ethno post Stoner rock folk : from my home town

[Deleted]

[JFrankParnell]

Awesome. What is the wind instrument? It sounds pretty cool, that old skool, traditional sound, mixed up in the guitars.

[Deleted]

Aug 25, 2014 14:38:03 GMT -5 JFrankParnell said:

Awesome. What is the wind instrument? It sounds pretty cool, that old skool, traditional sound, mixed up in the guitars.

Glad you liked it! This is called "clarinet" and i guess it is the same used in western classical music, but there is something different about it compared to the european one. Maybe the traditional "oriental" style of playing gives it another tone? Cause i doubt there are any local factories making those.

[JFrankParnell]

Ok, yeah, interesting. I'm familiar, of course, with the clarinet, but this one dont sound like the ones in our school band! I think theyre running it through an amp, maybe, and such. It definitely has a different sound when being played in the eastern/southeastern European style. I dig it!

[Deleted]

Hey, if you like any pointers to any style regarding greece/balkan music, just drop a line!

[ashcatlt]

This is really cool. They definitely did something to the clarinet to make it sound and feel more like a lead guitar. I suspect that it's an amp sim added in the mix. In fact, I'd guess that the guitars are through a sim also. Not that there's anything wrong with that!

[sumgai]

My guess would've been more like a guitar through a modeler, and/or a synth module ala a GR-55 (or the likes thereof). But quite cool nonetheless, no matter how it was done.

[Deleted]

To my ears, its just plain normal "folk" village clarinet sound, the one you can hear on the various villages throughout summer festivities. And yes i agree that it always sounded like lead distorted guitar. I remember when i was young, i was playing guitar via an ibanez distortion pedal, str8 to the .... regular home stereo amp (!!!), and my sister was talking over the phone with a friend who said : who plays clarinet in the house?

[newey]

From Wikipedia:

The clarinet is prominent in Bulgarian wedding music, an offshoot of Roma/Romani traditional music.[66] Ivo Papazov is a well-known clarinetist in this genre. In Moravian dulcimer bands, the clarinet is usually the only wind instrument among string instruments.[67]

In the Republic of Macedonia, old-town folk music -called chalgija ("чалгија"), the clarinet has the most important role in wedding music; clarinet solos mark the high point of dancing euphoria.[68] One of the most renowned Macedonian clarinet players is Tale Ognenovski, who gained worldwide fame for his virtuosity.[69]

In Greece the clarinet (usually referred to as "κλαρίνο" - "clarino") is prominent in traditional music, especially in central, northwest and northern Greece (Thessaly, Epirus and Macedonia).[70] The double-reed zurna was the dominant woodwind instrument before the clarinet arrived in the country, although many Greeks regard the clarinet as a native instrument.[31] Traditional dance music, wedding music and laments include a clarinet soloist and quite often improvisations.[70] Petroloukas Chalkias is a famous clarinetist in this genre.

In my schoolboy years, before being seduced by the guitar, I played clarinet in the school band, first Bflat clarinet and later the alto clarinet. While I don't remember much about it (and I doubt I could produce a decent note out of one), I do remember that, first, there are many different types of clarinets. They can differ in musical key, but also differ in the design of their pad-and-key systems (and thus, differ in their fingering). The B flat clarinet with the Boehm system of fingering is the most common one, but there are others still in use. These can all have a different tone.

I recall being very frustrated when the band director transferred me over to alto clarinet, which he did because the girls in grade school were too small to carry the thing back and forth to school (it was the school's instrument, not mine). To play alto, I basically had to relearn how to play the instrument all over again. A year or so later, I switched to alto sax, which was much easier to learn, as the fingerings are less complex.

"Embouchure" - the way one's lips are formed over the reed- also matters to tone. For example, Wikipedia also mentions that clarinetists playing klezmer music get a very different sound from the same Bflat clarinet just by using a different embouchure technique.

So, all of these things may be going on in that piece. It does sound to me like a clarinet, though.

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2014 5:58:27 GMT -5 newey said:

"Embouchure" - the way one's lips are formed over the reed- also matters to tone. For example, Wikipedia also mentions that clarinetists playing klezmer music get a very different sound from the same Bflat clarinet just by using a different embouchure technique.

Aha, that might explain the difference in tone.

And now smth *very* original from the same region:



Take a closer look, and see how the scales are strictly pentatonic, a scale similarly found in blues as well.
This is another reason, why a person by hearing a lead distorted guitar playing blues, via the phone, might mistake it for "Klarino"!

ha ha, i take it, some Africans had come to our lands ages ago and took our music, which they brought over to America

in 2:51 starts the final solo, i find it very typical of the music in this region, also it has a really nice Min to Maj conversion as well as it progresses!

I am very glad you liked it guys! I was raised with this kind of music.

[sumgai]

As much to the point, most of us have been told to never tune one's axe to a saxophone in one's band, right? And if you've really been "around", then you also heard the same thing said in relation to a clarinet. But, no one's ever explained why... or at least not in layman's terms.

The simple explanation, and it is dirt-simple, is that reed instruments produce nothing at all like a sinusoidal wave-form. In fact, both single-and double-reed instruments produce nearly perfect square waves, which as we all know by now, are very rich in harmonic products, right? And it's that harmonic content that can fool the ear that's trying to tune a guitar (or other stringed instrument), due to a quite different harmonic-content spectrum. Not easy, and in fact it's frustrating, but sometimes one has to work with what one has on hand. But if you can avoid it....

