate mechanism to counteract the inward frictional forces caused by the spiral on the disc. This adds complexity and mass to the tonearm mechanism itself.
A short straight tonearm has less mass and can respond nimbly to pull more musicality from the groove of the record. In addition, its geometry requires no anti-skate mechanism to counter the inward forces, as is utilized in longer straight tonearms. In theory, the shorter the arm, the less chance for vibration and thus the greater the stability. As an example, the Yamaha GT-5000 turntable features a short tonearm and an oversized platter.
J Type
Though nearly the same as a straight tonearm, this variation has the headshell jetting out to the right (towards the center of the record), giving it a characteristic “J” shape. The purpose of the angled headshell is to let a longer arm fit into a smaller space, which reduces the possibility of tracking errors as the record plays.
This kind of design also provides extra weight to the arm, which keeps vertical momentum to a minimum and prevents the stylus from bouncing out of the groove.
S Type
The S Type is designed to keep the tonearm balanced horizontally, adding more protection from the variables of a wobbly disk, a vibrating chassis and tracking errors. The intent is to create a fulcrum point in the middle of the tonearm, balancing the needle so it rests more in the center of the groove, which in turn allows it to capture as much audio as possible.
Having a tonearm that is the right amount of flexible and firm is paramount to a smooth audio performance. With so many different turntables on the market, from entry-level to luxury, some research may be required to determine the unit that will best suit your needs. Here’s a tip: Visiting stores in person will allow you to test out different tonearms and hear the sonic difference they make.
Check out our other Ultra Hi-Fi blog postings:
Part 2: The Difference Made by Speaker Driver Materials
Part 3: The Difference Made by a Balanced Signal Path
Part 4: Going Beyond Perfection
Click here for more information about Yamaha turntables.
Dante® 101
You may have noticed that, alongside the usual audio input and output connectors, some of your digital audio gear has ports that look like large phone jacks. These are network ports, and they enable a variety of devices to be interconnected and share audio.
Audinate’s Dante® has become the most common protocol for digital audio networking, and you’ll find it in a variety of audio devices, including many Yamaha digital mixers, processors, power amplifiers and even speakers. Dante is now being used not just in large-scale installations and tours but also in small PA systems, making it one of the most exciting new developments in live sound.
Let’s find out what the fuss is all about.
Can We Borrow Your Cable?
Dante employs common Ethernet technology borrowed from the computer industry to transmit digital audio, but it’s important to know that Dante is not the same as Ethernet. That said, there are many similarities. For one thing, Dante connectors look like Ethernet connectors and use the same type of cable (CAT5e or CAT6). In addition, standard off-the-shelf network switches (sometimes called hubs) are used to create a Dante network, so you don’t need to purchase proprietary network hardware. (See the Dante website for a list of recommended network switches; Yamaha offers several network switches as well.)
Any Dante-enabled device can exchange audio (and video) with another Dante-enabled device, as long as they have the same capabilities. Dante networks can be made larger as your needs grow, but devices using other types of audio networks are not compatible with Dante networks:
Why Dante?
Dante audio networking provides many advantages over traditional analog audio connectivity.
A single CAT5e/6 cable can carry hundreds of channels of digital audio, whereas analog audio requires one cable per audio channel. CAT5e/6 cable is inexpensive and light so it’s easy to carry a spare; in contrast, analog copper snakes are heavy, expensive, and difficult to wrangle during setup and teardown. And if a CAT5e/6 cable becomes damaged, you might even have a shot at finding a last-minute replacement at an office supply store. (Try that with an analog snake!)
Last but certainly not least, you’ll never worry about the gender of the connector at the end of the cable the way you do when dealing with analog audio. That’s because CAT5e/6 cables always have male connectors at both ends, with the direction of the signal determined by the software. Cable lengths of up to 300 feet are safe for reliable operation in Dante networks
When used with Gigabit Ethernet hardware (that is, hardware that supports a maximum data rate of one gigabit per second), Dante is capable of routing up to 512 channels of inputs and outputs at resolutions from 48 kHz/24-bit up to 192 kHz/32-bit. (Higher sample rates and bit depths will result in reduced channel count.) Multitrack recording is supported, too. With the use of an Audinate Dante Virtual Soundcard (which plugs into your computer’s Ethernet port), your DAW software will recognize a Dante network as a sound card. Alternatively, you can use a Yamaha AIC128-D Accelerator Card, which can be installed into any available PCI Express slot in your Mac® or Windows® computer.
Setup
Building a Dante network is like creating a computer network. Like computer networks, Dante networks can be set up in several different ways.
The simplest Dante network requires two Dante-enabled audio devices, a network switch, and a computer with an Ethernet port. The computer also needs to be running Audinate’s Dante Controller software (which runs on PC or Mac platforms and is available free of charge) in order to configure the network. If you are not using your computer for recording, you can disconnect it after you have set up the network. Note that Dante does not operate via Wi-Fi because Wi-Fi isn’t fast enough for reliable transport of digital audio.
Dante-enabled devices have at least one Dante port, known as the primary port. (Some devices may also have a secondary port for redundancy in critical applications.) Many Yamaha audio products, such as the DZR/DXS Series of powered loudspeakers, already have built-in Dante ports, while other Yamaha devices have a rear-panel slot to accept a Dante expansion card. For example, the Yamaha NY64-D Audio Interface Card can be installed in any Yamaha TF Series digital mixer, and the Yamaha DANTE-MY16-AUD2 card can be installed in selected Yamaha mixers, processors or power amplifiers, making them Dante-capable:
To create a Dante network, first turn all your audio equipment off, including your computer. Connect a CAT5e/6 cable from the primary Dante port on each device to any port on a Gigabit network switch such as the Yamaha SWP1-16MMF. Also connect a CAT5e/6 cable from your computer to the SWP1-16MMF (again, with the computer turned off). When you power up the devices they will automatically “discover” each other and you’ll be able to patch audio between them using the Dante Controller software:
Even after the networked devices are turned off or disconnected, the connections are remembered. When you reassemble or power up your system again, all of your previous connections will be made automatically.
Can You Do A Split?
One of the really cool features of Dante is that it can split an output signal without the need for additional hardware. Let’s suppose you are doing sound in a large ballroom and need to have a series of speakers placed around the room so that everyone in the audience can hear the artist. Dante Controller allows you to split the main outputs from the mixer to the inputs of multiple sets of powered speakers. And, because Dante is routing digital data and not analog audio, you don’t have to worry about the signal degradation that occurs when you split an analog audio signal:
Larger music productions often require one mixer for front-of-house and another for the monitor mixes. The network switch that connects the consoles on a Dante network makes an analog snake/splitter unnecessary. You can connect microphones and DIs into one of the consoles, and Dante will allow you to digitally distribute these signals to the other console via the network:
As you can see, Dante is a very powerful tool that can be used to create audio networks ranging in size from small club venues to massive systems requiring hundreds of channels. By using Dante-enabled digital audio products, you can easily create a network that works for your particular application.
Want to become a Dante expert? Audinate offers a number of online and live training programs, as well as video tutorials. Click here for more information.
Kissing Frogs
I’ve never found the John to my Paul, the Bernie to my Elton, the Carole to my Gerry. There were times I wished I had (found a steady, life-long writing partner, that is) so I could keep coming back to the same safe place over and over again and not have to date around or kiss frogs to find a prince. But that’s not the way it happened for me.
Mind you, I’m sure I have been the frog on occasion. Sadly, it just goes with the territory. We’re not all good together. Just because Billy and Dan wrote a song I love doesn’t mean that I can write a hit with Billy, or Dan, for that matter. And neither of them will necessarily write a smash with somebody I wrote one with. Chemistry between two creators is a random and mysterious thing.
Although I never had that one steady go-to, I have had many outstanding partners over the years, and with each one I discovered something different about my own creativity. So maybe in retrospect variety has been a blessing.
How does one find their Mr. or Ms. Write? We can’t swipe left on a co-writing App. (Then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if we could. Nonetheless, I’m going to assume for the sake of this blog that we can’t.) In order to know if a one-on-one will be fruitful and prosperous, we simply have to get in the room with a suitor and have a go at it. Who knows? At the end of the day we might find the experience mutually productive and satisfying.
If you’re like me and particularly enjoy writing solo, you may want to consider switching it up now and then. After all, having another perspective opens the mind, pushes the boundaries, gets one out of one’s comfort zone. Besides, it’s nice to have company once in awhile. In the wise words of Bob Merrill, people who need people are the luckiest people in the world. 🙂
From my experience, here are some tell-tale signs that I may have found a match. He or she:
… texts me that they’re running ten minutes late to our first session, which makes me feel better since it’s likely I’m running ten minutes late as well.
… believes in me from the minute they open the door. I can feel it. This is most beneficial for my self-confidence. That doesn’t guarantee I’ll be on my A-Game. But it helps.
… allows time for pregame conversation when a title or concept is likely to spring forth organically so we never have to resort to that dreaded question: What should we write about?
I’ve also learned that a good collaborator:
… inspires me
… is inspired by me
… has a good sense of humor. Laughter is so important to any relationship!
… is easy to get along with. I have to enjoy my co-writer’s company immensely on a personal level.
… is comfortable flying their freak flag — which in turn encourages me to do the same.
… doesn’t necessarily have the same strengths as me, which is a good thing. Too much salad and not enough dressing makes for a dull salad.
… remembers the snacks!
… makes me feel like I’m the only one they want to be working with that day, and that the two of us together are magical, in sync. We’re not even thinking that much: It’s just flowing. He’s finishing my lines, I’m finishing his. She’s taking my good idea and making it better by substituting a minor chord instead of a major, or by adding a 7th or an extra measure. Or by being brave enough to suggest cutting out half of the second verse! (How dare she? But maybe she’s right. Less really is often more.)
In sum, a good collaborator is anything but a frog. I can’t wait for our next session. Our next song. And each time we get together to write, I’m excited, motivated, eager.
So experiment. Try writing with anyone who seems like a good possible collaborator. Kiss as many frogs as you can. You’ll be better for it.
I know I am.
Photographs courtesy of the author.
Spotlight on THR-II
Every electric guitarist is familiar with tube amp stacks that sound amazing when turned up loud on a big stage, and with combo amps that are a perfect fit for smaller venues and rehearsals. The Yamaha THR broke the rules, ignoring the convention that a practice amp should simply be a smaller version of a larger amp. In doing so, it created a new category — the desktop amplifier — designed to provide what guitarists need when they’re playing at home. Now, with more sounds, more features and wireless connectivity, the three amps in the all-new THR-II series expand the concept even further.
All THR-II amps provide 15 guitar amp models, 3 bass amp models and 3 mic models for acoustic-electric guitars, as well as Hi-Fi audio playback to ensure your music sounds as good as your guitar tone, with extended stereo that creates a wide, spacious audio image. In addition, there’s Bluetooth® connectivity for wireless playback of your music and the THR Remote editor app (available for iOS and Android™), which allows you to do deep editing of effects and access a compressor and noise gate. The THR10II WL Wireless and THR30II WL models also include a built-in rechargeable battery and Line 6 wireless receiver. Just grab your THR-II, your guitar and a Line 6 Relay G10Tii transmitter (sold separately), and play anywhere your music takes you.
Artists all over the world are using THR-II series amps. Want to hear what they have to say? Check out the video:
Click here to learn more about Yamaha THR-II series amplifiers.
Introducing Steinberg UR-C Series Audio Interfaces
As we’ve discussed previously here on the blog, not all audio interfaces are created equal. Case in point: Steinberg’s line of UR-C Series audio interfaces, which offer speedy USB 3.0 connectivity, superior sound quality, plenty of I/O options and a comprehensive collection of included software.
The UR-C line consists of two tabletop models — the UR22C and UR44C — and the rackmountable UR816C. All are compatible with Mac® and PC computers as well as selected iPads.
Key Features
– USB 3.0 Connectivity. Connection is made to your computer or iPad® via a USB-C port, with USB 3.1 (Gen 1 SuperSpeed) support for super-fast data transfer. If you’re using a legacy computer, no problem — there’s backwards compatibility with USB 2.0.
– 32-bit integer/192kHz audio. All UR-C Series interfaces provide up to 32-bit integer resolution, which means that when you record into one of the mic, line or instrument inputs, your analog audio is converted to digital data at the highest bit-resolution available today. Combine that with the maximum sampling rate of 192kHz, and we’re talking audio quality that meets or exceeds even that of high-end pro gear.
– Built-in Yamaha D-Pre Mic Preamps allow you to capture clear, accurate recordings with full sonic detail.
– Powerful DAW software included. Every UR-C Series interface comes with downloadable versions of Steinberg’s feature-laden Cubase AI for Mac/PC, as well as a copy of Cubasis LE for iPad.
– An onboard DSP mixer with latency-free monitoring, controlled by the provided dspMixFx software.
– Effects galore. Included is Yamaha Rev-X reverb as well as Steinberg’s Sweet Spot Morphing Channel Strip and Guitar Amp Classic plug-ins, all of which can be run on the URC’s onboard DSP, thus freeing up your computer’s DSP and allowing real-time monitoring with effects. These plug-ins come in both VST 3 and AU versions, so you can open them inside your DAW.
– A variety of I/O options. Each URC model provides different audio I/O options, allowing you to choose the one that best matches your needs and budget. The UR22C has two analog XLR/TRS combo mic/line inputs, two TRS main outputs and a TRS headphone output. The UR44C offers four XLR/TRS combo inputs plus two additional TRS line inputs, four TRS line outputs, two TRS main outputs and two independent headphone outputs. The flagship UR816C features eight combo XLR/TRS mic/line inputs, eight TRS line outputs, two main outputs and two independent headphone outputs. It also includes a pair of ADAT optical ports, allowing you to expand your input and output count by up to 16 by connecting compatible interface or preamp units.
– Bus power. Both the UR22C and UR44C offer the convenience of bus-powered operation (no AC adapter required!) when plugged into a USB-C-equipped Mac or PC.
– Dedicated MIDI In and Out ports make it super convenient to connect controllers and other MIDI devices.
– There’s a complete recording bundle available too. Steinberg’s UR22C Recording Pack gives you everything you need to get started. In addition to the UR22C interface and its included recording software, you also get a Steinberg ST-M01 studio condenser microphone and a set of ST-H01 studio monitor headphones.
Check out the video!
Click here for more information about Steinberg UR-C Series interfaces.
Click here for more information about the Steinberg UR22C Recording Pack.
Dialing In Your Live Sound
An evening walk is a great way for me to unwind from the day, stretch my body and enjoy the scent of the local Hawaiian flora as the sun sets across the ocean. But I also use this time to clear my mind and pay attention to the details around me. One of the things I’ve been doing for a while now is to sit quietly and listen intently to the sounds I hear, both in my immediate surroundings and far into the distance. I make a mental note of each sound and where in the audio field I hear it.
I’ve found that taking a few moments each day to listen to my natural environment helps me become a better audio engineer. I hear sonic details with far more clarity because I’ve trained my mind and ears to really discern the pitch, rhythm, harmony and melody resonating from my studio speakers.
Years of live performance in a variety of venues has also given me a broad spectrum of experience setting up my guitar and vocal tones, as well as how to orient and “dial in” the public address (PA) system.
Anyone who performs live knows that there are many sonic variables to deal with that can have a huge impact on the success and enjoyment of your show — both personally for you, and for your audience. Let’s take a look at some of the factors to consider and talk about what you can do to increase or reduce their impact on your sound.
Room Ambience
Every venue will have its own ambient sound and its own set of challenges. Larger rooms will tend to have more reverberance and echo than smaller ones. Wooden floors and lots of large windows will increase those reflections too. Your goal should be to reduce the amount of reverb and delay in your sound to compensate for the “live-ness” of a room.
For example, if the room you’re playing in has a wooden, tiled or concrete floor, try to arrange to have a large rug to stand on during your performance. This will serve to reduce the amount of reflections in your immediate playing area.
If you’re fortunate enough to get in a soundcheck before showtime, understand that the reflected sound will probably reduce dramatically when the venue fills up with people, since all those bodies will effectively act as acoustic absorbers. If that happens, you may be able to increase both your overall volume and effects levels.
Proximity
If you set up your own sound system, pay attention to where you place your speakers. If they are on the floor or close to a wall, expect an increase in the bass response. If this is undesirable, place the speakers on stands, and if possible, move them away from the wall surfaces. The Yamaha DXR mkII line of speakers feature a D-Contour section that allows you to select whether each speaker is being used for front of house (FOH) or as a floor monitor; there’s also a separate switch to filter out low-end resonance.
Outdoor Atmospherics
A lot of my solo gigs have been residences at open-air venues. I’ve found that often the sonics varied from night to night, even though I would set up in the same spot. That’s because air pressure, humidity and wind direction all have a dramatic effect on your sound. In addition, after sunset, the temperature drops, which will cause your sound to change as well.
A light breeze from behind you can help carry your sound to the audience, while a breeze blowing towards you will allow you to hear more “you” — both positives. However, a strong wind coming sideways into your microphone can cause uncontrollable feedback!
I always use a foam windshield for my microphone, which helps somewhat. Even so, windy coastal locations can be a complete nightmare! In severe situations, I suggest turning down the overall volume, rolling off some high-end frequencies and reducing your reverb. Turning to have the wind facing you and staying in close proximity to the mic will also help.
If you use an acoustic guitar and looper, and the wind is blowing into the sound hole of your guitar, you may want to orient your instrument away from the wind or use a covering device called a “feedback buster.” My advice is to keep one of these in your guitar case at all times!
Monitoring
Onstage or in-ear monitors are great if you have them. If not, your only option is to reference your sound via what’s coming through the PA speakers. To avoid feedback, try to position yourself behind the speakers. If feedback still occurs, move your microphone backwards until it stops. (For more tips, see our blog articles on how to fight feedback.)
The integrated Yamaha STAGEPAS 1K mkII systems are excellent for self-monitoring since the line array of speakers disperses the sound horizontally at an exceptionally wide 170 degrees, with an extended vertical throw for both seated and standing audiences. I’ve used a pair of the STAGEPAS 1K towers in close proximity many times, and they were excellent for both stage and venue sound.
Sound Engineers
If you’re lucky (or, in some cases, unlucky) enough to play in a venue that provides a house engineer, there are a couple of tips I’d like to share with you. Some engineers are exceptionally nice and incredibly talented, and will know the room and how to get the best sound for you. My advice is to set up quickly and quietly, and give them exactly what they need, with no fuss. Make a friend of the engineer and he/she will do their best to accommodate your needs. Upset them and they have the power to destroy your show. (It’s said that every mixing console has a “Suck” button on it … don’t make them push it!)
Above all, don’t be afraid to ask for what you need … within reason. After all, you’re the artist and it’s the house engineer’s job to help you shine.
Running Your Own Sound System
If you set up and run your own sound system, learn its inherent characteristics and features, and don’t be afraid to spend a lot of time at home dialing in sounds. You can then use your experience and listening skills to fine-tune those sounds at the venue. Getting the basic balance between your guitar and vocals is key. Creating the optimum guitar tone to support your voice starts with the guitar you use. For more information, see my blog posting “The Principles of Musical Architecture.”
The Videos
I recently played some shows at Tournez La Page in Hamamatsu, Japan, and these videos show two of my performances. I’d programmed all my guitar and vocal tones into my Line 6 Helix before leaving for the trip, and I chose to use my solid-body Yamaha Revstar 720B electric, rather than my Yamaha AC5R acoustic, so that I could improvise over live loops without the chance of feedback. Taike Oshiro and Yamaha Guitars in Japan were kind enough to let me use a pair of STAGEPAS 1K systems for the rehearsal and performance.
All I had to do was position the two towers, run the left and right outputs of the Helix to a channel on each of the two STAGEPAS 1K systems and turn up the volume. No EQ was needed, and it sounded great in every part of the venue. As expected, the volume was reduced when the audience filled the room, but I adjusted that after the first song using the volume control on Helix. That was literally all the setup required!
The Wrap-Up
Nothing prepares you to deal with the rigors of live sound better than performing on a regular basis. One gig is worth a hundred rehearsals.
Do your stage prep and dial in your sounds at home ahead of time. Set up your sound system in a variety of places to get a perspective on what the ambient space will do to your tone. Don’t be afraid to use EQ, if needed, and ask a respected friend their opinion on the balance and “listenability” of your sound. Above all, be critical with your tones and prepare to be your very best at all times.
Photograph courtesy of the author.
Check out Robbie’s other postings.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha STAGEPAS 1K mkII PA system.
Click here for more information about the Line 6 Helix guitar processor.
Click here for more information about Yamaha Revstar guitars.
Click here for more information about Yamaha A Series A5 acoustic guitars.
Film Sound: Behind the Scenes
It’s the end of a long, stressful day, and you’re ready to unwind with a great movie in your home theater. The scenes rapidly unfold and take you on a journey of sight, sound and adventure.
But what you may not realize is that, in addition to the dialogue, pictures and music telling the story, there are layers of sound that are critical to the end result. In this article, we’ll take a look at what goes into those crucial elements.
Foley
The dictionary definition of the term Foley (named after sound effects pioneer Jack Foley) refers to the “addition of recorded sound effects after the shooting of a film.” Those who help create such sounds are called Foley artists.
When shooting a film, the objective on set is to use microphones to solely (or, at least, primarily) capture the dialogue of the actors (a process called field recording), with all the other audio — doors slamming, sirens wailing, glass breaking, etc. — added afterwards. This approach allows for additional control over each element later at the mix stage.
During post-production, a Foley artist would watch the film on a screen and recreate the sounds in perfect time to the action. For example, if the visual was of someone walking down a hallway, they would put on a pair of shoes similar to those used by the actor or actress onscreen, place a microphone near the floor and painstakingly record each footstep in perfect synchronization to the picture. Done correctly, the viewer wouldn’t have any awareness that the sound of those shoes were actually recorded and mixed into the picture independently.
But, like most other aspects of film-making, the process has evolved over time. For one thing, the work now usually occurs in specialized “Foley studios” that are outfitted with every manner of sound-mimicking devices, such as boxes filled with different kinds of material to simulate different floor surfaces. For another, the process has become even more specialized. “Foley today tends to be just those sounds created by human interaction, such as footsteps created by different shoes on different surfaces, picking things up, putting on a jacket, moving through brush, or fidgeting with something in your hands,” explains veteran Hollywood sound supervisor / sound designer Scott Gershin, whose list of credits includes Night Crawler, Pacific Rim, Shrek and American Beauty.
Sound Effects and Sound Design
Gershin emphasizes, however, that Foley is just one of the tools in the sound designer’s toolbox. “We also cut in sound effects, which range from gunshots and explosions to vehicles and car chases, as well as the simple sound of something like a doorbell or a chime that rings when a car door is opened. In addition, we may be called upon to design sounds that don’t exist in nature, such as creatures, robots, exotic energy weapons, starships, etc., using sound effects in a stylish way to create emotions and storytelling. This can be things such as how fan blades evolve into a Huey helicopter in Apocalypse Now, or a slow motion scene that suspends time, or a scene where everything is being seen through a distorted reality.”
An integrated approach is often the best one. “Many times,” Gershin says, “sound designers will work with Foley artists and use Foley stages to create elements in their design, such as shooting pennies across the room to be used as bullet sounds.”
Walla
Then there’s walla, which is different than either the dialogue recorded by the actors, or Foley, or sound effects. Gershin explains: “We bring in a “walla group,” which typically consists of eight to fifteen actors who, while watching picture, vocalize the sound of a background crowd in the scene, such as patrons in a restaurant, or outdoor street markets, or people just standing talking on the corner. They may also do chants and even sing-alongs in any accent or language.” It then becomes the job of the film’s dialogue editor to glue it all together and make it sound like it all happened at the same time.
Of course, with animated movies like Shrek or The Book of Life, there is literally no production sound at all. So every element — from the voices of the characters to the sounds they make to the environment itself — has to be created from scratch in the studio.
Think about your favorite action scene from any recent movie. Likely, it encompasses all of the above: Foley, sound effects, sound design and walla, along with dialogue and music. All of these separate elements would be combined together on the final mix stage, and the mixers would have control over each to create a finished product.
If it’s done right, you won’t think about any of it, leaving you to just focus on the story. And that, after all is said and done, is the ultimate goal of any great movie.
Check out the video!
Click here for more information about Yamaha AV products.
Creating Opportunity
The stars seem to align sometimes. Things just seem to happen in this cosmic way: You’re in a certain place, you meet someone, and then something happens as a result, which leads to other things happening. But it’s not just about recognizing opportunity and taking advantage of it when it comes your way; it’s about making opportunities for yourself. You need to put yourself in the right situation and right headspace. That’s what gives you a chance at succeeding.
Those aren’t my words. (I wish they were!) They came from the lips of famed British producer Stephen Lipson (Jeff Beck, Paul McCartney, Annie Lennox, Pharrell Williams), who I had the pleasure of interviewing some years ago.
It brings to mind the old adage, “The harder I worked, the luckier I seemed to get.” In Stephen’s case, he spent years cutting his teeth as a session guitarist but found himself growing frustrated at the lackluster sounds the engineers of the era were getting, sparking in him a desire to master the craft of audio recording. He eventually crossed paths with a businessman who owned a jingle company and wanted to build a recording studio. Despite his lack of technical knowledge, Lipson wasted no time volunteering himself for the job, learning on the fly what was required and trusting his instincts and his ears.
Would you call that luck? Perhaps partially. But I would maintain that Stephen’s vision and dogged work ethic — not to mention his willingness to put his butt on the line if he failed — had far more to do with his ultimate success than dumb luck.
Looking back on my own career, I realize that it was an opportunity I created that unwittingly led to my position here as editor of the Yamaha blog. Ever since I was a teenager, I was fascinated with synthesizers, and the way that they could make sounds out of electronic circuits rather than being struck, plucked, blown into or otherwise physically assaulted. By the time I was in my twenties, I owned one of the early portable analog synths and spent hundreds of hours tweaking its dials, turning its knobs and painstakingly writing out “patch charts” of the sounds I was fashioning.
That experience led to my landing a part-time job at a music store when I moved to London in the mid-1970s. This particular shop specialized in keyboards, and I spent most of my days there learning how to program the synthesizers they had in stock — an important part of the job, since obviously the sales staff had to know the products they were selling. At one point, the store bought a used modular synth from one of its customers — an enormous contraption that took up half a wall and required the interconnection of dozens of cables to get even the simplest bleep or bloop out of the damn thing! When it failed to sell after a couple of months, the store manager, needing the space, offered it to me at a discount price, and I snapped it up … even though the small “flat” (Brit-speak for “apartment”) I was living in at the time barely had room for the few sticks of furniture I owned.
A few years later, when I returned to the States, I found myself teaching a synth programming class at a studio in New York. One day in 1983, a client walked in the door with an odd-looking synthesizer he’d recently bought in Japan, asking a question I’d soon hear a lot:
“How the heck do I program this thing?”
The synth was a Yamaha DX7, and I had no answer for him.
But I was determined to find one. The first step was to get my hands on a DX7, but the problem was that it wasn’t yet available in the U.S. So I turned to a friend of a friend of a friend who would soon be traveling to Japan, and he offered to buy one for me and arrange to have it shipped back. It cost a small fortune, but I was nothing if not stubborn: having (figuratively) wrestled a huge modular analog synth to the ground — at least to the point where I understood how it worked — there was no way I was going to let this new-fangled digital synth with the strange green and orange membrane switches defeat me.
A few weeks later, the instrument arrived … complete with an owner’s manual written in Japanese. It might as well have been ancient Greek for all the good it did me, so I simply started pushing buttons and moving sliders, painstakingly trying to figure out what each combination of button-pushes and slider moves accomplished.
It was grueling, sometimes extremely frustrating work, but slowly I began to make sense of it all. When I felt I had a good understanding of at least the basics of FM (Frequency Modulation) programming, I called the musician who had first made me aware of the instrument and gave him a couple of lessons. By then, the DX7 had made its way to our shores and was well on its way to becoming the best-selling synthesizer of all time, so I found myself with no lack of interested clients. Giving them all private lessons would be too time-consuming, so I decided to start teaching classes in FM programming, which led to my writing a book based on the course curriculum, which led to a decade-long relationship with Yamaha as a consultant, sound developer and technical writer. Eventually, I morphed into a fulltime music journalist … which led to my becoming an editor. Ultimately it was this unusual confluence of skills that led to me landing the very fun job of helping bring this blog to you.
Did I know any of this at the time? Of course not. But it was the drive in me — along with an insatiable curiosity, an unwavering belief in myself and a willingness to work hard — that led to all the exciting things that followed. So if you’re waiting for that big break to come your way, I suggest that you instead consider taking matters into your own hands. After all is said and done, creating your own opportunity is the surest way to get those stars to align.
Photographs courtesy of Stephen Lipson and the author.
How to Clean Clarinet and Oboe Tone Holes
Most woodwind tone holes are covered by pads, but some clarinet and oboe tone holes are instead covered by the fingertips of the musician while the instrument is being played. This makes them much more susceptible to the buildup of debris — something that can have a negative impact on tone color and pitch. Excess cork grease, dirt, and skin oil on the musician’s fingers will accumulate over time until the venting of the tone hole is significantly obstructed.
Fortunately, the solution is simple. This grimy residue can easily be removed with a cotton swab or a pipe cleaner — generally no cleaners or solvents are necessary. Simply insert the swab tip into the tone hole and turn in a circular motion until all of the residue is gone. Making a habit of washing your hands before playing will also help ensure that the instrument delivers optimum timbre and pitch.
Click here for more information about Yamaha wind instrument care and maintenance kits.
Click here for more information about Yamaha clarinets.
Click here for more information about Yamaha oboes.
The Perfect Pairing: Yamaha MusicCast and Home Automation
When smart home devices work together, the possibilities are endless. Every kind of household routine — cooking, relaxing, exercising— can benefit from having the lights set a certain way, the thermostats adjusted to a particular temperature, the home security system armed or disarmed.
And then, of course, there’s music.
Any audio system offers households a wealth of benefits: tunes to keep you company while cooking dinner, soothing serenades as you get ready for bed, high-energy beats to get the blood pumping during a workout. Whatever the activity or occasion, music can help set the mood and get you in the right frame of mind.
When your system is wireless, adding audio accompaniment to your daily routine gets even easier. That’s where Yamaha MusicCast comes in: No matter where you are in your home — in fact, even if you’re outside on the patio — as long as there’s a MusicCast speaker nearby, you can stream the right type of music to suit the situation.
For example, while preparing a meal for a dinner party as you listen to a lively jazz playlist, you might also want the lights above the sink and stove set to a high intensity, the heat lowered, and the front door unlocked for your guests as they arrive. Once the buffet is set, the music, lights, temperature and security settings can change to evoke the perfect party atmosphere. The environment can change again after guests have departed: soft music, dim lighting, curtains drawn and the gas fireplace activated to help you settle in for the night.
Integrating Yamaha MusicCast products with your home automation system gives you expanded control and the ability to add music to every scenario. One simple command from a smartphone or tablet, wall-mounted keypad or handheld remote can get the entire house ready for whatever activity is planned. No need to peck through a playlist to find the perfect musical accompaniment; no need to fiddle with dimmer, thermostats or your alarm system. You won’t even need to touch the switch of your gas fireplace!
Ready to learn more? Read on!
Home Control Scenarios
Here are a few suggested music-related home control scenarios you might want to try:
Good Morning: The simple alarm clock pales in comparison to home automation integrated with MusicCast. Simply program your system to stream a choice piece of music to your bedroom speakers at a volume loud enough to wake you … while at the same time the bedroom lights gradually brighten, the motorized window shades open and the thermostat adjusts to a warmer temperature.
Treat Yourself: When you’ve got the place to yourself, relish it. Play the music you like as loudly as you like. Reminisce with ’80s hair bands or satisfy your craving for the classics. Nobody will mind. Sit in the dark — or not. Crank up the heat. You’ll hear no complaints. It’s your time, and a MusicCast-enabled home automation system can make you feel like a king (or queen) for a day — or even just a couple of hours — with perfectly curated music at the heart of it.
