Category: Music

Steve Wallace is awesome – string bass virtuoso, blogger extraordinaire, humble humanist, wit galore. Today we examine his left hand. It wanders, and in a good way.

It strays from the bass fingerboard the way Roberto Luongo strays from the net. Or the way Jacoby Ellsbury strays from first base. I have no idea who these people are, but Steve enjoys baseball and I thought that including a sports analogy here would be appropriate. Steve’s left hand likes to stray from the fingerboard to turn tuning pegs.

Depending on the piece, Steve will retune his strings 5 or 6 times per minute, deftly moving his hand from fingerboard to pegs in milliseconds. It is exciting to watch because his timing and taste are impeccable, and you almost want him to make a mistake, but he doesn’t. He never misses an entry – perfect notes, perfect rhythm, flawless performance.

So, why does he do it? My theory lies in physics. Not the conscious kind of physics requiring analysis and thought, but the kind of physics that thousands of hours and mountains of talent have transformed into something as natural as breathing.

Instruments tuned to equal temperament, such as the piano, can never be in tune with the natural harmonic series. By design, the intervals (5ths, 4ths, 3rds and 2nds) that lay between the tonics are arrived at mathematically to provide an equal distance between each semitone in the chromatic scale.

Wikipedia

The above staff illustrates a natural harmonic series from low C (1st harmonic) through high C (16th harmonic). The plus/minus figures above each harmonic represent the pitch deviation between equal temperament and the natural harmonic series. For example, harmonic number 5, representing the interval of a major 3rd above the tonic, resonates 14 cents below the equal temperament major 3rd. That is, if a piano is tuned to A=440 Hz, the major third above A in equal temperament would be C#=554 Hz. However, that same major 3rd in the natural harmonic series would be C#~550 Hz representing an almost ~1% deviation in pitch.

Why does this matter? Let’s say that Steve is playing a jazz standard in the key of Bb (such as One Note Samba or My Foolish Heart or 12 Bar Blues) and he chooses to play his open D string. If the piano is playing a root Bb chord, Steve’s D (the major 3rd) is 14 cents sharper than it should be. If the piano is playing a three chord (a D minor or D major), the note is exactly in tune. If the piano is playing a six chord (a G minor or a G major), the note is 2 cents flatter. When appropriate and more so in ballads than bebop, Steve will twist the tuning peg to make the open-string pitch work within the chord.

The open strings on an upright bass are the notes E, A, D and G. It is a monstrously cerebral exercise to calculate how the pitch of each open string can be represented in every chord in any given key signature. As a tune moves forward through its chord progression, finding a pitch compromise on the fly and making each note fit in the context of its root and inversion is almost impossible. Yet the best of the best do this for us, albeit sometimes unconsciously, and it is these micro-adjustments and attention to detail that elevate our appreciation of music.

Art isn’t easy.

I know that if I was to ask Steve to confirm this roaming, flying-fingerboard, pitch-theory he would say “What?” and with a confident smile shift the subject to the Toronto Blue Jays. Thank you, Steve Wallace, for doing what you do so very well.

http://wallacebass.com/

My wife Michelle and I spent a few days in France on our honeymoon. One of the most intellectually exciting and musical moments came to us at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Construction of the church began in 1163 and Notre Dame played a role in the evolution of Gregorian Chant (10th Century) into Renaissance (14th Century) and eventually into music as we know it today. The high ceilings and cool stone architecture made it the acoustic gem of the era, appealing to the fundamentals of not only our deepest beliefs, but also the root of all sound.

It was a dark and not-so-stormy night; no rain. The church was about to close and the crowd had dwindled to just a few stragglers. We decided to give the legendary acoustics a test run.

I was a tenor in my youth able to hit high A’s on a good day, but time relegated me to baritone. Michelle, a torch singer from years gone by, has a deep mezzo vocabulary. We decided that between us we had the makings of some serious fundamentals – all in the key of G.

I started with my best note, a G on the 2nd harmonic. It was low enough but it needed some work to meld itself into the nooks and crannies of the stone walls. After a minute, and several much-needed deep breaths, Michelle joined in with a D on the 3rd harmonic. We took our time to work on pitch and tone and after another minute or so we found each other. Then it happened!

From the ceiling came a hint of the major third (B), the 5th harmonic, but it disappeared quickly. We locked eyes and focused on the task at hand – pitch and tone, pitch and tone. Then it came back, this time with a taste of the 4th harmonic, the octave above my low G.

By now we were breathing together in slow drawn out phrases of about six seconds each, grabbing quick breaths and starting new notes before the old ones had a chance to dissipate. Our open-fifth drone began to feed upon itself and as the faux chorus-effect kicked in, the heavens erupted in a rainbow of new notes.

With the major third (5th harmonic) and tonic (4th harmonic) solidified, the D one octave above Michelle (6th harmonic) began to resonate. And then beyond belief, the minor seventh (F) appeared!

From the 12th century, the 7th harmonic became the basis for the next 500 years of western music evolution. The augmented 4th relationship between the third of the chord (B) and the minor seventh (F) creates the harmonic tension inherent in the cycle of fifths and all secondary-dominant chord progressions. Referred to by the Renaissance-era church as the “devil in music” (perhaps it lead to dancing?), the augmented 4th is the foundation of the tension-release forward motion found in the baroque, classical, romantic, 20th century, jazz and pop styles.

Pitch and tone, pitch and tone – it was hypnotic, spellbinding, thrilling. Passersby watched and seemed entertained but likely had no idea of the significance of the moment nor the history of what, almost 1000 years ago, would have been a truly religious experience. Pope Gregory would have been proud.

Yeah, just yanking your chain here. We would have loved to have enjoyed this acoustic adventure, but when we visited Notre Dame Cathedral we did not go inside. The line-up to get in stretched across the main square all the way to the next bridge, so we left. But it would have been a lot of fun!