digital weirdness

Post 34 of 90.

While recording a random vocal to ProTools last night to try out the system, I noticed a bizarre anomaly where a k in the vocal track consistently stood out on playback as a conspicuous click sound no matter what compression or processing I put on it. The level isn't clipping, so it doesn't seem to be distortion. Maybe this is the digital characteristic Brian Lucey was talking to me about a while back--he described a lot of digitally recorded sounds as having a click!, click!, click! quality versus the roundness of analog. I thought he was maybe talking about some kind of a thinness or trebly harshness, but this may be what he was referring to.

I also did a few vocal exercises with the keyboard at the end of the evening. I've been doing exercises with Roger Love's "Yogi Bear" sound to help with a high-larynx condition that usually chokes off my tone in the mid and upper areas of my range, and I noticed last night that it's starting to take hold. Now and then, I found I could find my larynx with my attention and intentionally move it back down, and when I did this I could feel the resonance in my throat open up. I actually had something to place "in the mask," and I found myself luxuriating in this sort of massaging vibration in my sinus cavities. It felt good.

The "slow leak" breathing exercise is also beginning to take hold. I used to use way too much pressure, almost as much tension as you would put into a sneeze. It's completely unnecessary to push that hard, not to mention damaging, and it's yet another example of how you can hold massive tension and not even know it. I'm also noticing it in my speaking voice, and when I've been able to relax and let go of it now and then, may speaking voice has suddenly taken on a better resonance. I've previously been simultaneously blasting it out and choking it back, which is a strange combination to have, but there it is.

In 7th grade band in middle school, I had a personal meeting with the band director where he pointed out a strange gulp sound I kept making through my saxophone when I stopped notes. I have a hunch there's a connection here between the two habits, one carried forward into singing and speaking as an adult.

Mr. Morton could be wickedly funny, but also had the capacity for withering sarcasm and an uncompromisingly harsh and angry attitude. You did not want to be on the receiving end of that side of his personality. I feared and hated the man in the way only a kid can experience. He scared me to death, and so it was even more disconcerting to have a personal meeting and find myself confronted with this soft-spoken, mild-mannered person instead of the tyrant with the baton. I found myself in the presence of Jeckyll rather than Hyde, but I felt Mr. Hyde was close at hand if he was needed, and this made me nervous.

I found great pleasure in making music in band class, but I also know in my bones that I got fear mixed in with it during this period, and it's still lurking there.

This incident defines the man in my memory:

One day during class, the school secretary entered the class, handed Mr. Morton a box of band candy (that stuff we would peddle every year to raise funds), and whispered something to him.

He nodded, then looked at us and said, "Danny Kasinger is dead."

Then he tapped the music stand with his baton and it was right back into the piece we were rehearsing.

I knew Danny from 4th grade, but he went to class in one of the different subdivisions of classrooms, and I hadn't seen him for some time. He went to the band class in the following period, so I didn't even know anything had happened.

He had been hit by a car while out selling band candy door to door, and then died in the hospital the next day.

This was some deeply shocking news to me, and I was in a strange haze the rest of the day. When I got home, I went out to play with some of the neighborhood kids, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, I began bawling uncontrollably. I was already a sensitive, emotional sort of kid--"neurotic" also springs to mind as a possible adjective--and therefore considered somewhat suspect, so this was not a good thing to do in front of this particular gang of kids. Not good at all.

This was the first time I had any kind of direct contact in my life with death, and I wound up hating Mr. Morton for being a cold, callous bastard. I hated him and his stupid band candy that had gotten this kid killed.

As an adult, I can see how there might way more to the situation than I could see from my own little corner, but I also think he could have handled it better. Maybe a blunt announcement of the facts was an appropriate response in his view. Maybe that was the best he could legitimately muster in that situation, but I did not (and still don't) think it was even adequate, much less appropriate.

His announcement, to me, smacked of an attitude that said, "Well, the little booger picker is dead. Thought you should know. Instruments ready!"

What can I say? It made an impression on me...

In other quarters, the Ohio Guitar Ensemble page on MySpace has been getting some activity. One new friend, Paul Radelat, is a professional composer and arranger, and he has a webpage devoted to melody writing theory [http://www.123writemelody.com]. I thought he had some interesting ideas about mixing arpeggios with non-chord tones and scale fragments, and I can see some ways I can work this into my guitar practice, especially fretboard familiarity. Arpeggios have always existed in sort of a different category from scales, so for me this suggests how to bridge the two in a way that makes sense to my ear.