Author: Zingblog 2

The Song Remains the Same

It’s coming up a year now that I played a gig with Erik, sparking me to rekindle my interest in playing live music. I just got off the phone with the coffeehouse where we played last summer and they want to have us back, so it’s down to picking a date.

Meanwhile, we’ve been able to get together a few times to jam the last few weeks. We’re continuing to work out new material. We’re up to eight originals, and some of the covers we’ve recently learned include Cinnamon Girl by Neil Young, Karma Police by Radiohead, and Don’t Know Why by Norah Jones. These last two were chosen because of the piano/guitar arrangements. I chose Don’t Know Why because we finally have Heat Wave worked out to the point where it’s playable and musical. I said to Erik half-jokingly “If I was a better songwriter I’d have written a simpler tune. Maybe I should learn some Norah Jones songs to play simpler.” It turns out, however, Don’t Know Why is not a simple song at all, but full of subtle jazz chords. Thing I want to be able to do, however, is carry a song with that light, minimal touch. Old country songs are great for that, and she has a heavy country influence.

Learning new songs is an ongoing process. Before I got my digital stage piano last summer I mainly practiced on an upright piano I got when Lizzy was a baby. Songs would go in and out of rotation, and over time I tended to be more interested in instrumentals that pop songs with vocals. I seemed to collect songs that were interesting enough to make my own. I arrived at a point where I had a set of songs that were my standard set. And while they were all great songs, I felt I had plateaued. But now I can see it’s a really good foundation and covers a variety of styles including stride, modern jazz, and prog rock. Some of them have gone down from playing the full song to just a run thru of the parts, skipping send and third verses, and I’ve joined them into medleys. For the jazz numbers I’ll often play thru the head and not improvise, but sometimes I do. Some are hard enough (mainly the Keith Emerson numbers) that I can only really nail them when my fingers are in good shape. I still try and play thru this set last week. It takes about an hour. I played last night – first time I’d played my piano in a while – and it sounded better than ever.

…

East St. Louis Toodle-Loo – Duke Ellington
Powerhouse – Raymond Scott
Pannonica / ‘Round Midnight / Epistrophy – Monk
When I’m 64 / Lady Madonna / Martha My Dear – Beatles
Because / I Want You (She’s So Heavy) – Beatles
Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear – Randy Newman
You Got a Friend In Me – Randy Newman
Got A Match? – Chick Corea
Cantaloupe Island – Herbie Hancock
Josie / Hey Nineteen – Steely Dan
I Wish / Sir Duke – Stevie Wonder
Miami 2017 – Billy Joel (intro) / Take A Pebble – ELP
Karn Evil 9, 2nd Impression – ELP
Digital Man – Rush (intro) / The Endless Enigma – ELP (intro)
Letter From Home – Pat Metheny

Now

It’s been a busy few weeks with real life. It’s been a very rainy month of May. Seems like rain every Mon thru Thurs the last three or more weeks. I haven’t been able to take the Mustang out on any day I’ve worked at home all month. At least the last couple weekends have been warm and sunny, and teasing that summer is right around the corner. I haven’t been able to skate much either, but I put new wheels on my rollerblades last weekend, which makes a big difference, and finally had the chance Sunday. This Friday is the start of summer Fridays at my office, so I get a much-needed break. If the weather’s good I might get the mustang down to the body shop for an estimate.

Last night was the spring band concert at my kids’ school. Both Lizzy and Michelle played, on flute and clarinet. Michelle was thrilled, as it was her first concert. It was a big band, about sixty kids. At the old school it was a dozen or maybe twenty. The week before that was the art show at the school. This was a cool thing that I’d never seen a school do before. Basically they turned to cafeteria into an art gallery and put up all the best stuff from the year’s art classes. Some really nice stuff. Got to mingle with the other parents and listen to the kids beg to go out for ice cream.

I’ve been making progress on music and recording. Last weekend I laid down the lead vocals for Black Swan as well as Michelle’s new song “Now”. It’s a sweet and simple song, yet at the same time deep, in a Lydian mode.. For this one Michelle wrote the music on piano and came up with most of the arrangement. There’s going to be a clarinet solo on it. I told her if she has a third song we could make it into a suite for my next record.

