Howdy All,
I just listened to this song, and I would say for sure they are using
microtones intentionally. It's slow bending which is part of the main riff,
but the emphasis is on the microtones between the notes. Repeated over and
over...
I would agreee this is pretty common, although generally not so blatent.
Blues players also often over/under bend on purpose, Otis Rush comes to
mind.
best,
mc
----- Original Message -----
From: "Reinier de Valk" <reinierdev...@home.nl>
To: "Arto Wikla" <wi...@cs.helsinki.fi>; "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu"
<lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 8:56 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: OT: microintervals in rock music
Dear Arto (and others interested),
The bending of strings is actually quite common in many forms of
guitar-based pop- and rock music. Most of the time, the 'target note' is a
multiple of a semitone higher -- i.e., the note is bent up a semitone, a
whole tone, a tone and a semitone, etc. However, if players want their
bends to have some kind of 'wailing' quality to them, they often bend
tones slightly higher or lower than these fixed intervals, and I think
this is exactly what is happening in the Alice in Chains song. I'm quite
sure AiC don't use microtones intentionally.
Just my impression - I hope I'm not stating the obvious!
Best wishes,
Reinier
----- Original Message -----
From: "Arto Wikla" <wi...@cs.helsinki.fi>
To: "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 1:21 PM
Subject: [LUTE] OT: microintervals in rock music
Hi musicians,
Sorry for being OT, if you don't like that, delete immediately... ;.)
I have not often heard microintervals used as an intended means of
experession in rock music, but today while taking our teenagers to
school, we were listening to a rock channel, and I heard "Check My Brain"
by Alice in Chains. Strange music, interesting!
And found also an acoustic version in the y-tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irCPY1gXZ0g&NR=1
This is anyhow acoustic plucking...
Their main version is in
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBcADQziQWY
All the best,
Arto
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