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An interesting article about the range of the human voice and the pieces written at the extreme edges.
The lowest note Mozart wrote however is low D for Osmin in Seraglio (Ha, wie will ich triumphieren). Monteverdi wrote also twice a low D, the first is at the death of Seneca in L'Incoronazione di Poppea. The second in the fragmentary opera Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria. ... More than these low notes and the high g3 - from the already mentioned KV316 - is 'normally' not possible, there's little room to manoeuvre for the human voice. ... Here you can hear Viktor Wichniakov, one of the famous Russian Basso Profundo, with a double low G (from the Contra-octave range, C1-B1, European notation) at the end.
And, here's another little detail:
Pop-diva Mariah Carey hits during two different live renditions of the song "Emotions" a G7#-note, the highest note in the history of recorded music.
At least all those ridiculous acrobatics have some purpose.
Thanks to Lynn for the tip.
While Ashlee can burp the entire alphabet (and is proud of that accomplishment), Jessica is still the belching champ of the family. Their parents must be so proud.
The bestest gift went to my mother. My father, my brother and myself picked up a keyboard for her.
See, there's a story here. My mother got her college degree in music education quite a few years ago. She went on to teach third and fourth grade for a few decades, retiring only last year.
While I was growing up, we had a piano in the basement. Every so often, my mom would go downstairs and play it. Generally, only when she thought no one else was around. I'm not sure as to why when no one else was there; maybe she didn't feel comfortable playing around others, maybe it was just for herself, I really don't know. In any case, it was an occasional thing, but sometimes I would come home and hear her playing some Mozart or a Bach piece.
About ten years ago, my folks got rid of the upright piano. It took up too much space, it was expensive to maintain it, the wood was starting to warp, etc. Ever since then, both my brother and I would say that she should get a keyboard, on the basis that if it was a big enough a part of her life to study it for four years in her youth, it's probably something that she might like to try again.
Well, earlier this year, she made an offhand comment to my father about how it might be nice to have a keyboard. So, Dad asked Mike and I to pick one up for him.
When we brought it out to her on Christmas, she was so surprised that she was completely speechless for a bit. After Mike walked her through some of the features of the keyboard, she started to play Moonlight Sonata -- from memory! There were a few wrong notes, but it was far better than I could have done.
Later on, she was working through the accompaniment part of the keyboard's programming. Built into the machine out of the box is Norah Jones' Don't Know Why, complete with score and lyrics. It just happens to be the first tune in the song catalog. My mom picked up the tune and sight read the music (at about 90% accuracy) on the very first try, without having played piano for 10 years and not being all that familiar with the song.
That's just simply impressive as all get out.
Merry Christmas again, mom.
So, it's been a long Christmas day at my folk's place. While I got some gifts (a JamStation, a gift certificate and a DVD), the best gift I got was to spend time with my family.
My folks live about six hours away from me. Too far to drive more than once or twice a year, and in too remote a place for flying to be any better. Almost all of my extended family is in the same area (fifteen aunts and uncles, or so -- both parents grew up on farms). In a nutshell, while I'm rather close with my family, the distance doesn't help.
So, here's to hoping that everyone had an enjoyable, safe and fun holiday weekend.
Music Thing reports on an eighteen foot aluminium string instrument capable of causing lots of good feelings, particularly with some female listeners:
...When, in flipping through my Xpander presets, I came to a sound called "THE BEAM" in honor of Huxley's instrument, the expression on her face abruptly changed. When I asked her what was wrong, she blinked for a moment and said, "Please play that again. Louder." I did so, and had the odd experience of watching her eyes glaze over as she half fell into a chair breathing hard. "I...*like* that sound," she managed to get out in a whisper."
I'm just sayin', that's all...
A listing of musicians now playing in the eternal show, as provided by Tim.
The author of the EarthSea books talks about how the SciFi channel took her books and turned the to garbage.
Click on the face to find out who's who on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Thanks to Brad for the tip.
Lately, it seems like just about everyone has read The DaVinci Code. I suppose it's the with-it, aren't-I-so-cultured book de jure, chock full of art history and architecture. Well, it seems that Mr. Brown may not have written it all himself.
