davewhite
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Post by davewhite on Apr 9, 2013 10:00:03 GMT
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leoroberts
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Post by leoroberts on Apr 9, 2013 10:42:23 GMT
Yeah, that 'thumbs up' thingy, Robbie
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2013 10:45:08 GMT
Thanks chaps. You never know, if I get in touch with G7th they may even be willing to put up some prizes.
Anymore interest?
Robbie
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Phil Taylor
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Post by Phil Taylor on Apr 12, 2013 11:53:34 GMT
Just sneakily looking at this at work (back to normal after today) and the info looks superb Robbie!!
Will read in detail later.
Phil
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 11, 2014 12:36:33 GMT
For me the best way to think about partial capos is as a totally creative tool, and that is the approach players like David Mead and Staffan Svahn seem to take in their compositions for example. Treat it as such and you wont be disappointed. You may even come up with a few masterpieces that you would never ever have thought of, and would be impossible to reproduce using alternate tunings.
Reviving an older thread - but I wasn't here last year and I've only just found it. A great into and insight into the world of partial capos - very interesting, certainly food for thought, and it has already started some GAS pangs bubbling away. I've only just this last month taken a step down this road with a Spider Capo - and it's been a real eye-opener. On the limited experience so far I would agree 110% with your point about the "creative tool" and the possibility of producing masterpieces (or in my case rather a lot below that level!) that would otherwise be impossible. I've found a major difficulty with altered tuning is the relationships of notes from string to string change. So moving a melody line from one string to another does not, for the same movement as in standard tuning, give you the interval that your ears expect to hear. I'm afraid I'm not a great one for writing down a composition, or playing things the same way twice. Too much blues genre playing has left me with a taste for making it up as I go along and going where my brain and muscle memory says the next note should be. But I like the "thrill" of the uncertainty of improv - though it leads to some terrible bad notes and dead ends etc. This interval relationship issue between strings with altered tunings has so far been a real barrier to my progress (not given up yet though). But with the Spider Capo there's an open chord available and the note intervals are all as they usually are - and the notes in the scale(s) higher up the fretboard are all in the expected places. So I found I could rapidly start to get some reasonably musically coherent playing and found myself in as near pure improv as I've ever tried - which I found incredibly exciting .... I must get out more. So I'll put my money where my mouth is and link a recent recording. By far the best of 3 I've done with the Spider - I do feel an affinity with Phrygian though. Bear in mind:- Until a month before this recording I'd hardly played any acoustic guitar for over 5 years. I've also almost exclusively been playing around with backing tracks so I've not played just the one guitar on its own in any meaningful way. This recording was done after just 10 minutes of trying out the Spider Capo in this particular configuration. Spiders legs down at the second fret on bottom two and top two strings - giving F#,B,D.G,C#,F#. Barre chords were not allowed. You'll notice it starts out a bit hesitant and as I find what works and start throwing in repeats etc it starts to build and sound more confident - an accidental arc! It's very amateurish, has some real glitches in wrong notes, lack of rhythm etc. But if if someone of my limited abilities can get something as unexpectedly above their anticipations then the really great players I've already seen on this forum could work marvels! Spidery Phrygian Variations - LinkOne interesting feature of the Spider Capo I haven't tried much is that if you have it quite high up the fretboard you can also play notes on strings the legs aren't down on between the capo and the nut!
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 11, 2014 14:07:53 GMT
That was fascinating vikingblues - hypnotic. Love the fact that you just went for it and improvised - that's proper music - turned out really well, and the recorded quality sounds good too. It's very atmospheric and could go well with some eerie images/film. I reckon some occasional sparse slide licks overdubbed here and there might sound good too. Definitely an avenue worth pursuing - hope to hear more! Keith
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leoroberts
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My main instrument is: probably needing new strings
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Post by leoroberts on Jan 11, 2014 15:43:54 GMT
Wow! I'll say that again: wow! To improvise in a new tuning, with a new bit of kit ... and to come out with something like that on one take... wow! Great stuff, vikingblues
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007
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Post by 007 on Jan 11, 2014 19:41:46 GMT
Robbie thank you very much for this very clear article which has made me think differently about capo's in general might be interested in the road trip.
