Author: zingblog

Music Update 4: The Question of Electric Guitars

So you wanna be a rock’n’roll star
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
And take some time and learn how to play
And if you make the chart
In a week or two the girls will tear you apart

If you’ve been following this blog (it turns out both Captain Hammer and the LAPD read it), you know I got me an acoustic guitar about year ago and have good fun and success in learning how to play it. I seem to have settled into a mode of mainly the folk and rock songs that are good to sing and play rhythm to. I even wrote my first song on guitar a while back and want to put it on my next records. It’s called Rocket To The Moon, and is an uptempo pseudo-punk number (although it has far more than three chords. Eight or nine I think.)

So I’ve been thinking about how to record this song. At one point I had hoped to get it done by Xmastime to submit to NASA song contest for the final space shuttle flight, but that’s looking unlikely right now due to repeated delays of the ship date for the mbox 3 pro. In the interim I took a look at Reaper, the FOSS DAW, but ran into so many issues with the setup I decided to punt for the time being and go back to the original mbox with PT7 to record my last song on the old rig.

It’s a short cover with a long title. I’m trying to do a really stripped down arrangement with just voice and piano and get it done quickly. But it turns out it’s not so easy to have a simple arrangement and make it come across with power and emotion. So I’m kinda woodshedding it now. Still hope to have it done in a couple of weeks, and by then the new box will be out and it’s on to the big upgrade.

Meanwhile in guitarland, Martin lent me a guitar mutli-FX box and amp simulator. I have an old electric guitar and I hooked the two of them together and gave it a whirl. The box is fun and interesting, and has a lot of cool sounds. But the interface is obscure and I don’t have a good handle on how to do more than move thru the presets, adjust the input gain, and select an amp simulation. This gives a good amount of range in available sounds, but there’s a whole effects block I haven’t cracked, with reverbs and tremelos and wahs and flanges all kinds of groovy stuff. Martin is coming for a visit sometime soon, so hopefully he’ll have the time to show me how the thing works. The other issue I have with the effects box is so many of the sounds are heavy metal megadistortion. I’m mostly playing rhythm and strumming, so this is completely wrong. I just want to embiggen my sound a bit. I wouldn’t mind getting a kinda slinky 70’s sound like George Harrison or David Gilmour either.

My electric guitar is an old Guild with dual humbuckers,. It’s okay but not great, so I’ve been thinking of getting a new one. I was also thinking of selling it and thought I might get a couple hundred for it. Then I went on ebay and saw the same model listed at $450 up to $1100. So I guess I should try and find out how much mine is worth.

Picking out a new guitar is a daunting task, cuz it’s not really my area and there’s just so many choices. I’ve been looking online and checking out the guitar section every time I go to Manny’s to see about the mbox. I’ve divided the product space into three main subtypes: Gibson, Fender and other. They seem to go from $300ish to as expensive as you wanna get. One friend thinks I should check out a Telecaster and another recommends Paul Reed Smith guitars. I’m leaning towards a Gibson GS, partly cuz I like the look and partly cuz of the humbuckers. I really need to just go to a music store one day an play some guitars. I tied to a couple weeks ago when I had a day off from work, but I ended up going to buy a snowblower instead.

So for now I think I’m gonna punt on the whole electric guitar thing and record Rocket to the Moon on acoustic and build the arrangement around that. I have another song ready to go after that called Seven Is Magic, an instrumental which I’m gonna do with a sax quartet. I might rename it Sea of Tranquility (or Valley of Serenity) to fit in with the whole moon concept.

I also came up with a bass part for RTTM. Remember what I said about the bass being easy? Well the only thing that’s really hard for me is fast repeated 16th notes on the same note. This is not a pattern I usually favor, but it seemed like I should try it for this song. It didn’t really work so I said to myself what would John Paul Jones do? So the new pattern is based on a rotation of fast moving riffs, a la Good Times Bad Times or Dazed and Confused.

Practicing the Poetry of Curly Braces

For all the pressure and tumult at my job that last few months, here’s one good result: I’m writing the best code I’ve ever written. I feel like I’ve leveled as a programmer (this seems to happen every 6 mos. to a year with me as I integrate things I’ve been learning) and can now do up to 186 points of damage with a single line of code.

