The bass part was originally written as an example for a bass lesson I was teaching.  It then turned into a song!

Get the song here from iTunes!

This piece is simply two kotos improvising over the Ritsu scale that is found commonly in Gagaku.

I used the chords that are commonly played on the Shou (seen right), repeated and improvised with the koto.
The drums aren’t in time on purpose here. One feature of old Japanese music is the lack of ‘perfect in time’ playing. The more natural, the closer to the earth you are. Enjoy!

If you don’t know the story, Sultan Sharyar was known for being a promiscuous man who like to avoid any long term relationships, by executing his current wife, the morning after any love affairs.  He ran rampant until he met Scheherazade.  She knew that she would be executed, so like a modern day hollywood director, she told stories each night with an exciting “cliff-hanger” to leave the Sultan wanting more.  Each night she returned to his chamber and told more stories.  One thousand  and one nights of stories.

   Rimsky-Korsakov had some “exotic experiences” during his naval career, which apparently, fueled by his vivid imagination, helped him conjure up the 4 movements that make up the symphonic piece “Scheherazade”.  He was known to be a strictly amateur composer in the beginning of his career, but in 1871, after being noticed for his “ultra-modern” writing style,  got offered a position at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire.  He accepted the job, but claims that he had no real proper training in composition at all.  He bluffed his way through teaching by staying one step ahead of his students, working his way to the title of “finest composition teacher in Russia”.

His orchestration techniques were apparently learned from Berlioz’ Treatise on Orchestration. (MUST READ!)

Listen to the whole thing performed here:

Read below while you listen to each movement!

I found this excellent exerpt from www.musicweb-international.com about the 4 movements.

The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship (Largo e Maestoso – Allegro non troppo) Two memorable mottos represent the protagonists: “Sharyar”, majestic and fearsome on bass strings and heavy brass, and “Scheherazade”, sinuously seductive on solo violin over harp arpeggios. The movement alternates three climactic passages predominantly scored for strings and brass, casting “Sharyar” in the role of Sinbad, with three calm twilit episodes featuring both mottos. The scoring of the two interstitial episodes, otherwise practically identical, is breathtaking in its simple ingenuity: in the second episode the solo ‘cello swaps places with the horn, likewise clarinet with flute, while oboe and solo violin stay put.

The Tale of the Kalendar Prince (Lento – Andante) The Kalendars were wandering beggars, for some superstitious reason fêted as royalty. The movement is a ternary form (ABA) regarding deployment of themes, but otherwise a kaleidoscope of increasingly colourful variations, making atmospheric use of string tremolandos and “thrummings”, and characteristically “pricking” textures with sharper sounds. “Scheherazade” weaves her spell to introduce the A theme – half dancing, half declamatory – on the only woodwind not yet heard solo: the bassoon (resolving a sort of “dissonance””). The B theme is based on “Sharyar”, first heard plucked deep in the basses, then in fierce growls and brassy fanfares. A bold march gradually emerges, bracketed by two cadenzas on the declamatory part of A. The first is for clarinet, the second (on bassoon) initiates the final section, containing the most exquisite scoring of the entire work. “Sharyar” reappears, low down, generating a huge crescendo to a knockout close.

The Young Prince and Princess (Andantino quasi Allegretto) Invent a story of young love, if you wish – Rimsky provided scant clues: the sumptuous main theme (flowing strings) he identified with the Prince, a brief counter-subject (rippling clarinet) with the Princess, and at the central allegretto he suggested, “They carry the Princess on a palanquin”. Again, this is a “ternary/variations” form. The first section rings the changes on string textures tinted by added wind, with contrasting solo woodwind timbres. The allegretto, one of those wonderful oriental dances, is just an upbeat variation of the same material, where the snare-drum part is played on more than the snare-drum. A resounding trumpet-led rubato reinstates tempo primo for a rhapsodic closing section where solo instruments predominate, and “Scheherazade” embroiders the tale. The codetta is particularly captivating, woodwind swirl over string pizzicati and scintillating percussion: what images that conjures!

