Tubular Balls

November 1, 2012 12:16 PM

Ready for another awesome MeFi Music collaboration? November's Music Challenge is to create a MeFi version of Tubular Bells. Please drop by and overdub something, and make sure to announce your instrument in true Tubular Style.
posted by unSane to MetaFilter Music at 12:16 PM (30 comments total)

(And if you need any help on the technical side of things, just ask. We may even be able to arrange some recording sessions).
posted by unSane at 12:17 PM on November 1, 2012

I do not encourage you to listen to the full 4'23" of unSane's backing track. It is not healthy for your, well, sanity.
posted by Curious Artificer at 12:35 PM on November 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

Seriously, how did you even play it for that long?
posted by Curious Artificer at 12:38 PM on November 1, 2012

Thank God for looping midi tracks.
posted by unSane at 12:39 PM on November 1, 2012

> Please drop by and overdub something

This really should be a standard custom among friends and family.
posted by Burhanistan at 12:43 PM on November 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

Neat idea!

But 7/8-9/8? Is that accurate? Wouldn't that just be common time? Sounds more like 7/4-4/4-4/4 to me.

Also, there seems to be an extra 7/4 bar in the backing track every 30 seconds.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:55 PM on November 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, sorry, you're right. It's 3 bars of 7/8 followed by one bar of 9/8. My mistake. The track is right, it's just my recollection of what I did that's wrong!
posted by unSane at 2:10 PM on November 1, 2012

(Thanks for picking this up -- it could really have confused people, including me)
posted by unSane at 2:12 PM on November 1, 2012

Now all I have to do is explain to my wife why I'm learning Tubular Bells on the 5-string banjo.
posted by unSane at 2:41 PM on November 1, 2012

Good god, I thought you meant Carol of the Bells and I was like, why on earth, why on earth...
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:22 PM on November 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

That's next month!
posted by unSane at 3:27 PM on November 1, 2012 [4 favorites]

The track is right

I still don't think it is. See 0:30, 1:00, 1:30 etc.: There's three 7/4's (or six 7/8's, if you prefer counting fast) in a row. That shouldn't be happening, right? I think maybe you made the loop a bar (or two, if you prefer counting fast) too long.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:35 PM on November 1, 2012

Oh, damn, you're right. Well spotted. That's what you get for trying to loop three bars of 7/8 and one of 9/8 in Studio One. It doesn't duplicate the time sig changes and then bumps the duplicated section to the start of the nearest bar of the wrong time signature. Solution: I converted it all to 30/8 (MADNESS) and redid it. I'll memail PB and ask him to replace the file.

30/8. I ask you. That fucking riff is like an icepick in my brain now.
posted by unSane at 4:14 PM on November 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

What is going on with the score to this thing? I don't get how he is scoring a bar of 5/4 in the bass beneath a bar of 9/8 and showing it as lining up. That doesn't make sense, right? Or am I like totally missing something?
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:37 PM on November 1, 2012

Also, I can almost not hear any little repeating riffs in odd meters like this and not think of Fire Dance, which is unfortunate.
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:38 PM on November 1, 2012

I'm assuming that he's using that weird notation as meaning that the bar is sliced into 9 beats in the treble and five beats in the bass, so almost a 9-against-5 polyrhythm. I don't know what the standard way of notating that would be, something hideous I imagine.

The whole way the time is notated is very strange -- for example, there's that section supposedly in 3/4 where there's a descending chord sequence, but nothing is actually playing in 3/4. The piano is playing in something like 15/8 and the bass is all over the place. It's a nightmare.
posted by unSane at 5:00 PM on November 1, 2012

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. Tubular Gangnam Style Bells coming right up.
posted by jbickers at 6:13 PM on November 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

It is really super horrible how they've lined up the bar lines, rather than lining up the notes and having the bar lines float. That's some crazy nonsense.

And besides, there's really no logical reason they couldn't have just written both lines in the same time signature. It's piano notation, presumably to be performed by a single individual, yeah? One person, one rhythm; syncopation be damned.

I shudder to think how this guy might transcribe a basic bossa nova beat.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:23 PM on November 1, 2012

In other MeMu news, flapjax at midnight created a masterpiece for the It Gets Better challenge.
posted by chrchr at 8:48 PM on November 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

What an awesome idea. But it's going to be stuck in my head for a week, now.

Must... exorcise it
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 11:09 PM on November 1, 2012

Thanks, chrchr! Last month's Challenge didn't get much love, unfortunately. Wonder how the whole Mefi 'It Gets Better' video project will go... These things have a way of being really enthusiastically greeted when first announced, but then, all too often, kinda petering out shortly after. Hope that won't be the case this time!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:03 AM on November 2, 2012

If someone could do a bit where the instrument is Alan Rickman's voice, sampled, I would be much amused. ho HO ho-ho, ho HO ho-ho | ho HO ho-ho, ho HO ho-ho ho
posted by fleacircus at 4:35 AM on November 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Now I'm thinking about Tubular Carol of the Bells.
posted by unSane at 4:55 AM on November 2, 2012

Tubular southern belles?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:13 AM on November 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure Carol of the Bells will fit over it nicely. (With a bit of jiggering to get it into 7/8)
posted by unSane at 6:47 AM on November 2, 2012

Tubular southern belles?

In tube tops.
posted by maryr at 7:37 AM on November 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've discovered that one should never imagine the lyrics of MeFi favorite Jingle Rock Bell set to Tubular Bells. It's how the devil gets in.
posted by painquale at 10:24 AM on November 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh God, I remember trying to transcribe this out (with a midi editor) many years ago, I don't remember at what point I went mad.
posted by TwoWordReview at 2:04 PM on November 2, 2012

Last month's Challenge didn't get much love, unfortunately.

I really wanted to do a thing for it, and sketched some stuff out, but I didn't really have the time to give it the attention it deserved and I really didn't want to do something half ass. Your piece is beautiful though and really fitting. If the video doesn't get off the ground, it won't be for lack of a theme song.
posted by chrchr at 3:41 PM on November 2, 2012

I also did a bunch of work on it, but couldn't make it work. Part of it became a song about something else entirely. Unfortunately that's the way it goes sometimes.
posted by unSane at 5:55 PM on November 2, 2012