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Mister Snips posted:The cajon looks really cool to me though, it's versatile and from what I can see seems to fit in well with lots of different styles of music. I really like how it has a snare built into it, it has more than one sound. Plus you can attach other percussive bits to the side of the box, which is pretty cool Cajon is indeed a good one; if you like tapping rhythmically on the table, this would be the natural way to up your game. That specific attachment settup is something Schlagwerk worked up for its product line, though of course folks have been doing improvised versions of that for centuries. EDIT: The snare is also optional, but an option several makers have started offering. If you have the space and portability isn't an issue, the full size cajons are often reasonably priced (like $100) and also serve as a piece of furniture. If you want something more reasonably sized, there are a wide variety of smaller cajons on the market. I'm iffy on LP overall, but their "laptop congas" cajon is actually pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xRVV5RI4Pc  There's really just an explosion of cajons on the market these days, so I'd suggest you wander around YouTube checking out all the different sizes and features to see what jumps out at you. Check back in and let us know what you decide on.\ TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 06:28 on Jul 11, 2012 |
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Jul 7, 2012 17:51
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 Here's the weird instrument I'm going to buy when I win the lottery: the lautenwerck, also known as the lute-harpsichord. (There are many, many spellings of lautenwerk, lautenwerke, ...) The lautenwerck was one of Bach's favorite instruments; at his death he owned two lautenwercke, three harpsichords, a lute and a spinet. If you've heard a harpsichord --and you have, it's the twangy instrument in Simon and Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair" and the Stones's "Play With Fire"-- you're accustomed to the metal-wire sound of that family of keyboard instruments. Harpsichords, virginals, and their kinfolk are strung with metal wires and either plucked (all the above) or touched (clavichords) by pointed quills. (By contrast, piano strings are hit by hammers.) Lautenwercks and clavicytheria have the same harpsichord-family sounding mechanism, plucking by quills, but they are strung with gut instead of wire. This gives them a sound very close to that of a lute; the first time I ever heard the tone, I was in love. These two instruments have the tonal qualities of a lute coupled with the range and flexibility of a keyboard. The lautenwerck looks like a conventional harpsichord; the clavicytherium (shown above) is an upright lautenwerck, meaning that the strings run perpendicular to the keyboard, like the strings in an upright piano. Clavicytheriums, unlike upright pianos, leave the harp exposed above the case, giving them an appealing (to me) mashup look. Kim Heindel plays Bach on a Lautenwerck. Sadly, this has no visuals, but it's the recording that turned me on to this family of instruments. The photograph is of a reconstructed theorbo-harpsichord by the Hungarian luthier Tihamer Romanek. Ryan Whitney plays Bach on a clavicytherium A Bach snippet by Andras Madsen Want one? You'll pretty much have to commission it and wait. As far as I know, Steven Sørli is the only person currently building clavicytheria commercially. He will also sell you a kit with instructions for restringing an existing instrument as a lautenwerck. Note that Sorli uses carbon-fiber strings modified to give the sound of gut without the maintenance problems. Claviers Baroques in Toronto will convert an old spinet or virginals into a Lautenwerck. Arsenic Lupin fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Jul 7, 2012 |
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Jul 7, 2012 22:39
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Fortunately the clavicytherium isn't quite that dead; there are a scattering of folks who've made or modified their own, and a few that own the expensive Sørli ones. I found several good YouTube clips of the clavicytherium which is totally a porn-star name: - Some Scarlatti on a tiny Sorli: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuBXhADx8_Y - This appears to be a homemade one, which is wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J65raxcq6ys We tend to think of extinct instrument as being folk instruments that dies out due to modernisations, but there are plenty of classical/art instruments that just fell out of style and aren't around anymore. So it is good to see folks reviving some of the odder defunct art instruments. Speaking of which, one of the cooler keyboard things I've seen recently are these electric clavichords built by Bill Napier-Hemy. These are drat amazing, lots of subtelety of technique: - 1995 model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfjotHLozt4 - 1994 model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpstgCZgicQ Famous last words, but these don't look that hard to make, compared to an acoustic. I wonder... could there be kits to build these? I've been meaning to email the guy and bug him. EDIT: Huh, this guy used to be in the Canadian punk band Pointed Sticks. By a different maker, but still a cool one: 
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Jul 8, 2012 21:44
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This is all desert diver's fault: 15x8 "Teza" model child's garmon from Kalinka. Arrived from Volgograd yesterday, $60 plus $40 shipping. Checked it against a tuner, and it's pretty much on, with only one or two reeds that don't perfectly match on the push/blow (same note, but each direction needs a separate reed). I'll mess with it a bit, take some photos inside and out for an accordion research site, and maybe clean it up a little bit for any dust/fluff impeding the reeds. It's an interesting interface: it's a basic diatonic scale that zig-zags back and forth between the two rows, but same note on push and pull ("unisonoric"). The bass buttons are a mix of bass and chords; I'll probably end up charting out the whole keyboard layout for the same website. Not sure I intend to keep it, since I'm trying to restrict my free-reeds to the Hayden Duet system for continuity. But I figure it's an inexpensive and interesting piece in good condition, so I'm sure some hipster will want it to jam out on.
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Jul 9, 2012 23:39
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Turns out that the guy who's Cimbalom video I posted also makes a slightly smaller, 25 course version for considerably cheaper. Just need to get a bit more information about it first, but I think I will be ordering one at the end of the month.
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Jul 10, 2012 12:45
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Blue Screen Error posted:Turns out that the guy who's Cimbalom video I posted also makes a slightly smaller, 25 course version for considerably cheaper. Just need to get a bit more information about it first, but I think I will be ordering one at the end of the month. Good shopping around, glad you've found a workable plan. Are you looking to play Romany or Hungarian music on it, or do you have other styles in mind?  Found something interesting that may interest some of you technically inclined folks, and also suits my goal of promoting bagpipes.  echanter.com is a site with instructions and info for an Open Source, hackable, Arduino-based electronic bagpipe that costs $20-50 to build. I don't know much about electronic instruments, but it seems a pretty cool idea, and a simplified and open-source version of the various commercial e-pipes on the market. If any of you tech folks can glance and comment on the feasibility of this as a DIY project, I'd be curious to hear it.
