Відео

Hey! Thank you for taking the time to listen to them. The title was inspired by Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

Terry Kirby of Spring Creek Psalteries built this, but unfortunately, he is retired. You occasionally can find one for sale on ebay though. West Coast harps makes a psaltery with a similar range as well.

Hey! Thanks for giving it a listen!

@ I’ve been playing for a while I like the hammer ons and pull offs you did

Thank you for watching! This is one of my favorite pieces to play on any instrument.

Yeah, I have two other videos where I attempted to do this, and it's obviously off-beat. It just takes a lot of patience, it's definitely not my favorite type of video to make. I love your instruments. She is very warm, especially in the lower strings. I've been able to get more volume the past few weeks. I had to edit the violin part to be quieter because she out performs the cello banjo surprisingly.

Thanks man, you know i love 6/4. I'm all snowed in right now so I'm going to record some videos for you. I think i finally figured out how to line shit up

Thank you!!

No problem at all. He was a very nice guy and shipped the instrument quickly. Off the top of my head, it took around a week to be shipped from Canada to the Northeastern US. It was also packaged well in this makeshift wood and cardboard crate. Do you see that ukulele hanging in the background? I spent roughly the same amount on it. The ukulele's intonation, as you go up the fretboard, will get to be nearly a quartertone off when you hit the 12th fret. I also have noticeable intonation issues between adjacent strings on the same fret. With the violin, you won't have these issues. I just mentioned that to better put it in perspective. With my order, he sent a violin bow with synthetic hair, which is not my preference. It was a nice gesture and the bow does the job,, but I don't think it's needed when you can pick up cheap Brazilwood or carbon fiber bows for $40 - $100 at your local music store. That has the added benefit of allowing you to try out the feel of the bow. I also have had luck ordering Anton Breton bows off Amazon. For a $37 bow, it works pretty great, I will say it looks like thay company lacks quality control at times. One final thing I want to highlight is that the peg-work is very good. They don't slip, nor are they hard to turn. I was genuinely surprised. Normally, when you get below $300 on a violin family instrument, the peg-work becomes so bad as to make the instrument barely playable (at least in my experience). I purposefully ordered mine when I thought the climates were roughly equal between Canada and the Northestern US. So I didn't get any instrument swelling/shrinkage that you may have in the warmer/more humid seasons. I apologize if I'm preaching to the choir, I keep my replies as descriptive as possible so others can the info too.

Yes, I was surprised by how good the fret work is. The intonation is pretty solid, even higher up. I also have no buzzing frets. The frets are also fairly low in height, so you don't get that annoying pitch-bending on the low G string that you sometimes get on lower tensioned strings. The luthier also makes fretless ones as well. The only downside to this instrument is that its shape makes it so you can't use a violin chin rest. I wasn't personally interested in using a chinrest, so it worked out for me. I could see this being an issue if you are used to playing with one. I'm totally new to violin, so I wanted to start without one because it seems to be the direction that fiddlers are going in. I paid roughly $180 for the instrument and shipping. I really think it's one of the better violins at that price point, and it might be the best fretted violin you can get at that price as well. The soundboard is fairly thick yet small in surface area, so it doesn't carry the volume of a regular violin. But I also think that the tone quality will stay consistent as the violin ages due to the thickness of the soundboard. Let me know if you have any other questions about the instrument. I'm not in any way affiliated with the luthier, just a very happy customer. I won't do any videos next week with this instrument, but I have some planned for the 3rd week of January if you want to hear another sound sample of the it. Thank you for checking out my video!

(^:

I'm looking for a large one and they are tough to find.