…

Now
by Michelle Szinger

Now is now
Now is the present time
Now is everything
Now is here
Now is not the future or the past
Now is now

Now is now
Now is here
Now is new
Now is not old
Now is not the future or the past
Now is now
Now is now

Studio Rebuild

It seems like for quite a while there in the late winter I was feeling under the weather, but in the last few weeks as spring has arrived I’ve been feeling more myself again. The last few weekends we’ve been spending a lot of time outdoors, doing the spring cycle of work on the yard, house and cars. Last Saturday it was warm and sunny and we washed and waxed Jeannie’s car. This weekend it was too cold to do my car, so we took it to the car wash instead. The kids were thrilled. We’ve also done lots of weeding, trimming, lawn mowing, planting the garden, and putting down fertilizer and new mulch. Probably one more good session and the spring cycle is complete.

But the weather has been inconsistent, so we’ve been doing stuff indoors too. Last Sunday it was cold and rainy, and I was working in my studio with Michelle on her new song “Now”. She wanted to play the piano part on my new synth, so I had to do some re-patching. This led to all kinds of problems with wires, hum and noise, gear not working, and finally furniture breaking. Michelle was a great help dealing with that stuff, but we never got any recording done that day. That night I was working on laying down a bass part on Black Swan, but the groove was just not happening.

I decided I needed to tear down and rebuild my entire studio. The main motivation was the need to move my rack cabinet so I could access the back. This cabinet is basically an open shelf with some x-braces, one of which snapped. It used to hold our TV, until Jeannie got a new TV a few months back, and I swapped it for my old rack cabinet as the new TV stand. The thing is, there’s tons of wires, and I just lifted my rack onto the new cabinet, and ever since there’s been a hum and occasional noise in the system. In order to move the rack cabinet I needed to move my studio monitors too. One thing led to another, and it was pretty much a full day of moving furniture and plugging things back in. Michelle was very helpful again, and in the end I wound up with a freshly organized studio, free of hum. Plus the monitors are now centered on my computer where I do most of my actual mixing work, rather than mixer, which was the center when I fist set up the space years ago, In their new orientation the speakers sound better and fill up the room better too.

As for my bass, that needed some attention too. At one point I was thinking of giving up and shopping for a new bass, but then I figured if John Paul Jones and Joco Pastorious can get an amazing sound from a Fender, I should at least be able to get a decent sound. That’s the kind of sound I’ve been going for all along anyway. Plus my bass has always had good action, intonation and feel. I’d never taken apart a bass before, so I knew I was in for some fun. Among other problems, there was noise in the tone and volume controls, and the strings sounded really dead. Someone once told me you can boil bass strings to bring them back to life, so I thought I’d try it. Then I removed the pick guard to clean the volume and tone controls. I discovered that the nuts that held the potentiometers to the pick guard were made of plastic, and broken, and the knobs were just kinda floating in place. I cleaned the pots and used rubber bands to hold them in place temporarily. Today I went to the music store and got some replacement parts including metal nuts. Meanwhile last night I put everything back together and tried it out.

It was a world of difference. The strings were shiny and sounded amazing. Good bright attack and sustain. Also, cleaning the pots got rid of the noise problem. I was able to turn up the gain on my MBox and record a hotter signal too. So the result was excellent, and I now have the bass part down for Black Swan.

D&D Campaign Notes – The Saga of the Orphan Witches

Back in the day when we used to play D&D online my friend Nick set up a pretty comprehensive wiki that included character information, maps, and campaign notes. For a while he even recorded audio of our sessions and made them available as podcasts. I’m not doing that, but I am keeping campaign notes. Tonight was the first night we played in a while, and it’s nice to go back and see the story unfold. So here are my notes so far. I’m continuing to flesh out the world, but it’s funny because at the beginning I had all these big plans for backstory and stuff, but now that we’re into it I’m at the point where I have what I need in my head and I pretty much wing it from session to session.

…

The World:

Europe in the Dark Ages, historically and geographically grounded (So I don’t have to make very many maps) with a fantastic D&D twist.

The Players:

Joy Holly (Mich): H W; orphan witch, good with potions
Emma (Eliz): H W; orphan witch, good with scrolls. E&M are like sisters
Zoë (Jne): H R; rogue w/ a heart of gold (CG)

NPC’s (so far):

Grimli Redshirt: D F, LN; stout and dour, grey beard red hood
Glumli Redshirt: Dw F, LG; quiet and brave, black beard blue hood
Chumli Redshirt: Dw F 1, NG; round and jolly, red beard green hood
Perrywinkle: Half-elf Druid 2-3, NG; acolyte of Ehlona, the Unicorn goddess

The Back Story:

Emma and Joy are orphan witches, being raised in an orphanage for young witches. One night the orphanage is burned down by an angry mob. The girls are out on their own in a cruel, cold world. But they can get buy on their wits, some magic, and some help from their friends.

Each young witch has a magic amulet, one in the shape of a sun, the other a moon. The two fit together. Although they don’t know it, they are related, the last survivors of a once powerful house of Wizards that was split in two by jealous infighting and powerful dark magic. The girls were hidden away as infants, and its their destiny to reunite the family and restore the rule of good magic to the kingdom.

But that’s a long way off. Right now they have survival on their minds.

…

Campaign Sessions:

10/29/11 – Joy and Emma are driven from home, the witches’ orphanage by an angry mob with torches and pitchforks. The orphanage’s headmistress, Anniella is captured. Joy and Emma run away. They meet up with Zoë and get out of town. After a couple of days on the run they encounter a merchant’s party coming back from the Keep on the Borderlands, to the northeast. The party hears tales of treasure and adventure and decides to venture out to the Keep.

11/5/11 – Party encounters 4 goblins on the road the keep. Killed three, 4th ran away. First combat.

12/27/12 – Party arrives at KotBL. Meets company of Dwarves – Grimli Redshirt, son of Groin, and his kin Glumii and Chumli. Spends a night at the Inn of the Drunken Duck. Sets out for the Caves of Chaos the following morning. Arrive at the caves in the late afternoon. Decide its too late to go a-dungeoning and spend the night camping nearby. Return to caves the following morning. Enter cave “D”.

1/21/12 – Party enters cave D. Encounter wandering Goblins – killed all six. All three Dwarves wounded in combat. Chumi drinks his potion of healing, Grimli too. End session with Gri: 13hp, Glu: 7hp, Chu: 6hp. Treasure: 24 sp, 5 sacks of food (12 person/days worth). Goblins from areas 17 and 18 heard the melee and will rush out to attack next turn.

Party Roles: J – treasure, L – initiative, M – maps

1/28/12 – Encountered and defeated Goblins from room 17 and 18 (6 each), plus the Ogre from 22. One Goblin from 17 escaped. Used up 6 more potions of Cure Light Wounds, only two remain. Treasure found: 250 GP on dead Ogre, 17 SP & 33 CP on Goblins, magic dagger, magic short sword. Party current HP: Grimli: 16, Glumli: 10. Characters awarded 1050 xp; everyone goes up a level.

2/18/12 – Explored Ogre lair, discovered treasure incl. gold, a keg of brandy, some cheeses, and a scroll w/ 3 spells. Encountered and defeated 10 goblins in room 19. Women and children ran away. 30 sp. 250 XP @.

2/25/12 – Hid treasure in Ogre cave. Zoe scouted ahead, encountered 4 Goblin storeroom guards; killed them. Encountered and killed Goblin chieftain and 3 bodyguards. Let the women and children go. HP: Zoe 4, Grimli 20, Chumli 3. Treasure: 18 gp, 2 pp, 36 ep, 284 sp, 321 cp, silver cup (90 gp), tapestry 900 gp. Returned to Ogre cave. Met the Elves Perrywinkle and Elvis (and a pony). 250 XP @.

4/14/12 – Went back with Elves to their camp. Elvis taught Emma and Joy some new spells, and identified the spells on the scroll (Burning Hands, Flaming Sphere and Fireball). In the middle of the night, Otterbears try and steal their cheese, party fends them off. The next morning Glumli and Elvis go off, but Periwinkle joins the party. They take the pony and treasure back to the Keep. Party returns to the Caves of Chaos, and enter cave “A”. Chumi and Emma fall in a pit and six Kobolds appear.

