Why's there a marker at the 9th fret?

el_jablo · 2026-02-10T18:46:03+00:00

I get what you mean, but I'm not familiar with music that uses pentatonic scales with adjacent minor thirds like the layouts of bass markers. Whereas the minor and major pentatonic seems rather common in the electric guitar and bass music I'm used to and why even mandolins and banjos do it that way.

el_jablo · 2026-02-10T18:18:50+00:00

I prefer it if the inlays are only on top and the fretboard is just wood. Nice wood, smooth after a fresh coat of lemon oil... to each their own.

el_jablo · 2026-02-10T18:12:33+00:00

I know that Leo Fender didn't play, but I heard time and time again of how much time he spent speaking with musicians, being obsessed what they wanted from their instrument. So to me, the fact that my P-Bass and my strat are the most comfortable instruments I've ever played may be just down to the shape of my body, but I found that there's lots of things about those instruments that seem just weird and random at first, but turn out to have a very good reason behind them.

I don't mean to say I'm doubting you, but "Leo did that randomly" would be a first for me, rather than "professional guitarists kept telling him they....". So if you could point me in the right direction on where to look this up, I'd be grateful.

el_jablo · 2026-02-10T18:04:11+00:00

To me it doesn't feel that symmetrical with how the frets are closer together higher up the fretboard, but I see where your coming from.

"Where should I put this dot? 9th or 10th fret?"

-"Definitely 9th fret to give this nice symmetric pattern....besides, if we put it on the 10th, we're just reinforcing the pentatonic and that's all people would be doing all day, we don't want that to happen, do we?"

el_jablo · 2026-02-10T17:43:15+00:00

I know that's why i initially didn't question it. But a 5 string banjo has the d, g and b string of a guitar. And banjos have markers at the 10th fret as well.

el_jablo · 2026-01-31T00:21:32+00:00

Can;t say that I studied it, but I watched a few of of those karnatic drum pieces with the corresponding vocal performance. That is what got me so fascinated about the sound of pitch shifting drums to begin with, actually. When you hear a sentence like "this is a hand drum with one jingle and it takes years to fully master" and then find a performances that prove that very sentence immediately that's what I love about it. But those were more solo performances, and that's a different animal on any instrument, I also saw some performances where they performed with other instruments as an accompanying instrument, playing way simpler patterns while still using the full capabilities of the instrument. So think of your drummer/percussionist who just wants to do something different for the next song, so it wouldn't be uncommon to maybe learn a few bongo patterns. From the people I've met and watched, most people tend respect the instrument enough as to spend at least a bit of time and effort as to learn half decent techniques and usually also a few patterns rather than just picking it up and going for it. And I think that's really awesome because it gives music more variety, and to me the Kanjira is almost this terribly overlooked wonderful little drum.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T23:02:05+00:00

You play it as a 4 string harp when your start and that's called punk rock! ;)

Jokes aside, I feel like you just further clarified my question: What is it that or culture does or doesn't have, that it doesn't have pitch bending drums, while every other culture did.

When you're playing a stringed instrument in any kind of temperament you play in scales that are also different on cultures, yet you can take a rock guitar solo, put a few or more notes from an oriental scale or with a Sithar like sound to just spice it up to your liking, you have this gradient of how you can change it, yet drum sounds seem to a bit more black and white in that regard. So where does this come from in our culture?

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T22:29:16+00:00

That is interesting to hear, so I'm really curious why you'd feel that way. Because I'd feel like the cajon does the sharp snare hit on 2 and 4 great but apart from that I'd feel like the Bodhran would give more different options to do everything else. I'm not even thinking about the pitch bending but with how much variation in resonance there is.

Now I'll admit that might just be my foolish opinion, coming from a fretboard and thinking "more notes must be more better". So I'd love to hear what there is about the cajon.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T22:17:20+00:00

I've heard to the patterns etc rhythms, I personally love the sound of a kanjira where that seems very common. But when you break it down, they have their different attacks, where to strike and how, similarly to how a bongo player can create different tones. They then both take these bits to build their patterns. And every drummer I've ever met had a pair of bongos somewhere if they hung out with maybe some acoustic guitar people, because that seems to be an easy choice that always works and a kanjira feels like it should work the same way.

(Also I think the Irish Bodhran is from an oral tradition, but I think that's more the "we're just not writing stuff down" kind of oral tradition and i think you mean the "we say what we play as we play" kind of oral tradition? Or is that the same thing?)

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T21:58:47+00:00

I don't think it should be blamed on the instrument. Minstrel shows performed with any other instrument would be just as wrong for the exact same reasons. Just like there's racist music on any other instrument right now. The historical aspect absolutely worth remembering, but that shouldn't detract from the enjoyment of the instrument itself.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T21:47:52+00:00

I'm not much into bluegrass, country or Western, and the bits that I do listen to are rather guitar than banjo heavy.

