beyond the sound barrier...

Is it me, or is this getting a little narcissistic?

2011-10-14T09:41:00.000-04:00

Is it me, or is this getting a little out of hand?

I understand and respect what the "Occupy Wall Street" crowd is trying to do. The point they are trying to make is legitimate. But they seem to have inadvertently triggered something really annoying: People with handwritten autobiographical signs talking about themselves.

It started with the statistic that 1% of the US population control something like 40% of the country's wealth. Is it inequitable? Yes. Should we try to fix it? Probably. Should every person in America make a sad, MySpace-photo style statement about it? I think you can sense where I'm going on this...

So here's the original self-pitying "We Are the 99%!" blog.

http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/

Here, a response to it, created in solemn solidarity by the other 1%.

http://westandwiththe99percent.tumblr.com/

And finally, an angsty, self-righteous group who weren't getting any attention and came up with a 53% club (which they don't even explain in the blog).

http://the53.tumblr.com/

I didn't feel like I fit neatly into any of these three groups so I'm starting a new one altogether! It's called The 22.6% and our motto is "Hey! Hey, everybody! Look at me! Give me some attention too!!! Please! Pleeeeeeeease!"

This blog post was written in good humor and not intended to legitimately offend anyone.

Prize Ribbon and Pig Show

2011-09-08T10:50:00.000-04:00

My new favorite poem is Sylvia Plath's "Sow".

I'm going to memorize it.

I picked up a copy of her collection The Colossus a couple months ago in a used bookstore on Avenue A. I recognized her name from a reference in Next To Normal and then fell in love with the cover art.

But it didn't stop there. I read a few poems and then came to "Sow". I read it again. And again. And again. For two full days I carried the book around and could not stop reading "Sow". The prose and imagery were amazing! But the ending was what really killed me. Without spoiling it, the last couple lines are so imaginative and outlandish and shocking that I was chuckling idiotically to myself every time I read them!

But back to the memorizing.

But first I have a question for any literary types (or others) who care to weigh in: why do poets create stanza structure that is so different from instinctual spoken rhythms? Don't get me wrong - I love it. It gives me the feeling that I'm decoding something and that gives me permission to put my own signature on the way I read/speak the words. Maybe that's the reason - to get the reader involved and invested in the words. This little decoding process actually has me sort of translating the written structure into an ear-catching, performable format. Here's my chunk for today's memorization. First is the original written formatting:

God knows how our neighbor managed to breed
His great sow:
Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid

In the same way
He kept the sow—impounded from public stare,
Prize ribbon and pig show.

What? It's visually stunning but who would read this with those breaks? My suspicion is that no one with half an imagination would... So here's my best crack at restructuring these stanzas in the way that they would make sense to me:

God knows how our neighbor managed to breed his great sow.

Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid in the same way he kept the sow:
impounded from public stare, prize ribbon, and pig show.

The italics indicate not only a bit of emphasis but also, I find, places where I tend to slow the text a bit. I will admit that in writing this out, there is still a lot of inflection and drama lost. Maybe once I'm memorized I'll do a dramatic reading for you all to capture more of that. In the meantime, it strikes me that perhaps some musical notation would go a long way in conveying the tone of a live performance (at least to a limited audience).

Literary types: weigh in! Save me from my pedestrian level of poetical understanding!

- Posted using BlogPress for iPhone

Location:The E Train

America's Next Top Model

2011-08-27T16:26:00.018-04:00

Wet weather makes for great photography. The grey light and earth tones are just my style. Not to mention that wet weather brings out frogs, worms, and......snails! These are all great subjects for some iPhone camera shots. We found this specimen while trying to get in some outdoor time before Irene hits....(click these for nice, higher-res versions)

And finally, THIS: You're welcome.

The High Cost of Gigging

2011-08-10T10:18:00.008-04:00

Last week I wrote a post about what it means to try to make money as a freelance artist, and specifically about valuing your skills highly enough to not undersell yourself (you can find that post HERE). This is nothing new but it had hit home for me in a certain way and I was ready to share my thoughts about it. Turns out quite a few others share my thoughts on the subject and my favorite response was a suggestion to explore the actual cost of taking a gig, as balanced against what is coming in from the gig. This will certainly vary based on your specific profession and situation but here is my request: Crunch some numbers and come up with a range of what your cost output looks like for taking a gig. If you feel comfortable enough, post your findings as a comment to this post. Make sure to include as many things as you can think of...

Here is mine: Most of the gigs I play (and seek out) are within the theater community. Not only theater productions themselves but also concerts, readings, workshops, and cabarets put on by theater performers. Let's say that I'm called to play a one-night concert for a composer at a popular bar/performance venue in the West Village. The first and most obvious cost is getting my drums there. Fortunately I have a space to store my gear in Manhattan so cab fare is only about $16 each way ($32). For these type of things there is typically only one rehearsal (probably 3-4 hours), a load in/sound check/tech before the show (≈2hrs), the call and show itself (another 2 hours) and then load out and taking my drums home. All told, this is already a good 8 hours of work, give or take depending on the specific gig requirements. But can I really just show up and play? That depends largely on how organized the charts are. Nearly all my gigs are reading gigs, which is really what allows me to jump in and play the show with minimal preparation. But 75% of the time, instead of specifically notated drum charts, I get handed full scores or cumbersome piano/vocal charts with about 6 bars per page and the instructions to "just make something up". Not only is this a lot of page turning but there is usually not much information about what the composer wants from the drums (and often they don't even know what they want). Because I want to play the gig to the best of my ability I'll need to record the rehearsal and then spend 2-4 hours in a practice room listening back, doing some quick arranging, and writing out (at least sketches of) charts for myself. It's a lot of extra work but it's worth it if I want to be solid on the gig. Oh, and practice space costs money too. Most people that I've polled pay $250-$300 per month for 3-4 hours a day in a rehearsal space. This is only about $2.50 per hour but we'll factor that in as well (by-the-hour drum rooms cost about $12-15, for the sake of comparison).

Ok, so here's the bottom line. On the above (not so) theoretical gig I've put in 10-12 hours of work. Backing out only my most obvious costs (not including equipment cost, maintenance, and depreciation; insurance; professional training etc.) puts my monetary output at $42. So if the gig pays $100 (which is pretty typical) here's where that money goes:

Taxes (for all you law-abiding citizens) - $25
Cartage - $32
Rehearsal space - $10

This leaves $33 to cover my time investment in the gig and nets out to about $2.75 per hour.

Two seventy-five.

The same gig for twice the pay breaks minimum wage and to make something approaching union rehearsal rates the gig would need to gross nearly $350.

This scenario is, to some extent a worst-case-scenario. But it is also one that is all too common for those of us who are working hard to hustle our way onto the scene as professional musicians. Not all the gigs I play are this low paying but the frightening thing is that at this level producers, composers, and other people who hire musicians don't have a clue about the amount of time, preparation, and investment that goes into providing a quality product. Part of my job is to educate them along the way and use any possible opportunity to tactfully and constructively provide realistic glimpses into what I do and why my skills are worth more than $2.25 per hour.

So let's hear from you!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:On the bus to a gig in NJ

Your Art is my Career (and Vice Versa)

2011-08-02T19:24:00.003-04:00

As a freelance musician, my job is to find or create ways to get paid for making music. It's a little easier to do this when I'm making other people's music because the music already exists. Someone has already created it and I'm helping interpret and bring it to life. This can be done in a recording studio, a rehearsal room, or on stage. It doesn't really matter to me where it happens, as long as I get paid. Sound soul-less? Heartless? Money grubbing? Make no mistake, I absolutely love helping composers, singers, and songwriters give life to their work. Almost nothing else is as thrilling to me...under certain conditions. I need to make money and be treated well. Not an exorbitant amount of money, but enough to pay my bills and have a couple beers on Friday (Monday, actually). After all, if you are an artist who has hired me your art is my career and if I can't pay my bills, I can't continue doing this. And ipso facto - neither can you.

But what if I put myself in the shoes of the composer or singer/songwriter of whom I speak? What if I now find myself with something to say artistically? Clearly, I must get paid to create my own work too, right? Sure. But it's not as cut and dried as that. Now my job is to produce my product. That doesn't mean just writing a song and some lyrics. If I want my art to be out in the world it has to be performed and this requires people outside myself being involved in the process. Say I write a song with a cello part and I want to record it. I have a couple options: I can play it myself (I don't have a cello. Oh, and I can't play the cello), or have someone else do it. It's very tempting to call up one of my cellist friends and ask if they would be willing to do me a favor. But now the tables are turned and my art is your career! See what I'm getting at here?

I made a promise to myself a long time ago that I would never ask anyone to participate in the development of my artistic ventures for free or for an insultingly low fee. If I can't fund it, it's not ready to be made. Period. To me nothing reeks of amateur more than asking someone to do something "for exposure" or "because you'll get to meet some great people" or "for the potential of future paid work". If you can't fund it (or find a way to), it's not ready.

Why This Matters
As people with freelance careers, we are all in this together. I don't care if you are a musician, photographer, web designer, writer, or lion tamer, we all know what it's like to hustle for work, to go through the ups and downs of the freelance market, and to panic when we realize that we don't have anything booked from September on. And even if taking lower paid or gratis work means you may work more often, it doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be more gratified with your work or net the same as choosing fewer, better quality jobs. If I play gigs five nights a week for $50 a pop, not only am I making a pittance but pretty soon I'm exhausted! And burnt out. And jaded. And bitter. And that, my friends, is no way to live.

