Chords for Why does this guitar have SO MANY MORE frets? | The World's Weirdest Guitars #6
Tempo:
137.7 bpm
Chords used:
A
E
B
G
Em
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the world's weirdest guitars.
Today we're getting into some microtonal madness with a guitar that would otherwise be completely
normal if it didn't have 11 additional frets slapped onto the neck.
I've never seen anything
like this before.
This should be a good.
Before we get into it a quick word from the sponsor of
today's video, my course platform Samurai Guitar Theory.
Over there I've made two courses, The
Rudiments and Beyond the Basics, where I walk you through the building blocks of music theory from
the ground up to more advanced topics.
These two courses are professionally animated, making the
tough stuff easy to understand.
There are interactive elements like detailed documentation,
quizzes, lists of things to work on, and more.
I'm doing a flash sale over there where the first 100
of you to use promo code MICROTONAL will save $50 off the two-course bundle, getting you both
courses for the normal price of one.
You can find that over at www .samuraiguitartheory.com.
I'll also put up a link in the description.
Anyways, on to the madness.
Today's guitar is
the Hi-Flyer Phase IV MT by Eastwood Guitars.
This is a standard guitar with a standard size neck,
however there is one unique feature that takes it into the world of what the heck.
There are more
frets.
A lot more frets.
This allows you to play notes that would be inaccessible on a normal guitar.
For example, [Am] here's an A.
Here's [Ab] an Ab.
[A] And here's a note that's halfway between an A and an Ab.
[E] What can you do with this newfound freedom?
Here's a little demo.
[Gb] [E]
[A] [Ab] [Gbm] [E]
[A]
[E] [B]
[E]
[Abm]
[B] [E] [Dbm]
[Abm] [B] [Am]
[Gbm] [B] [E]
Now let me tell you [N] about my
relationship with microtonal music.
Prior to getting this guitar, there was none.
I figured I
could go on the Wikipedia page, get a feel for all things microtonal, sum it up in this video, and move
on with my life.
I was wrong.
The wormhole that is microtonality goes far deeper than I could have
imagined.
This video should not be seen as a comprehensive source on the subject, but rather
one man's experience as he peers into the quarter-tone looking glass.
First of all, what even
is microtonality?
To understand that, we need to talk about the tuning system that western music
uses.
12-tone equal temperament, or 12TET.
[E] When I hit the low E string on my Telecaster, it vibrates
at a frequency that we've labeled an E note.
If I play the 12th fret on my low E string, my string
vibrates at twice the rate.
This note is also called an E, and the musical space between these
two E's is called an octave.
12-tone equal temperament breaks this octave down into 12 equal [A] spaces, or
[B] 12 tones.
The system is reflected by the guitar as it has 12 notes separated by 12 frets on every
string before the octave repeats.
The space from [Cm] one of these notes to the next is called a
semitone.
Going [B] up two notes gives [Db] us a whole tone.
It's this system of spacings, or intervals, that
makes [N] up the framework for the bulk of music we come across.
Which brings me to microtonality,
music that is created using spaces smaller than the semitone.
When we look at this guitar, we can
see that in the space that there would normally be 12 frets, there are actually 18, giving us six
additional notes we can play.
This naturally raises the question, why?
Well, like I mentioned before,
the music that's been classified as Western music uses the 12-tone equal temperament tuning system,
but there are other musics from around the globe that use completely different systems.
You can
find music from Africa, India, Thailand, Burma, as well as many other places that use notes outside
of the tuning system that we've become accustomed to.
With a standard guitar, you could only play
these notes with a slide or by bending to them, which offers a decreased accessibility.
Something
like this would be near impossible to [Ab] play.
[F] [E]
[G] The next question that comes up is, why don't all
guitars have these extra frets?
Well, since the bulk of the music that we're exposed to doesn't
use these notes, they can often sound quite out of tune or just straight up wrong.
For example,
here is the worst sounding [A] chord that I've ever played.
Now, just because [N] 12TET is the standard
doesn't mean that there aren't bands who have tapped into something outside of the norm.
One of
those bands is called King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard, who I am ashamed to admit I just found out
a few weeks ago.
They're a rock group who've used customized instruments, allowing them to access
twice as many notes in a 24TET system.