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Jul 11, 2012 05:14
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:echanter.com is a site with instructions and info for an Open Source, hackable, Arduino-based electronic bagpipe that costs $20-50 to build. I don't know much about electronic instruments, but it seems a pretty cool idea, and a simplified and open-source version of the various commercial e-pipes on the market. I'm not an Arduino expert, but they're pretty popular. If you want to try it you can find them at sparkfun.com, some local hackerspaces will sell them too. In addition to the Arduino itself you need a way to download the code. It appears to be a fairly simple monophonic (plus drone) instrument. From the source the touch sensors are on/off sensors with no velocity or pressure sensing. It also looks like there's a couple of features not wired in the schematic, like an analog drone control. I imagine if you wanted to be in some other form factor (say, an electronic hurdy-gurdy like you mentioned before?) you could build the circuit into a different physical form. Touch sensors are a good idea - I built an analog breath controller for my modular stuff once that had a simple flute-like fingering with buttons and a pressure sensor and it took too much force to press the buttons to really work well. However, I'd be slightly nervous about popping the arduino with static electricity! If I designed a new one I'd use a real capacitive sensor controller chip, but it would be more complex and expensive (this is my downfall in many cases).
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Jul 12, 2012 02:51
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I built a thing: DSC_1023.JPG by OculusLVL1, on Flickr  DSC_1024.JPG by OculusLVL1, on Flickr  DSC_1026.JPG by OculusLVL1, on Flickr I had all the parts on hand except the headphone jack, so the total cost was $2.50. Could easily make this thing for under $30, even if you have to buy all the parts yourself. It actually sounds pretty good, for what amounts to a crappy wave table synthesizer. I think I might mess around and try to program different instruments in. The suggested hole placements are pretty awkward for my hands. I'd recommend tweaking them a little. Otherwise, this was super easy to build. Less than 3 hours.
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Jul 13, 2012 01:56
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Zuph posted:I built a thing: Dang... no flies on you. I was thinking we'd have at least one goon give it a shot, but I hadn't thought so soon. Glad to see it's that feasible for someone with the skills. What instrument do you have it programmed for now? Does it have a working drone too, or is it just a chanter? quote:It appears to be a fairly simple monophonic (plus drone) instrument. From the source the touch sensors are on/off sensors with no velocity or pressure sensing. It also looks like there's a couple of features not wired in the schematic, like an analog drone control. Would an Arduino 'gurdy be easy enough for someone with no background in this and just basic tools, or does this take at least some level of skill? As in, I'm only dimly aware that "C++" is a programming language. Are you basically just setting up different systems of controls, and then you plug the Arduino itself into a computer to code it for whatever signals are going into it, and then plug that into the overall structure? For a Arduino hurdy-gurdy, I was thinking that all you'd really need is a chunk of flat board, somewhere to set up the Arduino, and then a row of at least 10 buttons, ideally perpindicular to the board and facing away from the player, akin to a gurdy. Then just to program the Arduino so it produces a drone (ideally a drone that can be changed from X note to Y with a switch for minor scales?) and so that the buttons raise the pitch of a separate note. It'd just have to be programmed so it reacts to the highest button pushed and to no other, same as a gurdy. I somehow keep imagining something big and slightly clacky, like original NES A and B buttons in a row of 10, would be ideal. That's the absolute most basic way to get the fundamentals of the gurdy. To emulate some more complex techniques (the chien barking bridge, the pulsing rhythm made by cranking extra hard for a half-second, etc) you could probably have a few spring-loaded switches for the right hand that turn on "effects" (if those can be done on Arduino), so like a switch you could tap rhythmically to add static/distortion to get the "hard crank" effect. Here's one guy who has built an Arduino hurdy-gurdy: http://zachcapalbo.com/projects/electronic_hurdy_gurdy . It's a bit rough, as you can see.  I'm kind of surprised that aren't at least a few folks making electronic hurdy-gurdies for sale. Those things are hella expensive, and I would imagine there's a body of hipsters who love Arcade Fire but have neither the cash nor dedication to buy and learn to play a $1500+ acoustic gurdy, but would spring a $150 or whatever for an e-gurdy, or maybe even less than that for a "takes no skill" kit to assemble. I have some pretty cool (at least I think) ideas on ways to get an e-gurdy made, so if any of your tech-types are interested, I might be willing to commission something, and it might be something you could easily make more of and sell a few for walking-around money. FAKE DEDIT: I submit, the stuff of nightmares, the Furby-gurdy. 
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Jul 13, 2012 16:51
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Dang... no flies on you. It was super easy to put together. Anyone who can solder could pretty easily make their own. I'm running the default echanter software right now, so it's highlands bagpipes chanter and drone. It isn't super high fidelity, since it's just a simple little wave table synthesizer, but it's recognizably a bagpipe. I may try to load some new instruments on it, but I found a thing linked from an eChanter YouTube video: http://www.ocarinaboard.com/bb/index.php?PHPSESSID=r16rnikmjl950pfud41lkqhu21&topic=1902.0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Qe2BylMhA
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Jul 13, 2012 18:37
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:This is all desert diver's fault  How do you like it so far? If you write more about it for another site, please post the link, I am garmon-obsessed.Meanwhile I have been playing with this I borrowed from a friend's daughter  I followed your instructions for taping over half the reeds, it was really simple, and the instrument sounds pretty decent now. Fun.