I have found it very gratifying to support other freelancers by doing everything I can to pay them what they deserve to be earning. Of course I'll always take a little discount if offered but it's usually only offered out of a sense of mutual respect that comes from a relationship that I've built.

So if you want to hire me to play drums for you but my rate seems a little high, just remember that we're in this together. For the long haul. And as soon as I need you for something, I'll return that respect with gladness. It matters because in a community of colleagues where we get hired based on referrals, the quality of our work is only one part of what makes people want to re-hire us.

- Posted using BlogPress for iPhone

Location:The F train

City-versary!

2011-07-25T21:24:00.001-04:00

"It's the city so nice they named it twice!....The other name is Manhattan." -Michael G. Scott

Three years ago today, my wife and I, along with our neurotic dog Maya, loaded up a small Uhaul trailer and a friend's van and made the 5 hour drive to become permanent residents of New York City.

New York City! What other three words are so pregnant with promise? Previous to the move, we had both been living in the same areas where we had grown up and were starting to get serious gypsy fever. We explored the idea of several cities around the country and finally settled on New York for a combination of personal and pragmatic reasons. We were both deeply attracted to the cultural and gustatory offerings of New York. We both love music, theater, and various other artsy junk, and the city is at the center of a great deal of said junk. We also love food, and where else can you find the type of diversity and innovation in that arena?

On the practical side, we would still be close (but not too close) to our families, Jenny was a public school teacher (a relatively transportable career) and I was ready to try and make a career as a professional musician (something that has been a slow but steadily accelerating venture (and a whole different blog post)).

So here we are, three full years later. There have certainly been compromises and challenges to living in one of the world's busiest metropolises, but the available opportunities and rewards have been correspondingly great. So happy anniversary to us! Come visit - our couch is always open!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hollywood Nights

2011-07-01T18:02:00.000-04:00

So several weeks ago, my good friend Eric Day, author of the blog Zilwaukee, proposed a songwriting challenge to himself and all the world involving "mindless" pop music. I won't go into too much detail because you can find it all in his original post at Crazytown. After hearing Eric's response to his own challenge, I decided to embrace it myself and write my own "fun/dumb/great" pop song. A few others joined in and we had a little show-and-tell session. My submission is now released before you.

A little about my process: The first thing I recorded were the drums. I figured that of primary importance was a simple groove with not too much variation and that it would force me to build a song that was correspondingly simple around it. I recorded a series of 4 and 8 beat segments and some single hits and edited them all together using Audacity and Logic. After that I banged out a simple 4 chord progression that essentially stays the same for the entirety of the song, keeping Eric's mantra "don't over think it!" foremost in my mind. The bass part is a synthesized Logic instrument, as are the two synth keyboard sounds on the choruses. I recorded a scratch guitar track on my acoustic and sent the rough draft out to my friend Maggie Anderson (of RSO's Living Dead acclaim) and she recorded the vocal track in LA. Once she sent the track back, I re-recorded the guitar parts and some additional vocals (oh, you'll probably think you're hearing Tariq Trotter. Understandable.), did some cleaning up, had the brilliant Dana Gertz whip up some cover art for the single and here it is! The toughest part was coming up with a poppy stage name for Maggie. We finally decided on "Andi Ashly".

So now, released to the public for the first time is Andi Ashly's Hollywood Nights! If you love it, go buy it on iTunes - it's only a buck!

Unintentional Art?

2011-05-30T16:24:00.010-04:00

The other day someone had strewn a whole slew of small cards all over the sidewalk across from my apartment. From a distance it just looked like the typical post-trash-collection leftovers that hadn't been taken care of by the building maintenance staff yet. But on closer inspection the printed cards turned out to be from either some type of game or vocabulary-learning system. And there were a lot of them, strewn over 30 feet or so of sidewalk. It looked like more like a downtown art installation than leftover garbage and I wonder if it was actually done intentionally by someone with a creative artistic sense who was getting rid of them anyway. But whether intentional or not, it made me start thinking about the question, can art exist if no one deliberately creates it? Do my photographs of it create art even if the "it" itself doesn't qualify as such? If a tree falls in the forest...

My New Resume Has Arrived!

2011-05-25T11:55:00.002-04:00

Earlier this month I got inspired to do a complete overhaul to my resume. I wrote a blog post outlining my problems with the current format and asked for feedback from other industry colleagues. You can find the previous post HERE. I got some great feedback (mostly via Facebook and Twitter), took some inspiration from Dave Hahn (I hope it comes across as sign of professional respect and not a rip-off), and even invited all of you design-conscious folks to weigh in on some font choices via a Google doc (graciously created by the awesome Chris VanPatten).

I purposely pared down my resume in an attempt to make it more readable and to emphasize things that I feel are particularly important. In its previous format, I listed over 40 credits! I've cut it down to 10, and tried to take a more design-based approach while still remaining a bit formal.

Thanks for all your wonderful help and input; it truly took a village. So here, with no further ado, is my new resume! Let me know what you think!

How I Spent My Final Hour

2011-05-22T15:49:00.003-04:00

Chapter 1 - Prelude
A few months ago I started noticing posters in the subway advertising the imminent arrival of Judgement Day, May 21st of this year. Being very interested in the extremes of human behavior and belief (especially faith/religion-related), I was very excited to see that someone was on the "We know when the rapture is happening!" train again. Turns out it was Harold Camping, who has something of a knack for incorrectly predicting the end of it all. He did it with pinpoint accuracy in 1994. It seems Camping had reworked the numbers and come up with the correct date this time! I promptly put it on the calendar on arriving home, garnering a good eye-rolling from my wife (ok, so I sometimes fixate on this type of stuff).

Pretty soon I started noticing a bit more pervasive presence of the Family Life Radio crowd (Camping's followers). There were people yelling and waving bibles on Manhattan street corners. There was a van driving around midtown plastered in graphics and towing a billboard urging me to repent. There were giant billboards on the BQE. These people were going out in style, and sparing no expense in letting the rest of us know about it!

Chapter 2 - Judgement Day
And then the fateful day arrived. Talk about something going viral! (See Tom Diggs' blog "What Went Viral?" for an ongoing analysis of viral media phenoms - http://whatwentviral.blip.tv). I don't think I saw a single Facebook or Twitter post that wasn't taking a shot at the prediction, either humorously or using other scripture (!) to combat the belief that the world was ending today. Every conversation overheard on the street had to do with will it/won't it.

In the end I wound up spending the hour leading up to that fateful moment (worldwide rolling 6:00pms) on a rooftop in Manhattan with Alex Brightman and F. Michael Haynie drinking beer and discussing the likelihood of the clouds opening and the faithful being sucked up to glory. What would we think? Would we try to do anything, go anywhere, call anyone? Or maybe it would start with a natural event - an earthquake, meteor, flood. A giant wave washing toward us across Manhattan might actually be unbelievably beautiful in we're-about-to-die kind of way. I suppose I wouldn't mind if that were the last thing I ever saw. Would we suddenly be filled with regret over anything we had ever done, or not done? Probably not, we concluded. We would be disappointed that all the projects we are currently invested in wouldn't have the opportunity to play out, and that we would never have Fête Sau's brisket again. But those thoughts would pass pretty soon as were were instantaneously baked into ash, or swallowed by the earth, or thrown violently against the air duct behind us. Six 'o clock came and passed. Someone released a bunch of balloons from a nearby rooftop, couples dined on the sidewalk below, a dog yawned. It was as anticlimactic as expected. I left to meet my wife and sisters-in-law, drink more wine, and eat some Indian food. I went home buzzed and full of good food, and fell asleep.

Chapter 3 - What Can We Learn?
In the weeks leading up to the predicted Judgement Day, I began to think more about it and a few things began to concern me. I never entertained the thought that the predictions might be true, but I did wonder if people who believed would begin acting irresponsibly, believing that it would all be over soon. I heard of a couple who abandoned their young children because they were under the "age of accountability" and not eligible for rapture. Several companies promising post-rapture pet care took deposits from hundreds of poor cat lovers (http://on-msn.com/jAC3iT). Would extremist believers carry out acts of violence or righteous vengeance toward non-believers at the last minute?

Outside of immediate concerns, there are thousands of people who have been misled into believing Camping's teachings. Not only has massive amounts of money been dedicated toward the dispersion of this message but the emotional and psychological scars of this giant letdown are bound to be deep for some. People have been staking their futures on the belief that this event will occur. Now what?

In the end Alex, F., and I concluded that it doesn't really matter if we all die tomorrow and life as we know it ceases to exist. Carbon will still exist and it will all start again. We don't have any control over it anyway so what's the point of worrying, or trying to plan for it, or thinking about what we had or hadn't accomplished. But everything seems so much clearer from a rooftop in Manhattan. Maybe they are right and Harold Camping just needs to tweak his formula one more time. Maybe I'm missing an important lesson about believing something for belief's sake. And maybe I'll go back to school and become a therapist. I have a hunch that we may be short a few in the next few years

- Posted using BlogPress for iPhone

Je suis un étudiant de la langue française!