The guitarist and bassist use instruments with added frets,
the keyboardist uses a modified synth, and the drummer, he just plays the drums.
This guitar was
directly inspired by the band as it's essentially a recreation of the Univox Hi-Flyer that their
guitarist, Cook Craig, uses.
If you've never heard those guys, definitely check them out.
I can't
recommend them enough.
My relationship with this guitar has been much different than any other
guitar I've owned.
When I got it, I plugged it in, played for a bit, and said to myself,
I have no idea how I'm going to make anything half decent on this thing.
This video is going to be a
disaster.
But I stuck with it and started to figure out how someone like myself, who has spent a
lifetime deep in the 12TET system, might begin dabbling with microtonality.
When I'm playing this
thing, I don't like to draw too much attention to those microtonal notes or it sounds quite wrong to
my ear.
Instead, I think of them as passing tones and chords or lines like [D] this.
[E]
[G] [D]
It's important to
note that even though we use a 12TET system, that doesn't mean that we never come [N] across these
microtonal notes.
The blues is filled with quarter tone bends that sound amazing, and whenever a
guitarist uses vibrato, they're bending their string in and around these microtones.
When I
realized this, I tried playing some cliched Blues Dad guitar story licks, and that really opened a
lot of what I personally can do with this.
[Bb] And [Eb]
[Bbm]
[Bb]
that brings me to the part in the video [N] where I
give you the official Sammy G review on this guitar.
Part of me wishes that they just straight
up split every fret into two, but my understanding is that Stu McKenzie of King Gizzard based his
original microtonal guitar off of a Turkish Baglama, which uses a similar layout.
The other
guitarists in the band use the same system, and then Eastwood used that for what I'm pretty sure
is the first mass-produced microtonal guitar.
I have mixed feelings on this.
There are times when
I'm playing this guitar and I want to grab a note that's not there, like the quarter tone that would
be here.
However, since not every fret is split, I can still conceptualize this like a normal guitar.
I have seen pictures of guitars that have 24 frets in the octave, and it's totally overwhelming.
The
guitar sells for $1,200, which is a lot for a guitar made overseas.
The quality is acceptable,
but that wouldn't be the selling point at this price range.
My biggest complaint is that Eastwood
doesn't also make a microtonal bass, because if everyone in your band isn't using this system,
you're limited in the ways that you can incorporate this guitar.
To summarize, like every guitar I've
ever featured in this series, it's certainly not for everyone, but after I got over my initial
learning curve, I found myself thinking in ways that I've never thought before, which is one of
my favorite musical experiences.
Of all my weird guitars, this one challenged me the most, but it
was a challenge that I ended up thoroughly enjoying, and I can see myself continuing to
dabble with this in the future.
To wrap it up, here's a jam that I think encapsulates what I can
do best on this guitar.
[Em] [G]
[A] [G]
[Em]
[G]
[A] [Am]
[E]
[Em]
[Bm] [B] [Bb] [B]
[A] [Em]
[G] [B] [G]
[C] [Em]
[G] [Abm]
[A] [Em]
[B] [Gm] [A]
[Em]
[G] [B] [Bb] [G] [E] Ladies [Em] and gentlemen, [E] there you have it, the [Gbm] Eastwood Hi-Flyer Phase 4
MT, an adventure [Ab] into microtonality.
I'd like to thank the [Bb] sponsor of today's video.
Over the last
couple [A] months, a lot of the revenue sources on YouTube got pandemic-ed pretty [B] hard, so make sure
[Eb] you check them out over at [E] www.samurai-guitar-theory.com, [A] and by [Gbm] them, I mean me.
I made [Db] these courses on
music theory, thinking about how a guitar player could learn this stuff from the ground up.
I wanted
to make the resource I wish I had when I was learning diatonic harmony, triads, the way [Ab] that
scales work, [D] modes, extended chords, and stuff like [Ab] that.
Make sure [A] that you're one of the first
hundred to use promo code MICROTONAL so you can get both [G] courses bundled together for the [Gbm] normal
price of one.
Thank you all for watching.
If you enjoyed this video, hit that like button and leave
me a comment.
If you want to get caught up in the series where I check out the world's weirdest
[Dm] guitars, hit that link [A] up there.