Put On Your Game Face: Pay tribute to your favorite sports team. On game day, tap the pre-programmed button to stream the school fight song to your MusicCast speakers throughout the house, tune the big screen TV to the channel showing the game and unlock the doors for all your friends and neighbors to come join you.
Party Time: Through the intelligence of your home control system, you can have only the lights and MusicCast speakers in a certain room or rooms respond to a Party command. Or, as the revelry builds, you might want the effect to spread to speakers and lights throughout the entire home.
Happy Holidays: If there’s a holiday or special event, you’ll want music. Oh, and festive lighting. Maybe even a few houseguests. With MusicCast and a home automation system working together, your house can get into the spirit of the season in the blink of an eye. Cue Christmas music and turn on the twinkling tree lights; on Valentine’s Day, go for a compilation of love songs plus red mood lighting and a crackling fire to rev up the romance. MusicCast plus home control makes every celebration even more special.
Control Options Galore
In the world of home control, just as in the world of music, it’s good to have options. That’s why Yamaha has teamed up with many leading providers of home control systems, including Control4, RTI, URC, Elan® (now Nice), Josh.ai, Crestron and others. Being able to choose from a variety of control systems to mate with your MusicCast products allows you to weave in any assortment of smart devices you desire, plus it ensures a level of comfort and convenience essential for any household. Best of all, integrating MusicCast with home automation can bring a whole new level of ease and enjoyment to your lifestyle.
Check out these related blog articles:
Smart Home Integration — From DIY to CI Guy
The Changing Face of Home Audio
How to Enjoy Great Outdoor Sound Without Disturbing Your Neighbors
Click here for more information about Yamaha MusicCast.
Click here for more information about Yamaha MusicCast wireless multi-room audio products.
Why Compress?
The compressor is right up there with EQ as the most commonly used signal processor in the studio, both during recording and especially when mixing. In most contemporary mix sessions, almost every track gets compressed to some extent.
Choices, Choices
No matter what DAW you use, each channel strip will have a slot reserved for a compressor. What’s more, all DAWs offer a variety of compressor choices, for the simple reason that each compressor type behaves and sounds differently. If you open the pulldown menu in Steinberg Cubase, you’ll see that you can choose between three different compressors: Standard, Tube and Vintage:
We’ll talk a little more about each of these shortly. Note that Cubase also offers several other individual compressor plug-ins that you can insert directly into the channel.
Crushing It
Compressors were developed originally as tools to control the dynamic range of audio signals (that is, the difference between the loudest and quietest parts) by reducing peaks. While that’s still their primary function, they have other uses as well, which we’ll discuss a little later in this article.
A typical compressor reduces peaks that exceed a user-selectable amplitude (volume) threshold. Any signal that’s louder than the threshold gets attenuated by a user-specified amount, which is expressed as a ratio:
For instance, if you set the ratio to 2:1, the compressor will attenuate every decibel (dB) of signal that exceeds the threshold by two decibels. If you have a peak that goes over the threshold by 4 dB, it will be reduced by 8 dB, and so on.
With the dynamic range reduced, you can turn the track up, and the whole thing will sound louder. That’s because the quieter parts will be closer in volume to the louder ones. Vocals in particular have especially wide dynamic ranges and are almost always compressed during the mixing process, and often during recording too:
Many Flavors
Most compressor plug-ins are based on the circuitry of analog hardware compressors. Many provide accurate models of particular classic units, utilizing digital algorithms that emulate the behavior of the originals very closely as onscreen knobs are “turned” and virtual switches are “pressed.” Plug-in emulations of hardware compressors also bring with them — at least in theory — the flavor of the original units’ analog tonality.
Different hardware compressors add varying colors to the sound, depending on their circuitry. Those colorings are dictated not only by a particular model’s proprietary circuitry, but also by which type of compressor they are, generically speaking. Here are the main types:
– VCA (Voltage Control Amplifier) compressors are the most common. These solid-state units are versatile and can be used for most compression applications. Depending on how they’re set, VCA compressors can handle everything from applying transparent dynamics control to squashing a source with a lot of color. The Cubase Standard compressor is modeled on this type.
– FET (Field-Effect Transistor) compressors offer the fastest attack times and therefore excel on sources with sharp transients such as drums, percussion, electric guitars, and basses. They can even create subtle distortion at extreme settings. The Cubase Vintage compressor is modeled on this type.
– Optical (Opto) compressors make a copy of the input signal, turn it into light, and then detect the level with a photosensor. They tend to offer warm sound and relatively slow attack times. The Cubase Tube compressor is modeled on this type.
– Variable Mu compressors are tube-based units known for their warm sound.
You can use compressors both correctively and creatively. For example, aggressive compression can bring additional intensity and liveliness to a track. If you’re using a plug-in that’s a hardware compressor emulation, you can also use it to give a sterile digital track some analog-like characteristics.
Side by Side
One of the most powerful ways to use a compressor is in a so-called “parallel” configuration. The basic idea is that you don’t compress the original track, but instead send a copy of it to a separate channel (in Cubase, via an Effects Track), then compress that copy heavily.
Here’s how it works: First, set the desired level of the uncompressed track. Then slowly bring up the level of the heavily compressed one until you’ve achieved the degree of compression you want. Many compressor plug-ins, including those offered by Cubase, provide a mix (“wet/dry”) control that can be used to create a similar effect.
Many mixing engineers swear by this technique. It’s used a lot on drum tracks and vocals but can be applied to any source that you want to make sound more squashed. In fact, the only time parallel compression doesn’t work well is if you’re looking for transparent dynamic control, where you don’t want the effect to be sonically apparent.
In the Zone
While most compressors work across the whole frequency spectrum, specialized tools called multiband compressors allow you to set up several frequency “zones” (most commonly, four) and apply compression separately to each. As a bonus, these can be used to not only compress, but also shape frequency content:
For example, say a vocalist sings a lot louder during a chorus because she has to sing in a higher range, but when she does so, it creates harshness in the upper midrange. You could use EQ to reduce those offending frequencies, but that would affect them for the whole song and might not sound good when she’s singing more quietly in the verses and bridge. Much better to use a multiband compressor to affect only that one frequency area, with the threshold set high enough so that the attenuation only happens when her voice gets louder during the choruses.
The bottom line is this: Whether you’re using them to control dynamic range, add excitement, change tonal color, soften transients or reduce particular frequency ranges at specific amplitude levels, compressors are potent creative tools in the studio.
Check out our other Recording Basics postings.
Click here for more information about Steinberg Cubase.
Spotlight on STAGEPAS 1K
Introducing STAGEPAS 1K: an all-in-one portable PA system that allows you to quickly and easily transform any location into your stage, combining professional level sound quality with a setup so simple it enables you to focus on your music and get the most out of your performances.
STAGEPAS 1K includes a high-output thousand-watt amplifier and an array of ten 1.5″ high-frequency speakers, plus a large 12″ subwoofer, with a five-channel digital mixer tucked inside. The mixer offers three channels of mono mic/line/instrument inputs and a stereo input with dual 1/4″ jacks and an 1/8″ mini jack, plus support for wireless playback from Bluetooth® devices such as smartphones and tablets. It provides a wealth of sound-shaping tools, including 1-knob EQ for fast setting of optimized multi-band EQ, industry standard Yamaha SPX reverb, and selectable master output settings for common applications such as speech, music and dance. You can even remotely control the mixer from your Android™ or iOS device using the free Yamaha STAGEPAS Editor app, allowing you to make adjustments wirelessly from the stage or from the audience. The app also provides eight scene memories so you can save your settings and easily recall them for your next performance.
It may be feature-packed, but STAGEPAS 1K is lightweight enough to be easily carried by anyone, simple enough to set up in less than a minute, and durable enough to withstand harsh environments. No speaker stands or additional gear is required: everything is provided. It even comes with its own cover, which not only protects the unit but also has pouches for both spacers and the speaker array as well as storage pockets for microphones, cables, etc., thereby streamlining system setup and teardown — and leaving you more time for rehearsing and relaxing pre- and post-performance.
Want to know more? Check out the videos:
Click here to learn more about Yamaha STAGEPAS 1K.
Piano and Digital Keyboard Warmup
It’s one of the secrets of the pros, but unfortunately, students and budding performers rarely consider the need to warm up their body, mind and fingers before a session at the keys. In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into this important, yet often overlooked subject.
Clear Your Mind
When it comes to playing keyboards (or any instrument, for that matter), your mental attitude is as important as your physical condition. So take a moment to relax your mind before you start to practice or play. You want to be able to focus completely on what you’re doing, and if you’re playing with other musicians, you need to be able to zero in on what they’re doing without any mental distractions. Stop thinking about those chores and errands you need to run, or that thing that happened earlier in the day that bothered you, or that misplaced pedal or cable. Whatever it is, turn off your mind from all of that and get into a place of focus and concentration for the task at hand.
Stretch, Stretch and Then Stretch Some More
I like to start out by doing a simple hand stretching exercise. Hold your hands out in front of you and simply extend your fingers as widely apart as you can. (Think “jazz hands”!)
Hold the extended position for 5 – 10 seconds and then relax. Repeat this a few times, and then shake your hands vigorously to get the blood flowing. Next, curl your fingers up into a tight fist, keeping your thumb out:
Make sure all your finger joints are bent. Hold this position for five seconds, then open and relax the hand. Repeat a few times and then shake your hands as described in the preceding paragraph. Try combining both exercises: Do the stretch, then bring your hand into a fist and squeeze gently, shaking your hands vigorously in-between.
Playing the keyboard involves more than the fingers, so it’s important to think about your arms, shoulders and neck as well. Start by rolling your head lazily in a clockwise direction a few times, then switch it up and go counter-clockwise. Don’t strain, just do it in a very relaxed manner. Then do some shoulder crunches, where you lift your shoulders up high towards your head and then relax them. Here’s a video that goes into greater detail on ways to stretch and work out kinks in your shoulders and neck.
Next, lift your arms up high so you feel both your upper arms and shoulders stretching nicely. Don’t force it; the idea is to lightly stretch and work the muscles. Then bring your arms out to your sides, parallel with the ground. Hold them there for a few seconds, and then bring them behind you, just a little bit. You’ll really feel this one! Rest for a moment, then bring your arms completely in front of you, reaching as far forward as you can. Be sure that you’re breathing normally during all of this: don’t hold your breath during each exercise.
This may seem like a lot, but you can easily execute all these moves within just a few minutes, and doing so will really help relax you and get you ready for the playing to come.
Keyboard Finger Stretches
There are also a number of great exercises you can do at the keyboard to help stretch your hand and work each of your fingers. Here’s one that’s both simple and effective:
1. Place your right hand with your thumb on Middle C and your fingers above the adjacent five white notes (C to G):
2. Now lift and then play Middle C with your thumb slowly. Repeat, being sure to lift the thumb high off the key each time before playing it again. Be sure that you are not pressing down on any of the other white keys.
3. Relax the thumb and then do the same movements with your index finger on D.
4. Repeat this concept for each of the other fingers. You’ll find the ring finger on F to be the hardest to execute cleanly.
5. Do the same with your left hand, placing your pinky on the C below Middle C.
Here’s an audio clip of me doing this exercise, with each finger playing the note three times before moving to the next one:
This next exercise is more advanced, and is recommended for intermediate to advanced players:
1. Place your right hand with the thumb on Middle C, and the third (middle) finger on G:
2. Play those notes at the same time and hold them.
3. Next, play E-flat with your second (index) finger, and B-flat with your fourth finger. Make sure they sound at exactly the same time. When you press down those notes, lift your thumb and middle finger up high off the keys. In this way you are both stretching your playing fingers widely apart and stretching the released fingers up high, working the muscles in two directions at once.
4. Next play the middle finger again on the G while your fifth finger (the pinky) plays the C above it. Again, be sure they strike at the same time, and lift the second and fourth fingers high off the keys.
You don’t need to do this fast: the idea is to concentrate on stretching the fingers apart and accurately sounding the double notes together. Those of you familiar with chords and harmony will notice that you’re playing a C-minor seventh chord. You can do this exercise going through all the types of seventh chords, as shown below:
Here’s an audio clip of me playing each of these different chords:
Note that the major seventh chord shape will be the hardest to do, as it involves the most stretching of the fingers. Advanced players can try this exercise in all twelve keys. Good luck with it!
Additional Tips and Tricks
– If you live in a cold climate, or your keep your air conditioning cranked, think about running your hands under warm water for a few minutes before starting — this will help loosen the muscles. I know a pianist who used to soak their hands in a bowl of warm water before every performance, for the same purpose.
– Sit in a chair that has arms, and place your own arms so that your wrist and hands fall freely to the front of the chair’s arms:
– Now lift your hands up slowly so you feel your wrists getting stretched:
When you return your arms back in place, push a little further down to curl them under so you stretch the forearm and wrist muscles a bit in the opposite direction.
– Always pay attention to your posture. Keep your back straight, your shoulders relaxed, and hold no tension in your arms or body. (Something that applies to life in general, not just when you’re sitting at a keyboard!)
Photos courtesy of the author.
All audio played on a Yamaha P-515.
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Tips and Tricks for the Road Dog
I count myself among the lucky ones who have never seriously damaged their basses while practicing, performing or traveling. No snapped headstocks or broken tuners; no cracks, gouges, scratches or major dings; no broken pots, snapped toggle switches or mangled jacks. I will admit, however, to once scrubbing mold stains off a bass following a major water leak in my band’s basement rehearsal studio. The instrument cleaned up nicely, faint blue cheese odor not withstanding. But I digress …
Actually, “luck” is the wrong word to use. My basses have survived as well as they have by design. They are the embodiment of a serious investment of my money, time and passion, so when it comes to taking them out of the house, the last thing I want to do is be careless or lazy. Through habitual vigilance, you too can protect your bass from mishaps while traveling between shows, setting up and breaking down, and even during performances. Most of my approach is just common sense. Your bass is meant to be played, not looked at, but it’s an extension of you, so there’s nothing wrong with being overzealous about protecting it.
Your Bass Needs a Case
This may be stating the obvious, but nothing will protect your bass like a case. They’re not all made the same, but any case is better than no case at all. I’ve read that Jaco Pastorius used to carry his bass around with wild abandon, both indoors and out, but you’re not Jaco. (Who among us is?) Weather can damage a mere mortal’s bass quickly, as can an unexpected slip on a step, sidewalk or parking lot. With one hand on your bass and nothing else to protect it from a sudden fall (except your body), real damage is only one misstep away. It’s not worth the risk. Get a case.
Gig Bags vs. Hardshell Cases
In the battle between gig bags and hardshell cases, there are pros and cons to each. Neither one will likely save your bass if it’s dropped from a great height, but some protection is always better than none, and both types can protect your bass from less serious calamities.
Gig bags are lighter and more ergonomic than their hardshell counterparts due to softer handles and adjustable shoulder straps that can be tweaked to your specific needs. The ones with ample padding will protect your bass from most minor mishaps, and as a bonus, they often come with separate compartments for carrying cables, cords and even small effects pedals to prevent them from grinding up against your bass. Some gig bags even have internal bracing and/or straps that stabilize your bass to keep it from jostling around.
If there’s a bass inside, it’s critical that you always check to make sure the zippers are closed before you pick up your gig bag — in fact, my advice is to check twice! This way, you’ll never have to worry about your bass freefalling. And just because a bag is padded doesn’t mean you should stack anything on top of it. A gig bag isn’t going to offer much protection from something (or someone) heavy sitting on it, or something falling on it. It’s more like an egg carton than a crate.
Hardshell cases are more substantial than gig bags, and therefore heavier, bulkier and more unwieldy. The better ones are form-fitted with built-in structural support behind the neck to keep your bass wedged tightly in place. These structural properties enable you to stack other items — within reason — on top without putting your bass in jeopardy. Other instrument cases, drums, or even a small combo amp can usually be placed on top of a hardshell case, as long as whatever it is won’t bounce around or concentrate weight in a small spot.
If you want to stand a hardshell case up on its end, and it has your bass inside, make sure to do so with the headstock end of the case up — basses can withstand a lot of mistreatment, but they don’t like standing on their heads. Make sure you close the case’s latches first, or your bass will come tumbling out when you go to move it!
A hardshell case may show the scars from the blows it saves your bass from, but your instrument will live to play another day. A gig bag, on the other hand, may look fine on the outside, but it will be less able to ward off damage under similar circumstances.
Travel Tips
If your band travels to gigs together, be sure there’s enough space in your vehicle for all your equipment. Squeezing your bass in between, say, a guitar combo amp on casters and your drummer’s hardware bag isn’t worth the risk.
Too much space can be a problem too: if you travel in a huge van, make sure to tie down your gear to prevent it from shifting or falling … or, worse yet, conking you on the head if the driver makes a sharp turn. (This actually happened to one of The Beatles’ early drummers. Afterwards, he decided that the life of a musician was not for him, and he quit the band. Yes, this set the stage for Ringo eventually taking the drum seat, but it’s still definitely not a good thing to have happen. Again, I digress …)
Load-In, Set-Up, Performance and Load-Out
Protecting your bass on the road is largely predictable. Where things can go horribly wrong is during load-in and set-up, as well as during your performance and load-out afterwards. A cable that gets caught around a sound man’s foot can suddenly yank a bass that was leaning up against an amp and send it crashing to the floor. A drummer forgetting to fully extend the legs on a cymbal stand can send sharp metal crashing toward your bass’s neck. (Or, worse yet, your neck!) Every venue, every stage and every recording studio is different, and you have to be aware of every potential hazard — from falling down (or up) dark steps to banging your headstock into low ceilings, low-hung lights and/or speaker arrays, to tripping over cords and stage monitors.
What scares me most is leaving my gear when I’m not playing. I always set up my amp and outboard pedals first before taking my bass out of its case. If there’s time between soundcheck and the show, I put the bass back in its case; if not, I always use a guitar stand with a latch to securely hold it upright, as opposed to just leaning my bass up against my amp.
Thankfully, bass players are rarely expected to be the center of attention on stage, which is fine with me. So, during a gig, I try to avoid flopping around on the floor, jumping off drum risers or showboating in any way. Regardless of your flamboyance level, using strap locks on your bass strap is a no-brainer!
When the gig ends, I pack up my bass and put it back in its case before doing anything else — that way, it can’t get banged up during load-out. And I make sure to carry it with me to the bar (instead of leaving it unattended onstage) so I can keep an eye on it. That way, I can prevent the greatest damage of all — theft — while enjoying a well-deserved frosty one.
Check out Michael’s other blog posts.
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How To Set Up a Student Percussion Kit
Beginning percussion kits are perfect for students in elementary or middle school. These snare, bell and combo kits offer the portability, quality and sound that music educators and students need to get started in the band room.
In this article, we’ll explain the setup processes for all three types of student percussion kits. All are quick and easy, so your students can start playing right away!
Snare Drum Kit Assembly Instructions
1. Take the snare stand out of the case. There are two parts to the snare stand: the bottom and top halves.
2. Take the bottom half of the stand and loosen the bottom wing screw to unfold the legs.
3. Spread the legs wide enough so the stand does not wobble, then tighten the bottom wing screw.
4. Loosen the upper wing screw on the bottom half of the stand:
5. Insert the top half of the stand into the bottom half of the stand:
6. Tighten the wing screw when the stand is at the desired height.
7. Unfold the snare drum basket.
8. Take the snare drum and place it on the basket. Adjust the tension handle (shown below) to make the snare drum basket wider or narrower as necessary:
9. Check to make sure that the snare drum is only touching the rubber grips and not the metal part of the snare drum basket:
10. To change the angle of the snare drum, use the wing screw below the tension handle and adjust it to the angle that best suits your playing:
11. For quieter practice, follow these same steps and insert the practice pad instead of the snare drum.
Bell Kit and Combo Kit Assembly Instructions
Assembly for a bell or combo kit is similar to the snare drum kit assembly described above. In most combo kits, the snare drum and bells use the same bottom half of the stand; all you have to do is switch out the top half of the stand. It’s easy to tell the two apart: the top of the bell stand has four rubber grip points, while the snare stand has three.
Bell Assembly Instructions
1. Take the bell kit stand out of the case. There are two parts to the bell kit stand: the bottom and top halves.
2. Take the bottom portion of the stand and loosen the bottom wing screw to unfold the legs.
3. Spread the legs wide enough so the stand does not wobble, then tighten the bottom wing screw.
4. Loosen the upper wing screw on the bottom half of the stand:
5. Insert the top half of the stand into the bottom half of the stand:
6. Tighten the wing screw when the stand is at the desired height.
7. The top half of the bell kit stand unfolds in an upward motion:
8. Once unfolded, make sure the wide end of the stand is on the player’s left:
9. Note that there’s a threaded screw in the center of the stand, which aligns with the hole on the bottom of the bells. Make sure the bells touch the rubber grips to avoid any rattling.
10. To use this stand with a tunable practice pad instead of bells, align the bottom hole on the pad with the threaded screw in the center of the top half of the bell stand:
11. Twist to the right until the pad is securely fastened:
The kit is now all set and ready to play. See you in the band room!
Click here for more information about Yamaha student snare kits, student bell kits and Total Percussion combo kits.
Navigating Moral and Legal Obligations
Peter Warshaw, fine arts director for the Leander (Texas) Independent School District, gives presentations about suicide awareness to music educators.
Warshaw has lost two students as well as his wife to suicide, so he knows firsthand about the warning signs and the grief.
Music educators might have more personal relationships with their students than math or science teachers, so they may occasionally learn sensitive details about their students’ lives. What should they do with this information, and do they have obligations to help students in certain situations?
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Suicidal Thoughts
Peter Warshaw
Because of various pressures during adolescence, students are at risk for mental health issues. Therefore, teachers should learn to recognize the signs of depression and suicidal thoughts, says Warshaw, a former band and orchestra teacher. Some school districts provide training.
Warshaw helped prevent one student from attempting suicide because he alerted the parents. “If someone had suicidal ideation, I would go with the student to the counselor,” he says. “If the student is mad at me, that’s the price I’m willing to pay to keep [him or her] potentially alive.”
Child Abuse
Barry Morgan
If a student mentions physical, emotional or sexual abuse, a teacher must report it to the authorities even if the student shared details in confidence.
“[Almost] all 50 states have some type of what we call the ‘mandated reporter statute,'” says Barry Morgan, the solicitor general of Cobb County, Georgia, and a former music educator in the Cobb County School District. “If we suspect child abuse, then we are to report it. There are criminal actions if you don’t follow the letter of the law.”
Rules vary by state, but a teacher who learns about suspected abuse must report the information to a specific school or law enforcement official within a prescribed time period. Then law enforcement will investigate.
Belligerent Students
Sometimes students act out in class. In some instances, problems outside the classroom may be to blame.
“Where kids will choose to vent is a safe space, and for a lot of them, [that’s] the band room,” Warshaw says. “They’re not lashing out at us. It’s almost always about something outside — a bad interaction with a classmate, maybe their boyfriend or girlfriend just dumped them, or it can be something else that is significant — maybe something is going on at home.”
Communicate about repeated disruptive events with your principal. “Make a written record through email: ‘This happened in my class today; this is what I’ve done,'” says Morgan, who runs legal clinics for music educators. “If things come to a head, and the teacher is accused of overreacting, he can show the steps taken and how he has followed policy and procedure.”
Occasionally, a student needs to be removed from the band program. See if the school administrators will intervene. “The last thing you want is to take a kid out of the program, and the principal forces you to take that kid back,” Morgan says.
Only remove students from the program as a last resort. “Band may be the only reason why they’re coming to school,” Warshaw says. “How arrogant of me to take that away from them. I may be making the problem worse.”
Alone Time with Students
Whatever the circumstances, avoid spending one-on-one time with students because it may appear inappropriate.
“False allegations are easy to make and sometimes very difficult to disprove,” Morgan says. “I hate it that teachers have to put themselves in a position to see all of the possibilities out there, but in this day and time, they do.”
Band students often trust their instructors, so they may feel like they can open up about their problems. “I would encourage them to talk to someone else — usually a counselor,” Warshaw says.
If you need to speak with a student privately, ask another teacher to be present or record the conversation if it’s legal in your state.
“Tell the student, ‘I’m recording this conversation, not because I’m going to share it with anybody, but because I record all of my conversations with students,'” Morgan says. “It might stifle the students’ willingness to really talk about what their issues are, [but] you have to protect yourself.”
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
Denis DiBlasio: Jazz Saxophonist, Music Educator and Storyteller
Denis DiBlasio is a natural improviser. He was about 10 years old when his music teacher wrote down a blues scale in F.
“He said, ‘Just make up stuff and use these notes,'” DiBlasio says. “I must have played that thing for two years. I just beat that thing to death.”
After spending so much time on the F scale, “I was upset when I found out there were 11 others. I thought I was ready for the road,” he jokes.
Humor and self-deprecation are big parts of the DiBlasio persona. He can poke fun at himself, knowing his reputation as one of the leading jazz saxophonists of his era is secure. DiBlasio spent many years playing with legendary bandleader Maynard Ferguson and is currently the executive director of the Maynard Ferguson Institute of Jazz Studies at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, where he also leads the jazz studies and composition program. In addition to teaching and playing the baritone sax, DiBlasio is a flautist, arranger and composer.
“Fun is a Great Motivator”
DiBlasio stepped into music rather than being pushed into it — though his parents were always supportive and enjoyed hearing him play. “I didn’t have a piano-playing mother who was like, ‘You need to do this, or you need to work like that,'” he says. “What was really important is that I was left on my own to figure it out, to play with it on my own. It was always my thing.”
Music appealed to DiBlasio for a simple reason, one that might seem radical in today’s overscheduled world. “I just think it was something that was fun, like other things were fun,” he says. “I don’t want to say practice wasn’t a chore, but there were times when I practiced a lot, and there were times I didn’t. I was a kid. I’d put it down for about a month, fool around, play sports, and I’d pick it up later.”
DiBlasio is quick to note that fun isn’t the same thing as a free-for-all. “I knew early on that the better you became, the more fun it was,” he says.
Learning to play an instrument takes discipline, and being a professional means many days consumed by hours of practice. But DiBlasio emphasizes that the point of all that work was always enjoyment.
“Fun is a great motivator,” he says. “[But] fun doesn’t mean you’re goofing around. You’re working hard. You’re working really hard. Coltrane practiced 11 hours a day. He didn’t do it because he hated it. He did it because he was driven. He loved it. Call it love, call it fun, call it whatever.”
DiBlasio didn’t commit to a life in music until he needed to choose a major in college at Glassboro State College (now Rowan). Other options included becoming a marine biologist or a veterinarian. He quickly realized that he didn’t want to be a vet. “There was too much math in it,” he says with a laugh. “I didn’t realize it was science. I thought you just played with animals.”
“All Juiced In”
So DiBlasio stuck with the sax. “The more you stay involved, the more you get involved,” he says. “Before you know it, you’re all juiced in with all these different activities, and you know a lot of people. … You have a big, wide-open group of friends. And it kind of went from there.”
After getting his master’s in studio writing and production at the University of Miami, DiBlasio earned a spot in Ferguson’s high-profile band. Even though he was a full-time touring musician for only about five years, DiBlasio continued to play on and off with Ferguson for decades.
DiBlasio describes Ferguson as a “musical big brother.” The bandleader’s career started in the 1940s and continued up to his death in 2006. Ferguson was, at different times, a session player for Paramount Pictures, a close associate of counterculture figures Timothy Leary and Ram Dass, an inventor of new brass instruments, a successful recording artist, and, of course, a bandleader who played all over the world and developed a reputation for nurturing young talent.
Part of the way DiBlasio keeps Ferguson’s memory alive is by telling stories. “Just go to YouTube and type in my name,” he says. “I posted about 30 stories about Maynard.”
DiBlasio has embraced the video-sharing site. He’s posted instructional videos on a range of topics. They’re short, funny and loaded with great suggestions. In fact, DiBlasio says that people who find him on YouTube often reach out to ask him to teach or perform. “They don’t know who Maynard is, and they definitely don’t know about my career,” he says. “But they’ve seen the videos.”
DiBlasio credits his time in Ferguson’s band with launching the rest of his career. “Everything kind of blew up after that, doing clinics and concerts and teaching,” he says.
But it’s not as simple as saying he became a teacher and enjoyed his happily ever after. It’s work.
“Nothing’s Wrong with Them!”
DiBlasio says that every five to seven years, he has to come up with a whole new way of teaching. “The way I’m teaching now has nothing at all to do with the way I used to teach,” he explains. “The 19-to-22 age range isn’t the same as 19 to 22 was when I started.”
For DiBlasio, teaching is a partnership with each student. In the same way that he changes the way he performs based on who he’s playing with and the audience, he changes the way he teaches based on what his students know and care about and their life experiences. “You have to tune in to them,” he says.
He remembers when students knew jazz greats like Buddy Rich, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Woody Herman. But for many students today, “Count Basie might as well be Beethoven,” DiBlasio says.
He sometimes sees new teachers taken aback by how little their students seem to know about jazz, but DiBlasio sees this inexperience as an opportunity. “There are an awful lot of people who are interested in music but don’t know much about it,” he says. “As a teacher, you’re trying to bring them into it.”
DiBlasio says a typical reaction of a new teacher is: “These kids don’t know Count Basie. What’s wrong with them?”
DiBlasio practically roars his rhetorical response: “Well, nothing’s wrong with them! They’re fine!”
“Making Small Adjustments”
But DiBlasio readily admits that he went through a painful awakening. A few years after he started teaching, he complained to his wife. “I was resenting it,” he says. “I was saying, ‘These kids don’t get it.'”
At the time, his wife, Hilda, was teaching preschool children with learning disabilities or behavioral challenges. DiBlasio recalls that she lovingly dressed him down: “She told me, ‘You only know your topic. You know what it is. You don’t know what teaching is. Everybody knows content. Ninety percent of teaching is getting their attention.'”
Hilda went on to explain that a different tactic is needed with 3- to 5-year-old students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). “She told me, ‘You want to teach them to count? You have to figure out how to make them want to,'” he said.
DiBlasio tells the story gleefully. “If you want pity, don’t marry a smart woman.”
But the humor masks a devotion to teaching and a huge heart for his students. It takes constant self-care to keep teaching fun. “Having a great attitude about teaching doesn’t mean that all your days are going to be great,” he says. “You have to work at liking it. It’s like tuning an instrument or paddling a canoe. It only looks like it’s going straight, but really you’re making small adjustments all the time. That’s what teaching is, at least for me. … If you’re not flexible as a teacher, you’re done.”
Like playing jazz, teaching involves listening and reacting. “You’re a psychiatrist one day, a coach the next day, the next one you’re their friend, the next one you’re their dad,” DiBlasio says. “If your radar is up and picking up their signals, you find yourself changing a lot. That’s what’s exhausting. Not that they don’t deserve it. They’re good kids; they’re great kids. I love it.”
Photos by Rob Shanahan
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
Case Study: Peers Support Peers at a United Sound Chapter in Missouri
Socialization is typically a byproduct of a music program. However, in one music class at Parkway Central Middle School in Chesterfield, Missouri, socialization is the goal.
Paul Holzen
Parkway Central hosts a chapter of United Sound, a national not-for-profit program that provides musical performance experiences for students with special needs through peer mentorship.
Parkway Central’s band director, Paul Holzen, says that 20 of his band students volunteer to be “Peer Mentors” and build trusting, caring relationships with exceptional students who might not otherwise have a chance to participate in a band program. They’re not molding special education students into musicians; they’re including them in the band as peers and as “New Musicians.”
“Music is just the vehicle we’re using to build these relationships,” says Holzen, who was named a GRAMMY® Music Educator of the Year Semifinalist in 2019.
