Gallery
Living and teaching music on Briland:
Some pictures of the first two of six pieces that form the inverse of a dodecahedron. The wood is from a local source and the rest of this beautiful wood is being used for a table by a local tapas bar. You can see the stump in a previous Briland post. There are three more asymmetrical slices and a round cross piece that forms the bottom. A VERY hard wood that is so smooth when finished that you would think I coated it in glass.
Some pictures in low light where I tried to get some sense of the color. I missed some of the best outfits but I think you can get a sense of the intensity of the atmosphere with the warm air, bright lights, loud live music and brilliant colors everywhere after a day of color like the sunset in the previous post. These were from last night so my posts are out of order. 
Sunsets like this from our porch are followed by stars so clear it makes you wonder about the wisdom of city lights.
Summer is flying by and I’ve been working on my garden thinking about this tune, so I did a bit of recording.
The tunes in the previous posts also have lyrics and other parts but I only recorded the guitar parts. This snip shows how a vocal part can start to make a tune fill out by counter balancing the rhythm, pushing and pulling to make a long melodic line from a fairly stationary harmony.
You don’t need a lot of music training to take two chords and add a rhythm then start to imagine more and more parts. This layering is used by the majority of pop music productions. People are using things like Garage Band (what I used for this) to create all kinds of sounds in their own homes. It’s fun but not as fun as doing it live with fellow musicians, so pick up a guitar and start pickin’ ‘n’ grinnin’ and making up some tunes of your own with some friends, just for fun.
Rhythm is what many intermediate classical guitar players are missing in their performances and technical studies. They just can’t swing and have no sense of working a groove the way pop guitarists do naturally as they learn to strum various rhythms over chord changes. At some point pop guitarists discover that the “scratch” of the strings when the left hand mutes as the right hand strums can form a counter rhythm to the harmonic rhythm.
Here’s a simple progression in A minor that exploits the “Moiré” patterns created by this kind of rhythm thinking.
And another in D major.
One more with a drop D tuning.
When played correctly the player can add and subtract notes and beats but still make the groove drive forward. This seems to be the sticking point for those trained to demand exact, repeatable fingerings for every piece they play.
The careful listener will hear that I am not in the pocket all the time and will hear how I adjust the pattern to compensate. This is a critical skill for those playing in a pop group where finding the groove can make or break the performance. In many of these strum styles the key is to listen to the “negative space”, the “chick”, “chunk”, or “yuk” of the left hand “bouncing” counter rhythm to the right hand strum pattern.
A video would make this clear… maybe later, it’s a really nice day, so…
Not Bad, eh?
Faith rides by on a bike
trumpet case swinging on handlebars
“Hello Mr. Larry!”
Bright smile flashes
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- Harry Laughing at Me Sawing my Dodecahedron
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- Kenardo Sawing Dodecahedron Face
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- Genie at Snug “Kitty” Corner
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What nice birthday gifts!
A bit of life on Briland
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- Troy Dwight and CJ
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- Jem at Java Hut
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- Harbour Island Sailing Club
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- Dunmore School Music Class
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- Tracy in Her Office
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- Toby in His Music Studio
Some years ago a Carrotwood tree in my back yard died. It rotted from the inside so I chopped down all the dead branches but left a 6 foot stump. I had some vague vision of carving a dodecahedron but the wood was so checked and full of holes I didn’t know where to begin and put it off.
A recent search for dodecahedron images and I found Dan Sternof Beyer had beat me to the punch carving his own dodecahedron stump in Oakland, the first I’ve found…
I was inspired to go for it. I had to free that dodecahedron and see what was waiting inside. I wanted to FEEL it so I sanded it smooth which worked like a charm. Carrotwood shines up nice and keeps a good clean edge as you can see. The color… well, I’m guessing the name has something to do with it but the range of color is more like a sunset.
Not quite done but I have to stop for a while now to complete other things… like eating, sleeping, playing guitar…
If you are the creative type who likes the art/science connection and wants to try to carve your own somewhere on this globe of ours, Dan’s instructions make it pretty easy… even if it’s a bit of hard work sawing it all by hand.
Feeling each string
Fingers on tip-toes
Dancing in air
Landing on point together
Tone is born of the union
Hands in balance
Carving paths in a river
Pearls flowing out in waves
Dreamed once now captured
By this moment in time
Someone hears anew as it changes
Now starting all over again
If She Asks