Festival at Baghdad – The Sea – Shipwreck on a Rock surmounted by a Bronze Warrior - Conclusion (Allegro molto)  The orchestration reaches a peak of virtuosity, inevitably with less subtlety as the big guns are drawn to blast huge splashes of poster-colour.  Paralleling the work’s beginning, the introduction finds “Sharyar” now gruffly impatient (grabbing first whack on the bass drum), and “Scheherazade” correspondingly more animated. The Festival is, loosely, a “rondo/variations”: AB[AC]ABA, where [C], developing the Kalendar fanfare, hijacks the second [A]‘s climax. The first and third occurrences of [A], a skittering dance, whip up a blaze of crackling trumpets and booming tuttis – these last based on the the Kalendar Prince’s bassoon tune. [B] is the “palanquin” allegretto, liquidly re-scored. The final [A] builds manically, trumpets triple-tonguing like mad, only for the scene to cut cinematographically to Sinbad’s storm-tossed ship, which shudders (theme stuttering in basses) and breaks (tamtam!). In the stunned calm one recognises, through the thematic identity, that this symbolises Sharyar’s rising passion for his enchantress and cataclysmic acquiescence to the superiority of woman (or at least this particular woman). “Sharyar” and “Scheherazade” finally make sweet music together.

Possibly one of the biggest musical heroes out of Greece in the last 100 years.

Vangelis is a world-renowned Greek composer, keyboardist, and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly composes instrumental and film music and he performs all the music by himself.

I have almost all of his recorded works and really enjoy listening to his approach to using synthesizers.  Like Wendy Carlos he treated the synth like a synth and truly had his own original voice as an electronic musician.

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (Greek: Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου [evˈaɲɟelos oðiˈseas papaθanaˈsiu]) (born 29 March 1943) is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis (English pronunciation: /væŋˈɡɛlɨs/).[1] He is best known for his Academy Award-winning score for the film Chariots of Fire, and scores for the films Blade Runner, 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Alexander.
Vangelis began his professional musical career working with several popular bands of the 1960s such as The Forminx and Aphrodite’s Child, with the latter’s album 666 going on to be recognized as a psychedelic “classic”.[2] Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed music scores for several animal documentaries, including L’Apocalypse Des Animaux, La Fête sauvage and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream. In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes, and the duo went on to release several albums together as Jon & Vangelis. In 1981, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. The soundtrack’s single, “Titles”, won Vangelis the Academy Award for Best Original Music Score and also reached the top of the American Billboard.
In a career spanning over 50 years, writing and composing more than 52 albums, Vangelis is regarded by some music critics as one of the greatest composers of electronic music of all time

I was introduced to his music through Duane Bridges, friend, composer and old roommate.  I was tooling around with CHARIOTS OF FIRE one day and Duane came in and said, “awww yeah playing some Vangelis are we???” The rest was history when Duane broke out his collection of recordings and helped me find videos on YouTube.  His old band, Aphrodites Child has a song that we used to play in the band I was in with Duane.  Best part of being in that band was that I got to play keys!  Really got me into playing synths like they should be.

I always imagined having a synth throw down with him and a bunch of other keyboards to come up with some similar sounds, but never really got into buying keyboards.  Not like Vangelis did at least!

HOLY SMOKES!

The man has a ridiculous number of synths.

Keep in mind, he always tried to do everything live for the recording process.  Not a lot of overdubbing or coming up with parts after the fact.

These photos are all of his past studios.  The one on the far right is in Paris and on the roof of a building in what appears to be a greenhouse like structure!  AWESOME!
Scope this list:

Vangelis’ Analogue synthesizers

That is just the analog collection alone.

More on this page---> http://elsew.com/data/synths.htm

Anyway, his approach to doing music live with lots of synths, sequencer like machines really pioneered and paved the way towards modern on board digital sequencers, and digital audio workstations.
Here are a collection of my favorite Vangelis tunes from Youtube.

ENJOY!

