We Jammin'. We Are The Underground

Music

2026-05-01T18:38:38Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth: Music

Music is a performing art based on patterned sounds. It includes both musical instruments and singing, together or separately. All known human cultures make music, so that creates tremendous variety. Here on Dreamwidth, check out beautifulmechanical, onesongaday and tfc_musicianships.

This is part of my Three Weeks for Dreamwidth series about becoming an expert by writing three books on a topic. It has links to lots of books about music.

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May Monthly Post

2026-05-01T18:35:55Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the May community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during April? What plans do you have for May?

April anchor posts include:

brand favourites: g & l

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Brand Favourites: G & L

2026-04-04T05:46:00Z

Posted by: gothfvck

Is anyone else aligned with a certain brand?

I root for G & L because it was Leo Fender's and George Fullerton's last venture; last incarnation. Leo kept iterating and improving on guitar technology his entire life. Whenever someone brings up, or brings out, a Fender. I always mention G & L.

First was Fender, which was sold to CBS and is now Fender Music Instrument Company. That's where he came out with the classics. Stratocaster. Telecaster. Jazz bass. Percussion bass. Then, he was with Music Man. Which borned the Stringray -> Kiloton. Then finally G & L which was eventually left to his wife who left it with their lifelong friends that continue the legacy.

Back in 1999 I started playing with a Made in Mexico Fender: Jazz bass. It was pretty good. At some point I got to try out a Squire: Percussion bass. I didn't like that one as much. It sounded flat; dull. In the early 00's I bought a 5-string Ibanez: Soundgear 305DX. That one was pretty cool but, it wasn't really my thing. Ultimately, I sold both of those then when I needed a bass for my old band to get back together for a one off show, I decided it was appropriate to find a good jazz bass again.

It didn't take very long for me to find the G & L: MJ-4. Lucky me, I found one of the USA models on sale at a small shoppe. This bass blows my old one out of the water. The feel. Tuning stability. Sustain. Sound with hum canceling pickups and preamp that boosts the low mids just right. They put the bass and treble in good spots, too. It's as if they know how bass is supposed to sit in a mix with a full band. lol.

Check out the Fallout bass as well if you're curious about short scales. Especially if you don't want one that looks or feels like a tiny toy of a bass. Engage that OMG Mode and you'll effectively get a phat low end boost.

If you're looking for one end all, be all bass that isn't a boutique custom made instrument... Or something to try out different sounds with, definitely look into the L-2500. Two humbuckers that can be coil split for a pseudo J-bass sound, run in parallel, or in series. You can modify it to add a capacitor to give it an OMG Mode that pushes less highs through one half of the pickups. If you're a serious beginner or a pro, I recommend this.

The MFD -- magnetic field design -- pickups are really cool. They have a large magnet on the bottom. They've got the highest output of any passive pickup and sound great. Huge, bold, aggressive-when-you-want-it tone. Now they've got MFD jazz pups. Still waiting for those to be sold separately. I may replace a few of my others with those. Or maybe not and I'll just learn how to make pickups myself with the specs & features I want. MFD's are available in guitars as well.

Why I'm writing this is partially because I truly believe they are better than the mass produced stuff the big corporation that uses his last name is pumping out. I was to support what seems to me like an underdog. This is something I believe to be unfair. Not to mention that the instruments are very reasonably priced considering they're made in the US. Even the Tribute line only has bodies & necks manufactured overseas. The electronics & QC are done in Fullerton, CA.

No, I am not (at the time of this writing) endorsed by them. Though, I am not by any means against it. However, they'd have to make 8 (10) and 12 (15)-string multi-course basses and basses with 7-strings (extended range two below + one above) if they don't want me using anyone else's on stage. :P

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Moment of Silence: Country Joe McDonald

2026-03-09T04:30:36Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

Singer and songwriter Country Joe McDonald has passed away. Among other accomplishments, he is famous for the "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die-Rag" at Woodstock, on record, and elsewhere.

Carry on the Work:

Guitar -- how to articles from wikiHow

Hippie Culture

How to Be a Singer Songwriter: 15 Steps (with Pictures)

Music Occupations -- how to articles from wikiHow

Musical Instruments -- how to articles from wikiHow

Singing -- how to articles from wikiHow

Social Activism -- how to articles from wikiHow

Songwriting -- how to articles from wikiHow

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March Monthly Post

2026-03-01T06:21:06Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the March community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during February? What plans do you have for March?

