Guitar Tricks - What the hell does Clapton do?

Jimmy Page XVI

03-14-2002, 06:00 PM

I was looking on an earlier thread and saw a discussion about guitars that had more than 32 frets. That brought to my mind a question. What the hell does Eric Clapton do on his Layla solo (electric one of course) since he uses a Fender Stratocaster and hits notes located around the 29 - 34 frets of the high E string. Is it possible to play it on a normal 24 fret guitar? Although I think it will not be possible, if so, please explain how. Thanks...

river

03-14-2002, 09:01 PM

duane alman played slide on that cut

Jimmy Page XVI

03-14-2002, 09:30 PM

can you play those higher notes with a slide?

river

03-14-2002, 10:01 PM

drag yer slide up the string and see for yerself.

pstring

03-15-2002, 12:49 AM

You can play slide all the way up the string until you slide past the pick-up you are using, ie.. use the neck p/u slide past it and the sound just dies off, use the bridge p/u and you just keep going, the notes are extremely close together up that high, as far as 32 fret guitars go, a slide is really nothing but a moveable fret that you can use from the nut to the bridge, I wonder how many notes that could be on one string? 60? 70?, hmmm, deep thoughts to ponder!

educatedfilm

03-15-2002, 03:58 PM

hmmm... you should be able to have a an infinite number of notes on a string ...
cos everytime you halve the length of string avialable you go up an octave... eg the e string, when the string is at full length ie open, you've got E, at 12th fret (which is half the length of the string), you've got another E but an octave higher, at 24th fret, that's half of the left over distance, ie it's at 1/4 length, you have another E again an octave higher, at 32 nd fret, that's half the left over length, so that's 1/8th length left, you have another ocatave...
So at 1/16th, 1/32, 1/64, 1/128, 1/256, 1/512, 1/1024.... 1/infinity, you have an E, so you've got (in theory an infinite number of notes)...
but the main problem is that the bridge pickup isn't that close to the bride, so you cant get to those really really high octaves... another problem is human hearing range, anything over 20000hertz and you cant hear it... and the reason you cant get infinite, is because at some point you'll reach down to the size of atoms (not very good for sounds on thier own :D lol), and then sub atomic particles, and then????????????????...

river

03-15-2002, 06:05 PM

i read bout that somewhere. some ancient greek guy had
this paradox named after him. seems ya cant never
get anywhere because you must first go halfway, then
halfway, then halfway, and on and on ad infinitum.
guess we're stuck halfway there huh ?

Psycho Amram

03-17-2002, 12:44 AM

actually, you can produce infinite number of notes.
every fraction of the string produces different sound (though its hard to HEAR the difference) so even between open string and the first fret you've got infinite number of notes! (just like between 0 and 1)
of course you will still have the problem of the atoms! :)

Bardsley

03-17-2002, 01:24 AM

But the notes between the first and second frets for instance are not all notes used in western music, in fact, none of them are. They sound pretty cool though... I'd love to get a fretless guitar, I think King Crimson sometimes use them.

lalimacefolle

03-17-2002, 03:40 AM

This 'Zenon paradox' was created to tackle the sophists, to give them a problem to go against (sophists job was to 'create truth' within any given situation, they had to be right! I guess the new sophists are politicians)
The problem with this is that you consider distance like an infinite thing while it isn't infinite. A string has a length, and after a while only moving for the smallest thing will not be the half of the remaining distance...

Bardsley

03-17-2002, 05:44 AM

The very concept of infinity is challenged by some paradoxes that deal with the idea. If you have a printer that prints a page with a 1 on it in a minute, then prints a 2 in 30 seconds, then a 1 in 15, then a 2 in 7.5 etc. what number does it print last when 2 minutes are up? Sure, the printer isn't physically possible, but htink about it: on one hand you have the idea of infinity, that you can't reach the end of. On the other hand you have a finite amount of time with very discreet numbers. You surely have to have one or the other - a 1 or a 2 at the end of the second minute.The problem arises like in the guitar string problem of ftting a theory of the infinite onto a physical finite thing. Still, it is fun to get your head around.

lalimacefolle

03-17-2002, 08:28 AM

There are other paradoxes that are pretty cool, maths are very fun when they are used in this way.
It's also very cool using them in music...

river

03-17-2002, 08:34 AM

yeah well thats all well and good. but is the
glass half-empty or half-full ? : )

educatedfilm

03-17-2002, 12:55 PM

niether/ both...
yeah, bardsely your printer problem rem,inds of the boring as hell amths we used to have to do.. god gps and aps... i mean it's not bad, you can work out sequences, but it's pretty boring... and to be honest has no real practical uses for someone like me...well, it may do soemwhere down the line... but now it doesn't...
I'm strugeling to type this post cos my pc keeps on typing own accord... I mean it tyes crap like "I a then them man..." words, but plain nonsense... i'm worried it's a virus...

PonyOne

03-17-2002, 03:40 PM

Don't wanna rain on the parade... but there are a finite amount of sounds available on a guitar string. Even if you break it down to the quarks that make up the atoms that make up the string, it's still finite.

