Richard's Bass Bag: Try the tritone.

'Diabolus in musica' is what silly religious people once called the tritone because it was associated with dissonance and, therefore, bad things.

It was said that the devil in music surrounded the three tones of the Holy Trinity. What bullshit!

In Jazz the #4 has become a very special sound and is probably my personal favourite sound of all time. It just adds a lovely bit of tension to a solo line.

In the key of C it shows up between the notes F and B. The Lydian (IV) mode starts with it and it appears on the violin as four stretched fingers.

I'd better leave the tritone there. My readers aren't into music theory.

[I'm going to risk it and have a coffee]

Gosh, I'm living dangerously this morning!

First sip of coffee - lovely!

On the blog front, we got a post from Peter yesterday and a post from Robert this morning. I'm not sure if Peter has his new computer chair yet. Robert said of me, "Mea noa givea damn." I think he was referring to his trip up to Cricket Town today and what I would say about it. Ah well, mea noa givea damn. That'll make him feel fulfilled, silly Catholic.

My elder grandson might pop around today with his dad. He'll be three years old at the end of next month. Nearly as old as me! He's into bubbles big time at the moment, so we bought him a bubble maker yesterday. He really had no need for a new computer chair. He writes less posts than Peter.

I practised violin for 1 1/2 hours yesterday. I spent a lot of time on scales, arpeggios and 6th. and 5th. double stops. I think it was time well spent. I also listened a lot to my tone. I put a video up on Facebook the other day. A silly old folkie left a comment, "Your tone is certainly improving. Congratulations." I removed his comment and unfriended him. I don't respect his opinion, but the negative comment did unsettle me.

[Oops, might be bathroom time soon!]

It really is silly to worry about what other people say or think because they quite frequently don't know what they are talking about. I think that Rob's listening to a book on this topic at present. Listening to a book? I thought you were supposed to read them.

When I was a young violinist, I was lazy and didn't do much practice. I was more interested in getting a girlfriend. Maybe that time would have been better spent practising the violin? At university I don't remember the teacher saying anything nice about my playing. To be fair, though, I did tell him I was doing about four hours of practice a day. Liar! Perhaps it was my fault, though I did scrape through violin with a pass. Now I am a violin teacher. I put a lot of effort into building up my students' confidence. I tell them that their ears work wonderfully and just need to be used. I tell them that they can certainly be successful with their violin playing. I am not lying to them. I have done quite a lot of study in this field. People like to confer talent onto certain people and, while there is often a good reason for this, a lot of their success comes down to hard work. Maybe they were good at getting girlfriends too?

[Coffee finished. Still waiting for a result. Shouldn't be too far away.]

[Oops, the time has arrived! Back soon.]

[The coffee has moved on.]

Now, where was I?

Oh yes, I was talking about tritones.

In the modes of the major scale there is only one tritone, though it pops up in each mode.