February anchor posts include:

Music

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Music

2026-02-20T00:29:36Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

Enjoy some music about spring.

( Read more... )

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February Monthly Post

2026-02-01T06:16:14Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the February community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during January? What plans do you have for February?

January anchor posts include:

rocking in the new year

q: your favourite occult bands?

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Q: Your Favourite Occult Bands?

2026-01-27T22:14:48Z

Posted by: gothfvck

airic just posted in the_magick_circle asking about your favourite bands with occult themes.

(X-post)

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Poem: The Sound of Celebration

2025-12-06T18:29:09Z

Posted by: gothfvck

Commissioned and written by ysabetwordsmith

In all cultures around the world,
music is the sound of celebration --

horns blowing, strings strumming,
drums beating, flutes trilling,

hands clapping, feet stomping,
tongues singing, bodies swaying

to the rhythm that binds everyone
together with strands of joy.

Music is a universal human expression, even though instruments and topics vary across cultures

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December Monthly Post

2025-12-01T07:57:30Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the December community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during November? What plans do you have for December?

November anchor posts include:

naahhhhh

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November Monthly Post

2025-11-01T08:11:49Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the November community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during October? What plans do you have for November?

October anchor posts include:

only the dead

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Only The Dead

2025-10-20T04:28:03Z

Posted by: gothfvck

In candlelight of everyone we've lost, let's create one thread to honour everyone.

Seriously, we've been losing legends more than an amature loses piks! 😣

( Obituart list... )

Comment with any thoughts or stories pertaining to musicians that have gone on to better venues.
Let's compile a list and add a few links to sites that are doing the same.

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Rename!

2025-10-06T04:05:11Z

Posted by: beavertech

I found "musicians" to be too generic and boring. What do you guys think of the new name? FrEQ_Tweakicians

If it isn't obvious, it's supposed to be a play on "freak" and equalization and musicians tweaking knobs of [I]all[/I] sorts!

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Music

2025-09-10T23:20:18Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This flash mob put on a complex performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

It reminds me very much of the "musical dimension" -- the world in which people naturally, spontaneously form into teams for song and dance routines. People here are just using prosthetic technology to substitute for whatever energy phenomenon allows that in Musical Land. :D

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Proposition to MOD Audio for maci-manitowi-kitohcikan

2025-09-09T05:38:56Z

Posted by: gothfvck

Below is a copypasta of my proposition to the Lead of MOD Audio.

How about both? Let the free software community handle the bulk of the software side of things while forming a Social Purpose Corporation to build and sell the hardware.

If not an SPC, perhaps a B Corp, or co-operative and see if you can team up with Zythian and Synthstrom. I suppose an SPC could be run alongside a larger retail co-op that represents multiple companies. It depends on how everyone wants to play together and be represented.

I think the afforement entities are in other parts of the world. Synthstrom is in AUS and Zynthian is in the UK, IIRC. So, a Turtle Island (USA) corp would be more of an official "licensee", other contenient manufacturer for their products. Which would be cool, I think.

note:
I nearly forgot to mention Passingwind! They make open source preamps and some other stuff.

Maybe even reach out to the guy behind AV Linux and the teams behind Ubuntu Studio and Fedora Jam.

It'd really be something to get all the music related free software groups to unify under a non-profit and help each other out a bit more. Parallel to that, the hardware makers could get together to sell a full suite of products that run the software.

Personally, I'd go in on forming a SPC. I've wanted to start a First Nations musical instrument making company similar to Native Audio is for pedals but, mainly with guitars, basses, and touchstyle (i.e. Chapman Stick) instruments and accessories. I realize you're non-Native but, that's okay. lol.

I was planning on waiting a few more years before seriously seeking anyone else to embark on this venture with. It should definitely wait until 2026 before filling any paperwork, for tax reasons.

