u/ConfidentHospital365

I’ve never been a huge fan of the great American songbook stuff but I really like Irving Berlin’s Puttin’ on the Ritz. It’s in 4/4 but with extreme syncopation to the point that the melody sounds like it’s in a completely different metre sometimes. It falls out of sync with itself and then locks back in with a very irregular pattern.

I haven’t come across anything else that does this same trick. The closest examples I have off the top of my head are the bassline in “The Smoke” by the Smile or the guitar riff in King Crimson’s Frame by Frame. The former has the bass changing time signature over a 4/4 beat and the latter has two guitars playing the same riff in 7/8 and 6/8 until they loop back together. I can’t think of anything like Puttin on the Ritz where the effect is achieved by what appears to be syncopation alone in a strict 4/4. Is there a name for this technique?

inb4: never

I play most guitar shaped things and do my best to get into the mindset of that instrument when I play it. Every instrument is its own thing, has its own conventions, yadda yadda yadda

I can’t really get my head around using a pick for bass. Nothing against it, and I use one often for electric guitar, but I just don’t understand when this tool is appropriate to use. I play a lot less naturally when I use one, which is probably because I’m mostly a guitarist who picked up bass late. How does it affect tone? any genres where it’s particularly useful? Is it purely a preference? I don’t care at all about the elitism/memes around it but if any pick players out there have thoughts about when a song DEMANDS a pick I’m interested

I’m almost always in standard or maybe drop D, otherwise using a capo. I once tried tuning up a whole step to play something by the Smiths since that’s how Johnny Marr recorded and ended up with a persistent buzzing on the g string past the bridge that I’ve had to mute for a while. The intonation is a touch off too but it could have been that way before and I’m only noticing it now. I doubt I could have been in F# standard for more than an hour.

I’ll probably bring it to a luthier but it feels like I must have just done something stupid. I’d like to learn some more alternate tunings to mess around with but I want to make sure I’m not harming anything. Are there any tips I should know or was this a fluke?

I've been playing for a long time now and I want to have a more disciplined practice regime. For the last few years I've been using two different fingering techniques to practice my major scales (two octaves). The first is what I believe is the standard starting on the second finger in the left hand and the alternative one is a strict 3-notes per string, 5 strings per scale approach starting with the first finger.

Is this worth it? I genuinely enjoy practice and neither fingering is particularly uncomfortable or anything, I'm just worried I spend too much time on this and I'm missing the point of practicing scales. Would it be recommended to just learn The Scale one way or is there value to having different patterns for it? Any other practice recommendations are welcome. Thanks in advance etc

Everyone‘s voice is different sure, but let’s say theres an event of some sort where you’re hearing a group of fairly mixed ages and abilities singing a song together. I assume that on average there are a few keys that they’re most likely to gravitate towards. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard happy birthday go badly wrong because of different vocal ranges, so I’m wondering if any specific key makes that LESS likely

I had a thought that it might be B flat because so many national anthems are traditionally performed in that key, but then again they’re also often performed by brass bands. If this is a nonsense question let me know, but I’d like to know what wrong assumptions I’m making. thanks

EDIT: in terms of range let’s just call it one octave. Obviously that still leaves different options for keys like how happy birthday has a range of an octave based on the fifth rather than the tonic. I’m asking about averages here rather than definitive objective answers. If it’s all just range then I’d be really interested in what specific ranges people think work best for bigger groups of non musicians