2011-05-17T09:35:00.005-04:00

I am attempting to learn French. It's something I've wanted to dig into for a long time and I'm finally doing it. I took three semesters in high school, which as it turns out, is just long enough to learn to name a few colors and slang terms for women's genitals (thanks Damon Kettler!). That particular set of information may have been useful enough if I had aspired to be a gynecologist in a disease riddled area ("Ta cramouille est verte!") but I also wanted to have the ability to order dinner, find the nearest museum, and use my credit card to pay for overpriced souvenirs. As a senior, I was somehow invited to go to Europe with my French class (being quite fluent by then). On staying for a brief two days, I was immediately enchanted by Paris and became determined to go back. My next opportunity came that very summer, when I was invited to play music in France for an entire week! We stayed outside Paris and traveled around the entire area. My falling-in-love was complete and from then on I maintained a healthy (though not aggressive) interest in learning French. Last year, my wife and I were talking about taking a vacation together. Europe was obvious but there was still the issue of language barriers etc. Jenny is functional in Spanish, so Barcelona was decided on and as I am still largely uni-lingual (singual?), she would be our voice there. But why not split our time and go back to Paris? I would bone up on my French (she was interested too) and we would spend a week in each city. So, what's the best way to learn a language in 6 months? Rosetta Stone of course! NASA and the CIA use it, so it must be good. And it is! Jenny bought me all five levels (!) for Christmas and I've been barreling my way through in order to be as functional as possible by June 30th. It's tough (I'm nearly 30) but I'm finding that things are slooooowly starting to seep in to my brain. They say that the best way to learn a language is through complete immersion (which is the Rosetta Stone approach), but since that's pretty much impossible in New York, here are some resources that I've found to get closer to that method:

1. French Language Podcasts - I find it helpful to listen to the language being spoken. Even if I understand very little of it, it's important to hear the rhythm of the language and to pick out things that I do recognize in context. A really good one that I've found is Radio SBS.

2. iPhone Apps! - The most well known newspaper in France, Le Monde, has a great app (it's $0.99) that allows you to download daily articles and features. There is also a really cool app (France Radio - $0.99) that streams French language radio stations.

3. French Magazines - Most news stands in NY will have at least a few French language versions of American mags or, better yet, some magazines from France. You may not have your pick of topics (Ladies Home Journal anyone?) but that's not the point.

4. Movies With Subtitles/French Overdubbing - A lot of the DVDs you already have probably have the option of showing French subtitles and some probably even have a French overdub track. This is a great option because to can see/hear parallel translations in either direction.

I plan to continue my education long after this summer's vacation and hopefully spend time in French speaking countries more often that once a decade!

Au revoir!

It's Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T15:36:00.010-04:00

Everyone seems to be blogging about their mothers today. I will now join the crowd.

My mother was great. She still is actually, but right now I want to focus on the mom who brilliantly raised my three sisters and I (and several other kids for various lengths of time), and taught us all sorts of useful and interesting things about the world along the way.

Before I was thrust upon this world my mom made the decision that she wanted to stay home and raise her kids herself. Her motives could certainly have been economic. As young parents, she and my dad were still transitioning from being students into real adults. But by this time, she had a college degree in education so she could easily have started her career, could have afforded day care, and spent time with us before and after work. But I think it's more likely the case that she just couldn't stand the thought of spending 8+ hours every day away from her kids. She also could have stayed home until we were ready to go off to school and started her career then. But by that time we were just so irresistibly charming and angelic that she still wanted us around and home schooled all four of us simultaneously for 10 years! Looking back I think it was probably an incredibly challenging undertaking. She frequently took flak and was under scrutiny from the local public school districts, had to create, maintain, and administer four simultaneous curricula (not to mention procuring textbooks and materials), and because of the decision not to work, often faced budgetary challenges. It amazes me that despite all this, my mom managed to expose us to an extraordinarily wide range of enriching experiences that would almost certainly have been missed with a more "hands off" upbringing. She always had a soft-spot for homeless animals (to my dad's frequent chagrin), loved the outdoors, was brilliantly resourceful, and gave us a healthy curiosity about the world around us.

So yesterday, as I was sewing a hole in my jeans (thanks mom!) I started thinking about all the skills I wouldn't have, all the perspectives I would have missed, and all the fresh chicken eggs I wouldn't have collected, and starting formulating the following homage. It's a little silly, and there are lots of inside jokes (annoying!) but sums up quite nicely the way I feel about my mom. Lyrics are below.

You taught me how to read and write,
That I should share and be polite.
I always put my napkin on my lap. ('cause that's 300 points)

You showed me how to patch my jeans,
To sew a whip stitch on a seam.
Sometimes I still thread a needle just for fun.

(Take a bite, take a drink...)

We camped in tents and cooked on fires,
Hiked o'er hills through marshy mires.
We bartered just like trappers in the depths of Appalachia.

I'm pretty sure that I would know
The things I'd need to make a go
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

(Take a bite, take a drink...)

Sound of Music learnt by rote.
All my friends are hens and goats.
But I would never trade it for the world.

Now I guess I'm all grown up,
Don't see each other quite as much.
Makes it that much nicer when we do.

And even though we're miles apart,
I still keep you in my heart.
I can't believe that I just wrote that sappy lyric.

(Take a bite, take a drink...)

Skill Set Graph

2011-05-04T14:25:00.004-04:00

On a related note, HERE is the second part of Dave Hahn's article on musician resumes. I decided to make up my own version of the skill-set chart that he uses. Perhaps I'll integrate it into my new resume. Category bracket or no category brackets? I tend to think that they might not be necessary. The graph may speak well enough for itself without them.

Does My Resume Work?

2011-05-04T09:31:00.009-04:00

As a freelance musician, most of my work comes through referrals by musicians I've worked with in the past. I don't rely heavily on an actual resume, but it is still a useful thing to have. It does get sent out to music directors on a semi-regular basis so it's important that it's up to date, visually appealing, and reflective of the type of work I do (and want to do). David Hahn wrote a great article at MusicianWages.com about resumes for musicians. You should definitely check that out. Because he has done such a comprehensive job covering the topic, I won't reiterate that information here. What I would like to do is offer up my current resume for feedback and criticism. I've been using the same format for a few years and I think it might be a bit stale. There's a PDF link at the bottom of this post to check out. So here are a few questions that I am wrestling with, and hopefully you can all weigh in and help me clean this thing up!

1. Is it the right length? I've played a lot of gigs over the last 10 years or so. Obviously not all of them will be included but it is tempting for me to err on the side of listing more credits than necessary, ensuring than nothing relevant is left out. A year or so ago I cut my resume down to two pages. I would like to get it down to one. But that will mean slashing a lot of stuff. The other side of the coin here is that my current approach could be overwhelming to the reader and not appropriately feature more important work that I've done (quality vs. quantity?). Which leads me to....

2. Is the right information featured? Obviously, all my contact info needs to be clear and "up front". But after that, the decisions get a bit more tricky. For example, I've done a lot of regional and community theater. It's been a while, but I would still like people to know that I've played Evita, Steel Pier, and the Little Shop of Horrors. So do the regional/community productions of these stay or go? Or do I keep the ones that typify the type of playing that I'm particularly good at (rock/pop stuff - but I can play big band and traditional musical theater too!). I think that it's obvious that the higher profile NYC stuff stays, but after that...? Also, I do tons of concerts at Joe's Pub/Beechman/Ars Nova etc. Should I pick and choose a few of those, or just neatly include some of those credits in my bio paragraph? Recording studio credits? Also, is it time to start noting Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets in a professional resume (my instinct says no, but I'm open to other perspectives).

3. Does it look professional and inviting? I'm not crazy about documents that are too business-like and bland looking. But I also want to avoid being so whimsical and gimmicky that my resume doesn't come across as professional. I want my personality to come through a bit and want my resume to be distinctive (ooh, I'll print it on parchment!). This is also related to the quantity of information included, but if I'm including less it's going to be even more important that it is organized well.

Ok, so as I go back to the drawing board on this, I want your feedback. As fellow musicians, professionals, literary types, or just people with opinions and an aesthetic sense I want to know your reactions to my current resume with the three questions above in mind. I'm also open to considering more avant-garde methods of formatting (one-word resume? This?).

So here's the PDF. Tear it up!

"Chapter One" or "My First Album" or "Who the Hell Was I?"

2011-04-27T15:18:00.024-04:00

Like many of our former selves, mine, as a teenager, was a hopeless romantic. I was at the top of my game in terms of grand visions of life and love and those visions were mostly expressed in the (rudimentary) art of the song. I had notebooks full of lyrics, chord notations, and snippets of tablature (how could humanity have invented something so perfect?) that outlined my utopian vision of the future. In August of 2000 (I was 18) I borrowed a four-track cassette recorder from Peter Winter, a guitar from the music room at school, and set out to immortalize some hand-picked gems from my canon. I hunkered down for a few days in my bedroom and laid down the following nine songs, emerging with a deep sense of accomplishment. There was never really a dream of being discovered and rocketed to stardom or anything like that. I was just glad I had expressed myself and made copies to share with a few friends before heading off to college.

Over ten years later, upon pulling out this first attempt at writing, arranging, performing, and recording my original work my emotions are mixed. I'm still viscerally connected to the songs and remember well my mental and emotional states surrounding the recording, but much of the sentimentality, romanticism, and naïveté I had has since faded. I'm still probably too idealistic for my own good.

