Braided Water

A live in the living room recording of one of my tunes from rehearsals for a show that was coming up. Philip Rampi on Bass, and Sage Harmos on Steel. Me on guitar, vocals, and sax.

Fourth of July by Peter Hutter | BandLab A live in the living room recording of one of my tunes from rehearsals for a show that was coming up. Philip Rampi on Bass, and Sage Harmos on Steel. Me on guitar, vocals, and sax. | Listen to music from Peter Hutter and follow their creative process on BandLab.

This is a long one... but a fun rabbit hole if you like this sort of thing... Aha... I think I've figured out the bottom line on transposing instruments. Our band members have been discussing it and I've been musing and reading... All woodwinds are based on the same key structure and pattern, basically a simple wood flute very much the same for example as what is commonly played in Irish music. At some point in time it was chosen that the middle finger down on the left hand would be the note C, and 3 left would be G. Essentially the only difference between any current woodwind (simply means uses a reed for the sound, or a way of splitting the air like in flutes/recorders/etc, body could be any material) and a wood flute, is the addition of keys, a little (fully keyed Irish flute) or a lot (clarinet, bassoon, etc) but the system is the same, and rather than move where C is on the instrument all over the place depending on where it falls in actual key, C is always 1 finger down on the left hand (is it always the middle finger on all woodwinds? Not sure, but it is on saxes). So, I can pick up a bass sax, or sopranino sax, and if I play middle finger down on my left hand, I'm playing a C to me, and according to written music for either instrument. The bass sax is in Bb, so I think I'm playing a C, but concert pitch it's a Bb. The sopranino is in Eb, so I think I'm playing a C, but concert pitch it's an Eb. Keeping the system consistent across woodwinds (and brass, more later) allows a player to switch and transfer the system relatively seamlessly, although there's usually a few quirks in a few different added/subtracted keys from one family to the next. From what I have read, in the development of clarinets for example, it was common the have them in C, Bb, and A, primarily in classical music for different key needs. Over time people tended towards a strong favor for Bb, primarily because the range was most pleasing to people. C tended to be a bit high and harsh at times, and A was a bit low while not being low enough to be the next range down. In trumpet the story is similar, there is a trumpet in C, but it's a bit high to most peoples ears compared to trumpet in Bb. From there you build instrument families based on 4ths and 5ths, and you end up with instruments in Eb and Bb. In the sax world, there is the less common "C" tenor and soprano, and these are non-transposing horns, so both play in C, and as far as I know are most commonly used in various folk music, ie traditional Swedish, etc. You would think being in C they would be adopted for more music and become the norm, but they just don't fit in the range that seems the most pleasing to the most ears, similar I think to vocal ranges of soprano, alto, tenor, etc, and so we stick with transposing instruments. I am much less familiar with brass, or cupped mouthpiece instruments, but the same general concepts apply, and the fi*****ng system is the same across them from tuba to piccolo trumpet, and remarkably similar to the fi*****ng pattern for the rt hand in woodwinds.

Coming to a theater near you… Over the next little while I will be focusing on the 12 string. Little journeys of exploration and explanation and demystification. Of course, there will be music! 

Topia Vana will be playing Jazz Fusion at Sapor (Friday Jazz with Topia Vana!) tomorrow night! If you saw us at Dandelion Botanicals a few weeks ago for the art opening where we played under the name "Untethered", we are the same band.

Wow. It's been nearly a month since I posted anything! The reason? I met 2 amazing musicians when we agreed to play an art opening together unrehearsed and having never met in person. And guess what? It went amazingly well! This is what can happen when you know how to listen, and you know your instrument! Out of that first session we formed a band, Topia Vana! I've been wrapped in rehearsing, arranging, and writing, but I'll be back posting more music teaching stuff soon.

La Vie En Rose/Something live in Port Angeles Topia Vana (Greek/Sanskrit - Place in the Forest) You know that place? Where stories begin? Topia Vana weaves together many musical rivers to bring us on a j...

Music can be a very powerful gateway to feeling. Sometimes I will hear a piece of music, and tears will come. It may be something I have never heard before, or it may be an old friend. There is always grief and sorrow in those tears, and sometimes there is also a kind of joy, and there are often tributaries of rivers behind those tears that lead to places of mystery I cannot name. It could be I am hearing in the notes the story of the struggles of the people who created this music, or wrote it, or maybe it’s what the music is pointing towards, the loss of a homeland, the longing for a lost loved one. Like a good poem, any music can point you very deftly towards something, with vocal or not, whether you speak the language or not. Those tears are telling me that this music is a doorway to something, like a mineral I have been missing, or something I need to know, to be a carrier of, or maybe that the song wants something from me? It could be a form of healing. It could be a remedy to keep my heart open, my soul supple enough to continue to be available for life. The Sufi’s say that if you haven’t wept recently, you may be in trouble spiritually. As I chart my own life, for me I find that this is true. To slightly turn Rumi’s words about poetry towards music would be to say, “If sounds do not reach the ear in the chest, nothing happens”.

3 of my favorite instruments, having a private conversation in the driveway. I think they're scheming on how I can play all 3 of them at once. Or maybe they're going to run off and form a band?

A short video introducing transposing on the alto sax, using the traditional song "The Claire Reel" as an example. Part of the Music in a Nutshell series from Braided Water.

Music in a Nutshell 19: The Claire Reel, Transposing on Alto Sax A short video introducing transposing on the alto sax, using the traditional song "The Claire Reel" as an example.

Demystifying the Saxophone: You look at a sax, and if you've never played one, and you're thinking you may want to, you likely think: "Wow. That's a lot of keys! I'm not sure I could ever learn to play that!"

Well, I'm here to tell you, it's really nothing more than an overly complicated bamboo flute. Not that bamboo flute is an easy instrument to master, with all the breath control, the tonalities, the bending of notes, and more. But looking at a bamboo flute, you think, well just cover the holes, and uncover them in order, and you can get a start, and it doesn't seem so daunting. The sax is the same. It just has keys to cover the holes because they're too big to cover with your fingers, and lots of extra keys to get you those pesky sharps and flats. Now I'm realizing a video is being called for, but this is where we'll start.