So in a theoretical sense, although there are trillions upon trillions of inaudible sounds you could make if you could go quark by quark, they still eventually run out.

The universe isn't even infinite... it's ever expanding, but it's finite up to the point it is currently expanded to. Whack, huh? I read some theory that stated that in 100 billion to the 100 billionth power years the universe would run of matter and stretch itself so thin that if became full of black holes that eventualy chew it up, but this theory was made with a number of other theories from Hawking and Einstein and the Indian guy who knew infinity and the like, but discounting many of the other elements of their theories... in essence a bullsh!t cut & paste theory that made some guy a very rich man... whoops/rambling...

Bardsley

03-17-2002, 05:38 PM

Anything that makes you think a bit is good for you, even if it doesn't help you drive a car, get a job, etc. The value of pure thinking is sometimes overlooked, but I have to believe that it is a good thing - I'm a humanities student!

PonyOne

03-18-2002, 01:14 AM

Thinking is fun...

Psycho Amram

03-18-2002, 07:10 AM

infinity can't be defined in real life just theoretically.
this whole debate is theoretical and theoretically you can play infinite number of notes on one string (even if infinity of power Aleph0)
take that from somebody who studies:
Calculus
Algebra
Abstract Algebra
Discrete Math
Regular Differential Equations
:eek:
and will learn (unfortunately) more next semester...
;)

river

03-18-2002, 07:51 AM

hmmm....i think it's deeper than it is wide. gonna
half to think about it.

educatedfilm

03-18-2002, 11:33 AM

lol... praise the lord i dont have to do maths or physics anymore... some of it like the cosmology side of both subjects is cool... but crap like aps and gps is boring as hell... and the questions you get are boring as hell... like "A chess club open a bank acount is opened, and £5000 is put in. Every year £200 is given as a prize. The intrest rate is 5% per anum. How many years can the prize money be given in full?".. BORING!!!! (did i mention i missed my much need A by about 6 marks out of 240 :()

river

03-18-2002, 12:07 PM

hadnt thought of this as a forum for such subjects.
but since ya guys are likin it, i'll add some.there
is not an infinite set of subsets within any finite
set. and there is no proof that the universe is either
finite or infinite. it may well be shrinking now but
the light of those most distant galaxies has not
reached us yet. we see wut happened out there billions
of years ago and wont know wut theyre doin now for
billions more . :)

PonyOne

03-18-2002, 01:22 PM

THANK YOU

Finite bodies cannot be finite.

Too many people get fooled into thinking math has the answer to everything... I remember back in high school we had a trick question that only I answered right, thanks entirely to my mathematical ineptitude...

If Jack was born of September 19, and his sister Roberta was born on March 12 three years later, how many years will it be until their ages overlap?

Answer: never. If Jack was born three years earlier, even if one was on leap year, their ages will never intersect as time cannot go back on itself and leap year only exists because we suck at making calendars. They are caught in a perpetual forwardness so every secon that Roberta will gain on Jack, Jack will also gain. Apply this to the infinity argument as you see fit.

Lordathestrings

03-18-2002, 04:26 PM

Neither. It is twice as big as it needs to be. :D

lalimacefolle

03-18-2002, 04:38 PM

I'm posting this to come back to the original question. I'm playing this lick (I don't quite master it yet) where I tap with a thimble on my right hand ring finger. The last high note is on the 36th virtual fret.
http://lalimace.free.fr/mp3/guitarsucks2.wmv
If you wonder how I came up with the technique, I didn't, it's the opening lick for 'guitars suck' Ron thal's tune...

educatedfilm

03-18-2002, 05:09 PM

lol.. I thought i was original, only to find i'm wrong again!! .. What i do is use glass slide to tap the string over the middle pickup (which gives a note, but you have to look for the one you need, just by kinda stumbling for it), and tap on the fret board, and you get a real increase in speed (because you dont tap once, you tap like 3 or 4 really quickly, like what drummers do, they dont hit the drum really fast, they hit it once and let the head "bounce")it sounds pretty cool too..
Ponyone: lol... I already pretty much said it woulnd't be infinite! I think you missed it cos it was one of the earlier ones :)..

PS: so far, as we now know, the universe is expanding and is ACELLERATING, which came as big big big shock.. cos very simple logic says other wise (when the big bang occured, a very large force pushed everything out, and everything has momentum, we have gravity, which acts to pull everything back in, and since force = change in momentum, you would expect to see a change in momentu, ie the expansion would decellerate)...
So they've ended up going back to one of einstines equations, where he "fixed" it (ie cheated, cos he believed the universe was static)... he then got rid of Lamda (the offending constant, where a force opposing gravity was acting to keep the universe unchanging), as hubble and co convinced him that the universe was indeed not static.. he called this his biggest blunder... Now they've had to go back to it, even though it's orignal intention was wrong.. This to me suggest that maybe we've got too ****y with our newtonain phsyics and maths, and there are other factors we need to acount for...

