Newsletter #4

Hello friends! :)

And welcome to this newsletter. It is a long one... I will write a little bit about what I've been up to lately. Some realisations. But mainly about my experience with my quarter-tone bass. Hope you will enjoy it!

Egypt tour

So in February I had the big pleasure to tour Egypt again, this time with Tarabband. We played three concerts in Cairo (Cairo Jazz Club, Gomhoura Theater, and the Swedish embassy) and one in Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina).

Egypt is a country I love returning to, a week in Egypt feels like a lifetime in Sweden, in a good way. I always find myself leaving Egypt very inspired and full field. Both by the people, the surroundings, and the music. And I had some good realizations during this trip.

Trusting your gear:

The first one is, the importance to trust your gear. For the last years, I have been touring with my big pedalboard. A pedalboard I truly love, but that I don’t trust. Sounds like a bad relationship haha.

But I have had so many things happening with my pedalboard during the last few years. It occasionally produces weird unwanted sounds, suddenly lowering my volume, turning off when it shouldn’t, or just stop working completely e.g.

This resulted that part of the joy of playing live is being exchanged with the stress of worrying about the pedalboard.

But due to different situations, I had to travel with a much smaller and more trustworthy pedalboard. And wow, what a change it did to my experience of playing live. Suddenly I felt a calmness regarding playing live that I haven’t felt in years. Witch makes it so much more enjoyable to play, I could focus fully on the music, and not be scared of the pedalboard failing me. So hot tip, make sure to trust your gear. This made me take the decision to ”refurbish” my big pedalboard. More on this later in the newsletter.

Nancy Mounir:

I got the pleasure to meet the great Nancy Mounir again. Nancy, I meet first one year ago, when I did a duo tour in Egypt with Nadin Al Khalidi. After a concert, she invited us to her place to listen to some music. And during that evening she showed her new album Nozhet el Nofous (an album that hadn’t been released yet), and I was totally floored. It really touched me deeply. Later in 2022 the album was released and, for me, it is the best album of 2022.

Bandcamp described it beautifully when they wrote:

”There are ghosts drifting through Nozhet El Nofous, the voices of Egyptian women from the 1920s telling tales that have proven strikingly timeless. That’s what composer Nancy Mounir discovered when she first unearthed the recordings that provided the source material for the album, all of them made at a time before the country shifted rightward and conservatism took hold. Mounir gently lifted those voices from scratchy old recordings and placed them amidst lush new arrangements, which are striking in their sparseness and tenderness. The conceit could have gone pear-shaped quickly, but Mounir has such a light touch it’s hard to tell where the old recordings end and the new ones begin. Listen to the gripping second track “Khafif Khafif” and try to figure out which of its weeping strings were scored by Mounir and which came from the original. Likewise, Saleh Abdel Hay’s voice on that song—which corkscrews upward again and again like smoke from a lit cigarette—is almost bracing in its immediacy. What stands out about the record the more you listen is the way Mounir doesn’t attempt to “contemporize” the material. Instead, it’s more accurate to think of Nozhet El Nofous as a collaboration across generations, where the new acts in deference to the old, and the results are nothing short of spellbinding.”

—J. Edward Keyes

I can’t recommend this album enough.

Link to Nancys album:
Bandcamp

Spotify

This time she showed me some other music of hers, and it was very inspiring.

Mazaher:

Another thing I was very thankful for experiencing was visiting a jam session at Makan in Egypt, to see and play with the ensemble Mazaher. Mazaher is one of the last practioners of Zār in Egypt.

Here is some info about Zār:

“Zar is a community healing ritual of drumming and dancing whose tradition is carried mainly by women – men have the secondary roles – and whose main participants are women. The Zar is said to have originated in East Africa and, although its practice is disappearing in Egypt, the ritual flourishes in other parts of East Africa and in the Arabian Peninsula. Shunned by the religious establishment, the state and the official cultural elite Zar is a part of the underground culture. As such, it has survived as a sub-culture in its original form without any major interference. Many of the poly-rhythmic songs and chants are distinctively different from other Egyptian music traditions. However, the practiced ritual became limited in its content, many songs have been forgotten and and the practice of Zar in Egypt has nearly vanished. Not more than a dozen persons within greater Cairo still have knowledge of the musical legacy of the Zar. In the whole of Egypt only around 25 people continue to practice this knowledge and this tradition.”

Here is video of Mazaher performing, I really recommend you, check it out here!!!

The quarter-tone bass

So in Newsletter #2 I discussed my ambition and thoughts on getting a quarter-tone bass (you find this newsletter here. And now I finally have it. But before discussing my experience with it. Let me again explain what this quarter-tone bass is. So in its essence, it is a bass where I can play all the notes I could on my former bass + some quarter tones. And for you who are not familiar with what a quarter tone is. Here comes a description.

”A quarter tone is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale or an interval about half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone. So e.g, on a piano the shortest distance can be between a white and a black key, but with a quarter-tone piano, you would have a key between these two keys.”

So this is a bass where I suddenly have more notes to choose from. I think a good analogy is if a painter suddenly got a new color to work with.

