What Music are you listining to right now

BlueRidgeSmokers said:

A little more Cake

https://youtu.be/0kUib8lh168?si=NV4YhJx3WeH7OUQA

https://youtu.be/ZN7a9gomlB0?si=FjJC-aeKXEA33ZMv

 Not a huge KISS fan here, but a talented bass player I worked with in Albuquerque turned me on to some of their music, in '87-'92.  Saw them here in UT, the tour where the original members rejoined and put the makeup back on.  My date stood me up, but I went anyway and was absolutely floored by their show.  The crowd was still whooping and hollering as we exited the Delta Center (something I'd never seen before) and then, walking back to my car, I noticed the Moon was in a lunar eclipse, blood-red.  

I'll never forget that night, even though I was by myself.  

Most modern western music is based on 12-tone Equal Temperment, where an octave is divided into twelve equally-spaced "steps".  It is actually a compromise, so that a harpsichord, piano, glockenspiel, marimba etc could play in any key, equally out-of-tune (if only slightly), something good horn, string, and vocal performers can adjust for automatically (I did not learn this until my last year of college jazz band, and admit I couldn't hear what the director was yelling at me about; sigh).  

Here is a Bach guitar piece played on an infinitely-adjustable fretboard guitar; see if you can hear the difference.  

https://youtu.be/aSWoSV7bLxs?si=6b0WG7cogCjHSmnA

I've noted that Henrick, the bass player for The Dirty Loops, plays a bass that has microtonally-adjusted frets, but they're embedded (not adjustable), so (from what I've read) his bass sounds much better in certain keys, but worse in other keys (the human ear is not as finely tuned to pitch in the lower registers, and if its worth the bother, well, I can't hear it personally.)

 It's even more fun to recognize that dividing an octave into 12 equally-spaced steps... why twelve?  Well, that was arbitrary!  African scales were divided into five steps between octaves (not sure if they were equally-spaced, @rm5 or other trained musicians here can correct me) and early slaves in the US, while trying to play their own music on instruments designed for 12-tone equal temperament, tried to bend certain notes (like the 3rd, and the 7th, downwards) and that gave us... the Blues!   

 Wendy Carlos released an album in my early twenties where she experimented with different tunings, both twelve-tone, but not equally-spaced, and scales that were divided into, say, 19 pitches per octave.  I listened to that CD a lot, and suddenly could hear where, on pop/rock radio, those standard tunes sounded, well, OUT of tune!  Give Beauty in the Beast a listen, if you want to stretch your ears for fun (while looking up that album title I noted she has released a lot more albums than I realized, and now that I can stream I've got some exploring to do).  

Played this in Jr High jazz band, and drove my Dad crazy trying to learn it all on my Mom’s upright piano; I’m 65 now.  This track still kills, what a fantastic recording!  

https://youtu.be/Lytb0fgJ6vY?si=zi6vlNGeRrJBydrV