what is going on in your musical life

Now it's official!

I had never heard of Johann Michael Bach. That link is a pretty good recording.

After listening to that link, I feel a bit dirty posting my bands new riffage.

https://trunnionrecords.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-elements

sounds good!

I'll post a recording from our concert once I get it and verify that I don't sound terrible.

Collaborated on a spacey, funk/jazz tune with my friend who included it on his album which was released today. Very happy with how it turned out:

https://jasonamullinax.bandcamp.com/track/outbreak-monkey

Enjoying this. What did you play?

Thanks! We passed the song back and forth. He sent me two drum loops and I added the bass, autoharp, and most of the keyboard sounds. I sent it back to him and he had vibes and sax added by some other friends

i'm painting all the zeros in a book of million digits, and i made the accompanying music out of a few older tracks from 2012/13, one a kind of simple chance-based synth sequence, the other a collage of orchestra warm-up noise loops. it's 50 minutes long but it really flies by because that's about how long each page of zeros takes. an intense ambient race to the finish!

https://soundcloud.com/weinventyou/painting-zeros

Approximately once a month I sing solo at an evening service as part of my church gig. I did that this Wednesday; the organist was coming from another service in Cambridge that ran late and didn't make it to the church until about 3 minutes after our service was supposed to begin, so we didn't get a chance to rehearse. Fortunately, we discussed this possibility earlier and chose a piece I know backwards and forwards that we had done together before, so the whole thing went smoothly. Perhaps the most gratifying thing was a couple of tourists who came in for the beginning of the service and started to sneak out after the sermon, only to stop at the door when I started singing and stay for most of my song.

(I sang an excerpt from Mendelssohn's Elijah; here is a recording of a performance I did last year.)

Also, the Mountain Goats album I contributed to was released today:

https://themountaingoats.bandcamp.com/album/goths

Well, the NEWEST mountain goats album you've contributed to, right?

ha yes, that is more accurate

I have been taking long lenghts of dialouge from my favourite movies and making stupid eGarbage garageband backings for them. very good to listen to in the car!

So a while back I attached myself to a new band that had a singer and a drummer. I told them I would be happy to play guitar, bass, mandolin, or whatever. They said they needed bass most, so I became the bass player. I am enjoying this.

They added a guitar player who could play lead (which I don't really do). But I have this nagging sense that there's a difference between "lead guitarist" and "only guitarist." I feel like the sound gets thin when he solos, but it is a bit "samey" when he just plays chords. I keep finding myself wanting to add a rhythm guitar part, an acoustic guitar, or a mandolin part. Whenever I do so that helps vary the texture, but then the bass is gone.

In my ideal world, the band would add another multi-instrumentalist who is willing to switch off at least some of the time. Pass the bass around, do rock-paper-scissors.

ha, i am starting to understand why people prefer the leanest band possible now that i am trying to wrangle >2 adults at a time.

lots of things going on in my musical world but mostly i am excited because i am going on tour for the first time. we leave 2 weeks from yesterday. goal #1 is to make this a good experience. i have reasonable expectations and there are only 2 of us, and we get along/communicate well. it should be really fun!! i am only playing snare and floor tom too, which reduces the hassle.

That rules, enjoy!

Good luck LL, break a stick (or whatever)

Yay! have a fun tour.

Thanks! I am so eagerly anticipating this that I'm trying to be cool and control myself so I don't wig :)
We are only going out Wed-Sun so it's not super long, and I am playing my hometown but at the end when we will be relaxed and able to have a good time. I think that is what is giving me the most potential to freak out -- hometown show?! What is even happening

Hey that's great LL, hope it'll be a great experience for you!

Is there decent a tour van? :)

Just a car, we jam econo
Lol

:D

So stoked tbh

Wow, LL, really excited for you! Glad things are going so well.

Did another evensong cantor thing at my church gig yesterday on this preces and responses by Anthony Piccolo. I did not get a recording unfortunately.

However, this Wednesday my wife and I will be recording study tracks for a musical being written and produced by a friend of ours and hopefully I'll get some recordings out of that.

Got my first unfinished guitar body and supplies from Reranch, have to hit Home Depot for supplies and then I can start sanding it and getting on with things.

What are you building?

Either a Telecaster or an Esquire. Went with copper ala this - http://www.reranch.com/gallery/copperpbass.htm

i'm painting all the zeros in a book of million digits, and i made the accompanying music out of a few older tracks from 2012/13, one a kind of simple chance-based synth sequence, the other a collage of orchestra warm-up noise loops. it's 50 minutes long but it really flies by because that's about how long each page of zeros takes. an intense ambient race to the finish!

https://soundcloud.com/weinventyou/painting-zeros

― Karl Malone, Friday, May 19, 2017 6:52 PM (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is beautiful

i have been recording clips to keep busy and starting a new low key project that feels more casual: https://soundcloud.com/bachelornumberthree

writing for solo piano

https://soundcloud.com/he_records/just-for-gone-for-solo-piano-mike-hanley

Painting Zeros is excellent concentration music

thanks surm + dog L!

tour was excellent on all levels, i did not wig
would do again

new things:
-- this friday i am supposed to (and plan to i guess) play In C in a one-time ensemble. it's an endurance test for me, which of course i am looking forward to.
-- while on tour the woman whose set was after us ran up to me after our set and asked if i would join her, so i said sure. we listened to a little of her music on the way to the show but it was very unstructured synth washes and no vocals. she assured me her set that night was loop based and i could just follow that. she looped mostly vocal parts and added some synth sounds. it was indeed easy to follow and i enjoyed it a lot.
-- friend who plays with me regularly painted a mural in a city park in honor of our ongoing jam/band and i am hoping to get someone to let us play with them in the next few months. we'll see how that works out.
--last but not least, ilx all star jam is meeting a second time, that will be excellent

yay

yay!

