Post 35 of 90
I've done it again. Enthusiasm overcame me, and after having a cappuccino for dinner at Lookout Joe, I zipped home to find my copies of IK Multimedia Total Effects Bundle Upgrade and Guitar Rig 2 waiting for me. Then it was guitar playing followed by the loading and authorizing of software, then on to experimenting with the fxpansion BFD version bundled with Pro Tools. The "humanize" functions are so effective and extreme that you can make it sound like a drummer who doesn't know what he's doing, has no rhythm, and is making mistakes all over the place. Then I dove into Ampeg bass models, including a groovy chorus sound which I laid down over the drum track I had printed to audio. Then some work in Amplitube 2.
All of these programs are CPU hogs. I'll try switching some settings tonight to lift the processing load a little bit while tracking. Since ProTools only records the un-amped sound off the pickups, I can go back later and print the plugin sounds to audio tracks, then deactivate the tracks with plugins to lighten the load. Mixing is definitely going to be a separate step from tracking. On the Roland recorder, a lot of the processing was distributed to soundcards, so I could often run a mix as I tracked. That is not possible with this setup, but it's a disadvantage that I can maybe turn into an advantage. Having to separate mixing could clarify my thinking about it and maybe help me find my way to some more interesting results.
I did have the feeling that maybe something else was going on in the background on the computer. I made the suggested changes to my system, but maybe it wasn't enough.
Also, I've found a 256 buffer setting is something I can cope with in terms of latency. I think my Johnson amp just about the same amount of latency in its A/D conversion. I know this mostly by feel. That amp always gave me a vague feeling of disconnection when I played through it. With a real analog amp I could very clearly sense the circuit's response to what my hands were doing, and it just felt better. Still, I was able to work with it, so this isn't so bad. Even a 512 setting was workable, maybe like having your amp across the room with the slight delay from the sound having to travel through the air.
1024 is no good, though. It's like playing with a pre-fade delay line where the original signal is not present at all in what you're hearing, just the slapback echo.
I also figured out finally how to select audio regions and make some backwards guitar. This is going to be fun!
And now it's almost 4 am.
If I can only pull myself away from the recording console, I'll get some sleep.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
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.
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.
Monday, January 29, 2007
time keeps on slipping into the future
Post 33 of 90.
I realized today that the 25th was the 12th anniversary of a gig I played with my old rock band back in my daze in Bloomington. This performance was hands-down the absolute peak of my guitar playing prior to Guitar Craft.
I've not come close since then to the sort of energy and intensity that defined that gig. I've become a much better guitarist in a lot of ways since that time, but I also often feel like I somehow lost the "mojo" I had then.
Then again, I was a 25 year old post-college slacker kid with time to burn on practicing five to seven hours every day--not necessarily good, efficient practice, but enough to cause me to jump levels now and then. I also wore the guitar way too low and wired in some nasty habits I've since had to struggle to overcome. In retrospect, it's a minor miracle I didn't develop an overuse injury from the pressure I put on my left hand and wrist from trying to fret notes in that low position.
What's funny is that I still wore the guitar a lot higher than S, the bass player, wanted me to. He started the band and had big ideas of being the next Metallica, so he was always trying to make me wear it down by knees, because he thought it of key importance that we had to look like a regulation metal band. It didn't seem to matter to him that I couldn't play in that position, and I didn't put up with it for long. Even at that age, good sense prevailed now and then in my life.
The night before our gig, he played the same venue with another band that at last fulfilled his desire to be textbook late-80s metal. Ironically, he was also the only member who couldn't seem to bang his head in time with the rest of the band. His efforts to draw attention to himself on stage were conspicuous. They mostly stayed "in formation," even the scream-singing frontman, while he leapt about and weaved in and around the other musicians.
The nail that sticks out will be hammered down, especially in the scene surrounding that band, and they eventually ousted him. I met a few of them, and they struck me as being a nasty and petty lot--one of them openly sneered as he shook my hand--exactly the potentially damaging sort of people I've long since learned to avoid like bubonic plague (or maybe ebola or some other ghastly pestilence).
As a side note, this was one of those dopey pay-to-play "battle of the bands" things--the band made up of employees of the venue won the contest, of course. Coincidence? I doubt it.
The last contact any of us had with him was circa 1998 when we got back together at the drummer's house in Bloomington to party and have some fun playing together. DM called him, and after a short, aimless conversation S hung up the phone and went back to watching television preachers.
I sent email to DM today to remind him of the anniversary, and he in turn reminded me that it has been appr. 17 years since his girlfriend at the time brought him over to my dorm room at IU to meet me during my freshman year.
It all seems like yesterday to me, of course. I sometimes feel like I've come unstuck in time.
There's also a barrista I'm friendly with who is 20 years old, married with a kid, and I realized today that she was 3-8 years old during this period that seems like yesterday to me.
Absolutely bizarre.
She also talks about how she feels let down by "Generation X" and how she had looked up to us but we let her down, and so on. I countered that maybe we weren't worthy of being looked up to.
As evidence, I quoted a key phrase from the (alleged) Voice of My Generation: "Oh, well, whatever, never mind..." Remember that? That was us (supposedly). Not an encouraging bit of verbiage to hear from a generation you somehow wish to look up to, eh?
I've noticed before with some acquaintances in their early 50s who went to college together that they remember their college years in the early 70s like it just happened, and that it was still their frame of reference.
But then I'm also finding it strange how some acquintances in their early 20s are listening to music ranging in age from 30 to 40 years right alongside current music.
Then again, I guess it's not strange from the standpoint that it happens usually to be the best music those previous eras produced, the stuff that has lasted.
I realized today that the 25th was the 12th anniversary of a gig I played with my old rock band back in my daze in Bloomington. This performance was hands-down the absolute peak of my guitar playing prior to Guitar Craft.
I've not come close since then to the sort of energy and intensity that defined that gig. I've become a much better guitarist in a lot of ways since that time, but I also often feel like I somehow lost the "mojo" I had then.
Then again, I was a 25 year old post-college slacker kid with time to burn on practicing five to seven hours every day--not necessarily good, efficient practice, but enough to cause me to jump levels now and then. I also wore the guitar way too low and wired in some nasty habits I've since had to struggle to overcome. In retrospect, it's a minor miracle I didn't develop an overuse injury from the pressure I put on my left hand and wrist from trying to fret notes in that low position.
What's funny is that I still wore the guitar a lot higher than S, the bass player, wanted me to. He started the band and had big ideas of being the next Metallica, so he was always trying to make me wear it down by knees, because he thought it of key importance that we had to look like a regulation metal band. It didn't seem to matter to him that I couldn't play in that position, and I didn't put up with it for long. Even at that age, good sense prevailed now and then in my life.
The night before our gig, he played the same venue with another band that at last fulfilled his desire to be textbook late-80s metal. Ironically, he was also the only member who couldn't seem to bang his head in time with the rest of the band. His efforts to draw attention to himself on stage were conspicuous. They mostly stayed "in formation," even the scream-singing frontman, while he leapt about and weaved in and around the other musicians.
The nail that sticks out will be hammered down, especially in the scene surrounding that band, and they eventually ousted him. I met a few of them, and they struck me as being a nasty and petty lot--one of them openly sneered as he shook my hand--exactly the potentially damaging sort of people I've long since learned to avoid like bubonic plague (or maybe ebola or some other ghastly pestilence).
As a side note, this was one of those dopey pay-to-play "battle of the bands" things--the band made up of employees of the venue won the contest, of course. Coincidence? I doubt it.
The last contact any of us had with him was circa 1998 when we got back together at the drummer's house in Bloomington to party and have some fun playing together. DM called him, and after a short, aimless conversation S hung up the phone and went back to watching television preachers.
I sent email to DM today to remind him of the anniversary, and he in turn reminded me that it has been appr. 17 years since his girlfriend at the time brought him over to my dorm room at IU to meet me during my freshman year.
It all seems like yesterday to me, of course. I sometimes feel like I've come unstuck in time.
There's also a barrista I'm friendly with who is 20 years old, married with a kid, and I realized today that she was 3-8 years old during this period that seems like yesterday to me.
Absolutely bizarre.
She also talks about how she feels let down by "Generation X" and how she had looked up to us but we let her down, and so on. I countered that maybe we weren't worthy of being looked up to.
As evidence, I quoted a key phrase from the (alleged) Voice of My Generation: "Oh, well, whatever, never mind..." Remember that? That was us (supposedly). Not an encouraging bit of verbiage to hear from a generation you somehow wish to look up to, eh?
I've noticed before with some acquaintances in their early 50s who went to college together that they remember their college years in the early 70s like it just happened, and that it was still their frame of reference.
But then I'm also finding it strange how some acquintances in their early 20s are listening to music ranging in age from 30 to 40 years right alongside current music.
Then again, I guess it's not strange from the standpoint that it happens usually to be the best music those previous eras produced, the stuff that has lasted.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
downtime
Post 32 of 90.
For the most part, I slept in late and then just puttered around the house.
Later in the evening, I bounced a Roland 1880 mix down to ProTools to remaster and convert to .wav and mp3 files for posting. The .wav file sounded fine, but I had to drop the overall levels a few db when I converted to mp3. The same levels in mp3 format made the cymbals sound like frying bacon. Less headroom in that format, I guess.
This weekend has flown by. I spent all day feeling astonished that it was actually Sunday.
The cat is sick again with some kind of gastro-intestinal upset, maybe a hairball.
For the most part, I slept in late and then just puttered around the house.
Later in the evening, I bounced a Roland 1880 mix down to ProTools to remaster and convert to .wav and mp3 files for posting. The .wav file sounded fine, but I had to drop the overall levels a few db when I converted to mp3. The same levels in mp3 format made the cymbals sound like frying bacon. Less headroom in that format, I guess.
This weekend has flown by. I spent all day feeling astonished that it was actually Sunday.
The cat is sick again with some kind of gastro-intestinal upset, maybe a hairball.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
ohio rehearsal in dayton
Post 31 of 90.
Don and I met with Don's son Matt in Dayton to rehearse and prepare for our upcoming performance at Un Mundo Cafe in Springfield, OH.
We went over a preliminary list of songs that allow us to incorporate Matt, either by original design or by alteration:
--Asturias
--Growing Circle
--Hope
--Ananda (Steve Jolemore's piece, not the CGT piece by the same name)
--Punta Patri (our own mutated arrangement)
Matt and I will perform a two-person circulation on Hope, and we seemed to have a good handle on that right off the bat. The double-time circulation is still too ambitious, but who knows?
We also worked on a C major circulation as a lead-in to Ananda. We discussed how by changing a single note in C major (F into F#) you get key of G, and all other notes remain the same. Changing key is a piece of cake if you have the layout of C major on the fingerboard down cold.
That doesn't necessarily describe your humble blogger, by the way. And there's more to making a collection of notes sound like a key than is immediately apparent. I hit a big fat F# in the middle of one run-through of the C major circulation, and it didn't sound like a modulation from C into G. It just sounded like a big fat, out-of-context #4/b5 scale degree (also known as a "wrong note"--I'm just being specific about the exact sound and nature of this wrong note).
For the final three chords, I found myself laying down a ii->V->I cadence in the bass, which sounded really good and gave a nice satisfying feeling of harmonic resolution, even if the other players' notes in the upper voices weren't quite resolving melodically. It might be interesting at the next rehearsal to try for a more Dorian sort of harmonic envelope. Maybe I should play something like A->C->D (vi->I->ii in C or v->bVII->i in D Dorian, depending on how you look at it) in order to imply that tonality?
Matt also got a good start on Where It Goes, always a very fun piece of music. With three guitars, this piece could really start to go somewhere...
On the drive home, I noticed my car has a quirk--the heater phases in and out. One minute I'm getting some heat, the next minute the air gets cold, even though the engine has thoroughly heated up into the proper range. It's like the connection between the engine and the heater is inefficient and I temporarily use up the heat energy when I run the heater full blast. I've noticed before that when I come to a stoplight, the air will go cold, and then when I'm back up to speed the heat returns. Weird. I bought the car in the summer, so I've only noticed this now that cold air has arrived.
Don and I met with Don's son Matt in Dayton to rehearse and prepare for our upcoming performance at Un Mundo Cafe in Springfield, OH.
We went over a preliminary list of songs that allow us to incorporate Matt, either by original design or by alteration:
--Asturias
--Growing Circle
--Hope
--Ananda (Steve Jolemore's piece, not the CGT piece by the same name)
--Punta Patri (our own mutated arrangement)
Matt and I will perform a two-person circulation on Hope, and we seemed to have a good handle on that right off the bat. The double-time circulation is still too ambitious, but who knows?