He sings through his instruments and is always expanding, stretching and looking for something new. Tracy knows what’s written in all those horn books, can read anything you put in front of him, but as a musician who cares about music, he knows the importance of being real. He is always on a musical journey paving the way for us all.

Here is a clip from the Los Angeles Music and Art school about Tracy:

“What you practice is important, but how you practice is more important! Success is not a destination; it is a journey…”

Tracy Wannomae, woodwind instructor, has had a wide variety of experiences as a musician. After graduating from Dorsey High School, he attended California State University Los Angeles where he studied with Victor Morosco for two years.

In 1989, Wannomae began studying with Philip Sobel, who has been considered for several decades to be among the top echelon recording studio musicians of our time. Sobel teaches The Henry Lindeman Method to a handful of select students, of which Wannomae is one. Through Sobel’s guidance and inspiration, Wannomae teaches this method to his students.

Wannomae’s performance credits include: Saturday Night Live, David Letterman Show, Conan O’Brian, Rosie O’Donnell Show, The Today Show, The Grammy Awards, MTV and VH1 Awards, The Brit Awards, BET, Sessions at W. 54th St., Glastonbury Festival, “The Wedding Crashers”, “Spiderman 1”, Montreaux, Playboy, New Orleans, North Sea, Nice, San Sebastien Jazz Festivals.

In addition to teaching, Wannomae has also performed and/or recorded with various artists, suchas Macy Gray, Rickie Lee Jones, Vernon Martin and The Young Giants of Jazz, George Clinton, Carlos Santana, Arik Marshall, Ziggy Marley, Dr. Dre, Everlast, Ben Harper, Nailah, Nikka Costa, Bright Eyes, Bare Naked Ladies, Joe Baiza, Jason Mraz, Johnny Adams, Irma Thomas, Jade Vincent Experiment, Ras Michaels/ Sons of Negus, Connie Price, Wailing Souls, Leroy Sibbles, Mad Lib, Too Short, Solomon Burke, Aster Aweke, Judy Mowatt, Brad Mehldau, Nedra Wheeler, Eastside Sinfonietta, Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra, and others.

Damn….That’s a lot of impressive names.

I met Tracy at a jam session I found by replying to a message on craigslist.org.  Tracy said “Dayum son, you workin’?” I said, “No, I just moved here and don’t know anybody…where should I go to find people to work with?” he said “Ah, well I dunno, cuz I ain’t workin, but I know some people I can pass your name on to for sure man.”

Then, Wham BAM thank you MAN, I started getting phone calls to work.

I owe Tracy most my career in the city.

He got me on board with Double G.

Hooked me up with Nailah.

Turned me on to the Jazz Anarchists.

Got me in with incredible pianist Deron Johnson and his mentor Billy Childs.  (see right)

Taught me about listening.

Told me all about fat pockets, groove, and the importance of a solid bass line.

I really feel blessed to have been graced with his support and friendship.  He is one of those cats that everyone benefits from playing with…child or adult,  alien or animal.
Tracy is in the shadows but he plays a mean hot alto sax potato on this one! woop!

Glad to know ya Tracy Wannomae!

Check him out all over LA.  He is playing somewhere and stirring some magical music mojo with somebody.  OKBYE!

So if your top string is D, then ascending A, D(octave), F#, A, C, D, E, F#.

Notes like F# have a major quality to them, and if our root string is tuned to D, then most likely the key will be something like a western G minor pentatonic with a 4th and flat 7 slipped in here and there. The root is the 5th.

D Eb (F) G A Bb (C) D

The following piece has more E natural than Eb in it.

See if you can hear the drone like sound in the shamisen.

After I moved to Tokyo, I found a group of guys playing Cuban-esque rock and roll. They didn’t have a bass player, so I jumped on them as soon as they finished and told them I would be there new bass player. They hesitated and said, OK OK we will let you audition at our next rehearsal. Little did they know, I’m not as much of a hack as I appear.

We started working on the songs and quickly began performing all over Japan as soon as we got our first gig as a 4 piece.

