Lazz

You certainly got the size of it well enough to find the deliberate mistake of inconsistency with my spelling of the VII chord. Noticing the alteration which would be required to make it conform to the others, may help you consider the role of the diminished. Interesting ‘fish nor fowl’ comment about the VII as a questionable species. Have you ever noticed those vestigial scales on the foot and leg of the chicken ? An ambiguous moment on the evolutionary path. The VII (diminished) often works as a passing chord. The metaphor becomes more apposite. I am formulating answers to all your questions. The inadequacies in my attempts to explain are profound. Give me a little longer. I do have a few things to say regarding usefulness …………….

Yes - worked as you predicted. It opens the player I didn't notice any box. Downloading via Google Chrome before has always prompted a large animated arrow pointing down to the bottom at the left side of my screen nudging my attention towards the clickable button through which one can "manage" the file - and I guess that must be this 'box' we're looking for. But, in our case, that didn't happen I couldn't have missed it. Mind you - neither would I have expected it. Because I had not chosen to download. I had chosen "play". And yet it had downloaded. Had downloaded several of the blighters in fact. One for each time I'd clicked on the player in frustrated attempts to get it to do what it said on the box. Windows XP I have elected no default player. .

Perhaps we might ask the question: "more common amongst whom?" We've obviously been using different libraries and reading different books. The system I use and would recommend, if anyone is interested, on grounds of its greater clarity and practical efficacy as well as its widespread international adoption as lingua franca amongst professionals, is not something I have invented all alone as an eccentric - of course not. It is nothing more than the standard conventions of modern harmony and theory for popular music which began to be codified by jazz & blues players in the '40s & '50s and by the '80 & '90s had become core curriculum for non-classical music education all around the world. It is pretty basic and fundamental shit and kinda hard to dismiss, I would suggest, just because there is a huge volume of home hobbyist guitar strummers for whom it has no perceived relevance and amongst whom another different approach might be considered more common. The alleged incompatibility is just an illusion. This is not to say that there aren't other subsequent innovations in systems and methods for organising notes but, in my experience, these are a lot easier to comprehend and handle once those basics are under the belt. Those basics are an enormous help in figuring how to create progressions. .

And at the more youthful and all-encompassing modern end of the European spectrum we have the irrepressible Uwe Steger He not only cuts the classical accordion repertoire with huge aplomb and unconcealed emjoyment: He also gets out there on the extremes of tekno-logical innovation and electrickery:

Then there is the Argentinean contingent with the bandoneon. Here's one special guy rehearsing a new tune at home with his kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQnAtfaqlOQ And another, more famous, now dead, specialist tango geezer, Astor Piazzola - "Death Of An Angel": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvEkpJl2aM4

You should also maybe check out the fiery folkloric Bulgar whos fingers have allegedly been clocked in at 20 notes per second. I thought only saxophone players were allowed to do that. If you have a taste for the wild and crazy and fantastic, then you might like traditional Bulgarian celebratory music. Hope so:

Absolutely! And about time we honoured the great accordion players of the world. Someone here (Maz?) a while back expressed the general popular distaste for accordion. And indeed the stomach-steinway provokes much merriment in many places. As in: Q: "What do you call a couple of dozen accordians at the bottom of the ocean?" A: "A start." But squeeze-boxes come in many shapes and sizes and varieties, and the degree of grooviness depends on who is playing. The instrument played by the young man in the clip above is officially a classical Russian unit called the bajan. The funky end of the spectrum can be represented by the "King of Zydeco". He's dead now. In this clip he is a young man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdk5nq-iBk

Thanks John. And apologies to everyone for getting parenthetical and off-topic. Normal service will resume.... I do have Quicktime installed - amongst others. Each of the pushy little bleeders regular requests preferential default status. But I say no no no. That's clever. How did you do that ? I hope there might be a more graceful solution somehow because what the punter wants is just to click the mouse and have it work. Instant gratification with no interfering complication. With your own tracks, John, I recall that they not only played but sneakily downloaded themselves automatically to do so. Now both of you have insinuated yourselves onto my hard drive. How impertinent ! We should be getting Coises to put the site-link in his signature. .

A little bit of weirdness happens. I'm using Google Chrome and what happens is that another tab makes its presence known very briefly, in a flash, and is gone. Leaving me back here again reading your post. .

Gotcha. They pay waaaaay better than YouTube. .

Absolutely nothing. Yes "Windows Media Player cannot find the file. If you are trying to play, burn, or sync an item that is in your library, the item might point to a file that has been moved, renamed, or deleted." None whatsoever Yes - I can see that, but wished the luxury of hearing first before downloading And I'm sure it will work for me. Hope that helps. .