If you're new here, make sure you [Bm] subscribe.
Until next time,
[Ab] I'm SamuraiGuitarist, and I'll see you again
Today we're getting into some microtonal madness with a guitar that would otherwise be completely
normal if it didn't have 11 additional frets slapped onto the neck.
I've never seen anything
like this before.
This should be a good.
Before we get into it a quick word from the sponsor of
today's video, my course platform Samurai Guitar Theory.
Over there I've made two courses, The
Rudiments and Beyond the Basics, where I walk you through the building blocks of music theory from
the ground up to more advanced topics.
These two courses are professionally animated, making the
tough stuff easy to understand.
There are interactive elements like detailed documentation,
quizzes, lists of things to work on, and more.
I'm doing a flash sale over there where the first 100
of you to use promo code MICROTONAL will save $50 off the two-course bundle, getting you both
courses for the normal price of one.
You can find that over at www .samuraiguitartheory.com.
I'll also put up a link in the description.
Anyways, on to the madness.
Today's guitar is
the Hi-Flyer Phase IV MT by Eastwood Guitars.
This is a standard guitar with a standard size neck,
however there is one unique feature that takes it into the world of what the heck.
There are more
frets.
A lot more frets.
This allows you to play notes that would be inaccessible on a normal guitar.
For example, [Am] here's an A.
Here's [Ab] an Ab.
[A] And here's a note that's halfway between an A and an Ab.
[E] What can you do with this newfound freedom?
Here's a little demo.
[Gb] [E]
[A] [Ab] [Gbm] [E]
[A]
[E] [B]
[E]
[Abm]
[B] [E] [Dbm]
[Abm] [B] [Am]
[Gbm] [B] [E]
Now let me tell you [N] about my
relationship with microtonal music.
Prior to getting this guitar, there was none.
I figured I
could go on the Wikipedia page, get a feel for all things microtonal, sum it up in this video, and move
on with my life.
I was wrong.
The wormhole that is microtonality goes far deeper than I could have
imagined.
This video should not be seen as a comprehensive source on the subject, but rather
one man's experience as he peers into the quarter-tone looking glass.
First of all, what even
is microtonality?
To understand that, we need to talk about the tuning system that western music
uses.
12-tone equal temperament, or 12TET.
[E] When I hit the low E string on my Telecaster, it vibrates
at a frequency that we've labeled an E note.
If I play the 12th fret on my low E string, my string
vibrates at twice the rate.
This note is also called an E, and the musical space between these
two E's is called an octave.
12-tone equal temperament breaks this octave down into 12 equal [A] spaces, or
[B] 12 tones.
The system is reflected by the guitar as it has 12 notes separated by 12 frets on every
string before the octave repeats.
The space from [Cm] one of these notes to the next is called a
semitone.
Going [B] up two notes gives [Db] us a whole tone.
It's this system of spacings, or intervals, that
makes [N] up the framework for the bulk of music we come across.
Which brings me to microtonality,
music that is created using spaces smaller than the semitone.
When we look at this guitar, we can
see that in the space that there would normally be 12 frets, there are actually 18, giving us six
additional notes we can play.
This naturally raises the question, why?
Well, like I mentioned before,
the music that's been classified as Western music uses the 12-tone equal temperament tuning system,
but there are other musics from around the globe that use completely different systems.
You can
find music from Africa, India, Thailand, Burma, as well as many other places that use notes outside
of the tuning system that we've become accustomed to.
With a standard guitar, you could only play
these notes with a slide or by bending to them, which offers a decreased accessibility.
Something
like this would be near impossible to [Ab] play.
[F] [E]
[G] The next question that comes up is, why don't all
guitars have these extra frets?
Well, since the bulk of the music that we're exposed to doesn't
use these notes, they can often sound quite out of tune or just straight up wrong.
For example,
here is the worst sounding [A] chord that I've ever played.
Now, just because [N] 12TET is the standard
doesn't mean that there aren't bands who have tapped into something outside of the norm.
One of
those bands is called King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard, who I am ashamed to admit I just found out
a few weeks ago.
They're a rock group who've used customized instruments, allowing them to access
twice as many notes in a 24TET system.
