Uninverted

Okay, enough of the inverted 5th for the time being. I enjoyed the bizarre sounds from the special tuning. However, I found the lower end "D" string was super muddy with my amp/cab setup which limited the range. And also my dexterity-limited range provided for only the simplest of single-note runs or arpeggios.

Alas so I am back to standard tuning for the time being. It makes the most sense for jamming with the fellas and my amplification rig. Here is a preliminary run...

Set List: Yoshime, Knights In White Satin, House of the Rising Sun, Heaven, For the Turnstiles, After Dark, Tangled Up In Blue, Powderfinger, Sweetleaf.

Pick Test

I got it in my head that I could try jamming on the inverted 5th tuning as on a regular 6-string guitbox. It took a few takes to fuddle with the volume and tone, and I probably need to adjust the string heights. Seems to be a workable project although I don't know if I would ever adjust to the Takamine acoustic inverted 5th if'n I was going to play by plectum...

Set List: Farewell Ride, For the Turnstiles, Run On for A Long Time, Heaven, Helpless, House of the Rising Sun, Knights in White Satin, Hurt, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Mad World, Malicious Hallucinations, Nebraska, Rats, Dominance and Submission, Sedan Delivery, Girlfriend In a Coma, You're A Big Girl.

Inverted Jam

Had an interesting inverted jam this evening. I taped up some inverted bass. Plus, given the old Sony camera has defects, I am recording with the GoPro (Omdaughter rediscovered it in her shit).

I'll post some of the awful recording here.

Set List: Nebraska, Powderfinger, Down the Line, Sedan Delivery, Submission, Last Days of May, Big Girl, Yoshimi, Time, Adam Raised a Cane, After Dark, Dwight Frye, Blowin' In the Wind, Comfortably Numb, Creep, Dead Flowers, Dominance, Factory.

Inverted 5th Tuning

I previously related my efforts to get my $2,500 Takamine fretless acoustic bass somewhat stage-worthy. While I mostly solved the feedback problem, I was running into issues with the "presence" of that bass's noise. Individual notes in the middle register of the instrument were often lost and chords seemed muddy and indistinct.

As a longtime fan of Peter Gabriel and King Crimson bassist Tony Levin, I always enjoyed the sounds he made on the Chapman Stick. Poking around the interwebs I tried to find out how much one of those instruments cost. In the course of that inquiry I learned about Emmitt Chapman's inverted 5th tunings.

In 1964 Chapman wanted to make chordal accompanyment as easy as possible, given the complex jazz progressions he was playing together at the time on the 34" scall 8-string guitar he had built at the time. He found the bass element easier to negotiate if those strings were somewhere in the middle of the sequence. Around '67 he created the bass 5ths tuning on that 8-string guitar by dropping the D at the 6th position down an octave, extending my overall range by a whole step, and raising the E at the 8th position up an octave. The A was left as is, thus all lettered notes remained the same. Soon after, I added a 9th string (B, a 5th above the 8th E).

On a 4-string bass these tunings resulted in reversing the order of the strings, with the heavier gauge low strings toward the bottom rather than the top. And while the letter notes of each string followed the standard pattern of the top 4 strings of a 5-string bass (B-E-A-D), each 5th was actually a full octave apart from string to string.

I was interesting in attempting these tunings, but first I had to find an instrument where I could reverse the normal string gauges, essentially turning a right-handed guitar into a left handed guiter, before I could attempt the inverted 5th tuning.

I did NOT want to experiment first on my expensive Takamine, so I looked to my el cheapo Dean acoustic bass, but the holes to set the string ends were bored different sized to accommodate each string. Then I remembered Omdaughter's Peavey Fury IV bass that had been temporarily residing at our home. The bridge on the Peavey had standard bores for the strings all the same size, but string channels in the nut were different sizes. Ha, so I received permission from Omdaughter to tap out the nut and slip it back in the neck opposite. Thankfully the process was perfect.

Next I strung up the bass with strings and tuned to the inverted 5ths. Now, when compared with standard tunings, a standard set of bass strings in the inverted 5th are tuned (except the A string) are tuned to different notes and tensions than for which they were normally designed. 

Here is the outline of how the strings are tunes differently:

• Standard low E string is tuned down 1 full step to D
• Standard A string is tuned the same to A
• Standard D string is tuned up 1 full step to E
• Standard high G string is tuned up 2 full steps to B

The problem was tuning that high G string up 2 full steps to a high B, the sets of strings I had (La Bella 760 FS Deep Talkin' Bass extra long flatwounds) just weren't designed to handle the tension of being tuned up 2 full steps. (Ha, thankfully La Bella was kind enough to sell me 2 individual G strings to replace the ones I busted so I still had a couple new sets.) What to do?