Hey Coises. I can't get your MP3s to play on your site. And I wanna hear. .

Shame we can't know what that right number is. However, we do know that the UK has an on-demand streaming rate of £0.00085 per track - which means one million plays should generate £850 in royalty payments - while the German rate is 130 times greater and in Canada the tariffs are based on service-providers' revenues. None of which applies to YouTube. We know that PRS for Music caved-in to a considerably lower deal for YouTube while GEMA stuck to their guns and, as far as I know, still hasn't reached a deal. We don't know what any YouTube rates are in any detail, but we do know they involve a lump sum significantly less than any pre-existing tarrif. So - even if we take the UK's regular on-demand streaming rate as illustrative guide, then 22 million translates into only a few cents more than $29,205 US. at today's rate of exchange. Yet we know that the YouTube deal is reported as a one-off lump payment which is 'considerably' less than this. Hardly enough, methinks, to buy both a house AND a business degree. (Can you imagine this dude coping with a degree course?) Pinch of salt, anyone? But good luck to him and his family. .

Coises ! Dammit! You're right. But I don't do Wikipedia (especially regarding music) so didn't look. The circle wheel I have turns in the other direction. So that mistaken confusion is sorted. Thanks. No, I don’t – what I have is obviously a different way of conceptualizing. The usual way to start for a boy with a guitar learning some grips is to go the old simple route of basic triads, it’s true – but I tend to find that pretty restrictive and unhelpful in terms of developing any usefully cumulative understanding of guidelines for ways to build progressions – which is what Boff originally asked about in kicking off this thread. For me, instead of triads, the better place to start is the Major scale – in terms of which, if you show me an ‘augmented’ chord, for example, I might be more likely to find a b13. Can’t disagree with that one bit. Unambiguous clarity is our mutual goal – even though hard to achieve through this medium. Probably near impossible Nonetheless, that same ‘pickiness’ is what leads me to recognise that: The I chord is I Maj7 – definitely a Major type chord The II chord is II min7 – definitely a minor type chord The III chord is III min7(b9)(b13) - a type of minor chord with a couple of important scale tone differences The IV chord is IV Maj7#11 – a type of Major carrying the Lydian #11th The V chord is V7 – the quality of which prevents us from calling it Major because the scale tones don’t possess that significant identifying 7th but rather a flattened 7th instead – which is why, in my circles, we refer to it as a dominant chord (rather than the dominant) and not as a Major chord. As far as my working experience tells me, we definitely don’t equate ‘dominant’ with a particular scale degree – a scale degree is just a note like any other – as a chord, however, generated from the Major scale and built upon this 5th scale degree as root, it has motion towards finding resolution with the I Major7. The VI chord is VI m7(b13) – which is yet another type of minor chord but this time having an all important b13th in its scale tones – often misrepresented as a raised 5th The VII chord is VII m7b5 – another type of minor chord, I guess, but in this case it’s the one in which the scale tones present it as diminished – or, more specifically, half-diminished. From this approach, one could, I suppose, insist that there are “many more than five types of chord” but for me it seems more practical and a lot simpler to think of these basic food groups being five in number. Which particular analytical roman numeral is most appropriate at any given time, moreover, is a result of what job the chord is doing in terms of regular functional harmony – which may not have any relevance or bearing whatsoever in the context of the styles or genres of music most popular amongst folk here but, in the music which I myself misguidedly choose to perform, there is often more than just one single tonal key centre happening. Some of the differences and confusions between our views appear to be conceptual. Others are more language issues, I think: nomenclature. Amongst the people I work with, for instance, if someone used the term “minor 7th” in a working context, everyone would understand it to mean a chord in which both the 3rd and the 7th have been lowered by a half-step – whereas, what you called a “minor seventh” in terms of a scale degree is what we would call more unambiguously (hopefully) a “flattened 7th”. Now, this all looks to have become far too complicated and muddy to be useful to most, but at least in my view it’s a lot simpler than saying, for instance, that there is a strong pull to go to “the major chord built on the fourth degree of the root of the dominant seventh” – which forces me to count on my fingers rather than understand that the V chord wants to go to the I chord. So let’s consider this more a dialogue between Coises and Lazz held in public rather than anything which others should be paying much attention to. More likely, no-one is paying any attention anyway. For me, as I grasp for better purchase on the core issue of “progressions”, the key seems to be voice-leading. And there are other parts of this thread where reference has been made to this concept. Maybe you could review those and see if together we can all make the principles a little clearer. Just an idea – aimed at trying to spread a little more understanding rather than sowing more confusion. Oh, I think we are both quite clear about what clockwise and counter-clockwise mean. The problem lay in the different ways we orient our mental picture of the cycle of fifths. I blame Wikipedia completely. I should make it quite clear that I have absolutely no formal education or qualification in music. All my understanding have come from over 30 years of on-the-job training in stage and studio settings in different parts of the world and the blessed privilege of working with a bunch of really slick and helpful pro musos who have all responded positively to my ignorance and curiosity. (For what it's worth, that is where my orientation of the cycle of fifths comes from - not that bloody bollox of a Wikipedia.) With respect and warm regards, Lazz .