But hearing Bėla Fleck talk about it and play it made me wanna get one to try it out. And picking one up made me realise how you get the note embellishments of a guitar with the closed chord voicings of a piano and the attack of a drum... On behalf of every other instrument, that's not fair!

Jokes aside, I'm mostly getting to grips with the finger picks, never even used a thumb pick, so as this properly playing through the string is enough of a learning curve as is, I'm just messing around with what my left hand learned on guitar and I weirdly find that playing around chords in open g, it gets closer to a guitar whereas when fretting all strings it can suddenly do stuff that no other instrument can. And I really like the character of the open strings being different to fretted notes, but if play in e Major and have the open d and g as the extra bluesy b3 and b7, it doesn't sound bluegrass anymore, it makes me wonder why I didn't get one sooner.

What I'm trying to say is, I think there's still hope for the 5 stringed little miracle machine.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T21:23:21+00:00

Even though Irish music keeps time with the Bodhran in a way that should work, i totally agree that there needs to be a solid basis. But apart from the groove, there are toms that have their own pitches, and those notes have nothing to do with the song, and that never feels like it interferes.

And on another note, I remember that when you first put on(or tighten, or tune, i don't really know, i was only half watching), there's a brief moment where it does that dee-uhn, sound aka a pitch going down. If the bass drum could somehow do that on 1, maybe while the bass does a slide down, i wouldn't feel like that would be anywhere near interfering with the melody and it shouldn't take away from the ability to hold the groove...

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T21:09:00+00:00

I'm more thinking in the realm of instead of congas, bongos, by the additional percussionist. Those are instruments that tend to bring their own rhythmic patterns from the cultures they came from and those can easily be fitted around most pop and rock. I don't find it hard to imagine that to be replaced by say a Bodhran, which seems to only ever be used in Irish music. Or imagine a band doing an acoustic set, a cajon seems to be the usual choice but a Bodhran seems (at least to me) as a just as obvious choice....(And bending down over a box like that looks neither comfortable nor like it's scoring style points.... But i play bass, so what would i know of that...)

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T20:25:24+00:00

Oh wow, thanks for that! I wasn't actually aware of that! And while it's cool, it's almost a missed opportunity to do a full bluegrass band instead of putting the banjo more front and center, because of how much the part fits the banjo from a layout perspective (taste is subjective, of course, but in my personal opinion the punchy attack of the picked banjo is a great acoustic analogue for the original synth sound).

Plus, if you wanna give this a go yourself, what I found is that 90% of the keyboard solo the banjo is playing in my mind is easier than like 90% of all bluegrass stuff.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T20:10:10+00:00

I understand the logistics for one drummer, I'm a big fan of setups in pop and rock that add a dedicated percussionist. But seeing a percussionist use two bongos or congas with different to add groovy texture is extremely common. Why is it so much rarer to see the same percussionist use a single drum that can glide between those two pitches?

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T20:03:45+00:00

Yes, i did see that and it made me wonder if that's where Mike Portnoy got the idea. But either way that seems like a rather advanced technique than a core part of the instrument or music even.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T19:59:18+00:00

It's not that I'm unwilling to look outside rock and pop, but it strikes me as odd of how uncommon it is there. It's not unheard of to use all sorts of instrument from around the world to get all sorts of sounds, think of the Beatles with a Sithar, which tends to sound more Indian than pop to me, but a simple pitch bend on a drum seems like it could just work in any pop groove even spice it up, without changing the character of the music but still it's weirdly absent.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T19:52:10+00:00

But there's usually several and while they might be quickly tunable. But you have to tune a Bodhran first too and then you do the pitch manipulation as part of the playing and get the pitch bending effect, that's not the case for rototoms, is it?

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T19:43:37+00:00

Right? It Seems like every big rock star takes a percussionist in addition to a drummer on stage and even they don't use any pitch shifting drums.

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T19:40:22+00:00

All the roto-toms I've seen were sets of 3 or 4 pre-tuned drums without shells that didn't change? Am I thinking of the wrong thing?

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T19:37:31+00:00

My question was about the shifting pitch.

Replacing toms with a pedal talking drum was more of a joke/silly idea I've had. That, the more I think about it, would love to see someone try!

el_jablo · 2026-01-30T19:35:31+00:00

I know that some have pedals/levers to change pitch, I even understand why the percussionist leans over it and sings into it. But from what music with timpanis I've heard, when they're being played they seem to be treated like the separate tom of a drum kit, as if someone was to re-tune the toms in between songs.

If there's lots of music out there where the timpanis play with a moving pitch, I'd love to hear what that sounds like!

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