It was built by Terry Kirby of Spring Creek Psalteries. Unfortunately, he has recently retired. You can find the Spring Creek Psalteries phone number listed on Google Maps so you might be able call and have one made. I just don't know for sure. Another option is you can join the Bowed Psaltery Friends Facebook Group. Occasionally, I see someone selling one used on there. But these seem to be rather rare instruments. One last option would be to have one custom made by another luthier. It's essentially a bowed psaltery ranging from G2 to G4 with the natural strings and sharps/flats strings reversed from a standard bowed psaltery. I have worked with James Jones on building me a custom bowed psaltery in the past, and he seems up for new challenges. You can find him if you Google "James Jones Instruments". I hope this helps and thanks for checking my channel out l!

Yes, they are unfortunately. A lot of bowed psaltery builders are retiring, and there doesn't seem to be much in the way for replacements. James Jones made me a 4 octave bowed psaltery that spans from G2 to G6. I'm sure he would make it again, I will say it was rather expensive. West Coast Harps also makes a baritone that I believe goes to F2 (I'm going off the top of my head). June Apple Dulcimers sells a baritone too. Another idea would be to do the math on how much tension is being held in each string on a psaltery you currently own. That would give you a confident ceiling on how much your instrument could bare. Then you could do the same calculation with thicker gauge strings at a lower frequency. If the total tension for all the strings is similar, you should be fine. Most psalteries use plain nickel plated steel strings, so you could scale them up with wound strings and probably get your instrument to play at least a 5th lower. I say all of this because I have thought about doing this. You can find bulk wound strings in justsstrings.com or ghsstrings. It wouldn't be cheap but it would be cheaper than getting a new instrument. I'll post a copy of a response I composed on Facebook that explains who builds lower pitched psalteries. I can also send you some builders I found on Etsy that I think would be willing to build one for you. I just have to get my morning started first.

Haha!

Gold tone does make a bass banjo, but this particular model is the CEB-4 cello banjo. Unlike a bass, it is tuned in perfect 5ths just like a cello would be. Another way to think of this instrument is as a tenor banjo but an octave lower.

I like the comparison. I never heard of Basho, so I had to check him out. I like what hear so far. I don't normally listen to a lot of music like that, but I do occasionally put on Loudon Wainwright when I'm traveling. That's cool you picked up on black metal. Metal, especially instustrial metal is a huge influence on my more recent compositions. Think early Swans or Godflesh. If you have 9min to spare, I'm curious as to what you think of my symphonic poem. It can be very heavy at times. Here is the link: ua-cam.com/video/GRN02uS2jwU/v-deo.html

Thank you! Do you mean like in an album? I'm terrible with recording stuff. I do put most of my music to sheet music which I sell on my Score Exchange. I didn't put this piece of music to sheet music just because of the highly specific instrumentation. I am working on an album with a Brazilian composer named Viperman (the links to his bandcamp is in many of my UA-cam video descriptions). We are just both very slow workers. I'm not the greatest musician, so it takes me a ton of time to get recordings decent enough, hence why I prefer composing on sheet music. I greatly appreciate your comments, though, it's a great feeling when your music is enjoyed by other people.

Thank you! My favorite song is "Last Christmas" by Wham! I've been listening to the 1hr version.

Thanks bro

@@budekers thank you! Let me know what combinations you like. I haven't found an instrument that doesn't go well with the shruti box.

Its from Bach's Violin Partita No. 3, Prelude. John Williams has an excellent interpretation on guitar.

Amen! I pray it won't be long now! Taking time away from UA-cam is often a good thing, so no worries. I hope you are well!

@@Yashar-866 thank you!

Thank you! Yeah I'm glad you said that, its motivation to get it tuned. The lowest F on the melodica is pretty out, I was being lazy and hoping people wouldn't notice. I'm mostly a stringed instrument player, so I'm spoiled by how easy it is to tune them.

That's actually a good idea. I would compose a baroque style piece but my fundamentals are currently terrible.

@@secretforreddit thank you! I have a few videos of me playing the balalaika on my channel but I admittedly don't play it enough. And yes, that's a resonator tenor guitar made by Kala. They aren't expensive and they have a really nice tone.