Yeah - me too. I think there's a lot we aren't being told about this story. (How unusual!) .

I find a contradiction clashing and begging resolution. Maybe I just don't understand what you mean. I am simply not following how or why adding a 7th pulls counter-clockwise round the cycle. Help me make sense of what you're saying, somebody, please. The example you give - G7 to C - doesn't read as counter-clockwise to me at all. Maybe it's a typo. Maybe not. Help. Also... G7 is not a Major chord. There are five types of chord: Major, minor, dominant, diminished, half-diminished. If G7 were a Major chord it would be spelled out as GMaj7 - but it isn't, is it. G7 is a dominant chord which feels like it wants to resolve to CMaj7. From V to I. Clockwise. Innit. Yeah. But first you have to understand what it's about and discover just how useful it is. Then you can decide. .

There is an argument that way more than any and all other areas of creative endeavour, in music, other than those market-genres which tend to thrive most specifically on youthful passion, the pursuit of playing and composition seems a cumulative labor in which development of vocabulary & technique matures constantly and output just naturally improves with age - many senses and physical abilities might fade, but the music muscle works-out. Joe Zawinul, Les Paul and Olivier Messiaen kept going right to the coda, and all doing great stuff. Elliot Carter is still active even at 101. Roy Haynes is 85 and still gigging and playing like you wouldn't believe possible. Jim Hall will be 80 at the end of this year and gets more experimental and 'out' as he becomes more stooped and bent. Hermeto (above) is 74 and even wilder and crazier than in his youth. Louis Andriessen is 71 and still innovating. Keith Jarrett is 65 and keeps on putting it out there better than ever. And just listen to those stunning later works of dead classical blokes like Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, Shostakovich, Liszt, Stravinsky, Strauss... Seems to me the best people just keep growing and getting better. Like this Phil Keaggy geezer - his skill with that looping technology is self-evident - but the 'feel' he has throughout seems to me like the product of joyous maturity that a youngster could never match. Here's Karibu from the youthful Lionel Loueke - give him another few decades and he'll be even more astounding.

Wow - that's three new names for me. Kelly Jones quite reminds me of oor Thomas himself. And Stand encourage me to think of Steve as well. No idea what Rob's new contribution might indicate about his own music but, older or younger, Phil Keaggy sounds like someone I should know about. Thanks to all. I'm sure I've posted this before - still worth it though. And almost as bare-bones as you can get.

Thanks Rob. Missed the link. Even more fascinating. .

Never5 been certain about this concept pf "unplugged" because, after all. they are all using electrickery, aren't they? Otherwise we wouldn't have a video to look at. I guess it means "live and direct". I hope so. Because this guy is definitely plugged in - but it is live and in real time. Shenandoah - Bill Frisell .

Fascinating. I need to know more. .

Tom. I don't think it's worth going through the desk unless: 1. everything is mic'd and 2. the channels get routed to a separate mixer for the recording. I mean, using a P.A. as enhancement for a room-sound (which is what you should be doing on-the-job) is much different to mixing and balancing sound for a recording. A guy I know successfully records the LSO using one stereo-pair - his focus is recording the room-sound. There is an old (1958, I think) live Ray Charles gig at some small country fair in Georgia or Alabama. A local radio station had been broadcasting from there and an engineer had left one mic open by mistake so it is very mono. It was a complete accident that it was recorded and also a complete accident that the mic was in just the right spot. So somehow you have to scope the gig out ahead of time when other bands are playing there and try and find the 'right' spot for a stereo-pair. That's what I reckon. .

Oh that's nice that you've kept our song in the book. Thanks Joe. Lazz

Oh yeah. I see what you mean. Thank you. In return for that welcome delight, I offer Chano Dominguez "Oye Como Viene": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNnhNhsBcgQ plus, staying around the same tonality, Concha Buika "mi Nina Lola": .

Hope this isn't too greedy but here's more of the great Paulinho, this time with Oswaldo Cruz on matchbox. (Matchbox!!?? - yeah, but he's really good) "O Sol Nascera" / "Jurar Con Lagrimas"