Before meeting these guys, I had the opportunity to play with jazz legend, Chuchito Valdes, thanks to Double G.
On stage at UCLA, I learned how to play a TUMBAO:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Drum Pattern

The basic tumbao pattern is played on the conga the drum is struck on every 8th-beat in the measure in the following sequence:

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . Count
H T S T H T O O Conga
L L R L L L R R Hand Used

Key:
  L: Left hand
  R: Right hand
  H: Heel of hand
  T: Tip of hand
  S: Slap
  O: Open Tone

Bass Pattern

The basic tumbao on the bass (Originally a marimbula, later a contrabass or electric bass) is best visualized in cut time. It’s notable in its avoidance of the down beat.

1 . 2 . 1 . 2 .
   G  C    G  C
Key:
  G: The dominant (i.e. G in the key of C)
  C: The tonic    (i.e. C in the key of C)

I’ll call this “Under the Victorian home”
Listen:

Read:

It’s starts with me outside of a big old Victorian style house in a suburban area. I’m with distant cousins and some older friends. The home belongs to one of their deceased relatives and is abandoned.

We approach the dark home and open the doors to a dank, dusty, yet beautiful dark oak foyer with a proper chandelier and strange statue like figures draped with white sheets. The floor is dark with a large Persian rug.  The decorations and overall feel is quite noble, like the house belonged to a governor.

We carefully explore the building and eventually manage to get the electricity going. The house doesn’t have that scary horror vibe you might expect but rather a charming, yet slightly strange “Maniac Mansion” feel.

Eventually we find the basement door and the guy whose family owned the house shouts “oh this is it!!! You gotta see the basement!!” We then descend.

There’s nothing scary at all about the basement. It’s lit by a bunch of bare GE incandescent light bulbs strung across the rafters in a kind of charming slightly dangerous way. The floor is a yellowish linoleum. The walls are lined with shelves from the floor to about 4 feet high. On the shelves, every shelf is a whole assortment of old fashioned toys (1930′s / 40′s) Fire trucks, robots, airplanes, wooden cars, trucks, balls…you name it!!!

While everyone is playing and enjoying the museum like basement, I find a ladder and a passage to a second basement. Here I feel the strange need to be the first one down. So without telling anyone and the expectation they’ll find the ladder themselves, I descend. (this can be heard clearly in the music)

The ladder is about one story down and connects to a proper concrete floor. The only lighting shines  from above where nobody has noticed where I’ve gone. I get off the ladder and turn around to face a massive black void.

the view looking up

I can’t see anything except a slight fog around my feet, so I step forward slowly, inch by inch. As I step out of the light my eyes adjust to the darkness just in time for me to realize that I am standing at the edge of a massive drop off into an abyss.

I back up and stand in the darkness with the ladder to my back.  Fearless, I wait in anticipation.  Time slows dramatically and what sounds like long deep breathing begins to ring from the deep.  As the sound of breathing intensifies, I backup and without hesitation quickly climb out.

The toy room is empty.  Nobody is waiting for me.  The toys are still there, the lights still burning, yet the breathing, whilst distant, continues to be audible.  I am still too nervous to shout to my friends and the dream abruptly ends.

This dream I have had 3 times. This is the first dream I had when I was still in elementary school.

Eventually I come face to face with the beast/demon below.  I will try to recreate the sequel to the dream next time.

He is definitely one of the most respected and interesting people I was fortunate enough to work with in Los Angeles.  In fact, I’ll say that the majority of my success and happiness in Los Angeles was rooted in getting calls to play with the man.  Double G really knows how to inspire musicians and the listeners.

He runs two groups called “the daKAH hip hop orchestra” and a jazz ensemble called “Concert  9Net”.  These were the 2 groups I got to play in a few years ago.

daKAH

Concert 9net

In my experience, if there ever was a modern equivalent to Charles Mingus’ “Jazz Workshop” (a jazz group with rotating members often dubbed a ‘jazz university’) Double G would be it.  Jazz is not the only thing this man speaks, but he knows that the music that is popular these days is rooted in jazz and works.  HE WORKS IT.  Teaching string players how to swing, making bass players play ahead of the beat and making sure everybody is listening.