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Jul 14, 2012 12:00
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What a neat thread! Get ready for my long boring intro/question post!! I've been interested in learning an instrument for a while. But I have zero music knowledge. Though we were "required" to learn the flutophone in 3rd grade, I got by in class by waving my fingers around; I never learned to read music. Harmonic vs melodic, chords, C minor, pentonic scale all mean nothing to me. (Not really asking for an explanation, just illustrating my total ignorance.) Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, I got an ocarina (still own it), and enjoyed playing along with tabs - but tabs only get you so far, and I wasn't picking up a feel for notes/ melodies. 2 years ago I tried again, but I still felt like I was running into walls. I would like to read music and play an instrument, and understand chords and stuff that I don't get now. I don't necessarily want to be good at it, I just want to hack my way through a song - Christmas carol, happy birthday, PJ Harvey, Beatles, Elliott Smith or whatever. How are you all learning? Do you have a music background? With a teacher? By ear? I found this site which looks pretty good. I'm going to break out my ocarina later on and see how it goes. I'd like to sing with music too, though. Autoharp, dulcimer, and kantele sound good to me - for reference, I tried sitar about 3 years ago, but working with frets that I couldn't really see was a challenge, and I think ultimately why I quit. Considering this, and desire to read music and play recognizable songs, but no functional knowledge now - which might be a good fit? Or is it kind of just whatever catches my fancy? I'm in Japan now, so I expect finding anything or shipping it here will be a nightmare, but I can always send it to my parents' house and get it when I visit them at Christmas... I might also pick up a thumb piano for kicks - they seem so fun!
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Jul 15, 2012 04:54
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sans pants posted:What a neat thread! Get ready for my long boring intro/question post!! No worries, that's what we're here for. And helpfully you gave us some idea of your experience, interest, music you're keen on, and instruments that jump out at you. From what you're describing, you've hit a wall using ocarina tablature, but still enjoy playing ocarina, yes? And you have a decent-enough quality one that it's not holding you back? In that case it's time to learn "the dots"; I see folks recommending MusicTheory.net on other sites, so that seems a good free resource to stab at. Learning to read music isn't unduly difficult, and in circumstances like yours it'll expand the written music you can read. Now, you bring up a separate issue with wanting to be able to play and sing. The ocarina, clearly, won't let you sing, and can't play chords (the usual way to back up singing these days). I would consider keeping up with ocarina, learn to read music to learn more songs but also work on some ear-training to try and learn some sounds by ear, to generally reduce the need for written music on the easy stuff. To expand out your feeling of chord progressions and to give you something to sing to, you're going to want to get into strings. quote:I would like to read music and play an instrument, and understand chords and stuff that I don't get now. I don't necessarily want to be good at it, I just want to hack my way through a song - Christmas carol, happy birthday, PJ Harvey, Beatles, Elliott Smith or whatever. ... I'd like to sing with music too, though. Autoharp, dulcimer, and kantele sound good to me  Given your priorities and interests, autoharp is the one that's jumping out at me here (though honestly ukulele wouldn't do you bad either). Autoharp is very, very easy to start playing chords on; you just push the proper button and strum. But as you build up from that, melody playing on autoharp can be very impressive. -Here's some basic three-chord chump playing on autoharp. A girl who just picked up an AH at a pawnshop covers Velvet Underground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE9wm9GHPFw - Some slightly more skilled chordal-playing. A The Dude-like guy does Hotel California: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHvCLYN-DXs -Here's some skilled melodic/harmony playing by pro Bryan Bowers doing an 1864 chart-topper out of Richmond: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyxL5KTsIwQ So far as Japan (what part, if it's not too personal?), you might actually be surprised by the availability of instruments. The Japanese like all kinds of stuff. And for autoharp, the Japanese were actually one of the biggest makers of autoharps for decades, under the Chromaharp line (the biggest competitor to Oscar Schmidt). I would not at all be surprised if there are a decent number of affordable autoharps in pawnshops or your Craigslist equivalent. There's even a Japanese Autoharp Society. Speaking of instruments you might well find used in Japan, a taishogoto could be fun if found cheap. They're a bit quirky, and since they're melody-only it wouldn't scratch your itch like a dulcimer or autoharp would, but if you have the spare cash and find one for like <$100 or so, it might be a fun instrument to play with while learning to read music. My impression again is there are a zillion of these floating around used in Japan; are you integrated enough to go out and seek these online and in shops, or have a friend who can help?  So far as thumb pianos, yes, fun indeed. Don't be afraid to re-tune one to unusual scales once you get a hold of it (you can always move it back), or get one of the pentatonic ones. Thumb pianos are just great for letting your fingers wander and improvise. 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Jul 16, 2012 |
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Jul 16, 2012 01:49
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I picked up a Clarke Original tin whistle while on vacation and am having mad fun with it although I'm struggling a bit with the D,E,&F holes.
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Jul 16, 2012 02:14
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Given your priorities and interests, autoharp is the one that's jumping out at me here (though honestly ukulele wouldn't do you bad either). Autoharp is very, very easy to start playing chords on; you just push the proper button and strum. But as you build up from that, melody playing on autoharp can be very impressive. Yay, thanks so much for a quick, thorough reply!!  I'm glad to hear the music theory site seems good to you too. I was planning on doing what you suggested - keep working with the ocarina and pick up a strings instrument on the side. I had a little field trip today to the only music store I know, and the biggest second hand shop I know. No autoharps, but there were ukuleles, and I'm so glad you suggested them!! I think I might be leaning that way, and I'm heading to the megathread after this for more advice. I guess my comment about living in Japan wasn't so much the availability of instruments, but the price of them. The ukes I saw seemed expensive compared to what is quoted in the other thread (but I guess it could be the brand). The online stores I checked for autoharps had them for about 400 each (though I don't know where to look for them used). For what it's worth, I live in Yamaguchi; the closest big city would be either Fukuoka or Hiroshima. You were right about taishogoto! At the second hand shop there were 6 or 7, each for under 50 bucks, one as cheap as 20! I didn't buy one, since I think my hands will be full with ocarina and an uke (if I can decide which one to get). But knowing how cheap and available they are... who knows what might happen down the road.