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Post by vikingblues on Jan 11, 2014 20:49:50 GMT
That was fascinating vikingblues - hypnotic. Love the fact that you just went for it and improvised - that's proper music - turned out really well, and the recorded quality sounds good too. It's very atmospheric and could go well with some eerie images/film. I reckon some occasional sparse slide licks overdubbed here and there might sound good too. Definitely an avenue worth pursuing - hope to hear more! Keith Thank you for the kind words. Improv is what I have enjoyed most in my last 5 years of playing electric. Apart from anything else I love the way that when it works properly it totally focuses your mind on the music and all the "issues" of the real world fade away for a while and can also seem less important afterwards. Much better than chemical medication. I was interested in your comment about the slide licks and did have a wee try of that this evening. Though teh main conclusion i would draw is that I'll need a fair number of run throughs and practice runs at it for it to be a success. Part of the trouble of the being so pure an improv is I've no idea what I was playing! Wow! I'll say that again: wow! To improvise in a new tuning, with a new bit of kit ... and to come out with something like that on one take... wow! Great stuff, vikingbluesThank you - very good of you to be so enthusiastic, but I do have to say it was a bit of a peak one-off - I have had a few goes now at this sort of "spider improv" and this recording is by quite some distance the best. Just one of those times when the focus was very sharp and the fingers went to the right places as if someone else was guiding them. I do rate the Spider highly as a good piece of gear for creativity - and it's not massively expensive either. I saw a guitar teacher called David Wallimann asked what was the best sort of amp - tube, solid state or hybrid. His answer was whatever amp makes you most creative. Think that's a great guideline for any musical gear. Anyway - I'd better let this thread get back to it's main topic again. Can I contain that partial capo GAS???!!!
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Jan 11, 2014 20:55:42 GMT
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Post by sigmadel on Jan 12, 2014 1:11:37 GMT
Good posts and info Rob . And a thumbs up for the road trip from me too . To add to an earlier point you made regards the G7th being tricky to fit , I find the shubb the same especially on the 12 string . If I don't pay close attention to the position of it I get dead strings .
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2014 15:02:14 GMT
Nice to see this thread resurrected with an excellent post by viking blues- I listened to it last night and thoroughly enjoyed your explorations. Thanks also to the people who have enjoyed the article.
Perhaps a couple of updates are due:
Firstly the G7th capo- I have really got to like this capo the more I have used it. Yes I still find it very fiddly, and sometimes I get it completely wrong, but on the whole, a bit of time spent making sure the capo is secure is time well spent. I like the darker tone it seems to produce as well. Personally I would rather they created a "Performance" version of the mechanism, rather than the Newport style.
Secondly, as a result of my using the G7th more and more I actually swapped my Shubb for a slide, but if people are still interested in a capo road trip I will sort something out. I think it would be an extremely interesting and valuable forum project. Leave it with me.
Robbie
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missclarktree
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Post by missclarktree on Jan 12, 2014 17:46:11 GMT
An interesting read, even though I can't even imagine what it's like to be creative enough to use a partial capo. I appreciated your explanation of why the 'DAGDAD' or 'dropped D' capos wouldn't work. That's a trap I might well have fallen into. Hope your 'road trip' idea is taken up.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 13, 2014 12:35:34 GMT
Great news everyone- I sent G7th a link to this thread, and Seamus Brady replied to say he would be happy to send us a couple of capos for us to try.
So, I'll have a look back through this thread and see who is up for looking after a partial capo for, say 2 weeks, with a view to you reporting back how you got on, and maybe even producing a recording or two.
I think this would be good publicity for both the forum and g7th, so lets get this show on the road!
Robbie
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Post by andyhowell on Jan 13, 2014 18:02:19 GMT
Phew. you can't get more comprehensive than that Robbie!
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