Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol.25, Dec.12) "Music is alive!"

Notes From A Bass Guru (Vol.25, Dec.12) “Music is alive!”

Just like everything in the Universe, Music (with a capital M) is alive! It lives and breathes and even has a mind of its own. So, if you want to live within Music, you have to learn to FEEL the heartbeat. With no pulse, there is no life, and without life there is no Music. Now there lies the question of how one goes about being one with this living spirit called Music.

First, how can I prove to you that Music is alive? Did you ever suddenly get a tune stuck in your head and you just could not stop feeling it, even when the notes aren't audible. You know, those notes that are all in your head that noone else can hear? That is the sound of the spiritual entity known as Music communicating with you in some way! It does this because even when the notes stop, the song is still alive!

Now that you know Music is alive, now you have to learn to be in touch with it so that you and Music can strengthen each other into making a great song. Music is like the Force from Star Wars, it surrounds us and binds us and when we learn to become it, we can use it! You must reach out to feel it, your mind is like a radio, you must quiet it and enable it to focus on the frequencies of Life that are all around you, so that you know what Nature is trying to tell you. Use your “radio” to pick up on the Life around you, and focus yourself on trying to make Life even better. When you do this, you will have all the forces of Life backing you, the Music will flow freely through you now! Your job as a musician is to interpret these frequencies of Life and deliver them to the rest of the world, you are the antennae that must pick up the signals! You as an artist have that gift!

The first thing you will notice after you pick up on all Music's signals, is that it has a pulse. Feel this groove! If you stick to this heartbeat, you can never go wrong! Forget how to think for a while and just feel. The signals you feel will think for themselves and they are never wrong! Do not forget, that when you are playing, Music itself has a say in all matters, not only you!

What will you do next now that you feel the pulse? Well, first, let the Music tell you what it wants you to play, it is never wrong, as it is a force in Nature and Nature knows itself better than you ever will! With this said, let all notes come out naturally, do not fight it. You must play your music with trust and with love (it is the most powerful emotion), and the notes will tell you where they want to go. Each note has its own life, listen to it and let it live, let it be YOUR note!

All of these concepts may seem abstract until you do this, but with this all said, I am not saying to forget technique and theory. I wrote this in another article, but as I said in my “Building Techniques” article, your technique should be at a high enough level that you don't have to think about it, it will just happen. With that said, if you really are at a point with some techniques that it is a part of your playing truly without having to be forced, Music will know and it will use these skills you acquired! Just remember to keep it as natural as you could, you are an artist and you have this purpose in life! You are there to serve Nature and Music in the end!

Your brother in Nature,

Mark McAnaney (composer/bassist)

Notes from a bass guru (Vol. 23, Jan. 12)

"Counterpoint"

The study of counterpoint is comparable to an artist's study of perspective. Compositions using counterpoint become an aggregate of parts rather than an entity conceived in depth. In simpler terms, counterpoint is the science of putting several parts of a piece together! Before we start our study on counterpoint, we need to go over a few things.

Consonance- a sounding of tones that produces a feeling of rest.

Dissonance- a sounding of tones creating a feeling of tension or unrest, feels like further resolution is needed.

Intervals- the distance between notes. (half step, whole step, several whole or half steps)

Cantus Firmus- the note you are working off of when choosing your other notes to put against it.

With all of those ideas in mind, you can draw the conclusion that when using counterpoint, you are starting with your first note, or cantus firmus, and putting your other notes against it to create a consonance or a dissonance. The notes you can choose are based on interval relations from the cantus firmus.

The intervals you can choose to create a consonance are the unisons (1st), octaves (8th), fifths (5th), major and minor thirds (3rd), and major or minor sixths (6th).

The intervals you can use to create a dissonance are seconds (2nd), sevenths (7th), ninths (9th), diminished, augmented, and it is debatable still, but fourths (4th). The reason it is not clear whether fourths create a dissonance is that a fourth creates a minor sound, and not all minor sounds are a dissonance.

Whatever you choose to do with your counterpoint, whether it be to create an elaborate congregate of parts that make a large chord, to create a large well orchestrated sound of many pieces, or to create multiple melodies layered on top of one another, you must keep in mind that your counterpoint notes must be in the same scale or mode as the cantus firmus!

There are three ways that notes can move in relation to one another. Direct motion is when the notes both move up together, or down together. Contrary motion is when the notes move away from eachother. They move apart. One note moves up and the other moves down. Oblique motion is when one note moves, while the other remains stationary! In the following example, the top line displays direct motion, the middle shows contrary, and the bottom shows oblique.
















There are five species of counterpoint. The first one is Note Against Note. In this species, each note is of equal duration, such as a whole note to a whole notes, or halves to halves. This species can only consist of consonances.

The second species is Two Half-Notes Vs. One Whole Note. In this, the rule is that the first half note must be a consonant. The second note may be dissonant if and only if it moves away from the first half note stepwise! Dissonance may only occur by Dimunition, which is the shortening of note values in a theme (to alter the melody) without changing the original pitches. For Three Notes Against One, these same rules apply, So that would fall under this species of counterpoint as well! In this, the middle notes may be dissonant because all three notes move stepwise!









The third species is Four Quarters Vs.One Whole. The quarters are either ascending or descending. The first note must be consonant, while the second may be dissonant if you choose, the third must be consonant, and the fourth may be dissonant. The exception to the rule is that the third may be dissonant if the second and fourth are consonant.









The fourth species is the most difficult, and is called Ligature and Syncopation. Ligature is when you use longer duration tones and have them fall upon time units that are normally weak. Syncopation is the deliberate upsetting of a composition's normal accent, rhythm, or pulse of meter. You are creating delay effects essentially! Notes are held over to create retardations of the notes following.













The fifth species is merely a recapitulation and combination of all the proceeding species! It is called Florid Counterpoint.









Now to review, simply as possible, start with your cantus firmus (treat this line as the bass line even when it is not!). Choose the species of counterpoint that would best suit your needs for your piece, and place your notes in your other lines based on the species! The song and art of counterpoint may write itself! But no matter what, you will come up with a beautiful and elaborate and multi-dimensional piece, as counterpoint is the musician's equivalent to the artist's perspective!

Consonantly yours in music,

Mark R. McAnaney