Category: Music

Deep Summer

Well it’s the second half of the summer now, and we’re getting our first real heat wave. It’s been in the 90’s since last week, with no rain for a change, and no end in sight. We’re getting peppers and tomatoes from our garden daily now. And even though we’ve been busy, we’ve had some time to enjoy summer activities. We took the kids to Playland last Friday evening and the kids enjoyed the rides and we saw fireworks. Michelle is exactly 4 feet tall, which was the cutoff for a lot of rides, and it some of the ride operators were being extra picky. They wouldn’t let her on the big rollercoaster (too short), and then later they almost wouldn’t let her on some the kiddie rides (too tall)! They wouldn’t let me on the bumper cars for being too tall. The park has a bunch of old, classic rides from the 1920’s. The carousel had a genuine calliope, sort of a player piano crossed with a pipe organ and robot percussion section, that was fascinating to watch and listen to.

We went to beach on Sunday, which was great, except for on the ride home the car started making trouble, one of the brakes was overheating and seizing up. It’s in the shop now, but the car has just about 100,000 miles on it, so we’re starting to think about how long we want to keep it and keep repairing it. There are a lot of things I like about the Jeep, and over all it’s in pretty good shape, so it’s tempting to just keep it running. On the other hand, that’s the strategy we’re following with Jeannie’s car, so we don’t want to be in the situation where we need to replace both cars at the same time. And of course to replace it would be a whole research project to figure out what kind of vehicle to replace it with, and it’s gonna take a whole lot of precious time to do it right. Since I’m so tall, most of the cars our there are not good for me to drive, and even a lot of larger SUV’s are not well designed for tall people. Right now is not a good time for it’s since we have a camping trip coming up this weekend, and another road trip a couple weeks after that. Still, I think we better start looking into it so we’re prepared.

I’ve been making progress on a bunch of side projects. Luckily we’ve had no major home repairs or other projects of necessity for a little while, and things are at an even keel for the time being with my job, so I’ve been doing fun stuff. I’ve basically taken the summer off from working on origami and my book, since I was jamming on it really hard back in May and June. But it’s getting close to the top of the list as other things get done. I dusted off the Foldinator and began development of version 2.0. I worked out a format for Origami XML, and posted a first build. The second build will be along in a few weeks. I stated redoing my web site in PHP to support dynamic pages, and have implemented the first set of scripts. Still on the todo list is take pictures of all my new 2009 origami models, which will happen sometime this fall.

I’ve been making great progress with music. I bought a guitar a few weeks ago, and have been playing it enough that I’m starting to get somewhere. I’m think of writing a guitar based song even, something in the approximate style of Greg Lake. That will be on a future project, as this one is nearing the end. My friend Erik has agreed and to help me mix and master my record, which is great news. And I finished a complete song in record time in July. Now I’m working on the ninth and final song for my record, with the help of my friend John. More on that in a future post.

Kickin’ the Guitar

Hey! Who’s that playing?
Hey! The guitar?

Last weekend we went camping with a bunch of friends and families. Cooking over fires, drinking beers, singing songs around the campfire. Ah good times. We were pretty lucky with the weather. It rained heavily Friday on the drive up, but stopped by the time we got there. Most of the trip was sunny but not too hot. It started raining again the last morning, just after we finished packing down the tent, and by the time we were on the drive home it was pouring again.

We went for a rocky and muddy hike up a mountainside. The kids did really well, Michelle in particular. Even as the more sedentary adults began whining, she was hopping from rock to rock, happy to keep going with great energy and enthusiasm. Lizzy lost a sandal in the lake, playing fetch with Seth’s dog Nula. We burned the giant U.F.O. I folded back in June for the oversize origami competition. My friend Nick has some powder to sprinkle into the fire to make it burn all kinds of crazy colors. We put it on the flying saucer and it was just the thing. Video coming soon.

But the main topic for today is about singing songs a playing guitar. This dude Joe brought his guitar and we had some jams. He also brought a stack of lead sheets he printed out from the Internet, which was a great help. I usually memorize the music I play, but everyone knows different songs. So it made it easy to follow along with a song you basically know but haven’t played before. And there are hundreds and hundreds of songs easy song like that. Next time I’m gonna bring some printouts of my own.

