Very cool.

Delicate and serene. Beauty indeed.

A masculine piece with an oriental flavour. Most interesting and different.

Yes, as a matter of practicality one performs with volume greater than the actual Fender (headphones to the GR-20, amplification of the Roland GR-20 ) - although I have mixed the "normal" and "new" tunings together and in some cases that sounds nice and fairly unique.

So when you are playing this song on the Fender Mustang, you are hearing it in Sorog tuning, right? But the note that you are playing on the guitar is changed to another pitch by the Roland, so you must have the headset plugged into the Roland output, right?

Vaisvil's response to my question was enlightening: wild stuff! "well, no actually, it is the Roland GR-20 that gets re-tuned. Performing in many tunings with acoustic instruments is problematic and while I've seen a few attempts none of them I could afford. One could de-fret and re-fret a guitar but not only is it time consuming you then have either many guitars or a commitment to one tuning for a good space of time. So.. long story short - musical electronics are making microtonal music practical. Of course this is purely from a western perspective - other cultures have been performing microtonal music for millennial. Or, as a Turkish composer told me - the west is the real microtonal music because its the compromise compared to other cultures."

You actually tune the Fender Mustang to the Sorog tuning, right?

really very beautiful, and rich sounding, a lot of cool musical thoughts making a tapestry of sound,,, very nice,, the percussion underlying this is very interesting... i will be looking to see you guys on a movie track in the future well played

Whew! That's a dandy production right there. Some great changes and that piano is sterling.

I still love it.

Wow, this is...wow.

My goodness, this is tremendous. The sheer scale and talent has me floored. Fantastic!

A great listen - Perfect buildup and rush.

Ha! Epic Vaisvil ax work! I was too ignorant to realize that my headset metronome was getting picked up by the mic at the very end, at which time I was following Vaisvil's excellent suggestion of attempting some microphone/gong manipulation in which the mic was hand held, rotating it about an inch above the face of a simmering 32" gong. Wild stuff!

Quite a trip. Very Nice!

Awesome. Illegal Alien Autopsy

Cool composition - like the last 15 seconds especially.

Oooo, like it! w;-)

Is that live guitar or keys>? yet another good example of the cool variety of music you create, this almost sound like it could be a prelude to something bigger...

it's very good!

and the excellence of the music should be overlooked too.

Reg - you are one heck of a story teller! Have you considered writing a novel or short story?

Hi John, I like this one.

you should be creating music for sci-fi films!

I wish AT had a repeat button. I'm downloading this - great piece Norm!

I'm going to put this in my profile if it will fit. the question of how microtonality is perceived and why is a hotly debated one on the tuning list. There seems to be, in general, but not in all cases, shared intervals around the world, like the 5th. However non-western cultures use, in general, microtonal tunings. !2 equal notes to an octave is a relatively recent invention in the west. 300 years ago it was common for what would be now called a microtonal tuning to be in common, everyday use. As best as can be determined the push for 12 equal was all about changing keys in a single piece of music. If you take the tuning of the middle ages, Pythagorean, you find you can't play in any key despite having 12 notes because the intervals between the notes are not equally spaced. As a result when you take a pure chord and move it up or down the octave with the same distance between the notes it could become something hideous. 12 Equal solves that problem at the expense of detuning all notes, some more than others.

Hi Ricard, thanks for the listen and comment. It is probably hard not to hear 14 edo as out of tune since it so close to 12 but not quite there. I think then your sense of it being flattened and less bright is the result of the tuning.

This is beautiful! I love the bluesy feel. Would it be ok if I try to add to this?

On the three GR-20 pieces uploaded 6/8/11 this is how it works. In a nutshell - my guitar replaces a keyboard - but can do more. Everything you hear is driven by me playing my Fender Mustang in one improvised pass. Now, for each song the Fender Mustang by itself (or through an amp simulator) is heard - this sound comes from the traditional pick ups on the guitar. Besides that I have installed a Roland GK-3 pick up on my Mustang. This pick up has 6 tiny picks ups - one for each string and connects to a fairly large switch and then a 1/4" cable with some 11 lines - regular guitar output and 6 outputs for the GK-3. This cable connects to the GR-20 synthesizer / midi interface. The GR-20 first decodes, almost instantly, the note each string is playing. It then converts that to midi pitch information and shoves that out the back. More on that later. Also, since the GR-20 is a synthesizer besides, it takes the pitch information and routes it to an internal sound (if desired). The really interesting part is what happens when I route that midi output to my computer. At my computer Sonar lets me assign that midi data to any number of synthesizers / samplers/ what-have-you all at the same time. So, if I want a voice or strings or piano - no problem. As for drums - Kontakt has a really neat groups of sampled drum sets that are a combination of "one shots" and smaller loops. So for instance on one of the pieces when I played the C below middle C I got a snare roll, play the B below it I get the accent that finishes the roll. So, by playing many notes I get a complex assortment of drum sounds that are in time with my playing. I've used this technique before - I am learning how to control it better - and the response is different for each of the dozen or so drum kits packaged with Kontakt - and then consider the effect of different tempos - the result is a fair amount of variety.

your vocal control amazes me - excellent story and song!

Good one! You have a way, like The Boss, of touching something about life in your songs that just resonates. And judging from the comments -- resonates with pretty much everyone who hears.

I'm liking this!

this is a cool rocking piece - but didn't you use B maj as a resolution of B sus in there?

yes I am. With *lots* of rosin on the hair.

naw, I have nothing to do with NMC or DJNS. I was a part of 2 star man and that was enough for me!

excellent - and great solo!

more than just paulstretch I'd say - or different. in any case a cool idea!

I like the groove you two get going on this.

and a lovely romance it was.

can't say I'm done 4ths - I'm usually fixated on 5ths - nice improv - did you play the synth at the same time?