Come, Be Friends With Us
Students with intellectual or developmental disabilities might spend most of their days in their own classroom. United Sound broadens their horizons and makes them feel part of the greater school community. “The band room is where friends [are found]; if we can open the door and say, ‘Come, be friends with us,’ then we’ve maybe made a lifelong change,” says Julie Duty, founder of United Sound.
Kacey Ruckstaetter’s daughter, Alaina, has been playing cornet as a United Sound musician for the past two years at Parkway Central and has built peer relationships with students who are not in her other classes. “As she walks the halls, students give her a high five and say, ‘Hello,’ because they know her from band class,” Ruckstaetter says.
For the first 15 minutes of the United Sound class, Peer Mentors encourage New Musicians to exchange personal stories. “They’ll ask them, ‘How are you doing?'” Holzen says.
Once the socializing is done, it’s time for music. Learning to play an instrument helps students with their artistic, cognitive and physical development, Holzen says. For at least one United Sound musician, learning the clarinet has strengthened her facial muscles, and her speech therapist has noticed the improvement, he adds.
Haleigh Stiens, Parkway Central’s essential skills and special education teacher, sees her students enjoying increased independence, applying social skills and relying less on adults. “I have a very wide range of students,” she says. “It’s astounding to see how much they’ve grown.”
Peers Supporting Peers
United Sound has 85 chapters — 18 at middle schools, 62 at high schools and five at universities — in 25 states. No matter the level, all chapters are 100% student-led. United Sound provides training and materials for teachers, student volunteers and the New Musicians.
Recently completing its second year, Parkway Central’s United Sound chapter meets weekly and has six New Musicians, each one taught by three Peer Mentors. “The students do all the work,” Holzen says. “They get to know their New Musician and develop a relationship.”
Working as a team, one mentor might model playing the instrument while another points to the music.
Directors just starting a United Sound chapter should place their trust in the Peer Mentors, Stiens says. “United Sound is really built on peers supporting peers and allowing them to cultivate a relationship without constant guidance,” Stiens says. “It’s beautiful to watch.”
Each year, Holzen appoints a president and a vice president among the Peer Mentors and communicates solely with them. They, in turn, communicate with the other mentors. Holzen’s system gives students a new perspective on leadership, understanding and awareness, important qualities for middle school students. “I’m helping them to be leaders, and it’s going down the chain,” says Holzen.
As far as teaching methods, Peer Mentors take their cues from Stiens and Holzen. “The best thing a mentor can do in the beginning is watch how teachers interact with their students,” Stiens says.
Stiens says that she has witnessed middle schoolers zoning out in the classroom, but it’s different with the United Sound Peer Mentors. They zone in, pay attention, listen, solve problems and create a bond with their musician.
Before student volunteers can begin teaching, they’re put through the paces of a training program. First, they watch two United Sound videos. Then, Stiens shares specific information about the musicians they’ll be mentoring. Some of her students are nonverbal, some have the use of only one hand, some don’t like loud noises, and some have vision impairments. She discusses strategies, communication and motivation. “I typically try to convey that each student is capable of achieving the same skill, but it will be in their own way,” Stiens says.
Overcoming Challenges, Reaping Rewards
United Sound is just a fraction of Parkway Central’s band program. Holzen is one of two band directors and the school’s fine arts department chair. Holzen and co-director Chris Higgins collaborate frequently as they teach 250 band students in 6th, 7th and 8th grades.
Starting the United Sound chapter as part of Parkway Central’s overall band program had several challenges. But once overcome, the rewards were significant.
The biggest problem was having too many students who wanted to be Peer Mentors. “I had lots of students interested in participating,” Holzen says. “I hope to always have that problem.”
Another challenge was persuading the Peer Mentors to embrace their instructional roles. Even giving simple fingering directions was difficult for them at first. “They’re not used to doing that,” Holzen says. “This challenge gets gradually easier.”
Holzen’s personal goal is to help all of the New Musicians move forward and feel like they are accomplishing something while feeling as though they belong.
Although United Sound meets during Parkway Central’s weekly structured enrichment periods and not during one of Holzen’s traditional band classes, the United Sound New Musicians are members of his band. When the band hosts its two yearly concerts, the New Musicians perform not as a separate ensemble but shoulder to shoulder with their Peer Mentors, who write musical parts specifically for them.
“If you only learned two notes all year, we’ll write you a modified part to this song that plays B flat and A at exactly the right time,” Duty says. “Every time that B flat comes around, you’re going to play that B flat. Everybody’s playing a part that meets them right where they are.”
Like any young musician learning an instrument, United Sound performers have practical challenges too. Initially Alaina had difficulty learning proper breathing technique to get sound from her cornet. “She persevered, and with the help of the band director and her Peer Mentors, after a year and a half, she finally succeeded in playing the cornet,” Ruckstaetter says.
Now United Sound is the highlight of Alaina’s week. “All weekend she would let the family know how excited she was about going to United Sound on Mondays,” Ruckstaetter says. “She enjoyed it so much that the program made an impact on our entire family.”
Alaina’s cornet playing has inspired her younger brother, who plays the trumpet, to apply to be a Peer Mentor next year. “He is so excited about the opportunity to work with students like his sister and help them learn [to play] band instruments and get to know them through United Sound,” Ruckstaetter says.
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
Use Creativity to Make Rehearsals More Meaningful
A few times each semester, the band room at Hill Country Middle School in Austin, Texas, would fall completely silent.
Cheryl Floyd
As students walked to rehearsal, they saw signs reminding them that their rehearsal would involve no talking from anyone — not even the teacher.
After students took their seats, the instructor gestured for students to begin playing with information projected on a slide at the front of the classroom. On those silent rehearsals days, the room was filled only with the sound of music, not with voices. “It’s a big game,” says Cheryl Floyd, retired director of bands at Hill Country Middle School and now a Yamaha Master Educator.
Though Floyd’s silent rehearsals were effective for helping students focus on the music, they also required a high degree of trust between the students and instructor. “You have to have a routine for how you do things,” says Floyd, whose students looked forward to silent rehearsals as special occasions.
Music educators can use a variety of tactics to maintain a smooth flow during rehearsals. Floyd along with University of Illinois professors Dr. Stephen G. Peterson and Dr. Elizabeth Peterson share their best practices for managing the musical classroom.
Different Techniques for Different Age Groups
Rehearsal management techniques can vary quite a bit based on the ages and musical experiences of the students. Generally, the younger the students, the more energy they will have, and the more direction they will need.
To keep young musicians engaged, Beth Peterson, who is the assistant director of bands at Illinois, recommends directly modeling what the students need to do. “With beginning band, I would model with my trumpet all the time,” she says. “I would play a two-measure phrase and have them echo me.”
Stephen Peterson, who is currently director of bands at Illinois, has taught high school, college and graduate levels. “When I used to have problems with a [high school] student, you … never deal with that student in front of the whole group,” he says. “There’s no way you’re going to win that situation.”
With college-aged students, Peterson notes that students are serious about music and can often focus on musical aspects of the rehearsal. “They are adults, and I treat them as adults,” he says.
Though older students can often have an easier time maintaining focus, Floyd believes that younger students are up for a challenge. “They are a blank slate when they come to you,” she says of middle school students.
The Role of Music Selection
Dr. Elizabeth Peterson
According to Floyd, the music itself can also influence the level of energy in the room. Her students’ rowdiest days would often happen when the band rehearsed pep tunes for football games. “That’s what it’s supposed to do — stir up the crowd!” she says.
Consequently, Floyd planned for these days, knowing that the rehearsals would be less productive.
Beth Peterson agrees that music selection can be a factor in classroom management and recommends that teachers present about a dozen pieces to their students at the beginning of the term, then settle on three or four that prove to be the best fit once they get a better feel for their group.
“There’s no reason you have to determine what to play at your first concert the first week of school,” she says. “New teachers come in with a few pieces they know, and then they get down the road, and the music might be too hard, and they get stuck.”
Peterson says that when selecting music, it’s so important to include pieces written by a diverse group of composers — women and persons of color. “This will help all students know that they are being represented and included,” she says.
Change Challenges to Strengths
When teachers have some talkative students in their ensembles, don’t view them as problems, Floyd says. Use those students’ strengths. “Say, ‘Who’s the loudest here?’ and have [that student] be the keeper of the pulse,” she says.
In addition to extraneous talking, classrooms face a new challenge: technology. While cell phones can be a major distraction, Floyd recommends using them for the advantages they offer.
“You can have [students] record themselves, even when they can just play ‘Hot Cross Buns,'” Floyd says. “They think that’s amazing.”
Phone apps for metronomes or tuners can also be helpful.
Internal Motivation
Dr. Stephen Peterson
During the 2018 Music for All Summer Symposium at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, the Petersons each gave a presentation on rehearsal techniques in which they explained some ways to motivate students. Stephen Peterson recommends moving away from a top-down approach and instead engage students.
“If something’s out of tune, you might say, ‘What’s wrong here?’ [or for rhythm problems,] ‘Who’s responsible for this rhythm?’ ‘Who’s slowing down?'” he says. “It’s all about a higher level of learning where they’re involved in the process instead of waiting for answers.”
Teachers may also need to work individually with some students to come up with creative solutions to unique problems that arise. For example, Beth Peterson coached a student-teacher on how to motivate a child who was misbehaving. “[The student] wanted to switch instruments, so she set up a contract with him,” Peterson says.
After the student showed positive behavior in class, fulfilling his end of the contract, the teacher allowed him to switch instruments to the tuba.
Often, teachers must find out what motivates students and then use that internal motivation to keep rehearsals running smoothly. For example, Floyd keeps her students from talking during silent rehearsals by making them a special occasion. “You can’t do [a silent rehearsal] every day,” she says. “It would lose its charm.”
Because students put a premium on silent rehearsals, they naturally hold themselves and their peers accountable. “If anybody does talk, the other kids will put their fingers in front of their lips,” she says. “They don’t want the magic to be broken.”
In the end, finding the magic of classroom management takes both consistency and flexibility to set expectations for the entire class and handle the needs of individual students.
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
Setting Up Jazz Figures on the Drum Set
How do you treat figures on the drum chart in big band and small group jazz? I want to provide some clarity for those of you who are jazz band educators who do not play the drum set. I also want to help folks who are interested in applying their drum set skills to big band or small group jazz playing.
The term “figures” simply refers to the written musical notes on the sheet music. For almost all instrumentalists, the task is to play exactly what is written on the sheet. For the drummer, a figure may mean one of three things: 1) play the exact figure, 2) do not play the figure or 3) play prior to the figure and then play the figure (more commonly referred to as “setting up” the figure). These scenarios can be daunting for inexperienced drummers because it can contradict much of their prior concert band training.
The decision to approach these figures in one of these three ways will differ depending on the director’s and the drummer’s tastes as well as the skill level and needs of the ensemble. Sometimes the figures should be played as written on the snare or bass drum; other times, the figures can be ignored altogether. Often, figures will be set up with fills.
Here are a few simple but effective mechanisms I have learned that have been helpful to both students and band directors when setting up jazz figures.
In Big Band for Figures Beginning on the Offbeat
To set up a figure beginning on the “&” (offbeat), I recommend playing the two eighth notes preceding the figure, and then the written note. (See Sample 1 below.)
With students, I begin teaching this concept using the “&” of beat 2 (4/4 time), as I find it is most accessible to the inexperienced jazz drummer. To set up a figure beginning on the “&” of 2, the drummer would play “(1) & 2 &,” which sets up and then plays the written figure. The two preceding eighth notes can be played on the snare drum, with the written figure accented with bass drum and cymbal.
Sample 1
If the desired musical effect is simply to accent the note without a setup, the time continues on the cymbal, and the note is played traditionally by the snare drum or bass drum.
I teach the “&” of beat 2 first, followed by the “&” of 3 and then the “&” of 4. I save the “&” of 1 for last because it requires starting the setup in the measure before the figure, potentially challenging for inexperienced drummers.
In Big Band for Figures Beginning on the Beat
To set up a figure starting on beat 2, stopping on beat 1 and leaving a space before playing beat 2 is a traditional approach. A drag, flam or even rolling into beat 2 can add some additional color, but stopping the beat before is very effective. (See Sample 2.)
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In working with novice drummers, I have found that teaching beat 2 first is effective because stopping on beat 1 feels natural for many musicians. Once beat 2 becomes comfortable, I teach 3, then 4 — saving beat 1 for last. As with the offbeat figures, setting up beat 1 requires stopping in the bar before the figure, potentially tricky for some.
Sample 2
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In Small Group Jazz
With small group jazz drumming, the figures are treated differently because, in general, the volume level of the group is lower than a full big band.
Many times, just lightly playing the exact figures with either the snare drum or bass drum gets the desired musical effect without setting them up. However, if the music calls for a figure to be set up, the same system I described for the big band works in a small group setting as well.
By playing the two eighth notes prior to an offbeat figure and stopping one quarter note before a figure on the beat, setting up and playing figures becomes an easy process. This system is also helpful when reading a chart for the first time as it provides a clear approach to playing the figures.
For those of you working with drummers, this system gives you a way to break down this skill into easy and repetitive tasks.
Ultimately, deciding how to approach figures in the drum chart is a collaborative process between the band leader and the drummer and should always be communicated openly.
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
Q&A with Rapper J. Dash
I am interviewing prominent people, some in the music industry, others not. For this Q&A, I talked to rapper, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Jameyel Johnson, better known as J. Dash.
At the 2019 National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Music Education Advocacy D.C. Fly-In to the capital, where NAMM members gathered to lobby members of Congress for positive music education measures, I had the opportunity to meet J. Dash. His personal, long-term relationship with music inspired and absolutely captivated me. I was struck by his sincere desire to influence lawmakers through his unbridled enthusiasm for music education and his genuine passion and commitment to help young people realize success through the arts.
Q. When did you know that you were going to make music the focus of your professional life?
A: I always knew that I wanted to create music, professionally or not. It became a career goal when I was 14 years old and heard “Up Jumps Da Boogie” by Timbaland & Magoo. That was the first time I remember thinking, “I want that to be how I make money for the rest of my life.”
Q. What piece of music do you wish you had written and why?
A: “Exit Music (For a Film)” by Radiohead is one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music, in my opinion. It strikes a chord with me that vibrates down into my bones every time I hear it. Music that does that is special, and I’m pretty jealous that I wasn’t in the room when that one was made.
Q: What is your biggest pet peeve?
A: Ego
Q: Why is music important to humanity?
A: Music is not just our history; it is our time machine to the successes and tribulations of the past. It is a way to preserve the energy of an individual or group of people through time. What is crazier than feeling the emotion an artist or composer intended hundreds of years after the inspiration was felt? If that doesn’t blow your mind and express the importance and magic of music, then I don’t know what will.
Q. Other than music, what brings you inspiration?
A. My experiences and the experiences of those closest to me usually become the seed for many things that I create. I also have an interest in astrophysics, which strangely sparks inspiration from time to time as well.
Q. What is your most embarrassing musical moment that you can share?
A. It’s kind of lame, but falling off of the stage, although not unique to me, is never fun. There was a particular live performance in a small town with an even smaller venue where the stage was not a common shape. The room was filled with people, I assumed there would be more stage where there wasn’t, and down I went. I kept performing and kind of laughed it off, but it felt like it happened in slow motion, which made it even more of a nightmare.
Q: What’s your favorite guilty pleasure food?
A: Sour worms
Q: Which person from history, dead or alive, would you want to have lunch with, and what would you discuss?
A: There are way too many, and my answer would probably change depending on when you asked me. But today, I would have to say Prince. Considering what he did for popular music, the consistency in writing hit songs, the variety of instruments he played, and how he chose to market himself, I’m pretty sure it would be the most interesting conversation I ever had.
Q. What book is on your nightstand right now?
A. “Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams” by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister.
Q: Why is it important to protect access to a musical education?
A: Beyond the fact that learning music improves students’ test scores and has been known to increase confidence, it gives them a reason to go to school when they otherwise may not have one. With so many things stacked up against the next generation, it is our obligation to do what we can to give every single child the best opportunity for a well-rounded education that includes music and the arts.
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
Letter to Myself: Kevin Ford
Yamaha Master Educator Kevin Ford is the Director of the Leadership Conservatory for the Arts at Tarpon Springs (Florida) High School.
Below, he pens a letter to his younger self, sharing advice, anecdotes and inspiration for a fulfilling career in music education.
Dear Younger Kevin:
There’s one piece of advice that I want to emphasize as you embark on your career as a music educator — be patient!
Be patient and stop worrying about the things you can’t control! Don’t focus on “what is good for me” but rather on “what is best for your students.” Remember, the real joy as a teacher is making a difference in the lives of the extraordinary individuals you have the privilege to teach every day.
You entered this profession because you wanted to be a difference maker. All of the students in front of you — yes, even the most challenging ones — possess the potential for something great. Be the difference in their lives and the catalyst that propels them to greatness.
No two students learn the same way. Be patient, get to know them and search out what motivates them. Don’t compare them to one another. Don’t allow a day to go by without acknowledging someone’s improvement. Avoid comparing your performance ensemble to someone else’s. Every situation is different.
Never forget to show students through your actions what they can become and are capable of as individuals. Remember that the performing arts is a discipline, and mastering a discipline will take time — so be patient!
Celebrate the small successes one day at a time and stop worrying about whether your students will get it. Some of your best moments as an educator will not be when the audience is watching. The process is what matters!
Focus on what needs to be done today to make your students better than they were yesterday. Be patient as you work toward developing a growth mindset in your organization.
Your responsibility is to focus everyone on the long-term goals, but remember that short-term goals allow long-term goals to reveal themselves. Provide daily goals and acknowledge when they are achieved. Remember, you are building a culture, and it will take time. Remember, excellence is not a destination, and never mistake activity for achievement. Quality matters!
Through your example and consistent standards, students will have opportunities to develop their own habits of excellence. The ultimate goal is for students to take responsibility for their own learning. Guide them to make independent decisions that release the artistry and passion inside of them. Take pride in the everyday. It will be hard … really hard. Be patient and make no excuses.
The hard work will build character and pride. Ultimately, inspire students to a way of doing and being that allows them to move forward and make positive impacts in all aspects of their lives. Inspire them to be the best versions of themselves and never forget to acknowledge the greatness, artistry and potential within them, and always remember … be patient!
Best,
Kevin in 2019
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
3 Improvisation Impediments and How to Fix Them
In Denis DiBlasio: Jazz Saxophonist, Music Educator and Storyteller, we learned about Denis DiBlasio‘s background as a jazz saxophonist and music educator.
When asked if his experience improvising in jazz impacts his ability to stay flexible as a teacher and performer DiBlasio recalls what jazz pianist Denny Zeitlin said in an interview with Monk Rowe: There are three reasons people don’t succeed as improvisers.
1. They need to be in control.
2. They’re afraid of looking bad and making a mistake.
3. They sabotage their own success out of guilt.
“Flip it and ask, what do I get from jazz and improv?” DiBlasio asks. “It’s probably taught me not to worry about being in control. It’s probably taught me not to worry about failing. And I don’t have any guilt about liking it or being good at it. Those are the gifts from working with jazz.”
Photo by Rob Shanahan for Yamaha Corporation of America
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
Using Food to Teach Rhythm to Special Needs Students
United Sound is a nonprofit that provides musical performance experiences for students with special needs through peer mentorship.
United Sound has found a unique way to take the abstract concept of rhythm and make it concrete to students with special needs. Each page in United Sound method books is divided into two parts. The top of the page features a traditional staff, like one would find in any musical notation, but with the traditional notes removed and replaced with images of foods.
A cake represents a quarter note. Donuts, which can be eaten faster, represent eighth notes. A bowl of soup signifies a half note because it takes much longer to eat it.
“Everything is also spatial, so … the half note is literally twice as long as the quarter note,” says Julie Duty, founder of United Sound. “Because a longer note is [spatially] longer, suddenly for a beginner, this makes perfect sense as opposed to having to decode that this dot is different from [that] dot.”
Below this “tasty” music notation, the United Sound method books also show the song or musical passage in traditional notation, so that teachers can transition their students to traditional musical notation at a pace that’s comfortable for each person.
Finale, the music notation software, has written United Sound’s font into its product and offers it is as a free download here.
Read about how Parkway Central Middle School‘s band members work with students with special needs in Case Study: Peers Support Peers at a United Sound Chapter in Missouri.
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
How to Start a United Sound Chapter
In Case Study: Peers Support Peers at a United Sound Chapter in Missouri, we looked at how Parkway Central Middle School‘s band members embraced being peer mentors to special-needs students through United Sound.
United Sound is a nonprofit that provides musical performance experiences for special-needs children.
Are you interested in starting a United Sound chapter at your school? You can get started by following a few easy steps.
First, this program is a partnership between music and special education teachers. If you already know someone in the special education department, reach out to him or her and then complete the teacher registration form on UnitedSound.org. If not, register alone and United Sound will send you materials for starting that conversation.
Once registered, both teachers will participate in a training session to learn everything they will need to know and to get comfortable “trading roles.” Special education teachers have the primary role of training and helping the Peer Mentors, while music teachers will continue to do what they do best: Teach music to the New Musicians. In this way, teachers aren’t expected to do anything they’re not already comfortable doing. Following the training session, both teachers will receive everything they need to get students registered, train Peer Mentors and begin!
United Sound is a turnkey program and includes training sessions for the Peer Mentors (including videos and materials), specialized method books to help guide Peer Mentors in the teaching process, and lessons plans to get your group started.
This article originally appeared in the 2019 V3 issue of Yamaha SupportED. To see more back issues, find out about Yamaha resources for music educators, or sign up to be notified when the next issue is available, click here.
How to Clean Vinyl Records
Most of us stream music from our phones or computers, but serious music lovers know that nothing compares to the experience of listening to vinyl records.
For all the sonic benefits, though, proper care of vinyl is necessary for truly enjoying your music. Watch vinyl expert Phil Shea as he covers the ins and outs of how to clean your record collection.
For more tips on caring for vinyl, check out our other articles:
Jeff Coffin Video Series, Part 1: Shopping for Vinyl
Jeff Coffin Video Series, Part 2: Caring for Vinyl
Appreciating Vinyl Records … and the Best Way to Enjoy Them
Choosing the Right Brushes and Multi-Rod Drumsticks
In a recent posting here on the Yamaha blog entitled “Choosing the Right Drumsticks,” we told you how to select the ideal pair of drumsticks. Here, we’ll broaden the scope by discussing drum brushes and multi-rod sticks.
Brushes
Looking to increase your range of expression? Try using brushes. Your style of playing and the tonality you achieve will be completely different than when you use sticks. Because they produce a softer sound, brushes are employed most often in jazz. However, they can be effective in any style of music in which you’re trying to achieve a subdued feel, such as ballads, blues or country.
Since there are many different types and varieties available from various manufacturers, the best way to determine which ones to buy is to go to your local music store and try them out. There are as many playing styles as there are drummers, so there really is no one answer to the question, “Which brushes are right for me?”
That said, your decision-making will factor in such things as the materials used, weight and size, and the way the brushes “catch” on the drum head. Let’s take a closer look at each.
Brush Materials
Brushes usually incorporate wire bristles, but some use bristles made of nylon or plastic. Wire works well in small club environments and yields the traditional smooth, swish sound. Nylon and plastic produce a louder sound when striking drums or cymbals, making them more suitable for larger venues, but their sound is noticeably more subdued, duller and warmer. Plastic bristles are also bendier, and so they tend to get “left behind” more when sweeping. However, they readily spring back into shape and so are less likely than wire brushes to be permanently bent. Another benefit to plastic and nylon bristles is that they do not rust like wire does.
In some brushes, the bristles have been given strengthened rubber tips or even metal beads, allowing you to play harder — with a pronounced, snappy sound on both drums and cymbals — when you pull the bristles all the way in, almost like having a pair of multi-rod sticks (see below).
Sometimes, the bristles can be retracted by means of via a pull-rod on the back end of the brush. These kinds of brushes are more versatile since you can precisely set how far out you want the bristles to go, thus altering how closely grouped they are and the spread of the fan, allowing for different playing styles and sounds. For example, a sweeping brush needs long, extended bristles, while shorter, more tightly gathered bristles are preferable when striking drums or cymbals since they allow for harder contact, and thus a sharper attack.
The downside to retractable brushes is that, over time, the moving parts can get jammed and damage the wires, so fixed brushes often last longer. However, since fixed wires can’t be hidden away for storage, you need to be very careful not to bend them — something not easily done in a busy stick bag.
In wire brushes, the quality of the wires has an obvious effect on tonality, as well as how long the brushes will last. Wires come in a variety of gauges, from light to extra heavy. The lighter the gauge, the more mellow the tone, although light-gauge wires tend to get a bit “wobbly” after being used a lot. Heavier gauges tend to stay more consistent over time and produce a louder sound with a more pronounced attack. Which you choose largely depends on the kind of music you’ll be playing.
Weight and Size
Though the handle of the brush doesn’t greatly affect its sound, it does change its feel. Handles are most commonly made of plastic, rubber or wood. Brushes with plastic handles are more lightweight, while the ones with rubber handles offer better grip. Those with wooden handles are great for drummers who want to feel the weight of traditional sticks in their hands. Those with plastic and rubber handles are better for players who want something lighter. It’s always worth checking reviews, since some handles tend to break easily.
There’s no set formula when it comes to the length of handles. Some drummers like having longer handles because of their hand size, while others feel they have better control with shorter handles. Again, it’s best to try out as many different brushes as possible before deciding which ones are right for you.
Catch
The way the bristles of different brushes make contact with (“catch”) on the drum head can vary as well. For that reason, brushes tend to work better on coated heads than clear heads, since there’s a little more friction. (We’ll be talking about drum head choices in a future article here on the blog.)
Over time, the bristle ends of wire brushes tend to bend, and different sounds can be achieved, depending on whether that bend faces upward or downward. For example, if the bend faces upward, a greater surface area of the wire is put in contact with the head, making for a smoother, fuller swish sound and less chance that the tip of the brush will get caught on the drum head. However, if it faces downward, you’ll get a more pronounced sound. Again, the choice is a personal one, and it largely depends upon the genre of music you’re playing.
Multi-Rod Drumsticks
Doing an acoustic gig where regular sticks are too loud but brushes are too soft? Multi-rod drumsticks (sometimes known as “bundled-dowel sticks,” “hot rods” or “rutes”) represent the middle ground in volume, plus they allow you to add a whole new palette of creative textures to your drumming.
Like brushes, they’re available in a wide variety of configurations, sizes and weights. Some use bamboo or birch dowels — literally bundled together within a plastic sheath — while others utilize material made from straw, nylon, fiber or plastic, all available in a variety of widths. Their handles can be made of wood, rubber, vinyl or plastic, and adjustable O-rings in some models allow you to change the spread of the dowels much as you can with a pair of brushes.
These drumstick alternatives deliver a soft, intimate sound for unplugged sets and a fat sound when recording, but perhaps the coolest thing about them is that they are much more responsive than standard sticks, or even brushes. You’ll find that every different multi-rod model produces its own distinct timbre when used to strike drums, cymbals or other percussion instruments, yet all of them provide you with an expanded degree of control over both attack and volume. When subtlety rather than bombast is called for, they can be an especially effective tool … yet your drumming will still be heard loud and clear without ever overpowering delicate instruments like acoustic piano or guitar.
Check out this related posting: Choosing the Right Drumsticks.
This posting is excerpted from the Yamaha Musical Instrument Guide.
For more information about Yamaha drums, click here.
Take Action!
What does it take to inspire you? Maybe all it takes is seeing some kid walking to school carrying an instrument case and you find yourself wishing that instrument was in your hands. Or maybe you’re a parent and you wish it was in your child’s hands. If it’s always been your dream (or your child’s dream) to play a musical instrument, the only way to realize those ambitions is to take action.
What are you waiting for?
I can say without hesitation that taking up the guitar as a kid was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. (I’ve written about it here on the blog.) Not only has it bought me a lifetime of joy, but unbeknownst to me when I started, it has turned into a full-time career. But in order to follow my dream and play guitar, I had to take action first.
It didn’t end there, either. As my composing career progressed, I realized that I needed (and wanted) to also learn to play keyboards in order to improve my musicality. Once again, I took action by finding a suitable teacher, and I’m happy to report that I’ve developed a fair degree of proficiency. Sure, it’s taken time, patience and practice, but like the guitar, playing keyboards has bought me countless hours of pleasure. Of course, as with guitar, I’m still learning and discovering. That alone brings me a sense of accomplishment — something I experience every time I master a new chord progression or lick.
Whenever I’m looking for a new source of musical inspiration, I will go out and buy myself something new for my studio. It can be as big as a guitar or as small as a shaker or tambourine. What I’ve found when I acquire a new guitar, for example, is that I play differently on it, which in turn spurs my mind to create new sounds. Not only do I find it fun to research different instruments and then try them before I buy, but once each new instrument is in my hands, I’m as excited as I was when I got my first guitar! The point is, in order to get that rush of inspiration, it requires a degree of effort on my part.
Earlier this year, I tried out an electric cello, and I’m hoping to buy one soon. I’ve already been online watching videos and researching which model would be best for me. Even though I don’t know how to play cello, it’s something I know I’ll enjoy and, who knows, maybe I’ll get good at it!
Of course, taking action sometimes involves a bit of uncertainty or risk. In an Entrepreneur magazine article entitled “The Best Time to Take Action Is Now,” author Jeremy Ellens notes, “Often times, there is so much to do, and we have so many great ideas, that we struggle to take massive action on any of them. Maybe we think that we can’t move forward with something without it being absolutely perfect.” The moral of the story is this: Don’t fear imperfection; even baby steps in a positive direction are a good thing. With that in mind, why not take a chance and treat yourself to what you’ve always wanted?
Maybe taking this action is not for yourself. How about getting your kids to take up music and learn to play an instrument? The benefits of playing an instrument and learning how to play music have been proven in countless ways, from increased focus and mathematical brainpower to the simple joy of playing and interacting with others. And if you don’t want to be the one to do it, hearing your kids play for you might be just as good … maybe even better!
Lewis Carroll, author of Alice In Wonderland, once said, “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take, the relationships we were afraid to have, and the decisions we waited too long to make.” Why regret what you didn’t do? Just think of all the fun you’ll have with that musical instrument you’ve always dreamed of playing, and how much it will enrich your life, as well as the lives of your family and friends. Yes, summer is over and the cool weather is upon us, but that doesn’t mean you can’t heat things up by taking positive action. Make this your time to shine!
Using Scene Memory
One of the problems that faces working bands who carry their own PA is the constant setup and breakdown. It’s bad enough that you have to move all that gear, but then once you’ve arrived at the gig you have to set everything up and dial in your settings. Mixer settings in particular are very important because the console is the hub for all the signals coming from the stage. Fortunately, digital mixers can make your life easier by providing the ability to save and recall scenes (sometimes called “snapshots.”)
The idea of scene memory comes from the old days when live engineers at festivals would take a photograph of an analog console after soundcheck for each band. When showtime came, they’d use the photo as a reference to reset the console to the same settings as the soundcheck. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than starting from scratch.
Digital mixers such as the Yamaha TF1 can do this for you because the mixer surface is really just a controller for the software inside — it’s almost like having a big mouse with a lot of buttons and switches. And, just like any other software program, you can store and retrieve files for later use. In modern digital mixers (including all current Yamaha models), scene memory allows you to store every setting for every channel, including mic gain, equalization, compressor and gate settings, fader level, pan position, aux send settings, group assignments, and effect settings. Scenes are stored in the mixer’s permanent memory, so you won’t have to worry about losing your settings in the event of a power failure.
Let’s take a closer look at how this little miracle of modern sound mixing works.
Making a Scene
A scene is created in a digital mixer (you can’t create them in analog consoles) simply by adjusting your settings, then saving them into a library.