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Jul 16, 2012 13:23
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sans pants posted:How are you all learning? Do you have a music background? With a teacher? By ear? I have a music background. I did classical violin through both middle and high school. This site covers almost everything extremely well. Some stuff I didn't see: Tempo - Sheet music will often list the tempo using the appropriate Italian word at the top of the piece. This glossary on wikipedia can help you figure out how fast you need to play a piece. Mode - Basically all scales have seven related modes. Two of those modes are "major" and "minor." If you're interested in folk, rock, or jazz at all, you're gonna start running into other modes fairly quickly. If you know a song really well, I think learning to play it by ear can be a really good exercise. Good candidates for this include Christmas carols and national anthems. Playing by ear doesn't really work if you don't know a song very well. For songs you don't know, you can learn them by ear with a tool like Amazing Slow Downer. Or you could just use sheet music. People get frustrated with sheet music because it's easy to accidentally double or triple the amount of practice needed. Make the same mistake a few times and suddenly you need to unlearn the wrong note in addition to learning the right one. If you're playing by ear, you can of course hear if you've made a mistake and avoid internalizing the wrong note. You can avoid this problem with sheet music by doing the following: 1) Read the sheet music before using your instrument. Notice any areas that look more difficult. Imagine how you will play those areas. 2) Do not worry about rhythm. Do not worry about playing the notes for the correct duration. Only worry about playing the correct pitch. Play without making mistakes. You can do this by playing slowly and carefully. It's better to take a lot of time between notes than to end up accidentally learning the wrong note. It's ok if what you're playing doesn't sound like anything at this stage. 3) Once you have all the notes memorized, it's time to worry about rhythm! Try to keep time and play the notes for the correct duration. Some people naturally have a good sense of this and can do it on their own. If you aren't one of these people, you can improve your sense of time with a metronome. You can get one for free for most smart phones. Set it really slow to start with, like 90 bpm, and then gradually increase the speed. With weird musical instruments, it might be hard to find a real teacher. However, my experience is that the communities around these instruments are incredibly friendly and people who play in your area will be happy to show you what they know. --ed to add, though you living in Japan might through a wrench in that. thousandcranes fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Jul 16, 2012 |
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Jul 16, 2012 18:21
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Sans pants, if you are in Japan you need to get a sanshin! I don't know how widely available sanshins are outside of Okinawa but it is a lot of fun. I think we've had them before in this thread. I learned to play one very easily with only a little background of playing guitar. Maybe not the best to learn to read music, since sanshin players usually use a special tablature system. But a great instrument otherwise.
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Jul 16, 2012 22:48
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Just ordered a xiāo flute (bamboo flute) for a buck and a tenner off of Amazon, it'll be fun to play an instrument again.  Will update on how it goes, I can at least make a sound from most blown instruments but such a simple flute will probably not be the easiest to play well. 
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Jul 16, 2012 23:48
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wormil posted:I picked up a Clarke Original tin whistle while on vacation and am having mad fun with it although I'm struggling a bit with the D,E,&F holes. By "struggling" do you mean "blowing a clean note"? Is this a D whistle? So you're having trouble on your lowest three notes (the third is F#, btw)? If so, it's just a matter of taking some slow 5 minute sessions of just very slowly trying to sound individual notes, and tweaking your breath pressure to deliberately bring it just below threshold, just above, and then rest at that sweet spot in the middle where you get a clear note. Once you have that, do the other notes, and then practice transitioning between them and getting the pressure adjustment right. It's a process, but it becomes completely subconscious once you get into it. When someone mentioned this problem earlier in the thread I actually had to go check to remind myself that the pressure is actually different note-to-note; I was just so used to adjusting without noticing it. We've been doing folk and electronic for a bit, so let's drag out another Early art-music instrument. Early/Renaissance/Baroque guitar  1200s in Spain: proto-guitar on left, proto-lute on right I bring up early guitar as something to talk about instead of lute, since lute's even further out of my area, and also there really just aren't any affordable lutes out there. The early guitars are also interesting because our (we Anglophones) bias makes us think of the lute as a predominant Renaissance instrument, but ironically the lute (popular in Central/Northern Europe) became an evolutionary dead end, while the guitar family, obviously, went on to conquer the world. This is all a massively oversimplified version of the story, but roughly on. The lute is generally thought to be based on, or share a common ancestor with, the Arabic oud, possibly entering the rest of Europe through Spain. As the lute was moving north, taking on popularity in England, France, Germany, and eventually Italy, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia, the Spanish and Portuguese were already chucking out the lute, possibly as "too Moorish" and taking up a small round-backed instrument called the vihuela.  While the rest of Europe kept dicking around with the lute, the Spanish were busy morphing designs around, coming up with all kinds of shapes and sizes and string configurations of figure-eight shaped gut-string instruments. Some took the vihuela a whole new direction, playing it with a bow, and developed the viola da gamba (covered a few pages back), while a new development, the Baroque guitar, took on some fancy refined features and drove the vihuela into the arms of the peasants as the court took to the new hotness. This is, incidentally, why you see so many small guitar-like instruments in Latin America: a huge chunk of them are descended from the vihuela spreading out in that period. The rest of the story you more or less know: the guitar kept developing in Spain, getting more and more refined and spinning off variants. A few of the vihuela throwbacks made it out into the boondocks of Portugal, ended up getting carried around by Portuguese sailors and eventually introducing the ukulele to Hawaii, but that's a side story. The guitar was getting stronger and stronger in Iberia, and the lute was starting to get old and stale in Europe, just in time for the Romantic guitar (1700s) to make the leap to Germany, and it was all downhill from there as the guitar began to expand into the turf increasingly vacated by the dying lute.  Guitar comes to America, Americans want louder instruments to compete with banjo etc., designers (like the German immigrant family of Martin) put on steel strings. Yadda yadda, Les Paul, etc. and you're here today. As a minor example of how groundbreaking this is, and how ridiculous hissy-fits look with some historical detachment, here's a fancy-pants 1897 classical guitarist bitching about American steel-string guitars: "that class of plunkers whose ideal guitarist is a Negro armed with a steel-strung jangle-trap, tuned more or less Spanish, and which he manipulates with the second finger of his left hand, and a mandolin pick." My overall thrust is that early guitar is another way to approach 1200s-1700s music instead of going with the lute. The downside, of course, is that there aren't any great deals on early guitars, since they're kind of a niche deal. The upside is that the early guitars spewed off plenty of great-grand-nephews along the way that can serve quite well as at least introductions to playing early guitar music. The simplest and most affordable option for those of us outside of Latin America is probably the ukulele. Four string is fine, the 6 or 8 string with doubled or partially-doubled courses is even better. There are several good books out these days converting old early guitar music into ukulele tablature, so pick up your uke and check out a few of the following: 20 Spanish Baroque Pieces by Gaspar Sanz Arranged for Uke , From Lute to Uke - Early Music for the Ukulele. I might do some digging around and see if I can find a ukulele maker who's willing to do a run of 10-string (five doubled courses) ukes to be affordable early guitars. There's actually an article about converting baritone ukes to early guitars, but I can't find the drat thing anywhere. Anyone good with WayBack or other tools and can find us "FAKING A BAROQUE GUITAR Jay Reynolds Freeman Summar"? Enough of that, on to clips: - 1400s Flemish music covered on viheula: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHF6-FLlPw - Portuguese music on Baroque guitar by the author of the Gaspar book above: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-_gqsg6dlA - Medieval/Ren medley on 4-sting soprano uke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iar-xBViSWo - Early music medley on 8-string uke, note the difference in sound of the doubled strings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTcANXGe3eA TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jul 18, 2012 |
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Jul 18, 2012 04:18
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:By "struggling" do you mean "blowing a clean note"? Is this a D whistle? So you're having trouble on your lowest three notes (the third is F#, btw)? If so, it's just a matter of taking some slow 5 minute sessions of just very slowly trying to sound individual notes, and tweaking your breath pressure to deliberately bring it just below threshold, just above, and then rest at that sweet spot in the middle where you get a clear note. Once you have that, do the other notes, and then practice transitioning between them and getting the pressure adjustment right. Also make sure that you are covering those last three holes completely. Even the tiniest gap under any of your fingers could make it not work right.