...[T]here are clear links between Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code, even though the latter is a novel and the former a non-fiction study of secret religious history.
It also appears the identities of Baigent and his two co-authors have provided Brown with material for his characters.
Sir Leigh Teabing is a central character in The Da Vinci Code, but that name combines Richard Leigh's surname and an anagram of Baigent, and Sir Leigh's physical description is said to be similar to The Holy Blood's third co-author, Henry Lincoln.
Thanks to David for the tip.
In our first rehearsal since the last show, we focused exclusively on two new tunes. Originally, we had planned work on Snipe Hunting. However, I got there a bit ahead of Brett, and Shahin and I started to talk about Robert Frost.
Shahin had written a C section that went from both the Gm -> Cm of the A section and D-dom -> Cm of the B section to a Dm7 -> Emin7. While the chords to work, I didn't think the rhythmic part went so well. Both the A and the B are very open and flowing. Shahin's C section became very choppy and clipped. It felt like to divergent of a change to transition smoothly.
So, Shahin and I went down to try and come up with a good C section. I grabbed a tenor bass to work on the chords with him. My suggestion was to change the V -> vi to a iii -> ii (Bmin -> Amin) as a counterpoint to the prior profusion of major chords. As I was playing the chords, Shahin took them and made some changes (Bm -> Am7, I think). It still works sonically. I'm not so sure about the theory on that one, but it sounds good, so we can work with that.
Brett joined in as we were working through the chords, mostly just working around a few simple drumlines to what we were playing.
After a while, we hit on a structure. We'd play the A and B section to establish the motif. After the 1st B, we start the A section back up, with me arpeggiating through the chords in a triplet rhythmic pattern. While I'm doing that, Shahin's going to take a solo over both the A and B section. When we finish the B section, we return to a single phrase from the original A section, trying to re-establish the motif for the next go-round.
Then we go to the C section, with Shahin playing the chords and me soloing for a few bars. After that, we switch, with me doing sus4 chords and extended power chords (root, octave, fifth above the octave -- I'm not sure what that would be called). We added a D section to the tuyne as well, basically Shahin and Brett playing a really fast paced single note, with me moving through an almost Autumn Leaves progression (F#sus4 -> C#dom7 -> Em7 -> Am7(flat5) -> Dm7 -> Gm7 -> Cm7 -> Fdom7). Finally, we resolve back to the A/B sections.
It's a nice tune; very open and relaxing. I'm thinking about trying some Metheny-esque singing when we get back to the A section for the 3rd go 'round, but the jury's still out on that one. Shahin wants to call it Mist, but that name doesn't do much of anything for me. Robert Frost still feels right to me.
We did run through Snipe Hunting once or twice. That one's almost all the way done now.
The thing is, they'd probably would do each other, if just to get on TV some more.
If you look really careful at the center of the photo where their hands meet, you can actually see a tiny black hole of talent. It's incredible.
But there it is. Generation X's premiere sex symbol passing the torch to Generation Y's. It's like when Joe DiMaggio played next to Mickey Mantle, or when Screech became Mr. Belding's assistant for Saved By The Bell: The New Class.
This just hurts to look at. I have a few piercings myself, but this guy just takes the cake.
Thanks to Max for the tip.
The three of us got together to work on some new tunes for Sunday's show. For tonight's practice, we went over some of the old ones that we don't play much anymore and a few newer tunes. For Sunday, we're going to be playing two Christmas tunes (Winter Wonderland and Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree), as well as a new pop cover tune. We decided against doing the Beatles song again, since it's very recognizable. Instead, we'd like to at least appear to be doing new stuff.
Speaking of new stuff, we've been working on two or three brand new songs, but they are not going to be ready in time for Sunday. It's too bad, I was looking forwards to playing them.
A step-by-step to convert Tivo recordings into something a bit more portable.
Here's A Hint has a discussion about bass solos and why there shouldn't be any. If that's how he/she feels, here's to hoping that he doesn't catch any of the Canvas shows...
Only when you understand why almost no one wants to hear a bass solo, can you begin to understand what it would take to actually play one that was listenable (your first clue is that not even Flea works a bass solo into every song). Just because you can play in 11/14 doesn't mean it's creative or interesting.
