Music

Music

Music has been the counterweight to infrastructure work for as long as I can remember: something with immediate feedback, no rollbacks, no postmortems — just sound. This section collects what I play and how I play it.

5-String Bass

My main instrument is the 5-string electric bass. The extra low B string is what keeps me there: it extends the range downward without retuning, which matters in everything from soul and funk to modern worship and metal. A few things I care about when playing:

• The low B is a foundation, not a feature. It earns its place when used sparingly — a whole-note root under a chorus, a pedal tone through a bridge. Flogged constantly, it turns the mix into mud.
• Muting is the real technique. Five strings, two of them thick and prone to sympathize, mean the fretting and plucking hands both work as dampers. Clean low end is 80% muting discipline.
• String spacing and tension drive the feel. Wider spacing forgives fingerstyle; tighter spacing speeds up runs. Lower tension makes the B string speak faster but floppier — it is always a trade-off.
• Groove over notes. Nobody remembers the sixteenth-note fill; everybody remembers whether the pocket sat. I would rather play three confident notes in the pocket than ten impressive ones outside it.

Here is the fretboard with the pattern I use most — B minor pentatonic in first position:

B minor pentatonic in first position on a 5-string bass: B, D, E, F-sharp and A marked on the low E and B strings

And the same shape as a tab — two bars, straight eighths: B → D → E → A, repeated and resolved back to the root:

G|------------------|------------------|
D|------------------|------------------|
A|------------------|------------------|
E|------------5-----|------------------|
B|-0---3---5--------|-0---3---5---0----|

Music Theory

Everything above is one scale and two strings. The theory behind it:

• Open strings. B1 · E1 · A1 · D2 · G2 — the low B drops a fourth below the standard 4-string E, which is where the extra range comes from.
• One fret = one semitone. Intervals are distances you can measure with a finger: E→F# is two frets (a whole tone), E→G is three (a minor third).
• Minor pentatonic = 5 notes. Root, minor third, fourth, fifth, minor seventh. On B that is B · D · E · F# · A — no b2, no b6, nothing that fights the groove. It is the same five notes in every blues, funk, and metal song you have ever heard.
• Learn it on the B string first. The pattern above repeats in every key just by sliding the root. One shape, twelve keys.

For the producer side of theory — intervals, chord functions, and why a same-note bassline works under different chords — see Music Theory Fundamentals for Producers.

Six-String Guitar

Where it started: classical guitar on nylon strings, working through Heinz Teuchert's guitar school — note reading, apoyando strokes, and the discipline of playing alone and still sounding complete. The electric came later, and with it the other half of the vocabulary:

• Tárrega for the tremolo. "Recuerdos de la Alhambra" — one melody carried by the fastest tremolo in the repertoire, and the proof that patience is a technique. The Teuchert school pointed exactly here.
• From Hendrix to Kravitz. "Purple Haze" remains the masterclass: one chord (E7#9 — the "Hendrix chord"), a fuzz-drenched octave riff, and noise used as texture with total control. Lenny Kravitz proves the same lesson in song form — riff first, riff loud.
• B.B. King and the singing bend. The "B.B. box" — one compact position where major and minor pentatonic meet — plus Lucille: rarely chords, mostly single notes, vibrato from the wrist, every bend a syllable. Blues is vocabulary, not scale practice.
• ZZ Top for economy. Billy Gibbons reduces boogie to two strings and one attitude — proof that the space between the notes is part of the riff.
• Django Reinhardt for everything else. Two fully working fingers on the left hand, a caravan fire that should have ended the career — and instead "Minor Swing" and "Nuages": gypsy jazz as proof that limits are an input, not an output.
• Tommy Emmanuel for the right hand. Fingerstyle where the thumb keeps the bassline going while the fingers carry the melody — the bass player's logic, applied to a single instrument. Ongoing study, worth every hour.
• Standard tuning E A D G B e. Every open-chord key lives here. The shapes below are home base for rhythm playing in any style:

Six open guitar chords in standard tuning: E, A, D, G, C and E minor, with fretted, open, and muted string markers

For improvisation as a craft — chord melody, the ii–V–I everywhere, and transcription as practice — see Jazz Improvisation: Theory and Transcription Methods.

The instrument itself gets a three-part series:

• Part 1 — Body Shapes, Pickups, and the Amp Chain — the Big Four, what silhouettes encode, pickup technology, tone woods, amps
• Part 2 — The CAGED Fretboard — five shapes, chord tones, the pentatonic overlay
• Part 3 — Recording and DIY Setup — mics, DI, re-amping, and the workbench: relief, action, intonation

Production

Sketches and projects live in Ableton Live — bass tracking, drum programming, and the occasional synth line, mixed for headphones and practiced restraint. More on specific projects here as they become listenable.

More in This Section

• DUB Techno Production Workflow — from jam to arrangement in Ableton Live, AI-assisted via Ableton MCP Extended
• Electric Guitar, the series — body shapes & pickups, the CAGED fretboard, recording and DIY setup
• Jazz Improvisation: Theory and Transcription Methods — a practice-first approach to lines that resolve
• Music Theory Fundamentals for Producers — the intervals and chord logic every DAW user should own
• Novation Launchpad — clip launching and finger drumming on a 64-pad grid
• Harmonica — blow, draw, and bends on a diatonic C harp
• Cajón and Percussion — the box that keeps time with your body, not a click