Author: zingblog

Origami Site Update

Yikes! It’s late November already. Winter coming soon. Tons of leaves all over nowadays and the trees are mostly bare. Hoping to get the Mustang out one more time. Run baby run.

Lots going on. Work had been busy with deadlines, planning and releases. I worked part of last weekend, and I’ve been slammed all week this week, but there’s the holidays coming up. Also the plus side, I’ve been learning Scala, which is the first really new thing I’ve done at work in a while. On the downside, I ran out of time over the weekend and didn’t work on my recording project. I’m getting close to finishing two songs, Is It Safe? and Now and Forever. Guess they’ll have to slide one more week.

I taught a Special Session at the museum last Sunday. My dog Timber and cat Sophie. Class went well. One of the students was a total whiz kid, and another was her dad, who’s not a folder but still did really well, although I had to explain everything in much more detail. I dropped off my models for the Holiday Tree and gave myself a quick tour of the museum while I was there. The dinosaurs and the whale room remain essential highlights.

I’ve been getting ready for a pair of gigs coming up with The Relix. We added a few new songs and have been sharpening up the ones we already have. Trying to get from a run-of-the-mill bar band to a truly awesome bar band. I think we have what it takes but it’ll take time to get that tight. Right now we’re in the better-than-shitty category. Looking forward to the shows. Should be a really good time and I expect we’ll get better each gig. So ya, lots of practice. I’ve been working especially on my singing.

This last practice our bass player was sick so I had to cover all the bass parts with my left hand. It went pretty well, in that my left hand has gotten pretty solid and I was able to cop a fair imitation of most of the bass lines. However, the sound wasn’t the same, and I don’t know all the songs as well as I’d like, so there were a few “I’m thinking” clams, especially when I was singing too. Nevertheless it went pretty well, and Mike will be back for the show, and I got an interesting new perspective on the songs. I’ve been practicing soloing in Light My Fire over the bassline, and I’m glad I did cuz I was able to keep it together and still pull off a pretty good solo.

But the main news for this post is that I’ve started making new updates to my web site. The first thing I did was to update my origami pages to include my new models from 3013. I have nine of them, and there’s still a month and change left in the year, so there may even be one or two more. I also update the page for my book now that I have a cover image and know the real title, which BTW is now Origami Animal Sculpture and not Origami Untamed. There’s even a link to preorder it.

Beyond that the big change in the offing is to add some kind of slideshow or multi-image capability to the pages for the models. Once that’s in place it’s on to the music site, hopefully just in time to line up with a new round of songs. As I mentioned I’m getting close to finishing two more songs. I’ve also taken on doing an upgrade to the Relix site, so watch for that.

Speaking of updates, I finally got the second proof of my book this week, so there was a mad scramble to review it and get feedback to the publisher. The good news they fixed most of the layouts for the diagrams, and got rid of the GoOfY CaPiTaLiZaTiOn thing they were doing. The bad news is, for some reason they didn’t fix all the layouts, so there’s still one more round of reviews ahead.

In completely unrelated news I found out today that John F. Kennedy grew up just a few blocks from my house, up the hill on Pondfield Road.

Origami Gila Monster for AMNH Holiday Tree

Every year Origami USA puts on an origami Holiday Tree at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It’s always a great attraction full of all kinds of wonderful origami. Ros and Delrosa, who organize the tree, have asked me to contribute a model for the last several years. I look forward to this because they often ask me to come up with something new, so it’s a good design challenge and a chance to show some new work. The tree usually follows a theme that has something to do with the exhibits in the museum. This year Ros and Delrosa asked me to fold a Gila Monster, a poisonous lizard from the American Southwest. They supplied a couple of sheets of great paper for the project.

I used my Lizard a starting point for the Gila Monster model. At first I thought I might just tweak it a bit, but once I started looking at the subject I decided to make a whole new model. Although it uses a hex base similar to the Lizard, there are substantial changes. First the body proportions are altered. The Gila Monster has a longer, fatter body and a shorter, fatter tail than my generic lizard. Second, to make it more realistic, I went with five toes rather then three. As you can imagine, this resulted in a lot more folding toes. Third, I decided to go with a closed back, to show off the excellent paper Ros and Delrosa gave me. These changes added up to a major reworking of my Lizard, to the point where it’s pretty much a new model.

I folded two or three tests to work out the details in the design, particularly for the sculpting once the base is achieved. Once I was satisfied the design would work I started in on the final models. Ros and Delrosa gave me two sheets of paper. One was an 18” square with a black-and orange pattern like lava. It was not even really paper at all but some kind of plastic sheet material, maybe originally intended for wall paper. It was kind of thick and shiny. The other paper was a rectangle of pink and black in a kind of op-art pattern. This was a high-quality paper for folding but on the soft side. Both papers, different as they were, were great choices as far as capturing some aspect of the essence of the subject.

