The method for reading, playing and improvising music on tapping instruments.

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Object:

To imagine a musical object, and place it in its time, the rythm,  and space, the location on the instrument.

My Space:

The musician wants to play a note.
He converts this note into an interval from a given origin and places it in a given space.
Imagine that you wish to play the note E.
You convert E, into an interval, C-E. Knowing that C-E is a major third, you convert it into a motion in your space, from the point C, to the point E.
See the page on the C-dot concept.
My Space can then be adapted to larger objects as chords, or strings of events.
The method is particularly interesting for the stringed fretboards as guitars, tap-guitars and so on. The strings and frets are elements of an orthogonal network. Therefore the space can be divided in patterns which make the recognition of elements very easy.

Figure: Suppose a fretboard with strings tuned in ascending fourths towards the right. Two C-dots ( here in black) are fixed on the pitches C and its octave c.  Suppose you wish to find pitch, F. Knowing that F is a fourth upon C, you transform the fourth in a spatial motion. In this case, one step to the  right, same row. To find G, a fifth, one step to the right, two steps vertically.

My Time:

Similarly the musician places his object, for instance a note, in time. The time is measured not by counting, but by converting counts in visual signs. For instance, if the musician wants to count a bar of 3/4, he will not count 1, 2, 3. Instead he will count low, right, up. To put a note in a 3/4 meter, he will  place the note on a triangular ( three sides )  pattern .

Both space and time concepts form an intuitive aproach, however in a logical and mathematical environment.

History:

The method has been developed by Daniel Schell since 1980, when he started to be interested in the pedagogy of sight reading on the guitar or the tap-guitar. The method has been influenced by the methods of the classical music of course, but some elements borrowed from the mathematical world, brought some logic to it. Another influence on this method is the pedagogy of classical music from India which Schell has studied and taught for years. For instance the concept of tala in Indian music is an interesting blend of logic (the  metric), intuition (feeling were you are) and visualisation (the movements and various signs of the tabla player).

Further reading:

My Space My Time (for the tap guitar) . The practice of Indian Music.  see books.

Other Topics:

 

  Repeated notes:

This is an excerpt of My Space chapter 17:

 

Repeating notes is a source of problems for the tapper. If he plays repeated notes with one finger, he will create a dry or staccato sound. In order to obtain a nice legato sound, he will have to alternate fingers... PDF

 

  Tapping Indian :

 

 Follow this Link

 

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Copyright: My Space, My Time is a common name trademark of Clic Music, Belgium. It may be used freely by students, musicians and educators, but not for commercial purposes. Commercial companies should contact Clic Music prior to use.