Pentasystem... anyone tried one?

[Brad]

I found this article in my local newspaper today. Interesting.
Anyone here played one of these? Or have an interest in playing one of these?

http://dailynews.com/business/articles/0302/28/biz01.asp

 

[Roel]

I wanted too, but with my skills, I mean, musical, engineering, composition and playing and girls and like everything, I thought, well I will probably just come up with something amazing like this myself.

What a whimp! Retune a guitar, take off one string and tell everybody it's a new instrument?? Easier to play?? Just draw yourself a quick diagram, and try to find the regular chords. Then start with dominant and major 7th chords. You'll get the picture...

 

[Scooter B]

Me thinks it would work well for bass and Bassplayer's April issue just had an article about a classically trained upright player who does just that. By a little retuning of the open strings and tuning in fifths he gets the entitre keyboard range out of five strings.

But I agree with Roel.....any chord voicings that currently cover four to six frets in standard tuning would really be tough in the "Penta System".

Might work for strictly lead but who wants to learn a whole new fingering system that is still close enough to the standard version to cause mass confusion or a brain hemorhage?

 

[Cyrokk]

File this with the Steve Vai heart shaped guitar, the triple neck guitar, and the quarter tone guitar..

I remember Robert Fripp bitching about how the standard tuning doesn't make sense to him, and so simply devised his own tuning. And when he did that, he spurned a whole revolution of people not really doing anything new in guitar tuning and just sticking to the old style guitar..

I dunno, maybe it could work.. But I wanna hear someone play some blues on the thing first..

Cy

 

[Shinobi]

Huh?

I posted a few days ago what I did with a cheap nylon Folk guitar. I took off the high and low "E" strings and tuned it to "fifths" CGDB to make a Tenor Guitar, but I don't think that I
made a new guitar or system. That guys is screwed up. LOL )

 

[guhlenn]

that guys dumb...

I do think that a guitar with quarter tones is cool , but that is a common instrument in the arabic countries..

sound spretty wicked...

guhlenn
CEO of the noisesystem ; why use strings? why use a guitar? just hold your guitarplug against metal and rock on! you will never like you r guitar again once you 've tried this... it's a whole new way of thinking!!!

 

[BrettB]

I got a friend who has a university degree is music, and he designed a 16 string guitar that is tuned in microtones (or whatever the term is in English)

He has this whole theory that our music system is too artificial: there are too many corrections on the harmonics and our 12tone system forced our ears to go deaf to small intervals.

It sounds extremely weird his guitar, but I like his strange idea about our tone system. Slightly different from the guitars here exposed.

 

[Bjart Helms]

Uh, tuned in fifths, and he calls this a revolution? Anyone hear of the violin family? Spaking as a mandolin and (Irish) bouzouki player, and can tell you that there are a lot of things about this system guitar players won't be happy about. The major third interval between the G and B and the fourths for the rest of the strings has made a major contribution to what we expect tonally from guitar heavy genres. Of course, it would make learning scales easier, making guitar god faces completely unnecessary. Could we live in a world like that?

It's not a bad idea, though. It's just not going to take the world by storm. Tuning in fifths is the system tenor banjos would have used when inventing jazz accompaniment, and it's also what modern folk musicians play on their mandolin and violin family instruments.

 

[Roel]

I got a friend who has a university degree is music...

You don't happen to be talking about Godfried-Willem Raes or one of his students do you?



Funniest guy ever... 'De Toetkuip' Can't wait to see him/some of his works at the opendoor...

 

[Fangar]

I tried this trhough my TRIPHAZER and it didn't sound that good. By the way they are reaching optimum performance.

Fangar

 

[BrettB]

Ah, Roel, tou know Godfried too !!! that guy is so hilarious

But actually I wasn't talking about him, I was talking about Tim Mariën, a guy who graduated in musicology in the KU Leuven. But maybe you can compare him a little with Godfried.

In Ghent, I follow composition with Frank Nuyts (great composer, former leader of Hardscore) but Godfried is the leader of the composition faculty. His work, and his designed instruments are just so wacko.

For everyone interested, check http://www.logosfoundation.org
for Godfrieds website. He even has pictures there from his bizar instruments.

 

[Igormeister]

Yeah, i tuned my axe in fifths ater reading article " The truth about seven string guitar "
You can play powerchords at lightspeed.
Bad things is that you can play only tracks by Napalm Death and Brutal Thruth.

 

[guhlenn]

so what else is there?

J/K

guhlenn

 

[Roel]

In Ghent, I follow composition with Frank Nuyts (great composer, former leader of Hardscore) but Godfried is the leader of the composition faculty.

You are doing the production-thingy right? What composition do you have? Is it jazz and pop composition or the 'freaky' kind? I really have no clue how to write a decent piece, but I gotta write one if I wanna get past the entrance exam. (I never get past 6 measures. oh boy...) Otherwise it'll be musictheory. (schriftuur, how do you say that in english?)

 

[BrettB]

Yeps, I'm doinig the 'production thingy

All my main courses are jazz and pop, but the composition is one of the classes you can choose from the classical departement. I think a lot depends on your teacher. Frank Nuyts is an open man: he likes as well classical music as all kind of modern things, from freaky electronics to drum'n' bass, funk or even rock.

The standard procedure is you start off with an idea and he helps you devellop it, giving some adivice and tries to inspire you. That method works out pretty fine for me.

Are you planning to study conservatory, Roel?

 

[Roel]

Jup... I'm thinking of brussels... Most people adviced brussels or antwerp. And the works I heard of brussels were more to my liking. Think Ghent is a little to experimental for me. Well, I think Godfried-willem Raes' work is anyway, don't really know. Haven't heard it yet...

I'm also doubting between directly starting studying composition (in Ghent and antwerp you can do that...) or first studying musictheory (schriftuur dus). In brussels composition is a postgraduate for theory students... Pretty hard choices to make. Even more since I have to give up my job and income.

Oh well... If you got any advice, it's more than welcome. You can also mail me in dutch if you want(r.das@philips.com)...

 

[guhlenn]

well you should do something Roel...

remember, you can tell your kids how you lived off of wood for 4 years and how you stole the cat from the neighbours with christmas so you hjad something that looked like a turkey ...

No really it's hard but then again, if it aint hard ... it's soft yeah right whatever...

 

[Roel]

well you should do something Roel...

remember, you can tell your kids how you lived off of wood for 4 years and how you stole the cat from the neighbours with christmas so you hjad something that looked like a turkey ...

No really it's hard but then again, if it aint hard ... it's soft yeah right whatever...

Well... I will go to the conservatory, just don't know which and wether to study composition or theory first. I can spend christmas with my parents and get free food. Just have to figure out some cheap presents... They already have a cat...

And that last sentence... Did you get that yourself?

 

[guhlenn]

They already have a cat...

not atfer christmas

and to the last question;, certainly not!

guhlenn