But neither was suitable for an exhibit-quality model as-is. So I took each sheet and laminated to a large sheet of foil, and then colored the reverse side black. This resulted in thick, durable and workable sheets. The black-and-orange plastic one had the look and feel of leather, and the pink-and-black paper resembled tissue foil. I cut the paper rectangle in half and was able to get two 15” squares out it. I ended up folding three models, one orange and two pink. I gave two to the museum and had one to keep.

The origami Holiday Tree is on display from sometime in late November thru the New Year. If you’re in New York during the holiday season be sure to check it out.

New Recording: Black Swan

Here’s a rough mix of my new song, Black Swan.

I’m really happy with the way it turned out, a sort or Steely-Crimso vibe and pre-postapocalyptic sentiment. I realize it’s been over a year since I posted any new mixes because I’ve been busy with other things including finishing my book and joining a working band. Enough time has gone by that I need to take stock of the record as its shaping up. Some of the stuff I have is going to be moved into the bonus tracks stack. I still have a pretty big backlog of partially written songs, plus at least one all-new number I wrote just recently. In any event it’s good to be moving again. Look for updates soon to the BZ3 page.

From Zero to Rock’n’Roll in Sixty Days

Saturday was my first gig with the Relix, and it was a lot of fun and a big success for a number of reasons. For me it was my first paying gig with a rock band at a bar since Lizzy was a baby. Not only that, it was my first gig ever where they had valet parking once I unloaded my car. It was a nice place and a big room, and a good crowd, right in downtown White Plains.

I suppose now is a good time to mention the lineup of the band. On lead vocals is Paul, who is also a wicked harmonica a player. The rhythm section is Mike on bass and Gus on drums. Both are really solid and also sing backup. We have two guitarists. Frank is more straight-ahead rock and solos on the heavier stuff. Lee has more of a twangy sound and plays either a hollowbody or a twelve-string.

As mentioned before I was playing sax and keyboards and singing. For me it was a drastic improvement from nothing at all back in August. For the band it was an incremental improvement, but the consensus was that I brought the whole thing up a notch with my contribution. It seemed to go over well. Indeed, three different chicks offered to buy me a drink.

We did three sets that spanned a diverse range of material. First was a lot of classic soul by artists like Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Martha Reeves. These were mainly sax tunes for me. Then there was classic rock by groups like The Zombies, The Doors, Deep Purple, Traffic, Ten Years After, and Creedence. These were mainly organ and Rhodes tunes. Got a few nice organ solos in on Light My Fire, Hush, and Give Me Some Lovin’. We had some eighties stuff like Tom Petty, Greg Kihn, Tommy Tutone, John Cougar and the Romantics. Not stuff I would have picked, but they’re fun to play and go over well with the crowd, and I got to sing a couple of these. Then there’s a bunch of surf stuff from the likes of the Venutres and Johnny Rivers. For this I played alot of sax to try and give it a Tequila/Comanche sound.

The set was not perfect, but I was pretty satisfied overall. The energy was there and the crowd response was really good, and there were some excellent musical moments. The parts that I was worried about seemed to pass as barely noticeable from a audience perspective. For the most part it was hesitation over segues in some of the medleys, but that can be fixed with some more practice. For my own part, up until now I was mainly concerned with learning all the music. I had to learn fifty songs in two months! I only stopped using sheet music the last rehearsal before the show. I got thru the show without forgetting any parts or getting lost, although there were a few clams here and there. From here on I can concentrate more on performing the songs, listening to band and really taking it to the next level.

Nowhere is this more true than the songs where I was singing lead. I sang lead on four songs, and got thru them all without forgetting any of the lyrics. Now I need to focus more on connecting with the audience, being loud and clear and not looking down at my hands as I play. It’s good to have a chance to improve my singing and performing. From here things can only get better.

http://zingman.com/music/relix/vintagelounge101213/relix_soul_medley_2.mov
http://zingman.com/music/relix/vintagelounge101213/relix_light_my_fire.mov
http://zingman.com/music/relix/vintagelounge101213/relix_breakup_song.mov

Stand in the Place Where You Live

Been busy on the music front. First off, I’m almost ready to drop a rough mix of my new song Black Swan. Bet you thought I’d never get that one finished. Well the last few weeks I’ve been getting back into working in the studio once a week. Since you last heard it I added a guitar part and synth solo, completing the tracking. I also cut about 45 seconds from the tune. It seems to flow much better now. I did lots of tweaks to the timing of the transitions and ending, and tweaks to the drums, horns, etc., to make it flow better, and I started fine-tuning some of the channel effects.

In other news, my first gig with the classic rock and soul band The Relix is next weekend. I spent a good chunk of the weekend practicing. Singing, piano, organ and sax, it’s alot to do, and there’s three sets. But it’s coming together. Hope to see you all there!

I’m playing keys standing up in this band, so I needed a new keyboard stand. At rehearsal I’m putting my board on the top tier of the stand in the rehearsal space, but my stand at home doesn’t have a second tier. I went to the Sam Ash on 33rd street one day last week. They used to be on 48 street and were much better. It was Musician’s row before Sam Ash bought up half the block and then moved out. Anyway, I didn’t like any of the stands they had there. The staff in the keyboard and PA department are a bunch of arrogant bullshitters, imagining they can just recommend whatever they have in stock, which is much less since the move.

