Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2008 November 22

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November 22

Seven Seconds

What does it refer to in this beautiful song: [1]? Thanks for comments. --Omidinist (talk) 06:45, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

see 7 Seconds (song). Nanonic (talk) 13:53, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Nanonic. How could I forget to look under my nose! --84.241.40.56 (talk) 15:10, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Oops, I misread that as Seventeen Seconds - different kind of music entirely. Rmhermen (talk) 00:01, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

How to use thumb to fret low E and mute the A string on a guitar?

I am trying to learn to do this. Whenever I do, it makes it impossible to properly use my fingers to fret the other strings without accidental muting. What is the secret to wrapping the thumb around the neck while still allowing the other fingers to reach the fretboard in a vertical position to fret properly?71.204.15.186 (talk) 09:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

dont, use your right hand palm to mute the strings, this is called palm muting using the thumb is, classically speaking, wrong, and more difficult to do —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.145.61 (talk) 15:05, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it depends ENTIRELY on the hand of the person who is playing the guitar. The chord being described is probably D/F# which can be played one of two ways. The "classic" way is to play the standard open-D chord with your last 3 fingers (pinky, ring, and middle) and use your index finger to play the F#-bass note, which also mutes the A-string. However, the alternate way to play this is to make the open-D chord using standard fingering (ring, middle, index) and then wrap the thumb around to play the F#-bass note, again also muting the A-string. This works quite well for me, it fits my hand well, and makes more "sense" to me, since it uses the same figuring as a non-inverted D chord, but with the added thumb. Watch Pete Townsend play some time. He actually makes MOST of his chords this way. His most common two fingerings are to play a "F" or "C" chord shape with the thumb wrapped around to hit the bass note. He generally will use this as a movable chord, and play it up and down the neck. Palm-muting, as described, won't work for this chord, since it's physically impossible to palm mute ONLY the A string and not the low-E string. So, if the OP is having trouble using his thumb, the best method is to use his middle-ring-pinky fingers to play the other notes, and bring the index up to play the bass note... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 18:02, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Guitar Hero World Tour - drum kit MIDI compatability

Apparantly the drum kit that comes with Guitar Hero World Tour has a MIDI port...does this allow me to connect it to my PC so that I can use it as a MIDI input to play drums via MIDI software such ss Cakewalk? The website says that the MIDI port allows "connection to any drum machine or kit" but it doesn't say whether as input or output. If that's not the case then can anyone reccomend a suitable low cost MIDI drum kit, I only want it for practice so nothing special. Ta, Arthur —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.249.220.179 (talk) 11:54, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

The World Tour drum kit has a MIDI IN port to allow you to connect MIDI drum kits and play the game. (See Guitar Hero: World Tour Supports Any Electronic Drum Set with MIDI Port and this comment.) Also, you can connect a computer to the drum kit's MIDI IN port and use a special program to change the kit's sensitivity: Guitar Hero World Tour Drum Tuning Kit (The PDF file on that page has a diagram of the drum kit with the MIDI port clearly labeled as "MIDI IN.") --Bavi H (talk) 03:10, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Birth of a Nation and jump cut

Some suspicious sources make the following claim: "Birth of a Nation pioneered such techniques as deep focus, jump-cut, and facial close-up, which are now considered integral to the industry." It is OK about deep focus and close-up. But jump-cut in Griffith? Unbelievable. Maybe, they mistook it for Cross-cutting? 59.91.253.20 (talk) 18:12, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

From memory (so it may be faulty and I don't really want to watch the movie again...) Griffith did use jump cutting to make the Mulattos appear even scarier. I remember scenes in which you first see the Mulatto in one place. They cut to a woman looking nervous. Then, they cut to the Mulatto being far too close to have walked or even run to the new position in the second that the cut was away. It was not a jump cut in the way that is commonly seen in bad horror flicks (the guy is 200 feet away, blink, he's 5 feet away!). There is a cut to a reaction in between the jump cut. But, it isn't a cross cut because it isn't cutting to another scene or event all together. I do not remember him using this technique with the arrival of the KKK. In fact, I remember them being shown in slow motion upon arrival as a contrast to the Mulattos. Of course, my memory could be heavily fractured. I haven't watched the movie in about 20 years. -- kainaw™ 18:24, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Cyberchase question

In what episode of Cyberchase does the following occur? Inez refers to the "Accipiter family"; she's asked what the Accipiter family is; she responds, "Hawks"; and one of the others (I think Matt) asks rhetorically, "How does she know that?" I think the kids are scaling a mountain while this happens. This is for a college paper, so I appreciate any help I can get. Thanks! —anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.112.202.212 (talk) 19:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

What does 2nd- tier mean?