This makes me think of something that I've heard both Victor and Anthony say a few times: "It's easy to play solos for other bass players; they're impressed by technical stuff. It's much harder to play for a kid; they only care about whether or not the music sounds good."
I actually have to write a solo for Sunday's show (the original plan fell through -- Sorry Rob). While I know I could just throw together a bunch of chops, that won't make anyone happy, least of all me.
Personally, cutesy ringtones annoy me. I can sympathize with this conductor who stopped a concert when a cell phone went off, and then restarted the show from the begining.
I think I manage to fulfill all of these obligatoins, with the possible exceptoin of the No Search one: There's a search box for this blog, but not for the rest of the site. Then again, something like 75% of the content of this site is in the blog, so I don't think it's a huge loss.
This is just so cool. A visual representation of the chord progression in Giant Steps. There's also an explanation as to how the chords move.
These days, it seems like all the old favorites are getting back together for a little outing (and some quick cash, just maybe?). The Guardian lays out some ground rules for any band thinking of making a comeback.
3. If it's about the money, admit it
We understand that a lot of great, great bands never get their due at the time. And we understand that after splitting, the members - who may very well have changed the fabric of pop music - will often spend 20 years releasing solo albums no one buys and playing gigs no one bar two fanzine writers attends. So if the drug-addled members step forward and say, "Enough of noble poverty. We want some of the cash that talentless wasters have made by ripping off our sound," it's hard to argue. It's hard to feel quite so sympathetic when the musicians insist that they feel more relevant than ever now and have really got something to communicate to the kids - kids young enough to be their grandchildren.
Getting it right: The Pixies named their reunion the Sell-Out Tour. They've made a bundle, and they've played some blinding rock music. Now they and we can go home happy the job is done.
Getting it wrong: Jane's Addiction's reformation "came just when they're needed most", according to their website. No, no, no. It came when they were at a loose end.
I know that there have been a number of times when I just don't particularly feel the urge to go and play. Or, to be a bit more accurate, I don't feel that urge as strongly.
What was once fun and challenging feel stupid and annoying. Or perhaps the things that used to motivate or move you don’t resonate at all. You feel nothing for them. It all just seems like so much more crap to deal with. If this sounds familiar, or you fear that this day is in your future, this essay is for you.
Some more ideas on how to deal with burnout.
Tonight, I went out to Rob's place, and the two of us worked on a few songs. Shahin and I have talked a few times about having a second bass player sit in with us, and I thought Rob would be a good fit for the upcoming show.
The two songs we decided upon in advance was the Bass Extremes's Not A 3 and Jaco Pastorius's Liberty City. Having Vic, Steve and Oteil storm through both of those tunes recently, I'm confident that we can pull it off at a show. Not that we're there, but they've shown the path; all we have to do is learn to walk on it.
We started off with Not A 3. Rob and I both had been learning the Vic part. I suggested to Rob that he take the Steve part, as his bass has the more appropriate range (5 string vs. 4). I also thought it would be a good tune to inrtoduce him with, as the Steve part carries almost the entire melody. The slight catch for the tune is that it's in 15/8.
We got through a good bit of the tune before moving on. I showed Rob the basic chord progression to 75% of the original tunes (A-min, D-min, G-maj, C-dom, F-maj, Bb-maj, E-halfdim). Rob then pointed out that it was almost the same as Autumn Leaves. So, we noodled around with that a bit. I think the idea that I like with this is to have a little crowd participation. Just have Brett hold a steady beat, take turns soloing or chording the tune and then as we wrap up a phrase, ask someone to call out a style. If someone yells "reggae", then we dub it up and go with that for a bit. If "punk", then trash around. That sort of thing.
Finally, we got to Liberty City. Nothing like a complex tune to make your head spin; particularly one arranged for about twenty more musicians than we are going to have. We broke it down into four parts: the A section (the horn \head), the B section (the horn piece at about 3:40 into the tune), a C section (walking bass line with solos) and a D section (the bridge). Then, we pieced together how we were going to string all the sections together, who was going to solo when and other general blocking issues.
Having finished the arrangements, we started to work on the music itself. It's a bit of a challenge, this tune.
Tommy Lee either failed out or decided he was done, because Motley Crue is hitting the road again.