Earlier this year I blogged about my friend Erik and his music production house GE Music. Well the project I did for him — an interactive music library browser/player — is now live and serving Glenn and Erik’s tracks. They have it loaded up with a variety of music, a sampling of the range of their work that includes acoustic, electronic, jazz, easy listening, rock, orchestral and soundtrack styles. It’s well worth a listen. Go to GE’s homepage and click on “Music” in menu on the top. Or if you prefer, here’s a direct link to the player. I particualrly enjoy the tune “Bong Shop”. Rock on dudes!
Category: People
Loopback
Today’s post is some links to friends linking back to me. Warning: if you click on my links, and then click on the links in their sites leading back here, you may get caught in a loop. Re: curse on recursion!!!
First off my brother Martin, posts some pictures and comments here on his visit down here last month. He’s been busy with a new house and travel for his work, and has a gigging band, so he’s been blogging up a storm lately.
Next, friend John Neumann has started a blog here. Read and you will learn that I recently did some overdubs, which he’s since stirred into the mix, for the Happy Monkey Song on his forthcoming album. Also in the post is a bunch of stuff like hints about The Festivus Song, which may become the 9th track in his set, and some sensible dieting advice.
Quiet Revolution Rough Mixes
My Friend John Neumann, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and recording artist is at it again. You might remember him as having previously scored an arrangement of Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans for string quartet.
Now he’s working on a new album or original material. The working title is Quiet Revolution. He’s posted some rough mixes here.
I like John’s songwriting style a lot. He is variously introspective, dark, hopeful, and funny, and ties it all together with a tasteful palette of synthesizer textures, loops, ambient sounds and real instruments. His sound is evocative of Peter-Gabriel-era Genesis and John-Wetton-era King Crimson, but he has his own thing going on too. Fans of modern legit music will enjoy Harbingers of Spring in particular, which recontextualizes a classic Igor Stravinsky riff and features some smokin’ bass playing.
The songs are pretty far along (although admittedly I don’t know what he might be thinking of changing around structurally or in his arrangements), and tend to need just minor tweaks like balancing some levels, or adding some effects to the vocals, or a bit of EQ or compression here and there. I find that after working on writing and tracking a song, you tend to get so close to it that you can no longer the subtle nuances of the sound, and it’s good to step away for a while once you’ve hit the rough mix, and come back to it with fresh ears once you have a bunch of songs done up to that stage. John seems to be taking a similar approach with this set.
Anyway, give it a listen an enjoy, and watch for the final versions of the songs coming together in an album later this year.
Fotoz!
Well, It’s been almost a year since I updated my online photo album. So here are two now galleries, to bring us halfway up to date, to the end of 2006. Next up, 2007 up the present.
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2006-09
http://www.zingman.com/fotooz/2006-10
These galleries are meant for friends and family, and are password protected. If you think you are friends and/or family, and need a password, please send me an email. Meanwhile, here’s a sampling.
Here Wii Go!
In yet another weekend spent with family and out-of-town guests, my brother- and sister-in-law Denis and Sarah came to visit us with their little girl Carrie. They’re great people, and just as geeky as Jeannie and I when it comes to computers. We all sit around with our laptops when they come over; it’s pretty funny. Friday Jeannie bought a Nintendo Wii for us, and another for Denis and Sarah, as they happened to be in stock at Costco. So we had a big Wii party all weekend. Tons of fun. Even 4-year old Michelle got a few strikes at Wii bowling. “Up, ‘B’, back, Wiiiiiiii”. Great fun.
Sarah made me a hand-knit sleeve for my iPod, which is very nice. Thank you Sarah! She has a blog and a number of interests including photography and knitting. I don’t knit myself, but I have noticed some crossover between knitting people and origami people. Anyway, here’s a link to her blog. Enjoy.
New Recodings: Heat Wave
Meanwhile, back in the insular isolation of my home recording studio I’ve been working on a new song called Heat Wave. Here’s the story.
Last summer I took a vacation in Florida. The first part of the trip was a visit to Treasure Island on Tampa Bay, and consisted of me and my family, along with my cousin Peter and his wife Kim, hanging around and rotating from the pool to the beach to the bar to the restaurant and back in a loop for 2 or 3 days. The hotel was literally right on the beach, so by the time we were done with that we were pretty relaxed.