All Yamaha digital mixers provide this capability, and even provide scene templates such as General Band and Jazz Combo to get you started. Scenes are accessed from a library, where you’ll see the name of the scene and its creation date:
To store a scene, select a scene number and touch the Store button, then name it using the onscreen keyboard that appears:
Yamaha TF Series mixers provide two banks with 100 scenes each, so you can store up to 200 scenes. Why would you need so many of them? Read on …
Scene Memory Applications
Let’s suppose that you’re mixing a five-piece band with lead vocal, guitar, keyboard, bass and drums. At soundcheck everyone in the band plays while you adjust settings for mic gain, faders, EQ, effects and monitor levels. When you’re satisfied with everything, you store these settings as a scene. And those settings probably include sending the lead vocal to all of the monitor mixes so that everyone in the band can hear it.
But what happens if there’s a song where the drummer sings the lead vocal? In such a case, there will be a lot of changes that need to be made, such as muting or lowering the lead vocal mic in the house mix, unmuting the drummer’s vocal mic, changing the aux send levels for those microphones, adding reverb or delay to the drum vocal, and turning off or resetting any effects in the lead vocal channel. You also may need to adjust the EQ or compression for the drum vocal microphone. That’s a lot to do on the fly! Scene memory enables you to create one scene for use when the lead vocalist is singing, and a different one for when the drummer is singing. Recalling a scene is instantaneous, so you can easily cue up scenes in the library and recall them in-between songs:
If the band performs in a lot of different venues regularly, you can create scenes for each one. Say they perform at a small coffee house during the week where the drummer plays hand percussion and everyone shares one monitor, but at a large club every Saturday night where everything on stage (including a full drum kit) is run through the PA. You can set up a scene with one monitor mix and no drum channels for the coffee house gigs, then have a completely different scene for the large club.
Scene memory is especially useful in House of Worship applications. During the service when the musicians are playing, you’ll want all of those inputs to be live in the PA system, but when it comes time for the minister to deliver a sermon, those channels should be muted. You could easily build a separate scene for the sermon where only the minister’s microphone is open, or perhaps a different microphone is switched on for the minister, and the instrument channels are muted.
Additional Scene Features
Some digital mixers enable you to “safe” or “filter” certain parameters such as a particular channel, so that when you recall a scene, that channel remains unchanged. Most mixers also provide a default or initialize scene that resets the mixer to factory settings so that you can always go back to a clean starting point. In addition, there is usually some kind of mechanism that prevents you from accidentally overwriting scene memory settings. In Yamaha mixers, this takes the form of a little padlock icon next to each scene memory (see the first illustration above); you have to take the extra step of clicking on the icon to unlock it before you can overwrite the contents — a great safety feature.
In addition, Yamaha offers free editing software for the TF Series and the company’s flagship Rivage Series digital mixers, allowing you to work “offline” and create scenes without actually having the mixer in front of you. These scenes can be stored to a USB thumb drive and then loaded into the mixer when you’re ready to gig — saving time for setup and sound check.
In the latest firmware version (4.01) of the TF Series, you can also fade scenes rather than have abrupt changes that might disturb quiet passages; this feature can also be used to fade a vocal microphone, for example. You can adjust the fade times between scenes as well as which inputs are affected.
Scenes allow you to instantly switch between different mixer configurations. Creating and storing them may take a little while to accomplish, but I guarantee they will save you a lot of time and effort in the long run!
These are the Best Pirate Scenes to Watch on Your Home Theater
Let’s face it, there aren’t nearly enough holidays that give you the chance to talk differently. There are plenty of days dedicated to food, like National Sloppy Joe Day, and days dedicated to obscure professions, like National Auctioneers Day, but nothing really comes close to Talk Like a Pirate Day.
What’s even more cool is that, aside from being able to say words and phrases you rarely get to use (like “Yarrrgh!” and “Avast ye, matey!”) you don’t need to make up an excuse for watching great pirate-themed cinematic moments in the comfort of your home theater.
And, just as no two buccaneers are cut of the same jib, there are plenty of movies from all pirate-y walks of life to watch (as well as great sound tracks and effects to listen to) in celebration of Talk Like a Pirate Day … or any day, for that matter. Here are our top picks.
1. Captain Phillips – “I’m the Captain Now.”
Filled with spine-tingling suspense, this is the moment when the Somali pirate leader makes it known that he is in cha’rge of Captain Phillips’ doomed freighter. The scene offers up great acting, a powerful score and tension thick enough to cut with a knife. Check it out here.
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl – Jack Sparrow vs. Barbosa
As the benchmark for modern day pirate movies, and the juggernaut that would launch a multi-million dollar franchise, this film set the bar high. Led by Johnny Depp’s excellent performance as Captain Jack Sparrow, it’s got everything from exciting ship battles to romance to daring sword fights, like the one in this clip. Note the combination of music and clashing swords, as well as some great back-and-forth dialogue that will make you choose between pirate accents when you quote it with friends. Check it out here.
3. The Goonies – “Hey You Guys!”
Few scenes have the staying power of this epic moment when Sloth and Chunk unite to save their friends in this classic adventure flick … and none stand out more from a pirate’s perspective. Check it out here.
4. Hook – Peter Pan Confronts Captain Hook
This 1991 live action sequel to Peter Pan may have the cheese factor dialed up to 10, but it also features great performances from Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman, as well as an amazing film score by John Williams. Keep an ear out for little details like swords clanging and feet shuffling on the deck of Captain Hook’s ship. Check it out here.
5. The Princess Bride – The Sword Fight
If you’re not a fan of standard pirate talk, here’s an alternative, courtesy of the witty banter in this scene between the Dread Pirate Roberts (Carey Elwes) and Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin). This classic movie duel is fun to watch on any home theater but even more so when you’re listening over a quality sound system. Check it out here.
6. Summer Rental – The Love Boat
Sometimes you just need a laugh. Such is the case with this silly sailing scene that features John Candy and Rip Torn drunkenly singing the theme to “The Love Boat,” accompanied by the sounds of water sloshing against the side of the boat and ship bells in the distance. Check it out here.
7. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World – “Straight at ‘Em.”
Although set in 1805 during the war between the British and French navies, and therefore not officially a pirate movie, the characters often talk like pirates by using nautical and sailing terminology. This is a great flick to watch with a full surround sound system too. From the rumbling of cannon fire and its aftermath, this opening scene features a wide variety of sound effects, including feet shuffling and sails blowing in the wind. Hold fast! Check it out here.
Check out these related blog articles:
Five Reasons Why Home Theater is Better Than Going to the Movies
Top 10 Musical Scenes to Watch with a Home Theater
Stranger Things: Top 10 Scenes from the Upside Down
Clarinet Replacement Barrels and Tuning
A barrel from one clarinet may fit onto another model or even brand of clarinet, but be aware that it may not give the best results. That’s because the barrel does a lot more than simply connect the mouthpiece to the top joint.
Clarinetists often describe barrels by their length, with 66 millimeters being the most typical length. In theory, a longer barrel should make the instrument flatter in pitch, much like pulling out a saxophone mouthpiece or a flute headjoint. While this is generally true, barrels of equal length can be quite different on the inside.
The bore (that is, the inside diameter) of the barrel is just as important to tuning as the length is. A larger diameter shortens the sound wave and sharpens the pitch. To further complicate things, most barrels are tapered, meaning that the bore at the top of the barrel is different than the bore at the bottom of the barrel. This taper can be unique to the clarinet model, and a barrel with a different taper will have different tuning tendencies. Most barrels are slightly larger at the top, but some are larger at the bottom, and others may have no taper at all.
The bottom line is this: Don’t just grab any random barrel for your clarinet! Be sure to get the one that was designed for it. If a change needs to be made for a specific purpose, get some expert help from a clarinet specialist to guide the process.
Click here for more information about Yamaha clarinets.
CEDIA Expo 2019: Trends in Smart Home Technology
Technology never stops. Just when you think you’ve got the latest and greatest speakers, displays, networking and controls for your home, something better comes along. And there’s no better place to experience the next big thing(s) in home technology than at the Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) Expo.
This annual event, held in Denver this year from September 12 – 14, brings together businesses and innovators from a diverse cross-section of the home technology industry. Attendees are mostly tech integrators — the professionals who are trained at customizing, configuring and installing gear in consumers’ homes. They come to discover innovative solutions that can enhance the comfort, efficiency, enjoyment and value of their clients’ homes, but there’s no reason to keep it all a secret. In this article, we’ll explore some of the major trends in home technology at the show.
Health and Wellness
In the past, when people thought about “healthy homes,” indoor air quality came to mind. While this is still an important component of healthy living, the ability to create a home environment that’s more peaceful and serene is clearly the next phase. On display at CEDIA was lighting from Lutron that simulates sunrise and sunset and syncs up with our circadian rhythms to promote a better night’s sleep, along with home theaters that can transition into meditation/relaxation rooms by altering the audio, video and lighting. Of course, whole-home music systems like Yamaha MusicCast can bring the sounds of nature to every room in your house — a proven technique for relieving stress and anxiety.
Artistry in Audio
Speakers are going through a major cosmetic makeover. Models that can be recessed into the wall and ceiling surface like in-wall and in-ceiling speakers from Yamaha are starting to be joined by speakers that double as pieces of artwork. Some feature grilles that can be customized to display images from professional photographers or custom metal artwork. Others use a method called hydro dipping to apply images directly to the grille. The result is a speaker finished to look like wooden boards, granite or even shrubbery — a perfect blend for outdoor environments.
Modern TV Cabinets
Just when you thought the wooden TV cabinet of the ’50s and ’60s was long dead, it’s making a comeback … sort of. Numerous manufacturers have given the antiquated TV cabinet a fresh, modern look, offering an alternative to the über-popular yet often cosmetically disruptive method of mounting a display to the wall. For example, Salamander Designs’ “The Wall,” which originated in commercial settings, incorporates a cabinet with a panel onto which a display can be mounted. The unit is modular, which means the finish of the cabinet door and panel can be updated and/or a new TV mounted at any time. In addition, the entire unit can be repositioned, moved to a different room or relocated should you move into a new house. Try doing that with a wall-mounted display!
Counterbalancing this blast from the past was the look forward to the emergence of 8K. There was a significant increase in the number of booths showcasing the latest capabilities for 8K displays and projectors as integrators prepare for deeper adoption of the ultra high-resolution technology.
Artificial Intelligence
Imagine walking into a room and having the lights dim to your preferred level, while at the same time your favorite playlist broadcasts through in-ceiling speakers and motorized draperies open to reveal a view of the garden. Systems are being designed to recognize the identity of each family member and automatically adjust the room environment accordingly.
This kind of hands-off approach to home control is an alternative to voice control, which has become increasingly more prevalent, as demonstrated by Yamaha at CEDIA. With a few simple verbal commands from compatible devices recognized by the latest line of Yamaha MusicCast devices, the video, audio, shades and dimmable lighting adjusts to prepare the space for ultimate movie viewing. A myriad of controls and integrations were used to demonstrate the flexibility of a MusicCast system, including Josh.ai, Alexa and RTI.
Yamaha also demonstrated Surround:AI — the industry’s first and only artificial intelligence available in an AV receiver. This technology analyzes the sound profile five times per second and optimizes it for the ideal listening scenario automatically. With Surround:AI, you no longer have to worry about losing the remote and adjusting volume levels, allowing you to instead get lost in your favorite movies and shows.
Residential and Commercial Crossover
Home technology products and systems have become so reliable, powerful and sophisticated that many of the solutions initially intended for home use are finding their way into restaurants, bars, offices, retail shops and other commercial environments. The XDA-QS4500RK Quad Streamer from Yamaha is one example. It can deliver music to four listening zones with eight channels of amplification, making it powerful enough for both homes and small businesses. For integrators who need more power and flexibility, the company also demonstrated its Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS), designed to help deliver ideal sound in commercial spaces. This includes Dante, which Yamaha CIS has incorporated for the last five years.
And just as there are commercial applications for residential products, there are residential applications for systems typically found in commercial settings. As homes become increasingly more reliant on Wi-Fi, networking systems with bigger bandwidth — the kind historically found in businesses — offer huge benefits to homeowners. Helping bridge this gap is Access Networks, a company that offers a range of products designed for both businesses and homes.
Tech for the Kitchen and Bath
The kitchen and bath could be considered the last frontier for technology in the home. But those of you with a need to be connected 24/7 will be happy to hear that a number of manufacturers are starting to make inroads into these two territories, with products designed specifically for the kitchen and bath. Seura, for example, offers its Hydra line of indoor waterproof displays. Ideally suited for the kitchen and bath, they install flush with the wall surface and are framed in a variety of decorative finishes like stainless steel, brushed gold, and pearl white.
Kohler, meanwhile, was showing an entire ecosystem of smart bathroom appliances called Konnect, whereby a single Alexa command can activate and set the water temperature of a Kohler smart shower as well as activate music. It can even enable a vanity mirror to provide information like traffic and weather reports!
Photographs courtesy of the author.
Taking A Leap of Faith
For the past few decades I’ve been writing songs for and collaborating with established recording artists. My job description has included helping them define themselves and offering a safe space to explore their feelings. I’ve been part Muse, part therapist, part fun hang. I’ve loved every minute of it and I’ve enjoyed some notable success.
But now, as some of you may know, I’m taking a leap of faith as I attempt the difficult transition from songwriter to artist. For the first time in my career, I’m recording my own album — stepping out into the frontline, so to speak. I’ll be re-imagining some of my more familiar songs (“Bitch,” “What A Girl Wants,” “Almost Doesn’t Count”) and also debuting some of my personal favorites that never saw the light of day.
Scary.
But mostly exciting.
Up until now I’ve been the accommodator, privy to the goings-on inside the minds of artists while writing their records. And I assure you there’s a lot going on in there.
First and foremost, an artist wants to feel authentically connected to a song. (Of course, their A&R person’s opinion matters as well, since the label will ultimately decide what’s marketable.) In addition, they’re projecting what the critics might say, hoping their fans will dig the direction, and, if I’m brought into the picture, trying to navigate that annoying little voice in their head that tells them co-writing with a professional songwriter will diminish their cred. As you can see, there’s some calculation involved during the creative process.
That said, I always listen to their concerns and voice an opinion when I have one. But to be perfectly honest, sometimes I find their thought process neurotic. The suggestion that we write a song at a fast tempo because there are already too many ballads on the album is ridiculous. Or that we pen something non-relationship-centric because there are too many love songs. That’s just nuts. Write what’s on your mind!
Side note: In 2007, Sara Bareilles’ A&R people felt that a love song was what was missing from her album-in-the-making and they insisted she write one. Defiantly she went home, wrote “(I’m Not Gonna Write You A) Love Song” and ironically had a big fat hit.
Calculating is the worst thing an artist can do for their art.
But that’s easy for me to say. Because here I am, seven songs in the can and I’m internalizing the same way all artists do.
For instance, I’m listening back and wondering if I need more songs with faster tempo. (Left to my own device, I’d write a ballad every day.) I’m asking myself if the recordings we’ve done thus far are too love-heavy. Wouldn’t something in 6/8 break the monotony of all the 4/4? As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve come to realize that I default to the same strum every time I pick up a guitar, so many of my songs have identical heartbeats. Disaster! And I obsess that no two songs in a row on an album be in the same key — a pet peeve. My ears enjoy a tonal shift in between tracks. (Will that matter to my listeners? Who knows.)
But my main concern is that, in having written for so many artists from all different genres (Keith Urban to Britney, Jessie J. to Reba, The Pretenders to Xtina), I’m stylistically all over the place. It’s like a burrito, kale salad and a pizza all on one plate. I worry that this is going to be too much of an eclectic listening experience, as opposed to a consistent cuisine all throughout the meal.
Maybe I’m just as neurotic as my colleagues on the other side of the table. Maybe I’ve been overthinking with the best of them. Maybe it’s not as easy as I thought to simply write what you love and sing it.
So I say this to all those artists I judged: I’m sorry! I get it! Now I know how it feels. Making an album is a complicated and personal process.
To be fair, however, when I take a step back and ask myself what I would tell myself if I were my own best friend, it would be this:
It’s not your intention to be a new break-out Diva. You’re not vying for artist of the year. Your record doesn’t have to be one consistent vibe. It’s meant to be more of a collection … a celebration of songwriting. After all, songwriters are artists too. And I need to fly that flag.
I’d love to see performers take the opportunity to put themselves in the accommodator’s shoes every once in awhile — to step behind the curtain and let the other gal shine. Maybe more of us should swap creative roles as an exercise in life. We’d all understand each other a lot better.
I hope to start sharing the music with you soon. It will most likely be released in dribbles, as is the custom these days. One single at a time until bam! … the whole album drops.
But of course, no two songs in a row in the same key!
If you’ve made a similar transition, or are contemplating one, I’d love to hear about it. I look forward to reading your comments on my Facebook Page.
Photograph courtesy of the author.
Berklee College of Music Teams Up with Steinberg
Berklee College of Music in Boston is one of the leading institutions for contemporary music education in the U.S. In addition to turning out highly proficient musicians and composers, it designs its curriculum to give its graduates the best shot at getting work in the competitive music industry. To that end, the school recently decided to begin using Steinberg Cubase as the digital audio workstation (DAW) software in its Film Scoring program.
Making the Decision
A change like this doesn’t happen overnight. It required a lot of advance discussion and planning, and began with the purchase of Cubase licenses for key members of the faculty who are involved with teaching film scoring. That allowed them to get familiar with the software before the fall semester, at which point incoming film scoring students all received their own copies of Cubase.
Following the Industry
So what made Berklee decide to make the switch? One reason is the feature set offered by Cubase, particularly in the MIDI editing area — something that’s of critical importance when it comes to composing for film. “It’s a great piece of software, a really powerful tool,” says Sean McMahon, who recently became chairperson of Berklee’s Film Scoring Department. “Cubase does a great job of getting out of the way and allowing a composer to be creative.”
But the primary impetus was the belief of the administration and faculty that Cubase represents the future in the very competitive area of film scoring. “We like to be a microcosm of the industry and model it closely [so we can] prepare our students for the reality of what they’re going to face,” McMahon explains.
Berklee took advantage of its alumni network, including those working as film composers, to take the temperature of the market. “We’ve done surveys of alumni,” McMahon says, “and the faculty are all practitioners. They’re industry professionals, so they’re plugged in as well.”
The Pathway In
The need to be fluent in the software that’s most popular with working pros is particularly crucial in the film composing world. “We think being compatible with your peers is really important,” McMahon explains.
In addition, the path to success in this field often involves starting as a composer’s assistant. Through internships and entry-level jobs, budding film scorers learn the ins and outs of the business and make invaluable contacts.
“It’s important that we prepare our students for these types of jobs,” McMahon says. “At first, composers don’t need assistants for their musical chops or compositional skills; they need them for their technical skills. So, if you want to get a job with a composer who’s a Cubase user and you [yourself] don’t use Cubase, odds are you’re just not going to get it.”
MIDI Orchestration Power
Most film composers initially write and arrange their scores in their studios, creating parts using sampled MIDI orchestral instruments. Much later in the process, these parts are replicated and replaced by real orchestral musicians. But during the initial writing phase — and when the composer is working with the director to refine the score — the instruments typically remain virtual.
As a result, the ability to manipulate MIDI orchestrations is critical, and Cubase’s toolset for this is extremely powerful. McMahon provides an example: “It’s fascinating what you can do with articulations — something Cubase calls “Expression Mapping.” Let’s say you had a Violin 1 (first violin) line. If you were writing it on paper, you could indicate pizzicato, staccato, legato. There are all kinds of bowings and articulations you could use.”
“In the past,” he continues, “to manage the plethora of different articulations for a single track within a DAW, composers would need to use [tools that] were awkward and could be confusing in the orchestration process. But with Cubase’s Expression Mapping, the composer can instantaneously change articulations at the note level instead of writing them in as MIDI note data. That’s pretty sophisticated and has many benefits.”
Open the Dorico?
McMahon is also intrigued by the integration of Cubase and Steinberg’s Dorico music notation software. He sees this as being particularly helpful for converting MIDI scores into playable parts. “I’m an orchestrator by profession,” he points out. “Composers give me MIDI files, and I convert them into a coherent, comprehensible musical score for musicians, for human beings.”
It’s a complicated task, what with the different transpositions required for various orchestral instruments. But McMahon thinks Dorico has great potential for speeding up the process, and is currently considering it for possible future use within the film scoring curriculum.
But that’s for a later date. Right now, the emphasis is getting film scoring students up to speed on Cubase … and according to Bruce Bennett, Berklee’s Senior Director of Technology Services, there’s even a chance that Cubase’s role at Berklee could increase beyond the Film Scoring Department in the years ahead. “It’s such a good toolset for creativity — orchestral or otherwise — that it may organically grow with our students elsewhere at the institution,” he says. Stay tuned here for future developments!
Photograph by Cheryl Fleming.
Click here for more information about Steinberg Cubase.
Click here for more information about Steinberg Dorico.
Click here for more information about the Berklee College of Music.
Area 51: Here’s What “Them Aliens” Might Look Like
Two million are going. Another 1.5 million — and growing — are interested. And that’s just the RSVPs from those on Facebook who plan to storm Area 51 on September 20.
The plan is multifaceted, but simple at its core: Meet up in rural Nevada, coordinate parties, penetrate a restricted area and see “them aliens.”
What could go wrong?
Actually, lots. For one thing, according to a military spokesperson, “any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training areas is dangerous.”
And even if you were to pull off a successful naruto run, outsmart the authorities and make it into this highly classified United States Air Force facility, who could possibly know what you’ll encounter?
Hollywood, that’s who.
Here are some top movie scenes to prepare you for what to expect if you someday come face-to-face with another life form.
1. Mars Attacks!
If you’re storming Area 51, leave your pets at home. Even if they’re service animals. Especially if they’re birds; and, more specifically, doves. In fact, avoid wearing white altogether. Check it out here.
2. Signs
Let’s say you make it past security and into Area 51. Assuming that this Air Force Facility doesn’t use TSA screening processes, you might even make it in with some water. Not only will this keep you hydrated in the desert, it might also double as a defense mechanism if the aliens are unkind. Check it out here.
3. Monsters vs. Aliens
All branches of the military were mobilized for this encounter, with POTUS himself making first contact. This may be our favorite way for communicating with alien life forms to date. Check it out here.
4. The Day the Earth Stood Still
The Earth has changed a lot since 1951. In fact, September 20, 2019 might be referred to as The Day the Earth Naruto Ran. If Gort-like creatures are locked up in the facility, they’ve hopefully evolved with more grace and dexterity since the OG. Regardless, approach with caution. Check it out here.
5. Alien 3
We’ve all heard of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. How about an alien in a dog? Expect the unexpected in Area 51. Check it out here.
6. Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)
Not only has Haley Joel Osment seen dead people (like, all the time), he’s also seen these curious forms of existence. Check it out here.
So, rather than rally around the “they can’t stop all of us” battle cry, think about how much better it would be to instead spend the day watching any or all of these movies in the comfort of your home. It’s easy to find out where they’re available to rent or stream for free: simply go to JustWatch. If you find something on Netflix®, here’s how to get the best audio.
For the best audio experience to complement the extra-terrestrials onscreen, be sure to connect your AV receiver or sound bar via HDMI to the ARC input on your 4K Ultra HD TV. The latest gear from Yamaha allows you to enjoy the benefits of eARC.
Yamaha does not endorse or condone the actions of any group or groups encouraging a visit to Area 51.
Take Note: Dorico is a Must-Have for Music Classrooms
Dorico music notation software is right at home in the music classroom. Dorico supports teaching music theory and composition through its algorithms.
The software ensures that music is always expressed according to the established practice, with rhythmic groupings and enharmonic spellings automatically calculated.
Dorico is easy to learn and simple to use, with a user interface that invites student-led exploration. Dorico is the only music notation software that combines beautiful notation with a powerful sequencer-style piano roll view, encouraging students to learn notation while providing a familiar way in.
6 Key Things About Dorico
- The software offers a simple, streamlined user interface that fits comfortably on a single display, with fast keyboard access to every feature. There’s no need for external keypads, MIDI devices, etc. It’s ideal for student laptops.
- Dorico’s rich understanding of music theory ensures that the music is always rendered clearly and unambiguously, no matter how complex the rhythmic or harmonic situation.
- Music educators can create assignments and learning materials quickly and easily with powerful and flexible page layout features.
- The software’s superior support for modern techniques of composition — including open meter, complex tuplets, microtonality and more — allow music educators and musicians to directly communicate their musical ideas and reduce the number of workarounds necessary in other scoring software.
- Dorico’s high-performance audio engine and world-class virtual instruments help you refine your musical ideas before the music hits the stand.
- A simple conversion kit allows you to trade up from Sibelius or Finale through a multi-seat cross-grade.
A 30-day free trial version for educators is available here.
To learn more visit new.steinberg.net/dorico or email educators@yamaha.com with your request for more information.
Going Solo
When I moved to Hawaii four years ago, I formed a band and began gigging at various resort venues on the islands. At the same time, I was also regularly performing as a solo artist, singing and playing acoustic guitar (both steel-string and nylon-string) and/or electric guitar, often accompanied by prerecorded backing tracks.
As anyone in a band knows, working with other musicians requires more than just musical chops — you also need great communication and interpersonal skills. (Scheduling often becomes a long stream of emails between band members to determine availability, and finding regular gigs that pay enough to support professional musicians may be the hardest part of all!) I love playing with a band, but there are a lot of benefits to working as a solo musician … although that, of course, also comes with its own set of unique challenges.
In this article, we’ll discuss what it takes to “go solo” and explore some performance options.
The Skills
Working alone is not for everyone, so be sure to consider whether you have the self-confidence to be the focal point of your performances, along with the entrepreneurial skills, tenacity, talent and motivation to run your own career.
As a solo performer, you’ll need to be not only the artist, but also the manager, booking agent, roadie, sound man, accountant and guitar tech. I’ve had to wear all those hats, and it has definitely fine-tuned my ability to deal with most situations. When a string breaks mid-song, you better know how to quickly replace it!
The next thing to consider is whether you are going to sing as well or whether you’re going to perform purely as an instrumentalist. I prefer to sing and play, as this gives the audience a more complete musical experience.
That said, some venues prefer instrumental background music to allow the customers to talk without any vocal distractions, and I’m certainly prepared to be flexible in those situations. Piano or nylon-string guitar work well for those kinds of gigs. I’ve spent time developing a complete set of instrumental music for solo nylon-string performances. If I’m doing a purely instrumental gig and am playing locally, I’ll use my Yamaha NCX1200R nylon acoustic-electric guitar; if I’m flying to a show, I’ll take my Yamaha SLG200NW SILENT Guitar™ so I can put it in the plane’s overhead compartment.
The Repertoire
One of the best things about a solo career is that you always get to choose the songs you play. I’ve made it a rule not to perform any music that I don’t like. Trust me, if you’re going to play the same songs several nights a week for months on end, you’d better like the material. If you write your own songs and they are consistent musically with your cover tunes, consider playing some of those songs in your set as well.
Build a set of songs that will cover a three-hour show (approximately 30 songs) — more if possible — to give you options.
The Vocals
One of the most difficult things for me to maintain is the ability to sing and play guitar for hours every evening. (Most venues will want you to perform three one-hour sets.) I strongly suggest exercises to warm up your vocal cords before a performance. In addition, make sure you’ve placed your songs within a comfortable range for your voice. In order to warm up, I deliberately start my first set with the easiest songs to sing. I’m also not concerned with replicating the key and performance of the original artist; I do my own thing.
The Stagecraft
Unfortunately, stagecraft is something that many solo performers overlook, but it’s something you really need to pay attention to. Your music can’t say it all — you need to entertain your audience as well. You need to learn how to interact and engage with them; you also have to learn when it’s best to talk between songs, and when it’s more appropriate to say nothing.
I loop and improvise at the end of each song to extend my performance and to add instrumental variety. Having a guitar that is easy for me to pick, strum and improvise on for long periods of time is also a huge consideration. I make a point of keeping my improvisations to a minimum and reference the melody often. Remember, most audiences aren’t guitar players!
The Gear
As you develop your set, take time to consider the sound you are looking to achieve. What is the best guitar to support your voice, and can you sustain playing it for long periods of time? Will you be using effects, an amp or playing directly into a P.A. mixer?
Experiment until you find a unique voice and tone to express your music fully. Try different microphones and reverb types until you get the clarity and character you need. Don’t be afraid to use EQ and compression, either. A quick online search for some suggestions on how to process guitar and vocals for live sound will get you in the ballpark. (Be sure to check out our series of “Tools of the Trade” postings here on the Yamaha blog.) You can always fine-tune your sound from there.
Yamaha STAGEPAS P.A. systems come in a variety of power options and incorporate equalization and reverb on every channel. These complete integrated systems are extremely lightweight and portable, and they offer more than enough inputs for any solo artist … or even a small band.
My performance requirements are extremely diverse, so I’ve found a way to achieve everything I need by using a Line 6 Helix guitar processor. On any given day, I may be playing live, hosting a clinic, demoing at a trade show, tracking a studio session or filming a teaching video, so I’ve optimized my Helix effects to sound great with a variety of acoustic and electric guitars.
With this one box, I can process my vocals, dial in any style of guitar sound, insert percussion loops, engage the real-time looper and use the built-in expression pedal for fade-outs. All of my set-lists are stored to the eight user locations for instant recall.
The Video
In this video, I’m performing at a house concert in Corona, California using a Yamaha A Series AC5R guitar, set to an equal blend of mic modeling and piezo pickup. The guitar, vocals and percussion loops are all running into a Line 6 Helix and a Yamaha STAGEPAS 400BT P.A. system.
The original song I’m performing (“Dewdrop Inn”) was written by me and Dylan Altman.
The Wrap-Up
After four years working as a solo artist, I’ve witnessed exponential growth in my musicality and confidence onstage. My artistry as a vocalist is melodically consistent with my guitar improvisations and I use harmonic progression and rhythmic feel to craft arrangements into my personal interpretations of classic songs.
When it’s you under the lights representing your art, there are no excuses, no drummer to blame or safety net to catch you when you have a tough night. Going solo will hone your skills, sharpen your business acumen and give you a platform on which to develop your own unique sound. I highly recommend it!
Photographs courtesy of the author.
Check out Robbie’s other postings.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha SLG200NW SILENT Guitar.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha A Series AC5R guitar.
Click here for more information about Yamaha STAGEPAS P.A. systems.
Click here for more information about the Line 6 Helix guitar processor.
Alchemy, Perpetual Motion and the Perfect Song
You woke up this morning brimming with energy. The sun was shining brightly, the birds were singing a merry tune, the fresh-brewed coffee hot and strong. The homemade granola you had for breakfast was so healthful you could almost feel your cells thanking you as the nutrients coursed through your system.
Next, a brisk jog to your local convenience store, where you bought a scratch-off lottery ticket and won ten grand. Inspired, you returned home and picked up your guitar and all of a sudden that chord progression you’d been struggling to master fell into place easily.
OK, reality check.
More likely, you woke up half-asleep, or half-hungover. The skies were depressingly gray and the only sound you could hear was your neighbor’s lawnmower or snowblower. You burned your toast and you’d run out of coffee the day before, so there was no benefit of caffeine and therefore no hope of a jog. No matter; the last time anyone had won a scratch-off at your local convenience store was back in 1992.
And that chord progression? Fuhgeddaboudit.
Those of us who are perfectionists are forever doomed to disappointment, for this is an imperfect world. But that doesn’t stop many of us from trying to create perfection anyway. And you know what? That’s a wonderful thing.
Throughout the entire history of mankind, people have always challenged the “impossible” — sometimes with magnificent results. Light without fire? Couldn’t be done … until Thomas Edison proved otherwise. Horseless carriages? No way … until the automobile came along. Wireless transmission of audio and video? A pipe dream … until the age of radio and television.
Other times, the outcomes are, well, somewhat less positive. For centuries, inventors labored in vain to build a perpetual motion machine, with a notable lack of success. For nearly a thousand years, alchemists struggled to find a formula that would turn base metal into gold, and not one of them managed to come even close.
And almost since the dawn of man, composers have attempted to write the perfect song.