The guitarist and bassist use instruments with added frets,
the keyboardist uses a modified synth, and the drummer, he just plays the drums.
This guitar was
directly inspired by the band as it's essentially a recreation of the Univox Hi-Flyer that their
guitarist, Cook Craig, uses.
If you've never heard those guys, definitely check them out.
I can't
recommend them enough.
My relationship with this guitar has been much different than any other
guitar I've owned.
When I got it, I plugged it in, played for a bit, and said to myself,
I have no idea how I'm going to make anything half decent on this thing.
This video is going to be a
disaster.
But I stuck with it and started to figure out how someone like myself, who has spent a
lifetime deep in the 12TET system, might begin dabbling with microtonality.
When I'm playing this
thing, I don't like to draw too much attention to those microtonal notes or it sounds quite wrong to
my ear.
Instead, I think of them as passing tones and chords or lines like [D] this.
[E]
[G] [D]
It's important to
note that even though we use a 12TET system, that doesn't mean that we never come [N] across these
microtonal notes.
The blues is filled with quarter tone bends that sound amazing, and whenever a
guitarist uses vibrato, they're bending their string in and around these microtones.
When I
realized this, I tried playing some cliched Blues Dad guitar story licks, and that really opened a
lot of what I personally can do with this.
[Bb] And [Eb]
[Bbm]
[Bb]
that brings me to the part in the video [N] where I
give you the official Sammy G review on this guitar.
Part of me wishes that they just straight
up split every fret into two, but my understanding is that Stu McKenzie of King Gizzard based his
original microtonal guitar off of a Turkish Baglama, which uses a similar layout.
The other
guitarists in the band use the same system, and then Eastwood used that for what I'm pretty sure
is the first mass-produced microtonal guitar.
I have mixed feelings on this.
There are times when
I'm playing this guitar and I want to grab a note that's not there, like the quarter tone that would
be here.
However, since not every fret is split, I can still conceptualize this like a normal guitar.
I have seen pictures of guitars that have 24 frets in the octave, and it's totally overwhelming.
The
guitar sells for $1,200, which is a lot for a guitar made overseas.
The quality is acceptable,
but that wouldn't be the selling point at this price range.
My biggest complaint is that Eastwood
doesn't also make a microtonal bass, because if everyone in your band isn't using this system,
you're limited in the ways that you can incorporate this guitar.
To summarize, like every guitar I've
ever featured in this series, it's certainly not for everyone, but after I got over my initial
learning curve, I found myself thinking in ways that I've never thought before, which is one of
my favorite musical experiences.
Of all my weird guitars, this one challenged me the most, but it
was a challenge that I ended up thoroughly enjoying, and I can see myself continuing to
dabble with this in the future.
To wrap it up, here's a jam that I think encapsulates what I can
do best on this guitar.
[Em] [G]
[A] [G]
[Em]
[G]
[A] [Am]
[E]
[Em]
[Bm] [B] [Bb] [B]
[A] [Em]
[G] [B] [G]
[C] [Em]
[G] [Abm]
[A] [Em]
[B] [Gm] [A]
[Em]
[G] [B] [Bb] [G] [E] Ladies [Em] and gentlemen, [E] there you have it, the [Gbm] Eastwood Hi-Flyer Phase 4
MT, an adventure [Ab] into microtonality.
I'd like to thank the [Bb] sponsor of today's video.
Over the last
couple [A] months, a lot of the revenue sources on YouTube got pandemic-ed pretty [B] hard, so make sure
[Eb] you check them out over at [E] www.samurai-guitar-theory.com, [A] and by [Gbm] them, I mean me.
I made [Db] these courses on
music theory, thinking about how a guitar player could learn this stuff from the ground up.
I wanted
to make the resource I wish I had when I was learning diatonic harmony, triads, the way [Ab] that
scales work, [D] modes, extended chords, and stuff like [Ab] that.
Make sure [A] that you're one of the first
hundred to use promo code MICROTONAL so you can get both [G] courses bundled together for the [Gbm] normal
price of one.
Thank you all for watching.
If you enjoyed this video, hit that like button and leave
me a comment.
If you want to get caught up in the series where I check out the world's weirdest
[Dm] guitars, hit that link [A] up there.