I got motivated to get back into practicing guitar. Actually, last year around this time I went thru a spell of playing guitar and trying to learn some tunes from my big Beatles book and a Neil Young book. I tried to practice two or three times a week for a half hour or so. I picked a couple tunes that were pretty challenging for me, such as “I Will”, and was making progress, but had to put it aside after a few months. I felt like I my progress was slowing, and I wanted to make time for other activities, and besides, my guitar playing would never rise to the level of my saxophone or piano playing.

Another factor is that even thought I have two guitars, neither one is very good. One an acoustic that I traded for a boom box many years ago. It has the dubious virtue of being made almost entirely not of wood. The body is plastic, a great big Ovation-style round back, and the neck is aluminum, wide and flat. It never is quite in tune and takes a lot strength to barre chord on it. At least it’s loud. And it’s great for camping cuz it’s well nigh indestructible and it doesn’t matter if it accidentally gets wet or dirty.

My other guitar is a bit nicer. It’s a Guild electric that I bought many years ago off my friend Mark (Yo Homeslice!). It actually has pretty good sound and action, and a nice two-pickup setup with a three-way switch and tone knobs. The main problem is the intonation. The joint between the neck and the body is not tight enough, so you end up doing Adrian Belew style tremolo effects every time you shift your balance.

Still, you can’t take a piano with you into the woods and you can’t sing while playing a sax, so I got motivated again. This time the focus is on easy rock and folk songs. I’ve just been googling lyrics and chords and finding pretty much every song I think of. It’s actually pretty funny how the same ascii tab charts that were floating around newsgroups in the 80’s are still out there circulating. One not-so-easy song I decided to tackle this time around was “Suitcase Blues”, a great ballad by Rik Emmet of Triumph.

And so, today I bought myself a new guitar. I knew I wanted an acoustic-electric (acoustic with a built-in pickup) so I could practice without and amp but could plug it in if I ever want to use it for recording or gigging out. After looking online, figured I could probably get a decent on in the $300 ballpark. I went to the music store on my lunch hour and it was nice and quiet, so I took some time and auditioned about 6 guitars. In the end I picked a Yamaha APX-500. It has really good sound and action, and a bunch of details that I like. The body has a nice shape and is thinner than other makes, so it’s more comfortable to hold, but still has a nice full sound. The neck is thinner and flatter than a lot of acoustics, but not as much as your typical electric. The jack is in a convenient place. It has a built-in tuner and 3-band equalizer and a slider labeled “AMF” that I’m not sure what it does. Its scale runs from 80 to 10K, so maybe it sweeps the resonant frequency for the middle band of the EQ. Finally, it has a really nice tobacco sunburst finish which is just gorgeous.

So now I’m totally psyched to learn a bunch of new songs. Too bad it’s too nice to take camping.

Here’s a picture of the guitar next to Michelle’s ukulele.

New Recording: Making Miles

Here’s a new recording of song called Making Miles, written by my brother Martin after coming home from a month of hiking on the Appalachian Trail. It’s not only one of the best songs he’s ever written, but it ranks as one of my favorite songs of all time. The lyrics are melancholy yet hopeful, and the music is sweet and full of subtle little turns that make it rewarding to play and listen to. I started playing it on piano when I got back from my trip upstate a couple weeks ago, after not thinking about it for years. Martin taught it to me way back in the day, and it just sort of came flowing out spontaneously.

I decided to record it for my album for a few reasons. One is that it’s such a great song. Another is that the arrangement is basically just piano and voice, and I was able to record and mix it very quickly. This is important because I’m trying to get my album completed this fall in order to make more time for origami. I have seven songs finished but need another two. I have more than enough songs that are half written, but I realized it’s a lot of work to go from having a basic concept for the lyrics and chords to working all the details of the structure and arrangement, and more and more I’ve been composing and arranging in the studio, with the results that it takes me a few months to do a single song. I had wanted a solo piano song for this record, and this one fit the bill nicely.

The parts went down fast and captured alot of the original spontaneity. The piano part is my own voicings, but an approximate adaptation of the way Martin plays it on guitar. I added a synth bass part following Martin’s suggestion (“Taurus pedals”). I multi-tracked the lead vocals to create a natural chorus effect, and in case I need to edit phrase here and there. I did a few takes of the vocals, and after each one listened back and tried again, getting more precise with each take. On the third attempt I was pretty happy with the result.

Origami Castle Complete

Weather update: it’s now been eight days in a row of rain, although the sun came out for a few hours yesterday afternoon, just in time for us to have a nice barbecue. And it looks like we get some sunshine again this afternoon.

I completed an exhibit quality origami castle based on my Armory configuration. It’s made from a 19″ square of Wyndstone, the same as my War Elephant. I tweaked the proportions to make the main square larger in proportion to the towers. In my prototype I started by dividing the paper into eighths, but for this one I divided it into ninths.

In other news I updated my main music page and the page for my work-in-progress album, Face The Heat, as well as the lyrics page. At this point I have seven songs done, and want to take a break from recording to concentrate on origami before I start in on a new song. Of the three or four songs I might start in on next, all are only semi-written, and in particular the lyrics and melody need to be finished and fitted to the music. This process can take a while, so I think rather than try and power thru it, I’ll sit back and see if inspiration comes to me to propel the process forward. Meanwhile I’ll take a step back from the songs I have and just listen a while and see how the mixes sit.

New Recording: Green Glove

Here is the rough mix for my new song Green Glove. I think I’ve achieved a pretty funky groove, and the piano solos ain’t too bad if I say so myself. Thanks to Jeannie for singing the backing vocals in the outro.

Here is alternate version with a different lyric. Jeannie said it was too silly even for this song, so I changed it.

This is now song number seven of nine or maybe ten for my album. I’ve started another song who’s working title is either “Black Swan” or “The Singularity”, but I’ll probably put that aside for a little while to concentrate on origami.

New Song: Green Glove

I’ve been working on a new song called Green Glove. It’s sort of a silly song that I made up last winter when we were painting our house, and a green glove literally fell out of the coat closet and onto my head. I just started spontaneously singing it and we had a good laugh.  Days later I was still singing it, and it seemed like it was a catchy tune so I decided to work on it and record it. The song is on the short side and deliberately repetitive, with one verse and a two-word chorus, in contrast to my last song which was very verbose. I took as the model a song like Steely Dan’s “The Fez”, or maybe some Zappa jazz. But it has a big ol’ piano solo in the middle and a sort of buildup ending and none of the repeats are quite the same.

Also this was something of a departure from my usual way of arranging. In the past I’ve tended to work out the structure of a song to the point where I can sing it the whole way thru and accompany myself on piano, and that gives me the skeleton of the song I can use as a basis for arranging and recording. But for this one the arrangement was more mutable and I did a good amount of experimenting once I started tracking. To some extent this was inevitable because there’s a fair amount of layering going on in the vocals and in the instruments in the second half of the tune. So now I’m almost there. The only thing remaining before the frst rough mix is to lay down the horn section parts.

…

Green Glove

Once I found my own true love
Beneath a shady apple tree
And while green apples fell on my head from above
She wore a
Green glove green glove
Green glove green glove
Green glove, green glove
Green glove

Tea With Warriors — Niagara

My friend John Neumann recently released a new record album as Tea With Warriors. This follow-up to Quiet Revolution is called Niagara, and it’s sort of a concept album, a set or related instrumental tracks inspired by the famous river. Trancelike, moody and evocative, the songs feature lots fretless bass, ethereal synthesizers, exotic percussion, and John’s haunting violin playing. I’ve really been enjoying listening to it; I’ve had it on in a loop the whole weekend. You can learn more at teawithwarriors.com.

MTV Music

Some of the people in my new group at work came from the team that built the site mtvmusic.com.  It’s basically a video player with a library of thousands and thousands of music videos.  We had fun playing with it one night last weekend when Jeannie wanted to show our kids the original version of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, the Cindy Lauper hit from the 80’s recently covered by one of those modern teenybopper acts.  Once the video was over the site presented a list of related videos.  This led to a sort of scavenger hunt.  Jeannie and I spent hours clicking on links and touring videos from the early 1980’s.  Sort of an eclectic mix, and many things not in my usual listening genres these days, but it made sense in context.  David Lee Roth, Madonna, Michael Jackson, The Cars, Duran Duran, The Clash, Tom Petty, ZZ Top, Van Halen, Stevie Nicks, Wang Chung, A-Ha, and on and on.  (No Prince, BTW.)  By the time we were thru, I remembered why watching music videos felt alot like drugs.