The next part of the journey was centered on Orlando, so on the drive up I had the Van Halen song Beautiful Girls going thru my head. I turned on the radio and, perhaps predictably, found a central Florida nonstop party rock station. You know, all ZZ Top, Steve Miller Band, that sort of thing. Even some Rush! Within 20 minutes they did a Van Halen song, Running With the Devil I think it was.
So I was inspired to write a high-energy summertime party rock song, and came up with a number called Heat Wave. Of course as I developed it, it became a bit twisted, with a 7/8 time signature, and copious use of upward chromatic movement, jazz chords, allusions to John Coltrane, and an environmentalist subtext. But it sure is high energy.
I started recording it in January, but this one has been taking a long time. It took a little while to get the arrangement together, and then doing the drum parts was fairly tedious on a sequencer. Which is ironic, because the whole point of it to make it sound free and spontaneous, and above all really grooving. At least the bass went down fairly easily, played live and in real time. From there I’ve been experimenting with the arrangement. I had originally thought of doing it in a Brothers Zing style, with a horn section and guitar, sort of a prog soul vibe, and that I’d ask my brother Martin to play guitar and bari sax. But he recently bought a new house and dismantled his recording studio for the move, so that was not an option. I reconceptualized it for tenor sax and a synth horn section, and layers of synths instead of guitars. Still some work to do, but I like the direction it’s going.
Then there were the vocals. It took me a few tries to really nail it, cuz the part is fairly high in my range, and it’s fast and has some longish phrases with some subtle intervals. I finally got a good vocal take last night, so soon I’ll be editing up the first rough mix. I still have to do the sax part, and I’ve done a couple passes at that too. It’s a challenging solo , a bebop vibe in an out time, and again I want to really nail it, so I’ve been woodsheding that a bit too. It’ll be worth it.
I had hoped to get two songs tracked and in the can this spring, progress toward my eventual next album, but at this point I’m thinking getting just this one finished off is more realistic. Heat Wave is a longish song, over 5 minutes. It’s funny, you think you’d get some economy on a longer song with repeated sections and all, but it really the same amount of work as 2 two-and-a-half minute songs. I have more songs written and ready to go, so maybe I can find a short one that I can polish off without much effort.
Anyway, I’ve gotten to the point where it’s shaping up nicely. Of course it’s impossible to get across the essence of a song by describing it; words can only describe so much. But a mix will be coming soon. Meanwhile, here are the lyrics.
…
(Here Comes That) Heat Wave
by John Szinger
Ev’ryone is in the sun and having fun
Dance and sing and party all day all night long
Tomorrow’s gonna get up to a hundred and one (Tum tee tum-tum)
As a rule we hit the pool
But the beach ain’t out of reach
Anyway girl you look so fine having a good time
And Santa Claus is swimming cuz the North Pole can’t be saved
Cuz it’s heat wave, yeah a heat wave
C’mon heat wave, here comes that heat wave, look out!
Here comes that heat wave, hey a heat wave
Yeah it’s a heat wave oh yeah
Ev’ry fool is out of school and stayin’ cool
No one’s gonna work today whatcha gonna do
Tomorrow’s gonna get up to a hundred and two (Shoo-be do doo)
Think I’ll have an ice cold drink
Not too far hit the bar
Anyway girl you look so good that I know we could
And Santa Claus is drinking cuz the North Pole can’t be saved
Cuz it’s heat wave, oh yeah a heat wave
C’mon it’s a heat wave, here comes that heat wave, look out!
Here comes that heat wave, yeah a heat wave
Hey a heat wave yeah yeah
You and me time to party feelin’ free
Oceans rising endless summer come to be
Tomorrow’s gonna get up to a hundred and three (Shoo-be do bee)
And Santa Claus is swimming the North Pole can’t be saved
Cuz it’s heat wave, oh yeah a heat wave
C’mon it’s a heat wave, here comes that heat wave, look out!
Here comes that heat wave, yeah a heat wave
Hey a heat wave yeah yeah
Baby baby …
I feel the ice is slowly melting …
Sometimes I feel I want to run away …
Your love is like a heat wave …
Yeah!
