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First off, the track I made, just doing some improvisation to some Eastern musical sounds...
I'd been listening to the vids that Popfiddle and suresh posted in this thread:
https://fiddlerman.com/forum/c.....in/#p61546
... and I felt like experimenting with some sounds a little in that vein. I'm sure it''s no more "authentic" than the blues some guitarists do by noodling around in the "blues scale", and I do apologize for that. I was just riding on the inspiration of the moment and doing some experimentation to see what I could come up with, off the top of my head.
Ok, now the "trick" part would be how I got the backing. I found this Tampura D drone track on youtube..
and I found this Tabla drum track (looks like a beginner exercise)..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?.....JWXYwOcndA
I got them both playing at the same time and just picked up the violin and jammed to it as it played out of the speakers.
No fancy editing or adding effects, I was just using the mic and setup I usually use to record vocals, guitar, etc for "quick takes" to get an idea down fast before I lose it. There is reverb, because I have a reverb unit on that line, and I was hearing the reverb on headphones when I was recording. But other than that, it sounds just like it did in my kitchen. LOL
A very quick and dirty way of doing a recording, but if you maybe didn't ever think of using more than one youtube vid at once to make a backing track to jam against, maybe it was worth reading this.
For the jammers out there, the notes I was using were D, D#, F#, G, A, A#, C#. I got that scale out of a guitar book years ago, from a chapter on "exotic scales" that referred to it as a "Byzantine scale". Don't ask me why, I didn't write the book. But I learned it from the neck diagrams and have used it a bit in jam sessions and etc over the years. So I just used it on violin to see what I could come up with.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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That's rather intriguing Dan. I had a bit of a play with the range of notes that you mentioned with a fair result
I may have to give it a proper try.
I wonder if there is an Eastern equivalent to Twinkle Twinkle
Seen it all. Done it all. Can't remember most of 
..... What was I saying???? 
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There probably is some Eastern equivalent of Twinkle Twinkle, Ferret. I don't know it, since like quite a few guitarists, I only picked up a few small bits of the other musical systems here and there. But maybe someone knows?
Since the tanpura (sp?) is usually tuned to what we'd think of as the root note and octaves and 5ths, many of the scales like D Major or D minor (for example) could also be used just as well. The "Byzantine" scale I used is just one I happen to know and it was interesting for a bit of improv.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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Aloha @DanielB,
Are you on a Mac? If so, there is a small app called YouTube To MP3 that only extracts the audio, once the URL is input. I don't know if a Windows version exists. Once the MP3s are created, you can then use Garage Band to play both (or all tracks if more than two) concurrently. You can even record your violin with an external mic while the other tracks are playing.
As I mentioned, this is on a Mac. I don't have any Windows computers in my house, so I don't know of any such audio-sucking app for YouTube, although they are bound to exist. There are free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) apps for Windows and the process should be the same - import the audio files into your DAW and play them for your background tracks.
Of course, the downside is that you'd have to download the audio, which takes up disk space. That way, however, you don't have to worry about the audio stream buffering in the middle of the song, which has happened to me on occasion.
I'm not that big a fan of that style of music, but your idea is a good one. I have a Korg Kronos and am able to make my own background tracks, but if they're already done, why re-create the wheel? 
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I'm on Linux. But I certainly have the utilities and etc to extract and mix audio, or record backing for myself from scratch. Linux also has a decent free DAW called Ardour, that I use, and there is Audacity for those who don't feel they need a full function DAW yet.
I was just explaining here a trick for those that might not have the utilities or haven't learned how to use them, as hopefully a bit of encouragement to put things together, improvise and jam a bit.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
Dan, would another way of seeing the scale be to say that you flat 2 and 6? I get confused on some of this.
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Well, you weren't confused in this case, Mr Yikes. Yes that would be another way of putting it. Good going!
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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