Psycho Amram

03-19-2002, 07:08 AM

Originally posted by Lordathestrings
Neither. It is twice as big as it needs to be. :D
or you drank too much :D

crazyguy

03-19-2002, 09:16 AM

Thinking is great, so lets do some more.
Bardsley, the paradox with alternating 1's and 2's is actually an (alternating) divergent row, meaning that whenthe variable tends to infinity,the row does not have an unique value( unlike 1/n or (n-1)/n).
A finite set of finite subsets being finite would be applicable if we were talking about combinations of defined, fretted notes but even then it would take a lot of people to work for all of their lives to work out all the combinations out (even if you leave out the impossible-to-fret ones).
when I bend to a 3rd, 5th, and in other occasions, I rarely bend dead-correct. I prefer trying to hit the in-between notes and make my guitar sound like a spoilt cat.
However, as I was told by a violin teacher once, although there are a lot of similarities between music and mathematics, there is one great difference : maths is exact (solve a problem as many times as you want and you should get the same result) and music is spiritual. Otherwise, we'd have a whole lot of math professors creating perfect songs. which contradicts human imperfection as opposed to nature's perfection.
Aaah I'm getting brain cramps from thinking too hard!

P.S. Linear Algebra, Mathematic Analysis, Numeric Algebra, Discrete and Concrete Math, Combinatorics, Set Theory, Regular Differential Equations and then some. And I'm still not completely crazy. At least my imaginary friend says so.

Lordathestrings

03-19-2002, 09:57 AM

Originally posted by crazyguy
...And I'm still not completely crazy. At least my imaginary friend says so. Of course not.. else you would not realise your friend is imaginary! :D

BTW, this thread might serve to calm those who think we're going to 'run out of notes to play'.

Psycho Amram

03-19-2002, 10:52 AM

Ah! Crazyguy is a guy who knows what he talks about!
i forgot Combinatorics in the resume...
math isn't my field though it's background to computer eng. (that's why i didn't mention Digital Systems and the sort...)
but i believe you're wrong if you solve the same question in different way you might not get the same answer (if you're using boolean algebra or in finite fields like Z5 for example...)
actually if you combine these theories you get that:
1+1=2 (of course)
1+1=1 (Radiohead wrote on their OK computer that they hope you choked but its correct in switching algebra)
1+1=0 (using finite field Z2)
you can inductively prove that the natural numbers equal 0, and the integers, and the non-rational (of course you dont have rationals cause you cant divide by 0)
think about it...

Bardsley

03-19-2002, 07:22 PM

Of course, crazyguy, music composition used to be seen simply as a mathematical field. When composers weren't seen in the way they are now, music production was put in the same category as maths, and was seen simply as a way of coming up with different combinations of correct notes that would sound good. It would have been blasphemous to suggest that the composer created anything, as that was God's realm.
Much classical music has been based very heavily on maths, even in contemporary times.

crazyguy

03-20-2002, 04:31 AM

O.K. I know everyone wants to hear more about this so here it is: 1+1=2 works in Z
1+1=0 works in Z2
The difference is in the addition opperators (+) which are not the same, thus the problems differ.
However, this is all irrelevant for us, unlike the link im about to post in the Fastest guitarist... thread. I know he's probbably not the fastest, but do check it out.

educatedfilm

03-20-2002, 05:04 PM

Crazyguy: STOP IT! i had two years of that nasty crap... I didn't do "concrete maths" or "maths analysis", but we did ALOT of differentation and integration... which wasn't fun..
What's the name of the formula? where it is impossible for it to equal zero... but it does... It's like
1 + pi(to the power of i) = 0.
We did stuff like fermat's last theorem and crap like that... (I didn't do imaginary numbers tho, phew)
I'm not too worried about running out of chord progressions... I mean the combinations of ordering them (that's why it's permuations and not combinations), and then you've got rythem... and theyn FX, and then you got you'r acompneyment... and then lyrics... so really, even though the combinations might all get used up at some point... it's impossible to have some one who's heard them all in one life time... so it'll always be new to alot of poeple... :)

Psycho Amram

03-21-2002, 09:25 AM

but still i ran out of new chords. whenever i try new ones they just dont sound right. and every time i play "regular" chords they just sound like (clearly or vaguely) a known song (that is known to me). even if i can innovate to others ears i cant innovate to myself and (not being egoistic) i'm more important when i play.
of course soloing is never a problem...

PonyOne

03-21-2002, 10:11 AM

thinking is fun

math sucks

GUITAR GOOD

PONY-ONE WANT TACO

u10ajf

09-11-2002, 04:15 PM

Originally posted by river
i read bout that somewhere. some ancient greek guy had
this paradox named after him. seems ya cant never
get anywhere because you must first go halfway, then
halfway, then halfway, and on and on ad infinitum.
guess we're stuck halfway there huh ?

Epimenides, lived in Crete during the sixth century BC. A statement made by him is believed to be the oldest of logical paradoxes. He is reputed to have said:

"All Cretans are liars."