Obviously the production quality leaves much to be desired and some of the technique needed some refinement, but the performances were heartfelt and the songs were crafted with care. So ten years later, I'm still glad I did it and am ready to share it. Maybe this time a high-powered produced will listen and offer to make me a star. And I'll give my sincere thanks-but-no-thanks, and explain that this chapter....is behind me (collective "groan", please).

Here, available for download for the first time ever (with behind-the-scenes liner notes!), is Chapter I.

1. You'll Never Know - Probably the last song written that ended up on the album. I workshopped it with Nate Detweiler in the single-wide that was our music studio. He came up with the cool guitar lick that leads into the chorus after the bridge.

2. Queen of the Town - I remember this track being almost 100% improvised. I laid down the guitar tracks with no planned form and don't think I wrote down any lyrics at all. For some reason there happened to be a violin in the house and I had literally been practicing it for 10 minutes before recording that track. So yes, it's awful.

3. Ray of Hope - This is one of the first songs I remember writing on guitar and actually liking. I was very proud of myself for playing that fast moving lick. It's about Natalie Portman, who I loved (I was 17, people).

4. In My Mind's Eye - The guitar part was influenced by the Foo Fighters song Floaty. You get to hear my pennywhistle chops on this one. I actually still kind of like it. Especially the little vocal flip at the top of the second verse. Ha!

5. Smalltown Dreams - The opening guitar riff on this was inspired by Sheryl Crow's song Redemption Day. I wrote it after spending a week in Europe on a school trip and falling in absolute love with the whole romance and mystique of the continent. My feelings have not really changed. Of course, it's about girls too (what wasn't at 18?).

6. Empty Sky - This was a pretty early one as well. I thought it was pretty funky at the time. It's kind of about moving past a crippling teenage crush. Or trying to at least. I guess. A couple years later Bruce Springsteen came out with a song that had the same title. I was pissed.

7. Fades Away - I still kind of dig the chord progression on this one. I remember the guitar part being kind of tricky for me to play cleanly. I was very proud of my three-part vocal harmony on the chorus.

8. My Funeral Song - This one is actually prettier than I remember. I wanted to use a pick for the chorus strumming so I somehow worked out some kind of primitive punch-in from the fingerpicked verses. If this isn't self-indulgence I don't know what is. A real Tom Sawyer moment for me.

9. The Game - I was really impacted as a teenager by the movie of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr. I thought that it had really big things to say about society, free will, and how self absorbed and delusional humanity had become. Another rippin' pennywhistle solo.

(10.) Hidden Track - Remember when "secret tracks" were all the rage. I had to include one.

ZIP file including the full album in high-quality mp3 format.

- Posted using BlogPress for iPhone

The Morning After

2011-04-25T21:45:00.001-04:00

So I just finished my first real job on an off-Broadway show. I had previously done some subbing on other shows but this time it was my chair, my drums, my paycheck, seven shows a week for five weeks. My gig. Yes, I realize that this is pretty insignificant compared to the folks who play thousands of performances on long running shows or tours. But it was a great step in the right direction as I aspire to make a career out of making music. Here are some things I learned:

1) Being with the right people makes all the difference. Fortunately, in this instance everyone in the cast, band, and crew was completely wonderful to work with. But I can imagine what a different experience it could have been with people who were stubborn, catty, or egomaniacal. On one-night hits, that's fine. You deal with it and then make a mental note to try to avoid working with that person again. But when you are working with the same people every day for an extended period, it really helps when everyone gets along. This only reinforces my belief that being a decent human on a gig is just as important as being a good musician. I can walk away from this show and feel that I've made and solidified some really great friendships. And that makes me happy (and more productive).

2) Having a steady gig is not a substitute for practicing. Even though the show meant I was playing for 90 minutes (or twice that on two-show days), after a week or so I really wanted to practice outside the gig. And every time I did (or played an outside gig), I was reinvigorated in a way that was completely independent of my enjoyment of the show. Playing the show was a great way to practice consistency, sensitivity, and professionalism but I found that some of the feel and groove requirements of the show needed to be kept sharp by some outside playing. Also, practicing independently of the show was a great way to keep from getting bored with the material. I can only imagine how much more important this is with a longer running show.

3) Being flexible and good-natured is vital. During tech week a lot of changes were being made to the show. This is to be expected but in our case, major alterations were being made throughout previews and right up until opening night. The largest change for the band was being moved from behind the set out on to the stage. In a completely acoustic theater, playing a pop/rock based show, this was a challenging shift in approach for us. We had to cram into a much-too-small space (I literally removed pieces from my setup), completely change the way we had been playing, and now we were visible to the audience (so we had to behave). There were tense moments during the process where we could have acted like divas and demanded that we got our way (we are professionals, after all). But the choice to remain positive and make a few compromises ultimately made for a better overall vibe. After all, sometimes it's better to be right than to be right (get it?)

4) I love doing this. This experience confirmed to me that this career is something that I want to continue pursuing. The theater community is diverse and filled with wonderful musicians and great people who derive great joy from entertaining others. And that is something I want to be a part of.

Photo courtesy of Playbill.com

Today's One-Liners

2011-04-24T17:05:00.001-04:00

Yes, I know we have Twitter for this now...

• This might be my favorite plate of all time.

• I listened to a Sex Pistols album for the first time today. Thanks to Alan Stevens Hewitt!

• How did this get everywhere? I mean everywhere!

• I rarely run into people I know in the city, but I love it when it happens!

- Posted using BlogPress for iPhone

The Art of the Web Series

2011-04-22T16:38:00.005-04:00

Lots of folks I know are great at creating work and exposure for themselves. As people in the music/theater business know, when someone gives you work you hold on to it for dear life. Because it could go away at any moment. But when things are slow, or we just need to be involved in outside projects to stay fresh, we come up with stuff. Sometimes that stuff brings in money, but more often the most valuable thing it brings is artistic satisfaction. And exposure, which in this business can be invaluable as we all clamor tooth and nail over each other to get to the top (sort of). Here are a couple web series that I think embody the spirit of artistic entrepreneurship. One is well into it's production run, another is a full scale production with the first episode about to be released, and the third is a smaller scale show with a really funny premise!

"Submissions Only" - A sitcom style series about a group of friends (and frenemies) all trying to make it in the theater business. Very funny. Make sure you start from the first episode. Created by Andrew Keenan-Bolger and Kate Wetherhead.

"The Perks of Writing a Musical" - The premier episode will be hitting really soon but for now, producer Tom Diggs does a great job of keeping us updated about the process and making sure that we're all hooked even before the show is released! Features the amazing Alexes (Brightman and Wyse) among other great actors (plus I played drums on the (theme?) song, Absolutely Hell).

"An Actor Presents..." - A new show that promises to be hilarious (and informative!). The brain/love child of Alex Brightman and Lindsey Kyler, the premise is combining their passion for the culinary arts with a tongue-in-cheek acting lesson in each episode. The possibilities are endless.

The One Where I Plug My Friend's Website

2011-04-18T21:19:00.002-04:00

I guess it's about time I gave a shout out to my good friend Dave Hahn. He's a great musician and co-runs an awesome website filled with great resources for working musicians:

http://www.musicianwages.com

Check it out!

Location:69th Ave,,United States

The Garrett in Bohemia is fine...

2011-04-18T20:47:00.001-04:00

I'm a musician. Shouldn't I be in the practice room? Analyzing Zigaboo Modeliste grooves? Playing double paradiddles? Why am I wasting my time on Facebook and Twitter and writing blog posts?

In any professional field there are two worlds: the world wherein we learn and hone our skills and the world in which we seek out situations to apply those skills in a way that will allow us to pay our rent, have a couple beers on Friday, and eventually (gulp) put our kids through college. As a freelancer (in any field) this is especially true because most of us spend our time moving from gig to gig and don't have the type of job security that often comes with careers in the corporate world. Even musicians with Broadway gigs know that their show could go belly up at any time, and they will be hitting the proverbial pavement again.

As a member of this glamorous entourage, I've made a conscious decision to devote time every day to dipping my foot into the latter world. The world of reaching out, networking, making (and maintaining!) contact with people in my field who are like-minded and who are attempting to forge a similar path (let me know if my language is getting too flowery). Using social media is one way that I do this. Aside from the fact that I like using sites like Facebook and Twitter, they are actually starting to become an essential source of news for me. Of course, I'm not counting (solely) on Twitter to keep me updated on world events. But in a more microcosmic sense I do rely on the posts of my friends and colleagues as sources of information that lead me to situations where I can connect with people in the flesh (completely platonically, of course).

Do people make successful freelance careers without Facebook? Of course! Without Twitter? Certainly! Without email? Probably. Without a telephone? Umm... Do you see where this is going? A certain degree of media savvy is vital and the more varied (and up-to-date) my involvement in these ways of connecting is, the more web strings I'll have out there. Someone recently told me that there's no substitute for talking face to face and I'm certainly not arguing that social media should take the place of human interaction. But I will argue that ignoring or resisting it leaves one in danger of being behind the curve and out of sight of opportunities that could otherwise be taken advantage of. After all, how many Amish do you know with Broadway gigs (Sherrie Renee Scott was mennonite, people)?