I just spent the evening finishing off a huge feature set that had been my main focus the last 2 months or so. Tonight it was just cleaning up code finishing off a few loose ends, but I was able to sit back and look at my code and say, woah, that’s beautiful.

It’s a bit like Denny Diaz says about the mu chord: you have to practice it until you can do it without thinking about it. So it’s been with me and lots of best practices and design patterns that I used to work hard to implement and now they just sort of come to me as my first idea on how to approach things.

A few specific things I’ve really been focused on down in the details dancing with the devil. One is to never repeat any code. Ever. Everyone copies and pastes blocks of codes, and I used to be much more tolerant of it. Now whenever I temped to do that, I look at the block and make it into its own method and call it from wherever I was going to paste it. The other thing is I’ve been breaking methods up and writing shorter and shorter methods. I’ve had as a rule of thumb that if a method doesn’t fit on a screen its too long. Now I’m thinking more and more that in many cases over half a screen is too long.

Music Update 2: Karn Evil 9

Here’s a new recording, a cover of Keith Emerson’s Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression, originally off the ELP album Brain Salad Surgery.

If you know me you know that Keith Emerson had long been one of my big musical idols. As a kid I was really into synthesizers and admired his pioneering synth work, although in those days most of his piano stuff was way beyond me. When Lizzy was a baby I quit playing in bands and had a big hole in my life. I bought a piano (up until that time I only had synths and my Fender Rhodes) and decided to finally learn how to really play, to get to the next level on piano as opposed to “keyboards”. I played a variety of stuff but focused mainly on jazz, and eventually stride, because without a rhythm section you can get across a whole song in a stride style. In the rock/pop realm there are only a handful of musicians who write on piano and have stuff that’s musically interesting and hangs together without a band – Lennon/McCartney, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Randy Neuman, Joe Jackson and a few others.

And then there’s Keith Emerson. Emerson Lake and Palmer were pretty much the prototype for a large swath of subsequent prog rock, and at the heart of it is Keith’s keyboards. I set out to learn a few of his big pieces, and they are head-and-shoulders above anything else I’ve studied in terms of imagination, complexity and difficulty. So I thought it would be a good idea to really work up a few and learn his secrets. I mastered three: Take a Pebble, The Endless Enigma, and Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression. Here’s one aspect of it: his music sounds high energy because it takes a lot of energy to play. He loves fast tempos and wide melodic intervals, so your hands are really moving a lot. Better be warmed up before you break into one of these numbers.

My version is a bit different, hopefully somewhat my own. I memorized it long ago and since it’s drifted from the original, so some parts are condensed and others expanded. Also, I play without the bass and drum accompaniment. Perhaps the biggest change is I use a Rhodes rather than a grand piano, to bring out the jazzy aspect of the piece. Although Emerson is widely regarded as a classically influenced pianist, he also has great jazz chops and sensibility, and was a big disciple of Dave Brubeck among others, and some of his best stuff is as much jazz as classical. I’ve often wondered why he didn’t do more in that direction. After all other prog guys Bill Bruford have tried their hand at it to the point where you could make the case that there is such a thing as British jazz. I guess once you’ve conquered arena rock there’s no great compulsion to stow the cannons and go for something more intimate and subdued.

(Aside: I read in the news recently that Keith survived some alarming emergency abdominal surgery. Stuff like that reminds you that everyone’s human. I wish him a speedy and full recovery, and hope to see him touring again before too long.)

My version is a bit more rubato, and perhaps not quite as strident or uptempo. The method I used was to record to a click track, merging together multiple takes. Once I was done I felt it sounded a bit stiff, so I ended up going back in and penciling in tempo changes to simulate the kind of feel that I give the tune when I play without a click track. That turned out to be pretty successful.

