Quote:
Originally Posted by rick-slo
That is all fine, but I really think the resistance you get, or lack of interest, on this overtone topic is that they are not very common or useful in actual tunes, not that they are hard to play. It's more of why bother.
Anyway, explore more on the forum. Lots of good knowledge, info, and talent here.
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I'm not trying to say it's hard (or harder than any other skill on the instrument), my point is actually to the contrary; as with anything else, it's simply a matter of practice and technique, I'm sure you'd agree. But other experienced players I have talked to have indeed expressed the sentiment that, forgetting about utility, it's simply impractical (to my surprise at the time). Maybe a good way of putting it would be that they perceived the usefulness to practicality ratio to be too low to warrant pursuit (it seems like you would agree with this even though you'd be coming at it from the other side). I, on one level, just wanted to show definitively that, at least as far as practicality is concerned, it's perfectly reasonable to be able to strike the higher harmonics with the same level of clarity as the lower ones.
More generally, the attitude of "why bother?," while understandable, is unsatisfactory to me. Whether the reason people don't pursue this area is because they find it not to be useful or because they find it too impractical/difficult is not the important point (in my opinion). It's not necessarily about the tones themselves but more about the knowledge that remains obscure if the effort is not made to access them. As an analogy, there's a lot of pure math that at first seems useless in the real world but proves to be vital downstream in physics years later.
Also, I wouldn't at all say that I'm experiencing resistance or lack of interest. Most people are usually very interested when I explain things properly. It's more that the topic is somewhat confusing at first because it has to do with things most people aren't used to. For example, believe it or not, I had the audacity of applying to a fairly prestigious post-graduate program using the clips above as the sole basis for my application material (I did this mostly as a lark, to see what would happen) and, whether you think rightly or wrongly, I just found out that I got in. However, if you've already mastered every harmonic (up to the eighth or higher) at every nodal position on the string as shown on the diagram, it makes sense if you're interpreting this as a trivial and/or inconsequential matter and my comments are likely irrelevant to you.