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Jul 18, 2012 05:24
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Since one of the themes in this thread is about making really simple DIY instruments, often single-stringed, I thought I could share stuff about a couple of Indian instruments I've encountered recently. Many regions in India use very simple instruments as accompaniments to vocal music, and a common choice is to use one of the ektara ("one-stringed"). Some times it's just for drone and rhythm, like here, and other times it's used for melody. An interesting example, and perhaps one of the more usable, is the tumbi from Punjab:  A skin-covered resonator, a simple neck, and a single string. One of your hands is typically held near the gourd, and you pluck the string by moving your index finger up and down. Fairly complex melodies can be played on it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=OwZK2Xe5Cv8 - A song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpEkT-SMLpM&feature=related - A medley http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYbxlrh1lN4&feature=related - An introduction to playing. Gopichand  Again, many instruments are lumped together as just ektara, and this is one of them. The gopichand is a popular folk instrument in Bengal, used by wandering religious musicians. What makes it special is that you squeeze the parts of the neck together as you play, causing the string to slack. It has a pretty weird sound, and I guess it can be hard to play in tune, but it looks fun in any case The construction is simple, and chandraka.com has plans for it here. And if you think it's to much of a hassle to get a big piece of bamboo, burning holes in it and gluing skin on a hollow coconut, you can go the easier route like this gentleman did.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWxajijf_4c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ai6yj5tMTo&feature=related   ) The playing style of the bulbul tarang is interesting as well, and it sounds almost totally different from its Japanese counterpart.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjb-JMR0qsE&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJNrfIopyqc&feature=related - Strictly speaking, the instruments in these two clips are called shahi baja, since they're electric. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX8zsIyv1Yk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpAqAiix1P8&feature=related - I love this song so much Longhouse fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jul 18, 2012 |
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Jul 18, 2012 16:23
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withak posted:Also make sure that you are covering those last three holes completely. Even the tiniest gap under any of your fingers could make it not work right. That is the problem I'm having. The whistle tapers and the holes tend to wrap around the sides just a bit. My daughter can nail it with her smaller fingers. Longhouse posted:Gopichand This is cool, I might make one after some of my other projects are done. Currently building a new CBG/strumstick and just finished my ukulele. Was going to post a pic in the uke thread but I couldn't find it, did it pass into archives?  More here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?action=showpost&postid=405618507 wormil fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jul 18, 2012 |
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Jul 18, 2012 19:53
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drat, TTfA, you sold me another book. (Baroque Pieces for Uke). For any other harpists on the thread, Robin Ariosto Fickle has some nice lever-harp arrangements of Renaissance music: I own and can vouch for Renaissance Songes of the Merrie Cavalier (yes, yes, the title grates me, too.) I've been playing eight weeks (ish), and I'm working my way through Dowland's "Come again, sweet Love doth now invite", which needs only F-sharp levers. Here's the first bit of the sheet music, if you're interested.
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Jul 18, 2012 21:03
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wormil posted:
Dang, that is clever! The wire-tucked frets are pretty old-school. To you and the goon earlier who was thinking about a travel uke, check out this one a guy built with just parts around the house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K236WImqlxU  Blog post here: http://blog.classicalcode.com/2009/12/video-i-made-a-4-electric-ukulele/ For those of y'all dorking around with the Arduino, let me pitch an idea at you to see if it sounds easy/cool to do. Getting back to the electronic hurdy-gurdy idea, presuming you have a basic program set up to say "produce a constant C until a button is pressed and of this series of buttons C-c' only take into account the highest one being pressed at a given moment", and the a drone or two set up. Then get your 15 buttons or contacts, and set them up along the side of a cigar box, and install all your wiring bits inside, with a jack sticking out some other end. Basically turn a cigar box into the electronic version of this:  The old symphonie early hurdy-gurdy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JGkcTcWvPc Not exactly the same thing, but this cigar-box synth is kind of a similar concept:  By Critter and Guitari the same folks who make the synth in my banner-ad. For the 'gurdy, the buttons and the drone would be all you need at the most basic. It would be kind of cool to have a switch to turn the drones from C/G to D/A so your C keyboard would now play in Dmin Dorian. For extra flair you could put the drone switch on a bit of screwed on wood block on the left end to emulate a peghead. There's not much point putting a crank on it unless you have some clever idea for that, but as I pondered before you could have some little levers, wheels, or other instrument by where the right hand rests to add some momentary distortion effect that you could apply rhythmically, like the effect you get on the acoustic where you momentarily crank harder to create rhythmic buzz. Is this sounding remotely feasible, or is this one of those things where I have no idea how nightmarishly involved this project would actually be? TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Jul 19, 2012 |
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Jul 19, 2012 02:01