- Posted using BlogPress for iPhone

Location:The F train

Meta-Blogging

2011-04-18T10:44:00.001-04:00

I upgraded my phone. The 3G iPhone I'd had for 2 1/2 years just wasn't cutting it any longer. So now I can actually use Facebook and Twitter and Foursquare again without the crashing and the waiting and the lagging and the teasing...

I've maintained (and I use that word very loosely) this blog since 2006 and have just now decided to start posting from my phone. I think this will be good for a few reasons:

1. I like to write but rarely do it sitting down. My FB & Twitter posts are almost always "on-the-go". Why not this?

2. I'm constantly forgetting things that I want to write about. This way I can at least draft something on my phone, which I always have on me, while I'm thinking about it.

3. It might help me be more visible to people in my professional community. FB/Twitter are fine but writing slightly more substance can be a good thing too.

Please tell me if I'm rambling.

- Posted using BlogPress for iPhone

Location:Burns St,,United States

Out Of My Head

2011-04-13T09:41:00.005-04:00

So I'm playing in this off-Broadway show called Tomorrow Morning at the York Theatre, and last night a strange thing happened. It's something that happens with relative frequency (at least to me) but that doesn't make it any less strange. A little background:

The show is in a smallish house with a four member cast and four-piece band on stage in the downstage left corner. The theater is completely acoustic so the (rock) band has worked very hard to find a good balance and to still groove and rock out at sometimes painfully low volume. But we've been getting it and it's becoming more and more comfortable as the run progresses. The way the band is configured, the bass player is facing the pianist/conductor with his back to the stage and to the guitarist and myself (drums). It an effort to actually get to see some of the show, last night he installed a small convex mirror on the back of the piano and can now see the actors using this rudimentary (though clever!) monitor system. Background set; now for the strange occurrence:

For whatever reason, last night I was kind of tired out and not feeling 100% before or during the show. Naturally, I brought forth every possible effort to mask that feeling and bring my best playing. Nonetheless I felt my body was stiff and locked up during the show, I wasn't finding a good pocket with the band, and felt like some tempos were a bit weird. After the bows, I was about to make a crack (excuse) about the whole thing when, before I could say a word, the bassist turned around and exclaimed "I think that was our best show yet!"

What? What!? He went on to explain that he felt a great cohesion within the band and with the full ensemble. I initially thought that his reaction had come from his finally seeing the action on stage and feeling more connected with the actors/story but I happened to have recorded the show (in preparation for having a sub come in) and when I listened back on my way home...he was right! The show sounded and felt really good. There were some odd tempo anomalies, as I had thought but even within those sections, the feeling of ensemble was well maintained.

I often find that my in-the-moment perception of what's going on during a show can be very different (for better or worse) than the reality of what the audience is hearing. So I started wondering: when the show feels really good to me, how does it actually sound and feel? Even better? Or in those moments do I have some sort of inflated sense of the quality of what I'm doing? Is it even possible to have an accurate real-time picture of what's occurring from within an ensemble? Rhetorical questions (or not, if you like) that might make me start recording performances more often.

Anyway, come see the show! It runs through April 23rd at the York Theatre on 54th and Lexington! I'll buy you coffee after and we can share inside-outside perspectives.

test

2010-04-27T15:29:00.002-04:00

Twenty-ten and juice

2010-01-03T21:26:00.010-05:00

Ok, so it's 2010 and I'm writing my first blog post since March '09. Now, I know this is going to come across as a "New Year's Resolution" but I assure you my motive is anything but. I have no desire to turn over a new leaf, make a fresh start, become a better person, or do anything else that I would describe as "bandwagon behavior." Since I last posted a lot of things have happened and I am starting to feel like writing again.

Let's see how long this lasts this time. Maybe I'll make it to April.

We'll start with gear. Cancel that. There has been a lot of gear turnover in the time that has passed and I'm very excited about it so I want to do it right when I feel like spending more time on it. Plus one of my more "recent" posts had to do with gear, so let's break it up a bit shall we.

How about food? Drink? Drink.

For Christmas my mom and step-father, Steve got me a juicer. This was something that I had posted a Facebook status about and they picked up on! Isn't it nice when people pay attention and then surprise you? I remember my dad having a juicer in the house for a while and my sisters were just throwing anything and everything in there and I thought that was really weird. But now I think that's a really great idea. It's a good way to get a variety of nutrients and also a good way to be able to creatively blend some great flavors and "drink" some things that I wouldn't normally get around to eating. Now, I've only just scratched the surface of using this thing but I'm imagining using citrus, apples, berries, beets, yogurts, bananas, cucumber, etc, etc, until I've exhausted the list of all produce ever.

So I got the juicer home, washed it set it up and then headed off to my local Key Foods to get an armload of fruit. Holy crap. It's January and fruit is not cheap. I mean, it seems cheap ("$3 for 6 oranges, sweet!") but considering the actual juice output, it's going to be a challenge to make this worth my while. But let's not lose focus. I grabbed a bunch of carrots, some juice oranges, a few kiwis, a mango, and a pineapple. Here's what I started with: 1 pineapple, 1 mango, 5 kiwis.

The juicing process is quite fast, the majority of the the investment is in the prep. Everything simply has to be peeled and cut into slices that will fit in the chute but once that is done the juice is extracted quickly.

Here is the result:
It's really good! Thick and tasty and a good psychological boost after many days of holiday gorging. Next time this one will be modified to contain a bit more mango and less kiwi. The downside is that this 30 oz of fruity goodness cost $6. I always criticized the "exorbitant" prices of fresh squeezed juice but now I'm starting to get some perspective. But no worries, as soon as the temperature hits 45F the fruit stand guys will come back and I'll be rockin' it on the cheap.

Now I'm off to try some orange carrot!

Cheers!

Hell's Kitchen: The Musical!

2009-03-04T23:27:00.004-05:00

No, it has nothing to do with the intense TV show about a chef who freaks out and makes people cry. It's a new musical being produced at the Hudson Guild Theatre on 26th street. The show is about the neighborhood in Manhattan called "Hell's Kitchen" (just below 42nd street on the West side, I think). Apparently it was a place where you grew up with no advantages and watched most of your friends die, become a stripper, or end up in prison at an early age. But if you happened to have a beautiful singing voice, maybe an agent would notice you and make you a star. Then it's possible you could come home and be assaulted by gang members, kill someone in self defense and then end up being acquitted by a jury of your peers, free to rise above the squalor and sing, Sing, SING!!!!

Anyway, a couple months ago I auditioned for a spot in the pit but didn't get the job. I did however get asked to sub on the show and will be doing so Thursday (3/5) and Saturday (3/7) at 8:00pm both nights.

Come check it out. There is a killer tap number.

I bought a new snare drum

2009-03-04T22:31:00.008-05:00

I bought a new snare drum, it's actually old.
From the late 40s (or so I am told).

In the 1930's the Ludwig Drum Company was purchased by Conn, who promised to retain William F. Ludwig as an employee to oversee the Ludwig Drum division of the Conn corporation. They backed out of this promise however and now owned the Ludwig name, threatening to sue Ludwig if he produced drums under his own name.

So, he started a drum company called W.F.L., building drums that were quite superior in quality to their actual "Ludwig" contemporaries. In 1955, W.F. Ludwig bought back his name from Conn and resumed business as usual.

Today I purchased a W.F.L snare drum from the later part of the W.F.L era ('48-'52 is my best educated guess as the manufacture year of the drum). Here it is:
And here is an audio clip of it in action:

There are a several interesting points to be made:

The drum is 7"x14", a deeper snare than I had been looking for (I was thinking 6-6.5") but I think it will be a good "evil twin" to my copper 5.5"x14". It has a full bodied, focused low-mid range sound with an even decline in upper frequencies, where my copper drum is much brighter, snappier, and crisp.
It is a three-ply drum, and my understanding is that the plies (from inside out) are mahogany, poplar, and maple. I like the fact that the inner ply is mahogany, as this provides a nice balance and warmth in the sound.
The lugs are the unique "Zephyr" model. I have heard two different stories about the origin of these lugs. One regards a post-war regulation limiting the proportional amount of steel in certain types of products. This pressed style lug has less mass than a standard cast lug and therefore came within the allowed weight. The other story is that Mrs. Ludwig was running the company's finances during this era and was a bit of a tightwad so had a lug made that was much cheaper than the cast lugs. Whatever the real story is I like these lugs because they are very lightweight, allow the drum to resonate, and have a nice rustic, hand-hewn look.
The drum features "stick chopper" hoops, meaning that the edge of the hoops are straight, not turned over ("stick savers"). The names are pretty descriptive but stick chopper hoops provide really nice rim clicks, as you can hear from the accompanying audio clips.

So by now you might be thinking "what the hell is the big deal?". It's a snare drum, it's not like you bought a whole drum set or something! Well let me tell you. A well selected snare drum is one of the most vital parts of a convincing overall drum sound. Next time you are listening to music, try isolating the snare sound and describing it in specific terms. Does it have a sharp crack? A mushy thud? Is it high-pitched or low? Imagine the sound of a tight, high-pitched snare sound in an 80's rock ballad. Drummers often have a couple drum sets they use but an arsenal of dozens of snare drums, each with their own unique sound and function.

So there.