@@whataname3617 I'm doing a triplet over eighth note polyrhythms with my right hand. It sounds a lot harder than it actually is. I'll type out the pattern in the morning. Once you get the pattern down slowly, it's just a matter of playing it over and over until you have the pattern memorized.

@@Myfiddles thank you! She really does sound nice and bright with plucking. The shape of her reminds me of a pontiaki lyra so I've been bowing it in the same way, almost like how a cello is played. At least until I get more comfortable playing on the shoulder.

@@A.Troya- it's called the bowed psaltery. They are a small German-American instrument that grew in popularity in the early 20th century. This particular psaltery was build by Dave Lucas. You can find them used for relatively cheap on ebay ($100 to $250). A lot of the builders of these instruments are retired or close to retirement sadly.

@@VinidaViola thanks man, I have the full piece done on sheet music, I just dont want to put in the work to practice it

@@dwell9620 it's a excerpt from his cello suite no.4, bourree II

I don't know if you saw, but I dedicated this piece to you bro.

@@hergestthered thanks a lot bro!

@@ariontheobaldo5794 thank you!

@@cokesmelter I'll have to check out the soundtrack. It could be a good one to do a cover of.

My thought was LOTR

@@steinh04 oh yeah that opening is just like one of the motifs from it. I was improvising so I'm not surprised my mind would go back to LOTR haha

@@IndustrialParrot2816 it sounds even more beautiful in person. This is my oldest bowed psaltery so I believe the age really helps smooth out the sound.

I'd like to bring Appalachia to the rest of the country! Admittedly I'm not as well practiced with the traditional music as I should be. I just got a smaller soprano dulcimer. I'm going to start looking at some of the older songs now. The dulcimer in this video utilizes the three lowest strings of a guitar so its not the best for playing old timey music. Thanks for listening to this!

thank you for listening!

I think that is a really good point. I think I need to spend more time listening to the trumpet repertoire to get a better starting point. Part of me felt that I could have fleshed out the 16th note staccato parts more. Maybe make it build up into a virtuosic frenzy. Would that get it to be closer to what you mean by percussive? I'll work on the 2nd revision and then I'll comment here when I get it done, so you can check it out if you would like. I really appreciate you taking the time to give this a listen and for giving me extremely helpful feedback. I was inspired by the flute solo. "Syrinx" by Debussy but with jazz. I'm a big fan of Chet Baker's trumpet work. I just say this to explain where this work was coming from.

So this instrument is "The American Zither" by the Zither Manufacturing Company. I say that because I'm not sure what exact instrument you have. The first thing I try to do when I get one of these older instruments is look up what the manufacturer specified its tuning to be. I tuned this instrument to A natural minor, from lowest to highest: ABCDEFGABCDEFGA (two octaves). Now if you have an unmarked or unlabeled instrument then you can help figure out what your instrument's strings can be tuned to using various online calculators. I used this one for this instrument: wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_guitar_tension_from_size.htm This calculator will give you the percent likelihood that a string will break given a specific tuning. I hope this info is some help to you. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Ty

@@nimbusflamel8844 whoever the composer is he or she really captured both of those feelings perfectly. It's easily one of my favorite melodies written for video game music.

@@hergestthered I had sadly forgotten it completely for a lot of years until I picked up gba baldurs gate this week. It catapulted me into a time long forgotten and it was amazing when I first heard it again after so long.

@@nimbusflamel8844 I had no idea they had one for gab. I'll have to look it up

@@hergestthered it's so impressive for a GBA port it's not even funny

@@nimbusflamel8844 I looked it up. It really looks super well made. And it genuinely captures what was in the original Dark Alliance. One of these days I'll have to set up an emulator. Thanks for telling me about this!

@@amandabarrante8577 ty

Thanks man! Yeah I really like the mellow sound but I think of exhausted it for a bit. Time to go back to loud and depressing.

@@hergestthered I like the contrast. Your stuff can be heart piercing either way

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this. I'm glad it brought joy to you!

I got the Monet idea from you bro