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Is this sounding remotely feasible, or is this one of those things where I have no idea how nightmarishly involved this project would actually be? I think it's pretty feasible. I have an idea for the crank, a couple actually. Unfortunately, I don't know much about real hurdy-gurdys, so I'm sort of guessing how its supposed to work. Two effects come to mind: the effect of varying the wheel speed, and variation in the shape of the wheel, which would vary the timbre with the absolute rotation of the wheel. First, if you just want to vary the string timbre, one possibility is to add a filter with a tweakable cutoff controlled by a pot, ribbon control, or even a crank attached such that the crank rotation adjusts a pot like a piston. This probably isn't going to be very realistic, but it does give you a thing to turn. I haven't tried this, because I've been experimenting with the other idea: digital string simulation.  An easy way to simulate a string digitally is to generate noise and drive a tuned comb filter with lots of feedback (almost but not quite 100%). The filter simulates the vibration of the string, and the noise input the pluck, bowing, or other driving force on the string. Extra filtering in the feedback loop adds dispersive characteristics of the string. The idea for a hurdy-gurdy simulation with a crank is to generate a series of pulses as you rotate the crank, say with an optical encoder, and use those pulses to gate the noise. As you crank a physical wheel, it would pull the string until the string tension exceeded the static friction, producing a small pluck when the string slips back to equilibrium. To simulate that, the pulse train from the encoder gates noise going into the comb filter, so that the string timbre will vary subtly as you change your cranking speed. Of course, that doesn't simulate crank position effects. You could get this by integrating the encoder position and using that to tweak parameters. Unfortunately, it's not straightforward to vary the tuning of a string simulation continuously because of finite sampling rate without using some complicated filter calculations, so if wheel position adds slight pitch variation by altering the string tension, that's going to be nontrivial. However, it wouldn't be hard to add some extra filtering in a couple places, and tweak that by crank position. Unlike my last post, this time I actually did some work: I wrote a simple Java program to simulate a string with gated noise at different rates as input, and by golly it sounds pretty decent, at least as a string sound with a subtly varying timbre. I normally do analog stuff, so I don't have an Arduino laying around, but multiple comb filters might take too much memory, so I might try an mbed (which I do have, it's a little embeddable ARM controller) but I need to get an encoder, too, or some other way to generate pulses from a crank. I get project time in little dribbles here and there but now I'm interested in making this work...
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Jul 19, 2012 06:56
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:Dang, that is clever! The wire-tucked frets are pretty old-school. Thanks. This gave me an interesting idea... a uke (or other instrument) that you could plug into an ipod jack on a car stereo so you could
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Jul 19, 2012 08:55
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Are there any recommended song books for the ocarina? Looking on Amazon turns up either Zelda stuff (uninterested), unreviewed books, or ones with tabs and no sheet music. Or is there a music site that might turn up more results? Also curious if there's another instrument with a similar range (mine spans an octave from C to D) that I could just use their resources?
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Jul 21, 2012 02:08
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sans pants, I'll do a little digging into your question and get back to you shortly. In the meantime, I've been lazy about posting any new instruments I get, so here goes. Why look, a new tinwhistle. Conical! Shaw! Runs about $25, plays a bit smoother and less chiffy than a Clarke, but with woodier/mellower sound than Generation-style tubulars.  And what key might this whistle be in?  That's right, E Flat.  It doesn't sound like a key that would be even slightly popular, but it's a surprisingly common (all things being relative) tinwhistle tuning. I'm not totally clear on the details, but apparently there's a region of Ireland (some part of Galway?) where due to whatever historical weirdness they standardised their music one half-step higher than the rest of the country, so D#/Eb instead of D. So one role for the Eb whistle is to play that particular region of music. As an example of some Eb flute playing, here's Matt Molloy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-8oeL-aDyA I got the Shaw Eb to be able to play along with any such tracks just for kicks, and also because someone on Chiff & Fipple mentioned you need an Eb to play the flute part to the theme from Blackhawk Down, which is a Breton tune called Gortoz A Ran. I actually don't care for the version used in the film (way too overproduced), but this Eb should still be handy for Breton stuff in general.
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Jul 21, 2012 23:33
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:
 By the way, isn't it a Shaw that hatao uses a lot in his videos? Sounds p good.~~~ Found another nice addition to the monochord-collection: The Viatnamese Đàn bầu  A fairly standard diddleybow construction, but with the twist that the string is attached to a flexible rod at one end, which is used to produce pitch bend. Traditionally it was made out of a larger piece of bamboo, a coconut shell that served as a resonator (the modern counterpart in the picture is more a decoration than anything), and another piece of bamboo for the rod. I believe a piece of plastic would work as well.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K342W3ktjcs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqEryQNRzNg Seems like a surprisingly flexible instrument.
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Jul 22, 2012 03:26
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Longhouse posted:Nice Per the comments, it's a Michael Burke, which run about $200+. What I'm really amazed by is that Hatao doesn't seem like a very big guy, yet he's able to play the Overton Bass G low whistle. That's a solid fourth below a low D: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESr6jrVSSuk  Had some initial confusion, but I grasp now that Overton (who pioneered the low whistle in the 1970s) licensed his name to Colin Goldie in 1993, but a few years back Goldie switched to making the same design but putting his name on it, so the place for handmade Overton-type low whistles is now http://www.colingoldie.de/whistles.html .