Have any succeeded? Well, the answer is, of course, purely subjective, so it’s up to you to decide. For me, the more interesting question is, what would the “perfect song” entail, and what kind of reaction would it evoke? Fans of the 1970s Monty Python comedy show (and I’m certainly one of them) may recall the group’s brilliant sketch called “The Funniest Joke In The World.” The premise was that the joke was so funny, anyone who read or heard it promptly died from laughter. Would the best song ever written be so universally stirring that hearing it would cause the listener to break down in tears, or enter a nirvana-like state of joy and contentment?
In her recent “Song Envy” article here on the Yamaha blog, my colleague Shelly Peiken touched on the subject, talking about what she termed “WiWi” (short for “Wish I Wrote It”) songs, and the importance of using them as sources of inspiration, not frustration. I couldn’t agree more!
In the article, Shelly asks that readers consider their own personal top “WiWi” songs. After some deliberation, I decided that mine has got to be the Smokey Robinson classic “You Really Got A Hold On Me.” To my way of thinking, it’s got everything the ideal song needs: a catchy title, a relentless guitar hook, simple yet memorable lyrics, stop times that continually resolve and reconstruct the tension, and a call-and-answer chorus that lives like an earworm in your brain for days afterwards. I especially love the Beatles’ rendition, which features uncannily tight three-part harmonies courtesy of Messrs. Lennon, McCartney and Harrison.
Yet, for all my enthusiasm, I think that relatively few people would characterize this as a “perfect” song, if only for the simple reason that it wasn’t a huge hit for The Miracles, or The Beatles, or, for that matter, the Supremes or the Temptations (both of whom also provided worthy covers).
Many would rate Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday” as the greatest contemporary song ever written, yet McCartney himself has frequently cited Brian Wilson’s “God Only Knows” as his personal choice. Magazine polls (again, purely subjective) often include Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone,” Freddie Mercury’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and/or John Lennon’s “Imagine” in their top five. There are arguments for and against any of these, but, once more, I would make the case that none are “perfect,” if for no other reason than that none enjoy universal acceptance. (For every fan of “Yesterday,” there’s going to be someone who can’t stand “God Only Knows,” and vice versa.)
Not that any of this should stop you from attempting to write the perfect song. Just like Edison or Marconi, you may be the one who succeeds where everyone else has failed, to the benefit of us all. As author and motivational speaker Les Brown once said, “It is better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit.” You may be frustrated by the lack of perfection in this world, but that’s no reason to end your pursuit of it.
Seven Star Trek Technologies We’re Using Today
Believe it or not, the original Star Trek television series only ran for three seasons — from 1966 to 1969 — yet it became an enduring cultural phenomenon and spawned numerous spin-off series and a movie franchise. Its catchphrases still resonate in our most nerdy moments (“Dammit, Jim! I’m a doctor, not a …”), and some technology that first appeared on the original series (TOS) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) has actually become reality.
Thanks to Gene Roddenberry, the visionary science fiction writer who created the series and its spinoffs, we were treated to these glimpses of the future back in the ’60s, and they became so familiar we almost took for granted that they would one day be real. Here are seven Star Trek technologies that actually did go from fantasy to reality.
1. Automatic Doors
Even though they were actually operated manually behind the scenes, those ship doors that opened automatically with that pleasing sound at the approach of crew members were a small thing that was a big thing. These days, of course, we have doors that swing open when you get close to them and even freezer cases that light up automatically when you walk down a grocery store aisle.
2. Communicators
Although flip phones have come and largely gone already, they did look suspiciously like the communicator that Enterprise crew members whipped out of their waistbands to communicate with each other.
3. Microtape
Floppy disks are so yesterday now, but in the ’60s, Spock was ahead of his time as he carried information he could insert into a computer on little plastic cards called microtapes.
4. Big Screen Displays
Today, we take it for granted that 80″ TVs are widely available for every home theater, but the crew of the Enterprise enjoyed a huge display on the bridge where they could see who they were communicating with on another ship, or just the vast expanse of space before them.
5. Voice Control
Computer, who needs keyboards? Way before Alexa, there was the Enterprise computer, voiced by Gene Roddenberry’s wife Majel Barrett, who also played Nurse Christine Chapel in the original series. To get the computer to do something — even something that required complicated programming — all you had to do was ask: No need for keyboards or mice. Sound familiar?
6. Virtual Reality
The Holographic Environment Simulator, or holodeck, simulated any setting and situation the crew members could imagine, such as Data playing poker with Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking. We’re not quite there yet, but technology like Oculus virtual reality headsets is taking video games a tantalizing step closer. Holograms also reached another level of popularity and technical excellence when deceased rapper Tupac Shakur’s hologram performed live at the Coachella music festival in 2012 with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and others.
7. 3D Printers
In TNG, these molecule synthesizers could produce everything from clothing to food. Today, 3D printers can print food and even human organs, although not quite with the same ease as on the show.
It’s exciting to imagine what the future holds and what the next visionary will show us. Until then, happy Star Trek Day! Live long and prosper.
Learn about how to create the perfect home theater with which to watch Star Trek:
Home Theater on a Budget, Part 1: Starter System
Home Theater on a Budget, Part 2: Intermediate System
Home Theater on a Budget, Part 3: Advanced System
Home Theater on a Budget, Part 4: Luxury System
Find out where to watch your favorite Star Trek episodes and movies here.
Anatomy of Chimes
The sound of chimes (sometimes known as “tubular bells”) resembles that of church bells, carillon or a bell tower. Sound is produced when the metal tubes in a set of chimes are struck along their top edge using a rawhide- or plastic-headed hammer called a chime mallet. An attached damper pedal allows an extended ringing of the bells.
Here’s an annotated illustration of a typical set of chimes, followed by a description of the main components, in alphabetical order:
Base. The bottom support for the instrument.
Caster. Casters allow the chimes to roll freely, making transport and setup easy. They are usually equipped with locks, which should be engaged whenever the chimes are in use.
Chime Cord. Each tube is hung using a separate cord, allowing it to resonate freely. Chime cords are made of string covered in plastic.
Damper Box. This stops the tubes from ringing. Additionally, it keeps the chime tubes from moving freely during transport.
Damper Box Wing Bolt. This connects the upper pedal rod to the lower pedal rod. Unlock and remove this wing bolt to remove the damper box during disassembly.
Damper Pedal. Depressing this disengages the mechanism in the damper box, allowing the tubes to ring freely. Letting up on the pedal re-engages the damper box, thereby stopping the tubes from ringing.
Damper Stopper. When pushed in, this allows the chime tubes to ring freely without the use of the damper pedal.
Hangar Assembly. This holds all the chime tubes in place with the use of the chime cords.
Lower / Upper Pedal Rods. The lower pedal rod attaches to the damper pedal. The upper pedal rod attaches to the underside of the damper box.
Natural / Accidental Tubes. The standard range of chimes is C4 – F5, including both natural and accidental notes; the longer the length of each metal tube, the lower its pitch. In addition, the tubes in a set of chimes can vary from 1 1/4″ to 1 1/2″ in diameter.
Side Columns. Two long posts on either side of the instrument that support the entire frame assembly.
Wing Bolts. Used to attach the side columns to the base.
Click here for more information about Yamaha chimes.
Practical EQ Techniques
Equalization (“EQ” for short) is the process of altering the tonal balance of an audio signal to improve its sound or make it fit better with other signals. There are two main ways in which EQ is used. One is to reduce or remove unwanted information by cutting selected frequencies or frequency ranges. The other is by boosting to emphasize them more.
In this article, we’ll offer some practical advice for using EQ during recording and mixing. But first, let’s talk about the various different types of equalizers and filters you’re likely to encounter.
Equalizer Types
There are three basic types of equalizers:
A graphic equalizer provides a number of preset frequencies, each of which can be boosted or cut with a slider, making it easy to see the tonal change you’ve made (hence the term “graphic”).
They’re easy to use but offer less control than a parametric equalizer, which lets you choose your frequencies, along with the width of the frequency range (called “Q”) and the amount of boost or attenuation. Having an adjustable Q is particularly helpful because it lets you control how wide the equalization will be on either side of the selected “center” frequency. If you need to be “surgical” with your application of EQ — in other words, if you want to affect only a narrow frequency area — set a high Q, which gives you a tighter bandwidth. If you want to process a broader range of frequencies, set a lower Q.
There are also semi-parametric equalizers that offer a choice of frequency and boost/cut amount, but no Q control — in other words, their bandwidths aren’t adjustable, making them less useful than fully parametric equalizers.
Filter Types
Filters are the components in equalizers that alter the frequency content of audio signals. Let’s look at some of the most common filter types.
Peak Filter. Also known as a bell filter, this has its center frequency in the middle, and falls off to either side.
Notch Filter. These are designed for cutting or boosting extremely narrow frequency ranges, or even a single frequency. They’re rarely used in recording, although live sound engineers often use them to remove specific frequencies that are causing feedback. (For more information, see our “Tools of the Trade” blog articles on How to Fight Feedback.)
Shelving Filter. Sometimes known as a “shelf” filter, this is designed to boost or cut everything either above or below the center frequency. There are two types: high-shelf filters, which affect everything above the frequency you set; and low-shelf filters, which affect everything below it.
One application for a high-shelf filter would be to gently boost the high-frequency range to create a brighter, more sparkly sound — often referred to as “adding air.” Low-shelf filters are commonly used to reduce (or, in musical genres such as EDM, sometimes increase) the bass frequencies of a source such as kick drum or a low synth tone.
High-Pass and Low-Pass Filters: These filters attenuate only — they don’t boost. They are used to roll off frequencies below or above a user-selected cutoff frequency. The slope setting (also known as “Q” or “Q factor”) makes the roll-off steeper or more gradual.
Somewhat counterintuitively, a high-pass filter is typically used to remove rumble (from mic stands or the floor) since it “passes” (lets through) audio above its frequency setting, while rolling off those frequencies below. Conversely, a low-pass filter is typically used to reduce high-frequency noise like tape hiss since it rolls off audio above the cutoff frequency setting and passes what’s below.
Another name for high-pass and low-pass filters are high-cut and low-cut filters. As if the nomenclature wasn’t confusing enough, low-cut is the equivalent of a high-pass filter, and high-cut is the same as a low-pass filter.
Keep It Gentle
It’s usually better to cut than to boost when applying EQ. That said, you will end up doing both during a typical mix. (You’d be tying your hands if you never boosted!) Just be aware that boosting adds level — you’re increasing the signal in a particular frequency area, so the overall signal will get louder. Too much of a boost can cause a track to clip and distort, so it’s best to keep it as gentle as possible. When it comes to cutting frequencies, there’s less of a downside, other than the possibility of making a track too dull (by attenuating too much top end), thin (by attenuating too much low end) or hollow (by attenuating too many mid frequencies).
Hearing is Believing
Many of today’s EQ plug-ins offer excellent visual feedback that shows you graphically what the frequency content of your track is. For example, Steinberg frequency (included with Steinberg Cubase) offers a real-time analyzer that shows you the levels of the various frequencies as the song plays. Such displays can be super helpful in deciding where to apply a boost or cut.
That said, don’t merely go by visual indicators — make sure to listen as well! After all, EQ is an audio process, and so you should evaluate its effects audibly. For a final check, consider closing your eyes while listening, so you’re not distracted by the visuals.
Sweeping it Up
If you’re having trouble figuring out a problem frequency on a track (as would occur if you’re trying to reduce resonance or sibilance, for example), a useful way to find it is with a method referred to as “sweeping.” Use a bell filter with a high Q (narrow bandwidth) and temporarily push the gain up high.
Next, slowly move the frequency knob across the spectrum until you hear the problem become exaggerated. At that point, you’ve found the troublesome frequency and can change the boost to a cut to see if it fixes the problem.
Making it Clear
Many recording and mix engineers use high-pass (or “low-cut”) filters to remove unneeded frequency information from below the effective or desired range of both instrument and vocal tracks. If you don’t high-pass at least some of your tracks, you may get a build-up of low frequencies that will detract from the clarity of your mix.
Here’s an easy way to figure out what frequency setting to use when doing this. Slowly raise the high-pass filter’s frequency knob as you’re listening to the track in solo. When you hear the audio start to thin out, back it off to just before that point. Then take the track out of solo and double-check your setting with the full mix. You can experiment with various Slope or Q settings to see which sounds best; the gentler the slope, the more gradual the roll-off.
No Magic Bullet
EQ can solve a wide range of problems, but it’s no magic bullet. If one of your tracks was poorly recorded, and EQ is not helping, the best — and, believe it or not, often the fastest — remedy is to re-record it, if possible. When you do, try to eliminate whatever the problematic factor was, whether it was mic placement, an inferior instrument or a bad performance.
Check out our other Recording Basics postings.
Click here for more information about Steinberg Cubase.
Spotlight on STORIA
STORIA is a new series of stylish and great-sounding Yamaha acoustic-electric guitars designed for beginners. Their smaller body and shorter length, combined with a low string height and a narrow neck with rounded edges, make these instruments not only comfortable to hold but easy to pick up and play whenever inspiration strikes.
In addition to their appealing finishes, tasteful inlay work and champagne gold tuners, STORIA guitars feature superb workmanship, solid tops, brass bridge pins and Yamaha passive undersaddle pickups, which provide a warm and natural-sounding acoustic tone when the guitars are amplified. All three STORIA models have FS (Concert) body shapes with mahogany backs and sides, nato necks with walnut fingerboards, urea nuts and saddles, and 25″ scale lengths. Complementary inside colors and sound hole inlays complete the designs.
STORIA I has a solid Sitka spruce top with an off-white semi-gloss finish and ivory body binding. The mahogany back and sides have a natural finish, the inside is light blue, and the rosette is inlaid with ivory and mahogany. STORIA I has a clear yet rich sound.
STORIA II has a solid mahogany top with a natural semi-gloss finish and a 3/16″ (5mm) beveled edge. The mahogany back and sides have a natural finish, the inside is ultramarine, and the rosette is inlaid with ivory and abalone. STORIA II has a warm, well-balanced sound.
STORIA III has a solid mahogany top with a chocolate-brown gloss finish and black body binding. The mahogany back and sides have a chocolate-brown finish, the inside is wine red, and the rosette has ivory, red wine, and black inlays. STORIA III also has a warm and well-balanced tonality.
Ready to give STORIA a listen? Check out the video:
Click here to learn more about Yamaha STORIA guitars.
Keep up to date with Yamaha Guitars:
Top 10 Labor Day Songs
With Labor Day just around the corner, here are some interesting factoids about ten of the most iconic songs about working … and enjoying the fruits of your labors.
1. A Hard Day’s Night
The title of this classic 1964 Beatles hit (in which John Lennon sings plaintively about “working like a dog”) came from a Ringo Starr malapropism when the drummer was asked one morning if he’d slept well. Shaking his head no, Ringo explained that he’d had “a hard day’s night.”
2. Working Man Blues
Merle Haggard’s famed 1969 country song features a lyric that extolls the virtues of hard work and sacrifice despite the resulting fatigue and stress of raising a large family. As a bonus, there’s some fine picking from longtime Ricky Nelson / Elvis Presley guitarist James Burton.
3. Working Man
Cleveland disk jockey Donna Halper played this Rush song on the air in early 1974, even though the group were unknown in the States at the time. The working-class listeners of the city loved it, which resulted in the group landing their first U.S. record deal. The band were so grateful, they dedicated their next two albums to Halper!
4. 9 to 5
Written and performed by Dolly Parton for the 1980 film of the same name, this ode to America’s office workers garnered Parton an Academy Award® nomination and two Grammys. The percussion in the verses is the sound of a typewriter, though when Parton originally wrote the song, she devised the clacking rhythm by running her acrylic fingernails back and forth against one another.
5. Working for the Weekend
This 1982 hit by Canadian rock band Loverboy was inspired when guitarist and co-writer Paul Dean took a walk on the beach one Wednesday afternoon. It soon dawned on him that much of the area was deserted. “I was wondering, where is everybody?” he later recalled. “I guess they’re all working … and waiting for the weekend.”
6. Workin’ for a Livin’
According to singer and composer Huey Lewis (of Huey Lewis and the News fame), this 1982 song was semi-autobiographical, describing past jobs he had before becoming a musician, including time spent as a truck driver, busboy and bartender. In 2007, Lewis re-recorded the song as a duet with country music superstar Garth Brooks.
7. She Works Hard for the Money
Co-written by disco queen Donna Summer, this 1983 hit was inspired by an encounter that Summer had with an exhausted rest room attendant at the famed Los Angeles restaurant Chasen’s. The music video for the song became the first by a female artist to be placed in MTV’s “heavy rotation.”
8. Pink Houses
This sardonic 1984 look at the American Dream had its genesis when singer/songwriter John Mellencamp was driving along an overpass on the way to his home to Bloomington, Indiana after flying into the Indianapolis airport. “There was an old man sitting outside his little pink shotgun house with his cat in his arms, completely unperturbed by the traffic speeding along the highway in his front yard,” Mellencamp recalled.
9. Livin’ on a Prayer
This 1987 hit by the group Bon Jovi tells the tale of Tommy and Gina, a young working couple just starting out, and the way they face life’s struggles. Versions of the song have appeared in the music video games Guitar Hero and Rock Band.
10. Working On A Dream
In this inspiring track from the 2009 Bruce Springsteen album of the same name, The Boss speaks to the benefits of hard work, carrying on despite adversity and never giving up. The song’s glossy production features partly submerged “la-la” backing vocals and an instrumental break that has Springsteen whistling against a baritone sax line.
Dialing in the Perfect Two-Channel Experience
Today, with so many people listening on earbuds, small Bluetooth speakers and computer speakers, it’s easy to forget how good music can sound on a first-rate stereo system. Imagine sitting in the sweet spot in your favorite armchair, with nothing between you and a pair of top-quality speakers playing music from a high-grade turntable through a clean, powerful amplifier. Now that’s the way to listen to your favorite artists!
But creating an ideal listening experience isn’t accidental — it takes planning. The good news is that putting together and setting up a system of this caliber is easier than you might think. Here’s what you need to know to dial in the perfect two-channel experience:
1. Amp It Up
Having a quality amplifier to drive any Hi-Fi system is critical. You want to get a unit that delivers clean wattage, provides plenty of headroom (that is, extra power in reserve) and accurately reproduces the signal coming from the turntable.
One good option would be the Yamaha A-S1200. It’s an integrated amplifier, which means it contains both an amp and a preamp in a single unit, allowing for a visually cleaner setup, with fewer wires and components.
The A-S1200 pumps 90 W per side (into 8 ohms) and delivers amplification that, in conjunction with quality speakers, allows you to hear the finest details in your music. In addition, this sleek unit sports classic vintage-style VU meters on the front panel for level checking (they look really cool too!) and plenty of inputs and outputs on the back.
2. Choose the Speakers That Sound Best to Your Ears
Picking the best speakers is largely subjective; what one person likes, another may dislike, so you’ll want to audition lots of different ones before settling on the pair that delivers the sound you want to hear. You do, however, want to look for speakers that reproduce the entire frequency spectrum from lowest lows to highest highs with clarity; you also want them to provide good stereo imaging. Yamaha Soavo NS-F901 speakers meet all those requirements, and more. They’re 3-way, front-ported, tower-style units that contain a pair of 6.5″ woofers for bass, a 5″ midrange driver and a 1″ dome tweeter, all designed to deliver natural sound.
In addition, the NS-F901 cabinets come with two sets of speaker input jacks on each, which gives you the option to make a bi-wired connection. Why bi-wire? It can increase your sound quality by reducing distortion caused by resistance in the cables.
You can bi-wire from an amp with only one pair of outputs, but the previously mentioned Yamaha A-S1200 offers a separate pair of speaker outputs that make the process simple and straightforward. Just connect both sets of right outputs — positive and negative — to the corresponding inputs on the right speaker, and both sets of left outputs to the jacks on the left speaker, as shown in the illustration below:
3. Get the Right Spin on Things
In a system that will primarily be used for listening to vinyl, the quality of the turntable is hugely important. If it can’t deliver the necessary sonics, the rest of the system won’t have quality audio to work with … and you know the old saying about garbage in, garbage out.
That’s why you might want to consider the Yamaha MusicCast VINYL 500 turntable that features a belt-drive motor to help limit vibration noise and a straight tonearm for a more open sound.
The MusicCast VINYL 500 also features a slew of networking features, so you can stream music from a mobile device into your main system. Plus, if you ever decide you want to put additional speakers in other rooms of your house or apartment, you can transmit the music coming from the turntable wirelessly with the use of Yamaha speakers such as the MusicCast 20 or MusicCast 50.
4. Use Appropriate Cabling
Cabling is a controversial issue in the audiophile world. You’ll find passionate arguments pro and con as to whether premium speaker cables really make a difference. Like speaker preference, this is somewhat subjective, but physics does tell us that the thicker the wire, the less electrical resistance. That equates to more of the signal getting through, and potentially better sound quality.
To be sure that your cables are not detracting from the sound quality, it makes sense to err on the thick side by choosing 10AWG or 12AWG cables (AWG stands for American Wire Gauge, a cable-thickness standard; the lower the number, the thicker). As for the interconnect cable between the turntable and amplifier, avoid the really cheap stuff and you should be fine.
5. Ready, Get Set Up
Once you have all the components in hand, it’s time to configure your system in the room. Start by placing your speakers, bearing in mind that their optimal location depends on the size and shape of the space. One proven method for calculating speaker placement is to use the so-called “rule of thirds.” Here’s how it works: In the direction that your listening position will face, visualize dividing the room into thirds. Put your listening position at the virtual one-third line from the wall behind you, centered in the room.
Then put the speakers at the virtual one-third line from the wall behind them. Once that’s done, you’ll be able to figure out the best distance between them by creating an equilateral triangle with the listening position. Angle (“toe-in”) the speakers in about 30 degrees, so they’re pointing directly behind your head when you’re in your listening position. (Check out this online speaker placement calculator for more setup options based on your room dimensions.)
If circumstances don’t allow for using the rule of thirds, at least be sure that neither speaker is closer than about 6 inches from the wall or a corner — a foot or two away would be even better. Otherwise, you’re going to get a bass buildup that will muddy the sound. Also, be sure to keep speakers as far from corners as possible, because that can cause similar problems.
If your room is full of hard surfaces, you’ll hear too much reflected sound, which can cause phase distortion and mess up your imaging. Putting down a carpet or putting up curtains are two good ways to add absorption. Placing upholstered furniture like chairs or couches in the room can also help.
If you’re setting a room up to be a dedicated listening area, you’ll probably be able to move any furniture that’s in the way so you can configure the speakers and listening position as described above. But if you’re putting your system into an existing living room or den that has other purposes and furniture in place, you may have to compromise a little with your setup.
6. Do Any Necessary Tweaking
Once you have your speakers positioned, connect them to the amplifier. (This should always be done prior to powering up the amp!) When making speaker connections, be careful not to plug a negative cable to a positive terminal or vice versa. Also be sure that you’ve connected the left output from the amplifier (or outputs, if you’re bi-wiring) to the left speaker and right to the right.
Sit in your listening position and test the sound with an album you’re familiar with. If you’ve set things up correctly, it should sound like the music is coming from in-between the speakers, not directly from either speaker.
For additional assurance that your system is performing optimally, consider using a vinyl test record such as the Ortofon Test Record. Such products include many different audio tests, with a variety of test tones that play through your speakers to check system setup and performance.
Once you’ve got everything set up and sounding the way you want, you’re ready to spend some quality time with your LP collection. Sit back and enjoy!
Here are some related blog posts that provide additional information about Hi-Fi audio:
What’s A Receiver? Part 1: Hi-Fi
How and Why to Bi-Amp Your Speakers
Five Reasons Vinyl is Making a Comeback
Appreciating Vinyl Records … and the Best Way to Enjoy Them
How to Stream Hi-Fi Quality Audio at Home
Click here for more information about Yamaha AV products.
How to Play Slide Guitar, Part 2
In Part 1 of this two-part article, we discussed the origins of slide guitar playing as well as the different types of slides, plus guitar setup tips and the tunings that work best. Now let’s move on to basic slide playing technique.
Choose a Finger
The first step is to decide which finger to wear the slide on. There’s no right or wrong answer, although the ring finger is probably the most popular. You can find examples of great players that use the ring finger (which was favored by Duane Allman, whom we mentioned in Part 1), as well as those who favor the middle finger and the pinkie. It may take some experimentation until you find what’s most comfortable for you.
The ring and middle fingers offer you more strength and allow you to use a larger, heavier slide. However, the pinkie has one huge, practical advantage: you can play chords with your remaining three fingers in-between your slide parts. Your ability to play chords is much more limited if you wear a slide on the middle or ring finger.
Basic Technique
One significant way that slide playing differs from conventional guitar playing is that you place the slide over the fret itself, rather than in the space between frets. With slide playing, intonation (that is, the ability to play exactly in tune) is crucial. One of the earliest things you should practice is proper slide placement, so that notes aren’t a little flat or a little sharp. You also want to approach as many notes as you can from either below or above, so that you’re sliding into the note (typically from either a half or whole step away) instead of just hitting it dead on.
Another part of slide technique that will help you with both intonation and expressiveness is vibrato. When you sustain a note, you should create a vibrato by quickly moving the slide side-to-side over the fret. In the audio example below, you’ll hear the same phrase twice. The first time, there’s no vibrato on the sustaining last note; the second time, there is. As you can hear, the difference is substantial!
Most electric slide playing is done through amps, with the gain turned high and/or with the use of an overdrive or distortion pedal. You’ll find you’ll get a lot more sustain that way. However, for learning, you should also practice with clean sounds, as they’ll help you hear what you’re doing more clearly. The rule of thumb is simple: if you can make it sound good clean, it’ll sound even better dirty.
Taming Stray Notes
Another fundamental technique of slide playing is dampening (i.e., muting) the strings that aren’t being played. If you don’t dampen effectively, you’ll not only hear notes you don’t want, but there will be lots of noise from the slide running over the strings and frets.
Here’s an easy way to practice dampening. First, place your slide over the third and fourth strings at the 7th fret. Play those two strings and slide up to the 12th fret. Now take the fingers on your left hand that are behind the slide and lay them down lightly on the strings, then try playing it again. The notes should sound clearer because the non-used strings are being muted by your fingers behind the slide. (If you’re wearing the slide on your pinkie, use your first and middle fingers for dampening.)
In this next audio example, you’ll hear the same riff played twice: the first time without any dampening and the second time with dampening. Note the difference in clarity:
Most slide players pluck the strings with their fingers, rather than using a flat pick. This allows you to get a lot more control over which notes you play, plus you can take advantage of thumb-and-finger combinations that are impossible with a flat pick. What’s more, you can use some of your right-hand fingers, along with the back of the palm of your hand, to do additional dampening of the strings, as shown in the photo below. This will make your tone even cleaner.
Bear in mind that we’ve only covered the basics here. There are plenty of online videos that can take you a lot further, so check them out to learn more. Good luck and happy sliding!
Banner image by Maxim Fiyavchuk on Unsplash. All other photographs courtesy of the author.
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Super Articulation, Part 2: Guitar and Clarinet Voices
Welcome to Part 2 of this two-part article about the Super Articulation voices contained in select Yamaha keyboard instruments, including Genos, Clavinova CSP, CVP-700 series, CVP-800 series, and the PSR-S775, PSR-SX700, PSR-S975, PSR-SX900 and PSR-A3000. “SA voices,” as they are known, allow you to access different sonic effects depending upon how you play the keyboard or use the pedals.
In Part 1, we focused on the various articulations that can be applied to a saxophone voice. Now let’s shift our focus to the articulations that can be applied to guitar and clarinet voices.
Hammer-On
As mentioned in Part 1, there are thumbnails to the left of some voices in the voice selection screens of most Yamaha instruments. If you see an “S.Art” or an “S. Art2,” that’s an indication that it’s a Super Articulation (or Super Articulation 2) voice:
Let’s begin our exploration by calling up the Super Articulation (S.Art) Concert Guitar voice:
As we discussed in Part 1, many Super Articulation voices allow you to create a realistic legato when going from one note to another. (Legato is an effect whereby a wind player does not “re-tongue” their instrument when playing a new note, thereby slurring from one note to the next.) In the case of a stringed instrument like a guitar, the equivalent of not “re-tonguing” is called a “hammer-on,” whereby you go from a lower note to a higher note on the same string without re-picking it: the fretting hand simply pushes the string down on the neck of the guitar.
The Concert Guitar voice replicates that effect in a similar way, so, for example, if you play a C note and then the adjacent D in a legato way (with a low velocity), you will hear a realistically played “hammer-on,” with no second string attack, just a higher pitch:Now try playing those same two notes again but instead play them staccato (i.e., lift your hand off the keyboard between notes). This time, you’ll clearly hear the sound of a string being re-plucked. As with all Super Articulation voices, these are actually two completely different recordings of a guitar being played two different ways!
Pitch Slide (with velocity)
If you repeat the same exercise, but play the second note with a very high velocity (while still holding down the first note) you’ll hear a pronounced slide effect instead.
Pitch Slide (with left pedal)
Alternatively, if you press and hold that C note again, then press down on the left pedal on a Clavinova CVP/CSP, the pitch will slide from a C to a D as if a guitarist bent the string to make the pitch go up:
Body Taps (with center pedal)
As we saw in Part 1, pressing down on the center pedal of a Clavinova CVP/CSP while playing a Super Articulation woodwind voice can produce breath noises or key noises. Doing the same while playing a Super Articulation guitar voice can produce body-tapping sounds:
You can effectively intersperse these into the notes as you play, as though the musician’s hand is alternately tapping the body and playing strings.
Fret Noise
Fret noise is caused by a finger moving on a string while positioning the hand for the next note. Fret noise effects can be easily added to many Super Articulation guitar voices, depending upon how you play or use the pedals.
The easiest way to generate a fret noise on demand is to use the left-hand (sustain) pedal as follows:
1. Play a note softly on the keyboard, then press down on the sustain pedal to hold it. When you release the pedal, you will hear a hand mute the string.
2. Now play several notes at the same time with a much harder velocity, and hold them with the sustain pedal once again. This time, when you release the sustain pedal, you will often hear fret noises of varying volumes.
Harmonics
A harmonic on a guitar is a bell-like tone that’s produced by lightly touching a string in a specific place with your fretting finger as you pluck it with your other hand.
To hear this recreated in a Super Articulation voice, start by calling up the Folk Guitar Harmonics voice:
This voice allows you to instantly access harmonics from the keyboard by simply pressing down on the center pedal (Clavinova CVP/CSP). Begin by pressing down on the sustain (left) pedal and play a few notes. Then stop playing, and as those notes continue to ring, press down on the center pedal as well. Now play a few additional notes to add some harmonics to the notes already being held. Guitar players will freak out when they hear this!
Glissando
On a synthesizer, a feature called “portamento” makes it possible to slide between notes without actually hearing the intermediate notes clearly — something that’s also very easy to do on stringed instruments or on a trombone.
However, a clarinet (like a saxophone) has keys that define notes, so a glissando on these instruments cannot be a smooth slide but must instead be a series of quick notes played in succession. Many Super Articulation 2 (SA2) clarinet voices contain an authentic glissando played by a talented musician. To hear how this works, start by calling up the Romance Clarinet voice:
Glissandos with this voice are available if you play any 7th, M7 or octave while holding down the root note:
For example, if you hold a low C note and play any of these intervals above that key, you will hear a beautiful glissando between the bottom note and the top note. This is one of my favorite things to do with any SA2 voice because it always surprises people when they suddenly hear this in the middle of a piece!
Note that you can also activate the glissando on this clarinet voice by pressing down on the center pedal either before you play a note (in which case you’ll hear a glissando up) or after you play a note and release it (in which case you’ll hear a glissando down).
On other SA2 voices, pressing a pedal while you play or release a note enables you to add other articulation effects such as bend up/down, brass falls, etc.