If you're new here, make sure you [Bm] subscribe.
Until next time,
[Ab] I'm SamuraiGuitarist, and I'll see you again
Key:
A
E
B
G
Em
A
E
B
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the world's weirdest guitars.
Today we're getting into some microtonal madness with a guitar that would otherwise be completely
normal if it didn't have 11 additional frets slapped onto the neck.
I've never seen anything
like this before.
This should be a good.
Before we get into it a quick word from the sponsor of
today's video, my course platform Samurai Guitar Theory.
Over there I've made two courses, The
Rudiments and Beyond the Basics, where I walk you through the building blocks of music theory from
the ground up to more advanced topics.
These two courses are professionally animated, making the
tough stuff easy to understand.
There are interactive elements like detailed documentation,
quizzes, lists of things to work on, and more.
I'm doing a flash sale over there where the first 100
of you to use promo code MICROTONAL will save $50 off the two-course bundle, getting you both
courses for the normal price of one.
You can find that over at www _ _ .samuraiguitartheory.com.
I'll also put up a link in the description.
Anyways, on to the madness.
Today's guitar is
the Hi-Flyer Phase IV MT by Eastwood Guitars.
This is a standard guitar with a standard size neck,
however there is one unique feature that takes it into the world of what the heck.
There are more
frets.
A lot more frets.
This allows you to play notes that would be inaccessible on a normal guitar.
For example, [Am] here's an A.
Here's [Ab] an Ab.
_ [A] And here's a note that's halfway between an A and an Ab.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] What can you do with this newfound freedom?
Here's a little demo. _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Gbm] _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ [E] _ [B] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [Dbm] _
_ _ _ _ [Abm] _ [B] _ _ [Am] _
[Gbm] _ [B] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Now let me tell you [N] about my
relationship with microtonal music.
Prior to getting this guitar, there was none.
I figured I
could go on the Wikipedia page, get a feel for all things microtonal, sum it up in this video, and move
on with my life.
I was wrong.
The wormhole that is microtonality goes far deeper than I could have
imagined.
This video should not be seen as a comprehensive source on the subject, but rather
one man's experience as he peers into the quarter-tone looking glass.
First of all, what even
is microtonality?
To understand that, we need to talk about the tuning system that western music
uses.
12-tone equal temperament, or 12TET.
[E] When I hit the low E string on my Telecaster, it vibrates
at a frequency that we've labeled an E note.
If I play the 12th fret on my low E string, my string
vibrates at twice the rate.
This note is also called an E, and the musical space between these
two E's is called an octave.
12-tone equal temperament breaks this octave down into 12 equal [A] spaces, or
[B] 12 tones.
The system is reflected by the guitar as it has 12 notes separated by 12 frets on every
string before the octave repeats.
The space from [Cm] one of these notes to the next is called a
semitone.
Going [B] up two notes gives [Db] us a whole tone.
It's this system of spacings, or intervals, that
makes [N] up the framework for the bulk of music we come across.
Which brings me to microtonality,
music that is created using spaces smaller than the semitone.
When we look at this guitar, we can
see that in the space that there would normally be 12 frets, there are actually 18, giving us six
additional notes we can play.
This naturally raises the question, why?
Well, like I mentioned before,
the music that's been classified as Western music uses the 12-tone equal temperament tuning system,
but there are other musics from around the globe that use completely different systems.
You can
find music from Africa, India, Thailand, Burma, as well as many other places that use notes outside
of the tuning system that we've become accustomed to.
With a standard guitar, you could only play
these notes with a slide or by bending to them, which offers a decreased accessibility.
Something
like this would be near impossible to [Ab] play. _ _
[F] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] The next question that comes up is, why don't all
guitars have these extra frets?
Well, since the bulk of the music that we're exposed to doesn't
use these notes, they can often sound quite out of tune or just straight up wrong.
For example,
here is the worst sounding [A] chord that I've ever played.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Now, just because [N] 12TET is the standard
doesn't mean that there aren't bands who have tapped into something outside of the norm.
One of
those bands is called King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard, who I am ashamed to admit I just found out
a few weeks ago.
They're a rock group who've used customized instruments, allowing them to access
twice as many notes in a 24TET system.