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Jul 23, 2012 06:14
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On to cover an instrument that I hadn't thought about in a while, but just in the last few days figured I'm fixing to get. I was pondering how I don't have any long-necked strings besides guitars these days, and puzzling whether I should go get a bozouki/cittern/octave-mando again, or maybe a tiple or Portuguese guitar or something. Then I recalled that baglama (pg 8) is pretty cool, and under $100. Honestly, I'm surprised nobody's picked one up in this thread yet, that we've heard from. But then I recalled an instrument I haven't even owned before, despite owning a few things related to it. So now I'm thinking to get a: Setar  Setar is one of the fundamental traditional Iranian instruments, though I'm under the vague impression it's somewhat paled in comparison to fancier relatives and introduced instruments in the modern era. Pretty simple instrument: small pear-shaped body, really long skinny neck with tied on gut/nylon frets, and four metal strings. It's probably a slight evolution from the older dutar (two gut strings only). The term se means "three", and until the 1800s or so it had three strings, before adding a 4th as a drone. At first glance the setar seems awfully close to the Turkish baglama/saz, and they're pretty surely all cousins. However musicians savvier than I have noted that they're played very differently, and have very different tone, so not interchangeable. Saz is a bit loud/booming/jangly, doubled strings everywhere, and played with a pick. Setar is mellower/shimmery/quieter, mostly single strings, and played with just the index fingernail. Huge generalisation, but baglama is used to play loud love ballads in tea-houses, setar to zone out playing Sufi music.  So far as buying them, akin to what I've seen on baglama, what little English language info I've found basically says "it's hard to go too terribly wrong, and I like my beater $100 one about as much as my nice $500 one, so just buy whatever online from someone who seems vaguely reputable." The small cura saz (small baglama) runs about $80 shipped online, and setars go for about $100-120ish shipped. There are also some apparent serious teacher/player/seller types online, like http://www.santoori.com who also have setars at $150, $220, $400 at the various grades. So far as learning, there are some online teachers offering Skype lessons, and a surprising number of YouTube lessons online in both English and Persian. There's also the site http://www.setar.info/ which has been around since 1998. Some broken links, but overall seems decent. Honestly, for myself I'm just going to informally dick with mine. If you have basic strings skills you can just have fun messing around with a setar too, so even if you're not necessarily seriously into learning Persian dastgah it's just a fun and great-sounding instrument. It does have a lot more frets than you're used to though, for all the quarter-tones and the like, but that can be a lot of fun to learn with.  - Hossein Alizadeh (there are a zillion clips of him) in concert, backed up on a zarb drum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQCjY_S1zR4 - Some music and lecture by Tabassian, including some explanation of the instrument and some variants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU6VO2Kx4kA - Prolific online player/teacher goodcyrus whips on some old-school Delta blues, putting the quarter-tone frets to good use to get those nuanced "blue notes" between the normal Western tones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTW_a-tiAOo
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Jul 24, 2012 02:31
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So on that electronic hurdy-gurdy idea - I'll try not to spout so much technical detail, but the idea of using an ARM processor to simulate the strings digitally is more or less working in a basic way. Right now I have six strings (to be sure I had enough CPU cycles) with fixed G/C tuning, and the next step will be to add keying the chanterelles/melody strings. Switching tunings should be pretty straightforward, when I get to that. The sound is a bit metallic and I could use an encoder with more resolution for the wheel, but its working well enough that I feel good about its feasibility. I was looking for a project anyway...
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Jul 24, 2012 06:10
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So, 2 months have passed since I started playing the flute, and I'm really enjoying it. As my co-worker has lent me her old flute, I have returned the rental. Now I'm waiting for hers to be tuned up, so I'm down for a week. I can now play from the low C to the high G (G6?), and have been forcing myself to practice scales. I spend Thursday nights jamming with my neighbour (drums) and another friend (guitar), and it's a ton of fun. As the flute is out for this week, he offered to bring me a clarinet to play, lol. I'm not too keen on reed instruments, but I guess I could try. I keep reading that the Bb clarinet is a transposing instrument, and I just can't wrap my head around it. I mean, it's chromatic, so why would I need to transpose music to a different key? I can read sheet music, and I can play by ear, so I don't understand why this instrument would be different from any other chromatic instrument... just play the notes on the page. Any help? In the vein of strange reed instruments, here's something I stumbled upon. A Xaphoon appears to be a cross between a recorder and a saxophone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh5nBb1H38c If I'm going to learn reed instruments, this looks like an easy purchase for under 100 dollars. edit: and there it is, on page 9. Tan Dumplord fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Jul 24, 2012 |
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Jul 24, 2012 19:04
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As I understand it (I am not a clarinetist)-- We ended up with the array of clarinets that we have today because historically it was not actually possible to play chromatically on a clarinet. What they did to solve this was make a bunch of clarinets all in different keys. So if you needed to play in C you would pick up a C clarinet, and you'd pick up a G clarinet to play in G. All clarinets regardless of key have the same fingering. Meaning, you will always play the tonic note with this fingering and the dominant note with that fingering. Changing keys means trading instruments rather than different fingering. Just to make it complicated, different keys of clarinet have different ranges and timbre. So clarinet technology improved and you can now play chromatically on them. The clarinets which remained in use are clarinets which are considered to have a nice timbre. Mainly, the Bb, A, and Eb clarinets. Clarinets are still taught as a transposing instrument (rather than in concert pitch) so that clarinetists are easily able to switch between the three common kinds of clarinets.
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Jul 24, 2012 23:20
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Still enjoying my Clarke Original (w/ wood fipple) whistle but yesterday I played around with a recorder and realized it is way easier to finger and hit notes. Most of my effort in playing the whistle goes into getting my fingers in exactly the one perfect spot to sound the note and it's really distracting. Is this normal? Is that why almost everyone I've seen plays a straight (not tapered) whistle, are they easier to play?