Process:

So this has been a process I started almost a year ago, and since then I tried different ways to implement quarter tones. But I landed that the best way for me of implementing this was to make a new fretted neck for my bass. In addition to the quarter tones, I wanted a neck that had the main goal of being as expressive as possible. This goes in hand with my quest of making the electric bass an expressive instrument. But to defy expressivity I wanted a neck that had the following properties.
- Small and fast neck, a neck that had high playability.

• A neck that has a big dynamic range.

• Clarity is key, both regarding monophonic and polyphonic lines.

• A very responsive neck.

• As long sustain as possible. With a even ”release”

• Dynamically even regarding the range of the neck.

• A neck with a lot of low mid.

  
  

A part of it is a quarter-tone bass, we actually decided to do medium-scale bass instead of a long-scale (this means that the neck of the bass is a little bit shorter).

So my first experience with it was quite shocking. I was prepared that I really had to rework my technique and muscle memory to be able to play what I usually do. But to my surprise that was not my experience. Almost from the first moment, I was able to pick it up and play what I usually do. And actually with more ease. And regarding the things mentioned above regarding expressivity, it cleared all the boxes. Really a leap forward in my quest for expressivity.

Regarding the quarter tones, it is a revolution for my playing. It really opens up new ways to express yourself. Of course it will take time and a lot of work for me to fully implement this in my playing, and find ways to use it. But I can clearly see the possibilities. I truly believe this is a bass for the rest of my life.

Implementation:

Regarding the implementation, i've learned a few things. Here is is a few lessons learned so far.

Implementing mixed field harmony:
Mixed field harmony is when you use pitches from the quarter tone field and from the 12 tone field together in a polyphonic manner. So e.g taking a chord where one of the notes of the chord is a quarter tone. Or making a sequence of chords where one chord is fully in the quarter tone field and the next one is not. And what I now am researching is different types of mixed-field cadences. And the more I work with this, the more clear it becomes for me how well-suitable mixed-field harmony is for cadences. And the reasons for this are 2.

1. With the help of quarter tones, it is much easier to make something that is completely unexpected, but at the same time sounds fully natural (for me). And this “paradox” or what to say, is something that for me is very powerful within music, or life in general.

2. Tension and release. So for me, a big part of music is tension and release. And cadences in general, it almost all about some kind of tension and release. Often about “being somewhere” and then coming “home”. So I like the analogy of that before with my old neck, I had the possibility to be in my garden, and then coming home. But with quarter tones I now have the possibility to have one hand on the door handle, and then come home. I think what im trying to illustrate is the fact that tension with help of quartertones can now be so much greater.

Below you will find some examples where I show some Mixed field cadences on the quarter tone bass.

Implementation of quartertones in monophonic playing:
1. Leading tones. So when playing bass lines it is very common to use what's called lead tones. Lead tones is a half step below or above the note you are heading for. It is often used as a passage or leading into the note you are heading for. It is something that creates a strong sense of tension or resolution. And with the quarter-tone bass, I have the possibility for more types of lead tones. It is also a strong tool for building different types of basslines.

So an example:
If im heading for a A. Before with my old neck I had the lead tones Bb and Ab. With my quarter-tone neck I now have Ab, Ad, Bb, and Bbd (the d stands for quarter-tone flat.). So in short I now have a bigger variety of lead tones to choose from, and I can also make the passage “longer” if I so choose.

2. Playing “out”. So this once again leads to the tension and release side of things. Playing out usually means playing things not part of the harmonic structure. Something that is great for creating tension, but also for grabbing focus or creating different sounds. With the help of quarter tones, I now have additional ways of playing out. Ways that can (for me) create even more tension or create even more dissonance. Another pallet to choose from.

3. Emotions. So with quarter tones, I do feel that the array of things I can express is greater. Even though I just touched the surface of things I would be able to do, I see the following emotions being easier to express sassy, dissonant, cheeky, out, sweaty, scary, bold, and sad.

Christian Olsson:

And the master who builds this amazing neck is called Christian Olsson, I can’t recommend him enough if you ever would need a new bass. His brand is called unicorn basses.

You find a link to his website here

Refurbishing the Pedalboard:

So as mentioned before, I had the realization of how important it is to trust your gear. Therefore, I decided to contact Göran Enqvist at Sound of Silence to refurbish my pedalboard. So in short what he does is he changes everything that goes on a pedalboard except the pedals. So the actual board, all cables, electricity, junction box e.g. And I can say this is an investment that really have lowered my anxiety and stress regarding playing live.

Residency in Gotland:

In February I also had the honor to spend a week at Visby Gotland, at Visby Tonsättarcentrum. There I was working on the final parts for Bitoi. Here are some pictures from that trip. And I do recommend you to apply for this residency if you are a composer and want to get away for a bit.

BITOI:
So just some quick notes about my new project Bitoi. A project that had its premier on the 30th of April at the festival Intonal in Malmö. Will talk more about this in the next newsletter.

1. I did a mix for refuge radio, playing music that influenced the Bitoi Project. You can her the mix here

2. We have some stickers designed by the great Daniela Doe. If you want some for free, just come by my studio at Ahlmansgatan 4 in Malmö and you will get some! :)

Thank you so very much for reading!! And just feel free to write if you have any questions or comments! :)

Best,

Cassius Lambert

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CONTACT

Cassius Lambert

Ahlmansgatan 4

21427 Malmö, Sweden