Book Blues

As you may already know, I’ve been working on my origami book. I’ve made a lot of progress in the last few months, largely because I’ve had interest from a publisher. Now we’re in contract negotiations, and it’s been going back and forth. There’s a bunch of points, none of them huge but all need to be worked out. It’s a bit frustrating because in general they’re slow to respond, so I’m just kinda waiting to hear back. I’d like to get it all squared away because once we have a deal, the first thing I want to do is go out and buy a nice camera so I can do the photography.

Meanwhile I’ve been doing lots of diagramming, since that’s the major part of the work. Since the new year I’ve diagrammed my Inchworm, Fox, Walrus, Elephant Seal, Frog, and I’m more than halfway thru my Narwhal and Armadillo. I’ve finally perfected the Armadillo. The key detail was the head, particularly the ears. I have only a few models left after that, but one is my Turkey, which maybe my most complex model. I’m teaching this coming weekend so I can test all the new diagrams. I hope to be done the rest by the end of June so I can bring them to the convention.

Site Update: 2011 Pics Part II

Here’s something to help kick those blues away and get you thinking about summer again. I published three new photo galleries from last July and August. The first two are from our trip to upstate New York and Ontario, with stops in Fort Niagara, Niagara Falls, Toronto, the Thousand Islands, and the Adirondack Mountains. The third includes pix from some camping trips as well as before-and-after pix from the hurricane that blew thru here. As always, the galleries are meant for family so if you need a password let me know.

http://zingman.com/fotooz/index.php
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-04/index.html
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-05/index.html
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2011/2011-06/index.html

Spring Up!

They changed the clocks and it’s back to getting up in the morning before its light. On the upside it’s light out now when we get home from work. Anyway, the days are getting longer fast this time of year. Last weekend we went ice skating, thinking that we’re almost out of winter so we better do it while we have the chance. And shaw’nuff spring has come on all at once right after that. Only two days later the weather was up in the 60’s and I went rollerblading for the first time of the season. The next day the first buds appeared on pretty much all the trees and shrubs around here. There were a few cold, rainy days, but the weekend was beautiful. We did the first round of spring yardwork, mainly raking out the winter debris and old leaves, and taking down the last of the xmas lights. Plus I went rollerblading a second time. Today it was up into the 70’s and I went staking for a third time. I’ve also gotten the Mustang out for a drive a couple times already in the last few weeks.

Van Halen Erupts

Last night I saw Van Halen at Madison Square Garden, and they were great. Played 20 or 30 Van Halen songs. All their radio hits, a bunch of deep tracks and a bunch of songs off their new record.

Performance-wise they were better than when I saw them in the ’80’s. That time they all looked totally wasted and tired, worn out from the road. This time they were sober and energetic. Plus they had David Lee Roth back in the band!

Eddie and Alex were both in top form, better than ever. Maybe even perfect. After all this time I’m amazed all over again at what an amazing guitarist Eddie is. (On my personal list he’s probably the best guitarist ever in the world, or maybe tied with Jimmy Page). He’s such an icon it’s almost easy to take his genius for granted, but to see him play live really reminds you. Just fantastic. He can sound like the whole album with just one guitar. Great use of space, voicings, and contrast in all his playing. Lots of subtle musicianship in there. And then of course all the over-the-top riffs, speed and seemingly effortless virtuosity. All the solos were spot on, and he put in little improvised embellishments all over the place. Yet somehow it all always supports the song. During his extended solo he did a one-handed tap thing while rocking the volume knob with the other. Great effect and I’ve never seen anyone do that before.

Alex is one of the most awesome and underrated drummers out there. Great sound, great time, great chops, great parts for the songs. He had an extended solo too, and the intro to Hot for Teacher alone was worth it.

David Lee Roth was good but not quite living up to the studio recordings (admittedly a near impossible task). He still has the range but is not screaming high notes all the time, and on some songs he was still finding his way towards perfecting a new delivery. I think this was the 2nd show of the tour. I’d like to see them after a month. He’s still got dancing and karate kicks, although maybe a bit less jumping. He seemed a bit stiff the first part of the show, and he was using a headset mic for some reason. (Jeannie says to me “doesn’t he know Madonna uses on of those because she lip syncs?”) Later on he switched to a handheld mic and the sound was better and he appeared more relaxed. Maybe he had trouble hearing himself. Who knows. Anyway there were definitely some great moments, especially in the second half, and often as not he really nailed it. In any event, he’s Diamond Dave!