The guitarist and bassist use instruments with added frets,
the keyboardist uses a modified synth, and the drummer, he just plays the drums.
This guitar was
directly inspired by the band as it's essentially a recreation of the Univox Hi-Flyer that their
guitarist, Cook Craig, uses.
If you've never heard those guys, definitely check them out.
I can't
recommend them enough.
My relationship with this guitar has been much different than any other
guitar I've owned.
When I got it, I plugged it in, played for a bit, and said to myself,
I have no idea how I'm going to make anything half decent on this thing.
This video is going to be a
disaster.
But I stuck with it and started to figure out how someone like myself, who has spent a
lifetime deep in the 12TET system, might begin dabbling with microtonality.
When I'm playing this
thing, I don't like to draw too much attention to those microtonal notes or it sounds quite wrong to
my ear.
Instead, I think of them as passing tones and chords or lines like [D] this.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
It's important to
note that even though we use a 12TET system, that doesn't mean that we never come [N] across these
microtonal notes.
The blues is filled with quarter tone bends that sound amazing, and whenever a
guitarist uses vibrato, they're bending their string in and around these microtones.
When I
realized this, I tried playing some cliched Blues Dad guitar story licks, and that really opened a
lot of what I personally can do with this.
_ [Bb] _ _ And _ [Eb] _
[Bbm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
that brings me to the part in the video [N] where I
give you the official Sammy G review on this guitar.
Part of me wishes that they just straight
up split every fret into two, but my understanding is that Stu McKenzie of King Gizzard based his
original microtonal guitar off of a Turkish Baglama, which uses a similar layout.
The other
guitarists in the band use the same system, and then Eastwood used that for what I'm pretty sure
is the first mass-produced microtonal guitar.
I have mixed feelings on this.
There are times when
I'm playing this guitar and I want to grab a note that's not there, like the quarter tone that would
be here.
However, since not every fret is split, I can still conceptualize this like a normal guitar.
I have seen pictures of guitars that have 24 frets in the octave, and it's totally overwhelming.
The
guitar sells for $1,200, which is a lot for a guitar made overseas.
The quality is acceptable,
but that wouldn't be the selling point at this price range.
My biggest complaint is that Eastwood
doesn't also make a microtonal bass, because if everyone in your band isn't using this system,
you're limited in the ways that you can incorporate this guitar.
To summarize, like every guitar I've
ever featured in this series, it's certainly not for everyone, but after I got over my initial
learning curve, I found myself thinking in ways that I've never thought before, which is one of
my favorite musical experiences.
Of all my weird guitars, this one challenged me the most, but it
was a challenge that I ended up thoroughly enjoying, and I can see myself continuing to
dabble with this in the future.
To wrap it up, here's a jam that I think encapsulates what I can
do best on this guitar.
[Em] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
[Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ [B] _ _ [Bb] _ [B] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ [G] _ [B] _ _ [G] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [Abm] _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ _ [Gm] _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ [B] _ _ [Bb] _ [G] [E] Ladies _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Em] and gentlemen, [E] there you have it, the [Gbm] Eastwood Hi-Flyer Phase 4
MT, an adventure [Ab] into microtonality.
I'd like to thank the [Bb] sponsor of today's video.
Over the last
couple [A] months, a lot of the revenue sources on YouTube got pandemic-ed pretty [B] hard, so make sure
[Eb] you check them out over at [E] www.samurai-guitar-theory.com, [A] and by [Gbm] them, I mean me.
I made [Db] these courses on
music theory, thinking about how a guitar player could learn this stuff from the ground up.
I wanted
to make the resource I wish I had when I was learning diatonic harmony, triads, the way [Ab] that
scales work, [D] modes, extended chords, and stuff like [Ab] that.
Make sure [A] that you're one of the first
hundred to use promo code MICROTONAL so you can get both [G] courses bundled together for the [Gbm] normal
price of one.
Thank you all for watching.
If you enjoyed this video, hit that like button and leave
me a comment.
If you want to get caught up in the series where I check out the world's weirdest
[Dm] guitars, hit that link [A] up there.
If you're new here, make sure you [Bm] subscribe.