Nunsense

2009-02-17T23:23:00.016-05:00

So, I'm playing a student production of "Nunsense" at Pace University this week.
<--This is Nunsense.

And this is Dan Goggin, the creator of Nunsense-->

And of Nunsense II: The Second Coming, Sister Amnesia's Country Western Nunsense Jamboree, Nuncrackers, Meshugga Nuns, Nunsensations, Nunsense Amen, and premiering Fall 2009 - Nunset Boulevard: Nunsense goes to Hollywood.

This is a man who loves Nuns.

Here is my setup for the show:

I borrowed a set of orchestra bells from my friend Chelsea (thanks!) and bought a set of Treeworks wind chimes that sound super great. You can't see it well from the picture but the band is on a raised platform that is quite narrow. As a result, I've had to leave off my floor tom, which would have been nice to have. Also, I had my splash cymbal, woodblock, and cowbell attached with a clamp-style mount to my rack tom. This causes several problems:

Every time I hit the bass drum, the cymbal rings. Every time. Since taking the above photo, I have moved the cymbal to a boom stand. Problem #1 solved.
When I hit the bass drum, the cowbell rings. This is annoying. I need to find a solution to this.
when I play the woodblock (it's actually an LP jam block (the blue one)), the cowbell rings and interferes with the clarity of the woodblock. I need to find a solution to this.
Having all this crap clamped to the rim of the rack tom really kills the resonance of the tom. I am not happy about this.

Basically, the solution to all these problems is to ditch my claw mount and find an alternate system of mounting the cowbell and woodblock.

I also created a set of mallets to use for the show. There is a lot of quick switching between drum set and bells so I needed a double ended "swizzle stick" to do both jobs. I cut a couple inches off the butt end of a pair of Zildjian John Riley Concert Jazz sticks (choosing them for their balance, girth, and bead), Dremeled out a hole in the end of each and inserted the severed heads of a pair of old Musser xylophone mallets I had lying around. Vic Firth makes something like this but I'm sure they cost like $25 or something and I had fun engineering them.

Here they are:

So if you have a mind to come see a college production of a campy, pun-filled, show full of indulgent humor and shreiking college sopranos, it hits at 8:00pm on Thursday (2/19), Friday (2/20) and Saturday (2/21) at the Little Black Box Theatre on the downtown campus of Pace University. I'll get you a comp ticket. Then you can buy me a drink after the show. Or four.

Ian McKellen

2009-01-29T23:35:00.011-05:00

Here is a brilliant clip from one of my new favorite TV series, the British show "Extras". In the clip Ricky Gervais's character Andy Millman is interviewing with the great actor Sir Ian McKellen for a part in a new play. This is an amazing show that you should watch if given the opportunity.

If the video embed doesn't show up, you can download the clip HERE.

Sneak preview

2009-01-25T15:07:00.004-05:00

I am working on revamping my personal website. Here's why:

I want it to be more usable. This will be achieved primarily by simplifying the layout. Right now the layout is a bit too arty (dare I flatter myself so?), and not quite practical enough. Not interested in fancy. Interested in making relevant information easy to access. In doing so I would rather err on the side of simplicity than impress people with my bohemian vibe.
I want to provide more information that will help get me gigs. This means adding a resume, functional schedule, more contact info, varied sound clips etc.

You, my trusted inner circle, are receiving a sneak preview of the site as it is in development. Keep in mind that some links will be dead and pages missing for a while.

Here's the new site.

Here's the old (current) site.

Any and all feedback is welcome :)

"Who's in the house?" "J.C!"

2009-01-25T13:23:00.007-05:00

The library is a wonderful place. Not only do they have books there, but you can borrow a wide variety of DVDs and CDs as well. The Queens network of libraries is nice because there are lots of them, they are all connected and you can renew stuff online (which I do often to avoid their exorbitant late fees on DVDs).

This past week I borrowed a DVD called "Jesus Camp". It is a touching documentary about a youth minister of the extreme fundamentalist evangelical persuasion who runs conferences and a summer camp for evangelical children (or more properly, children of evangelical parents). Children as young as 5 years old attend the camp and are taught how to save the souls of their friends and of total strangers, how to wage war on the devil, and about the important issues and priorities of the far right (the myth of global warming, the truth of literal creationism, etc.) This film was interesting to me for a few reasons:

I went to Church camp for several years growing up and, while the place I went was not nearly as extreme as the camp that was profiled, I did recognize certain elements. For example, there is a strong appeal on children's emotions in attempting to lead them to certain conclusions/decisions/ways of thinking. Indeed, I can recall several chapel services that had me in tears and blubbering into a microphone about how I wanted the courage to tell my friends about Jesus (I only actually did this once, and it was because a girl I liked was Catholic and I knew it would never work out between us if I didn't). Children are impressionable to begin with, it's a mechanism built in by evolution that allows children to learn the ways of the world and most basically, survival, at a young age. Part of this proclivity is a desire to believe what they are told by adults. Naturally, adults have experience in the world and it wouldn't make any sense for children to have to learn everything by experience, especially if there is an easier way. However, it doesn't matter what the adult is actually saying. The same mechanism that allows kids to believe their parents instructions to "stay away from lions", would also allow a child to believe a parent who said that "lions are your friend". Naturally, parents who give their kids advice that dangerous have a tendency to lose their children to lion attacks and thus their genes are weeded out of the population. But if you simply give your kids bad advice that doesn't commonly lead to their physical demise, natural selection may be much slower in getting rid of those beliefs. The problem with this is that children are too young to deliberately choose a set of beliefs, and so if they are presented with one, they will probably subscribe to it. Adults have the ability to decide logically whether they want to believe something or not, but this impressionability in children is taken advantage of in a way that is unfair to them. I understand that as a parent you will want to instill in your children the values that you feel are most valuable in the world, but I think often those values are deeply embedded in a religious structure that has a lot of other potentially negative and harmful baggage attached to it. I think that good morals and values can (and should) exist free of religious context.
One of the primary reasons that was presented in the film for indoctrinating kids with these values at such a young age was: "All our enemies are doing it." In the context of the film, the enemies were primarily named as other religious groups (most commonly Islam). I think this is just bad logic. Unless you are holding your beliefs as paramount to all others and preparing to fight for their position as such. One of my favorite quotes from Becky Fisher (founder of the camp) was: "I want our kids to be as radical about our beliefs as those kids are about theirs." (in reference to Islamist sects who train their kids to be suicide bombers) Really?? As radical? Think about what you are saying! But it appears that she already has thought about it. Several kids were interviewed who spoke of being martyrs for Jesus and much was made about the value of being willing to die for your faith. I think it's clear that these kids really have no idea what that really means, and neither do the adults who are telling them that you are not following God if you aren't willing to take a bullet or endure torcher for him.

I don't think I actually know any Christians who hold views as extreme and twisted as these, but to a degree the extremism is not what bothers me. The fact that children are not being presented with options is what I really take issue with. Of course, when those children grow up some of them will be able to distance themselves from those things that they want to abandon, but some of them won't. Some will have residual hangups that spring from this upbringing and will prevent them from becoming well adjusted adults. Some will live thier lives with low self esteem due to an early de-emphasis of their sense of self. Some will rebound so sharply that they will end up with addictions, kids, and situations that they don't want. Some will become isolated enough that they are simply never exposed to other viewpoints. Some will strap bombs to their bodies and press a button...

(I don't mean to be over dramatic, I just find it interesting and think it's important.)

More of me to love

2009-01-22T09:43:00.009-05:00

Last week, while subbing at the Renaissance school in J. Heights, I went out to lunch. Now, Jackson Heights has a number of delicious, reasonably priced eating establishments. However, many of them only take cash and I didn't have any. So I figured that I would hit up Subway and get a cheap sub. Their credit card machine was down. I decided to suck it up and go across the street to Taco Bell. They weren't open for another 1/2 hour and I would have to get back to school. I knew that there was a Burger King around the corner and though my strict dietary rule to avoid fast food (especially the burger joints) told me not to, I was starving and went in. The first thing that caught my eye was the "Angry Whopper" sign on the menu, and while for a moment I was tempted by its crispy looking bacon and zesty sauce (which I guess is what makes it so angry), I was struck by the corporation's choice to publish the caloric contents of the sandwich. Granted, the highlighted information is for the largest version of the sandwich, the triple "Angry Whopper", I was still taken aback. Let talk numbers here. I am 5'9" and 150 lbs, not extremely active but I walk everywhere and lug drums around all the time. According to the almighty internet (http://www.hpathy.com/healthtools/calories-need.asp), I should take in about 2400 calories per day in order to maintain my current weight. Assuming that the average triple Angry Whopper is 1820 calories, if I were to consume one each day that would leave me 580 calories (less than 2 chicken hearts!). If I ate one of these sandwiches every day as a substitute for my regular, average lunch, I would gain about 3 pounds per week (again, according to the all-knowing interweb) and a year from now would be twice my current weight. Including the fries and Coke in the value meal, that number goes up to nearly 400 pounds (see left). And I would be going straight to jail.

So I had a salad. It was terrible.

(also, as you can see I am pretty much an expert at Photoshop, and I only charge $50 and hour for custom jobs.)

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!