Wolfgang held his own just fine, and his presence lent a Hot Tub Time Machine vibe to the whole show. He and Eddie hit most of the vocal harmonies spot on, but Wolfie was off once or twice.

The sound in the hall was great, and the mix was clean and clear. Eddie had ten Marshall stacks behind him, but I think most were props. Three had mics in front of them, and a couple of times he got up there and worked the feedback. Wolfgang had 8 bass cabinets but only 2 were mic’d. The only mics I could see on Alex’s kit were two overheads. If there were close mics they must’ve been underneath, or built into the drums. I’d love to know. The bass drums had closed front heads.

Opening act was Kool and the Gang, which was a pleasant surprise. Looks like they have all the original members. They sounded tight, with a big ol’ horn section, lots of solos, and all their funk-soul hits. They made a nice contrast to VH. I’ve met the trumpet player Michael Ray because back in the 90’s he led a Sun Ra influenced jazz band called the Kosmic Krew that included my friend Adam on keyboards. I’ve even been to his house in New Orleans. He had a most excellent Voodoo shrine. Very nice guy.

Staycation

The days have been getting longer and the winter has remained mild. It’s now daylight again when I get up in the mornings for work. Still the night comes early and I’m really longing for spring to arrive. I’m off work this because the kids are home from school and I have some extra vacation days from last year that I need to use or loose. It’s a funny thing: we knew last fall that the kids get a week off in February at their new school, and at the time I was all like “we are so going on a ski trip, or to the Caribbean!” But all fall and winter we were pretty focused on day-to-day life, and when it came down to it, airfare to the islands for a whole family is crazy expensive, because everyone else who has kids is also taking the same week off. And there’s been be no snow to speak of.

So the plan is mainly to hang around the house. I’m actually pretty happy about this. It seems every time we have time of there’s travel involved, but it’s nice just to catch up on things, and have an opportunity to focus on writing my book and working on new songs. To be sure, we’re probably going skiing later in the week for a day trip overnight (if it doesn’t rain), but nothing epic. I’m guessing it’ll be the last chance for skiing this season.

Party On

Our D&D campaign has really hit its stride lately. Our duo of Orphan Witches, Joy and Emma, accompanied by Zoe, a rogue with a heart of gold, arrived at the Keep on the Borderlands and joined forces with a trio of Dwarves (because Dwarves always travel in groups whose count is a prime number). They are Grimli, son of Groin, and his kinsfolk Glumli and Chumli, of the Redshirt clan. I added them to the party since they were light on fighters, and playing NPC’s it gives me a chance to fight on the side of the good guys and provide some (grim, Dwarvish) counsel to the players. I’m having fun with the NPC’s, and am planning on having them come and go as need warrants, to help the party on various stages of their quest. The party still needs a healer, since they’ve already used up most of their stock of healing potion after the first major combat. I’m going to provide some kind of Elvish Druid I think, maybe named Elvis.

In any even the combat went really well, with Zoe mixing it up in melee combat, Lizzy summoning a dire spider and Michelle wielding both acid and frost, and even stepping up to slay a goblin with her dagger.

I’m playing under 3.5 rules, and so far it’s worked fine just substituting the 3.5 version of the monsters in the Monster Manual for the ones in the. We’ve been fighting alot of Orcs and Goblins of lately, which is confusing for me as DM because I’m also reading the Lord of the Rings on the train these days (more on that in a separate post), and in Tolkien’s world “orc” is the Elvish word for “goblin”, from the orcish word “urak” which is what they call themselves. Meanwhile in Gygax’s world, Orcs and Goblins are two distinct creatures.

Also, we’ve now got proper minis for the party and a host of monster. We’re using lego minifigs, which are a bit larger than your standard mini, so I’m thinking of redrawing our battlemap at an inch and quarter per five foot square rather than an inch.