Onward - A Rickenbacker Kiss
Posted: Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:45 pm
An idea that was inspired by the story (many of you may know) behind the very end of Safe (Canon Song).
I am playing my 4001 CS bass which is unplugged. Holding it against the back of my (plugged) 360 guitar... a Rickenbacker Kiss.
I experimented with different guitar tunings that would resonate well with the song's tonalities. Onward is a based one the I, VI, V and vi of C major, and modulated a step higher afterwards.
The guitar tuning I did (eventually using a capo) was selected to accommodate all these chords. Ones sound better than others. B minor was, for example, a bit less successful, as well as all passages with an F sharp.
Then I adapted the whole piece - melody and a sort of accompaniment with the lower register which is not related to the actual bass line. The initial riff is my transformation of the original intro, and the coda.. I came up with a way to modulate back to C major. A bit dangerous too cause B flat (G minor) and A flat (F minor) were used... but then finally I got the best resonance spot to end the piece on an improvised Safe-like finale.
One very interesting thing is that - after tuning both instruments with the tuner, I found the resonance wasn't happening... so I fine tuned on my bass by ear, and found the resonance spots for each string... maybe a few cents lower than the "right" tuning. I know it's still not perfect but it's a fact that it wasn't working with both guitars tuned by the tuner. I think this has to do with the tempered scale of the fretboard that is "fighting" with the natural harmonics of the guitar's open strings.
While not optimal, I decided to post it to show you the idea. It has some interesting sounds and with more time I will come again to it!
Tunings (bottom to top)
Bass - E A D G
Guitar (Capo 8th fret) - C F A D G B
Greetings to all!
Miguel
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URLs:
http://miguelbass.com/2010/03/14/onward ... cker-kiss/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpdLtRsqVnE
I am playing my 4001 CS bass which is unplugged. Holding it against the back of my (plugged) 360 guitar... a Rickenbacker Kiss.
I experimented with different guitar tunings that would resonate well with the song's tonalities. Onward is a based one the I, VI, V and vi of C major, and modulated a step higher afterwards.
The guitar tuning I did (eventually using a capo) was selected to accommodate all these chords. Ones sound better than others. B minor was, for example, a bit less successful, as well as all passages with an F sharp.
Then I adapted the whole piece - melody and a sort of accompaniment with the lower register which is not related to the actual bass line. The initial riff is my transformation of the original intro, and the coda.. I came up with a way to modulate back to C major. A bit dangerous too cause B flat (G minor) and A flat (F minor) were used... but then finally I got the best resonance spot to end the piece on an improvised Safe-like finale.
One very interesting thing is that - after tuning both instruments with the tuner, I found the resonance wasn't happening... so I fine tuned on my bass by ear, and found the resonance spots for each string... maybe a few cents lower than the "right" tuning. I know it's still not perfect but it's a fact that it wasn't working with both guitars tuned by the tuner. I think this has to do with the tempered scale of the fretboard that is "fighting" with the natural harmonics of the guitar's open strings.
While not optimal, I decided to post it to show you the idea. It has some interesting sounds and with more time I will come again to it!
Tunings (bottom to top)
Bass - E A D G
Guitar (Capo 8th fret) - C F A D G B
Greetings to all!
Miguel
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rpdLtRsqVnE&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rpdLtRsqVnE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>[/youtube]
URLs:
http://miguelbass.com/2010/03/14/onward ... cker-kiss/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpdLtRsqVnE
