Category: Music

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.

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.

Tomorrow will be the first day I see my boss in almost three weeks. All the senior people at my company are using all the vacation days they have saved up, before the company changes its vacation policy in September. I’d imagine productivity is down, but hey it’s August. Anyway, I don’t have to worry about that until tomorrow. I had a long weekend, the first of the whole summer without travel or other commitments. I spent a lot of it learning new songs. I must say learning new music has gotten a lot easier with the internet and the iTunes store. Gone are the days of putting together mix tapes and figuring out the chords by ear.

I’m doing this because last weekend I auditioned/sat in with the aforementioned classic rock party band. It went really well. They sound good, particularly the lead guitarist and the lead singer, who also plays harmonica. They do an interesting mix of songs. One whole set is old soul music: Sam and Dave, Wilson Picket, Otis Redding, the Temptations and that kind of thing. Most of this is great music to play sax on, so bringing the horn really brings the whole sound up a notch. Another category is sixties rock with an R&B influence. Stuff like Gimme Some Lovin’ and Hush. And closely related to this is more sixties rock by groups like the Zombies and the Doors. I’m rediscovering a lot of great pop songs I haven’t thought about in a long time.

I ended up playing a ton of organ. This is kinda funny to me because I’ve spent years working on piano playing, to the point where I tend to think of organ as a separate thing, and something I don’t really do. In fact I never even learned my way around the organ presets on the keyboard I bought a couple years ago. But hey, when you’re on the stand you gotta go for it. Luckily my keyboard has a lot of great organ sounds, just right for the occasion.

The band said I nailed Light My Fire, even though I only really learned the opening riff. For the solo, I copped what Ray Manzarek did. I call this the Ray Manzarek thing. Start the solo on a particular scale tone, and riff around for a while and then after eight bars come up to the next higher tone of the scale. This builds the intensity and lets you take a long, laid back solo that seems to have some direction. He does the same thing on Riders on the Storm, btw.

Anyway, the band has a lot of songs. They also have an 80’s set and a surf medley. Not all of them are particularly interesting for keyboard, but even those have good harmony vocals. This next rehearsal I want to start drilling down on getting the harmonies tight.

I had decided before I showed up that I want to sing lead on a song or two each set. When I got there, I wondered how that idea would go over, since they have a full-time lead singer. Before I had a chance to ask, the singer asked my if I’d like to do a song or two a set, explaining that by the end of the night his voice can get pretty shot, so it’s good to have a break in the middle of a set. So now the question is what to sing. They asked if I knew any piano songs. Probably too early to lay some of my originals on them, but I suggested some Steely Dan (of course).

They also asked if I know any Billy Joel. I know a few of his songs, and they’re all in my vocal range. As it happens I’m sort of in a Billy Joel phase right now. It’s been creeping up on me, having played a few of his songs in various musicals the last few years, and coming to see how popular he is around here. A hometown hero, like Rush when I was growing up. Then Billy played the concert after Hurricane Sandy last fall and blew everyone else away. I’d seen him a couple time live back in the day (he’s Jeannie’s favorite band) but he never came close to this level of performance. Somehow, after fifteen years of retirement he’s entered the ranks of the all-time greats.

Finally Michelle asked me to play Vienna for her, and that’s one song I can’t do justice to just by googling the chords. So I went to the store and bought a couple of books of his sheet music. I made sure to get the actual piano arrangements so I could learn his voicings and all, the full intro to New York State of Mind and everything. There’s a lot of great music in there. Still, the problem with Billy Joel is a lot of his hits are ballads, so I don’t know how it’d go over in a rock club. The only thing I have down now that’s uptempo enough is Miami 2017. Meanwhile playing all that organ inspired me to learn A Whiter Shade of Pale.

Now that I’m done with origami deadlines for the time being, it’s time to try and move forward with the music thing. (I still haven’t gotten back to recording for a few weeks, but that’s in the offing too.) Last year when I got into crunch mode on my book, I kinda let jamming with Erik slide. It was a great experience, and it definitely helped me focus and improve my playing. I’ve kept on practicing and can now play eight or ten of my own songs, plus a bunch of covers I couldn’t before. But the thing I crave now is human contact with other musicians. Getting a band off the ground from zero is hard work, and my main problem now is that I don’t know a lot of musicians around here. I really need a bass and drummer to make my music work.

So I figured I’d see about trying to join a band. At least I’d be meeting musicians who are into getting together to rehearse once a week. On the downside you have to fit into someone else’s vision, not the other way around. I looked a couple times on Craigslist over the last few months, and it’s really amazing how many kinds of music and musicians are out there that aren’t really a good fit for what I want to do. And how full of egos and hustlers the New York City scene is, even the classifieds! But I looked again last week and found a couple promising leads.

One is a straight-ahead jazz combo looking for a sax player, because, you know, the easiest thing for me to do is just show up and blow. I went and played with them last night and it went great and was a lot of fun. There was a trumpet and a tenor player, and a piano, guitar, bass and drums. I was playing alto. I haven’t really played alto in years, so I brought my tenor along too just in case. They were mainly doing stuff from the Real Book, and they sound good. After the first tune it was pretty clear I remembered how to play and was fitting right in, so after that I began to relax. The other sax player had a couple really good solos, and the bass and drums grooved together really well.

I had a couple good solos too, and started see how the group responded when I tried to influence them in one direction or another with my playing. It’s funny, I remember when I was in ninth grade or so and realized I could play with incredible speed, doing Eddie Van Halen riffs on the horn. Now my style is much more melodic, to the point where when I catch myself playing fast, I soon realize I’m mainly relying on muscle memory, and usually slow it down to play something more meaningful. Nevertheless I did an entire chorus in double time at point, just cuz the notes kept flowing and it sounded good. Another song I really concentrated on using space and rests.

Toward the end the bassist brought out some horn arrangements he’d written. It was good to see they’re open to experimentation. They also talked about doing some Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears rock numbers. So a good first impression.

The other ad was for a classic rock party band, heavy on the Motown and R&B, seeking a keyboardist/backing vocalist. They sent me a set list and it’s all stuff I can handle, nothing too complex. I’m jamming with them one night next week. Gives me some time to google the chords and listen to a few records for specific parts. I mentioned that I play sax and it would sound good on some of the soul numbers. Dude liked the idea of that alot.

So if one or both of these pan out, then I’ll start seeing about introducing some of my own material into the sets, first some covers I like, then hopefully some of my originals. I think reasonable goal is to get the point where I have a solid group that has a few good sets, a combination of covers and originals, and is playing out in bars or whatnot semi-regularly. Both these groups are comprised of guys who are about my age, so they’re doing it more because they want to make music and have fun than because they want to become the next big rock star. They’re also both in the early stages, rehearsing more than gigging out. Should be fun to see where it goes.