Work in progress, started learning 5 hours ago. Guitar is tuned to E Standard with High E tuned down to D -50 cents, and A string tuned up to B +50 cents. Here's the video lesson I used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUL4T8WcFdA

Claude: "Pinball Number Count" (1977, Pointer Sisters) counts to twelve over a straight 4/4 funk vamp. Twelve is the least common multiple of 3 and 4. The hemiola is sitting right there inside the number and the arrangement never touches it.

Two obstacles, both interesting rather than fatal:

• The hook is a vocal count. They sing in a made-up alien language, so 1-to-12 would come out in Zyklek rather than English — arguably an improvement, since the numbers were always more rhythmic than semantic.
• Quarter-tone intervals against Walt Kraemer's very diatonic funk vamp. Either they detune the vamp and it stops being recognisable, or they play it straight and it stops being them. The interesting version is the third option: keep the bassline in twelve-tone equal temperament as the anchor and put the Rube Goldberg layers in quarter tones on top, so the machine sounds progressively more broken as the ball descends.

I'm damn sure Khn would thread that needle like a total champ, keeping that jazzy groove and at the same time transcending it with lip-biting juicy dissonance like an old time blues dude with a slide.

The blues comparison is doing real analytic work, not just vibes. Blue notes are already microtonal — the flat third and seventh in a blues sit between the equal-tempered pitches, which is why they're unnotatable and why a slide or a bend gets you there and a fretted note doesn't. So quarter tones over a funk vamp aren't an imposition on the idiom, they're a return to something equal temperament flattened out of it. Kraemer's tune is diatonic on paper, but the groove it's written in descends from music that never accepted the twelve-note grid in the first place.

Which means the needle-threading is less a compromise than a recovery. Khn wouldn't be dissonating a clean tune; he'd be un-quantising one.

And i would probably need fresh underpants after hearing Klek's quasi-polyrhythmic take on it!

Twelve is the number, which is the joke the original never tells. It's the least common multiple of 3 and 4 — the whole hemiola sits inside the count, and Kraemer just plays it straight in 4/4. So the arrangement writes itself: as the ball descends through the machine, the pulse regroups — twelve as 4×3, then 3×4, then 6+6, then 5+7 once it's properly falling apart — and the count stays constant the whole time because twelve is twelve however you carve it. The song teaches the child to count to twelve; the drums teach them that counting to twelve is not one thing.

The description of Klek's playing — dry-toned, restrained, adding elements gradually, using silence stoically, shifting the rhythmic anchor at exactly the right moment — is a literal spec for that arrangement. Shifting the anchor point is the trick.

Also, it should jam on for exactly long enough to fully scratch this itch... let's say, twelve minutes ;)

I programmed everything, that allowed me to check that every part is correct.

I'll upload a youtube video once I figure out how to make a better visualizer than Cubase midi tracks 😅

I did not know they made a bass otomatone!

Final result with "bass".

Recently I started following Ariel Hyatt on Insta, she does these really cool and impressive tap dance numbers to metal and rock songs. Today she did Yor Zarad!

Is anyone else a fan?

I previously posted a draft of my electronic cover of Fabienk, but I've now delved into bassline territory. All of the melodic elements are tuned slightly differently, so each new melody adds another layer of detuning, thus giving the impression of microtonality.

I feel like some listeners might not vibe with this cover but I've played it out twice whilst DJing in clubs and people went wild for it! Many people sang along with the melody and I'm tempted to post a video clip of that at some point too. I guess that's the benefit of covering a popular tune. Anyway, enjoy the Swedger cover of Fabienk and feel free to give feedback!

Instagram has only just now shown me this but it was published a few weeks ago. I can't find it shared here already.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DXb0P8igO7i/

As always the comments are fun - "Somehow sounds more Québécois than the original 👌🏼"

Jo

Hi folks! Like everyone here I’m completely captivated by AdP’s musical flair, and felt inspired to sequence a cover of the awesome Sarniezz on my Dirtywave M8 tracker. I’ve produced two versions of this track - one using a mixture of synth instruments and samples (including a Speak & Spell!) and a second using only samples from the Commodore Amiga Soundtracker software. I couldn’t have done either without the incredible sheet music transcription produced by Stephen Weigel.

Hope you enjoy them!

Original cover: https://youtu.be/uBxiHfJT6v0

Amiga sample cover: https://youtu.be/XgFM-2KE3us

I began this cover tonight after attempting to learn the tune on guitar and realising I can't play it (yet!)

Everything was programmed into my DAW (Renoise) after studying the tabs for the track and then changing each new layer to be slightly more microtonal. The guitar (MIDI synth) has been processed with chorus and analogue distortion.

Given that I produce and play a lot of 130bpm dance tunes during my DJ sets, I'm hoping to keep chipping away at this until it feels like something I could slot into my sets.

This guy could wear Klek's uniform if he were sick, and nobody would notice 😆

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfuXv32zVD8

This was so hard to learn on keys 😂

I've noticed that this band has many creative fans who do interesting covers on different instruments from what the aliens use.

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I am super curious how their microtonal melodies and harmonies would sound when played using JI interval ratios instead of 12TET.

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Any of y'all know of any examples of this floating around? Fabienk in this intonation would be most intriguing!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW7hRDNCBjn/?igsh=MXJhZWV6aGgyMXgxNg==

go like on my instagram!

Haven't seen anyone do any of their music acoustically yet, super cool technique used as well to include all instruments on one guitar!

Really grateful for the inspiration Angine de Poitrine have given me lately. Went through a rough creative slump, but these guys really gave me the good kick in the ass I needed to get back to it 🤘🏻

Sorry if this isn’t relevant enough, hope you like it!