As far as the mix goes, there are actually six piano tracks. I triple tracked the part with three different samples, each in stereo. The main track is a straight-up Rhodes. Second is a Rhodes with tremolo and other effects, mixed to the left to provide some sonic motion. Third is a grand piano, mixed to the right and way down low, almost subliminal, to provide a bit of plonk on the low and trinkle on the high notes, just a bit of general attackiness. I put the effects on a bus rather than as channel inserts, to try and unify the sounds as one voice. I’ve been reading some books on mixing (more on that in another post) and got some ideas I wanted to try. The effects chain consists of some pretty heavy compression, followed by a really short delay and then a plate reverb. The return is mixed in just enough to add some presence without sounding overly processed. Then, since I’m not doing a legit mastering step for this song, I threw a limiter on the main bus on the way out. I think it came out quite nice.

Origami Great Dodecahedron

Way back in April I folded a Great Dodecahedron, posted the crease pattern, and promised pictures as soon as I got around to it…

Way back in April I folded a Great Dodecahedron, posted the crease pattern, and promised pictures as soon as I got around to it. Well I completed the model a long time ago, but only took pictures this weekend. I realized I haven’t updated my origami gallery in over a year, so I took photos of a bunch of models. Expect a major update to my origami gallery soon. But meanwhile, this shape deserves a special callout cuz it’s so cool.

Origami Narwhal

Inspired by my recent exploration into arctic marine mammals. This model is folded from a 12″ square of Canson. The tusk is produced from opposite side of the sheet as the rest of the model, so if I’d used a two-color sheet the tusk would be white and the body colored (same with my Walrus). I used an all-white sheet however, because I like the sculptablitly of the thicker sheet. I’m thinking of producing another model and painting one side of the paper with grey watercolors. It should produce a nice effect, but I’m concerned if I’ll be able to wetfold it later or if I’ll have to do the painting and folding all at once. Well I guess we’ll find out when I try it.

Hollow Heads

Happy Halloween everyone. This year we had not one but three pumpkins. It’s November now, halfway to winter break. The weather is starting to turn cold at night. It was 34 this morning. I realize it’s been a while since I wrote. Things have been really busy with work, projects and everything else. I just passed a big deadline at work, so I’ll do a catching up post soon. Meanwhile here’s some pictures of carved vegetables to hold you over.

Origami Walrus and Elephant Seal

I just completed a new set of models for this year’s origami tree at the American Museum of Natural History. I’ve been working in the space of arctic marine animals, and designed a Walrus and an Elephant Seal. These animals are featured in dioramas in the museum. Both are new designs and I’m pleased with how they turned out. They’re relatively easy to fold too: less than hour and maybe 20 or 30 steps. I’ve been striving lately to create less complex models that still capture some sculptural essence of the subject and think these are pretty successful in the regard. As a bonus I folded a Rocketship and a UFO. All the models were folded out of 12” (30cm) paper, the marine animals out of Canson and the space vehicles out of Tant. While a was taking photos I also included a balloon I folded recently, also of 12” tant. Next up: origami narwhal.

Indian Summer

It’s fall in New York, and Indian summer is upon us. The weather’s been very nice so far, generally warm in the days and cool at night, with a few stormy days. The kids are back in the school groove, and after finishing my record, I’ve been able to start planning the next music project, as well as get back into my origami book. Diagramming the frog this week.

My work situation continues to improve. We got our release finished off a few weeks ago, and it was met with enthusiasm from our customers and managers. Now we’re sort of back to normal as far as the level of pressure and the general vibe. We have a follow-on release coming up in November. Finally getting tot he point where all the well-structured, modular, reusable code I’ve been writing is starting to pay off by actually getting reused. In related news, our corporate overlords did some shuffling of chairs recently. My team lost our nice corner shared office, as it’s going to be converted into a conference room. I got my own office right next door, which is a reasonable tradeoff. View of the Marriott wall, but at least it’s a window. The other guy in the room got sent to cubicle purgatory.

We did get a Prius a few weeks ago after all, and so far we think it’s pretty neat. Good roomy size, good futuristic looks, good handling, reasonable power and of course the hybrid synergy drive is a radical, cool technology. It takes a bit of getting used to. The controls are all electronic. Instead of a gearshift it has a videogame joystick. The car is black and completely silent at low speed, so my friend Erik nicknamed it the Stealth Car. Meanwhile the kids have dubbed it Princess Priia. So far we seem to be getting about 47 mpg. We’re gonna take it on a drive out to country sometime soon for some hiking and pumpkin picking.