Anybody who has worked with G can tell you that not only does he have a deep rooted, honest passion for music, he is a hardworking well-educated and dedicated musician, composer, father,  band-leader and director.

Here is a profile I found:

Los Angeles musician Geoff “Double G” Gallegos is known for “re-designing” the conventional hip-hop sound. Working with his 70-piece daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra, Double G combines the electronic rhythms of hip hop with jazz and classical music to create a new sound that seems to test the boundaries of traditional musical genres.

Initially trained at Boston’s Berklee College of Music as a saxophone player, Double G soon discovered his talent as a conductor and composer. Throughout his early career, Double G regularly played the saxophone at underground hip hop clubs while at the same time working under the tutelage of maestro Larry Baird. It was during this time that Double G began to explore the possibility of bringing together formally and informally trained musicians to create a new sound.

In 1999, upon moving to Los Angeles, Double G co-founded daKAH, which debuted as a 23-piece orchestra at Santa Monica’s Temple Bar. In the last decade, daKAH has expanded greatly and has become known for its blending of musical genres and cultural sounds. The daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra has now grown into an eclectic group of musicians, combining the more traditional orchestral instruments of strings, horns and percussion with turntables and vocalists. Under Double G’s direction, the Orchestra has played at venues including The Walt Disney Concert Hall, UCLA’s Royce Hall, and the Hollywood Bowl.

In addition to working with the daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra, Double G produces and arranges for well-known contemporary musicians including Outkast, India Arie, John Frusciante and Everlast. He has also completed work for companies such as Nike and Scion, and he has worked on films such as Dreamworks’ Head of State.

First off: Get hip to daKAH. If this doesn’t move you at all, then don’t read my blog ever again.  Seeing daKAH live will shake you down!

Playing with daKAH breaks whatever you thought being a musician was all about…cause it ain’t about the fame or big break! ‘t’s about the music fool!
Soundtrack from “Hip Hop Maestro” by daKAH
For me, when I moved to LA, I answered a craigslist ad looking for a bass player  to work with a jazz practice group.  There I met a guy named Tracy Wannomae (featured sax player below), who basically was my link to Double G.  Tracy told G that there was a new guy in town playing upright bass who could play and read.  (That’s me!)  So I got called in to cover for their bassist who couldn’t show up to a rehearsal with the Concert 9Net.  I went in and got the biggest sight-reading exercise of my life trying to keep up with his killer bass part writing.  The man knows the importance of a good bass part and milks it! Fortunately for me and my career as a bassist, I had already played Beethoven’s 9th with an orchestra, so when the cello/bass riff that he put in his arrangement of “Ode to Joy” came up, I nailed it.

That pseudo-audition rehearsal kind of secured my name in his book and he started calling me for 9net gigs.  After awhile, I got called to play in the bass section of the daKAH hip hop orchestra.  I had never played a funk riff with a bow on my upright bass till then.  A few concerts later, after playing Disney Concert Hall, we did a show at UCLA and there I learned how to play a tumbao bass line with Chuchito, jazz pianist and son of the cuban piano legend “Chucho Valdes”.  I had never learned how to play cuban music until then, so again thanks to G, I was in the right time at the right place and Chuchito called me out of the orchestra and showed me how to hang with cuban musicians!  I use this skill regularly now in Tokyo.

In 2009, I got called for electric bass duty with daKAH, but this was more than just a one time show.  It was a tour.  G called and said “You got a P-bass?” “yeah” “Alright, you got the gig.”  This was my first real hip hop like gig where I got to learn about playing behind the beat, laying back, laying in, pushing and being solid.

Enough about my experience with G.

daKAH has a website http://www.dakahmusic.com/

PROMOTE THE ORCHESTRA!  Nothing like it anywhere.

Double G was able to succesfully raise money over Kickstarter to make this following concert happen.  Check it!

I hope to be able to keep working with GG once I am back in LA.  (fingers crossed!)