New Recording: Earthbound

Here is a rough mix of my new song Earthbound. This is a bit more of a standard rock song for me. It doesn’t use any out time signatures or strange jazz chords, and it doesn’t even have a solo section. Instead it relies on an insistent riff and building repetitions of the chorus, contrasted with a more introspective and narrative verse.

The track is basically done except for a few things. One is I want to layer in a track of Lizzy singing on the chorus. The second is I’m considering whether I should change the bass line in the verse. The idea for the current part was inspired by the kind of pseudo-ska figures Sting used to use with the Police. I’m concerned however, that it comes off as too percussive, and maybe I should so something more legato. The third thing is the 2nd synthesizer part, which does a couple of low notes and a big upward portmento swoop in the middle of the song. I used a preset patch on my built-in software synth, but I think it sounds a bit cheesy. So I’m gonna fire up some of my outboard gear and do this one over with a custom-tailored patch.

My friend John Neumann has been giving me some arranging and producing feedback on this one. I thought I was almost done, but he has some good ideas so now I’m thinking again.

New Song: Earthbound

My new song is called Earthbound, and it’s coming along nicely. I just laid down a take of the lead vocals last night, so now we turn the corner from writing to fleshing out the arrangement. It’s a winter-themed song, sort of an impression of my morning commute, coming out of Grand Central Station into the winter weather, becoming part of a crush of people, and arriving at Times Square in all it’s neon monstrosity. It’s always dark this time of year and cold, and the city is sort of an alternative virtual reality devoid of nature. A Kafkaesque metaphor of rebirth and metamorphosis.

The sound I have in mind is sort of an 80’s post-prog pop. So there’ll be a good deal of synthesizers but little to no saxophones.

The chorus is based on a riff Lizzy made up, and it turned out to be a great hook for the theme I was developing, a sort of hopeful transcendent mantra. So I incorporated into the song in the same as I did with It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Day. I’m gonna have her sing on it too.

Not to be outdone, Michelle has been wanting to get in on this too, and has been pitching a song idea called “Ouch My Toe.” I told her I wasn’t too sure about that one, so now she has a new on “You Can’t See Me”.

So here are the lyrics now. Look for a rough mix coming in the next few weeks.

…

Earthbound

I wanna fly up in the sky
Like a butterfly or a swan
I wanna fly away up high
Rising closer to the sun

Concrete canyons
Rooftop roadways
When the rain appears
Slush melts into Gotham gullies
And washes out to salty seas
Like tears

Subterranean
Stone stairways
Under watchful gargoyles
Navigate a cryptic maze
Vaulted like the heavens only Earthbound
Long slow climb out of the underground
Alight and dream of flying

I wanna fly up to the sky
Like a butterfly or a swan
I wanna fly way up high
Rising closer to the sun

Glassy cages
Steely windows
A tyranny or rectangles
Sometimes the sun still shines
Silver splinters strike the street
Forming angles
That kindle hopes of warming

No moon in our sky
No stars in our night
We’re in the dark side of the year
Helicopters hang in hazy red light
Plasma prisms dance down on Broadway
Sweet young vampires come out to play
And drink of dreams of dying

I wanna fly up to the sky
Like a butterfly or a loon
I wanna fly way up high
Waxing closer to the moon
I wanna fly up to the sky
Like a butterfly or a swan
I wanna fly way up high
To the perihelion

It wants you
It’s never thru
Colossal tempting
Troubling teeming
Pulsing flashing
Glowing gleaming
Pale of darkness
Dearth of dreaming

I wanna fly up to the sky
Like a butterfly or a swan
I wanna fly way up high
Rising closer to the sun
I wanna fly up to the sky
Like a butterfly or a swan
I wanna fly way up high
To the perihelion

I wanna fly up to the sky
Like a butterfly or a swan
I wanna fly way up high
Rising closer to the sun

— John Szinger, 2009