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Notes_Norton

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Posts posted by Notes_Norton

  1. I paid more for my two Parker USA guitars. They make them overseas for a lot less, but in this case, the quality of materials used was better in the USA models.

    Gigging for a living, and 13 years later, there is no noticeable fret wear (Hardened stainless steel frets on an ebony fretboard).

    Sometimes (not always) you get what you pay for. Unless something tragic happens to these, I probably gig with them for the rest of my life.

     

    Notes ♫

  2. I have two priorities when I buy something, if possible

    • USA Made
    • From a small business instead of a huge corporation

    Of course, sometimes you don't have the choice. There are no good saxophones made in the USA anymore, and no Mom&Pop music stors around here that carry saxophones at all.

     

  3. On 11/11/2023 at 3:31 PM, E-minor7 said:

    Is the bird's song fx melody ? 

    The example in school was the birds' song can be melody without harmony or rhythm, or rhythm without melody or harmony, depending on the bird.

    I agree.

    Regarding rap.

    People will buy whatever is promoted. We are herding animals, I suppose.

    I listen with musicians' ears, so what affects me isn't necessarily what the general public wants.

    I don't think rap is music any more than nothing but a drum solo. Different things, but not music because neither contains all 3 elements.

    I play music for a living. I'd love to play jazz, but I like eating and paying the bills so I play pop music.

    Here in Florida, ever since I was 40 years old, I targeted the retirement audience. It's a big, steady, profitable market.

    When I started, they wanted to hear Frank Sinatra and then Elvis, Beatles and forward. When it comes to the point when they want to hear rap, I'll retire. I can't talk that fast, and find it boring.

    I can enjoy simple songs, like the 3 or 4 chord staples, but 1 or 2 chords with no melody crossed the line for me.

    But like I said, I don't want to disrespect the art form. It's valid, it's just not music.

    And IMO, the academy that give out Grammy Awards, should have kept it as a separate section, and not anything that involves the word song.

    But that might stand in the way of corporate profits.

     

    Notes ♫

     

  4. On 11/10/2023 at 1:18 AM, Larsongs said:

    Rap, in its various names, has been around for about 40 years!!! Can anyone seriously say that’s evolution? I have to agree, music has de-volved..

    When I studied music in school, I was taught that to make music you need all three of these elements: Melody, Harmony and Rhythm.

    I'm not arguing whether Rap is an art form or not, but I am saying, by the definition I was taught, it isn't music. It has rhythm, sometimes elementary harmony, but no melody. It's no more music than the Beat Poetry of the 1950s.

    I'm sure it takes talent to make the rhymes and say them in rhythm, but it's a different art form from music.

    I'm not a word person. The last thing I listen to in a song is the words. I go for melody/chords first, then the interplay between all the instruments, and finally, if I like the song, I might get the words. Some songs that I love, I have never listened to all the words.

    Other people listen to the words first. There is more than one right way to do this.

    But I still say, Rap is an art form that is different from, and not the same as, actual music.

    But there are zillions of people who disagree with me.

     

    Insights and incites by Notes ♫

     

    • Thanks 1
  5. On 11/9/2023 at 9:23 PM, E-minor7 said:

    Btw. what is a wind synthesizer ? 

    It consists of the controller and the synth modules (or software synths)

    The controller looks like a clarinet, fingers more like a sax, flute, recorder, or brass (user's choice). Some have internal synth sounds, mine just puts out MIDI and I use hardware sound modules for the synth voices.

    It has MIDI continuous controls for

    1. Breath—usually used for volume
    2. The reed can sense your lip pressure and can be used for pitch bend, lip slurs (brass), or any of the MIDI continuous controllers (CC)
    3. Fingerings for notes
    4. On my Yamaha it has a thumb rocker that can be assigned for two different CCs, one up, and one down.

    There are 128 continuous controllers, not all of them are appropriate for the wind  synth, but many of them are

    It can do things a keyboard controller cannot do, and a keyboard controller can do things the wind controller can not.

    To emulate a solo sax, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and many pure synth voices for a solo part, it allows the player to do a more realistic emulation than you can with a keyboard.

    Two examples come to mind.

    1. I was playing in the lounge in a country club, and playing a muted trumpet patch. A trumpet player came out of the dining room and into the lounge to see who was sitting in on trumpet.
    2. I did a party. The people knew us. This was before I started bringing a guitar to the gig, but used a keyboard instead. We were by the pool, and the host, a guitar player, came out of the house to see who was playing guitar.

    Here is what my wind synths look like. The gold and red foil was added by me. A guy on the wind controller forum used to make them.

    And here I am playing one, at the birthplace of the US Navy SEALS in Ft. Pierce, Florida.

     

    Notes ♫

    • Like 1
  6. On 11/8/2023 at 1:50 AM, gibsonchiq said:

    i would say no. the beatles are not in the same level as modern pop music. they're really more classic songs and standards at this point. music has evolved beyond the beatles. 

     

    It has evolved, but I wouldn't say beyond. It has changed, but better or worse is a useless comparison. Music has changed since Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky Symphonies, but that doesn't make them inferior.

    I hear good modern music and bad modern music, and that is just my taste showing. Others think what I like is bad, and what I dislike is good. That's why there is more than one kind. Or as they say, "That's why there is both chocolate and vanilla ice cream." (I prefer pistachio.)

    Notes ♫

  7. On 11/7/2023 at 8:10 PM, E-minor7 said:

    I would like to know how you as a sax-player (and perhaps colleagues) characterize The Beatles' relation to the saxophone.  