We also worked on a C major circulation as a lead-in to Ananda. We discussed how by changing a single note in C major (F into F#) you get key of G, and all other notes remain the same. Changing key is a piece of cake if you have the layout of C major on the fingerboard down cold.
That doesn't necessarily describe your humble blogger, by the way. And there's more to making a collection of notes sound like a key than is immediately apparent. I hit a big fat F# in the middle of one run-through of the C major circulation, and it didn't sound like a modulation from C into G. It just sounded like a big fat, out-of-context #4/b5 scale degree (also known as a "wrong note"--I'm just being specific about the exact sound and nature of this wrong note).
For the final three chords, I found myself laying down a ii->V->I cadence in the bass, which sounded really good and gave a nice satisfying feeling of harmonic resolution, even if the other players' notes in the upper voices weren't quite resolving melodically. It might be interesting at the next rehearsal to try for a more Dorian sort of harmonic envelope. Maybe I should play something like A->C->D (vi->I->ii in C or v->bVII->i in D Dorian, depending on how you look at it) in order to imply that tonality?
Matt also got a good start on Where It Goes, always a very fun piece of music. With three guitars, this piece could really start to go somewhere...
On the drive home, I noticed my car has a quirk--the heater phases in and out. One minute I'm getting some heat, the next minute the air gets cold, even though the engine has thoroughly heated up into the proper range. It's like the connection between the engine and the heater is inefficient and I temporarily use up the heat energy when I run the heater full blast. I've noticed before that when I come to a stoplight, the air will go cold, and then when I'm back up to speed the heat returns. Weird. I bought the car in the summer, so I've only noticed this now that cold air has arrived.
Friday, January 26, 2007
once upon a time, in a rehearsal room far, far away...
Post 30 of 90.
One third of the way...
Today was my day to notice all of the stories I tell myself about my life. The Narrator was constantly chattering, throwing up smoke across the actual field of my real moment-to-moment experience. The little narrative perpetually reeling out is not my life. I am not a character in a book or a movie, although plenty of people enact their lives as if they were.
I've known people who looked to movies and books for permission to enact various scripts in their lives. If some course of action was possible for some fictional character on the page or screen, it was possible for them, and you could witness them processing the narrative to fit themselves and fashion a road to where they wanted to go. They couldn't begin to initiate action in their own lives unless it had been enacted already by someone else outside themselves--original action was impossible. There may be some out there who are initiators, a sort of vanguard who create new narrative possibilities for the rest of us by transgression or innovation, but the rest of us just follow.
It can be dangerous to look in a mirror if you are prone to forget the reflection is just a reflection and nothing more.
But, in my case, I found myself noticing the various states and emotions the ongoing narrative was creating, not all of them good, most of them totally unnecessary and not related to anything happening in the present.
In recent days, I've also been thinking about how I have completely lost interest in ever again being in a rock band, and that I'm losing interest in the rock scene in general. I've not been bothering to go out and see local bands as much as I used to, which was once a prime pursuit.
Once upon a time when I was a little leaguer, I was way into baseball and had the encyclopedic knowledge of players and stats for that era (early '80s), now completely forgotten. Once I could no longer play and participate directly I lost interest. I never got into football as a pursuit, since I couldn't play and participate directly.
So now it would seem I'm staying true to form with my waning interest in the rock scene.
I'm a lot more interested in the writing and recording side of it these days, anyway. I'm getting to the point, too, where I hardly need anybody else to make music in the studio, so why put up with a bunch of drama and fantasy if I don't have to? If I'm more-or-less self-sufficient, what's the point? I can and do collaborate with others--in fact, when it works, I prefer it and have more fun that way--but if it's not working, I'm not locked in and I don't have to pull hair out because one necessary player (necessary in either the political or musical sense, or both) has dug in his heels for some baffling, arbitrary personal reason. And why be in a band if there are no songs already in place to provide the impetus to get out there, and the will isn't there to do the heavy lifting necessary to write some good ones?
Some people can handle collaboration. Some can't. In one of my old bands, whenever we sat down to work on music, we got results. But we also invariably had bruised egos, and a lot of useless nonsense flowed out of this. No wonder so many "grassroots" rock bands have a set of brothers involved. They've usually spent their entire lives up to that point fighting already, so it's not like the situation has changed once they start a band. Anecdotally, they also seem to get a bit farther on average than most other frustrated would-be rock star chumps.
Also, in terms of the band-as-gang-of-young-men paradigm, my old gang is scattered all over the country and no new rock-type gang has arisen to replace it. Besides, a lot of bad rock music has been written and performed in the name of peacocking on a stage with your posse in order to attract females (or display for the ones you already have).
Why add to that?
And if you're going to join a "posse in progress," there is the inevitable question of how to fit yourself into the existing pecking order. This is inevitable in any group, but at least a guitar circle is not quite as much of a "union shop" as a band formed by a gang of guys who have been hanging out since grade school and who really would prefer an unattached male was not sniffing around their turf and upsetting whatever little apple cart they've built to make themselves look impressive to their groupies. If you're already a good musician, that can be even worse in some cases. Also, if you hate being hazed, better stay away unless there is truly something in it for you.
Getting back to narrative, each little group is also often absorbed in the unfolding of their own little story of imminent stardom and glory. Every little gang thinks their story is special.
And very often if you do not at root buy into their little narrative, that can cause even more trouble than if you appear simply to be interested in competing for attention from their groupies.
I also say all of this having been a young would-be rock star twerp with his little group of egotistical pals, and so I have confidence that I know something about the mindset involved here.
A guitar circle is at least a bit more open in concept and design. The better every member is as a musician, the better it is for the whole group. You gain nothing in a circulation by being some sort of gunslinger and withholding help from others.
OK, I like to write, but enough already. I can't seem to stop once I get started.
One third of the way...
Today was my day to notice all of the stories I tell myself about my life. The Narrator was constantly chattering, throwing up smoke across the actual field of my real moment-to-moment experience. The little narrative perpetually reeling out is not my life. I am not a character in a book or a movie, although plenty of people enact their lives as if they were.
I've known people who looked to movies and books for permission to enact various scripts in their lives. If some course of action was possible for some fictional character on the page or screen, it was possible for them, and you could witness them processing the narrative to fit themselves and fashion a road to where they wanted to go. They couldn't begin to initiate action in their own lives unless it had been enacted already by someone else outside themselves--original action was impossible. There may be some out there who are initiators, a sort of vanguard who create new narrative possibilities for the rest of us by transgression or innovation, but the rest of us just follow.
It can be dangerous to look in a mirror if you are prone to forget the reflection is just a reflection and nothing more.
But, in my case, I found myself noticing the various states and emotions the ongoing narrative was creating, not all of them good, most of them totally unnecessary and not related to anything happening in the present.
In recent days, I've also been thinking about how I have completely lost interest in ever again being in a rock band, and that I'm losing interest in the rock scene in general. I've not been bothering to go out and see local bands as much as I used to, which was once a prime pursuit.
Once upon a time when I was a little leaguer, I was way into baseball and had the encyclopedic knowledge of players and stats for that era (early '80s), now completely forgotten. Once I could no longer play and participate directly I lost interest. I never got into football as a pursuit, since I couldn't play and participate directly.
So now it would seem I'm staying true to form with my waning interest in the rock scene.
I'm a lot more interested in the writing and recording side of it these days, anyway. I'm getting to the point, too, where I hardly need anybody else to make music in the studio, so why put up with a bunch of drama and fantasy if I don't have to? If I'm more-or-less self-sufficient, what's the point? I can and do collaborate with others--in fact, when it works, I prefer it and have more fun that way--but if it's not working, I'm not locked in and I don't have to pull hair out because one necessary player (necessary in either the political or musical sense, or both) has dug in his heels for some baffling, arbitrary personal reason. And why be in a band if there are no songs already in place to provide the impetus to get out there, and the will isn't there to do the heavy lifting necessary to write some good ones?
Some people can handle collaboration. Some can't. In one of my old bands, whenever we sat down to work on music, we got results. But we also invariably had bruised egos, and a lot of useless nonsense flowed out of this. No wonder so many "grassroots" rock bands have a set of brothers involved. They've usually spent their entire lives up to that point fighting already, so it's not like the situation has changed once they start a band. Anecdotally, they also seem to get a bit farther on average than most other frustrated would-be rock star chumps.
Also, in terms of the band-as-gang-of-young-men paradigm, my old gang is scattered all over the country and no new rock-type gang has arisen to replace it. Besides, a lot of bad rock music has been written and performed in the name of peacocking on a stage with your posse in order to attract females (or display for the ones you already have).
Why add to that?
And if you're going to join a "posse in progress," there is the inevitable question of how to fit yourself into the existing pecking order. This is inevitable in any group, but at least a guitar circle is not quite as much of a "union shop" as a band formed by a gang of guys who have been hanging out since grade school and who really would prefer an unattached male was not sniffing around their turf and upsetting whatever little apple cart they've built to make themselves look impressive to their groupies. If you're already a good musician, that can be even worse in some cases. Also, if you hate being hazed, better stay away unless there is truly something in it for you.
Getting back to narrative, each little group is also often absorbed in the unfolding of their own little story of imminent stardom and glory. Every little gang thinks their story is special.
And very often if you do not at root buy into their little narrative, that can cause even more trouble than if you appear simply to be interested in competing for attention from their groupies.
I also say all of this having been a young would-be rock star twerp with his little group of egotistical pals, and so I have confidence that I know something about the mindset involved here.
A guitar circle is at least a bit more open in concept and design. The better every member is as a musician, the better it is for the whole group. You gain nothing in a circulation by being some sort of gunslinger and withholding help from others.
OK, I like to write, but enough already. I can't seem to stop once I get started.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
zzzzzzzzzzzzz...*
Post 29 of 90.
Up too late again.
I spent several hours getting my ProTools software and plugins authorized. Amplitube took forever because I had a demo version already on my hard drive that I had forgotten about, so naturally none of the codes were working. Once I figured this out, I got the correct version loaded. What an amazing sound! I think I'm going to upgrade to the full version, though. The LE version actually has fewer features and options than the old version that was hanging around on my hard drive. There's also going to be a special Hendrix edition, so it would be nice to pick that up, too, maybe along with a Native Instruments rig.
It kind of surprised me to discover that an audio track I'm using the Amplitube with doesn't automatically print the guitar sound to the track. If I take the plug-in out, you get the weedy little plinky sound that comes straight of the pickups. Weird. But nice, too, because you can re-amp and try different sounds later on. Bad in the sense that each plug-in is taking up processer power and you have to print your tone to another track as a separate time-consuming step if you want to free up processer space for something else, and sometimes it's useful to go ahead and commit to a tone from the start. Maybe there's a way I haven't discovered yet to go ahead and print a sound as you lay down a track.
I think I'll need to get some kind of a different mastering suite, though. Maxim is bare bones. I can get the levels I want, but without discrete bands of compression, it's exaggerating prominent harmonics to a point that is unpleasant. I think I can probably put an eq in line before Maxim to roll back trouble spots, but I think some extra power is in order. In some ways, I liked the mastered sound I got with my Roland recorder better, except that system had no headroom to work with and it was hard to tell exactly where your peaks were.
Last night, I also totally rearranged the studio. In the process, I took the opportunity to sweep areas of the carpet that had been inaccessible for almost three years.
In practicing guitar lately, I've suddenly noticed notice my middle finger and the habitual tensions it contains. In the context of the gap that tends to open up between the first and second finger (which supposedly is something to be avoided), I've realized the middle finger plays a role in that.
I may also need to get in the gym and beef up my right forearm. I'm so skinny that I wind up breaking the elbow-thru-wrist-thru-hand line a bit in order to clear the bridge. This wasn't a problem with my old Ovation since I had the luthier take the bridge off and sand it down, but the bridge on my new one is a lot fatter. If I had some more meat on my arm, the extra elevation versus the soundboard would bring things back into alignment.
Some of it may also be Strat induced. I've found I'm forced to bend the wrist a bit when playing that instrument, and there's no wood there to support the elbow, so the forearm rests against the top of the guitar. I love the sound, but that guitar is clearly not designed for this technique.
During a big right hand session on my Level 2, Curt noticed the bend from several feet away and reached out to move my hand and forearm back into alignment. This was on my old Ovation, too, where it was competely unnecessary, so I had developed a habit on the Strat that was carrying over.
Up too late again.