Until next time,
_ [Ab] I'm SamuraiGuitarist, and I'll see you again
Today we're getting into some microtonal madness with a guitar that would otherwise be completely
normal if it didn't have 11 additional frets slapped onto the neck.
I've never seen anything
like this before.
This should be a good.
Before we get into it a quick word from the sponsor of
today's video, my course platform Samurai Guitar Theory.
Over there I've made two courses, The
Rudiments and Beyond the Basics, where I walk you through the building blocks of music theory from
the ground up to more advanced topics.
These two courses are professionally animated, making the
tough stuff easy to understand.
There are interactive elements like detailed documentation,
quizzes, lists of things to work on, and more.
I'm doing a flash sale over there where the first 100
of you to use promo code MICROTONAL will save $50 off the two-course bundle, getting you both
courses for the normal price of one.
You can find that over at www _ _ .samuraiguitartheory.com.
I'll also put up a link in the description.
Anyways, on to the madness.
Today's guitar is
the Hi-Flyer Phase IV MT by Eastwood Guitars.
This is a standard guitar with a standard size neck,
however there is one unique feature that takes it into the world of what the heck.
There are more
frets.
A lot more frets.
This allows you to play notes that would be inaccessible on a normal guitar.
For example, [Am] here's an A.
Here's [Ab] an Ab.
_ [A] And here's a note that's halfway between an A and an Ab.
_ _ _ _ _ _ [E] What can you do with this newfound freedom?
Here's a little demo. _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gb] _ _ [E] _ _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Gbm] _ [E] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ [E] _ [B] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Abm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[B] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ [Dbm] _
_ _ _ _ [Abm] _ [B] _ _ [Am] _
[Gbm] _ [B] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ Now let me tell you [N] about my
relationship with microtonal music.
Prior to getting this guitar, there was none.
I figured I
could go on the Wikipedia page, get a feel for all things microtonal, sum it up in this video, and move
on with my life.
I was wrong.
The wormhole that is microtonality goes far deeper than I could have
imagined.
This video should not be seen as a comprehensive source on the subject, but rather
one man's experience as he peers into the quarter-tone looking glass.
First of all, what even
is microtonality?
To understand that, we need to talk about the tuning system that western music
uses.
12-tone equal temperament, or 12TET.
[E] When I hit the low E string on my Telecaster, it vibrates
at a frequency that we've labeled an E note.
If I play the 12th fret on my low E string, my string
vibrates at twice the rate.
This note is also called an E, and the musical space between these
two E's is called an octave.
12-tone equal temperament breaks this octave down into 12 equal [A] spaces, or
[B] 12 tones.
The system is reflected by the guitar as it has 12 notes separated by 12 frets on every
string before the octave repeats.
The space from [Cm] one of these notes to the next is called a
semitone.
Going [B] up two notes gives [Db] us a whole tone.
It's this system of spacings, or intervals, that
makes [N] up the framework for the bulk of music we come across.
Which brings me to microtonality,
music that is created using spaces smaller than the semitone.
When we look at this guitar, we can
see that in the space that there would normally be 12 frets, there are actually 18, giving us six
additional notes we can play.
This naturally raises the question, why?
Well, like I mentioned before,
the music that's been classified as Western music uses the 12-tone equal temperament tuning system,
but there are other musics from around the globe that use completely different systems.
You can
find music from Africa, India, Thailand, Burma, as well as many other places that use notes outside
of the tuning system that we've become accustomed to.
With a standard guitar, you could only play
these notes with a slide or by bending to them, which offers a decreased accessibility.
Something
like this would be near impossible to [Ab] play. _ _
[F] _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] The next question that comes up is, why don't all
guitars have these extra frets?
Well, since the bulk of the music that we're exposed to doesn't
use these notes, they can often sound quite out of tune or just straight up wrong.
For example,
here is the worst sounding [A] chord that I've ever played.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ Now, just because [N] 12TET is the standard
doesn't mean that there aren't bands who have tapped into something outside of the norm.
One of
those bands is called King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard, who I am ashamed to admit I just found out
a few weeks ago.
They're a rock group who've used customized instruments, allowing them to access
twice as many notes in a 24TET system.
The guitarist and bassist use instruments with added frets,
the keyboardist uses a modified synth, and the drummer, he just plays the drums.
