what is going on in your musical life

We're playing our first out-of-our-immediate-area show in a couple of days - gonna tear St Albans a new one.

It was just great singing for-real bass in an all-male quartet again; haven't done that in YEARS

also lol the bass part is usually the easiest one to read in barbershop, aside from the melody

wasn't knocking it, have one myself coupled with a Behringer C-C300 Space chorus.

Analogue delay and chorus for £50 in total.

Oh god. Band hasn't practised properly in over a month, just agreed to a last-minute gig tomorrow in front of a potentially large (for us) audience. Scared!

i reckon you'll be fine, e. nothing like a good break and the fear of god to help you along the way.

that said the last couple of practices we've had haven't felt very satisfying. i hate practice rooms and having a time limit. we used to have our own garage we could jam in all day and all night, take frequent leisurely breaks etc, but now everyone's gotta turn up and start playing and we're conscious of how long we have and the money we're spending. invariably someone's not on form or the drumkit's not set up properly and the whole thing feels like a frustration and not conducive to creativity.

I don't know, though, having a never-ending jam session seems like a bit of a nightmare to me - is there actually the impetus to finish & polish when you can just meander for a day? (I'm sure there probably is, it just wouldn't necessarily suit my temperament.) My favourite rehearsal length was always the four-hour slot, where we invariably took an hour break somewhere in the middle to just sit down and talk about band stuff. Three hours is enough to make sure you can play your old songs and work on some new stuff.

yeah i guess it depends on temperament. no two bands are the same. my bandmates are notorious ditherers, easily distracted and hard to keep on point. if there's a reason to wander off-course it will happen, the phrase 'herding cats' springs to mind. i'm sure if i was working with people who were more focused then the 'get in there and practice' method would work better but it doesn't seem to suit us.. I think having the chance to break for an hour is really good if you can get it. all creative activities need reflection time.

i went through a similar transition recently (went from jamming in our drummers' loft to a shared space) and i actually prefer the more economical jams, after having adjusted to not taking a break to watch seinfeld or cook curry every hour. sounds like you're on top of your shit, just whip those slackers into shape

i'm playing drums live for the first time tomorrow night, very pumped. did you know that drumsticks are called baguettes in french? "baguettes de drum" thats what it says hahaha

hah, i'm half french and i didn't know that

earlnash - are you in white gold??

Went to McCabe's and Norm's today to enjoy a rare day off - played approximately $60k in acoustic guitars between the two places.

Collings D3 and D2H
Collings f-style Mandolin
Collings orchestra model
Martin D-28s from 53,55,57, 63 and 67

TONE!

started jams yesterday for new electro funk duo

awesome im totally jealous

I'm singing in a concert with my church choir Sunday; I have a prominent solo in a King's Singers arrangement of a random folk song. We're also doing stuff by Daniel Pinkham, Phillip Glass, Samuel Barber, Randall Thompson and more. The theme is "Americana", starting with traditional folks songs, going up through the romantic and minimal periods, and including some stopovers with modern arrangements of a spiritual or two. It's gonna fucking rule.

That sounds awesome! Will there be a recording up anywhere?

I will be able to get a CD at some point which may or may not get magically ripped and posted someplace discreet

I made a remix:

https://soundcloud.com/resistorsings/work-drugs-digital-girl

Concert went mostly well! There were some intonation/flatting issues and one almost total trainwreck but:

- the audience loved it
- my solo went well
- my wife's solo went well

our new album got reviewed on pfork today. sort of a surprise

haha

i got the google alert while i was peeing this morning and thought for sure it was someone putting the record on an illegal DL site

#tmi

i bet bryce would be happy for you

weird thing to say

sorry just referring to the classic knoxville thread

Nothing is awesomer than completely using your already-sketchy voice in between rehearsal and the service

Or losing, rather

Fucking autocorrect

just bought a fuzz pedal

what kind?

are you going to use it?

electro harmonix "Sastisfaction" fuzz. it was 50$

yea im gonna use it for solos in the band i play guitar in, also might put some vocals through it for my solo/recording project

Spent all last night with the house to myself standing and practicing singing the band's songs (memorising all the words, phrasing etc). It occurred to me I dont actually "practice" singing all that often. Its an instrument like any other and I really should. Wondering if I should get some lessons to refresh my technique and not kill my throat too.

If you feel like you might not have good vocal technique (in terms of keeping your voice healthy) -- then working with someone would be a good idea if you are going to sing regularly and potentially do damage to your voice. It's like other physical exercise: sports, weightlifting -- you don't want to fuck yourself up so you have to quit.

Yeah for sure. I dont feel strained at all, but I am finding transitioning from - whats the proper term for it? Belly singing v throat singing? - anyway that, I tend to wobble on a bit.

And, smoking doesnt help with the sustaining of notes and whatnot ugh. haha.

chest voice vs. head voice?

no, smoking definitely doesn't help :/ - learning/knowing ways to catch breaths during long phrases helps though

unless you are singing tuvan style

head voice, thats the phrase i couldnt remember :)

Well, the album I played on last year just came out..
http://www.reverbnation.com/virtualtrio/album/43256

Took a tour of Tiny Telephone studios yesterday. I am such a DAW-bro, I feel like it's hard for me to wrap my head around making a totally analog record. I want to follow up with him, but unless I misunderstood it seemed like JV said he's never heard a record there that had compression and EQ engaged during mixdown that sounded good, like that stuff should be used for tracking. That seems wild to me, but maybe I didn't get what he meant. Tiny Telephone seems like an awesome place to work though.

is there a statue of stephan jenkins on his motorcycle outside of the studio?

got together with two other drummers (who both do arranging or multi-instrumental solo projects) yesterday to plan a new thing, the idea is to make dance music composed entirely of weird percussion parts that we'll record over a weekend. i'm guessing most of the editing will fall to me afterward but i'm hoping this will be a fun + relatively quick thing to make.

That sounds super cool! Can't wait to hear it!!

Really crap jam tonight,first time we've ever not gelled playing, it was mega weird. I think our drummer sucks,is one reason why - we'd played without him for 3 sessions and he threw everyone off with his ridiculous speeding up bashy shit. Pity, cos we had some new songs I really wanted to work on but it wasnt that easy. I'm tired and irritated now.

released an album on saturday w/ a show, it was really great. famed ilxor crut1s was there. nothing else to report.

finished a bunch of songs that i dont hate now i have to figure out what to do with them

https://scontent-b-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/t1/1478932_569945176428337_348850186_n.jpg

Made a demo video for a synth I'm selling right now only to find out that I have no good video codec so I can export it to a good video file. Fuck me, day wasted and ruined. Back to writing lyrics.

can NOT, that is

quit 1 band due to being too busy, then joined another.

electro funk morphed into minimal synth so subtly i almost didn't notice