Keeping Track of Articulations
This brings up an important feature. To keep track of all the hidden special articulations (and pedal assignments too), it is useful to refer to the Information (i) screen for each voice. You can call up the Information window of the selected voice by touching the S.Art or S.Art2 icon that appears to the upper right of the Voice name on the Home display:
Alternatively, you can select the Information (i) button below the voice selection screen:
That about wraps it up for our introduction to the power of Super Articulation, but there’s a lot more to explore, so roll your sleeves up and dig in — you may well discover some new things about familiar voices!
Explore other types of super articulations for saxophone voices.
Back To School!
As the sounds and fun of summer fade into memories, we parents start focusing on getting our kids ready for school. New clothes, school supplies and thoughts of activities to sign them up for are all part of the mix. As you make these preparations, don’t forget to think about getting your children involved, or re-committed, to studying music and playing an instrument.
Research shows that playing an instrument has many benefits for your child, from good posture and eye-to-hand coordination to better cognition. Students that take an interest in music also do better at reading, spelling, math and science — they even develop improved language skills. The bottom line: Playing an instrument helps to develop a well-rounded kid.
The question is: Which instrument? A keyboard — especially a digital one — is an excellent choice, for several reasons:
1. It’s easy to get a good sound right away.
2. Being able to play keyboard can easily lead to getting involved in extracurricular activities at school, church and other social gatherings.
3. It delivers the sound of an expensive acoustic piano at a fraction of the cost.
4. It never needs tuning.
5. In addition to acoustic piano, it offers additional sounds (such as electric piano, pipe organ, harpsichord — even the sound of a full string orchestra) to keep your child’s interest.
6. It provides speakers but also provides a headphone connection so your child can play without disturbing others — something that also enables them to not feel self-conscious when first working on their lessons.
Let’s take a look at three Yamaha digital keyboards you might consider for your child as they get ready for the school year.
A Very Good Place to Start
You might want to begin by taking a close look at the Yamaha P-45 digital piano. Though entry-level (and priced that way too), this instrument offers 88 weighted action keys that provide the touch and response of a real piano — a crucial feature for developing technique. The keys on the P-45 even go from heavier on the lower notes to lighter as you play higher, just like those on an acoustic piano. It also sounds very much like a piano costing tens of thousands of dollars, with a built-in reverb effect that simulates four different ambient spaces, from a small room up to a large concert hall.
The P-45 has ten sounds in all, any two of which can be layered together at a time; there’s also a useful learning feature called Duo Mode, which splits the keyboard into two equal zones of acoustic piano, so a teacher and student can sit side-by-side and share instruction and performance as if they were sitting at two adjacent pianos.
The P-45 can also be connected to a computer so your child can benefit from the many educational and edutainment music software products out there. This connection also allows students to record their performances and then listen back to further hone their skills. There are a number of included accessories, too, such as a sustain switch that acts like the damper (right-hand) pedal of a piano, and a music stand to hold your child’s songbooks and lesson materials. Last but not least, the P-45 weighs in at only 25 pounds, making it portable and easily transportable.
Moving on Up
If you’re looking for a more sophisticated digital keyboard for your child, you might consider the intermediate-level Yamaha Arius YDP-145 — an instrument that looks a bit more like a piano but is much more affordable than a real acoustic piano.
The YPD-145 comes with a built-in stand, accompanying bench, and an integrated music rest. It offers the same keyboard action as the P-45, but has an improved sound: that of the top-of-the-line Yamaha CFX 9-foot concert grand piano. It also has three times the polyphony of the P-45 (that is, the number of notes that can sound at one time), so it provides a much more realistic playing experience.
Speaking of realism, the YPD-145 has all three traditional pedals that are found on a real piano, with a unique feature called Damper Resonance. This recreates the sound of all the strings vibrating slightly when the damper pedal is pressed down, making the sound fuller and more alive. The onboard speakers are also larger than the ones in the P-45, with more power as well.
Your child can record their playing directly on the YPD-145 without the need for an external computer, and 50 classical songs are built-in for study and enjoyment, along with an accompanying book of the scores. The YPD-145 also works with an amazing app called Smart Pianist, available for Android™ and iOS, which can listen to the songs stored on a smart device and analyze and teach your child the chords to allow them to play along. (Click here for more information about how this works.)
When Only the Best Will Do
When you look at your child, do you see a budding concert pianist? You can encourage their development by investing in a Yamaha Clavinova model such as the flagship CLP-785. This no-compromise instrument showcases all of the company’s digital expertise and tradition in acoustic pianos, in a stunning upright piano design brimming with features and quality.
For one thing, the CLP-785 boasts a Grand Touch keyboard action that closely reproduces the mechanism of an acoustic piano for incredibly realistic dynamic and expressive performance, with synthetic ebony and ivory key surfaces that feel like the real thing. (There are even wooden white keys!) The sound of the previously mentioned CFX concert grand piano is here, along with a digital sample of a Bösendorfer Imperial concert grand, one of the most coveted pianos in the world. But the CLP-785 isn’t just about piano — there are a total of 53 instrument sounds onboard, along with 14 drum kits for play-along rhythm, as well as a full 480-voice sound set that allows your child to play back music files purchased or downloaded from the internet. There are also numerous effects such as reverb and chorus — some of them binaural for enhanced headphone listening — as well as 3-way speakers and a whopping 300 watts of power for a truly inspiring sound.
Like the YDP-144, there’s compatibility with the Smart Pianist app as well as onboard recording, but here there are 16 tracks available so your child can create full-fledged masterpieces without the need for an external computer or software. In addition to the supplied 50 piano songs, the CLP-785 has a whopping 303 lesson songs to aid in your child’s study and practice. They can even play along to songs stored in their smartphone or tablet via Bluetooth®.
Whichever of these three instruments you choose, you will be helping your child in their studies in school while at the same time preparing them for a lifetime of musical appreciation and music-making.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha P-45.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha Arius YDP-144.
Click here for more information about the CLP-785 Clavinova.
Inspirational Playlists
We all know that music can impact our moods. There are songs that relax you and those that push you to work hard; songs that make you reflective and somber, and those that uplift and inspire. Beyond just making us feel, psychologists have found that music and music therapy can contribute to good health in a number of different ways, from lessening anxiety to improving self-expression.
A recent article on positivepsychology.com includes this list of proven music therapy benefits:
1. It reduces anxiety and physical effects of stress
2. It improves healing
3. It can help manage Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease
4. It reduces depression and other symptoms in the elderly
5. It helps to reduce symptoms of psychological disorders such as schizophrenia
6. It improves self-expression and communication
My brother Michael has a lot of experience in this field — he’s a licensed social worker who serves as chief executive officer of West Bergen Mental Healthcare in Ridgewood, N.J. “Therapists use music to help patients manage their thoughts and feelings,” he explains. “Exploring what music helps them feel more relaxed or more positive can be a very strong therapeutic tool to uplift the patient’s spirits.”
One of the best ways to evoke good feelings in our daily lives is by streaming a great playlist. There are countless playlists available in every musical style on all of the streaming services. Spotify, for example, offers Discovery Weekly, which creates playlists based on your personal listening habits. I turn to those sometimes when I just want to try something different or listen to music I might not think to play on my own. There are also curated playlists available, categorized by Genres & Moods in Spotify’s Browse section. Perhaps best of all, playlists can be shared with friends and family, so you can spread the good vibes.
I often use playlists, depending on not only what I’m feeling at the time, but how I want to feel as the day and evening progress. For example, when I first wake up in the morning, I tend to listen to Chillout playlists on Spotify. My favorite is called Morning Dose of Chillout. It’s just over an hour of nice, easy tracks that help me set the pace for my morning routine … and it goes great with coffee!
I have also assembled a number of playlists for specific purposes. I’m a lifelong guitar player, but there are still times when I need some extra motivation. When that happens, I call up a custom Pandora playlist I’ve created that contains selected tracks from all my personal rock guitar heroes. It immediately makes me feel good, not only because I like the songs and players, but because it inspires me to keep playing and become better. I have raucous playlists for working out and quiet playlists for when I do yoga (one of my favorites is a Spotify playlist called Spa, Calm Meditation; Refresh, Rest and Relaxation — 60 songs that really put me in the right frame of mind). I also have playlists for vacations (predominantly reggae) and playlists for dinnertime (mostly jazz, which I find helps aid the digestion).
Perhaps the most eclectic collection I’ve found on Spotify is called the Superior Study Playlist. This 925-song (really!) assortment is described as “Vibe: Focus music with minimal lyrics.” It includes a wide variety of genres, including classical, soundtracks, instrumental versions of popular songs, lo-fi, post-rock and much more. While I have not come even close to listening to it all just yet, I’ve found it to be a useful blend of tracks that let me work and concentrate while still listening in the background.
So whether you want to feel inspired to climb a mountain or just climb onto the couch, crank up your smartphone, car stereo or home audio system and check out some playlists on your favorite music streaming service. Create some of your own or listen to curated ones. Delve in, discover new music and don’t forget to share!
Check out some of our related blog posts to help you best enjoy streaming music:
Perfect Together: MusicCast and Spotify Connect
How to Stream Amazon Music from Your Smartphone or Sound Bar
Choosing the Right Drumsticks
What’s the ideal drumstick? It’s the perfect combination of balance, response and feel … for you. What may be a good choice for one drummer may be completely unsuitable for another, so don’t just rely on a friend’s or teacher’s advice. Your optimum drumstick will depend on many factors, including the style of music and the type of drums or drum kit you play.
Everything that goes into a drumstick’s design — the material it’s made of, along with its weight, diameter, length, tip and taper — determines the way it feels in your hand. In this article, we’ll discuss these factors and give you some helpful tips for selecting the sticks that can best help you achieve your drumming goals.
Drumstick Materials
Drumsticks are, of course, most commonly made of wood, although you can also find ones constructed of carbon fiber, plastic or aluminum. Beyond the fact that they offer more rebound, the main advantage of those alternate materials is durability: those sticks last a lot longer than wooden ones. However, most purists insist that wood is the only way to go.
Weight, density, texture, resonance and flexibility all vary from one type of wood to another. The most popular woods used in drumsticks today are maple, hickory and oak, although birch, ash, rosewood, lancewood and ebony are also sometimes employed.
Maple is ten percent lighter in weight than hickory, which allows drummers to use larger diameter sticks without them being too heavy, making them a good choice for small playing environments or subtle musical genres like jazz or soft rock. Because of their fine grain pattern, maple sticks have the greatest amount of flex; however, they also wear out faster than other types of wood.
Hickory sticks are resilient, responsive and sturdy, and can absorb the shock of a hard-hitting drummer; they also tend to be the most comfortable, making them a great choice for most drummers.
Oak is the densest and heaviest wood option, so oak sticks can withstand more intense playing styles and will last the longest. Drummers using oak sticks can play louder with less effort. On the downside, oak does not absorb shock quite as well as hickory or maple.
Weight, Diameter and Length
The weight and diameter of a drumstick is indicated by its number and letter — numbers range from 1 to 9, and letters from A to CC. The higher the number, the lighter the stick, so, for example, a 7A is lighter than a 5B. The letter indicates the stick’s diameter, so a 5B stick is thicker (that is, larger in diameter) than a 5A stick. This means, of course, that a 5B stick of the same length as a 5A stick will be heavier, too, but only slightly. The most common sticks in use today are 2B (a thick, heavy stick), 5A and 5B (intermediate diameter/weight), and 7A (thin and light).
Drumstick lengths generally run from approximately 15 to 17 1/2 inches and are categorized as small, medium, large, extra large and double extra large; the latter is used mostly in marching bands, where the sound really needs to project. The length of the stick you’ll be most comfortable with largely depends on the size of your hands, and, if you’re playing a drum set (as opposed to an individual marching or concert drum), how far away the different components are from where you’re sitting.
What makes things slightly complicated is that these three factors are largely interdependent, so it’s all a tradeoff. Played with the same degree of force, a stick with a thicker diameter creates a louder sound than one with a thinner diameter. However, a stick with a thinner diameter is both lighter and faster, and so it allows you to play with greater ease, though at the expense of volume. (Note that a thinner stick will also produce a more intense sound from the drum at lower volume levels, whereas a thicker stick requires more velocity to achieve that same sound intensity.) The length of the stick affects its leverage and reach around the drum set. Shorter and lighter sticks produce a more delicate sound and require greater effort to play louder. Longer and heavier sticks allow louder play with less effort.
Tip
The tip at the end of the stick is the part that comes into direct contact with drums and cymbals and so it has a major impact on the tone.
There are several different shapes of drumstick tips, including round, diamond, teardrop, acorn, arrow and barrel. Round tips strike the drum or cymbal with the same surface area regardless of the angle of the stick, so the sound is consistent. Because beginners do not usually have a steady stroke, a round tip helps to smooth out their sound. Because barrel tips tend to be the largest and heaviest tip types, they generally produce the loudest sound and so are suitable for rock music or whenever you need to be heard over amplified instruments. With other types of tips, drummers can create different nuances by altering the angle of the stick and thus the surface area of the tip that contacts the drum head or cymbal. Musical genres that demand a more delicate and varied expression are therefore best played with diamond, teardrop, acorn or arrow-tip drumsticks.
In addition to the shape, the material a tip is made of also affects the tone. Often the tip is the same wood as the rest of the drumstick, but there are also sticks with tips made of plastic or nylon. Plastic is harder than wood, so the attack is more delineated; as a result, using sticks with those kinds of tips results in a harder, cleaner tone. Nylon tips are much more durable than either wood or plastic, but when used on cymbals can produce an unpleasant over-bright sound.
Taper
A drumstick’s taper refers to the length of the distance between its full diameter and the point where it meets the tip. Taper is a big factor in a stick’s balance and also in how quickly it rebounds (sticks with no taper have almost no rebound). A stick with a long taper has more “give” and offers a faster response, while a stick with a short taper will be stiffer and therefore provides additional strength. If you’re a heavy hitter or mainly play rock/metal, short taper sticks will probably work best for you. If you play jazz or other genres that require more dynamics, go for long taper sticks. If you’re looking for a versatile stick that can play any genre, medium taper sticks are the best choice.
Auditioning Drumsticks
As we stated at the beginning of this article, when it comes to drumsticks, one size does not fit all. A 7A is a good choice for someone with small hands, like a young student, while a 5A or 5B will work best for average-size teenage or adult hands.
A good way to audition drumsticks is to gather a number of them of different sizes. Then take the thinnest, lightest stick and wave it around, followed by the thickest, heaviest one. From there, try gradually thinner sticks and select the thickest one that you find easiest to wave. Use those sticks to play a couple of hits on a drum or practice pad. If your stroke seems a bit off-kilter, try a slightly thicker or thinner model until you settle on the sticks that give you the most control. Control is everything — especially for beginning drummers — and finding the correct drumstick is a crucial element in developing proper technique.
Finally, before you buy a pair of wooden drumsticks, roll them on a flat surface to make sure they are straight and not warped (the tips should not be bobbing up and down). Try to find a pair that rolls evenly, with the tip remaining centered as it rolls. In addition, take a moment to gauge the relative weight of each stick in your hands — each should ideally weigh the same.
Check out this related posting: Choosing the Right Drum Brushes and Multi-rod Sticks.
This posting is excerpted from the Yamaha Musical Instrument Guide.
For more information about Yamaha drums, click here.
How to Play Slide Guitar, Part 1
Playing with a slide opens up expressive and unique sonic territory for guitarists. But even if you’re an experienced player, it isn’t something you can just pick up and start doing well. It requires adjustments in technique — and sometimes even to your guitar — not to mention plenty of practice.
In this article, we’ll look at the origins of slide guitar and cover slide types, guitar setup and suggested tunings. In Part 2, we’ll discuss basic playing techniques. Ready to begin? Let’s dive in …
In the Beginning
Slide guitar has its origins in the blues of the Mississippi Delta, where slides were often used on metal-body resonator guitars. After the solid-body electric guitar arrived in the late 1940s, its additional sustain gave slide a whole new sound. Among the best known early electric slide players were Elmore James and Muddy Waters, both huge influences on Rolling Stones guitarist and co-founder Brian Jones, who helped spearhead the popularity of blues music in the 1960s.
Towards the end of his Beatles career and on his solo records, George Harrison frequently played slide guitar (most famously on the intro to his hit single “My Sweet Lord”), but it was Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band who truly revolutionized the technique, with a swooping, melodic style that helped bring the sound of slide guitar to a much wider audience, in turn influencing a whole new generation of musicians.
Slide Types
Slides come in a variety of materials, sizes and weights. Most are either metal (steel or brass), glass or ceramic. All have different tonal qualities. As a rule, metal slides tend to be heavier, which provides more sustain, and they have a more robust and brash tone. Glass slides are lighter and smoother sounding. Ceramic slides tend to split the difference in both weight and tone.
Of the three, metal slides are the least expensive and also the most durable (glass and ceramic slides can break when you drop them), so it probably makes sense to start with one of those. As you begin getting comfortable with slide playing, experiment with other types of slides to see which you like best.
Setting Up Your Guitar
To play slide effectively, you can’t have super-low action (string height) on your guitar. The slide will bump against the frets, and the notes won’t sustain fully. You may have to raise your guitar’s action a bit to get the best results. (If you’re not comfortable doing this yourself, hire a skilled luthier.) Adjust it so that it’s high enough for slide, but not so high that it hinders your standard playing. Using a lighter slide will mitigate the need for higher action to some degree, but probably won’t completely alleviate it.
Choosing a Tuning
Open tunings, such as open E (E-B-E-G#-B-E), open A (E-A-E-A-C#-E) and open G (D-G-D-G-B-D) are favored by many slide players, as are variations with the same string-to-string intervals, but tuned to a different root note.
Most slide open tunings are tuned to a major chord. So, as long as you put the slide on the fret corresponding to the chord being played at a given moment, you’ll have a chordal note readily available on every string, and other complementary tones, such as flatted 7ths, available nearby. This also allows you to play single-note lines, double stops and chords with your slide.
Slide playing in open tuning is more positional than standard lead guitar, and is not as focused on scales and arpeggios. To play against a minor chord, you have to avoid the major third or move the slide down a fret if you’re playing single-note lines.
Unlike open tunings, standard tuning only offers clusters of two or three major chord tones on a fret. This makes it more challenging in many ways than playing in open tuning. However, if you’ve already played guitar for a while, you should be familiar with notes and positions on the fretboard, which is an advantage.
If you’re looking to play both rhythm and slide, standard tuning is worth considering, as is using a pinkie slide. I like to play in a modified standard tuning where I drop the high E string down to a D. This gives the first four strings the equivalent relationship of the first four in open A or open G tuning, and still leaves me with strings 2 through 6 (which I leave in standard tuning) for playing chords.
Go to Part 2, where we talk about slide playing technique.
Banner image by Maxim Fiyavchuk on Unsplash. All other photographs courtesy of the author.
Click here for more information about Yamaha guitars.
Cool Songs for a Hot Summer
We’re in those dog days of August when the thermometer starts approaching triple digits, the sweat runs off your brow and you stick to your chair every time you get up. Fortunately, there are several ways to combat the heat. Ceiling or desk fans are always helpful, and if you’ve got an air-conditioned office or house, that can serve as a refrigerated sanctuary. You can always take a dip in the pool … if you’re lucky enough to own one (or have an accommodating neighbor). Heading to the beach is a good option, too … if you happen to live near one, that is.
If none of those options are viable, you may think that you have no choice but to start melting into a puddle, but you’d be wrong. The solution is simple: Put on some cool music. You’ll be amazed how it can help turn a scorcher into a total chill-out zone.
The Beach Boys were one of the first major artists to capitalize on the surf craze of the ’60s, and many of their early songs evoke the salty breeze of the ocean as they stream out over your playback system. But if you’re really suffering from the heat, you may want to check out the little-known “Cool, Cool Water” from the group’s 1970 Sunflower album. It’s mostly a wordless tone poem, but it features the immortal lyric “In an ocean or in a glass / Cool water is such a gas.”
Other great cooling (and cool) songs I like to listen to on a hot day include “Summertime” by DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, “Jamming” by Bob Marley and “Summer Breeze” by the Isley Brothers. It’s not just the lyrics and music to these songs that I love, but how they work together to make you feel good and want to get up and get your groove on.
And then there’s the classic “Saturday in the Park” by Chicago. The instant I hear the rollicking piano intro, I can feel my spirit lifting. “People dancing, people laughing / A man selling ice cream.” This lyric is not just a description of a scene, it is a scene. It makes me want to be in that park, and no matter where I am or what I’m going through, a smile comes to my face and the temperature seems to drop. If that isn’t the power of music, I don’t know what is!
Sometimes in the midst of summer I will put on “Christmastime Is Here” by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, which is one of the most popular holiday recordings of all time. Crazy? I don’t think so. In fact, this is one piece of music that instantly cools me down. There has been more than one occasion when I’ll have it pumping out of my car stereo on a hot day and roll down my window. Inevitably, passersby give me a smile and a thumbs up.
The reverse applies as well. Next time you venture out on a frigid morning with numb hands and your frosty breath hanging in mid-air, think of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Hot Fun In The Summertime.” I guarantee you’ll suddenly feel a bit warmer! Or put on Martha and the Vandella’s “Heatwave,” or “Summer In The City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, with its intense lyric “Hot town, summer in the city / Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty.” How can you not feel a bit of a relief after hearing that, even if there’s 10 inches of snow outside your window?
This is a phenomenon that’s actually well-documented. “The mind and body are connected,” notes author Julia Lehrman in a PsychCentral.com article entitled How Music Can Boost Your Mood. “Music often makes us want to move, inspiring us to dance or exercise. This helps release endorphins and serotonin in the brain, so we feel better and adopt a naturally more positive outlook. Combining music with movement is a potent way to improve your mood with the potential for long lasting effects.”
So while the heat is here, think about the songs you like that bring that cool, joyous feeling to you, and play them! And when winter returns, get some songs ready to bring your mind, body and spirit back to the warmth of the sun. Take advantage of the fact that music has the power to change how we feel, think and act and you’ll stay temperate no matter how frightful the weather outside.
The Direct Path
Did you ever have the experience of connecting a bass or keyboard to a mixer and feeling like something just doesn’t sound right? There’s a reason for that. Your instrument — whether it’s an electric bass, electric guitar or keyboard — isn’t happy being plugged into certain types of inputs, even if they use the same connector. The good news is that you won’t need to send your instrument to a shrink! You just need to connect it to the proper input.
As we discussed in a previous Tools of the Trade blog post about connections, the 1/4-inch TS connector found on many mixers (and most electric instruments) can be used for multiple purposes. For example, Yamaha MG Series mixers have 1/4-inch inputs designed to accept line-level signals from devices such as keyboards, electronic drums, music players, DVD or CD players, as well as external effect processors. So, yes, an electric bass or guitar can be connected to a 1/4-inch line input, but that doesn’t mean it’s the optimum connection.
What’s the Difference?
There are three main differences between an instrument signal and a line signal:
1. An instrument signal is much weaker than a line signal, so an instrument requires more gain to achieve the same level.
2. An instrument signal is unbalanced. You can read more about the technical differences between balanced and unbalanced signals in the Tools of the Trade blog posting about connections we mentioned earlier, but one of the important points is that, to avoid noise and interference, unbalanced cables should not be run for lengths of more than about 15 or 20 feet.
3. Almost all electric guitars and basses are high-impedance devices, but line inputs are low-impedance. Impedance refers to how easy or difficult it is for electricity to flow from one device to another at different frequencies, and it’s something that has a huge impact on the sound of an instrument. For example, the pickups of an electric bass are designed to be connected to the input of a bass amplifier, which is also a high-impedance device. When you connect an electric bass to a line input, the pickups do not produce the sound they were intended to. You may experience noise and a loss of low frequencies.
All of those differences add up to this one simple fact: When you connect an instrument to a line input, it won’t sound the way it’s supposed to.
A direct box or “DI” (short for Direct Inject) solves all of these problems. Using a 1/4-inch instrument cable, you connect the instrument to the input of the direct box. Then, using an XLR cable, you connect the output of the DI to a microphone input on your mixer. The mic preamp inside the mixing console can then be used to adjust the signal to a suitable level. (Note: The XLR inputs on most modern Yamaha mixers, including the MG Series, can accept a very wide range of signal levels and for that reason are labeled MIC/LINE inputs.)
A direct box also converts the unbalanced instrument signal to a balanced signal, so you can run it from the stage all the way to the mixer at front of house without any signal degradation.
Finally — and perhaps most important — the DI provides an input with the proper impedance. The instrument acts like it’s connected to an amp and sounds the way it was intended. By the way, pretty much all DIs provide a “parallel” (sometimes called a “through”) output jack so you can simultaneously connect the instrument to an amplifier, allowing you to hear the instrument onstage while also sending it to the mixing board. The illustration below shows how this works:
How Does it Sound?
The sound of an electric bass or keyboard through a DI is desirable because it is clean and typically has a very clear, solid low end. Sending this signal directly to the PA system also means that there’s no need to place a microphone on the instrument amp, and that avoids the issue of other sounds (such as drums) leaking into the mic. (Most electric guitar players prefer to use an amplifier to get their sound, so it’s rare to use a DI on those instruments.)
The output signal from some electronic drums, keyboards, and basses (particularly those with active pickups) can sometimes overload the input of a DI, so most direct boxes provide a pad switch that reduces the input sensitivity to prevent distortion. A pad may also enable the DI to accept the speaker output of an amplifier:
Hold Your Ground
In our Tools of the Trade posting Cleanliness is King, we talked about the fact that noise can be generated when an audio device is grounded in more than one place. Using a direct box to connect an electric instrument to the PA system and a stage amp at the same time could cause a ground loop, as shown in the illustration below:
That’s why most direct boxes have a ground lift switch that breaks the ground loop by disconnecting the ground on the XLR output, eliminating the hum that can result from a ground loop:
If you’re not sure whether or not to use the ground lift, try both switch positions and use the one that produces the least amount of noise.
Built-In DIs
You may have noticed that some mixing consoles, such as the Yamaha EMX7 and EMX5 powered mixers, have a special input with a switch labeled “Hi-Z” — an abbreviation for high impedance. When the Hi-Z switch is pressed, the line input is changed into a high-impedance instrument input, allowing you to connect an instrument directly to the mixer without the sound being altered.
Using a DI will require a few more cables than simply plugging your instrument straight into a mixer, but the benefits are well worth it: You’ll get a better sound and have the ability to easily solve any grounding issues.
All photographs courtesy of the author.
Here’s What You Need to Know About Bows
Every string player knows the importance of bowing, and having the right bow, in order to produce the best sound possible from their instrument. Here are six questions and answers about bows that may help you better understand the role they play:
1. What’s the difference between wood bows and synthetic bows?
Wood has always been the main material in bow making. Exotic woods from South America have been the top choice because of their density and straightness. Pernambuco and Brazilwood are the most common.
The 20th century brought about synthetic materials like fiberglass and carbon fiber. These materials allowed bow makers to experiment with a modern material that was more resistant to warping and wearing. Try both and decide which you like best!
2. What is camber?
Camber is the bend that the bowmaker puts into a straight bow stick during crafting. It must be done very carefully, using heat to bend the wood into the correct shape. Camber allows the bow hair to be tightened up and provides springing tension that players use for slow (legato) and fast (spiccato) passages.
3. Does the rosin I use make a difference?
Made from the sap of pine trees, different rosins are made for different instruments. Typically, a dark rosin will be softer and stickier and therefore better for use on larger instruments like cello and bass. Lighter rosins allow the bow to move quickly over the strings, making them more suitable for violin and viola. It’s impossible to say that one rosin is “better” than another, so it’s up to the player to decide what rosin feels best.
4. Is it easier to make a bow or a violin?
This is a long-standing debate. There are violin makers and there are bow makers and rarely do you see someone who does both. Both are a dedicated craft and they both require a combination of woodworking and science. One thing is for certain: The violin maker and the bow maker rely on each other for success.
5. Does the bow’s hair really come from a horse?
Yes, it does. The hair comes from the tail of the horse and is vital to the instrument’s sound. While modern synthetic materials have attempted to duplicate the function of natural horsehair, so far nothing has successfully equaled what nature has provided.
6. Where does the bow frog get its name?
The bow frog is the end part of the bow that encloses the mechanism responsible for tightening and holding the bow hair ribbon. And the answer to this question is: No one really knows for sure. One theory is that it’s because it somewhat resembles the amphibious animal of the same name. Another theory comes from the equestrian world, where the lower part of a horse’s hoof is called the frog. Yet another theory says that the inventor of the modern bow frog was named Helmut Gorf, and the part was respectfully named for him, using his last name spelled backwards. Which do you believe is most true?
This posting is adapted from the Yamaha Musical Instrument Guide.
Click here for more information about Yamaha stringed instruments.
The Importance of Aesthetics
In 1985, I graduated from the Hastings College of Arts and Technology in my native England, with an Advanced Craft diploma in Decorative Painting.
I used my extensive training to great effect while living in Nashville some years later, decorating many prestigious new homes. I specialized in “old world” interiors, where my European training and English heritage gave me the visual awareness to replicate Renaissance-era living spaces within new construction architecture.
Visual Appeal
My love for the guitar is similarly grounded in artistry and the aesthetic appeal of a beautiful instrument. The graceful contours, natural grain of exotic tonewoods and vibrant (or distressed) colors resonate with me on a very deep and personal level.
I’m not a guitar snob, but I literally won’t play a guitar if I don’t like the way it looks. I’m not interested in the prestige of owning particular instruments or having the latest technology. If I’m not “feeling it,” then I won’t go any further trying to make a connection.
When I see a guitar I like, there is a gravitational pull towards it, an intrigue to explore its capabilities beyond the initial fascination. Will the sound of the instrument resonate with me to the same degree as the visual component? If my body likes the sonority of a guitar and its “voice” speaks to my sensibilities, there may be a bond forming that can’t be ignored.
Even when I find a special connection with an instrument, I give a lot of thought as to whether it’s worth the financial commitment. If I can justify the purchase and the guitar will be put to long-term creative use, I’ll consider investing in the relationship. Some guitar collectors purchase stunning vintage instruments and keep them locked away in bank vaults while they accrue in value. I understand the financial rewards, but it just seems unethical to me that a resonant instrument be imprisoned like that and never played to make music.
My Guitars
The guitars I own are used on a regular basis and I take care of them when they need attention. New strings, setups and moderate humidification are simple requirements that keep them performance-ready at all times. I have a specific use for each of the guitars in my collection, and they all fall into one of three broad categories: Nylon-string, acoustic steel-string and electric. I have specific instruments in each category that I use for studio recordings and others that are optimized for live performance, clinics and travel.
Because I often film clinics and lessons, another very important aspect for me is how a guitar looks on camera. Instruments that have high-gloss finishes often create too much of a glare from the studio lighting, and therefore take longer to capture in a natural way. Similarly, the sheen from a new maple fingerboard reflects the light in a way that can be very distracting for the viewer who’s watching your fretboard hand in close detail.
Like most guitar players, I have favorites. Some guitars that look as good as they sound are nice to have sitting around the studio, while others are kept in their cases, ready to go to the next gig.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve often used my Yamaha Revstar 720B for video work. The “hand-rubbed” flame maple top and rosewood fingerboard present a stunning combination of coloration, and the instrument exhibits a very low-luster sheen, which is perfect under studio and performance lighting.
The Yamaha SILENT Guitar™ series combines unique modern guitar design with extremely useful functions. The onboard effects, tuner, mic modeling, auxiliary input and headphone jack are perfect for silent practice or backstage warmups. Live performance is feedback-free due to the fact that there isn’t a sound hole to produce resonant feedback loops. And if you travel, you’ll appreciate having a full-size guitar that fits into a gig bag half the width of any other gig bag due to the removable upper body frame. That’s a lot of extremely useful attributes in one guitar. My SILENT guitars also get more compliments than any of my other guitars!