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Jul 25, 2012 02:10
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wormil posted:Still enjoying my Clarke Original (w/ wood fipple) whistle but yesterday I played around with a recorder and realized it is way easier to finger and hit notes. Most of my effort in playing the whistle goes into getting my fingers in exactly the one perfect spot to sound the note and it's really distracting. Is this normal? Is that why almost everyone I've seen plays a straight (not tapered) whistle, are they easier to play? I've never had that issue, personally. If I had to guess I'd think most people play straight whistles because most brands are straight, which is probably because at some point it became cheaper/easier to buy lots of brass tubing than to hire street urchins to roll brass sheeting around a conical mold. I had assumed the conical shape gave it a "breathier" sound, but I'm now to understand that it's more the Clarke-style fipple and wood block that do that, rather than the shape. If your fingers just aren't adjusting to conical, spending $8 to get a Feadog, Soodlum, Oak, or Walton straight whistle might be worth trying out, and leave the Clarke to your daughter? Uncommon problem you're having, but if you can't shake it you can't shake it, at least for now. quote:So, 2 months have passed since I started playing the flute, and I'm really enjoying it. As my co-worker has lent me her old flute, I have returned the rental. Now I'm waiting for hers to be tuned up, so I'm down for a week. Really glad to hear you've so taken to silver flute. I'm a fan of open-hole myself, but this thread is primarily about getting folks to make music, with degrees of weirdness being far secondary. That said, I'd still suggest picking up an inexpensive small open-holed flute for kicks. There are a couple good plastic ones that are quite expensive, so something you can chuck in a backpack and not worry about it, or leave stuck in the couch cushion or sitting on the porch during the week. The main ones I'd look at are the Yamaha fife ($6 on Amazon) and the pipe fifes ("Simple PVC Piccolo") made by jemtheflute for about £18 shipped globally, over in his thread on Chiff & Fipple. The Jem fife fingers just like a tinwhistle, as do most fifes and band-flutes, while the Yamaha has a fingering system quite distinct, similar to a recorder. But both are supposed to be great instruments for the price.  Base Emitter posted:So on that electronic hurdy-gurdy idea - I'll try not to spout so much technical detail, but the idea of using an ARM processor to simulate the strings digitally is more or less working in a basic way. Right now I have six strings (to be sure I had enough CPU cycles) with fixed G/C tuning, and the next step will be to add keying the chanterelles/melody strings. Switching tunings should be pretty straightforward, when I get to that. Are you dedicated to trying to sound like an acoustic, or just having a cool tone for an electronic instrument, reminiscent of strings? Speaking just for myself, something clearly an electronic instrument but with an interface that leads to a gurdy-like playing style would be better than flat trying to imitate an acoustic. I suppose if one just wanted to imitate an acoustic, some kind of MIDI running 'gurdy samples would be the way. But for me I'm more interested in a gurdy-inspired synth. Some of this is over my head technically, but I'm definitely very curious to see how this goes, and if you end up taking a commission (or sell blueprints/programming to some college-kid goon who can build them for others) I'd be interested. Have you tried checking out some YouTube tutorials on 'gurdy to see what kinds of effects/techniques you're looking to imitate? Are you digging the idea of using a cigar-box as a casing, or have you some other cool concepts? 
TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Jul 26, 2012 |
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Jul 26, 2012 00:14
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:If your fingers just aren't adjusting to conical, spending $8 to get a Feadog, Soodlum, Oak, or Walton straight whistle might be worth trying out, and leave the Clarke to your daughter? Uncommon problem you're having, but if you can't shake it you can't shake it, at least for now. Today I tried making a whistle from CPVC and it works well but is not in the correct (or any) key. Although I learned something about using the Whistle Calculator software and it's algorithms. Hopefully v.2 will be correct. On a positive note(s), the whistle otherwise works and I have no problem landing my fingers each time.
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Jul 26, 2012 03:11
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wormil posted:Today I tried making a whistle from CPVC and it works well but is not in the correct (or any) key. I made some PVC flutes a few weeks back but didn't get into to tuning them precisely so I haven't tried it myself yet. (I tend to, uh, switch projects maybe a little too often.) What whistle calculator are you using? TapTheForwardAssist posted:Are you dedicated to trying to sound like an acoustic, or just having a cool tone for an electronic instrument, reminiscent of strings? Speaking just for myself, something clearly an electronic instrument but with an interface that leads to a gurdy-like playing style would be better than flat trying to imitate an acoustic. I suppose if one just wanted to imitate an acoustic, some kind of MIDI running 'gurdy samples would be the way. But for me I'm more interested in a gurdy-inspired synth. We're on the same page here. It's effectively impossible to emulate an acoustic instrument perfectly with anything algorithmic anyway, and practically speaking I'm no DSP expert, this is a nearly first-time project. TapTheForwardAssist posted:Some of this is over my head technically, but I'm definitely very curious to see how this goes, and if you end up taking a commission (or sell blueprints/programming to some college-kid goon who can build them for others) I'd be interested. Have you tried checking out some YouTube tutorials on 'gurdy to see what kinds of effects/techniques you're looking to imitate? I'm thinking I'll build a box with a crank and keys laid out like the tangents on a gurdy's keybox would be. I'm not much of a carpenter, so we'll see! I've done some reading up on various sites, to make sure I understand the tuning. One thing I've learned is there's lots of variation, with different string configurations and tunings, and even tweaking individual tangents for different temperaments. I'm still pondering the frequency modulation caused by wheel variation and the 'dog' or buzzing bridge. Hurdy-gurdys are, acoustically speaking, surprisingly deep and complex instruments. I expect I'd be happy to share code, schematics and notes, but I'm probably not a good choice for commissions, given my free time. That's a ways off anyway. I think when I get some time to put a good OP together I may start a thread on music and audio electronics in DIY & Hobbies...
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Jul 26, 2012 08:52
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Base Emitter posted:You should be able to raise the fundamental by trimming the length of the flute (with all the holes covered). Then once that's done, increasing the size of a hole should increase that note's frequency. If you have a bunch of flat notes you might be able to improve the tuning that way. If you try it, I recommend the HBflutomat algorithm it matches the other whistle plans I've found. I used TWCalc and it gives you entirely different lengths which was probably part of my problem. The program has a Cut Off Ratio graph which I'm not entirely sure how to use yet. All I could find on it is that anything below a "2" will be a weak note. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to get close to "2" or well above it. I might be able to salvage the 1st whistle since I've only drilled two holes, if nothing else I can cut it down and make a high G to entertain the dog. I started a 2nd whistle tonight from a piece I cut too short the first time and it will be a high Eb. Base Emitter posted:I think when I get some time to put a good OP together I may start a thread on music and audio electronics in DIY & Hobbies... That would be awesome. I thought of doing it but I don't have enough knowledge or experience yet to write a good OP.
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Jul 26, 2012 09:17
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TapTheForwardAssist posted:The main ones I'd look at are the Yamaha fife ($6 on Amazon) and the pipe fifes made by jemtheflute for about £10 shipped globally, over in his thread on Chiff & Fipple. The Jem fife fingers just like a tinwhistle, as do most fifes and band-flutes, while the Yamaha has a fingering system quite distinct, similar to a recorder. But both are supposed to be great instruments for the price. I can't find reference to jemtheflute making and selling flutes himself, just his big list of other makers. Can you link me?
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Jul 26, 2012 16:08
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