2009-01-18T19:17:00.004-05:00

This morning I went to church. This is the church I went to:

It is Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Cambria Heights. During the fall, the music director there called me to fill in for their drummer one morning. I have done so a few times since and am now in the midst of a four week stint. Except for the MD, his parents, and myself, the population of the church (like the whole area) is completely "Americans of African descent", and the service is basically a 'gospel mass'. The thing I like most about Catholic mass services is hearing the congregation speaking in unison. Unlike a congregation or a choir singing, no one is attempting to match pitch with anyone else so the dissonance is complete and utter. Everyone's individual voice contributes its own natural timbre and pitch and the resulting sound is completely organic, to my ears (aside from the fact that they are reciting the same words). It is like playing every pitch on an organ simultaneously (incidentally, the 5th grade spelling word I was most proud of learning), and is quite thrilling to hear.

The idea of going to church, in general, doesn't grate on me like it did for a while. While falling out of love with church, I went through an impassioned phase that was something like outright disdain for the kinds of things that are said, implied, and believed in churches but I'm over it. In fact it is kind of soothing to be at this church in a way. While internally I question and take issue with its mere existence and the things that come out of it (generically), I have mellowed to the point where I can ingest the aesthetics and ritual of it and enjoy contributing to it, in the way that I do. This is all part of another post which I will save for later. Perhaps a "Life, the Universe, and Everything" is brewing...

2009-01-17T23:25:00.005-05:00

Dog walking is about the only time you can have a conversation with a complete stranger while one or both of you are holding a bag of feces.

Last night I had just such an experience and it got me thinking about some of the unspoken etiquette that applies to dog walking.

For example, as you get to know the dogs in your neighborhood, you learn which ones to avoid, which ones to stop and allow the obligatory mutual sniffing (for the dogs), which ones have annoying owners, etc. But there is even more subtlety to this art than might appear on the surface. Let me expound:

1. Count the Dogs
First, consider the number of dogs that the owner is walking. If only one, then proceed to step 2. If the owner is walking more than one dog, the potential for additional complications exists. For example, keeping leashes straight. With a 1:1 meetup, it is reasonably easy to keep dogs untangled from one another but as the number of dogs increases, so does the possibility of tangling, owner tripping, leash burn, strangulation, and death for canine and human parties alike. Additionally, people who have more dogs are generally crankier and less stable. There is an inverse correlation between number of dogs and degree of being completely insane.

2. Considering a Social Introduction
If you have determined that the number of total dogs will probably not result in you and the other owner hating each other for all time (don't worry, there is still a chance of this), you must then begin to read body language. This evaluation must begin from some distance, because the earlier you can tell, the sooner you can start the telling round of Dog Chicken. Assuming that you are approaching each other on the same side of the street, this involves seeing who will break first and cross to the other side. The loser is destined for all time to assume this submissive role in subsequent encounters.

3. Types of Interaction
Once you have determined that you can let your dogs interact, there are several levels at which this can happen. Sticking around too long or being too friendly can negatively impact your reputation as a conscientious dog walker. While your dogs are checking each other out, it is normally acceptable to ask questions about the following topics: "How old is your dog?", "what breed is s/he?", "what is your dog's name?", "how long have you had him/her?" The order of your questions is somewhat flexible and as long as the other owner reciprocates each question, you are still in the clear.

Tips:

Never use the words "he" or "she" unless you know for sure. Under certain circumstances, it is ok to ask about gender, but do not try to lean into a bizarre looking position and look under the dog. This can be extremely awkward and will lead to ostricization by the entire neighborhood once word gets around.
Never, ever make direct eye contact with the other dog's owner or introduce yourself, ask the owners name, where they live, or any other personal questions. This is considered extremely creepy and no one will ever talk to you again.

I hope these tips come to mind and are useful the next time you are out with your mutt.

I love Craigslist rants.

2009-01-16T22:32:00.006-05:00

these folks on cl are nits (East Village)

Reply to: see below
Date: 2009-01-16, 5:34PM EST

soem lady wants me to move a sofa from conneticut to nyc
she asking if its cheap enough she can hire me its 45 minutes away and she see i charge $25 per hour how much? i told her a nickle and she said ok i will get you the adress and you can pick it up. "a nickle"
they are nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she wont even say anything to it i told her other than "is it right?" i told her yes i used a calculator to figure it out and she is getting a super discount. she said ok them i will pay you a nickle! duh!

it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: 5 cents

One liners

2009-01-15T22:22:00.005-05:00

Here are some one liners about today:

Third graders are the devil.

Finished my Woody Allen book. A-

My external hard drive will all my music on it died.

Discovered a great jazz album--->

This is my new favorite picture (from the liner notes).Ate a terrible salad from Burger King.

Sprinted a mile in 20 degree weather to miss half of Jenny's concert at school.

W.A.

2009-01-14T21:55:00.004-05:00

Today I started reading Woody Allen's book "Getting Even". The book is a collection of short essays published in the New Yorker (among other places) in the mid/late 1960s. I got it through BookMooch.com (my new favourite and least favourite website). I have trouble committing to really, really loving Woody Allen. I am a fan of his films and so far have enjoyed 75% of what I've read in this book. There is a particularly funny piece about philosophy, and another where death visits a man and is then swindled out of killing him by losing at gin rummy. It is humorous, a bit dark, and I always find him to be slightly depressing. Or probably more accurately depressed. I don't get depressed reading/watching him but get the feeling that he is somehow a self-loathing person. That is a bit sad to me, though I have no real idea whether it is true or not. Maybe he just thrives on the attention and pity.

Subbing tomorrow at the Renaissance School in Jackson Heights. I go there often and it is my favorite place to sub. All the students call the teachers by their first names and no one is particularly uptight about anything.

Mexican Lasagna

2009-01-14T08:32:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I mentioned that I made Mexican Lasagna and the recipe was requested. It is a traditional dish in Mexican-Italian families that dates back to the 16th century. Literally one of the oldest things you can eat. This dish is still enjoyed by good Mexican Catholics on the fourth night of Dias de los Muertos.

Here is the recipe:

2T olive oil
1-2lbs cut chicken breast or ground beef
2T chili powder
2t cumin
One small-medium sized onion, chopped
A few shakes of red pepper
A small can of green chiles
One 8oz can of black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, or any combination
14oz of salsa
1 cup taco sauce
4 tortillas, cut into 2" strips
8oz Mexican cheese blend

Brown the meat, onion, and red pepper in olive oil. Add spices, salsa, taco sauce, beans, chiles. Cook until hot. Brush oil in the bottom of a glass 9x13 baking dish. Layer tortillas, filling, cheese. Repeat until filling is used.

Bake @ 425 for 15-20 minutes until cheese is crispy.

Got the Miss Saigon gig!

2009-01-13T21:23:00.004-05:00

So I'll be playing eight dates of Miss Saigon at the Antrim Playhouse in Suffern, NY in April and May. Hooray!

Details to come.

It Has Been A Year (Since I Last Posted)

2009-01-13T15:44:00.011-05:00

Well, not literally a year. But close. 357 days. Unless last year was a leap year. Was last year a leap year?

Well for several months upon starting this weblog I did a pretty good job of posting regularly and for a couple years posted just regularly enough for people to say "You should update your blog more regularly..."

My weblog was inspired by the weblog of a good friend of mine, whose blog is clever, witty, sardonic, and ironic. He includes lots of photos and graphics and makes astute observations about the world around him. His name is Rev and his blog is here. I encourage you to read it.

But alas, if I am honest with myself, I am not the same kind of thinker, functioner, or blogger as he and for too long tried to be something that I wasn't instead of blogging honestly and originally. Maybe sporadic, with lots of time in between posts is part of my honest style of blogging.

I might actually end up posting more frequent, shorter, less profound, less witty posts that are more narrative than witty. Rev is good at witty. I am less so. Read his blog.

Today I did not work. I worked on stuff but I did not go to work. My wife Jenny and I moved to Queens, in New York City in August and I went from having one job to having three.

My job before we moved was:

"Being a music teacher at this school":
A shipment of school apparel bearing the name of our mascot was not let into the country shortly following 9/11.

Now, my three jobs are as follows:

1. Assistant Manager at Steve Maxwell's Vintage and Custom Drum Shop. I work 2-3 days a week. I help customers find that perfect cymbal/snare/drum set that will match the sounds that they are looking for. I like this job a lot. Since starting, I have learned a lot about specific drum makers and their histories while getting hands on experience matching that information with the physical items from the 1920s on. The owner of the business and the manager of the shop are both very knowledgeable and beneficent (heard it on a Geico commercial) and I've greatly enjoyed gleaning knowledge from them both.

2. Substitute Teacher for the New York City network of private and charter schools. I work at this job most days that I am not at the drum shop. The agency calls me (usually early in the morning) if there is a teacher vacancy at a school and I go there. Sometimes I do not get called and this is bittersweet. It is bitter because I do not make any money that day, and I like money. It is sweet because I do not like babysitting students who I have no real relationship or rapport with. And sometimes the kids are huge jerks all day and I am tempted not to go back after my lunch break.

3. Freelance drummer/percussionist. This is my favorite job, but unfortunately right now the job that I spend the least amount of time doing and the least well paying one. But those things are slowly changing. Some examples of things I sometimes do at this job are:

Send out lots of resumes every day.
In November I went to New Hampshire for a week to play a professional run of "High School Musical". It was very enjoyable.
Once a month I play a cabaret show with a singer named Ryan Raftery at a theatre on 42nd street. It is lots of fun but only once a month.
I sporadically get called to play for the Sunday gospel service at a Catholic Church in Queens. Also enjoyable but the service is in Creole so I don't understand any of it (<--lie).