    I live and love music. It doesn't have to have a saxophone in it for me to like it.

    I like symphonies, blues, jazz, Latin American, Caribbean, Klezmer, country, rock, punk, disco and quite a few other genres.

    BTW, sax is my primary instrument, but I started on drums, and also play flute, wind synthesizer, guitar, bass, keyboards, and vocals.

    In my current duo, http://www.s-cats.com I do all our backing tracks. Usually from scratch. I tried buying some but spent so much time tweaking them, it's easier for me to just play the parts into a DAW. That way I understand everything about them, the chords used, any substitution chords, and so on.

    In the bands that I've been in, since every composer doesn't have the good sense to include a sax part, I would double on bass or rhythm guitar so we could cover "3 guitar" songs. In one band the drummer was a lead singer, so I would sit at his kit for a few songs so he could get out front and sing.

    I also write aftermarket styles for the auto-accompaniment app, Band-in-a-Box, at https://www.nortonmusic.com and I write all the parts to those styles.

    I've been a pro musician since I graduated school, with an exception of taking a job to see what "normal" was like. It didn't last all that long. I've opened for headliners in concert, played dive bars and almost everything in between.

    So how do the Beatles relate to me, the sax player?  As a music making ensemble.  

     

    Notes ♫

  8. I've been known to enjoy music from the 1800s to the 2020s. Depends on the piece of music, and how it affects me. And it doesn't matter what genre or artist. If I like it, I like it, if I don't, I ignore it.

    But I listen with musician's ears. What the mass audiences go for might or might not agree with me. And that's OK.

    My dad was into Tchaikovsky, Duke Ellington, Eddy Arnold, Frank Sinatra, Elton John and a lot more, so I guess I just inherited that.

     

    Notes ♫

     

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 1
  9. Sorry if I'm repeating, due to time constraints, I had to skip a page of posts, I'll go back later, after the gig.

    ------

    I don't think most pop music of today, including the Beatles' best work, will stand the test of time like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven did. In 100 years or so, I don't think the average people will know about them. Al Jolson was a major star in his day, but ask a kid today about him and do they know?

    Pop music is disposable music. The works of the great classical composers will be played by orchestras for some time to come. Between you and me, I'd rather hear Abbey Road than anything by Mozart, but I'd rather hear a Shostakovitch or Tchaikovsky symphony than Abbey Road.

    Here's the difference. Themes and variations. I played Dvorak's Ninth symphony in school and have had 4 different recordings of it by various symphony orchestras.

    After I'd heard it hundreds of times, I noticed something I never realized, and it blew me away. In the fourth movement, Dvorak mixed two major themes from two different movements to make a new melody. That was easy. But he also took a variation of a piece of another melody theme for a background 'answer' part, and yet another variation of another melody for the bass line. So in that part, he combined the major themes from all four movements in a way that wasn't obvious.

    I've listened to the Abbey Road medley hundreds of times, enjoy it, but nothing new has been discovered.

     

    Notes ♫

  10. 1 hour ago, merciful-evans said:

    Rocking Pneumonia & the Boogie Woogie Flu - Huey Smith

    Thanks for the Huey Smith tag, we do the Johnny Rivers version because it is more commercial, but I really like Huey Smith and his Clowns.

    Tu-Ber-Cu-Lucas And The Sinus Blues – Huey “Piano” Smith and his Clowns

     

    Notes ♫

  11. IMO, If you have bands like Frank Zappa & The Mothers, the Steve Miller Band, Elvis Costello and the Attractions Prince and the Revolution, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and others, where the leader is the attraction, it doesn't matter to me if the band members rotate, as long as the “star” is still alive. It's like the old Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, or Stan Kenton orchestras. But you can't cover those bands with a new leader.

    Some bands like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin were a unit, and IMO, replacing any of them would be a problem. The Rolling Stones have always been Mick and Keith, so changing the others isn't major – but I still think Brian Jones was a major contributor to their early work.

    Jay and The Americans have had 3 Jays, the second one's real name was Dave and their biggest hits were recording by Dave.

    Blood Sweat and Tears had Al Kooper as the first singer, then David Clayton Thomas, and most of their hits were by him.

    To the average music consumer, it really doesn't matter if none of the original members are there, they want to hear the songs and be able to say, “I saw _______ in concert.”

    So that lady I mentioned earlier was happy to pay top dollar for The Kingston Trio, because she didn't know all the original members have long since died. She heard the songs, and can say, “I saw the Kingston Trio when they played at the Sunrise Theatre.”

    Me? All the big stars come to town on the weekends, and I gig almost every weekend, so I don't get to see any. I guess it doesn't matter what I think, I'm not buying a ticket.

    It's all about the money, and whoever owns the name, wants to make money from it. I don't have to agree.

     

    Insights and incites by Notes ♫

     

     

     

     

  12. As a working musician, I seldom get to see anyone, because they show up on the days that I'm usually gigging.

    But in my younger years, I did open for quite a few of them as the 'warm up' band in concerts, and also some big show clubs.

    The musician who is now my wife and I started this duo http://www.s-cats.com in 1985. So I sometimes tell the audience that the only band that has been together longer than us is The Rolling Stones—and when the timing seems right—I add “and we still have all the original members”.

    Back On Topic

    No it's not plagiarism to go out with a famous band name and no original members, if you don't own the name it's copyright infringement, and if you do own the name it's legal, but I still consider it fraud.

     

    Notes ♫

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