Last but not least, the three new Yamaha STORIA acoustic guitars have been carefully crafted with attention to detail for an aesthetically pleasing and extremely playable guitar. Each features a concert-size body design with solid mahogany back, sides and neck. The STORIA II and III have a solid mahogany top, while STORIA I sports a solid spruce top with an off-white semi-gloss finish.
Special design touches that really make these guitars the centerpiece of any room are the champagne gold tuners, rosette inlays and the interior colors of ultramarine, light blue and wine red. Instant playability has been enhanced by producing a short scale, narrow neck with rounded fret edges (rolled edges) and a comfortable string height at the saddle and nut.
I’ve found that the tone of these acoustic guitars is perfect for songwriting and recording, plus the built-in passive undersaddle pickup can deliver your sound directly to the P.A. or studio mixer for live performance or recording, making the instrument extremely versatile.
The Video
I recently used a STORIA III guitar to compose and record the original music for the official STORIA product launch. In my studio, I used a combination of microphones and the passive pickup to capture all the rhythm and lead tones you hear in this video:
The Wrap-Up
I believe a “love affair” with a new guitar occurs at first sight. The initial spark develops into a musical bond when we discover that magic happens when we finesse the strings and listen carefully to the response. As I’ve discussed in a previous blog post, these are the resonant frequencies that flow between you, the guitar and the air in-between.
Your passion for the aesthetic is arguably as important as the function, playability and tone of your instrument. Finding all those attributes in one “perfect” instrument is the guitar nirvana we all seek!
Photographs courtesy of the author.
Check out Robbie’s other postings.
Click here for more information about Yamaha STORIA guitars.
Song Envy
The Comparison Game. I play it. Do you? We know we shouldn’t. But we’re only human.
It happens to the best of us. We hear a piece of music or a song that someone else wrote — one that’s so disarming that we stare aimlessly at a wall with an acute sense of inferiority — and tell ourselves we’ll never write anything as good.
A while back I coined an acronym for a song that does this to you: WiWi — as in, Wish I Wrote It.
When we’re under the spell (or curse) of a WiWi Song, we want desperately to claim that song as ours in exchange for the ballad we wrote the week before that has a hook we can’t remember.
Even though I’m pretty creatively “woke” when it comes to envy, if I’ve had writer’s block for a while I’m definitely more prone to crossing over to the dark side. We’ve all heard the expression “compare and despair.” That’s what I’m talking about.
And then, after despairing, we humans may ask for more trouble because when we’re obsessively infatuated with someone else’s song we may try to copy it. Not necessarily word for word or note for note, but the emotional tone. The imposter will always pale, though. Why? Because it wasn’t organically inspired. It was born of envy. And we simply can’t do what someone else does as good as they do it.
Conversely, it’s helpful to remember that there is something you do that nobody does better than you. An individual’s creative DNA is uniquely their own. Just like no two fingerprints are alike, or no two voices are exactly the same.
What is that thing you do, anyway? It’s not so much a style (i.e., soulful, ironic, confessional, feel-good, uplifting, heart-wrenching, nostalgic) as it is a nuance — a subtle slant within a niche. The way Bruce Springsteen can hone right in on the plight of the working man, or Julia Michaels can tap into a teenage girl’s insecurities.
Ask yourself why that gem you penned a few months back resonated so powerfully with almost everyone you played it to — the song you wrote when you weren’t trying to cop a tasty hit or stay within the boundary of an algorithm. You were probably waiting patiently for your muse that day and when she finally arrived, she brought with her your truth.
So next time you try to get inside somebody else’s heartbeat, remember: The best thing you can do for your own creative health is march to the beat of your own.
Here are three of my WiWi songs:
“I Touch Myself” (written by Billy Steinberg, Tom Kelly, Christina Amphlett and Mark McEntee, performed by DiVinyls)
“I Can’t Make You Love Me” (written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, performed by Bonnie Raitt)
“Closest Thing To Crazy” (written by Mike Batt, performed by Katie Melua)
Do you have a WiWI song that’s always haunted you? Go to my Facebook Page and let me know what it is.
Anatomy of A Marching Snare Drum
Marching snare drums are designed for precise articulation, powerful projection and durable performance.
Here’s an annotated illustration of a typical marching snare drum, followed by a description of the main components, in alphabetical order:
Air Vents. These allow air to escape from inside of the drum. Without them, the drum would sound muffled.
Badge. This is where you find the serial number and model number of the drum.
Batter Head. The top head of the drum that is played with drumsticks. For maximum volume and stick articulation, this is often made of Kevlar material and tuned to a high tension.
Bottom Hoop. The very bottom rim of the drum, normally made of aluminum alloy. This is used to tune the snare head.
Butt Side Strainer. This is where the snares attach to the drum, opposite the release strainer.
Fine Tuning Adjustments. These allow the snare strainer to be adjusted vertically and horizontally.
Removable Feet. These provide protection when the drum is placed on the ground.
Shell. Typically made from wood, the shell is the “body” of a marching snare drum. It projects the sound, and a consistent, handcrafted shell makes tuning easy. A 45-degree bearing edge is often utilized on the bottom side to ensure proper snare articulation.
Snare Head. The drum head on the bottom of the drum. This interacts with the snares to create a buzzy sound.
Snare Strainer. The system that holds all the snare strands in place. Fine tuning adjustments may be made to either tighten or loosen the snares.
Snares. Synthetic strands or “guts” that give a snare drum its characteristic buzzy sound.
Sound Posts. These attach the tube posts to the shell, helping to eliminate unwanted overtones.
Sound Tube. Connects the top and bottom hoops to the drum.
Suspension Hoop. Usually made of aluminum alloy, this takes the tension of the batter head and protects the wood shell from breaking under extreme pressure.
Tension Rods. Steel rods that allow the top and bottom drum heads to be tuned.
Throw Off. This allows the player to turn the buzzy sound on and off by engaging or disengaging the snares.
Top Hoop. The very top of the drum, normally made of aluminum alloy. This is used to tune the batter head.
Tube Posts. These help to reduce overtones from the vibrating drum shell.
Click here for more information about Yamaha marching drums.
Tattoo You: Permeating the Parlor With Sound
Art appreciation and freedom of expression are the tenets of every tattoo shop. Beyond the buzz and hum of artists at work — and the occasional audible intake of breath from a patron — there’s another tie that binds. It’s the music that permeates the parlor, and it plays a role in defining the culture.
Sometimes the soundtrack is a community experience, such as a Spotify playlist everyone can rally around. Other times it’s incredibly personal and inspiring — a collection of songs specially matching a mood or a moment. Whether it’s background music or the anthem of the day, a tattoo parlor without music is like an ocean without waves. It just isn’t right.
Small Business, Small Challenges
Your neighborhood tattoo shop is rarely a feat of new construction. It takes years of planning and apprenticing, plus searching for the right location — one which can expand over time and as the business grows.
Located just a few blocks east of the historic circle in Old Towne Orange, California, Old Towne Tattoo Parlor is home to about ten artists. You won’t find a Boingo hotspot sticker on the door, but that creates space to connect in different ways once you step inside.
The foyer is flanked by two working areas, where the artists divide and conquer. Music from the foyer fills in the corners, powered by a PC, Spotify and a computer speaker system.
Just as the artists each have their own style and client list, they also have their own tastes in music. An in-ceiling speaker system isn’t part of the equation here. In fact, even if that was in the cards, such an application wouldn’t feel right. Leave that for the nail studios and hair salons. A tattoo parlor requires something more tangible, more personal and, perhaps most importantly, more customizable.
By Design
While the existing computer setup currently centralizes the music, it’s nearly impossible to expand and share evenly with the other rooms without wires.
That’s where a multi-room audio solution such as Yamaha MusicCast comes in. MusicCast allows you to start with a single speaker and connect more of them in different rooms as you grow. It’s been a favorite in homes for years, and it’s certainly aligned with how music can be shared and enjoyed in small business spaces as well.
Olde Towne Tattoo Parlor recently added two MusicCast 20 speakers — one in each working area. After setup via the MusicCast Controller app, the options and combinations for the music in the space really start to take shape. Each speaker can play independently of each other or be linked together to play the same music in both rooms.
The artists at the shop are rarely far from their iPhones® and iPads®, which allow them to easily stream directly to the speakers or link them together via AirPlay® 2 functionality. If their hands are full, no problem. They can summon Siri® for an assist to skip a song or get a new playlist going.
The speakers can also be controlled with an Alexa device or Google Assistant, or via the MusicCast Controller app for iOS and Android™ devices. And if the Wi-Fi gets spotty, individual playback is available via Bluetooth®. So, whether it’s a Motown playlist for all or a Pink Floyd album for a select few, the music can be shared or siloed accordingly.
MusicCast technology may have been designed for the home, but as the artists at Old Towne are discovering, it can also be enjoyed at work!
All photographs courtesy of the author.
For tips on setting up MusicCast in your space with the tech you have on hand, check out these blog postings:
Perfect Together: MusicCast and Spotify Connect
How to Use Yamaha MusicCast with AirPlay 2
Click here for more information about Yamaha MusicCast.
Organize Your Mix
Mixing, by its very nature, is a complex activity with a lot of moving parts. You’ve got a multitude of tracks that need to be adjusted individually for level and panned in the stereo spectrum. Some will also need to be processed with equalization and gain reduction such as compression or limiting. You’ll also be automating levels and adding effects like reverb and delay, among many other tasks.
Your project will likely also include auxiliary channels, sub channels and a master bus (in Steinberg Cubase, they’re referred to as FX Tracks, Group Tracks, and the Main Out, respectively) and they’ll need attention too. In short, you’ve got an awful lot to keep track of during a mix, so to help avoid confusion, it’s best to start the process with your session as organized as possible.
Order Out of Chaos
Task number one is to put your tracks in a logical order. The easiest way to do that is to arrange all the instrument and vocal tracks by type. In other words, put all the drums together, all guitars, all keyboards and so on.
Within each category, you’ll also want to arrange the tracks in a way that makes sense to you logically. For example, if you have multitrack drums, you might want to order them something like this: kick, snare, hi-hat, toms, overheads, and room mics:
In Cubase, the easiest place for rearranging the order of tracks is the Track List in the Project Window — simply click on a track header and drag it up or down to change its position. The order of tracks in the Mix Console will mirror what’s in the Track List. As you pass each track in the list, you’ll see a green line that shows the location of where the track would move to if you release the mouse button.
Next, check the track names to make sure they make sense and will not confuse you during the mix. If you want to rename a track, simply double-click on its name. It will become highlighted and allow you to type in something new.
The Color of Music
Once you’ve got your tracks in order and correctly named, it’s also helpful to color-code them. Doing so allows you to know at a glance what kind of track you’re looking at in the Mix Console or the Track List.
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to color choice. I like to color drum tracks blue, bass purple, electric guitars red, acoustic guitars orange, keyboards green, and vocals pink, but everyone does it differently. Use whatever scheme you like, but stay consistent from project to project so that you commit your system to memory:
To change the color of a track in Cubase, first select the track header and then go to Project/Colorize Selected Tracks, which opens the Colorize window. If the window says “Colorize Selected Objects,” it means you currently have an Object (audio or MIDI event) selected. Before you change the track color, you need to deselect the Object (clicking in an empty part of a track lane will do it) and then click on the track header. The Colorize window should then switch to saying Colorize Selected Tracks:
Next, click on a color, and it will change both the track header and all the Objects in selected tracks as well.
Fold it Up
Especially if you have a high track count in your session, you can make your Track List more compact and clean-looking with the Track Folders feature in Cubase, which lets you enclose any group of tracks you select. (Note that Track Folders do not appear in the Mix Console.) If the folder is open, the tracks are visible, but if it’s closed, they’re hidden inside the folder.
Track Objects from Folder Tracks not only have a unique look, but can be edited as a group. You can even nest folders inside folders:
Once you have tracks in folders, you can solo and mute the entire folder with buttons on the folder track. They’re also handy for splitting the main workspace vertically, with the Track List above and the Mix Console in the Lower Zone (you may need to first click Lower Zone button on the upper right to open it up, and then choose “Mix Console” on the bottom left):
To create a Track Folder, select the Tracks from the Track List that you want to include, then go to Project/Track Folding/Move Selected Tracks to Track Folder.
Mark it Up
Adding markers to the beginning of each song section — such as intro, verses, choruses, bridge, etc. — not only helps you see where you are in your song at a glance, but it also gives you an easy way to jump to specific parts of the song during the mix.
First, however, you must create a Marker Track, which is one of the track types you see when you use the Add Track function (Project/Add Track or right-click in the Track List). Once you’ve created it, you can use the Add Marker button to put a marker at the current cursor position: (Make sure to turn on the Grid and set it to Bar if you want to create markers precisely at the beginning of measures.)
Open the Marker Window (Project/Markers or Command (Control)+M). You’ll see a list of the markers created. Here you can name your markers (which I highly recommend), delete them or change their location.
You can make the transport jump to a specific marker by clicking in the Locate (>) column next to it in the Marker Window, or in the Marker Inspector (you can open the latter by clicking the Inspector tab with the Marker Track selected). Cubase also offers another type of marker called Cycle Markers for saving left-to-right locator positions:
Ready to Rock
If you’ve taken all the steps outlined here, your mixing will be well-organized and streamlined. This will not only make you more productive but also allow you to concentrate more on the most important (and most fun) aspect of mixing — the creative part.
Check out our other Recording Basics postings.
Click here for more information about Steinberg Cubase.
Brass/Woodwind Instrument Finishes and Their Effect on Tone Quality
The tone of both metal and wooden instruments comes primarily from the material from which they are made, as well as playing technique. Although the finish applied during manufacture is designed principally for protection from the acids in your skin, it will also have some effect on the instrument’s sound.
When a brass or woodwind instrument is played, the vibrating column of air inside the instrument creates vibrations in the body material. These vibrations can be allowed to occur as freely as possible — like those in an instrument without lacquer or plating — or controlled with the use of a finish. The heavier the finish, the more the vibrations will be dampened. The ideal instrument has a clear, pronounced core sound, with a full range of rich overtones.
The four drawings below show how the tone differs between unlacquered instruments (i.e., those without a finish), those that are lacquered and those that are silver-plated. The finishes are shown in ascending order of thickness, and thus ascending order of impact on the instrument’s sound. In all cases, there are two parts to the sound: The core of the note (represented by the solid circle in the middle) and the overtones (shown by the halo around the circle.)
Unlacquered / No Finish
The core of the note is clearly present, and can be made even more dominant with heavier gauge metal as part of the body. Around it, the overtones are varied and heightened, with some notes sounding stronger than others.
Silver-Plated
Because of the added weight of the silver-plating, the core sound of the note is more prominent, but the overtone peaks are also more even, giving a smoother, rounder sound. This kind of instrument will respond consistently throughout its range.
Clear and Gold Lacquered
Lacquer coatings are usually thicker than electroplated silver finishes. This means that, depending on the design, the harmonics can be dampened further, giving a more linear response and fewer overtones. The core of the sound may be more prominent as well.
Black Lacquer
Black lacquer is much thicker than clear or gold lacquer. This means that the instrument has even more tightly controlled overtones for a darker, richer sound. The core of the sound is most prominent in black lacquered instruments.
Ultimately, you need to let your ears be your guide, but hopefully this information will help you at least narrow down the sound you are looking for!
Click here to learn more about Yamaha brass and woodwind instruments.
We Are Not Alone
One of the most profound experiences of my life was attending a lecture by astrophysicist Dr. Stephen Hawking at a trade show in the 1990s. Hawking, who passed away last year, was one of the greatest scientists of all time — right up there with Einstein — despite suffering from ALS, a debilitating condition that caused him to be almost completely paralyzed for much of his life.
There he sat on stage, his broken body slumped over in a wheelchair, painstakingly using his pinky (one of the few parts of his body that he could still move at that time … though he was also able to manage a wry smile every now and then) to advance through an array of PowerPoint slides, delivering revelation after revelation to a spellbound audience. There were thousands of us in attendance, yet you could literally hear a pin drop, so focused were we all on what Hawking had to “say,” courtesy of his laptop’s speech synthesizer. The power of his mind was awe-inspiring. I remember thinking at the time, he’s exploring concepts that would never occur to 99% of us. Perhaps even more astonishingly, he was giving us answers to questions that it would never occur to most of us to even pose.
One of those questions was: Are we alone in the universe? Hawking’s answer was a resounding no. A series of slides cited irrefutable statistics: There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe, each containing trillions of stars, a certain percentage of which likely have planets revolving around them, a small percentage of which likely contain the elements needed to support life (i.e., oxygen, carbon and other organic chemicals). The conclusion was inescapable: It was a virtual mathematical certainty that life must exist elsewhere, probably on many different worlds, not just one or two of them.
Then he dropped a bombshell. Why then, the next slide asked rhetorically, have we not heard from these other living beings yet?
Hawking’s theory: Because life as we know it is a human conceit. We assume that the evolutionary process here on Earth (i.e., simple one-celled creatures mutating over a long period of time into complex animals with increasing brain size) is universal … literally. But, he asked rhetorically, is it not just as possible that the process of evolution is completely different on other worlds? Is it not just as possible that what we consider “intelligent” life is completely different elsewhere? That what those life forms need to survive and evolve is completely different from what we need? That their means of communication is completely different from anything we are capable of perceiving?
My mind was blown that day — I could almost feel my head going poof! — and it continues to be blown whenever I think back to that magical afternoon when the greatest thinker of our time shared his ruminations in a darkened auditorium with a few thousand privileged souls. And make no mistake — I consider myself privileged to have been there.
The recent 50th anniversary celebrations of the first moonlanding (an event recalled so profoundly here by my esteemed colleague Anthony DeCurtis) stirred my memories of the Hawking lecture, and also got me thinking about the Voyager 1 probe launched by NASA in 1977.
Voyager 1 is currently the farthest human-made object from Earth. It’s already reached interstellar space and will encounter its first star in about 40,000 years. Even though astronomers believe this particular star may not have planets revolving around it that can sustain life, this is nonetheless significant because the probe houses a time capsule intended to communicate to extraterrestrials a story of the world of humans on Earth. Inside the capsule are numerous written documents, drawings and photographs, plus two phonograph records (talk about the resurgence of vinyl!) that present a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales), as well as spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages … and music.
The aliens who are fortunate enough to encounter these records and figure out a way to play them (pictorial instructions are included) will be treated to a variety of selections, including Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Beethoven’s Symphony Number 5 and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, a momentous work whose tumultuous debut was described in one of my previous blog postings. Also included are performances by bluesman Blind Willie Johnson and jazz legend Louis Armstrong, as well as Chuck Berry’s raucous “Johnny B. Goode,” a mainstay of every bar band on the fine planet we humans inhabit.
Will “Johnny” eventually assume that same status on other planets light-years away, with twelve-legged aliens duckwalking across the rickety stages of extraterrestrial drinking establishments serving cocktails made from nitric acid and sulfur, garnished with a plutonium twist? Likely nobody reading this blog (much less the author) will be around to find out the answer to that question.
But I sure would like to think so. And I have a feeling Stephen Hawking will be dancing along.
Photograph of Stephen Hawking by Paul. E. Alers/NASA via Getty Images; photograph of the Voyager 1 record cover courtesy of NASA.
Nylon TA on TV
Recently, I had a unique experience with the Yamaha CG-TA classical TransAcoustic nylon-string guitar. Flamenco guitarist Hernan Romero (he’s worked with Al DiMeola, Stevie Nicks and The Guitar Trio, among others) and I literally took a brand new CG-TA out of the box, tuned it up and immediately started recording some television cues.
What made this especially fun is that Romero, despite being a veteran guitarist with many different nylon, classical and flamenco-style guitars in his arsenal, had never had the TransAcoustic experience before. Like the other guitars in this series, the CG-TA can produce astonishing chorus and reverb effects in the air … without the need for an amplifier. (For more information about how this remarkable system works, click here.)
The look on his face was priceless!
Within a few notes, Romero was struck by not only the comfortable feel of the instrument, but by what was coming out of the sound hole. “It was immediately inspiring,” he told me later. “I had never heard a guitar that had adjustable reverb and chorus projecting from the sound hole! The fact that it sounded this good, and that it was a nylon guitar, made me want to start tracking right away.”
The CG-TA is not shy on quality features. It includes an Engelmann spruce top, ovangkol back and sides, nato neck wood, a flat radius classical neck shape with rosewood fingerboard and 25.5″ scale length, gold tuning machines, a rosewood bridge and urea nut, and a saddle with a 2″ width.
Since I own a CG-TA acoustic guitar and have previously blogged about how I like to record its effects, I decided to approach this recording in the same fashion, using both the built-in pickup and an external microphone. This allows me to adjust between the two, as needed, when it’s time to mix the tracks.
With the TransAcoustic reverb and chorus effects enabled and dialed in to Romero’s liking, I connected the 1/4″ output to one channel of my DAW and an omnidirectional Earthworks QTC-50 to the other channel. I then panned them to opposite sides in Romero’s headphone feed to give him a spacious “vibe.” Note that the TA reverb and chorus were not only captured by the microphone, but were also output via the DI signal.
Here are a series of audio examples so you can hear the actual tracks. The first audio file is the first rhythm pass with only the built-in CG-TA guitar effects. The DI signal is panned hard left and the microphone signal is panned hard right (you can also hear a little bleed from the percussion track playing in the headphones):
Here’s a brief snippet of the DI signal on its own. Again, this includes both the TA reverb and chorus effects:
Here’s that same snippet, but with the microphone on its own. Note that the effects are still heard because they are literally projecting out of the guitar’s sound hole:
Here’s the second pass in full, which adds the melody plus a light solo section. Here, the microphone is panned at 11 o’clock and the DI is panned hard right. To augment the CG-TA chorus and reverb, I also added a touch of delay and chamber reverb to the signal using plug-ins in my DAW:
Here’s a mix of the two passes:
Lastly, here’s the final mix of the entire track, including both guitar passes plus accompanying bass, drums and percussion:
Impressed? So was Romero. In fact, he was so inspired by the sound of the CG-TA that he took the guitar home with him after the session. Wish me luck in getting it back!
Photo courtesy of Romero.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha CG-TA Classical TransAcoustic Nylon guitar.
Introducing the CVP800 Series Clavinova
Say hello to the Clavinova CVP800 Series — a musical entertainment center that brings the sound of not just one, but two of the world’s finest and most prominent concert grand pianos (Yamaha CFX and Bösendorfer Imperial) to your fingertips, as well as hundreds of other ultra-realistic instrument sounds.
All three models — the CVP-805, CVP-809 and CVP-809GP — offer a wealth of interactive features capable of making music fun for anyone, regardless of skill level or experience. These include:
– Grand Touch keyboard action: The most advanced digital piano action Yamaha has ever made, reproducing the touch and dynamic range of a concert grand better than ever. It features an escapement mechanism that reproduces the feel of an acoustic piano as it goes through the let-off and drop of the hammer when a key is played very softly.
– 88-key linear graded hammers that give each key a unique weight for the smoothest playing experience from high to low. The CVP-809 and CVP-809GP models also feature carefully adjusted counterweights for improved playability when playing pianissimo and better key return in rapid passages.
– Synthetic ebony and ivory keytops for classic piano touch.
– The Genos Sound Engine from our flagship arranger workstation that provides outstanding playing response as well as hundreds of high-quality instrument Voices and professionally arranged Styles and Accompaniments.
– Binaural sampling technology for three-dimensional sound that recreates the perspective of the player position through headphones.
– A large color touchscreen so you can easily see the state of Voice and Style assignments and quickly access and adjust numerous settings.
– Karaoke fun: Simply plug in a microphone to sing along with on-screen lyrics. You can even add lush harmonies to your singing voice with virtual backup singers!
– A Chord Looper that allows you to record and loop your chord progressions, freeing you up to experiment with two-hand playing or soloing without having to worry about playing the changes.
– A Playlist function that lets you attach a number of settings (such as Style, MIDI/audio song, Registration Memories, etc.) to any song entry you create for instant recall when it’s time to perform.
– An enhanced Piano Room so you can select from even more pianos and choose the type of room you’re in.
– In Session Mode you can even invite a small ensemble along to play with you and record your performance with a built-in recording studio.
– Bluetooth® audio support that enables you to wirelessly connect your iPhone®, iPad® or iPod Touch® so you can listen to, learn and play along with your favorite songs.
– Super Articulation Voices (CVP-805) or Super Articulation 2 (SA2) Voices (CVP-809/809GP) that intuitively reproduce the natural expressive nuances of non-keyboard instruments such as flute or guitar, allowing you to achieve realistic expression, both automatically and with the use of switches.
The CVP-805 is available in matte black or polished ebony finishes, while the CVP-809 is available in polished ebony or polished white finishes. The flagship CVP-809GP is housed in a polished ebony grand piano cabinet.
Ready to see and hear the CVP-800 Series in action? Check out this video:
You can find more CVP-800 Series Clavinova videos here.
Click here for more information about CVP-800 Series Clavinovas.
Spotlight on Yamaha Live Custom Hybrid Oak Drums
When an oak tree falls, its spirit must be honored. Yamaha has done just that by handcrafting an instrument that will be treasured for generations: the all-new Live Custom Hybrid Oak drum set.
Everything about these groundbreaking drums is designed to enhance the dynamic range by accentuating attack and projection with incredible attention to detail. The shells incorporate a traditional Japanese uzukuri handcrafted finish, which creates a unique look that defines the expression of oak. They feature a dense phenolic sheet sandwiched between two sheets of oak ply, with thick steel hoops for a tighter sound and sharper response. The advanced Y.E.S.S. III tom mount further reduces acoustic dampening, allowing the shell to vibrate more freely, thus bringing out more of its natural sustain and volume. Weights are studded in the bass drum at the lug points to attenuate low-mid frequencies for a more focused sound. Even the floor tom bracket is special; it includes wing bolts and is designed to clamp tightly on the leg without damaging it — a feature that saves time onstage and delivers optimum decay control.
Check out this way-cool video that demonstrates the awesome sound — and look — of Yamaha Live Custom Hybrid Oak drums:
Click here to learn more about Yamaha Live Custom Hybrid Oak Drums.
Making Music with Multi Pads
Multi Pads are some of the coolest buttons on Genos. In this posting, I’m going to show you just how versatile and inspirational these beautiful backlit buttons can be.
First off, let’s define what they are, and what they do. At their essence, Multi Pads are used to play back prerecorded rhythmic and melodic sequences. What’s more, by utilizing an Audio Link function, you can create unique new pad content with your own audio (WAV) data for playback during performance.
Even though there are only four Multi Pad buttons, there are virtually limitless combinations of what can be done with them. In total, Genos allows you to store up to 448 banks of Multi Pad data … times four! That’s a total of 1,792 delicious musical phrases, loops, custom WAV data and more, all at your fingertips.
The Multi Pad buttons reside within the Multi Pad Control section on the front panel, right below the six Assignable buttons. When a Multi Pad button is lit blue, that’s an indication that it contains content, and so pressing the button will play back whatever musical or rhythmic phrase is assigned to it. Unlit buttons contain no content — in other words, they’re empty.
To get the ball rolling, let’s start by pressing the SELECT / SYNC START button just to the left of the Multi Pad buttons:
This will open the Multi Pad Category search screen, where you’ll see 16 different categories of musical selections, each with a wide variety of tasty loops and phrases. (Note that each category can contain multiple pages of content as well, so go ahead and explore!) Select the SteelGtr category in the upper left hand corner, then select Steel8BeatStrum1:
Hit EXIT to leave this screen, and then press Multi Pad Button 1. You’ll hear a steel-string guitar start to strum.
Note that Multi Pad content by default is tied to Genos’ Master Tempo, which you can see when you view the selected Style:
To increase or decrease this tempo, simply press either the TEMPO – or + buttons, or tap in the tempo you want using the TAP TEMPO button:
Now this is where things really start to get interesting, because Multi Pads can trigger their stored content either independently (that is, without a Style also being played back) or while a Style is playing back, so you can easily add their stored content to the music you are performing live.
In addition, if ACMP (Auto-Accompaniment) is engaged during Style playback, Genos will not only analyze your chords as usual, but will also change the key of all active Multi Pad content (except drum and percussive loops). Alternatively, you can change the key of an active Multi Pad without a Style playing back by simply activating the LEFT part.
That’s just how simple it is to use Multi Pads on Genos — and just how much they can add to your live performance. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, don’t forget to keep practicing!
Photos courtesy of the author.
Check out Gabe’s other postings:
The Magic of Wireless LAN and Chord Tracker
Click here for more information about Yamaha Genos.
Yamaha Saxophone Neck Compatibility
Yamaha saxophones have been in production for many years and numerous design changes have been made to better our instruments. As a result, however, information is sometimes needed to fit a new or different neck to some older instruments. Here are some tips on how to identify and address these differences.
As shown in these images, when a current neck is used on some older model saxophones, the octave mechanism (floating lever) cannot reach high enough to actuate the neck octave key. (These images are that of an alto, but it is the same for a tenor.)
The tenon diameter on the older and the newer design is the same, although some final fitting by a qualified technician may be necessary, as in any neck change. However, the neck register key contact point is lower on the original design.
A simple extension can be made by replacing the plastic silencer tube with a longer piece of vinyl or other tubing. This allows the artist to evaluate the playing characteristics of the neck. Once the neck is selected, a more permanent extension may be made from brass stock and silver-soldered to the body octave key, if desired.
The chart below presents an overview of the models (past and present) that are equipped with the different design styles. All current Yamaha “Custom” branded aftermarket necks (such as the C1, E1, and V1) use the new design neck register key.
| ALTO AND TENOR SAXOPHONES | |
| Original Design | New Design |
| YAS/YTS-875 | |
| YAS/YTS-875EX | |
| YAS-875EXII | |
| YAS/YTS-82Z | |
| YAS/YTS-82ZII | |
| YAS/YTS-62 (1980-2002) | YAS/YTS-62 (2002-present) |
| YAS/YTS-61 | |
| YAS/YTS-52 | |
| YAS/YTS-475 | YAS/YTS-480 |
| YAS/YTS-300AD | |
| YAS/YTS-200AD | |
| YAS/YTS-26 | |
| YAS/YTS-23 | |
| YAS/YTS-21 |
Click here for more information about Yamaha saxophones.
The Changing Face of Home Audio
Once upon a time, all the cool kids had a stereo system so large it had its own zip code. What’s more, all the receivers, amplifiers, turntables, equalizers and other gear were left out in the open to be ooohed and ahhhed over.
That said, those early days of home audio are certainly nothing to scoff at. After all, it was the era of in-your-face audio that kick-started the industry, eventually growing from a niche market of gear-heads into a mass market of music lovers from all walks of life.
But as home audio evolved, with new formats, new types of content and new modes of listening, so too did the form factors of the equipment delivering the tunes. Some gear — like receivers and amplifiers — began to shrink in size, becoming more streamlined and vastly easier to integrate into family rooms, dens … wherever. What’s more, the slimmer, sleeker components could go toe-to-toe with their larger, boxier predecessors, turning home audio into a luxury that everyone — from hard-core music enthusiasts to casual listeners — could appreciate and enjoy.
Accelerating the evolution were the introductions of new technologies like Wi-Fi-and BluetoothⓇ-enabled audio systems, sleek sound bars and smart voice-controlled speakers. These days, you can have your music wherever and however you like to listen to it … no matter what type of music you like, or the size or layout of your home. After all, music is meant to be heard, not seen! Fortunately, there are many approaches you can take today to ensure that all that great audio never interferes with the cosmetic details of your home.
Here are some aesthetically friendly ways to do just that.
Surround Sound, Hold the “Spaghetti”
Home audio encompasses more than just gear designed to your music listening pleasure. Surround sound systems for home theater setups are part of the realm, too. But physical wiring used to be the only way of getting audio from a receiver to your speakers — and when there are speakers that need to get placed at the other end of the room, things get considerably more complicated.
