GERRY HUNDT
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Tuning: 432Hz vs 440Hz

10/24/2013

2 Comments

 
It's good to be in tune with your bandmates, right?  These days, we have many devices that help us tune: those that clip onto guitars, stompbox tuners, and handheld tuners with mics and inputs.  My personal favorite is the Sonic Research ST-200, a highly-accurate true strobe tuner in stompbox format.  How many of us give any thought to our tuning beyond making sure we're making the green lights flicker or the wheel stop turning?

About a year ago, a good friend of mine hipped me to the idea of tuning to A=432Hz, rather then the accepted standard of A=440Hz.  I was immediately intrigued; music for me has always been the divine intersection of mathematics and emotion.  After doing some reading on the subject, I tried it at home with my National guitar and the hype was confirmed for me.  However, I have not transitioned into 432 otherwise, as harmonicas need to be re-tuned and time has been short... and I play with a fair amount of journeyman musicians.

Without going into detail, the advantage of  432 is pure frequencies at harmonic intervals - no decimals, just whole numbers.   In other words, guitars and harmonicas sound less tinny.   I find music recorded with 432 tuning to be more relaxing and richer-sounding.  Check out these two examples below from my friend Scooter Barnes in Denver - the same musical piece, recorded first in 440 and then in 432.   Listen to the 440 track first, then the 432 track.  Give the 432 track a second for your ears/brain to adjust.  What do you think?
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Proof the Blues isn't dead.

10/23/2013

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Every so often, an intrepid news reporter  informs us that the blues is dying or dead. Oftentimes this polemic ends with an exhortation to visit a blues club and celebrate the last gasps of an artform that spawned Elvis, Run DMC, and yes, even Miley Cyrus.  Well, I'm here today to offer proof to the contrary, and it's a video of young folks dancing to an acoustic blues trio (Ronnie Shellist, Matt Hendricks, and myself).   

Many of my compadres in the blues "industry" aren't aware of the blues renaissance happening among the dance crowd.  Blues dancing is now at least as popular as lindy was years ago and these folks hire bands and buy CDs! Like its musical counterpart, blues dancing's strength is its accessibility - it's not as structured as other forms of swing dancing and slower tempos are preferred.  International events like Mile High Blues, bluesShout!, and CUBE see hundreds of dancers flying in for a weekend of dances and workshops, and blues dancers pop up at clubs and festivals.   These folks are pretty much the opposite of your typical blues fan demographic, too, they're young, single, the  majority are female and they're all enjoying an alternative to socializing in sports bars.  

Someone will probably point out that most of the participants in the video are white, in an effort to prove me wrong and foster division in the genre.  Dig this...  Most musicians of any stripe don't care about race: either you can play or not.  Let the academics debate and sell their books, magazines and symposia tickets - I've got tunes to learn and gigs to do.   At the end of the day, it's the music, and people's enjoyment of it, that matters most.

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Blues Mandolin Instructional Videos on YouTube

10/22/2013

14 Comments

 
"Online presence?"  What the heck is that and why do I care?  It's remarkable - between facebook, twitter, youtube, instagram and many, many more,  musicians today have so many options to get their music and their message out to the masses.  Inspired by Ronnie Shellist's success, I was reviewing my YouTube account and saw again that my most popular video was my first Chicago Blues Mandolin Instructional Video.   It clocks in at just under a minute long but really gets at the heart of the Johnny Young mandolin style.  If you go to my Channel, there are some other instructional videos as well as performance footage in a variety of settings.  
14 Comments

    Gerry Hundt

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