what is going on in your musical life

Got three paid caroling gigs in this year. Every year keep trying to improve little things re: harmonizing, regulating vibrato to improve blend.

Feel like this year was a success in that regard!

being screened (approved by the hippie musician collective that run it) for a slot at a sweet jamspace very close to my house

I busted out my 'new weird America' falsetto at family singalong yesterday, it was a hit

(Sadly I can't project it for much and my regular tenor is v boring)

I picked up the guitar for the first time in months and played a few grateful dead songs. Felt good!

Still trundling through my songs from ~6 years ago, remixing, remastering.

I recorded an album with a huge hero of mine three years ago, which is always an edgy thing to do; validating on the one hand, and on the other, your internal editors kick into high gear in a way that can be kind of unhealthy. at one point he said 'if an album takes more than six days to finish, it's usually not a very good album' and I responded 'unless it takes more than a year, I think', and he just gave me this shaken look and then said 'I wouldn't know about that'. but then he smiled and said 'I know for you editing is the same thing as playing, so go ahead'

I waited six months before even doing anything and the word came he had cancer, so the next nine months was this bizarre race torn between the most pressure I've ever been under to try a record that ranks with some of my all time favorite records -- which is completely impossible -- and to finish something he could enjoy. His last email was simply 'it's been finished' and I am completely haunted this morning about how poisonous perfectionism can be and how in this case it conflicted with basically being a good collaborator and friend

Assuming this is the album I think it is, consider it downloaded by me when my next emusic refresh comes along. Not to diminish what you just wrote but it sounds amazing from the description I just read

this one's not out yet, that's the sadness. just needed to vent obscurely online somewhere, listening to blackstar it hit me what a huge difference it makes when an album is not posthumous, even if only by two days.

I was just reminded that I'm supposed to sing tomorrow night. Oops

Xpost haha sorry! Well I'm still going to get the album I wrongly thought was the one in question.

did an interpretation of 'Revolution 9' for this White Album tribute show (despite never listening to the Beatles really). obviously it was the odd one out, of the night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN3g4QIFevQ&list=PLiTjrHx70WItIldi4-VxcIbGIxAKr_Yqo&index=27

also trying to write a string part for one of my tracks, for one violinist to overdub all the voices. i've got the lead line and a passable little lower harmony, but because i am a dumb drummer, i have no idea what to do for other voices to thicken it up.

Had a great concert of musical settings of Shakespeare on Sunday, including a completely bonkers piece for men's chorus and soprano soloist called "Your sister's drown'd" by Ingof Gabold about the death of Ophelia and Ralph Vaughn Williams' stunning Three Shakespeare Songs. I had a solo verse in a Swingle Singers arrangement of "'Twas a Lover and His Lass". Can't wait for the recording.

xpost do you want the 'string ensemble' to give a homogenous impression or more contrapuntal/multitextured?

djp that sounds like a really good program!

Yeah, the rest of the program included Morley, Wood, Martin, a premiere of a commissioned piece by a local composer and friend of our group named Graham Ramsey, and some crazy pieces by another Danish composer whose name I'm blanking on. I think I tossed my program otherwise I'd just write it up from that. :-(

you know what shakespeare setting I really love, and it's part of an opera but it has also been extracted in standalone voice-piano form, is Britten's "I know a bank..." from A Midsummer Night's Dream for countertenor

well Britten in general rules (IMO the best all-around composer of the 20th Century)

xpost do you want the 'string ensemble' to give a homogenous impression or more contrapuntal/multitextured?

i think more homogeneous, because there is already a lot going on with the main vamp & beat.

Oh, I have also set up my first voice lesson with a new teacher; in keeping with my general "study with someone who doesn't sing my voice part" vibe, this dude is a countertenor

Here's an example of his work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXtnKajtrts

I am really fucking excited and hope I come out the other side of this with a reliable high baritone range and maybe some of my low notes back

That reminds me of reading somewhere that roles like Pelleas call for a special type of French voice known as a 'baryton martin' that falls in the zone between bari and tenor

been working on this for a while. it's an instrumental electronic grindcore project loosely themed around seafood. 5 songs in under 3 minutes!

http://deadcrustacean.bandcamp.com/album/dead-crustacean

recorded those violins today and we ended up just doing 11 unison tracks, incl. three an octave down and three an octave up. sounds great!

i bet that sounds cool. Did the mismatch in vibratos create a chorusy effect?

a bit, but not as much as you'd think, since it was one violinist playing all the parts. definitely enough variation for color & thickness. it was pretty fun to hear it come together.