Some of the reasons I'd like to do this are
1) I don't have a 1:1 copy of any of my basses or guitars and I want to modify the nuts off of them. This would be probably the best way to build my own "Signature Collection".
2) Many tribes are historically known to have good woodworkers and craftspeople. I want to continue that and raise NDNs up with me. It's something that can be done at home or a workshop could be set up on nearly any rez. It'd be dope to have people all across Turtle Island building for us. Especially with rent these days, if we could eliminate spending thousands a month on a warehouse to create this stuff.....
3) Simply to share our cultures
4) I want to work for myself and diversify my income between this, a clothing/et. al. company, music studio, and social network -- the latter will definitely cost money and not be profitable for a long time but it goes hand-in-hand with the other things and is a primary focus
5) I think the most realistic way to do this is to team up with a number of other people and jumpstart off already existing products and projects.
666) my day job pays alright and I don't have a house or demonspawn to hemmorage my bank account.

https://forum.mod.audio/t/mod-is-at-a-crossroads-and-needs-your-input/8340/324?u=mister_gothfvck

P.S. Working name: maci-manitowi-kitohcikan
https://itwewina.altlab.app/word/maci-manitowi-ipv/
https://itwewina.altlab.app/word/kitohcikan/
The Devil's Instruments
🤘🏼👹🎸
AKA MM'K

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Propositions Written to MOD Audio

2025-09-02T01:42:34Z

Posted by: gothfvck

Here's just a copypasta of what I wrote on MOD Audio's forum.

( jam on... )

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September Monthly Post

2025-09-02T01:27:09Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the September community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during August? What plans do you have for September?

August anchor posts include:

Your go to effects pedal maker?

Music

Three acceptable kinds of gear

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Three Acceptable Kinds of Gear

2025-09-01T02:59:33Z

Posted by: gothfvck

The way I see it is there are really two ways of doing effects pedals with another being a hybrid of them.

1) Fully analogue with proper MIDI.
This is the old fashioned, diodes and transistors, way of building electronics. Get out your soldiering iron and multimeter.

There are inherent flaws and variance in quality control that lead to each unit being minutely different. This is more-or-less imperceivable but, sometimes there is a little "something" that a person might prefer with one unit over another. Perhaps one compressor just does something a little sweeter than another despite having all the same settings.

In any other industry this would be considered a bad thing but, musicians get all hot and bothered when a person brings up analogue equipment. Something about those tubes that just gets a guy going.

Never mind how digital is technically better because it's more transparent and accurate. lol. But, I digress.

This variety of pedals, rack gear, etc, are get to specialize in doing one thing. All the knobs and sliders at the ready to tweak any and everything.

It's great because the worthwhile ones are built to last and are generally going to be repairable. They're made with tangible components that people can buy. No programing or flashing of firmware required. No software upgrades or artificial degradation or subscriptions. One just owns it and can potentially make modifications to it.

2) Digital multi-effects units.
The only one that I know of here that I would consider viable is the Dwarf by MOD Audio. That is because it's totally free/open source.

All of the others will eventually stop working and there's not much that can be done as it's proprietary software running on who knows what. Unless the key people behind the products have contingency plans in place, everything dies with them or the company.

Maybe someone else out there could reverse engineer and make a clone but, it's the same problem without releasing the code, schematics, and parts list. It's also a matter of upgrading to new chips and porting over.

Every one of these also has arbitrary limitations whereas the MOD Audio: Dwarf does not. The Synthström: Deluge doesn't really either. That's an open source sequencer.

The Dwarf handles all kinds of effects via plugins, amp sims, cab IRs. It has a looper, noise generators, metronome, LCO, compressors, EQs, synths, and you name it. With whatever virtual routing you can imagine.

Plus, it's possible to run via a USB drive on your computer.
The GUI to configure everything is browser based. There's a local HTML5 file to access everything on the Dwarf. This ensures it's cross-platform.

3) The UNIX Way
Have you figured out the in-between, yet? Take a selection of digital effects and perhaps some others to alter the "wet" effects-only and let each pedal excel at what it does.

Basically like what (closed-)Source Audio does. They make most effects and ultities that exist and do it well. Proper MIDI, stereo i/o, presets, expression, and an app to test out presets and tweak things with. Like MOD Audio, they have a community that makes presets and shares them.

I have a couple of their pedals so far. They're touted as being the best yet, they also are barely profitable. Plenty on the used market. If I won the lottery, I'd buy enough of the company and release the source code for the effects and for the apps. Among other things I'd like to see but, that's for another day.

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Music

2025-08-23T00:23:21Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

My Noise has a bunch of new soundscapes that you can play with. Some are purely nature, others have musical effects. The Uganda one has a pretty good drum track.

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August Monthly Post

2025-08-01T09:00:12Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the August community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during July? What plans do you have for August?

July anchor posts include:

music related blogs

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Music Related Blogs

2025-07-07T05:54:18Z

Posted by: gothfvck

Here's a list of around two dozen music related blogs, and counting!
These are in no particular order. I let LibreWolf open up this entire section of bookmarks and I'm going throw in the order it gave me, which might be in the order of which I stumbled upon them. lol
Please add some others that you're aware of.

