Music

Tip of the day: how to compare Guitar Pro files

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

The problem

When working on compositions in a multi-member band (currently 5 in AnotherDay, each member tends to create their own Guitar Pro files to avoid overwriting the previous versions created by other band members. And .gp files tend to accumulate for the same song. At which point I start to wonder: "I know there's this riff in one of the versions, but which one ?" or "Are these two files really different or could I just merge them by editing a few notes, or remove one altogether ?"

Elixir bass strings, six months later

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

Elixir bass set, after 6 months About six months ago, I started our spring concerts series with a brand new set of Elixir medium bass strings, based on the various recommendations I had found regarding these, centering notably on their long life span. In spite of the various warnings I had read about their peculiar tone, I thought I'd give them a chance to prove their worth.

Easier Lilypond coding with Context

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

A few months ago, I discovered the Lilypond music typesetting system, and thought I had stumbled upon some sort of holy grail: here was an open source system which, at last, allowed me to write music much like program code, and did not jump me through the hoops of a UI in order to create scores and the MIDI files representing them.

String gauge and metric units

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

For some reason, I had never bothered to pursue the relationship between string gauge and actual string diameter. However, when I sorted my stash of old strings after putting brand new Elixir medium strings in order to sound best at next week's concert, I found several strings for which I didn't know the gauge, meaning they would be next to useless in case of an emergency (which is typically the only situation under which I'd put on a used string). And I only had a metric vernier caliper available...

Tania Maria live

Submitted by Frederic Marand on

Following JP's suggestion, the whole band went to see Tania Maria in Palaiseau yesterday.

Now, I had heard lots of praise about her in the late 80s, notably from Isabelle, who used to sing and play drums in one of my former bands, but I had not been enthused by what I had heard, so I went to the concert ready to be disappointed : after all, I've never liked latin music *that* much.

The stage layout brought the first surprise : instead of the traditional band we had expected to see, based on her previous work, were just a grand piano and a mammoth percussion set. The concert itself was indeed a revelation, although not really about Tania Maria herself.