As in 2nd tier college football games? It has a ring of...not as important as other college football games. I do hear of an upset once in a while (Appalachian State beating Michigan, for example) but I dont know the significance of this. Under what circumstances do so called 2nd-tier teams play 1st(?)tier teams? Is there such a thing as 3rd tier (or lower) teams? Do those teams ever play against 1st tiers? There's a lot I dont know about football, especially college, and was hoping someone could clear this up.Baseball and and and Popcorn Fanatic (talk) 20:06, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, "not as important as the first tier" is pretty much what it's supposed to mean. I'm sure you could chunk the major league baseball teams into some first, second, and third tier structure (teams always in the running, sometimes, and never). Take a look at Division_I#Subdivisions to see how the NCAA groups schools. Appalachian State beating Michigan was something like the Toledo Mud Hens beating the Yankees and knocking them out of the running for the pennant. --- OtherDave (talk) 22:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

This begs the question of why such a mismatched game was scheduled? A triple A minor league team never plays a major league team in baseball. What is the logic behind these schedules? And who makes them? How are college teams ranked anyways? College football seems so confusing.Baseball and and and Popcorn Fanatic (talk) 23:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

That's easy to answer. The NCAA does not control scheduling for the teams. The NCAA is not a "league" like a professional sports league; it's sole jurisdiction is in standardizing the rules under which the games can be played. They also organize national championships in most sports (except, interestingly enough, Division IA college football, which was of course the sport that, ironically, CREATED the NCAA... but I digress). The fact is, that teams are free to schedule any games they choose, and the NCAA has no control over that.

Generally most teams belong to leagues called "conferences", which are usually geograpically based (though more recently created leagues such as the Big East and Conference USA are more national in scope than regional). The conferences create schedules for their teams; in football this usually accounts for anywhere from 7-9 games per year. Conferences also name a champion, but only count games played within the conference as counting towards this championship; thus you get a situation like this year in the Pac-10, where if Oregon State wins their last two games, they will be champion at 9-3 while a potential 11-1 USC can only win the conference championship should OSU lose one of those games. This is because OSU will have a better conference record than USC.

The NCAA allows teams to schedule up to 12 games, so teams are free to schedule whoever they want for the remaining 5-3 games. Most teams in the top flight schedule a weaker "patsy" team for their first game of the season as a "warm up" game; usually the bigger name school pays a hefty premium for the weaker school to come play. This works for both schools; the smaller school gets a big chunk of cash for traveling to the big school in exchange for getting their ass kicked; and the bigger school gets a free win while getting the opportunity to "tune up" their game plan. The visiting school in these situations is REALLY not supposed to win; when they do, as in the App State/Michigan game, its taken as REALLY weird.

The App State win over Michigan was unusual for a few other reasons: App State did NOT finish the 2007 season undefeated; meaning that while they were better than Michigan that day, they were not a perfect team. Also, Michigan did not have a bad season overall. Despite losing to App State, they had a pretty good season, finishing 9-4 overall, and capped off their season with a win over #9 Florida in the Citrus Bowl. Compare that to the 2008 season, which Michigan just completed a few hours ago, where they finished 3-9, their first losing season since 1967, their first EVER 9 loss season (the most losses they ever had before this was 7), and they also finished 8th in the Big Ten, their worst ever conference finish. I think Michigan fans are happier with the 2007 season, despite the App State loss, than with 2008... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I think "2nd tier" might explain why the University of Florida scored 70 points on The Citadel tonight. But not how Oklahoma University was able to score 65 on Texas Tech. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 06:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Guitar

Hello! I'm learning to play the guitar myself and I've a problem. When I put my finger away from the string it makes sound? What should I do? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.77.182.61 (talk) 20:53, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

When you want the tone to stop ringing, instead of pulling your finger away from the string, just loosen the tension while your finger is still touching the string. Alternatively, use one of your other fingers to dampen the vibrating string. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:22, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

We even have an entire article on this: Left-hand muting. You can also use the palm of your right hand. The article Palm mute deals mainly with dampening the notes while playing, however, as in the riff of Every breath you take. But you can use the right hand to silence the strings too. A google search will give more details and examples. Silencing strings that shouldn't ring is an important part of playing the guitar, that is often overlooked by beginners. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:56, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like you're accidentally plucking the string as you lift your fingers off. Try tweaking the angle of your wrist relative to the neck of the instrument: many people tend to grip the neck in such away that their wrist is close to or even makes contact with it (placing the wrist below the plane of the fretboard), but it's usually better to have your wrist up and away from the neck. The goal is to play notes in such a fashion that you only have to apply a gentle pressure to accomplish notes, and you only need to lift your fingers a short distance when you're done playing them. If you're teaching yourself, try to find a friend who also plays who can give you some pointers. --Shaggorama (talk) 22:27, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

To add a little more to what Shaggorama said about hand placement, your thumb should generally be directly behind the middle of the neck (though I often use the thumb myself to fret the low-E string on occasion...see above) and your wrist should be below, rather than behind, the neck. Also, a common mistake for beginning players is to play with the "pads" of the fingers; this can easily lead to accidental pull-offs as you are describing. You should be fretting with the TIPS, not the PADS of the fingers. Looking at my hands, my callouses are about 2-3 millimeters from the quick of my fingernails; that's about where my fingers hit the strings. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 02:23, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

And one more tip: cut your fingernails. The ones on your plucking hand should be long if your want to use them for that purpose, but the hand you use on the neck. (Your left if you're right handed.) Should be real short to make finger placement as described above easier/possible. As you practice you will develop callouses as Jayron said. They are less flexible than soft fingertips and will give the strings less opportunity to move as you move your fingers. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 10:46, 24 November 2008 (UTC)