Jammin’
Last Saturday night I hung out and jammed with my friend Erik and his friend Thomas. It was a good time. I mainly played piano while they played guitars. Thomas had a bottleneck slide which was pretty cool. We covered a pretty broad range of material, which was quite satisfying. I realized somewhere in the second half, as I was starting to get tired, that it’s alot of work to cover the bass parts with my left hand and so my soloing was sort of limited as a result, especially on tunes I hadn’t played before. I mean it was alright, but I really wanted to take flight. I think I told them at one point I don’t know any jazz numbers on piano, which isn’t true, but I was getting tired and didn’t have anything mentally queued up that I knew I could pull off. If there’s a bass player that sort of thing becomes a lot easier, because you don’t have to hold down the bottom. Ah well, something to work on. It’s funny too, cuz I’ve gotten used to playing solo piano, so although the low end was solid, I haven’t spent a lot of time on comping or improvising lately. Even so, its good to stretch out in a different direction.
Here’s a partial list of songs we covered …
Martha My Dear (The Beatles)
I Shot The Sheriff (Bob Marley)
Locomotive Breath (Jethro Tull)
Isn’t It a Pity (George Harrison)
My Sweet Lord (George Harrison)
I Want to Tell You (The Beatles)
Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix)
Red Wine (?)
Blues Jam
I Wish (Stevie Wonder)
Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder)
Contusion (Stevie Wonder)
Canteloupe Island (Herbie Hancock)
Funk Jam
Blue Bossa
(some other Bossa)
(some Little Feet song)
Just My Imagination (The Temptations)
Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
Don’t Let Me Down (The Beatles)
Oh! Darling (The Beatles)
Home at Last (Steely Dan)
Taking Care of Business (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
Let It Rain (Eric Clapton)
Layla (Derek and the Dominoes)
It’s been a while since I’ve played out with a band, or even jammed with other musicians. It’s something I miss very much. I played in bands pretty much constantly from high school until a few years ago when I had kids. Now that they’re no longer babies I think it’s time to start looking into getting a regular jam going…
Origami By Children
Every year Origami USA sponsors an exhibit of Origami By Children. You can learn about it here. The deadline for submissions is fast approaching, so last weekend I was able to get my kids to sit down and focus on coming up with something. Lizzy, who is 7 now, started to take an interest in origami 2 years ago, when she invented her first original model, a picture frame.
Last year she did the traditional Lily. It’s more complicated than it looks, but the hardest move in is a squash fold, and she’s good at those. I coached her, showing her the model and encouraging her to take is slow and fold neatly. She did a nice enough job that her model got in the exhibition, and OUSA donated some origami books to her school.
This year she’s had more exposure to folding and knows how to follow diagrams, so I let her decide what to do. She folded a bunch of things out of John Montroll’s Christmas Origami, including the candle, bell, and candy cane. I guess no time of year is the wrong time to think about Christmas when you’re seven. She decided to do the ring from the Twelve Days of Christmas, and put five of them together. Of course it’s not a hard model technically — the folding style is know as “Pureland” meaning it’s only mountain and valley folds, but there’s some art to it in terms of color and composition. I think she did a nice job. I hope she gets in the show again.
Michelle, at three and a half, wants to do everything her big sister does, so she was along for the trip. I tried to teach her the bell, but the reverse fold just blew her mind, and 11 steps is about 4 too many for a 3-year-old to handle. So I scaled back and taught her the classic cup, on which the bell is based, which was just in her range.
GE Music Player
My good friend Erik runs a recording studio and music production house in the city called GE Music, after him and his partner Glenn. Recently he asked me to design and build in interactive music browser / player as a way to present his scores and tracks to clients, potential clients, and casual listeners. It was a fun project because I could do all the development functions my self, including visual and interaction design as well as programming. As of last night the application programming is done, and the thing is pretty cool if I say so myself. Here’s a screen grab of a test deployment on my server.
Of course a static screen grab doesn’t really do it justice. The site integration and live deployment remains to be done. So watch this space, and soon I’ll post a link to the player living in it’s natural environment, serving Glenn and Erik’s awesome tracks!
Extreme Yes for Strings
If you’re anything like me, and I know I am, you’ll fondly remember Yes as one of the all-time great prog rock bands, known for their sweet harmonies and expansive, even epic compositions. Their radio-friendly sound served as a gateway prog band to turn kids on to other, weirder, edgier groups like King Crimson, and, well pretty much anything Bill Bruford has ever done.
Back in the 80’s I was in a prog rock band, Infinigon, that did our share of Yes covers. The bass player in the group was the inimitable John J. Neumann, who is also a recording artist and accomplished classical violin player. He recently completed an adaptation of Yes’s Tales From Topographic Oceans for string quartet. Unlike the original, which is a bit long and rambling, John’s version features only best parts. You can check it out here, along with a bunch of his other musical projects.
Enjoy!