Can personally affirm the excellence of the Brooklyn stop of the tour, pls tour again

congrats!

who made the ILX related song Vamoose?

I really wanna do a collaboration with LL but it sounds like you have an awful lot on your plate already!

-- while on tour the woman whose set was after us ran up to me after our set and asked if i would join her, so i said sure. we listened to a little of her music on the way to the show but it was very unstructured synth washes and no vocals. she assured me her set that night was loop based and i could just follow that. she looped mostly vocal parts and added some synth sounds. it was indeed easy to follow and i enjoyed it a lot.

sounds so neat

I really wanna do a collaboration with LL but it sounds like you have an awful lot on your plate already!
HMU October or so and we can make something dark and gnarly for the winter! i'm into it.

Ooooh, definitely! <3

omg hell yes <3

you buy enough pedals, eventually you'll find an inspiring tone.

I very much enjoyed that.

I've got a song that I've been working on and off for the last few years. Played it live with my band a bunch of times and then made a 'production' version with live and electronic instrumentation. Finally came up with lyrics that I'm happy with, but every time I try and sing over the production, it comes out not quite right, whereas it always worked well live. Wonder if it's the quality of my voice not working with the electronic backing or if I'm not adding the right production sheen to it (delay and reverb still sound weird). Not really sure if there's anything I can do about this.

I believe that skilled mixers make "room" for a particular vocal in a particular mix by EQing other instruments _out_ of a given range and bringing the vocal _in_. It is a realm of utter mystery to me so I would just get a professional to do it, but that's me.

You could also just be letting the perfectionism of careful micro-listening in a recording situation get to you. Things work live because it's fun and grooving and you're inside the soundscape. When you're just laser-focused on minute imperfections in headphones or whatever, you're going to feel differently. It could be that the problem you're perceiving isn't a problem at all.

I believe that skilled mixers make "room" for a particular vocal in a particular mix by EQing other instruments _out_ of a given range and bringing the vocal _in_. It is a realm of utter mystery to me so I would just get a professional to do it, but that's me.

That basically sounds right. A very slight notch (maybe even e.g. -0.5 dB with Q of ≈5) in the other part is often all that is needed to let the voice (or anything else you want to bring out at a frequency) cut through. I can't comment on dog latin's recording but this might be helpful wrt mixing idk - key vocal frequencies, from Ian Corbett's Mic It!:

• Bottom, weight. Below 120 Hz. Usually unnecessary in the voice track, so it can be cut. [I would cut lower than this for deeper voices. Identify the lowest fundamental in the track and cut a little below that, as a starting point, generally.]
• Boom, muddiness. 150 to 300 Hz. Too much thickness in this range can be caused by proximity effect, in which case a low or low-mid attenuation will help vocal clarity. Conversely, some singers may need a little boost here to reduce perceived thinness or scratchiness.
• Boxiness. 400 to 600 Hz. This range can often be attenuated in order to give the vocal sound more clarity and intelligibility. This range includes some fundamental frequencies of higher pitched or female vocals, so attenuating too much can make the vocal sound unnaturally thin.
• Honkiness. 600 to 800 Hz. Attenuation here can remove a bull-horn, megaphone, AM radio-like character.
• Definition, nasally. 1 to 2.5 kHz. Our ears are most sensitive to this frequency range because it contains so much important speech intelligibility and diction information. It can be reduced to make a voice less thin, or boosted (when lacking) for more clarity.
• Presence. Around 5 kHz. Can be boosted to give the singer an edge and allow them to cut through the mix – but make sure it does not make sibilance too bright and sizzly.
• Sibilance. 5 to 10 kHz (different for each singer). If a singer’s Ss and Ts stick out too much, use the boost-sweep-cut technique described in Chapter 4 to find the center of their sibilance and apply a gentle attenuation.
• Air. A wide filter above 12 KHz. A boost of a few dBs can give a vocal a sultry, breathy intimacy. If the frequency is too low, it can boost too much sibilance, or undesirable, harsh characteristics below 8 KHz.

I'm having a good and busy summer: I finished writing a piece for flute/clarinet/violin/cello a month and a half ago or so, for a likely performance by a relatively high-profile ensemble in early 2018. I finished composing a new guitar/electronics piece, to be performed next spring as well, and hopefully recorded then. I'm working on practising the solos, which I want to be more loose/improvisational. Mostly finished a short second string quartet movement and going to move on to a 10-string classical guitar piece for someone's Master's recital. At moments, I wish I had time to just focus on the guitar/electronics stuff, which might be the work I feel most excited about, but I can't complain, really.

Rock on, Sund4r.

Me, I'm playing bass in one band and drums in another; every few days I look wistfully at the guitars on the wall and wonder when I will next be in a situation where someone wants me to play guitar.

Looking forward to a recording session with the mighty Don Zientara at Inner Ear in a few weeks.

Getting a custom built Telecaster! A buddy of mine has a budding luthiery business, and mine will be No. 3.

I will post pictures as it progresses