( Here's the list... )

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July Monthly Post

2025-07-01T08:41:18Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

This is the July community post for tfc_musicianships. What concerts or other events have you attended? Which musical instruments have you played? What songs have you been listening to? What musical industry news have you heard? What were your other musical activities during June? What plans do you have for July?

June anchor posts include:

CD Players & Such In 2025

Sing It Loud, Sing It Proud

My First Pluck

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CD Players & Such in 2025

2025-06-25T10:05:54Z

Posted by: gothfvck

Yup. A few weeks ago I bought a new portable CD player. It's got some pretty good features and sounds pretty good. Maybe it doesn't have a trendy audiophile DAC and the anti-skip protection brings CDs to lossy quality but, it does have BT5.1 and two 3.5mm headphone outputs w/ FM radio and even will read MP3s from a 64GB microSD card. For the price, it's a good value.

It's great walking around town or even the house with a CD player in my pocket or in it's case hanging from my belt loop. Generally, I've always got the wire connected.

( Have a listen... )

Xposted in my own journal.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

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Sing It Loud, Sing It Proud

2025-06-21T22:03:10Z

Posted by: ysabetwordsmith

I compiled some musical resources for Pride Month...

( Read more... )

This could use tags for Holiday and Recommendations.

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My First Pluck

2025-06-15T23:37:15Z

Posted by: gothfvck

Waaaayyyy back around the turn of the century when people were fretting about Y2k, I was told that we were moving and he was going to start jamming with his friend, Garrett. I was handed a 90's Fender* Jazz bass (made in Mexico) and a book or two and shown some basic technique. All within a 2min period.

A few weeks after we did, I was told to go downstairs and play along. I was shown a few riffs and tried to keep up using this pathetic 50watt practice amp. The drummer was always very loud and the guitarist had a proper 2x 4x12 set up with a 100+ watt Crate amp head. Which has since fried and replaced with something that I forget but, it also sounded good with the band during our final practice.

Fast forward a year or so and we've got an album's worth of songs. Those two alternated between vocals and people I went to school with, along with their older siblings, regularly attended practice. After trying out this one pipsqueek we got someone who could handle the position of primary vokillist.

It only took a few months before he learned all the songs and we began recording the first album, entitled Step Down. Oh, the name of the band, after much brain storming and lame ideas -- none of which I remember, was Curb Jaw.

More and more people were coming to band practice every Saturday. They'd bring money, whoever could afford to, and we'd order pizza for everyone. We also practiced Tuesday nights for a long time. Our first show was in somebody else's basement with a bunch of other bands. We scared them because we were actually good and heavy thus, our set got cut short. lol.

We were the first local band to draw a huge crowd at Looney Tunes in West Babylon, NY. We played open mic night at The Downtown in Farmingdale (RIP). That's where we met Mike with El Diablo Productions who gave us some good shows. Eventually In The Pit Productions was born.

Circling back.
I really only wrote a few songs, musically or lyrically. My mother wrote most of the first album and contributed to some degree on the other(s). However, over time everything I played changed from what the guitarist played and naturally found it's own, proper place, between the guitar(s) and drums.

I don't have any idea what my first amp was. After we started playing out, I was given -- I think I went to the store to check out a few, an Ampeg BA115. 100watts. Which, still wasn't enough. lol. We tweaked the settings a bit and found some decent sounding stuff. Usually, it was just set to whatever sounded the loudest. Oh, sorry, I should use the buzz phrase "cut through the mix".

Later on I bought a 5-string Ibanez Soundgear 305x from one of my buddies. I didn't know what to do other than have an extra string on top that I didn't use but, it was silver and looked cool.

Another guy, years later, sold me a 1983-ish Peavy Mark IV, I believe it was. A huge solid state amp + speaker cabinet. The thing weighed more than I did and usually took two people to bring it up and down the stairs.

Neither of these were ever used on any albums. You can find more information on CJ over at my Listography or buy some tracks or simply tip me to support my current and future endeavors such as re-visioning and re-recording all the old stuff!

What's really neat is a long time ago someone put me on the Encyclopaedia Metallum

P.S. My icon is my signature and yes, it has signed cleavage.

Feel free to ask me questions here. I will probably use them to create new posts. You guys should write your intros as your own new posts!

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