I spent several hours getting my ProTools software and plugins authorized. Amplitube took forever because I had a demo version already on my hard drive that I had forgotten about, so naturally none of the codes were working. Once I figured this out, I got the correct version loaded. What an amazing sound! I think I'm going to upgrade to the full version, though. The LE version actually has fewer features and options than the old version that was hanging around on my hard drive. There's also going to be a special Hendrix edition, so it would be nice to pick that up, too, maybe along with a Native Instruments rig.
It kind of surprised me to discover that an audio track I'm using the Amplitube with doesn't automatically print the guitar sound to the track. If I take the plug-in out, you get the weedy little plinky sound that comes straight of the pickups. Weird. But nice, too, because you can re-amp and try different sounds later on. Bad in the sense that each plug-in is taking up processer power and you have to print your tone to another track as a separate time-consuming step if you want to free up processer space for something else, and sometimes it's useful to go ahead and commit to a tone from the start. Maybe there's a way I haven't discovered yet to go ahead and print a sound as you lay down a track.
I think I'll need to get some kind of a different mastering suite, though. Maxim is bare bones. I can get the levels I want, but without discrete bands of compression, it's exaggerating prominent harmonics to a point that is unpleasant. I think I can probably put an eq in line before Maxim to roll back trouble spots, but I think some extra power is in order. In some ways, I liked the mastered sound I got with my Roland recorder better, except that system had no headroom to work with and it was hard to tell exactly where your peaks were.
Last night, I also totally rearranged the studio. In the process, I took the opportunity to sweep areas of the carpet that had been inaccessible for almost three years.
In practicing guitar lately, I've suddenly noticed notice my middle finger and the habitual tensions it contains. In the context of the gap that tends to open up between the first and second finger (which supposedly is something to be avoided), I've realized the middle finger plays a role in that.
I may also need to get in the gym and beef up my right forearm. I'm so skinny that I wind up breaking the elbow-thru-wrist-thru-hand line a bit in order to clear the bridge. This wasn't a problem with my old Ovation since I had the luthier take the bridge off and sand it down, but the bridge on my new one is a lot fatter. If I had some more meat on my arm, the extra elevation versus the soundboard would bring things back into alignment.
Some of it may also be Strat induced. I've found I'm forced to bend the wrist a bit when playing that instrument, and there's no wood there to support the elbow, so the forearm rests against the top of the guitar. I love the sound, but that guitar is clearly not designed for this technique.
During a big right hand session on my Level 2, Curt noticed the bend from several feet away and reached out to move my hand and forearm back into alignment. This was on my old Ovation, too, where it was competely unnecessary, so I had developed a habit on the Strat that was carrying over.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
sho nuff
Post 28 of 90.
Down to the studio to practice and fiddle with ProTools.
Living out in the middle of nowhere sucks.
Down to the studio to practice and fiddle with ProTools.
Living out in the middle of nowhere sucks.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
ProTools
Post 27 of 90.
My ProTools Digi 002 was waiting for me when I got home last night, so I got cracking on getting it installed and set up. It looks so far like my laptop has sufficient juice to get the job done, but I also realized it's going to take me a little while to get used to using this system. There are so many options and things it can do that it's a bit daunting.
I'm still waiting on the Strike and Autotune software. Those are both backordered and the real test will come when I try to run those.
I'll run a few tracking tests tonight to see if the latency is something I can manage and deal with effectively. The only time I predict it could really bother me is when I track some vocals. I like to have some effects when I track vocals (mostly to shore up my weedy little voice), but the low-latency monitoring option apparently switches off all of the effects, so we'll see. In the "disadvantage into an advantage" department, it may well be that if I put in the work with vocal exercises and microphone technique to make the raw sound as good as possible, it will only be that much better when I mix. Garbage in, garbage out, and all that.
But having some effects on the vocal when you track does help to set a vibe.
I actually felt sad when I packed away my Roland recorder last night. It's been a fabulous piece of equipment, but time has marched on, and I can really see how this new system is a quantum leap above.
But still.......sniffle....into the case it goes, only to return if I want to send old mixes to ProTools to be remastered.
I also ordered a pair of the Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and, man, these things are amazing! I'm presently sitting in my favorite coffeeshop, which normally has so much ambient noise that I can barely hear anything on the earbuds with the volume cranked, but right now I can actually hear my music, and I'm listening at a much lower volume level. I need to save what hearing I have left!
My ProTools Digi 002 was waiting for me when I got home last night, so I got cracking on getting it installed and set up. It looks so far like my laptop has sufficient juice to get the job done, but I also realized it's going to take me a little while to get used to using this system. There are so many options and things it can do that it's a bit daunting.
I'm still waiting on the Strike and Autotune software. Those are both backordered and the real test will come when I try to run those.
I'll run a few tracking tests tonight to see if the latency is something I can manage and deal with effectively. The only time I predict it could really bother me is when I track some vocals. I like to have some effects when I track vocals (mostly to shore up my weedy little voice), but the low-latency monitoring option apparently switches off all of the effects, so we'll see. In the "disadvantage into an advantage" department, it may well be that if I put in the work with vocal exercises and microphone technique to make the raw sound as good as possible, it will only be that much better when I mix. Garbage in, garbage out, and all that.
But having some effects on the vocal when you track does help to set a vibe.
I actually felt sad when I packed away my Roland recorder last night. It's been a fabulous piece of equipment, but time has marched on, and I can really see how this new system is a quantum leap above.
But still.......sniffle....into the case it goes, only to return if I want to send old mixes to ProTools to be remastered.
I also ordered a pair of the Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and, man, these things are amazing! I'm presently sitting in my favorite coffeeshop, which normally has so much ambient noise that I can barely hear anything on the earbuds with the volume cranked, but right now I can actually hear my music, and I'm listening at a much lower volume level. I need to save what hearing I have left!
Monday, January 22, 2007
back to the grind
Post 26 of 90
I tossed and turned last night for some reason. The bedroom seemed to be too warm, so maybe that was part of it.
I couldn't seem to get around to practicing. I went down into the studio, but then my AT lie-down turned into a nap, and I even curled up in the easy chair in an awkward contortion and snoozed for a while.
I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my ProTools system.
I need to start getting it together for the gig with Don coming up in Springfield.
I tossed and turned last night for some reason. The bedroom seemed to be too warm, so maybe that was part of it.
I couldn't seem to get around to practicing. I went down into the studio, but then my AT lie-down turned into a nap, and I even curled up in the easy chair in an awkward contortion and snoozed for a while.
I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my ProTools system.
I need to start getting it together for the gig with Don coming up in Springfield.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
snow day
Post 25 of 90.
Meeting with Don in Dayton cancelled due to snow on the roads. Traffic cams showed cars and trucks crawling along at about half usual speed.
I have a massive hangover today, from just two martinis. And I hardly got buzzed at all last night!
Meeting with Don in Dayton cancelled due to snow on the roads. Traffic cams showed cars and trucks crawling along at about half usual speed.
I have a massive hangover today, from just two martinis. And I hardly got buzzed at all last night!
Saturday, January 20, 2007
the devil's red wife
Post 24 of 90.
I went to see Lauren Dragon sing standards and torch ballads at Havana Martini Club. It took a few songs for the band to sound together. I think the horns were pretty out of tune early on.
They had a wide selection of martinis (of course), and I naturally had to try the "Sean Connery 007." Not bad. Then I had the "Frank Sinatra" with olives stuffed with bleu cheese. Tasty!
I went to see Lauren Dragon sing standards and torch ballads at Havana Martini Club. It took a few songs for the band to sound together. I think the horns were pretty out of tune early on.
They had a wide selection of martinis (of course), and I naturally had to try the "Sean Connery 007." Not bad. Then I had the "Frank Sinatra" with olives stuffed with bleu cheese. Tasty!
Thursday, January 18, 2007
snooze or lose
Post 22 of 90.
After getting an extra hour or two of sleep over the last two nights, I suddenly found myself today on the outskirts of actually being able to concentrate and think straight for a change. I've experienced this before. At other times when I've gotten on a streak of regular shut-eye, after a few days I have this moment when I suddenly realize that I've been living in a state of depression, despondency, brain fog, and personal paralysis for an extended period of time and didn't even realize it, all for no better reason than that I've been chronically sleep-deprived.
And yet I never seem to make that lesson stick. Soon enough, I'm back to my old destructive habits.
Maybe I have a chance to turn this around now that I've noted it, but it means there is going to be a price to pay for a week or two. I'm going to have to restrain myself from staying up late, no matter how much I get into a particular practice session or recording project. I'm going to have to figure out some other way to make space for that.
At one point I calculated that I typically need about 9 hours of sleep in order to function at my best. If I want to get up at 7am, which is not even very early, I'm going to have to be in bed and asleep by 10pm. That seems ridiculously early to me.
In comparison, I'm rarely asleep before midnight, and I often stay up until 2am on week nights, sometimes even as late as 3am. I've always been a night owl, and a lot of times I don't feel like I'm even getting started until 10pm.
Enthusiasm seems to carry me a long way. After returning from the last Chicago meeting, I stayed up until 3am, all in spite of the fact I had gotten only two hours of sleep the night before. I got started prepping my hard drive for ProTools and couldn't stop. I freed up 25G of hard drive space, but I paid the price the next day, and maybe for several days after that.
During my last semester in college, I pulled at least one all-nighter per week, sometimes two, for various papers and projects. Then I would stay up super late partying on the weekends and working long hours at a crap restaurant job. I don't know how I did it. No idea.
But I remember well that after I graduated, I slept a lot and swore I would never abuse myself like that again. Sleep was gold.
I had some friends at the time who would say, "Well, I'll just sleep when I'm dead."
Yeesh!
I've got to do something about this, though. I've learned to see how destructive it is to my enjoyment of my job and life in general. It's been destructive to relationships--how can you "relate" to somebody who is basically shuffling around like a zombie and is barely there?
So I do now solemnly pledge that I'm going to take better care of myself and get enough sleep.
Until I eventually forget and fall back into the habit, which seems inevitable. Enthusiasm will grab me again. Some new piece of music will grab me and I'll stay up all night laying down tracks. That's how it seems to work.
I have peculiar sort of inertia. Once I'm in a particular state, I tend to want to stay there. Once I'm awake, I'll go and go and go until I drop. Once I'm asleep, I stay in bed as long as possible. Weird.
On the other hand, isn't there that aphorism that says something like, "Tomorrow is the first lie of the Devil"? I could put it off, but what if I die in my sleep? Maybe the energy behind that song idea will disappear if I put it off.
Anyway, I had a good Alexander lesson tonight. I was actually awake for it, too. I'm often on the edge of falling asleep during table work.
Time to go get ready for bed.
After getting an extra hour or two of sleep over the last two nights, I suddenly found myself today on the outskirts of actually being able to concentrate and think straight for a change. I've experienced this before. At other times when I've gotten on a streak of regular shut-eye, after a few days I have this moment when I suddenly realize that I've been living in a state of depression, despondency, brain fog, and personal paralysis for an extended period of time and didn't even realize it, all for no better reason than that I've been chronically sleep-deprived.
And yet I never seem to make that lesson stick. Soon enough, I'm back to my old destructive habits.
Maybe I have a chance to turn this around now that I've noted it, but it means there is going to be a price to pay for a week or two. I'm going to have to restrain myself from staying up late, no matter how much I get into a particular practice session or recording project. I'm going to have to figure out some other way to make space for that.
At one point I calculated that I typically need about 9 hours of sleep in order to function at my best. If I want to get up at 7am, which is not even very early, I'm going to have to be in bed and asleep by 10pm. That seems ridiculously early to me.
In comparison, I'm rarely asleep before midnight, and I often stay up until 2am on week nights, sometimes even as late as 3am. I've always been a night owl, and a lot of times I don't feel like I'm even getting started until 10pm.
Enthusiasm seems to carry me a long way. After returning from the last Chicago meeting, I stayed up until 3am, all in spite of the fact I had gotten only two hours of sleep the night before. I got started prepping my hard drive for ProTools and couldn't stop. I freed up 25G of hard drive space, but I paid the price the next day, and maybe for several days after that.
During my last semester in college, I pulled at least one all-nighter per week, sometimes two, for various papers and projects. Then I would stay up super late partying on the weekends and working long hours at a crap restaurant job. I don't know how I did it. No idea.
But I remember well that after I graduated, I slept a lot and swore I would never abuse myself like that again. Sleep was gold.
I had some friends at the time who would say, "Well, I'll just sleep when I'm dead."
Yeesh!
I've got to do something about this, though. I've learned to see how destructive it is to my enjoyment of my job and life in general. It's been destructive to relationships--how can you "relate" to somebody who is basically shuffling around like a zombie and is barely there?
So I do now solemnly pledge that I'm going to take better care of myself and get enough sleep.
Until I eventually forget and fall back into the habit, which seems inevitable. Enthusiasm will grab me again. Some new piece of music will grab me and I'll stay up all night laying down tracks. That's how it seems to work.
I have peculiar sort of inertia. Once I'm in a particular state, I tend to want to stay there. Once I'm awake, I'll go and go and go until I drop. Once I'm asleep, I stay in bed as long as possible. Weird.
On the other hand, isn't there that aphorism that says something like, "Tomorrow is the first lie of the Devil"? I could put it off, but what if I die in my sleep? Maybe the energy behind that song idea will disappear if I put it off.
Anyway, I had a good Alexander lesson tonight. I was actually awake for it, too. I'm often on the edge of falling asleep during table work.
Time to go get ready for bed.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
dim eyed and floppy tailed
Post 21 of 90.
I stopped by Mt. Lookout and had a cappuccino against my better judgment, but I can still barely keep my eyes open. I was going to practice, but I think I actually stand to gain more by being in bed before midnight tonight. See you tomorrow...
I stopped by Mt. Lookout and had a cappuccino against my better judgment, but I can still barely keep my eyes open. I was going to practice, but I think I actually stand to gain more by being in bed before midnight tonight. See you tomorrow...
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
trash night
Post 20 of 90.
Am I approaching the end of the beginning? Or maybe the end of the middle of the beginning? Or am I perhaps on the cusp of the beginning of the end of the beginning?
Ear training on Absolute Pitch Blaster in the B&N cafe after work. I'm still amazed at how middle C "lights up" now when I hear it during the exercises. I must be getting better, because I've been sailing through exercises that had me tied in knots for several months the first time I did them. Something has shifted and the sound of the note is a bit less abstract to me than it was before. Further work awaits.
Nearby in the cafe, a man fails miserably in his efforts to flirt with an exotic-looking, dark-haired woman. He laughs nervously and leans forward in his seat across the corner of the table toward her. She is leaning back away from him into her chair, with arms crossed, and remains that way for the 20 minute duration of the conversation that I witness (it was already in progress when I walked in).
Then the drive home through flurries of snow, listening to 94.9 ("The Sound"). Not bad. Not great, either, but still better than hearing the Lynyrd Skynyrd catalog in perpetual rotation (I even like some of their licks now and then). Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" comes on, and I find myself amazed at all the layers of instrumentation I had never noticed or heard before. And I notice that Billy is (was?) a pretty damn compelling singer, too. I can tell where certain vocals were punched in. I notice the gating and compression of the drums. It all sounds very slick and expensive. Well done.
Is this the same recording I've been hearing since I was a pre-teen?
I've noticed this with several recordings that I listened to way back then, forgot about, and then rediscovered. Every time, I notice all this amazing stuff about the sounds, the notes, and the performances.
Was I deaf before? What was I hearing?
The Interval Loader relative pitch companion program to Absolute Pitch Blaster uses little icons to represent the intervals, the idea being that naming the interval--"Perfect Fifth" or whatever--is actually a sound of its own that knocks the interval sound out of your head or weakens your perception of it. It seems to work in practice.
The icon for the Augmented 4th/Perfect Fifth/"Tritone" is a little drawing of a Halloween pumpkin.
One day while listening to a song by The Cure called "The Top," I suddenly thought, "Why does this sound like Halloween music?"
I checked, and the opening bass riff is all tritones. I've been hearing this song for years and never realized this.
Back home again, I roll the trash bin out to the curb.
Then I make a phone call to JC to talk about compressors, ProTools, and computer recording. He warns me about "latency" in computer recording, which I hadn't been alerted to before. I look it up and find it can sometimes be a real problem, but that certain parameters are acceptable, maybe equivalent to the delay of sitting three feet from a set of speakers or across the room from someone else in your band. It's just weird when you hear yourself as if you're across the room.
I order the ProTools system I had my eye on. The Strike drum plugin is just too much to pass up. It's the prime reason I'm interested, and naturally it's only available in ProTools. The ability to export files and collaborate long-distance over the Internet is an important factor, too.
Let's hope it lives up to the hype.
The Voice: "Ian, your such a pompous prat! Look at this crap. Who cares? Who do you think you are? You think you're better than everybody else, don't you? Has somebody been doing his vocabulary exercises? Putting on airs again. It's really all just a lot of self-dramatization, you know. Even now you have to let everybody know how 'self-aware' and 'ironic' you are by drawing attention to how you recognize the unreality of your persona and how 'Ian' really isn't you, that you just experience life through him, but at the same time you dismiss that whole line of thought, you don't really care, because you know it's all just a bunch of that flapdoodle perpetually blowing out of the East...and now you're ripping off Henry Miller, you thief!! You fraud!! And now you're laughing at it all, too! Who do you think you are?!! How dare you hijack my rant, you pissant?!!...Deep, man...Really deep...Why don't you get a job and a haircut, hippie boy..." Etc.
Am I approaching the end of the beginning? Or maybe the end of the middle of the beginning? Or am I perhaps on the cusp of the beginning of the end of the beginning?
Ear training on Absolute Pitch Blaster in the B&N cafe after work. I'm still amazed at how middle C "lights up" now when I hear it during the exercises. I must be getting better, because I've been sailing through exercises that had me tied in knots for several months the first time I did them. Something has shifted and the sound of the note is a bit less abstract to me than it was before. Further work awaits.
Nearby in the cafe, a man fails miserably in his efforts to flirt with an exotic-looking, dark-haired woman. He laughs nervously and leans forward in his seat across the corner of the table toward her. She is leaning back away from him into her chair, with arms crossed, and remains that way for the 20 minute duration of the conversation that I witness (it was already in progress when I walked in).
Then the drive home through flurries of snow, listening to 94.9 ("The Sound"). Not bad. Not great, either, but still better than hearing the Lynyrd Skynyrd catalog in perpetual rotation (I even like some of their licks now and then). Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell" comes on, and I find myself amazed at all the layers of instrumentation I had never noticed or heard before. And I notice that Billy is (was?) a pretty damn compelling singer, too. I can tell where certain vocals were punched in. I notice the gating and compression of the drums. It all sounds very slick and expensive. Well done.
Is this the same recording I've been hearing since I was a pre-teen?
I've noticed this with several recordings that I listened to way back then, forgot about, and then rediscovered. Every time, I notice all this amazing stuff about the sounds, the notes, and the performances.
Was I deaf before? What was I hearing?
The Interval Loader relative pitch companion program to Absolute Pitch Blaster uses little icons to represent the intervals, the idea being that naming the interval--"Perfect Fifth" or whatever--is actually a sound of its own that knocks the interval sound out of your head or weakens your perception of it. It seems to work in practice.
The icon for the Augmented 4th/Perfect Fifth/"Tritone" is a little drawing of a Halloween pumpkin.
One day while listening to a song by The Cure called "The Top," I suddenly thought, "Why does this sound like Halloween music?"
I checked, and the opening bass riff is all tritones. I've been hearing this song for years and never realized this.
Back home again, I roll the trash bin out to the curb.
Then I make a phone call to JC to talk about compressors, ProTools, and computer recording. He warns me about "latency" in computer recording, which I hadn't been alerted to before. I look it up and find it can sometimes be a real problem, but that certain parameters are acceptable, maybe equivalent to the delay of sitting three feet from a set of speakers or across the room from someone else in your band. It's just weird when you hear yourself as if you're across the room.
I order the ProTools system I had my eye on. The Strike drum plugin is just too much to pass up. It's the prime reason I'm interested, and naturally it's only available in ProTools. The ability to export files and collaborate long-distance over the Internet is an important factor, too.
Let's hope it lives up to the hype.
The Voice: "Ian, your such a pompous prat! Look at this crap. Who cares? Who do you think you are? You think you're better than everybody else, don't you? Has somebody been doing his vocabulary exercises? Putting on airs again. It's really all just a lot of self-dramatization, you know. Even now you have to let everybody know how 'self-aware' and 'ironic' you are by drawing attention to how you recognize the unreality of your persona and how 'Ian' really isn't you, that you just experience life through him, but at the same time you dismiss that whole line of thought, you don't really care, because you know it's all just a bunch of that flapdoodle perpetually blowing out of the East...and now you're ripping off Henry Miller, you thief!! You fraud!! And now you're laughing at it all, too! Who do you think you are?!! How dare you hijack my rant, you pissant?!!...Deep, man...Really deep...Why don't you get a job and a haircut, hippie boy..." Etc.
Monday, January 15, 2007
poetry fistfights
Post 19 of 90.
Today, I found myself thinking about a fistfight I witnessed at a poetry reading at Cafe Angst in Indianapolis circa 1995, and for the first time I suddenly suspected it might have been a hoax perpetrated by the combatants. A fistfight at a poetry reading is absurd to begin with, but after all this time something about it didn't add up, some body language cue that was off. Maybe you had to be there to know what I mean. All the same, the aggrieved party was convincing at the time, but still I wonder, wonder, wonder...
At least it was memorable.
Today was a good day. I felt in some way like I was finally getting past some personal blocks, most likely due to getting a little more sleep last night than usual.
A thought came to me regarding my worry about sucking as a guitarist: "Assume the virtue."
At lunchtime, as I stepped out of Dewey's Pizza and paused to deploy my umbrella, I took a look to my right and found a guy about 35 yards away looking at me, possibly a street denizen (not totally sure).
As I turned away he called out, "Excuse me! Sir!"
Warning alarms went off, and I jogged away from him toward my car about a block away without responding or looking back.
There were several other persons on the sidewalk near him within closer range, but he didn't try to get their attention. For some reason, I looked like someone he needed to flag down over a fairly wide distance.
Sometimes I help people. Sometimes I refuse. Factors of time, place, and person apply.
Perhaps he was a person in need. Perhaps not. I don't know.
However, ever since an incident in Covington, which I can only describe as a "friendly mugging," I've given myself permission to exit a situation at top speed if I even remotely suspect something is amiss or I'm uncomfortable, right or wrong, no excuses or explanations necessary.
"Hey, my man!" "Hey, you look cool!" "Excuse me, sir!"
Phrases such as these make me want to run. When someone tells me I'm "cool," I know I'm being scammed for sure.
Any of these phrases in conjunction with several of the speaker's companions --one walking ahead on the sidewalk, two others moving up on my right--maneuvering in an what looks like an effort to envelop and block possible escape routes, after midnight, on a semi-darkened street (a "fringe zone") outside a club in downtown Cincinnati is also a situation to be avoided. (In this case, I ran at top speed before they could complete the envelopment.)
On one occasion I ran into a man (in a fringe area) outside Awakenings coffeeshop off Hyde Park Square who claimed to have trouble with the church van he'd been driving, and who said he needed a lift. So I gave him a ride several blocks and gave him a few bucks when he made the request (I forget what his rationale was, but it seemed realistic enough).
Then, two weeks later, about the same time of day, in the exact same area, I ran into the exact same guy with the exact same story, except this time he wanted me to buy new tires for him.
This time I refused.
All the same, I still feel a nagging sense of guilt when I feel it necessary to turn away and refuse someone, and I find I have to mull it over and justify it to myself every single time for a while afterward. Maybe because it violates my longstanding self-image as a "nice guy," and habits are powerful. And what if I was wrong? Maybe it's just a habit like any other.
Today, I found myself thinking about a fistfight I witnessed at a poetry reading at Cafe Angst in Indianapolis circa 1995, and for the first time I suddenly suspected it might have been a hoax perpetrated by the combatants. A fistfight at a poetry reading is absurd to begin with, but after all this time something about it didn't add up, some body language cue that was off. Maybe you had to be there to know what I mean. All the same, the aggrieved party was convincing at the time, but still I wonder, wonder, wonder...
At least it was memorable.
Today was a good day. I felt in some way like I was finally getting past some personal blocks, most likely due to getting a little more sleep last night than usual.
A thought came to me regarding my worry about sucking as a guitarist: "Assume the virtue."
At lunchtime, as I stepped out of Dewey's Pizza and paused to deploy my umbrella, I took a look to my right and found a guy about 35 yards away looking at me, possibly a street denizen (not totally sure).
As I turned away he called out, "Excuse me! Sir!"
Warning alarms went off, and I jogged away from him toward my car about a block away without responding or looking back.
There were several other persons on the sidewalk near him within closer range, but he didn't try to get their attention. For some reason, I looked like someone he needed to flag down over a fairly wide distance.
Sometimes I help people. Sometimes I refuse. Factors of time, place, and person apply.
Perhaps he was a person in need. Perhaps not. I don't know.
However, ever since an incident in Covington, which I can only describe as a "friendly mugging," I've given myself permission to exit a situation at top speed if I even remotely suspect something is amiss or I'm uncomfortable, right or wrong, no excuses or explanations necessary.
"Hey, my man!" "Hey, you look cool!" "Excuse me, sir!"
Phrases such as these make me want to run. When someone tells me I'm "cool," I know I'm being scammed for sure.
Any of these phrases in conjunction with several of the speaker's companions --one walking ahead on the sidewalk, two others moving up on my right--maneuvering in an what looks like an effort to envelop and block possible escape routes, after midnight, on a semi-darkened street (a "fringe zone") outside a club in downtown Cincinnati is also a situation to be avoided. (In this case, I ran at top speed before they could complete the envelopment.)
On one occasion I ran into a man (in a fringe area) outside Awakenings coffeeshop off Hyde Park Square who claimed to have trouble with the church van he'd been driving, and who said he needed a lift. So I gave him a ride several blocks and gave him a few bucks when he made the request (I forget what his rationale was, but it seemed realistic enough).
Then, two weeks later, about the same time of day, in the exact same area, I ran into the exact same guy with the exact same story, except this time he wanted me to buy new tires for him.
This time I refused.
All the same, I still feel a nagging sense of guilt when I feel it necessary to turn away and refuse someone, and I find I have to mull it over and justify it to myself every single time for a while afterward. Maybe because it violates my longstanding self-image as a "nice guy," and habits are powerful. And what if I was wrong? Maybe it's just a habit like any other.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
the endless road
Post 18 of 90.
The process of pruning back the mass of iTunes audio files on my laptop hard drive continues.
It's rained off and on all day, cold and nasty.
I thought about driving into town today to visit my favorite coffeeshop, but decided against it and spent most of the day obsessively trolling newsblogs for some sort of insight about the state of the world, something that could help it all make sense. Somehow. Maybe it's not possible.
I have a friend in DC, a songwriter and clawhammer banjo player, I haven't talked to for a while. The last time I saw him his son had enlisted in the army and was being shipped out to the Middle East. Then I heard news that his son had been wounded, not badly, but still I find myself avoiding dropping an email. I'm not sure why. I'm determined to get it together and drop a line this week.
I think this is the week to order the ProTools system, too. I'll need to double-check my list. A call to JC is probably in order to find out what kind of compressor he's been using on vocals.
Guitar practice tonight was a little right hand, and then some no-tempo work on First Primary variations. There's a sympathetic tension reaction in the pinky, and I'm not sure yet how to get in there and inhibit that. Maybe I'm using too much tension overall in my left hand. I'm beginning to develop the ability to relax my left shoulder when I fret and allow the guitar to take some of the weight, so maybe this left hand tension is just the next step in the endless road.
One thought I've been having for a while now, one of those things that is perfectly obvious on its face, but still startling when comprehended in full, is the perception that every single person around me is living out a full life of their own, each as complete and immersive in its experiencing as my own. It's somehow easy to forget this fact in the day-to-day scramble or just not notice it, as if these others who appear before you are mere things. Is this a failure of compassion? How do you still honor the humanity of others in this sense without becoming vulnerable yourself?
The process of pruning back the mass of iTunes audio files on my laptop hard drive continues.
It's rained off and on all day, cold and nasty.
I thought about driving into town today to visit my favorite coffeeshop, but decided against it and spent most of the day obsessively trolling newsblogs for some sort of insight about the state of the world, something that could help it all make sense. Somehow. Maybe it's not possible.
I have a friend in DC, a songwriter and clawhammer banjo player, I haven't talked to for a while. The last time I saw him his son had enlisted in the army and was being shipped out to the Middle East. Then I heard news that his son had been wounded, not badly, but still I find myself avoiding dropping an email. I'm not sure why. I'm determined to get it together and drop a line this week.
I think this is the week to order the ProTools system, too. I'll need to double-check my list. A call to JC is probably in order to find out what kind of compressor he's been using on vocals.
Guitar practice tonight was a little right hand, and then some no-tempo work on First Primary variations. There's a sympathetic tension reaction in the pinky, and I'm not sure yet how to get in there and inhibit that. Maybe I'm using too much tension overall in my left hand. I'm beginning to develop the ability to relax my left shoulder when I fret and allow the guitar to take some of the weight, so maybe this left hand tension is just the next step in the endless road.
One thought I've been having for a while now, one of those things that is perfectly obvious on its face, but still startling when comprehended in full, is the perception that every single person around me is living out a full life of their own, each as complete and immersive in its experiencing as my own. It's somehow easy to forget this fact in the day-to-day scramble or just not notice it, as if these others who appear before you are mere things. Is this a failure of compassion? How do you still honor the humanity of others in this sense without becoming vulnerable yourself?
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Chicago!...bang bang!!
Post 17 of 90.
What a long day!
I was so frantic about tweaking my laptop hard drive that didn't get to bed last night until about 2am, then I tossed, turned, and woke up multiple times, including one wake up call in the form of a wet paw in the face from the cat, who wanted to be let out. I had just let him back in from running around in the rain, but then he just had to be on the other side of that closed door.
When the 4am alarm did arrive, I just wanted to lie in bed and bask in the soothing sound of the rain coming down outside. It was not to be.
I met Don at a truck stop on the northwest side of Indianapolis and we carpooled the rest of the way. The drive up seems so short now.
In the bathroom of the truck stop, fat truckers debated the merits of New Country Music versus the Old Country Music. This reminds me of JC's recent assertion that the latest country sound is basically REO Speedwagon with a twang.
At Adrian's studio we ran through Sun Music several times and we seem to be getting up to speed pretty fast with that one. We had several very musical circulations and attempted some variations, mostly in C Harmonic Minor, including a downbeat/upbeat circulation between two subgroups. We at first went through a long stretch of just not having it together on the downbeat/upbeat circulation, and then all of a sudden it clicked into place. John commented that after a certain point you get confident enough with just hitting your note to widen your attention to include what else is going on in the circulation and to mesh more with the other players.
Having an even number of players made it possible for this exercise to keep two subgroups in operation simultaneously without overlap. If we had an odd number of players, we would each find ourselves shifting in and out of having to play in the downbeat or upbeat position in time. The second time we tried it, I stuck to playing bass notes and working on harmonic cadences. After a certain point, I was able to widen my attention to respond intelligently to Don's notes, and so my root note cadences began to reflect more directly what was going on with how the rest of the circulation was progressing. We agreed that having bass notes in the downbeat position helped us orient and differentiate downbeat from upbeat better.
Then we ran through Sun Music several more times before moving on to other repertoire: Blockhead,Trapiche, Eye of the Needle, 1 of 1,000 Regrets, Asturias, Hope, and Third Relation. We seemed to have lost some ground since the performance. Hope is still particularly rough. With Don there to play the cross-picked part with Loren, I joined the circulators, and we found once again that circulating to an external pulse is still a step beyond. The double-time circulation is still far enough away that we couldn't bring ourselves really to attempt it. Adrian and I stepped up to solo, so we now have three soloists and plenty of additional confusion.
We discussed several pieces to add to our repertoire in the coming weeks: Flying Home, Boogie Express, Grossderschau, and Steve Jolemore's Ananda. (Seems like I'm forgetting one here...). We also considered the possibilities for duets and other subgroups of players to perform within a set.
On the drive home, my sleep deprivation began to catch up to me, so I relinquished the driver's seat to Don about mid-way between Chicago and Indianapolis. I was perilously close to nodding off behind the wheel, even with Don keeping up conversation to help me stay awake, and an instance of slipping into a momentary dream state fugue with my eyes open was the final straw.
It felt disturbing to be in the passenger seat in my own car, but I still managed to snooze solidly for about half an hour while sitting upright. I woke up with cottonmouth from my jaw hanging open while I was unconscious.
Don and I parted ways back at the truck stop and I raced to get home before I nodded off again, with just one stop at an Arby's for a quick bite.
On the way back, I found myself listening to a modern country station for several songs out of curiosity. Most of the lyrics were saturated with a strangely defeatist brand of nostalgia. It made me wonder about the people who listen to a lot of this music and identify closely with it.
What a long day!
I was so frantic about tweaking my laptop hard drive that didn't get to bed last night until about 2am, then I tossed, turned, and woke up multiple times, including one wake up call in the form of a wet paw in the face from the cat, who wanted to be let out. I had just let him back in from running around in the rain, but then he just had to be on the other side of that closed door.
When the 4am alarm did arrive, I just wanted to lie in bed and bask in the soothing sound of the rain coming down outside. It was not to be.
I met Don at a truck stop on the northwest side of Indianapolis and we carpooled the rest of the way. The drive up seems so short now.
In the bathroom of the truck stop, fat truckers debated the merits of New Country Music versus the Old Country Music. This reminds me of JC's recent assertion that the latest country sound is basically REO Speedwagon with a twang.
At Adrian's studio we ran through Sun Music several times and we seem to be getting up to speed pretty fast with that one. We had several very musical circulations and attempted some variations, mostly in C Harmonic Minor, including a downbeat/upbeat circulation between two subgroups. We at first went through a long stretch of just not having it together on the downbeat/upbeat circulation, and then all of a sudden it clicked into place. John commented that after a certain point you get confident enough with just hitting your note to widen your attention to include what else is going on in the circulation and to mesh more with the other players.
Having an even number of players made it possible for this exercise to keep two subgroups in operation simultaneously without overlap. If we had an odd number of players, we would each find ourselves shifting in and out of having to play in the downbeat or upbeat position in time. The second time we tried it, I stuck to playing bass notes and working on harmonic cadences. After a certain point, I was able to widen my attention to respond intelligently to Don's notes, and so my root note cadences began to reflect more directly what was going on with how the rest of the circulation was progressing. We agreed that having bass notes in the downbeat position helped us orient and differentiate downbeat from upbeat better.
Then we ran through Sun Music several more times before moving on to other repertoire: Blockhead,Trapiche, Eye of the Needle, 1 of 1,000 Regrets, Asturias, Hope, and Third Relation. We seemed to have lost some ground since the performance. Hope is still particularly rough. With Don there to play the cross-picked part with Loren, I joined the circulators, and we found once again that circulating to an external pulse is still a step beyond. The double-time circulation is still far enough away that we couldn't bring ourselves really to attempt it. Adrian and I stepped up to solo, so we now have three soloists and plenty of additional confusion.
We discussed several pieces to add to our repertoire in the coming weeks: Flying Home, Boogie Express, Grossderschau, and Steve Jolemore's Ananda. (Seems like I'm forgetting one here...). We also considered the possibilities for duets and other subgroups of players to perform within a set.
On the drive home, my sleep deprivation began to catch up to me, so I relinquished the driver's seat to Don about mid-way between Chicago and Indianapolis. I was perilously close to nodding off behind the wheel, even with Don keeping up conversation to help me stay awake, and an instance of slipping into a momentary dream state fugue with my eyes open was the final straw.
It felt disturbing to be in the passenger seat in my own car, but I still managed to snooze solidly for about half an hour while sitting upright. I woke up with cottonmouth from my jaw hanging open while I was unconscious.
Don and I parted ways back at the truck stop and I raced to get home before I nodded off again, with just one stop at an Arby's for a quick bite.
On the way back, I found myself listening to a modern country station for several songs out of curiosity. Most of the lyrics were saturated with a strangely defeatist brand of nostalgia. It made me wonder about the people who listen to a lot of this music and identify closely with it.
Friday, January 12, 2007
you spin me right 'round, baby
Post 16 of 90.
The 500G backup hard drive was waiting for me when I got home, and I got right to work backing up my iTunes files and making space on my laptop hard drive in anticipation of ProTools. Then I found out that deleting a song from iTunes does not mean it is deleted from the hard drive, so I'm going to have to go back in manually and get rid of that stuff.
I'm having to make some hard choices. Others not so hard. I only like one song off the first Edie Brickell album, so dumping the rest of that album is a no-brainer. I also dumped the entire Dylan Biograph box set and the first Bootlegs set, along with several classic Miles Davis albums which I admire but don't listen to that often. However, I think every Beatles track will have to remain, no matter what.
And now it's getting late and I have to get up at 4am to go to Chicago for the circle meeting. Somebody stop me!
The drain opener residue in the bathtub smells like poison chlorine gas.
I lucked out after work and found a Jiffy Lube place that was still open, so I've got fresh oil in the engine now for the drive up to Chicago tomorrow. I was letting the mileage run over a bit since the last one. The Car Talk guys on the radio have always asserted that you can safely get another 1,000 miles beyond the textbook 3,000, but the mileage to Chicago would unacceptably push it over the limit and I had to do something about it. I've historically been an automotive moron, and my last car was the first one I did an even remotely good job of maintaining, so I want to take care of my new car the best I can.
The 500G backup hard drive was waiting for me when I got home, and I got right to work backing up my iTunes files and making space on my laptop hard drive in anticipation of ProTools. Then I found out that deleting a song from iTunes does not mean it is deleted from the hard drive, so I'm going to have to go back in manually and get rid of that stuff.
I'm having to make some hard choices. Others not so hard. I only like one song off the first Edie Brickell album, so dumping the rest of that album is a no-brainer. I also dumped the entire Dylan Biograph box set and the first Bootlegs set, along with several classic Miles Davis albums which I admire but don't listen to that often. However, I think every Beatles track will have to remain, no matter what.
And now it's getting late and I have to get up at 4am to go to Chicago for the circle meeting. Somebody stop me!
The drain opener residue in the bathtub smells like poison chlorine gas.
I lucked out after work and found a Jiffy Lube place that was still open, so I've got fresh oil in the engine now for the drive up to Chicago tomorrow. I was letting the mileage run over a bit since the last one. The Car Talk guys on the radio have always asserted that you can safely get another 1,000 miles beyond the textbook 3,000, but the mileage to Chicago would unacceptably push it over the limit and I had to do something about it. I've historically been an automotive moron, and my last car was the first one I did an even remotely good job of maintaining, so I want to take care of my new car the best I can.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
ho-hum
Post 15 0f 90.
A series of recurring thoughts I've been having over an extended period (your mileage may vary):
--in most relations with others, it often strikes me that the real damage is done in the small, seemingly unimportant moments.
--an unsolicited apology, no matter how sincere, can often do as much or more damage than the original offense.
I need to put some stuff down the bathtub drain to loosen up a clog that's developed.
A series of recurring thoughts I've been having over an extended period (your mileage may vary):
--in most relations with others, it often strikes me that the real damage is done in the small, seemingly unimportant moments.
--an unsolicited apology, no matter how sincere, can often do as much or more damage than the original offense.
I need to put some stuff down the bathtub drain to loosen up a clog that's developed.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
'round and 'round and 'round
Post 14 of 90.
My usual pointless personal obsessions were in full swing today. A lot of noise in the brain.
I have this idea once I get my ProTools system and get the hang of it, that it would be fun to produce a song for singer-songwriter I know locally. Talented guy, and he has a cool voice. I could definitely hear doing a Sugar/Bob Mould sort of arrangement to his stuff, and I think I could whip out suitable bass and guitar in short order. Once I get Strike up and running, maybe it wouldn't take that long to get some bitchen rock drums down, too. Might even be fun rather than a drag. We'll see. I'm hoping the new setup would allow me to work fast and efficiently, enough to stay engaged above the boredom threshold but still have a finished recording that is fun to listen to.
I talked to JC over email about how the vocals he produced with me sounded really good compared to anything I've been able to get out of my own recording rig. He said his one compressor that he wasn't able to get to work actually sounded even better than what we had when I last visited (and that the his compressor was actually working, but that he didn't realize he had it set incorrectly so it was completely shutting off the gain). I asked him what brand name that compressor was, with an eye toward maybe getting one for myself. My little Art unit just does not seem to be getting the job done, and I probably need something on the front end before the vocal even goes into the converters. I don't know if I could truly get the results I want otherwise. We'll see.
On other fronts, I find myself falling prey to morbid curiosity.
My usual pointless personal obsessions were in full swing today. A lot of noise in the brain.
I have this idea once I get my ProTools system and get the hang of it, that it would be fun to produce a song for singer-songwriter I know locally. Talented guy, and he has a cool voice. I could definitely hear doing a Sugar/Bob Mould sort of arrangement to his stuff, and I think I could whip out suitable bass and guitar in short order. Once I get Strike up and running, maybe it wouldn't take that long to get some bitchen rock drums down, too. Might even be fun rather than a drag. We'll see. I'm hoping the new setup would allow me to work fast and efficiently, enough to stay engaged above the boredom threshold but still have a finished recording that is fun to listen to.
I talked to JC over email about how the vocals he produced with me sounded really good compared to anything I've been able to get out of my own recording rig. He said his one compressor that he wasn't able to get to work actually sounded even better than what we had when I last visited (and that the his compressor was actually working, but that he didn't realize he had it set incorrectly so it was completely shutting off the gain). I asked him what brand name that compressor was, with an eye toward maybe getting one for myself. My little Art unit just does not seem to be getting the job done, and I probably need something on the front end before the vocal even goes into the converters. I don't know if I could truly get the results I want otherwise. We'll see.
On other fronts, I find myself falling prey to morbid curiosity.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
time is a gypsy caravan, steals away in the night
Post 13 of 90.
This was a long, aimless sort of day. I could not seem to focus. I felt pressed down by a disquieting feeling that forces are in motion out there and that the world is headed in a bad direction.
At work, I swung into action with a new tea mug courtesy of Waste Management from Dayton. At first, I was happy at the expanded capacity of this cup versus my old one. With this cup's first inaugural beverage this morning, I found that I automatically stopped drinking and left an amount in the bottom equivalent to the extra capacity I'd gained over the old mug. With the second cup in the afternoon, I was determined that I would drink it all, but when I hit the "extra" threshold, I just couldn't finish it. I found myself thinking, "Damn! That's too much!"
So maybe more is not always more.
A post-lunch migraine (with auras) left me unable to read or focus on much of anything for about an hour
After work, I remembered that the first volume of The Beatles as Musicians had arrived for me at B&N, so I stopped by to pick it up and have a cappuccino. Afterward, I considered the possibility that I need to cut out the dairy products and the reduce the huge caffeine intake I've developed over the last three years or so.
The wind had a penetrating cold in the evening. Is this the first hint of an arctic blast finally on the way?
Phone call to Don on the way home. Left a message.
In the car, I listened to the new Ray Lamontagne album I picked up the other day.
Back home, I ordered the outboard 500G hard drive I had my eye on and began gathering the financial resources to get the Pro Tools system. We'll see if this laptop has the juice to keep up once I get the software installed.
Later at home, I suddenly had this moment where I felt this little burst of joy rise out of my chest like an expanding bubble. It caught me by surprise not only by the fact that it happened at all, but by my feeling that I either didn't know or had long since forgotten what it felt like.
When I hold this up next to that flash of wild-eyed terror I had in my last musical performance, it makes me wonder if I've been living in some kind of a gray, emotional middle for a while now. Here are the extremes, so what sort of areas do I normally spend most of my time orbiting around in?
While practicing last night, I indeed found that my new kitchen timer helped a great deal in keeping my practice more focused. For once, I didn't go on and on and on with any one exercise and got to touch in depth on several things without going too far. I also got a remarkable amount done in a relatively short amount of time. Mostly right hand stuff, but I made it through several different variations I sometimes otherwise just don't seem to get to.
Lately, I've been carrying around a little notebook to write things down when I get the sudden stray insight about something. I've had times when I have had seemingly important realizations about the unfolding fractal of my life, only to forget completely later on.
I need to get a new watch soon.
This was a long, aimless sort of day. I could not seem to focus. I felt pressed down by a disquieting feeling that forces are in motion out there and that the world is headed in a bad direction.
At work, I swung into action with a new tea mug courtesy of Waste Management from Dayton. At first, I was happy at the expanded capacity of this cup versus my old one. With this cup's first inaugural beverage this morning, I found that I automatically stopped drinking and left an amount in the bottom equivalent to the extra capacity I'd gained over the old mug. With the second cup in the afternoon, I was determined that I would drink it all, but when I hit the "extra" threshold, I just couldn't finish it. I found myself thinking, "Damn! That's too much!"
So maybe more is not always more.
A post-lunch migraine (with auras) left me unable to read or focus on much of anything for about an hour
After work, I remembered that the first volume of The Beatles as Musicians had arrived for me at B&N, so I stopped by to pick it up and have a cappuccino. Afterward, I considered the possibility that I need to cut out the dairy products and the reduce the huge caffeine intake I've developed over the last three years or so.
The wind had a penetrating cold in the evening. Is this the first hint of an arctic blast finally on the way?
Phone call to Don on the way home. Left a message.
In the car, I listened to the new Ray Lamontagne album I picked up the other day.
Back home, I ordered the outboard 500G hard drive I had my eye on and began gathering the financial resources to get the Pro Tools system. We'll see if this laptop has the juice to keep up once I get the software installed.
Later at home, I suddenly had this moment where I felt this little burst of joy rise out of my chest like an expanding bubble. It caught me by surprise not only by the fact that it happened at all, but by my feeling that I either didn't know or had long since forgotten what it felt like.
When I hold this up next to that flash of wild-eyed terror I had in my last musical performance, it makes me wonder if I've been living in some kind of a gray, emotional middle for a while now. Here are the extremes, so what sort of areas do I normally spend most of my time orbiting around in?
While practicing last night, I indeed found that my new kitchen timer helped a great deal in keeping my practice more focused. For once, I didn't go on and on and on with any one exercise and got to touch in depth on several things without going too far. I also got a remarkable amount done in a relatively short amount of time. Mostly right hand stuff, but I made it through several different variations I sometimes otherwise just don't seem to get to.
Lately, I've been carrying around a little notebook to write things down when I get the sudden stray insight about something. I've had times when I have had seemingly important realizations about the unfolding fractal of my life, only to forget completely later on.
I need to get a new watch soon.
Monday, January 8, 2007
magnetic attraction
Post 12 of 90.
Pizza for lunch, and then Rick at Wizard's Records recommended I pick up the Ray Lamontagne album, which I did. He also informed me that things were getting stinky in NYC, which I didn't yet know about.
Hanging out at the coffeeshop again after work. I seem to be making new friends almost in spite of myself.
It seems like every woman I know has multiple stories of being stalked and/or freaked out by obsessive weirdo guys, and it seems to make no difference whether she is even remotely close or not to widespread cultural ideals of attractiveness.
And I've heard it all before, but tonight was the first time I arrived at some visceral understanding of why it is that women are perpetually testing men. "Oh, so that's why they do it! Wow! If I were in their shoes maybe I would do it, too!!"
Once again, understanding a piece of knowledge emotionally in the gut is a whole different world from a strictly intellectual understanding.
The theme tonight was of strange guys pushing for a woman to go with them on 12 hour drives to distant cities. This is something I've directly witnessed. I know I wouldn't want to spend most of an entire day cooped up in a car with someone I barely knew. Would you? Some of them may well be perfectly suitable guys, but what are they thinking? Guys, it's not going to work. Cut it out.
I also discovered tonight that I had 57G of music on my hard drive!
How much of it do I actually listen to? I'll have to boil it down to the best of the best in order to free up space on this hard drive.
I'm considering the possibility of selling my current recording rig once I have a ProTools system up and running, but I don't expect I'm going to get much cash for it. Would it even be worthwhile to try selling it?
I bought a digital kitchen timer at the grocery after work, and it's now magnetically clinging to my music stand. In a moment I'll get down to some practicing and set some time limits to my various exercises.
Pizza for lunch, and then Rick at Wizard's Records recommended I pick up the Ray Lamontagne album, which I did. He also informed me that things were getting stinky in NYC, which I didn't yet know about.
Hanging out at the coffeeshop again after work. I seem to be making new friends almost in spite of myself.
It seems like every woman I know has multiple stories of being stalked and/or freaked out by obsessive weirdo guys, and it seems to make no difference whether she is even remotely close or not to widespread cultural ideals of attractiveness.
And I've heard it all before, but tonight was the first time I arrived at some visceral understanding of why it is that women are perpetually testing men. "Oh, so that's why they do it! Wow! If I were in their shoes maybe I would do it, too!!"
Once again, understanding a piece of knowledge emotionally in the gut is a whole different world from a strictly intellectual understanding.
The theme tonight was of strange guys pushing for a woman to go with them on 12 hour drives to distant cities. This is something I've directly witnessed. I know I wouldn't want to spend most of an entire day cooped up in a car with someone I barely knew. Would you? Some of them may well be perfectly suitable guys, but what are they thinking? Guys, it's not going to work. Cut it out.
I also discovered tonight that I had 57G of music on my hard drive!
How much of it do I actually listen to? I'll have to boil it down to the best of the best in order to free up space on this hard drive.
I'm considering the possibility of selling my current recording rig once I have a ProTools system up and running, but I don't expect I'm going to get much cash for it. Would it even be worthwhile to try selling it?
I bought a digital kitchen timer at the grocery after work, and it's now magnetically clinging to my music stand. In a moment I'll get down to some practicing and set some time limits to my various exercises.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
lazy sunday
Post 11 of 90.
I was up late again last night and subsequently woke up around 2 pm today.
I couldn't bear to spend the day hanging around the house, so I showered up and came into town for a cappuccino. While I wonder about this compulsion to get out of the house, even though it's a 35 minute drive each way, I reflect that maybe life in the suburbs is not for me. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that suburbs are essentially large-scale nurseries devoted mainly to the raising of kids. It is a place where, by design, nothing much happens, and because of this I'm more than willing to drive long distances to be in an area where there are people and it at least seems like something is happening.
I also reflect that this car-bound cultural arrangement is bound to fail, and probably sooner than we would like. I guess we should enjoy it while it lasts.
And let's put "enjoy" into quotes, since I can't say I really like it or that it will ultimately be missed. I think it's more that I fear the inevitable disruption the collapse of this system will create in our lives before it sorts itself out, and I'm not looking forward to that. Whatever mechanical process we're caught in will apparently have its way with us. The crisis seems perpetually deferred, and yet inevitable. I don't how much longer business as usual can continue.
In the meantime, there is music to be made.
I also reflect that by and large, people are good. You just need to watch out for that esimated 1 in 25 who are born sociopaths--those who can literally do anything and feel no twinge of conscience, the "snakes in suits," the "pathocrats" who inhabit seek power and foment wars and mass murder, or maybe that guy down the street whose only small ambition is to nurture poisonous rumors among the people in his neighborhood.
Anyway, I'm still pondering the purchase of a ProTools LE system. I think I'm going to do it, but I'm not going to replace my PowerBook G4 right away. I'll keep it for now and see how well it handles the processing load of a ProTools system. It's probably more important right now that I get a backup hard drive, and I'm thinking I'm going to go for the the 500G model. I was going to go with 250G, but I had the realization that I would probably fill that up before I knew what was going on. My PowerBook has an 80G hard drive, and I once would've scoffed at the notion that could fill that up, and yet I've done it.
If I find I need more computing power, I'm thinking about going for the Mac Mini. I noticed they have Firewire interfaces, which would be a necessity, and if I'm going to devote a machine just to recording, I'll bypass all the costly frills. It also seems relatively more portable than a full-blown desktop machine, so I could concievably pack it up without too much fuss if I was going to record a jam somewhere. Not ideal, but better than getting a costly new MacBook laptop. I'll ask the Mac guy in the IT department at work what he thinks about it.
I've also been reading Everett's The Beatles As Musicians:Revolver through the Anthology, but I think the Pollack analyses of the songs are better. Pollack is much more lucid in how he lays out his ideas about how the Beatles' music worked. Everett talks way more about the cultural context and historical details of demos and overdubs, and I want to know more specifics about chord progressions, modulations, and details of melodic construction to the finished songs than he provides.
I was up late again last night and subsequently woke up around 2 pm today.
I couldn't bear to spend the day hanging around the house, so I showered up and came into town for a cappuccino. While I wonder about this compulsion to get out of the house, even though it's a 35 minute drive each way, I reflect that maybe life in the suburbs is not for me. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that suburbs are essentially large-scale nurseries devoted mainly to the raising of kids. It is a place where, by design, nothing much happens, and because of this I'm more than willing to drive long distances to be in an area where there are people and it at least seems like something is happening.
I also reflect that this car-bound cultural arrangement is bound to fail, and probably sooner than we would like. I guess we should enjoy it while it lasts.
And let's put "enjoy" into quotes, since I can't say I really like it or that it will ultimately be missed. I think it's more that I fear the inevitable disruption the collapse of this system will create in our lives before it sorts itself out, and I'm not looking forward to that. Whatever mechanical process we're caught in will apparently have its way with us. The crisis seems perpetually deferred, and yet inevitable. I don't how much longer business as usual can continue.
In the meantime, there is music to be made.
I also reflect that by and large, people are good. You just need to watch out for that esimated 1 in 25 who are born sociopaths--those who can literally do anything and feel no twinge of conscience, the "snakes in suits," the "pathocrats" who inhabit seek power and foment wars and mass murder, or maybe that guy down the street whose only small ambition is to nurture poisonous rumors among the people in his neighborhood.
Anyway, I'm still pondering the purchase of a ProTools LE system. I think I'm going to do it, but I'm not going to replace my PowerBook G4 right away. I'll keep it for now and see how well it handles the processing load of a ProTools system. It's probably more important right now that I get a backup hard drive, and I'm thinking I'm going to go for the the 500G model. I was going to go with 250G, but I had the realization that I would probably fill that up before I knew what was going on. My PowerBook has an 80G hard drive, and I once would've scoffed at the notion that could fill that up, and yet I've done it.
If I find I need more computing power, I'm thinking about going for the Mac Mini. I noticed they have Firewire interfaces, which would be a necessity, and if I'm going to devote a machine just to recording, I'll bypass all the costly frills. It also seems relatively more portable than a full-blown desktop machine, so I could concievably pack it up without too much fuss if I was going to record a jam somewhere. Not ideal, but better than getting a costly new MacBook laptop. I'll ask the Mac guy in the IT department at work what he thinks about it.
I've also been reading Everett's The Beatles As Musicians:Revolver through the Anthology, but I think the Pollack analyses of the songs are better. Pollack is much more lucid in how he lays out his ideas about how the Beatles' music worked. Everett talks way more about the cultural context and historical details of demos and overdubs, and I want to know more specifics about chord progressions, modulations, and details of melodic construction to the finished songs than he provides.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
ohio meeting in dayton
Post 10 of 90.
We get together at the home of Matt, son of Don, in Dayton. I bring my spare Ovation for Matt to use and we work on "Sun Music" for several hours. It's nice to get some idea of how the piece actually sounds. Don proposes we work on a polyrhythm idea, the usual 1 and 4 in 5 and 1, 4, and 6 in 7, but also an idea in 11 (playing on 1, 4, 6, and 9).
Then a free circulation in C Major, followed by circulating C Major and C Harmonic Minor through one and then two octaves. Don (understandably, I think) hates this particular exercise, but I push for it because it seems very important to building a circulating group, and because it's been one of the very first things Robert puts us through on a course (uh-oh! expectations!). If Matt goes on to attend a course (up to him, naturally) he's bound to run into it, and Don and I would spare him the horror of being "that guy," the guy who doesn't know his C Major and who keeps making the circulation crash and burn, until everybody in the circle finally wants to strangle him. And then as soon as that guy gets it together, next thing you know you are that guy! Not fun.
At one point, we circulate naming the notes as we go, and that seems to help as we take turns being "that guy" in our little trio. Then we drop the note naming and circulate through the scale with a little more ease. I feel renewed enthusiasm to get down to some fretboard familiarity work when I practice in the coming days.
Then we work on "Trapiche" for a bit and exhort Matt to master his alternate picking, especially on the three string variation which causes the picking to turn around.
After practicing, Don and I agree to go to Chicago for the upcoming meeting next Saturday, and that most of our work is going to be geared toward the Chicago repertoire and activities (a while back, we acknowledged that we had more or less been folded into the Chicago group somewhere along the way, and that notions of the "Ohio Guitar Circle" experiment have pretty much been put to rest).
We get together at the home of Matt, son of Don, in Dayton. I bring my spare Ovation for Matt to use and we work on "Sun Music" for several hours. It's nice to get some idea of how the piece actually sounds. Don proposes we work on a polyrhythm idea, the usual 1 and 4 in 5 and 1, 4, and 6 in 7, but also an idea in 11 (playing on 1, 4, 6, and 9).
Then a free circulation in C Major, followed by circulating C Major and C Harmonic Minor through one and then two octaves. Don (understandably, I think) hates this particular exercise, but I push for it because it seems very important to building a circulating group, and because it's been one of the very first things Robert puts us through on a course (uh-oh! expectations!). If Matt goes on to attend a course (up to him, naturally) he's bound to run into it, and Don and I would spare him the horror of being "that guy," the guy who doesn't know his C Major and who keeps making the circulation crash and burn, until everybody in the circle finally wants to strangle him. And then as soon as that guy gets it together, next thing you know you are that guy! Not fun.
At one point, we circulate naming the notes as we go, and that seems to help as we take turns being "that guy" in our little trio. Then we drop the note naming and circulate through the scale with a little more ease. I feel renewed enthusiasm to get down to some fretboard familiarity work when I practice in the coming days.
Then we work on "Trapiche" for a bit and exhort Matt to master his alternate picking, especially on the three string variation which causes the picking to turn around.
After practicing, Don and I agree to go to Chicago for the upcoming meeting next Saturday, and that most of our work is going to be geared toward the Chicago repertoire and activities (a while back, we acknowledged that we had more or less been folded into the Chicago group somewhere along the way, and that notions of the "Ohio Guitar Circle" experiment have pretty much been put to rest).
Friday, January 5, 2007
sleepy again
Post 9 of 90.
Another low energy day. Lunch at European Cafe in Montgomery, and I spend a lot of time staring off into space while I waited for my food. The waitress asks me if the food was OK, and seems visibly relieved when I say it is. I grab a cappuccino at the Starbucks down the street to help keep me alert through the afternoon.
Today I think a big part of this sleepy feelng is because my eyes are dry (as a lasik side effect), and this creates an urge to close my eyes, which then creates an illusion of tiredness. Within the family, my grandmother on my dad's side was known for blowing in my eyes when I was being fussy as a baby, and this forced me to blink and close my eyes a lot until I eventually quit crying and fell asleep.
I have another cappuccino at Lookout Joe after work, but still sit around like a zombie. A few days ago, I talked to the barrista about the Cure, and suggested she get a copy of The Top, which was more or less a Robert Smith solo project, and the first album where he went whole hog with his trademark "weepy" vocal style. She suggested I make a compilation with songs from that album so the staff has something else to listen to, and I agree. Over a few says, I whittled over five hours of songs in iTunes down to a single CD, mostly songs from The Top followed by a lot of obscure English psychedelic whimsy, burned it, and printed out a CD insert. Tonight I gave her the compilation and it's playing right now.
I need to get out of here in a bit and go home to practice in preparation for meeting with Don tomorrow at his son's house in Dayton.
Another low energy day. Lunch at European Cafe in Montgomery, and I spend a lot of time staring off into space while I waited for my food. The waitress asks me if the food was OK, and seems visibly relieved when I say it is. I grab a cappuccino at the Starbucks down the street to help keep me alert through the afternoon.
Today I think a big part of this sleepy feelng is because my eyes are dry (as a lasik side effect), and this creates an urge to close my eyes, which then creates an illusion of tiredness. Within the family, my grandmother on my dad's side was known for blowing in my eyes when I was being fussy as a baby, and this forced me to blink and close my eyes a lot until I eventually quit crying and fell asleep.
I have another cappuccino at Lookout Joe after work, but still sit around like a zombie. A few days ago, I talked to the barrista about the Cure, and suggested she get a copy of The Top, which was more or less a Robert Smith solo project, and the first album where he went whole hog with his trademark "weepy" vocal style. She suggested I make a compilation with songs from that album so the staff has something else to listen to, and I agree. Over a few says, I whittled over five hours of songs in iTunes down to a single CD, mostly songs from The Top followed by a lot of obscure English psychedelic whimsy, burned it, and printed out a CD insert. Tonight I gave her the compilation and it's playing right now.
I need to get out of here in a bit and go home to practice in preparation for meeting with Don tomorrow at his son's house in Dayton.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
alexander crash bananas (it's true!)
Post 8 of 90.
Alexander Technique lesson after work, then I head to the bookstore to pick up my copy of The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. I sit in the coffeeshop, have a sandwich, and read a little bit. When I step outside the store, I discover it has rained.
On the drive back, I see that somebody has gone off the road on Ronald Reagan Highway and crashed into the noise barrier fencing (metal in this case) and he has bent up several fence panels and partially uprooted one of the posts. A cop is already on the scene, and a fire truck and ambulance are approaching in the opposite bound lanes. I can't tell if anybody was hurt.
Now to practice.
BONUS:
I came across this today.
Directions:
1. Watch the video.
2. Pay close attention to the white team.
3. How many times do they pass the basketball?
Go watch it before reading any further.
Alexander Technique lesson after work, then I head to the bookstore to pick up my copy of The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology. I sit in the coffeeshop, have a sandwich, and read a little bit. When I step outside the store, I discover it has rained.
On the drive back, I see that somebody has gone off the road on Ronald Reagan Highway and crashed into the noise barrier fencing (metal in this case) and he has bent up several fence panels and partially uprooted one of the posts. A cop is already on the scene, and a fire truck and ambulance are approaching in the opposite bound lanes. I can't tell if anybody was hurt.