I knew I wanted flatwound strings, and it turned out D'Addario has a string tension guide for their strings that lists the tensions of various gauge strings at a variety of tunings. The purpose of this is because apparently some players want an even tension across all their strings (I never even thought of that), but the effect was I found a proper gauge flatwound G string in an extra long bass set that had a tension listing for a high B. Eureka!

Below is the guitar now. It is a trip to play as the chordings are super strange and the guitar easily slaps in almost a Les Claypool/Primus style (not that I am remotely near Les!). One thing is I had to swap the location for balance and volume knobs as I kept bumping my vol. Band mates are going with the flow for now, so we'll see where this musical tangent goes. Way to be.

After X-Mas Ramba-Jamba

Had a splendid little 5-hour jam will J.A.S., Sick Rick, Stumpy Pete (for the latter half), and Alesis drummer machine.

Set List: Adam Raised a Cane, Creep, Dead Flowers, Factory, Time, Blowin in the Wind, Powderfinger, Save Tonight, Hurt, Sweet Leaf/Born on the Bayou/Sympathy for the Devil, Knockin on Heaven's Door, Last Days of May, Lucky Man, Malicious Hallucinations, Down By The River, Mad World, Right Down the Line, For the Turnstiles, Tangled Up in Blue, Big Girl, Yoshimi, Comfortably Numb, Dwight Frye, House (x2), and Farewell Ride (x2).

Way II Be

(Dismalhead "Way II Be" and "Way to Be")

We have had these informal jam sessions and relying for content from my giganormous binder of music, which contains just about every cover I've tried to work on for at least the past 7 years or so plus some from older than that. My conceit is that the info for each song be on two facing pages. That way a musician doesn't have to worry about flipping pages during a song (I hated that in full-on sheet music).

The two main problems with giga-binder are: #1 All the singers and musicians are looking over each other's shoulders, and #2 The binder itself around 2/3 of which is something probably not suitable for a garage jam session.

I decided to put together a simple song book for our most common tunes along with some blasts from the past, but what to call it?

I happened to be listening to Sick Rick's old CD of music he put together way back in 2012 when our friend and singer/guitarist Stumpy Pete was moving back to Cali from Colorado. Sick Rick's faux band (every instrument was performed by Sicky over the thump of an Alesis drum machine) he called "Dismalhead" and titled the CD "Way to Be" (an old 70s exclamation of positivity related to "way to go" which was a sarcastic counterpart).

I thought that this songbook, from my perspective, was similar in idea to Sick Rick's CD - a group of material encouraging our small band of players to adopt some material.

The new songbook, dubbed "Way II Be" and reflecting our various influences plus a few originals, contains the following:

“Adam Raised a Cane” Bruce Springsteen, “After Dark” Tito & Tarantula, “Ballad of Dwight Fry” Alice Cooper, “Blowin' In the Wind” Bob Dylan, “Comfortably Numb” Pink Floyd, “Creep” Radiohead, “Dead Flowers” The Rolling Stones, “Dominance & Submission” Blue Oyster Cult, “Down by the River” Neil Young, “Factory” Bruce Springsteen, “Farewell Ride” Beck, “For the Turnstiles” Neil Young, “God's Gonna Cut You Down” Traditional, “Heaven” Talking Heads, “Helpless” Neil Young, “House of the Rising Sun” Traditional, “Hurt” Trent Rezner, “Institutionalized” Suicidal Tendencies, “Jackhammer” Stumpy Pete, “Knockin' On Heaven's Door” Bob Dylan, “Lucky Man” ELP, “Mad World” Gary Juyles, “Malicious Hallucinations” Stumpy Pete,  “Nebraska” Bruce Springsteen, “Powderfinger” Neil Young, “Rats” Pearl Jam, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” Sick Rick, “Right Down the Line” Gerry Rafferty, “Save Tonight” Eagle Eye Cherry, “Sedan Delivery” Neil Young, “Submission” Sex Pistols, “Sweet Leaf" Black Sabboth, “Sympathy for the Devil” The Rolling Stones, “Tangled Up In Blue” Bob Dylan, “Then Came the Last Days of May” Blue Oyster Cult, “Time” Pink Floyd, “Wild World” Cat Stevens, “You're A Big Girl Now” Bob Dylan, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” Flaming Lips.

Another Informal...

So this fine Friday afternoon we met up in the Valley of Jo for a ripping good time. Myself, Sick Rick, and J.A.S. for the entirety, Hunger Mehigh for all but the very end, Stumpy Pete and Vlad comprising some two different sections.

Set List: Bass/Drum Groove, After Dark, Anybody Seen My Mind, Last Days of May, Dead Flowers, Factory, Farewell Ride, Hurt, Down By the River, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Lucky Man, Mad World, Right Down the Line, Save Tonight, Sympathy for the Devil, Wild World, Yoshimi, You're A Big Girl Now, Dwight Fry, Comfortably Numb, Dominance and Submission, Jazz Odyssey.