Were you adding strings to a beat-oriented electronic track or to a jazz tune?

(Or something else?)

The former, it's a pretty intense electronic track.

dead crustacean is A+, would play again

the band i quit last fall is playing Int'l. Noise Conference in Miami this weekend, and imagining being "on tour" with the bandleader is really making me confident I made the right decision.

Sounds cool, Jordan.

I got a lot of classical guitar practice in over the Christmas break and I think I've finally got down a classical guitar piece I wrote a year and a half ago or so (that I, um, performed last year). I hope to record it, probably over the summer. I want to record a noisy prepared guitar thing soon-ish too. I've been writing something for Pierrot ensemble + percussion on and off but am not feeling that excited about it atm.

I am certainly excited to hear about Pierrot ensemble + percussion! Was just thinking about the idea of that combo a few days ago. It's a good idea!

Oh, thanks. I wrote one short movement in 2012 and thought that I'd give a try to continuing it when I have time on my hands + am away from my gear. There's no real performance in my mind but I figure that there are always opportunities for this instrumentation.

*recently thought

anyone know any drummers in the Bay Area who would be interested in playing drums for a psych/country rock sorta band

my new voice teacher is super rad and is making me realize exactly how little I know about singing

sund4r what's your classical guitar piece like?

since moving and leaving my old band behind i'd been itching to start playing with other people again. managed to get a couple of near-strangers into a practice room at the weekend and forgot what a challenge it can be to start all over again, get to know each other's style, what people are into, trying to avoid bad stoner rock impressions blah blah.

thanks sund4r. you should write something for your processed guitar setup + percussion. :)

Ha, actually, I sometimes think about adding some kind of rhythm/percussion layer.

sund4r what's your classical guitar piece like?

It's a fugue in the octatonic mode in 5/4. I wrote a similar fugue for piano some years back that has been performed/recorded a couple of times but I think I'm a little more excited about this one.

I'm eagerly anticipating news of a recording

what is going on in my musical life observation: crazy how much better your band gets when you rehearse more than a few times a year!

i've also been writing these little piano miniatures and recording them to cassette as interludes. don't really know what you'd call them, a single-note melody in the right hand and i guess a counter-melody in the left. drummer songs.

drummer songs.

^^^ album title

Me and La Lechera are playing a show in a couple of weeks, doing semi-improvised instrumental guitar and drums music heavily based on looping with the looper pedal. Excited to play a show, a little more nervous than usual since it's outside of my comfort zone (I don't really think of myself as much of an improviser or strong guitarist) but should be fun. The show we're playing is an experimental music showcase and it looks like we're a lot more rock-based than the other acts. Also I haven't played guitar at all in a couple of weeks and I'm tempted to not play at all before the show just to see what happens but that's probably a bad idea.

I have a recording project called Shredded Sun (shreddedsun.bandcamp.com) with the same people who were in my old band. It takes forever for us to do stuff bc we have kids and jobs and stuff but have four new songs done that I'm pretty excited about, they're very dense and shoegaze-influenced, but we're trying to hold out on releasing them until we have enough for a full album, whatever that means in this day and age. so I'm trying to be patient.

I played bass for a couple of Adv@nce B@se (ex-Casi0tone for the P@infully @lone) shows in December that were pretty fun/interesting, it was an eight-piece band and we never rehearsed as the full group before the shows. The first show was pretty shaky but the second was a lot of fun and I think he's going to put the recording out soon.

! I know Owen from way back, sounded like that show was great.

The best part of it for me was going "on tour" to play the one show out of town, bc everyone else involved was much more of a pro musician and it was fun to listen to their stories about playing with other famous people or tour disasters or whatever. It was a good crew of cool people and I got to tag along.

i am looking forward to this show a lot and trying to plan my outfit without overdoing it

Also I haven't played guitar at all in a couple of weeks and I'm tempted to not play at all before the show just to see what happens but that's probably a bad idea.
i think this could be a good idea really -- the day after the 1 day/week that I don't practice always feels really good, like i am more in control than i expected to be.

what should I wear?

something that won't get caught in your pedals or flop in your face
no gloves

I expect to hear not only how it goes but what the both of you wore