So I looked online and found a stand called Standtastic (http://www.lmproducts.com/StandtasticPage.htm). It’s basically the exact same thing as one I designed and built in one of my industrial design classes in college, except theirs is professionally manufactured and not just a prototype. Oh, and mine was aluminum and this one is steel. The main design goals were to be really solid, really quick to set up and tear down, and high enough to play standing and stack two keyboards. It almost makes me wonder if they ripped off my design, but I can’t imagine how. They must’ve thought thru the problem and come to the same conclusion I did.

The stand arrived today, and it sets up lickety-split and is quite solid. A couple little details about the hardware seem a bit sketchy: it could use some rubber grips on the keyboard skids and some bigger washers here and there, and maybe turn around some bolts so the wing nuts are inside, but that’s all stuff I can take care of. I even have some parts from my old stand I could probably swap out.

Meanwhile in jazzland I mentioned that I have some originals and they said bring ’em in. So I picked out three to start. One is (I Miss My) Baby in Bb, a song that I wrote in the 80’s for my group Event Horizon. Don’t be fooled by the title though, the song is in F. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the others. One is called King’s Hex, and it’s a fast jazz waltz with a whole-tone polyrhythm thing going on in the main section. The last one is called Buzzy Blue, and it’s a kinda Miles style modal blues. I dusted it off recently to see if it’d fit with my current work-in-progress album, but I don’t have a lyric. Both songs are from the 90’s and I think I did them with Erik and Flip Hippo back in the day. All I have now is some MIDI demos.

I’m trying to write out some basic charts. It’s sort of a pain in the ass doing it by hand, especially cuz I have to write it out in three keys. But the alternative is to get some notating software and learn how to use it, which probably will take even longer. I did import my midi demos into protools, just to see if something can be done with them. Now I’m thinking of, well, making better demos out of them.

Penrose Redux

I folded the first three in the series of Penrose tessellations out of good paper for my exhibit for the upcoming OrigaMIT convention October 19 in Cambridge, Mass. The 10-cell is folded from a 6” pentagonal sheet of Marble Wyndstone, the 35-cell from a 12” sheet of Tant, and the 70-cell from a 16” sheet of Wyndstone.

I’ll also be teaching the Penrose tessellations, the 10 and 35 cell versions. I’m giving them precut pentagonal paper to save time. I also finally got around to drawing out the crease patterns. Last year OrigaMIT was a great time, and I’m looking forward to it again.

I’ve also been working on a new butterfly design. More on that soon!

Amplifier Fire

Summer is definitely coming to an end. The days are still warm and pleasant but the nights are getting cooler. Last week we took out our air conditioner in the living room because hornets were getting into the house thru it. A couple days later we had a mini heat wave, up into the 90’s for the first time since July.

Back in the swing of things for the new school year. Lizzy really likes high school, and Michelle likes Kung Fu, and they’re both off to a good start. Friday evening was the welcome back picnic at Michelle’s school. It was good to see everyone again. We had lots of great adventures this summer and seemed to go on forever, but now it seems like it went by so fast. Still it’s good to be home and back into routine. No more traveling for a little while.

The Relix rock and soul revue is shaping up nicely. I’ve learned about 50 songs, although half of them I already knew halfway and the other half I don’t know half as well as I should like. I’m singing and playing sax and keys. We have our first gig coming up in just a few weeks. I did buy an new amp, a Roland Jazz Chorus, and I’m really happy with it. It’s kinda of an expensive amp new, so I felt really lucky that I found one used on Craigslist for sale by some guy on Long Island for half off. And he’s a jazz guy and treated the amp really nice; it’s basically in new condition. It’s so loud I haven’t turned it up past one yet at home.

And just in time too. My old amp had been making noise and cutting out to really low volume every now and then for some time now, and I knew it was a matter of time before it died completely. My big fear is that it’d cut out on the stand at the first show. The day after I brought my new JC-120 home I turned on the old amp to A/B the two. The old amp was nothing but distortion, no matter how I fiddled with it. So I guess it’s finally toast.

I also had to buy a new mixer for my studio. My old Mackie 1202 from the 90’s gave up the ghost the same week. But it went down fighting. In fact it woke up the kids with a huge droning noise like heavy machinery out of control. They called up Jeannie at work and she had them shut down the main power amp but even then the noise thru the headphones could be heard across the room. So I got a new 1402. Same thing but newer, with more channels, better EQ and real faders. Now I can plug in 2 more mics without having to unplug anything. And it was on sale!

Then this week the guy from the jazz ensemble called me up and asked me to play with them. I was thinking maybe I’d skip it cuz I’m pretty busy with the rock band, but I’m glad I went. It feels more like a club than an actual band. This time half the musicians were different than last time; only the bass, drums and guitar the same. Still it was a great chance to stretch out and work on soloing, and meet some more musicians.