charltonmusic2

[charltonmusic2]

Recording guitar:

When recording a guitar, a good microphone to use is an “Shure SM57” microphone. It is a dynamic microphone for stage use. (It can also be used for vocals). To get a more precise and clear sound, your going to want to set up the mic as an “On-Axis” mic setup. This setup is when the mic is directly head on with the speaker in the amp. If it were at an angle to the speaker, it wouldn’t accentuate the sound clearly. It would sound “Compressed” or even “muffled”.

For this recording, I used a Stratocaster with single coil pickups. I had the selector switch on the neck pickup. This gives it a mild sound and calms any natural treble that may come out of the guitar.

No effects were used on the recording. Just a guitar plugged into an amp, nothing else. This gives it a extremely natural tone which encourages the player to choose carefully on what they play because of the “nakedness” of their sound. It challenges your technique and connection between notes.

This kind of tone is also a great indicator if someone really plays with feel or not. The reason why is because when you really have a connection emotionally with what your playing, you emphasise and accent some notes and quietly play others. In a sense, your creating a musical story with action and sometimes mellowness. That’s the art of playing in my opinion, and the “dry naked” tone really leaves you with that reminder.

I’ve been using a compressed sounding overdrive sound. It’s quite interesting because it’s fairly obscure in some ways.

On the amplifier, (VOX VT40 Valvetronix)

I’ve been using these settings:

Gain: 5

Treble: 8

Middle: 10

Bass: 0

Also, I’ve been using single coils for this sound. I nearly always use either the bridge pickup or the middle pickup. (3rd Switch on Strat).

No effects are used except overdrive. No reverb or nothing. Those settings are also good for clean guitar aswell.

The way I’ve come to find this tone, is because I wanted to replicate a tone in RHCP’s 1991 album “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”. Particularly in the song “Give It Away”, is where I come to find the tone.

For many years, I’ve been drawn to Ray Manzareks VOX organ. “The Doors” is certainly a very talented band with a amazing reputation of un-ending creativity. But Rays organ really sets the mood for the band and gives the songs the character their known for. I don’t know why I decided to blog this, but i just appreciate their creativity. The organ has a sense of pure horror but absolute happiness and joy at the same time.

I’ve been studying ancient Arabic musical techniques and how they played their music. I’ve tuned my guitar to how a instrument called, “The Arabic Oud” would of been tuned. The “Arabic Oud” was made and introduced to Arabia somewhere between 272 to 241B.C., under the rule of King Shapur. The Oud is the ancestor or the European Lute which eventually blossomed into a incredibly important instrument famous for its use in the”Renaissance”. In Arabia, the Oud was referred to as “King” or “Sultan” of all instruments. So, it was an extremely important instrument to the people of Arabia. It’s translation is quite simple, in Arabic, “Oud” translated to English, is “From wood”. Basically just saying it’s made from wood.

The tuning in which I tuned my guitar with is in similarity to the “Arabic Oud”. Usually, a guitar would be tuned to:

E A D G B E

But with the Arabic Oud, it’s quite different. There are (like guitars) different amounts of strings sometimes more than 6 or less on an Oud. So since I have 6 strings, I had to do my best to try to tune my guitar accurately with the amount of strings I could actually use. So, my guitar is tuned like this...

C F A D G C

Note: These notes should be tuned 2 or 1 octave down than how these notes would usually be on guitar. The “Arabic Oud” needs to be tuned this way to be authentic to the ancient sound.

When the Oud was in frequent use, the Arabic musicians would play with the solid part of an eagles quill, this would eventually turn out to be the guitar plectrum we know of today because of its nearly identical way on how they used the quill. Modern day Oud players use something called a “Risha”. A slightly elongated plectrum. “Risha” translates to “Feather” in reference to how the instrument used to be plucked.

The song I have been learning, is a song which originated in Turkey. It is called, “Üsküdar’a Giderken. Not much is known about the origins of the song in terms of when it was made and by who. What we do know however, is that it includes the main qualities of authentic ancient music in terms of techniques used. If you run your finger down your guitar neck, it will make a sliding sound. Well, with the Oud, there are no frets at all, allowing you to have infinite gradation between each note when you slide. This contributes to the authentic sound.

The Ancient Arabic people had good knowledge with musical theory. It most probably was not referred as “Music Theory”. But nonetheless they had good knowledge of keeping in tune with eachother. When they used scales in their music, they didn’t call them scales but rather, “Maqam”. There are over 100 “Maqams”that were frequently used in Arabic Music, and that’s quite intense if your trying to remember atleast 10. The scales which the Arabic’s and eventually other ancient inhabitants from surrounding countries used, are actually the same ones we use today!

Some of the scales in which they used are:

Ionian

Dorian

Phrygian

Lydian

Mixolydian

Aeolian

Locrian

Chromatic

Whole tone

Many musicians frequently use these scales even down to this day. But of course there were many more scales that aren’t really used at all or are lost in time. But some ancient scales or “Maqam”, are most likely very compatible with the music you personally play. One of the musical scales or “Maqam” is called “Nahawand”. “Nahawand”, is an ancient version of the Aolien minor scale. Another scale or “Maqam” is called “Kurd”. “Kurd is an ancient version of the Phrygian mode.

Some ancient music can get extremely complicated. Let me explain. So, we’re aware of semitones. Semitones are individual notes that are part of an octave. There are 12 notes in an octave. And those notes are semitones. But, in ancient music, things called “Microtones” were used. Microtones are notes that are played in between the standard western semitone. For example, if someone played a C note on an Oud, it is possible for them to play a sharp and flat version of that note and it would still be classed as 1 semitone. That is a lot to remember if your trying to play an Oud authenticly.

But yes, the ancient world of music is extremely important and interesting to explore. It makes you understand that the people of the ancient world were incredibly advanced and extremely intelligent. So when you look at an instrument, you could ask yourself “I wonder where that originated from”. If you “dive in” you can learn quite a lot. From ancient instruments and ancient techniques, the past is an absolute goldmine for learning. You can bring ancient techniques into modern music and give it an interesting sound. Or, buy yourself an ancient styled instrument and start from the very beginning.