BTW, pretty much the same goes for the Brass family, very close to square wave output.

All of which goes to explain gd's sister's friend mistakenly believing she was hearing a clarino, and not just another metal-head wannabe.   Not to mention the clarity of any phone line connections, and all that stuff, too.


(For the record, newey and I both started out on the B♭ clarinet, at about the same age, although years apart. Unlike him however, I switched to sax after 3 years, then to flute for a couple more, before becoming enamored with the guitar, and rock-n-roll, and specifically The Ventures. Walk Don't Run was all I needed to hear, and from then on, it was all over but the shouting.)





sumgai

[newey]

specifically The Ventures. Walk Don't Run was all I needed to hear, and from then on, it was all over but the shouting

In my case, it was The Animals "It's My Life", but essentially the same process.

[lunaalta]

As much to the point, most of us have been told to never tune one's axe to a saxophone in one's band, right? And if you've really been "around", then you also heard the same thing said in relation to a clarinet. But, no one's ever explained why... or at least not in layman's terms.

Ah, but the oboe may be an exception.....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oboe

Orchestras and concert bands frequently tune to a concert A played by the oboe.

When I asked to learn guitar, in school in the early 60s, I was given an oboe......

The first lesson made me physically sick from the exertion...........
That was also my last lesson.... LOL

[sumgai]

la,


Ah, but you didn't include the last little bit of that particular quote, specifically the part that says: [citation needed] - that makes a difference as to how much credence one should give to that sentence.

In point of fact, the rest of that paragraph illustrates just how 'shakey' that assertion is - it points out the many ways that the reed, and thus the pitch, can be changed away from Concert A. Indeed, Murphy's Law applies extremely well in this situation - if it can go out of tune, it will do so.

Aside from that, the Concert Master (always the First Violin chair) uses a pitch pipe to tune the orchestra. It won't carry as far, but then again, the C.M. uses it for him/herself, and then projects his/her violin for everyone else to use as a reference. At least that's the way we do it at the Seattle Opera House, or the Benaroya Performance Hall.

Aside from all that, the fact remains, woodwinds and brass instruments put out very close to square-wave wave forms. Strings, on the other hand, are nearly perfect sinusoidal wave form generators. Take it from one who's been there, it's much more difficult to tune a sine-wave instrument to a square-wave instrument, than the other way around. Which helps to explain why nearly every member of any given orchestra has a pitch pipe in his/her instrument case.


And don't call me g-f-b, I didn't take this so far off-topic... I only referenced why a distorted guitar could be mistaken for a clarinet. That's my story, and I'm sticken' to it!







sumgai

[haydukej]

The clarinet I was hearing kept reminding me of Sugar Cane Harris' violin on Zappa's Willie the Pimp.

[Deleted]

Aug 30, 2014 23:46:41 GMT -5 haydukej said:

The clarinet I was hearing kept reminding me of Sugar Cane Harris' violin on Zappa's Willie the Pimp.

indeed, i'd say the violin ressambles more a scooped-mid distorted guitar sound, while the clarinet ressembles more a boosted-mid distorted guitar sound.

[lunaalta]

Sorry to harp (no pun intended) on about this, but I guess your referenced orchestras must be the exception, since most other orchestras use an oboe. I learned this at school and have had the information reinforced by composer friends, amongst others.
Yeah, Wikipedia has it's faults, don't we all, Sumgai? That the comment needs citation is not evidence that the information is incorrect, which is the case in this instance.
The many ways an oboe might fail at reproducing a correct pitch are not as many as a violin! That's why it is preferred.


Here's another reference, this time from historical sources.....
www.oboeclassics.com/Burgess.htm

The earliest explanation for the practice of using the oboe as orchestral pitch reference, appears to be a letter from François Sallantin (principal oboist 1770-1816) to the administration of the Paris Opera dated 1802, in which the oboist complained of having to arrive at the theatre early in order to give the A to the first violinist, who then made the rounds of the other players before the orchestra entered the pit.

Geoffrey Burgess is a highly respected oboe player, with over 30 years experience worldwide. But, perhaps not with your Seattle Opera House, or the Benaroya Performance Hall.
It's not hard to find much more information regarding using an oboe as the principle tuning source for orchestras.

My apologies, guilty as charged, sorry for the diversion........

[ashcatlt]

I think I want to retract my statement re: the amp sim. I originally listened to this through the built in speakers on the Kindle Fire, and that first impression kind of colored my subsequent opinion. On further listening it actually does sound relatively natural. It's probably not exactly just the raw microphone signal. I'd imagine there's some EQ and compression, and probably a bit of "saturation" thrown in (because everybody puts that on everything nowadays, like sriracha), but it's definitely not some raging distorted guitar amp.

I'm gonna just put this here, because it seems pertinent.

[Deleted]

Aug 31, 2014 11:49:59 GMT -5 ashcatlt said:

but it's definitely not some raging distorted guitar amp.

That's right, if you compare the clarinet of the first vid in this thread, to the clarinet in the second traditional-original video, you'll see it's exactly the same sound. I mean this band targets rock'n'roll audience especially from our region and whole central greece who also are traditional music fans, so, i am 100% sure, the clarinet *had* to be original, otherwise it would not be such a success.
But i can meet some of the guys and ask them, next time i get the chance to go there.

[newey]

because everybody puts that on everything nowadays, like sriracha

[JFrankParnell]

I am definitely more used to the more mellow, western(?) sounding clarinet: