Wonderful World of Web

This is kinda neat. There are stats on visitors to this blog. It's almost like the olympics.

USA = 15, Russia = 11, Canada = 5, Germany = 3, Malaysia = 2

I'm betting that the USA visitors are likely members of the band. Or knitters. Which may account for a Canadian or two. No Chinese though. Wonder if that's a one way street?

I quit watching the Olympics. American atheletes are, with some poignant exceptions, A**holes. I honestly hope the mens basketball team goes 0 for 100 in the final game. I want to apologize to Nigeria for the pure act of piling on that these, so called, professionals felt compelled to administer. 156-73 is not a score. It's an embarrassment for everyone involved. Including the home country...

I miss amature sports.

I digress. It's a bad habit I have.

I'm an amature musician. I certainly hope i don't run into the American basketball team between now and my first concert. If nothing else, I would be heard screaming into the empty night. Which I do every night as part of my practice.

By the way, please feel free to drop a comment. It would be interesting to hear from visitors. Native tongue is quite welcome.

Hope???

This seems to be working...

Scream the lyrics! As loud as you can without getting arrested! (Note: there is nothing worth going to jail for...).

Screaming as many of them as you can without passing out is a good thing. Passing out, in itself, can be judged entirely upon the method used to get there.

This seems to have a twofold effect. Breathing is number one on the effect parade. You really have to suck air to scream. Seems it really helps to suck air during a song as well. Sucking half the air will get you half the song. I should probably copywrite that...

Grabbing half the air to get through a passage is a recipe to... feel free to fill this one in... The copywrite is yours if you're so inclined.

My personnal result is weakness of voice. That little waa-waa effect that creeps out with no air behind it. The one that had me trying to hide in the bottom of my chair while attending the concert described below.

I had the pleasure of going to my daughters high school chorus finale concert a few months ago.  There were some wonderful moments. There were some good moments. And there were some OMG shoot me moments.

Stamina. The OMG moments were, mostly, young folks running out of steam. The poor child singing songs with endless chorus's at the end. It's painful to listen to. My effort in last weeks practice was profoundly painful for the poor unfortunate souls stuck in that room.

Fortunately, it's my band and I can suck if I want too??? There's a shoot me moment right there. My band mates deserve better.

So, I'm screaming. And playing. And recording (delete is a cool tool!). It's getting better. And the endurance is improving. The hesitation is diminishing. The strength of voice is there at the end.

My sincere wish is that there are no shoot me moments in the audience when this plan comes to fruition. No trying to hide in their chairs. Hmmm, perhaps I need to ensure that there are no chairs for the audience to hide in. That would be cruel. :)

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!!!

Did you know that if you don't practice, properly, it's a lock you won't improve. If you practice the wrong way, it's a guarantee you'll get worse. Guess what I did??

I spent the better part of the past two weeks learning lyrics. The key word being "learning".

Sitting by myself, I can get most of the words to dark side of the moon out in relatively accurate order. I learned words. Not how to sing them.

Adding a guitar, several musicians, a microphone, amplifiers and music and I promptly reverted back into a babbling idiot. Actually, a babbling idiot that couldn't find a note in a room full of Post It's. Baaaaaad!

My practice methods will change. I will play, sing, record and improve. An hour a day at least.

If I don't improve after the next two practices, I will have to fire myself  and get a replacement.

On the good side, the band sounds great aand shows steady improvement. The music is coming together. I need to learn to post audio.

Hearing Yourself

This is an odd subject. For a lot of reasons.


I'm very new to singing. Out loud and in public at any rate.


I like to think that I'm my own worst critic but that implies that I'm capable of judging. What if i stink at judging???


The recorder will be running at this weekends practice. God, help me.


We've all seen the singers on stage with their ear buds locked tightly to their heads. Found out that this is referred to as an In Ear Monitor or IEM for those of us who like short stuff.


The sound going to these typically comes from a mixer where the user can select the combinations of voice and music channels that they feel provides them with the feedback they seek.


I'm thinking that, if I ever get one of these bad boys, my wisest choice would be to add a liberal dose of the mute channel.


Several chat threads mention the pros and cons of this IEM system or that. The interesting thing is that, very often, someone refers to simply using ear plugs. I like that idea and will certainly try it out.


We'll probably have to have hand signals lest someone tosses a brick at my head to get my attention.


Off to build a practice schedule for this weekend.

Systems

A whole new world opened up the other day. Actually three. It happened on a a trip to get a keyboard amplifier for Lori. It was my first trip beyond the guitar areas of Guitar Center.

They have spaces dedicated to sound systems, lighting systems and control systems. The world just got a bit more complicated. A cursory check says it's going to get a lot more expensive too. Bugger...

Somehow, all the noise this band makes has got to be tucked into a rather cryptic electronic space, get spun into gold and be sent wafting into an audiences ear. Preferably without causing any bleeding or broken glass.

Then we have to have some lighting. And lasers. Don't forget the lasers. There were several cool "little" toys that look like fun. A quick scan of the www led to some nifty things. The big question here would be size and intensity. Blinding people goes right up there with making ears bleed. It would be frowned upon. The other extreme of having to turn off all the lights to see if they're working would be a major disappointment. 

Note from the author: Lighting is my desire. I'd like Pink Floyds Pulse light show but... Somewhere between that and flashlights will work.

Finally, controlling the whole beast. Letting everyone have their own volumn controls might imply the need for a third party intervention. Especially me. I'm still looking for that amp volumn control that goes up to 11. Balancing the sound will be needed. 

This is tricky business. There are a lot of things that have to happen to make a good, high fidelity, sound. Adding the control of lighting make the "engineer" position all that more viable.

Making a mistake in selecting a piece of equipment can quickly make what seemed an intellegent decision into the choice of a fool. This may take camping out in the showroom trying stuff out or finding a rental company with choices.

Finding the right questions will also be a key. Lori got a nice amp. But getting a programmable amp didn't cross my mind until yesterday...

A note on the last note. A friend of my daughters is taking singing lesson and I've expressed an interest in taking them too. I was kind enough to repeat my r'r'r'r singing moment.

I'm a bit uncomfortable when a 15 year old knows more than I do. "You never sing R's". Along with the cursory rolling of eyes and the shake of the head I was promptly reduced to possessing every human deficiency known to man.

There should be a law.

The past few weeks have been interesting. Crazy but, intersting.


I was in the school band in 5th grade. Drums. Got kicked out when I accidently tore a kids shirt off trying to remove a loose thread. I have developed a monster respect for that poor teacher. This stuff is a lot harder than the pros make it look.


We've had two practices since the last post. Mad fun and getting better every time. It has been a bit difficult getting 6 people to a regular practice. Work trips, visitation schedules and family vacations can toss a kink into the plans but that's life. This is fun! We have yet to have all the members together.


So we can play. It sounds very good. Then there's the singing part. Singing's hard. Singing good is really hard. I'm, by default, the singer. Yikes!


Wikipedia has been a great help. So has my wife (and keyboard player). It's easy to sound ok when you crank the volumn up on the radio. Cranking the volumn on a PA system is a whole new adventure. My first attempts added up to 650 WATTS of pure s**t.


There are a lot of reasons that singing is hard. Not knowing the words to a song is probably the first and biggest road block to singing it... Those parts we mumble with the radio really sound freaky live. I've gotten better at memorizing all of the lyrics to the songs we're playing. I still have a lot of work to do. And I'm really good and mixing up the order of the verses. So good, in fact, it might be considered a strength if it weren't for the melody going in a different direction. I'm trying to steer the music selections to songs with very few lyrics.


We're playing a lot of Pink Floyd tunes. Most of Dark Side of the Moon, Comfortably Numb, Wish You Were Here. Got some Joe Walsh, Stevie Ray, Santana, Doobie Brothers and Buffalo Springfield in the mix as well. We'll certainly add more.


Some of these I've been singing along with for 40 years. Rocky Mountain Way is in the key of B. High B. Joe's high B. I couldn't hit that if a snow storm blew up my shorts. It's now a middle B. Nice and comfortable. Hopefully the audience will appreciate the fact that I'm making it easier on all of us.


An epiphany was handed to me by my lovely wife. "You have to make the words your own". I made an AC/DC song my own once by singing "Dirty Deeds And Dah Dunder Chief". She didn't mean that way.


I'd been struggling with the opening lyric of Breathe. Just finding the opening note was tough. The second line, "Breathe in the air", was a joke. Have you ever heard someone who's lived in Texas for quite a while say air?  Gilmore makes it breathe. I made it sound like air'r'r'r. Mortified.


So, in a sense, I made the words my own. I spoke them. into a recorder. I've never said air'r'r'r in my life until I tried singing that line. It wasn't there when I spoke. So I spoke and spoke and spoke. The recorder patiently proved my ineptitude repeatedly. Until I used my own voice and my own pace. Comfort settled in and it improved.


Wiki has several pages on singing. Exercises for loosening up. Training your voice. Finding your key. Breathing. It's been a big help.


A long way to go and my r key is getting chapped.


More later.