Fortunately, the days of snaking wire behind baseboards, underneath carpeting or simply laying the spaghetti as close to the wall as possible are over. Thanks to wireless products like Yamaha MusicCast speakers, sound bars and AV receivers, there’s no need to get messy to enjoy surround sound. The carpeting and baseboards stay put, the walls and floors remain unmarred, and you can have your system up and running in almost no time. Plus, since there’s no speaker wiring required when using wireless Yamaha MusicCast 20s or MusicCast 50s for your surround sound speakers, this type of surround sound system can be easily reconfigured should you rearrange the furniture.
Hi-Fi Goes Wi-Fi
Vinyl is experiencing a rebirth (for five reasons why, click here), and Yamaha is one of the only manufacturers giving turntables a modern twist by building in Wi-Fi capability. This means that the album spinning on a single turntable, when connected to a MusicCast whole-house wireless audio system, can be heard in every room of your home — even out on your patio or in your backyard. Instead of being sequestered to a single space to listen to your records, you can spin and stroll anywhere you like, never missing a beat or cluttering up your home with multiple turntables — or even a receiver, for that matter. Plus, when the album is over, you can stream via built-in services such as Spotify from your mobile device to all the connected speakers.
The Yamaha MusicCast VINYL 500 turntable is a perfect example of how this technology works. Simply put it where it looks best, plug it in, turn it on and kick back while it delivers rich, full-sounding audio to every MusicCast-enabled wireless speaker in your home.
“Blendable” Speakers
One of the most effective ways at downplaying the visual aspects of a home audio system is by building the speakers into the walls or ceiling. Recessed flush with the wall or ceiling surface, they blend seamlessly into the home environment. What’s more, the grilles of many of these types of speakers can be painted to render them even more inconspicuous.
However, despite their cosmetic attributes, built-in speakers can be tricky to install. Freestanding speakers afford a simpler installation, and many, like the Yamaha MusicCast 20 and MusicCast 50, have been purposely engineered to maintain a low profile. To ensure that your speakers complement the room design, look for models that can be ordered in different colors — black and white are usually standard choices. If they’re wireless, all the better, since you can tuck those kinds of speakers anywhere, freely reposition as necessary, and add more easily to expand your home audio system. What’s more, they can be controlled by your favorite voice assistant, whether you’re using a device powered by Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri.
The Supermodel of Speakers: The Sound Bar
There’s no way around it: Speakers and component systems take up a lot of space. For rooms short on square footage, a sound bar offers a space-saving alternative that looks great. Long and thin, they are the supermodels of the home audio world and complement a flat-panel TV perfectly.
But they’re not just a pretty face. Packed into the sleek housing are a number of speakers and technologies. A sound bar like the Yamaha YAS-109 does the job of the left, right, center and subwoofer channels of a surround sound system, plus it even offers built-in voice control via Amazon Alexa.
A sound bar also gives you lots of placement options: Mount it to the wall, place it on a table, or put it on a shelf above or under your TV — whatever works best.
Home Audio: A Happy Marriage of Design and Technology
Technology is rarely considered a thing of beauty, but in the world of home audio, form and function go hand-in-hand. As audio components continue to change in size, they also are packing in more capabilities, precluding the need for wiring, huge equipment racks, and all the other elements that can compromise the aesthetics of a home. Want to have numerous large components filling your space? The option is still there, if that’s what you’re looking for. But these days, fashion-forward receivers, turntables, speakers, sound bars and the like are endowing beautiful homes with equally beautiful music.
Click here for more information about Yamaha MusicCast.
Click here for more information about Yamaha AV receivers.
Click here for more information about Yamaha in-home speakers.
Click here for more information about Yamaha sound bars.
Click here for more information about the Yamaha MusicCast VINYL 500 turntable.
Birth of a Blog: 500 Articles and Counting
This is our 500th article on the Yamaha Music blog!
The 2017 NAMM show was memorable for a lot of reasons. New products, cutting-edge technologies, informative demonstrations, great musical performances, fun parties — you know, all the usual things.
But what was unusual at that year’s show was that it was witness to the birth of a blog. This one, in fact. They say that from small acorns, mighty oaks do grow — and that’s certainly been the case for us.
As we celebrate our 500th posting, join us for a look back at where we started, and how far we’ve come.
Humble Beginnings
Our “official” launch date — the date this website was turned on — was January 19, 2017. There were exactly 53 postings at the time, including more than a dozen installments of Yamaha clinician Phil “Bad Mister” Clendeninn’s Mastering MONTAGE series. There were also numerous contributions from our Consumer Audio folks, including the timeless “Why Are the Numbers on My AV Receiver Volume Control Negative?”, which turned out to be one of our most popular postings ever. Rounding out these initial offerings were postings geared towards guitarists, keyboardists, marching band and orchestral percussionists and violinists, along with brass players interested in learning more about their instrument’s mouthpieces. Several of these included “behind the scenes” videos too — one of our earliest innovations.
Over the next six months, we added another 20 postings, including a four-part series celebrating 30 years of Disklavier. We also launched our popular Tools of the Trade series of blogs for live sound engineers, as well as the first in a long line of popular “How to” postings, such as “How to Install Speaker Wire” and “How to Install Banana Plugs on Your Speaker Wire.” We also began publishing blogs about music advocacy as part of the long-standing Yamaha commitment to music education.
By the end of 2017, visitors to our blog could avail themselves of nearly 130 postings on a wide variety of subjects, including pieces by and for music educators, in addition to those aimed at music students and/or their parents. Our range of topics broadened as well, to include postings about drums and drumming; advanced technologies such as our company’s latest developments in Artificial Intelligence and Disklavier Education Network remote auditioning; instrument design and development (including an interview with the designer of our SILENT Bass); and musical events Yamaha participates in, such as the Monterey Jazz Festival. In October of that year, we published our 100th posting, “The Yamaha Story,” celebrating the long history of our company.
Along with the broadening of topics, our audience was growing too, with roughly 5,500 visits to our blog per month. But that, it turns out, was just the tip of the iceberg.
Gaining Momentum
In 2018 we began running a regular series of columns, starting with the very first posting written by our executive editor, veteran music journalist Howard Massey. This was followed shortly thereafter by monthly and bimonthly contributions from Grammy-nominated songwriter Shelly Peiken, guitarist / TV composer Rich Tozzoli, guitar instructor / clinician Robbie Calvo, music software developer Craig Knudsen and keyboardist Gabriel Aldort.
They were soon joined by a number of prestigious guest columnists, including Rolling Stone contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis, New York Times best-selling author Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, leading MIT neuroscientist Dr. John Gabrieli and Wall Street Journal contributor Marc Hopkins.
We were also able to secure the services of some of the finest music journalists in the business, including ex-Musician magazine editors Mac Randall and Michael Gelfand, as well as regular EQ and MIX contributors Steve La Cerra and Mike Levine, consumer audio writer Lisa Montgomery (whose work has appeared in Electronic House and CE Pro magazines) and longtime Keyboard Magazine columnist (and author of the popular “Keyboard For Dummies” book) Jerry Kovarsky.
2018 also saw a series of postings written by end users, starting with Steve Rizun’s “What Drumming Means to Me.” Subsequent postings in that vein have focused on keyboard and guitar playing, along with a fascinating look at the “Practicing / Jamming / Creating Trichotomy.” For those readers unable to attend NAMM in person, we also started running NAMM highlights showcasing the major product releases from Yamaha, while continuing our coverage of new technologies, with blogs explaining how to use Amazon Alexa with MusicCast and the secret behind the unique sound of Yamaha TransAcoustic guitars, which can create reverb and chorus effects without the need for an external amplifier.
Another major development in 2018 was the ability to embed audio files within postings, literally bringing sounds to life as you read about them. (Check out postings such as “How To Record TransAcoustic Guitar Effects” and the two-part “Altered Tunings” series for examples of how much this enhances the blog experience!) We also added interactive search capabilities, making it easier for you to find the blogs that interest you, along with dedicated Facebook/Twitter Share, Email and Print icons that float alongside every posting.
All this hard work paid off. By mid-September we hosted our 250,000th visitor, and by the end of the year, monthly traffic had improved to an average of more than 32,000 visitors per month — a more than 600% increase over the preceding year. Clearly we had gained a serious following … and things would only get better.
Today … and Tomorrow
It didn’t take long for our next milestone to be achieved: just 19 days into 2019, our blog received its 500,000th viewing, and January also marked the first month in which more than 75,000 users paid a visit, many of them returning several times, as reflected in the 100,000+ “sessions” that occurred that month.
Continuing in the tradition started in 2018, we welcomed a number of new guest writers, including ex-Michael Jackson keyboard player Rory Kaplan, who described his encounter with the new Yamaha CP88 Stage Piano as an “introduction to an old friend.” We also initiated new Guitar Basics and Recording Basics columns for those new to the world of guitar and digital recording, respectively. In the area of AV, we took both a look back (“The History of Hi-Fi”) and a look ahead, with a three-part series on how to stream music from various sources. Other tech-oriented blog postings described how 21st century composers are using the Yamaha Disklavier in their work, how to use remote control in live sound mixing and a close-up look at (and listen to) Atmosfeel™, the latest and most advanced line of Yamaha acoustic guitar pickup systems.
But of course, it’s not just about technologies and products. We also turned the spotlight on various luminaries in music, including bassists John Pattitucci, Nathan East and Billy Sheehan, plus renowned audio designer Rupert Neve, as well as posting a fond appreciation of the artistry of Elton John.
There are now well over a thousand postings and counting, so there’s sure to be something on the Yamaha blog of interest to every musician and music lover out there. We’ve got a lot of great things planned for the months ahead too, so stay tuned to this space!
How to Create a Signature Snare Drum Sound
When it comes to our drumming idols, we can usually identify them by their signature snare drum sound. Think about these drummers and see if you can hear their sound in your head even without listening to them: Elvin Jones, Dave Weckl, Steve Jordan, Matt Cameron, Anton Fig or Steve Gadd.
Not that hard, is it?
That’s because they all have a memorable sound.
The snare drum is the main part of your drum kit and is therefore the key element in creating your individual sound and style. Picture the joy you’ll get when you’re driving the groove with a perfectly phat snare, or that great feeling of control when you’re cracking rimshots at will. Those are the kinds of ultimate goals every drummer aspires to.
When it comes to creating your signature snare drum sound, here are the things you need to keep in mind.
1. Choose the Right Snare Drum
Wood or Metal Shell?
Snare drums come with either wood or metal shells. Maple, birch, oak, mahogany and walnut are some of the more commonly used materials in wood shells. The sound of these drums is generally fat and warm — think Anton Fig.
Steel, brass, aluminum, copper, bronze and titanium are some of the more commonly used metal shell materials. The sound of these drums is generally bright and ringy — and they can really cut through a mix. (Think Matt Cameron.)
The best rule of thumb is to build up your snare drum collection so you have multiple wood and metal models that will work in different environments and musical settings.
Size Matters
Snare drums generally come in diameters from 12″ to 15″, and in depths from 4″ to 8″. Smaller diameter drums (12″ and 13″) will have a higher tuning range than larger 14″ and 15″ drums. Drums with shallower depth will give you more of a crack, whereas an 8″ deep drum will give you a fuller tone.
Head Type Matters Too
Drum heads come in coated or clear varieties and can be single- or double-ply.
Coated heads are a great option if you are playing with brushes or want a warmer sound.
Clear heads have more attack and yield an open, bright sound.
Single-ply heads have a bright, natural and resonant sound. They are great for jazz and lighter playing styles that require more articulation.
Double-ply heads have fewer overtones, are warmer sounding and are the choice for heavier hitters that require more durability.
2. Tune Your Snare Drum Carefully
The tuning of your snare drum is one of the most important elements in attaining a signature sound. To a large degree, it’s a matter of personal taste. Do you like a lower, fatter sound or a higher pitched sound? How does the drum feel at the different tunings? How does the drum sound at your ideal tuning when it’s mic’d up through a sound system?
Unless you are playing the same type of environment and music night after night, your sound and tuning could change somewhat, every time you play. Mine does, and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s about adapting to your surroundings and realizing that the snare tuning that worked so well at an outdoor gig last night might not work in tonight’s small indoor club gig, with all its commensurate volume issues.
Similarly, choosing an 8″ x 14″ snare drum tuned up super tight for a jazz gig might not be the best option, while a 5″ x 14″ with a medium tuning would most likely feel better to you and be a more suitable choice.
3. Make the Sound Appropriate for the Music You Are Playing
For instance, if you are playing in an industrial rock band, you might want a metal drum tuned high with a nice crack to it. If you are in a country band, you might want a deeper, wood snare tuned medium to low in order to create a fatter sound.
If you are doing a good deal of studio work, you will need several different snare drums to better serve the style of song you are working on. If you’re mostly gigging live, you’ll probably have to get by with just two. This gives you flexibility and also gives you a backup in case you break a head or some other component fails.
In my band, we play rock covers from the ’60s to current and have a repertoire of over 400 songs. That requires me to have a snare sound that will work with a wide range of songs — songs that were recorded with many different snare drums. Obviously, I can’t change snare drums between songs or retune my one drum for each song to match that specific sound perfectly, so I have to find a nice middle ground using a tuning that’s not too high or too low. I often carry one wood and one metal snare on these gigs, giving me options depending upon the song list we’re playing on any given night.
4. To Muffle or Not to Muffle? That is the Question.
Muffling can greatly affect a drum’s tone, sustain and volume. Some drummers don’t like to add any muffling to their snare – they prefer the wide-open tone that includes a little ring in the decay of the sound. Others prefer to deaden that ring a bit to control and tighten up the sound.
There are many options out there to muffle your snare. In the ’60s and ’70s, drummers would sometimes put a wallet or piece of cloth on the edge of the batter head. (Beatles drummer, Ringo Starr, used a pack of cigarettes!) My preferred method is to take a small piece of duct tape, roll it over itself and stick it to the edge of the head. Many drummers have ridiculed me about this, but it works!
Today there are many other options available to muffle the sound. These include:
– Moongels or gel stickers
– Control Rings
– A product placed on top of your snare drum such as jingles or the Big Fat Snare Drum
– Cutting out the center of an old head and placing it upside down over your existing head, or even just using the upside-down head without the hole cut out
5. Tailor Your Sound to Your Environment
It goes without saying that snare drums can be very loud. That’s why you need to take into consideration the acoustics of the environment you are playing in, so that your snare sound complements the room and doesn’t obliterate it.
For example, I recently played in an airplane hangar. It was really big and really loud! In any large room or hall, you should opt for a lower tuned and somewhat muffled snare so you can better control the volume.
Of course, if you’re playing an outdoor gig, you usually don’t have to worry about the volume or the often tricky acoustics of indoor venues. This is a great opportunity to use a louder, more open sounding snare drum tuned higher if you so choose.
If you are practicing in a somewhat dead-sounding bedroom with carpet on the floor and have forgiving family members and neighbors, you can use more of an open, ringy sound.
Conversely, if you are practicing in your garage with concrete floors and no soundproofing, go for lower tuning and some muffling to produce a fatter and more controllable sound that your neighbors will appreciate.
As you can see, there are many variables and options in choosing the snare drum that is right for you and then putting all of that together to create your own signature sound. The key is to experiment and continually try out new things, with a goal of developing your own instantly recognizable sound!
Photos courtesy of the author.
Click here for more information about Yamaha snare drums.
Moonlanding: The Soundtrack to an Era
On his 1967 album Axis: Bold As Love, Jimi Hendrix wondered what would happen “if 6 turned out to be 9.” The mystical implications of those digits (both are multiples of the magic number 3) would not have been lost on Hendrix, but he was also pondering the upside-down quality of that time and envisioning what might happen by the year that would, at least symbolically, end the era that had already become known as “The Sixties.”
By the time 1969 arrived, it was pretty evident that whatever utopian hopes the Sixties generated were unlikely to be realized. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated within two months of each other in 1968. The Democratic National Convention in August of that year had turned into a pitched battle between the Chicago police and antiwar protesters. Richard Nixon had been elected president in November of 1968 and was inaugurated the following January. He had run on a “law and order” platform that served as the template for many of the culture clashes that still rage today. The conservative Silent Majority were pitted against young counterculture insurgents who viewed themselves, in the words of the Jefferson Airplane, as “outlaws in the eyes of America.”
I was one of those kids. Growing up in Greenwich Village within walking distance of the Bitter End, the Café Au Go Go, the Fillmore East and a dozen great record stores, I was obsessed with rock & roll. I listened to it (and read about it) constantly. By the summer of ’69, I had seen the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Jefferson Airplane, Traffic, Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, B.B. King, Joni Mitchell and too many other artists to count. I was ravenous for it; music gave my life meaning. I was also draft age, unfortunately. I turned 18 less than a month before Apollo 11 blasted off into space, with the Vietnam War going full force. I was about to attend college but sensed that those deferments would soon end. It was a heady time, with more transporting music than I ever could have dreamed of, but there was a tense underpinning to it all.
During his campaign, Nixon promised that he had a “secret plan” to end the hostilities. That plan turned out to be so secret as to be nonexistent. The war dragged on, with more than five hundred thousand American troops facing enemy fire in a country smaller than California, suffering tens of thousands of deaths and casualties. Yet ironically the music our soldiers were listening to were the songs of the very artists — Hendrix, the Doors, Marvin Gaye, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Temptations — who were creating a soundtrack of rebellion and escape. Whenever anyone mentions the great divisions of our own times, I think back to those days fifty years ago. For better or worse, the parallels are chilling.
Still, a few points of unity stirred back then and the ideal of space travel was one of them. It wasn’t entirely untainted, alas. By 1969, any major project the US government undertook became suspect for its potential military or surveillance applications. Nonetheless, the sheer vastness of space, not to mention our shared status as human beings on a planet floating in a mysterious universe, made it possible for anyone to look up into the skies and see what they wanted to see, dream what they wanted to dream. They are called “the heavens” for good reason. Whatever your politics, whichever side you were on, you had reason to want to go there.
Once President John F. Kennedy declared in 1961 that America would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade, space themes began weaving their way into popular culture — TV in particular. “Star Trek” debuted in 1966 and rested on the premise that space was the “final frontier,” vowing to take viewers “where no man has gone before.” In “I Dream of Jeannie,” space travel joined with romance as an astronaut stranded on a remote island discovered a lovely genie in a bottle. “The Jetsons” imagined a space-age future just as “The Flintstones” captured how the glossy future just around the corner made our lumbering, sub-lunar world seem like the Stone Age.
As always, music was at the center of everything. All those shows had theme songs that seemed ubiquitous. The moon, of course, retained the power it has always held as a symbol of romance. Indeed, Frank Sinatra’s exuberant version of Bart Howard’s “Fly Me to the Moon” became the first song played on the moon when astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin gave it a spin on a portable tape player after the Apollo 11 landing. Yet popular culture, characteristically, found ways to capture some of the fears — and some of the cultural ambivalence — that countered the triumphs of the Apollo missions. Even an elegant pop ballad like Jonathan King’s “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon,” a Top 20 hit in 1965 (and another song listened to by the Apollo 11 crew during their flight), treated the moon as a source of alienation. And David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” released the week before the Apollo 11 launch, imagined a technological breakdown resulting in Major Tom’s being forever lost in space. That song was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which made brilliant use of classical pieces like “The Blue Danube” and Also Sprach Zarathustra, but also envisioned a future in which the very technology that made space travel possible would put human life at risk.
Of course, the actual moon itself landing couldn’t have been more inspiring. I watched it with my mother in our family’s apartment and even as a teenager the implications of it loomed large for me. It seemed much more than a purely American achievement of “one small step for man”; indeed, it was truly “one giant leap for mankind.” It suggested that there was nothing our shared human vision couldn’t engage and accomplish. The question arises at every moment of social convulsion: “Can’t we all just get along?” In July of 1969, the resounding answer was yes.
But whatever was happening on the moon, the realities of life on Earth could only be held at bay so long. Just weeks after the moon landing, the Tate-LaBianca murders in Los Angeles chilled the heart of a community that had been one of the hotbeds of Sixties musical and cinematic creativity. In contrast, less than two weeks after that, the Woodstock Festival offered a prospect of peace and love. By the end of the year, however, the mayhem and murder at the Rolling Stones’ concert at the Altamont Speedway in California eviscerated the hippie dream.
Events moved at a strange pace in the Sixties, simultaneously fast and slow. So much happened in such close proximity, but, as George Harrison once described to me about that era, “you could say any year from 1965 up to the Seventies, it was like … those years seemed to be a thousand years long. Time just got elongated. Sometimes I felt like I was a thousand years old.” So that first moon landing was both a monumental event in human history and just another milestone that got immediately swept up in the head-spinning tumult of the times.
Space travel soon receded as an American priority, but as the psychedelic music that accompanied the dawn of the space age suggested, profound journeys don’t always head outwards. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, for example, charted for more than 2 1/2 years following its initial release in 1973, and continued to chart on a regular basis until 1988. To this day, it remains an essential experience for any young person exploring the wonders of classic rock — and the search for personal identity.
When I think about space travel myself, I often conjure up the extraordinary “Blue Marble” photograph of the Earth taken by the crew of Apollo 17 (the final Apollo flight) on their way to the moon in 1972. There is our planet, our shared home, so beautiful and exhilarating to see. The true meaning of all we had accomplished came clear to me when I saw that image. From outer space, we could achieve a previously impossible perspective on our own world, an appreciation for the life we know that would lend real meaning to even our farthest flung explorations. “If you know what life is worth / You will look for yours on Earth,” Bob Marley sang in 1973. The heavens, then, might prove a good deal closer than we could have believed.
Photos credit: NASA, Smithsonian Institution.
How to Use Alexa With a Yamaha Sound Bar
By now we all know Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service that controls many smart home devices. Having an Alexa built-in device like the Yamaha YAS-109 or ATS-2090 sound bar makes controlling your home entertainment system more convenient than ever.
Setting up the YAS-109 / ATS-2090 is a breeze. Once it’s connected to your Wi-Fi network, all it takes is a few taps in the Yamaha Sound Bar Controller app to connect Alexa — no need to set up any other devices on your network.
Once that’s done, you can control your sound bar by asking Alexa to turn the volume up and down, like this:
“Alexa, volume up.”
These sound bars have a handy ducking feature, too, which means that when you say the Alexa wake word, the volume will lower (“duck”) automatically so that Alexa can hear your command more clearly. What’s more, forward-facing microphones ignore sound that might be bouncing off your TV wall, making it easier for Alexa to hear you. You can also activate Alexa by pressing the Alexa button in the upper left-hand corner of the sound bar’s remote control, as shown in the illustration below:
And here’s where Alexa really ups her game, because she can also control Fire TV through your sound bar. After linking your sound bar and your Fire TV in your Alexa app, simply say something like this:
“Alexa, play District 9”
and Alexa will find the movie title on Fire TV. If you say a TV series, Alexa will show the last episode you watched or the first episode of the first season if you haven’t watched the series before. No more hunting for the remote control between the couch cushions! Search for your favorite shows and movies or discover new content simply by asking Alexa.
Alexa built-in is a great way to listen to music too. You don’t even have to bother with connecting your phone to your sound bar via Bluetooth. Just say:
“Alexa, play Old Town Road”
Alexa accesses Amazon Prime Music’s over two million songs by default, or up to 60 million songs with Amazon Music Unlimited if you are a subscriber. (You can change the default music service in the Alexa app.) Explore new music and let Alexa get to know you with commands like these:
“Alexa, play some country music”
“Alexa, I like this one”
“Alexa, who sings this?”
“Alexa, play more like this”
Of course, you can control playback with the usual play, pause and skip commands.
You can also ask Alexa to do those basic things that we’ve come to depend on, such as:
– Create lists, reminders and timers
– Report the weather or the news
– Shop
Alexa built-in is always improving, with new commands added through updates to the Sound Bar Controller app. Make sure the app is always up-to-date by opening it often!
If you have a MusicCast-compatible receiver like one in the Yamaha AVENTAGE Series, you can do even more with an external Alexa device like an Echo or Dot. Click here for more information.
Correct Reed Placement and Ligature Positioning
If you notice that you or your student is having trouble creating a sound on their clarinet or saxophone, it’s best to start at the source — check the mouthpiece! Here are some helpful hints for solving potential problems in terms of reed placement and ligature issues.
Reed Placement
The tip of the reed is typically lined up flush with the tip of the mouthpiece. Depending on the player, the exact position may be slightly adjusted to fit personal preference. There can also be quite a bit of difference from player to player when it comes to the position of the ligature (see below).
Here are two common problems caused by incorrect reed placement:
– Reed placement below the tip of the mouthpiece. This will cause the reed to cave in on itself, causing the sound to be brittle and bright. In some instances, it may result in no sound at all!
– Reed placement above the tip of the mouthpiece. This will cause the reed to feel much stiffer or harder than it was intended to, resulting in fatigue for the player. In addition, the sound will be diminished, both in terms of volume and quality (there may be a fuzziness to the tone).
Centering the reed is always tricky, especially for less experienced players. I recommend slipping the ligature over the mouthpiece and then guiding the reed into place gently.
Ligature Positioning
A ligature is basically a clamp that holds a reed in place on the mouthpiece. Finding the best fit and style of ligature is very subjective, especially since there are many different types of woodwind mouthpieces with varying outer bore dimensions. For that reason, there may be some trial and error involved in locating the right ligature for your playing style.
In particular, the front part of the uncut / bark section of the reed is very important in that it needs to be in good (and consistent) contact with the table (the flat portion) of the mouthpiece. Your ligature should help maintain that contact without smashing the reed and causing excessive indentations. If you notice spit or moisture coming out of the sides of the reed from about halfway up the “vamped” (cut) section of the reed (i.e., where it comes in to contact with the mouthpiece) to the bottom of the reed, then either the ligature is not creating a good hold on the reed or the reed is warped.
Advanced clarinetists especially should check to make sure that they can grasp the ligature and move the mouthpiece to an A clarinet if necessary, without the reed moving or the ligature coming off.
Click here for more information about Yamaha clarinets.
Click here for more information about Yamaha saxophones.
Creating a Worship Song With a PSR Keyboard
In this video, product specialist Chris Anthony demonstrates how to use the onboard Styles and Voices of an arranger keyboard such as the Yamaha PSR-S670 to recreate the sound and feel of a worship song, using the Planetshakers “Endless Praise” as an example. By breaking down the recording into its components, he explains how a simple pattern can build and develop, and shows how to edit onboard PSR Styles to emulate those kinds of dynamic changes. Also included is a demonstration of how to use the built-in drum pads for loops, as well as the usage of Registration memories for storage and instant recall. By the end of this eleven-minute video, you’ll be able to construct a version of the song inside your PSR keyboard that rivals the original!
Click here to learn more about the Yamaha PSR-S670.
Anatomy of a Marimba
The marimba is a percussion instrument consisting of a set of wooden bars struck with yarn-covered mallets to produce musical tones. Metal resonators (sometimes called resonator tubes or resonator pipes) are suspended beneath the tone bars to amplify their sound, with the length of each resonator varying depending on the pitch of the bar; the lower the note, the longer the resonator. The bars of a marimba are arranged like the keys of a piano, with the groups of two and three accidentals raised vertically, overlapping the natural bars to aid the performer both visually and physically.
In addition to solo performances, marimbas are used in woodwind and brass ensembles, jazz ensembles, marching band (front ensembles), drum and bugle corps, and indoor percussion ensembles. They are also sometimes used in orchestras.
Here’s an annotated illustration of a typical marimba, followed by a description of the main components in alphabetical order:
Frame. A durable frame provides lower support while horizontal legs maintain stability, and therefore the playability of the instrument.
Gas Spring. A height adjustment feature that allows for the most comfortable playing position for different players.
Resonators. The length of these metallic tubes is specific to each note, optimizing the projection of each tone bar.
Rail. These wooden crossbars support the tone bars. Never push or pull a marimba by the rails!
Reinforcement Stay. This provides structural rigidity that prevents the frame from sagging in the middle.
Slant Shaft. Provides additional structural integrity to protect the marimba from sagging over time.
Tone Bars (Natural / Accidental). The bass notes are on the far left-hand side where the thickest bars on the marimba are located. As you move to the right, the bars become smaller and smaller, and the pitch becomes higher.
Also check out our blog article “What’s the Difference Between Marimba and Xylophone?”
Click here for more information about Yamaha marimbas.
Listen and Learn
I have always been able to “see” notes and scales on a guitar fretboard as shapes and boxes that fit together like pieces of a puzzle. By visualizing patterns and memorizing them, I could move up and down the neck quite easily. They all made sense to me on a level that seemed deeper than just strumming a few chords.
For some reason, I’ve also always had an innate sense of rhythm. Even as a beginner, I could navigate odd meters such as 7/8 or 11/12. My brain would simply lock into whatever the meter was, with little effort. Not only that, I was able to play on top of the beat, on the beat or just behind it with ease. No conscious thought went into any of these abilities — they just seemed to be something that I could feel inside my soul.
I don’t know why I was blessed this way, but if I have to come up with a possible explanation, it may be that, from the time I was an infant, I always loved listening to music. What’s more, as I listened, I was always somehow able to break down musical passages — even complex ones with a great deal of instrumentation — into their individual parts. My colleague Howard Massey posted a blog here not long ago that explored the subject of predisposition, and how much it may or may not play a role in the development of musical skills. Since I had little formal training, I have to conclude that in my particular case, these aptitudes came mostly from instinct.
By the time I reached high school I had joined a jam band with some friends. We were just experimenting, having fun, trying new things and, most importantly, listening closely to each other. We would try out all kinds of odd meters when we played — even polyrhythms, with two meters playing against each other simultaneously. I also learned the benefits of crafting repeating patterns, then adding a twist. For example, if you play the first six notes in a major scale and at the same time another musician plays just the first five notes in that scale in the same meter, they form a mathematical pattern that cycles within itself in all sorts of interesting ways. Later, when I was learning to play bass, I would listen to Led Zeppelin records and focus in on what John Paul Jones was playing. I literally became a better player just by hearing how his parts fit into the entirety of a song.
Through the years, my comprehension of what I was listening to improved, and my tastes broadened too. I had long loved rock, jazz, funk and reggae, but now I started taking an interest in classical music as well. Understanding the range and timbre of each symphonic instrument and the ways they interacted to form a cohesive sound was like turning on an aural light bulb. Even just learning how the string sections of first violin, second violin, cello and basses are positioned from left to right on stage helped me better “hear” the overall string work as a whole. The same applied to knowing that the french horns, trumpets, trombones and tubas were laid out the same way from left to right, typically positioned behind the flutes, clarinets, oboes and bassoons. I will never forget the first time I put on headphones and listened to a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth by the London Symphony Orchestra and heard the various parts and sections pan naturally in stereo as they were performed. It was so amazing I listened ten times in a row!
I’ve also learned an incredible amount by observing the artists I’ve been lucky enough to work with. Sitting next to guitarists like Al DiMeola and Ace Frehley and watching what they do and how they do it allowed me to pick up many tricks of the trade. Not that I could play like them, or wanted to, but I found that I was able to apply the small details that I saw and heard to my own style. Of course, not everyone has that privilege, but watching great performances on TV or online can be almost as constructive … especially if there are lots of close-up shots of fingerings.
Researchers have been able to quantify the benefits of listening to music. They have found that this activity engages broad neural networks in the brain, including those regions responsible for motor actions, emotions and creativity. An associate professor of psychology at the University of California Davis Center for Mind and Brain by the name of Petr Janata has even been able to create a model for mapping the tones of a piece of music as it moves from chord to chord and in and out of major and minor keys. What’s more, he discovered that the brain is able to sense these tonal progressions in the same region that is used for experiencing memories. (No surprise there, since we’ve all had the experience of a favorite song triggering recollections of meaningful times in our lives when we’ve heard it, including, in many cases, the first time we heard it.)
So the next time you’re listening to music, take the time to separate yourself from the music as a whole and hone in on a single part, then break it down. Think about how the individual components make you feel, then see if you can apply some of that to your own work. You’ll undoubtedly discover that listening and learning can truly be a potent combination.