This guitar was
directly inspired by the band as it's essentially a recreation of the Univox Hi-Flyer that their
guitarist, Cook Craig, uses.
If you've never heard those guys, definitely check them out.
I can't
recommend them enough.
My relationship with this guitar has been much different than any other
guitar I've owned.
When I got it, I plugged it in, played for a bit, and said to myself,
I have no idea how I'm going to make anything half decent on this thing.
This video is going to be a
disaster.
But I stuck with it and started to figure out how someone like myself, who has spent a
lifetime deep in the 12TET system, might begin dabbling with microtonality.
When I'm playing this
thing, I don't like to draw too much attention to those microtonal notes or it sounds quite wrong to
my ear.
Instead, I think of them as passing tones and chords or lines like [D] this.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
It's important to
note that even though we use a 12TET system, that doesn't mean that we never come [N] across these
microtonal notes.
The blues is filled with quarter tone bends that sound amazing, and whenever a
guitarist uses vibrato, they're bending their string in and around these microtones.
When I
realized this, I tried playing some cliched Blues Dad guitar story licks, and that really opened a
lot of what I personally can do with this.
_ [Bb] _ _ And _ [Eb] _
[Bbm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
that brings me to the part in the video [N] where I
give you the official Sammy G review on this guitar.
Part of me wishes that they just straight
up split every fret into two, but my understanding is that Stu McKenzie of King Gizzard based his
original microtonal guitar off of a Turkish Baglama, which uses a similar layout.
The other
guitarists in the band use the same system, and then Eastwood used that for what I'm pretty sure
is the first mass-produced microtonal guitar.
I have mixed feelings on this.
There are times when
I'm playing this guitar and I want to grab a note that's not there, like the quarter tone that would
be here.
However, since not every fret is split, I can still conceptualize this like a normal guitar.
I have seen pictures of guitars that have 24 frets in the octave, and it's totally overwhelming.
The
guitar sells for $1,200, which is a lot for a guitar made overseas.
The quality is acceptable,
but that wouldn't be the selling point at this price range.
My biggest complaint is that Eastwood
doesn't also make a microtonal bass, because if everyone in your band isn't using this system,
you're limited in the ways that you can incorporate this guitar.
To summarize, like every guitar I've
ever featured in this series, it's certainly not for everyone, but after I got over my initial
learning curve, I found myself thinking in ways that I've never thought before, which is one of
my favorite musical experiences.
Of all my weird guitars, this one challenged me the most, but it
was a challenge that I ended up thoroughly enjoying, and I can see myself continuing to
dabble with this in the future.
To wrap it up, here's a jam that I think encapsulates what I can
do best on this guitar.
[Em] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Em] _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [E] _
[Em] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ [B] _ _ [Bb] _ [B] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ [G] _ [B] _ _ [G] _ _
_ [C] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ [Abm] _
[A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [B] _ _ [Gm] _ [A] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Em] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ [B] _ _ [Bb] _ [G] [E] Ladies _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Em] and gentlemen, [E] there you have it, the [Gbm] Eastwood Hi-Flyer Phase 4
MT, an adventure [Ab] into microtonality.
I'd like to thank the [Bb] sponsor of today's video.
Over the last
couple [A] months, a lot of the revenue sources on YouTube got pandemic-ed pretty [B] hard, so make sure
[Eb] you check them out over at [E] www.samurai-guitar-theory.com, [A] and by [Gbm] them, I mean me.
I made [Db] these courses on
music theory, thinking about how a guitar player could learn this stuff from the ground up.
I wanted
to make the resource I wish I had when I was learning diatonic harmony, triads, the way [Ab] that
scales work, [D] modes, extended chords, and stuff like [Ab] that.
Make sure [A] that you're one of the first
hundred to use promo code MICROTONAL so you can get both [G] courses bundled together for the [Gbm] normal
price of one.
Thank you all for watching.
If you enjoyed this video, hit that like button and leave
me a comment.
If you want to get caught up in the series where I check out the world's weirdest
[Dm] guitars, hit that link [A] up there.
If you're new here, make sure you [Bm] subscribe.
Until next time,
_ [Ab] I'm SamuraiGuitarist, and I'll see you again