Now to practice.
BONUS:
I came across this today.
Directions:
1. Watch the video.
2. Pay close attention to the white team.
3. How many times do they pass the basketball?
Go watch it before reading any further.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
crash and burn
Post 7 of 90.
I'm sleep deprived and exhausted. My night owl sleep schedule has caught up with me. Now that I'm home from work, it's straight to bed.
I'm sleep deprived and exhausted. My night owl sleep schedule has caught up with me. Now that I'm home from work, it's straight to bed.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
welcome to the suck
Post 6 of 90.
Long day at work. "Killer Veggie" pizza for lunch. Tired.
I had a cappuccino after work and read part of a new book on lyric writing. Then commuted home for quick dinner of leftover chili soup.
The cat is on antibiotics. Something bit him under the armpit and it was infected.
About 9:30 I went down to the studio for some practice.
Tonight:
--Alexander lie-down (w/cat on chest)
--guitar tuning follies. Is that C string sharp or flat? Does the tuner even know?
--right hand picking on the A string, no-tempo, then to one note every four beats @ 60 bpm, one note every two beats @ 60bpm, etc. up to 16th notes @ 75 bpm, along the way looking for the feeling of release in the wrist, as well seeking out whatever it is I need to let go of somewhere in my shoulder and arm in order to break through to the next level.
Also looking for the correct support for the right arm on the guitar. Some of this involves experimenting with small changes in guitar height, as well as looking for only the necessary tension I need. There's a lot to let go of in getting the shoulder and arm to relax while making the picking motion and maintaining the floating right hand. A step too far and the arm flops off the guitar, although I experiment with purposely allowing this to happen, just to see what it's like and if I can identify the precise crossover point from relaxation to collapse. I can still pick certain things faster if I lightly plant the right hand on the bridge, but this fixed position robs me of a great deal of freedom in switching from string to string, so there seems to be no future in that approach for me. But with the floating right hand, there's some other element thrown into the mix that I still haven't learned to blend in and control properly. Some of it is most certainly excess tension, but where? And what?
It once again seems easier when I stand. I'm ectomorphic, with a short torso and long limbs, and I cannot seem to get the guitar high enough to avoid being interfered with excessively by my right thigh. It would be almost up under my chin, and then it would be too high to suit my long monkey arms.
An observation about myself is that I tend to attack things intellectually, and then use what I find to work on the other centres, but it's beginning to seem like I need on some level to trust my body to have the intuition to figure out what to do to make this picking technique work properly. Which I suppose means an unavoidably large amount of simply sitting and picking attentively with the metronome until my body just "gets it" and lets go of whatever is getting in the way. But I'm uncomfortable with it because it's not my usual way to trust my body, and I have a hard time now and then accepting that the body itself can contain its own sort of knowledge base. I seem to have some kind of bias that if it's not available as a precise verbal thought-form, it hardly counts as knowledge at all. And yet I intellectually (ironically) also understand that, yes, it is a sort of knowledge after all.
It's just that I've gotten so sick over many years of the massive amount of work it's always taken for me even to begin to play the instrument at the feeble level I've managed to arrive at so far. Playing the guitar has never come naturally, and I would love to stop worrying about the guitar and make music instead.
In my previous late- and post-teenage incarnation as a guitarist, I got to where I could play some whizzy-whizzy metal leads now and then using the wrist fixed on the bridge, but there was a long haul of sitting, practicing, and sucking, seemingly without hope. Then one day it was there and I had crossed over, but in looking back, I cannot identify exactly when or how it happened. Playing a lot of lead guitar in a band certainly helped, and looking back I can see that very often it was slow, attentive practice on particular things that led to improvement, but it was never very systematic and predictable. (That is, Ian wasn't very systematic or predicable. Just determined and a little lucky now and then, perhaps?) It's still mostly a big mystery to me, and I find myself now having the exact same feeling of working through exercises all over again and feeling like the suck will never end. Will whatever mysterious force that helped me break through before and end my previous run of suck please come back and give me a hand here?
All the same, with what I 've learned and achieved in the last few years, even at this level I'm playing things that before I would have thought, "Oh, that's impossible." But still there's another level to be reached.
And when am I going to get around to fretboard familiarity and find time to work on my ear? And work on composing and songwriting? And just have some fun? So much to do.
Anyway, I finished out tonight with that simple old 3444 Primary cross-picking pattern between the E and A strings, no-tempo only while I worked on moving from string to string with a gradual pressure approach, trying to wire that relaxation in at as deep a level as possible.
It occurs to me that I need to go out and buy a new kitchen timer with an alarm to replace the one I've had for a while. I lost the little battery compartment cover somewhere. I tend to get lost for hours in extremely basic right hand stuff, and I don't have hours available to touch on everything that needs to be touched on. Maybe it would be healthy to move on after a set interval interval of time instead of getting lost in whatever I happen to be examining at any one moment.
There was a moment during my work on relaxing my right arm and shoulder when I could scarcely believe the wacky, tense way I used to hold my right arm on the face of the guitar. I wound up with the pick actually over the fingerboard side of the soundhole. Sometimes even over part of the fingerboard itself. Weird.
Discovery: discordant notes will drive the cat from the room.
Long day at work. "Killer Veggie" pizza for lunch. Tired.
I had a cappuccino after work and read part of a new book on lyric writing. Then commuted home for quick dinner of leftover chili soup.
The cat is on antibiotics. Something bit him under the armpit and it was infected.
About 9:30 I went down to the studio for some practice.
Tonight:
--Alexander lie-down (w/cat on chest)
--guitar tuning follies. Is that C string sharp or flat? Does the tuner even know?
--right hand picking on the A string, no-tempo, then to one note every four beats @ 60 bpm, one note every two beats @ 60bpm, etc. up to 16th notes @ 75 bpm, along the way looking for the feeling of release in the wrist, as well seeking out whatever it is I need to let go of somewhere in my shoulder and arm in order to break through to the next level.
Also looking for the correct support for the right arm on the guitar. Some of this involves experimenting with small changes in guitar height, as well as looking for only the necessary tension I need. There's a lot to let go of in getting the shoulder and arm to relax while making the picking motion and maintaining the floating right hand. A step too far and the arm flops off the guitar, although I experiment with purposely allowing this to happen, just to see what it's like and if I can identify the precise crossover point from relaxation to collapse. I can still pick certain things faster if I lightly plant the right hand on the bridge, but this fixed position robs me of a great deal of freedom in switching from string to string, so there seems to be no future in that approach for me. But with the floating right hand, there's some other element thrown into the mix that I still haven't learned to blend in and control properly. Some of it is most certainly excess tension, but where? And what?
It once again seems easier when I stand. I'm ectomorphic, with a short torso and long limbs, and I cannot seem to get the guitar high enough to avoid being interfered with excessively by my right thigh. It would be almost up under my chin, and then it would be too high to suit my long monkey arms.
An observation about myself is that I tend to attack things intellectually, and then use what I find to work on the other centres, but it's beginning to seem like I need on some level to trust my body to have the intuition to figure out what to do to make this picking technique work properly. Which I suppose means an unavoidably large amount of simply sitting and picking attentively with the metronome until my body just "gets it" and lets go of whatever is getting in the way. But I'm uncomfortable with it because it's not my usual way to trust my body, and I have a hard time now and then accepting that the body itself can contain its own sort of knowledge base. I seem to have some kind of bias that if it's not available as a precise verbal thought-form, it hardly counts as knowledge at all. And yet I intellectually (ironically) also understand that, yes, it is a sort of knowledge after all.
It's just that I've gotten so sick over many years of the massive amount of work it's always taken for me even to begin to play the instrument at the feeble level I've managed to arrive at so far. Playing the guitar has never come naturally, and I would love to stop worrying about the guitar and make music instead.
In my previous late- and post-teenage incarnation as a guitarist, I got to where I could play some whizzy-whizzy metal leads now and then using the wrist fixed on the bridge, but there was a long haul of sitting, practicing, and sucking, seemingly without hope. Then one day it was there and I had crossed over, but in looking back, I cannot identify exactly when or how it happened. Playing a lot of lead guitar in a band certainly helped, and looking back I can see that very often it was slow, attentive practice on particular things that led to improvement, but it was never very systematic and predictable. (That is, Ian wasn't very systematic or predicable. Just determined and a little lucky now and then, perhaps?) It's still mostly a big mystery to me, and I find myself now having the exact same feeling of working through exercises all over again and feeling like the suck will never end. Will whatever mysterious force that helped me break through before and end my previous run of suck please come back and give me a hand here?
All the same, with what I 've learned and achieved in the last few years, even at this level I'm playing things that before I would have thought, "Oh, that's impossible." But still there's another level to be reached.
And when am I going to get around to fretboard familiarity and find time to work on my ear? And work on composing and songwriting? And just have some fun? So much to do.
Anyway, I finished out tonight with that simple old 3444 Primary cross-picking pattern between the E and A strings, no-tempo only while I worked on moving from string to string with a gradual pressure approach, trying to wire that relaxation in at as deep a level as possible.
It occurs to me that I need to go out and buy a new kitchen timer with an alarm to replace the one I've had for a while. I lost the little battery compartment cover somewhere. I tend to get lost for hours in extremely basic right hand stuff, and I don't have hours available to touch on everything that needs to be touched on. Maybe it would be healthy to move on after a set interval interval of time instead of getting lost in whatever I happen to be examining at any one moment.
There was a moment during my work on relaxing my right arm and shoulder when I could scarcely believe the wacky, tense way I used to hold my right arm on the face of the guitar. I wound up with the pick actually over the fingerboard side of the soundhole. Sometimes even over part of the fingerboard itself. Weird.
Discovery: discordant notes will drive the cat from the room.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Bond, James Bond
Post 5 of 90.
I was up late working on a vocal-based song with three NST guitars as backing. A long way to go with this one. The vocal has to take center stage, so the guitars have to be relatively simple in comparison. Plenty of patterned picking going on, but it's more to provide a textural backing. Once I have the vocal melodies all in place, I can think about inserting little wrinkles into the guitar parts in the gaps and transitions to make it more interesting.
Watched a lot of old James Bond movies today (it was the "007 in '07" festival on satellite TV). Were Diamonds Are Forever and Goldfinger always that ridiculous? I read an essay once talking about how a lot of the Bond movies intentionally engage in ultra-ironic comedy, and that only a few movies showcase the ruthless Bond of the Fleming novels (I think Daniel Craig's Bond definitely qualifies as the ruthless variety... until I eventually notice incongruities in the new movies, too). In any case, I found myself laughing hysterically at a lot of things in these two. And Felix Leiter seemed weirdly obsessed with Bond's ability to bed women during this era. But then, someone has to lead the Beta dog cheering section, I guess, and Bond will always be the Alpha.
The Spy Who Loved Me was my hands down favorite for many years, even though I don't buy Roger Moore as Bond these days. He was the Bond I grew up with, so his version has sentimental value to me.
I hear the soundtrack music much differently than I used to, in that I notice how sounds have dated along with intervals and particular lines jumping out at me. The Spy Who Loved Me was hilariously disco-fied.
Now down to the studio for some practice.
I was up late working on a vocal-based song with three NST guitars as backing. A long way to go with this one. The vocal has to take center stage, so the guitars have to be relatively simple in comparison. Plenty of patterned picking going on, but it's more to provide a textural backing. Once I have the vocal melodies all in place, I can think about inserting little wrinkles into the guitar parts in the gaps and transitions to make it more interesting.
Watched a lot of old James Bond movies today (it was the "007 in '07" festival on satellite TV). Were Diamonds Are Forever and Goldfinger always that ridiculous? I read an essay once talking about how a lot of the Bond movies intentionally engage in ultra-ironic comedy, and that only a few movies showcase the ruthless Bond of the Fleming novels (I think Daniel Craig's Bond definitely qualifies as the ruthless variety... until I eventually notice incongruities in the new movies, too). In any case, I found myself laughing hysterically at a lot of things in these two. And Felix Leiter seemed weirdly obsessed with Bond's ability to bed women during this era. But then, someone has to lead the Beta dog cheering section, I guess, and Bond will always be the Alpha.
The Spy Who Loved Me was my hands down favorite for many years, even though I don't buy Roger Moore as Bond these days. He was the Bond I grew up with, so his version has sentimental value to me.
I hear the soundtrack music much differently than I used to, in that I notice how sounds have dated along with intervals and particular lines jumping out at me. The Spy Who Loved Me was hilariously disco-fied.
Now down to the studio for some practice.
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