what is going on in your musical life

relief in what way? as in confidence in your ability? sense of control? optimism for the future?

Thanks, Milton! "Smile" is the guitarist's favorite song. Mine is either "Gold Rush", "Amnesia" or "Turn Away". "Seeing You There" is actually a super old song I wrote when I was 16 that I resurrected for the band but, since it's loosely about my dead brother, I hesitate to call it a favorite.

know what you mean there

xp couldn't turn down any of those band projects from the last few years, but I was beginning to feel a little subsumed. it's mainly fun to be playing with a completely different concept and still have it turn out recognizable

we're now at a stage where we're near to completing about an hour's worth of finished music and wondering what to do with it. we're keen to get ourselves heard but knowing the best way to do this is tricky. we love all the material, but it's highly eclectic and the style switches from song to song - some have rock backing, others electronic backing and others a more acousitc backing - although maybe that's part of us and what we do (it's all our work at the end of the day).

so i'm wondering whether to just release this digitally on bandcamp and do a name your own price thing, or get some cds burnt and somehow send these out to blogs, record labels, festivals, venues etc. like, is it even worth doing the latter these days?

I'm in mixing hell but with someone else's music this time. When I can, I'm working on mixing a recording of a jazz trio that I helped to record at a studio in Ottawa a few weeks ago.

i bought an ipad. excited to dive into the rabbit hole of drum and synth apps. already got the DM1 which is fun and flexible but doesn't seem to handle triplets well. i also have to figure out Audiobus and whatever audiobus-compatible DAW app seems best to get some external recordings thrown in. i'm psyched!

if anyone has any tips on the world of fast and cheap ipad programming & recording hmu

making music with an iPad

We did an evensong service at my church gig this past Sunday and I got to be the cantor. Apparently, singing a ton of text on one note is my musical sweet spot.

i met a cantor recently after his first gig at a new church and he seemed pretty pumped
i have too much to say so i will just post this weird new song i made yesterday
here

and ask how y'all doin
what is going on in your musical lives? ilx is so boring lately so i thought i would summon anyone willing to post to this thread.

do churches have cantors? i thought that was just a Jewish thing/term, but i haven't really thought about it since i was a kid.

Catholic and Anglican/Episcopalian churches can have cantors

Speaking of which I'm going to be cantoring one service a month on Wednesdays at my church gig

I am trying to think of the best, nicest way to extricate myself from a band that I don't really want to be in.

have or adopt a child, it's bulletproof.

or, tell them you're overscheduled and can't make them a priority

complain that someone appears to have unacceptably tampered with your gear and then say you will quit unless whoever's responsible confesses

oh also we have a concert coming up this Sunday of 20th century British choral music, some of which is terrible and some of which is holy shit amazing

for example, here is Paul Mealor's setting of "Ubi caritas", a song which apparently was also performed at the Prince William/Kate Middleton wedding:

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

fucking love this shit

i'm torn between saying that I'm just really depressed and don't really feel like being in any bands right now until I get my head sorted, which is kinda true,
or saying that I am not getting any creative input or gratification from being in this band.

the latter is most germane for my wanting to quit, but my bandmates are also personal friends, and I don't want to hurt their feelings more than I "have" to

will they try to get you to stay if you say you're not getting input/gratification?

the dynamic is that there are 3 of us in the band, and the singer is the leader, and she generally is open and appreciative of the contributions of the other two of us, but based on the "concept" of the band and the material she wants to do, there are very limited options for what I can do. For example, there isn't an option for "hey, what if I sang on this song?" because she can't play an instrument, so she would have nothing to do.

it is a cover band, and while we don't do the songs "straight," we don't experiment/fuck with the material as much as we could/as I would like. A few years back, I did express opinions that were at odds with what the singer/leader thought, and she kicked me out of the band, and then the band did nothing.

can you tell them that -- you'd like to stretch yourself a little more
i mean i don't understand "band dynamics" specifically but they're the same as human dynamics so considerate candor seems the best approach as long as it's not like an abusive or dire situation

considerate candor is definitely the way I want to go, and my friends/bandmates aren't stupid and can probably sense there's something going on. But, what I'd want to do, what would make me enjoy the band creatively, would entail a major revamp of what we've been doing, and that's not my call. It's the singer's band, and I'm just the bass player.

trying to guess what kind of cover band is comprised of a singer, a bass player and... a drummer (I assume)?

Morphine cover band

that's what I thought too lol but no saxophone?

Young Marble Giants?

we cover a variety of songs: singer, bass player, electronics is the line-up

sounds like you should just say that maybe you're not the right person for this job anymore, which is totally ok and a healthy thing to assert imo
i'm sure they can find another straight ahead bass player and you can do the things that make you happy and everyone can still be friends, no?

hopefully!

I put up a "single" for Halloween of two grim instrumentals:

(A side)
https://soundcloud.com/jon-lewis-37/stairway-nightmare

(B side)
https://soundcloud.com/jon-lewis-37/a-scratch-gives-away-the-lie

As with all the things on my soundcloud, written and recorded entirely in iOS using a mix of sample based instruments and synths.

(Idk if I have to remove the 'https' for soundcloud links like we do with YouTube links?)

Those links work, Jon. Great stuff!

My wife is singing the Pie Jesu from the Faurè Requiem tomorrow in church. I plan to record it. She doesn't know this yet.

I sang a solo last night from Mendelssohn's Elijah. It went pretty well, I think; one dude in the congregation asked me which conservatory I'd gone to because he wanted to know if I had ties to his, lol (in a roundabout way I do, since the guy who has been my primary private voice teacher is the head of vocal pedagogy at the place he had worked, but I was never a student there)

Also I've been watching the Facebook group of one of my former choirs work itself into a tizzy over how much they hate the auditioning conductor working with them on an 8 minute Bach motet because they feel he's talking down to them and belittling them and going super slowly with them... when a large number of them showed up at the first rehearsal not knowing how the piece went and being unable to sightread it. They are even now complaining about how he is workshopping notes with them and not letting them sing words when there are still sections where they are admitting that people are still making egregious note mistakes. Maybe I'm being snobby here but... it's kind of pathetic.

no that is indeed pathetic

rehearsal is work, the end

The backstory is that the incredibly beloved dude who founded the group retired this summer and they are auditioning his replacement; right now half the group is not in a mindset to appreciate anyone new, let alone anyone with a radically different rehearsal method, plus this is a group that fucking sings with a major symphony (oops spoilers) and they can't get through one of Bach's easier motets without note-bashing? Also, there were complaints of creepiness on the conductor's part because he said something about "stroking the notes as if you were stroking a baby's bottom" and it took every bit of restraint for me not to write "I know I haven't sung with you in over a decade but doesn't anyone else remember the old conductor getting frustrated with the sopranos during a tour and telling them to sing like they had some pubic hair?"

Basically, I'm glad I left that group when I did.

Lol I love the pubes speech!

There are so many bizarro conductor quotes out there, I remember Eugene Ormandy had some really strange ones

the two most recent complaints (paraphrased):

- "He's concerned about unified cutoffs but we've been singing everything on doo; how are we supposed to know where the cutoffs are without singing the words?"

... Why don't you trying singing the note values as notated? Does that seem like a reasonable starting point?

- "He never said anything about it before but NOW he wants us to sing with a unified vowel sound!"

AREN'T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE AN INTERNATIONAL-CALIBER ENSEMBLE HOW ARE YOU NOT DOING THIS FROM THE BEGINNING WITHOUT PROMPTING THIS IS BASIC CHOIR 101 STUFF THAT EVERY SINGLE GODDAMNED ENSEMBLE THAT WANTS TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY KNOWS TO WORRY ABOUT

booked a show! 2015 calendar year goal achieved. next year i would like to book more shows. maybe travel!

Awesome!

Woohoo!

actually i had two goals and i reached both of them. feels good! really good tbh!

way to go LL!!

what is going on in your musical lives? how was your year?

I just picked up music for our annual lessons and carols service. I have no idea when I'm going to have a chance to look at it before our first rehearsal on Sunday.

have recorded quite a few tracks with one of my friends for our rap duo Skiv3n & Pi5 (he's the dj, I'm the mc) - very happy with the results, hope to do some live gigs and release an ep in 2016.

still trying to figure out how to make our presence known, not very good with social media yet, and not sure how important it is - was recently dissapointed my hotline bling cover did not instantly go viral (now realize this to have been a somewhat naive/megalomaniac expectation) but it got us a few new followers, and my friends were really into it so that's nice

the last six months have been a bit quiet. i moved, my computer died, i thought i'd lost everything but i got it back.

recording recording recording. also dealing with a string session that turned into a disappointing fiasco. The cello player was nearly a quarter tone flat on every take, and when I pointed this out to the engineer his response was "we can fix it in the mix". guess what it was not fixable in the mix. Another session booked in January will probably be the last one for this "album", assuming people are still into buying albums when we're done...