notes

Changing Tune?

64 Arts

So I finally broke out the tuner tonight with the idea of tuning the glasses for a total of 8 notes.

Yeah. About that…

The strangest thing happened tonight: I’d get about 3 glasses tuned, label them with a nearby sticky note and then play them in progression to make sure they sounded right.

Suddenly the notes weren’t the notes anymore! The hell?!

I’m beginning to see how this torture device instrument fell out of fashion–it’s maddening!

Still, I will soldier on because, hey, this is this week’s focus so what else am I gonna do?!

AND! For those who might have a use for an occasional tuner but don’t want to spend the $20 on a digital one, I was fiddling around with my phone (a Samsung Reality through Verizon) and it turns out there’s a Guitar Tuner application right there on the phone! It even had a one-day price for that try-it-out, perfect-your-pitch moment.

This isn’t over yet! Stay tuned…

Pick a Note, Any Note

64 Arts

Thanks for your patience while I caught up on everything last week! Guess those 12-hour travel days really did a number on the thought processes.

At any rate, it’s back to our water glasses and nearing the end of this (somewhat drawn-out) excursion.

The thing about the water glasses is that you can only tune each glass one way. So for each tune you want to play you have to have enough glasses to hit each note (accidentals are extra!) and each octave, too. Since I’ve got only 8 or 10 glasses that will work for this process, whatever I try to play has to work within that framework.

Add to that, I’m not all that fast with the note changes so it can’t be something too fast, either. I kinda like my stemware intact and able to hold lots and lots of wine, you know?

So I started flipping through some of my basic harp and baritone books for a simple tune or two to work on and I think I’ve found some possibilities. Now to get out the tuner and obsess about pitch!