Some examples of things that I may be doing soon (and some reasons that I say things are slowly changing with this job):

I may be playing a month long run of a new off-off Broadway show at a theatre in Chelsea.
I may be subbing several dates of "Miss Saigon" at a theatre in Orange County.
I am in the early stages of dialogue about a really great gig that I shouldn't really disclose anything about right now.
A summer stock season with the company that I played High School Musical for.

I should find out about all these thing soon. Oh also:

Sending out hundreds of resumes every day.

But I did no go to any of those jobs today. Today I was domestic, which I really don't mind. I went to the post office to mail a book that I traded on BookMooch.com, a great book trading site from which I have already gotten several books. The only downside is that very few good books are available very often. Seems that everyone is getting rid of their crappy books instead of the ones that I want to read. But they are free. And that is even better than the library.

After the post office I went to Key Foods and got a bunch of groceries. Came home and made blackbottom cupcakes. These are chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese mixture in them. Jenny mentioned them the other day and as I was being domestic, thought I would make them. Here they are:
They are delicious.

I also made a pan of Mexican Lasagna to throw in when Jenny got home from work.

Here is Jenny engaging in an activity that you will rarely catch her in:

Beer drinking. She is a complete teetotaler.

Also, that is the aforementioned Rev is the aforeground. He took us to a great pub called McSorleys. It was cheap and delicious. Rev knows lots of spots (if you live in New York you have to know "spots" so that when you are out with people you can say "I know a spot!" Then they will think you know lots of spots).

Next I put on some Aimee Mann (her 2002 album "Lost in Space" is really good; I think my Dad would like it.) and gave the apartment a good cleaning. It really needed doing and after I ran out of Aimee Mann, moved to Disappointment Incorporated's only full length album, F=Ø. I heard this band on Albany's 103.5-The Edge radio station in probably 1999. I bought their album after hearing one song and have come back to it consistently since. It is edgy, political and different from the cookie cutter alt-grunge-punk-rock that was starting to inundate the radio waves at that point. That was a few years after my friend Nate and I started an underground (well under-bed, technically) revolution that would change things forever. We used to keep tape recorders under our beds and secretely tape songs off secular radio stations. Later we would roughly edit and dub them into mix tapes to listen to on our walkmen. The formula for naming these mixes was: "'s mix 19xx". For example "Nate's Mix '97". Our friend Matt started getting really fancy and segueing between selections with audio clips from movies or that he recorded himself via his parents' camcorder microphone. Since secular music was quite frowned upon (or at least we percieved that it was LOL) by our parents, I kept a mental catalog of Christian bands that sounded like all the secular bands I was listening to in the case that my mom asked "what are you listening to?" and then went as far as checking to make sure.

This is the beer I drank while cleaning the house:
It is bottled in Utica. I used to live there.

So now all you blog-hungry requesters of more blog posts from me: Here's one.

400 Cars

2008-01-21T20:18:00.001-05:00

Here's a project that I did almost two years ago. I got the stock footage from ThoughtEquity.com, audio from SoundDogs.com and recorded the original score in GarageBand. The fade in at the beginning is supposed to be from black but somehow the conversion to YouTube's .flv format didn't catch that. Just use your imagination there.

Saab Commercial Rescore

2008-01-13T20:52:00.000-05:00

I've been really interested in film scoring since I was in high school but have never actually done any save for a few short projects for a class in grad school. Here's the first independent thing that I've done now that I've been getting to know Logic a bit. This is all done with Logic's built in software synths.

I stripped the original audio from this Saab commercial and totally re-scored it. I didn't even listen to the original audio because I didn't want to have any impressions about what it should sound like. Let me know what you think!

Kurt

2008-01-10T21:55:00.001-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut died the other day. I was on the internet at about 11:30pm and saw a news bulletin stating that he had passed away. There was a recent photo accompanying the story. He looked old. He was old. 84.

Vonnegut's writing has had a pretty profound impact on me. I don't know if that is necessarily good or bad but it has certainly made things interesting over the past few years. I don't know if Kurt himself would have been happy to know that he had influenced someone's worldview so deeply.

Maybe three years ago I picked up an old Dell paperback edition of Cat's Cradle. I can't remember how I came to seek it out but I'm pretty sure that it came at someone's suggestion or recommendation. I honestly don't remember. I found it, along with God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, at a used book shop that was going out of business in Herkimer. I think it was 50 cents. Cat's Cradle was the first one I read and remains to this day my favorite for many reasons. First, it was my introduction to Vonnegut's writing style. I loved the short chapters; they were so well titled and ended at the right time. I loved the narrator's character and how honest he was. He didn't paint a picture of himself as an outside observer to the story. As I read, I felt that he was no larger a part of the story than any other character. Second, I was intrigued by the statement at the beginning of the book that "I was a Christian then. I am a Bokononist now." Not only was that an interesting hook that made me want to follow his journey toward this mysterious religion, but it was a fictional religion which made me comfortable enough that I wasn't "cheating" on my own Christian beliefs by being interested. Maybe this was Vonnegut's intent. Maybe not. As I read on, a lot of the Bokononist ideas resonated with me and as I thought through the narrators explanations I began to feel a bit Bokononist. Somehow, the foreignness of the vocabulary associated with Bokononism and the overall hokeyness of the religion started to make me think about religion as a whole in a different way. I began to feel that the labels Christian, Hindu, Atheist, Muslim, Buddhist etcetera are not so important. After all, no two Christians that I know hold quite the same set of beliefs. So how important is that label anyway? DIGRESSION ALERT!!! DIGRESSION ALERT!!! OK, fine. More about that some other time.
Third, the book was kind of slow reading for me until about the 38th chapter (there are 127 total), but once I hit that point, I knew that I wanted to read every word Kurt Vonnegut had ever written. For the rest of the book, Vonnegut creates a world (The Republic of San Lorenzo) that is outrageously bizarre but somehow not far from being believable. The insight and wit with which he satirizes modern society is brilliant and still relevant over 40 years later.

From there I went on to his other novels that endlessly intrigued, shocked, entertained, and enlightened me.

(originally drafted on 4/16/07)

A New Approach

2008-01-10T21:15:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the title, I'm a bit obsessed with clever titles. Few of mine are actually very clever.

Last summer I attended a week-long workshop on free improvisation. It was an ironic blend of neo-something somethings, and burnt-out, post-something something-doers. There was a great deal of talk about something called "letting go", which though an overused cliche (<---trendy lingo!), I feel actually may mean something valuable. There was a lot of talk about communicating and letting others explore their "own" way of being expressive and "letting go". There was a bit of (hypocritical?) expression stifling (or at least reining) on the part of the instructors. On the other hand there were a few wackos who just didn't know how to express themselves correctly. At the end of the week we were invited and "encouraged" to write a letter to our future selves, address it, seal it, and give it to the organization and they would take care of stealing our addresses off the envelope, sending us several financial support-seeking letters, and eventually mailing our own letter to us in about six months time. The idea, of course, is to take a snapshot of yourself and be reminded when you receive the letter of the person that you were at just that moment in time. I was familiar with the exercise, having participated in similar ones in the past, mostly of my own *can't find appropriate word*, and after long stretches of not receiving any mail. Who doesn't like getting mail? And I must admit there is something a bit thrilling about seeing your own handwriting on an envelope addressed to you.

Here is the letter: Here is the envelope that it came in:

I still have several bill collecting companies that I have to change my address with.

The letter is a piece of poetry that I composed on the spot in a moment of satirical wit. However, I have a couple of problems with it. The one that sticks out the most has to do with genuity (the state of being genuine) and the crossed out and replaced word. The original word is "more". I like the original version of the rhyme in its original form. I think it's simply better poetry. But when I wrote that, I obviously felt that it didn't well express the satire and chic sentiment that "the more I learn, the more I learn there is to learn". And not only that, but with by replacing the word "more" with "less" I am able to display an attitude wherein I appear not only wise but wise with a sense of humor. I think I should have stuck with the original verse. It's better poetry.

Also, just after Kurt Vonnegut died last year, I began to write up a bit about my experience with his writing. I never really finished it but I'll publish what I wrote in the next post, mostly so that it stops staring at me scoldingly with the word "draft" next to it.

Word up...

2007-11-24T03:47:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a while. I've been feeling a certain lack of blogging inspiration as of late and I'll tell you why:

I've actually been in a very critical and thoughtful place for the past few months. I've been really excited and fascinated by some things I've read and conversations that I've had with friends family etc. Probably the most stimulating time I've had in a while and for that reason I have felt like so much information has been flying in and out of my brain trying to get processed and boiled down that it doesn't seem to make sense to me to say "this is what I think" because for a while "what I think" has been constantly amended and altered and subtracted from. Any given cognitive snapshot from the past several weeks has already been replaced and in some cases by a virtually unrecognizable replacement!

I got some good advice on Thanksgiving Day from my friend Austin. He suggested that maybe I should blog a bit more for myself and a bit less as a writer trying to write something coherent and elegant that is sort of...static (?). So I think I will try that out for a while.

Unfortunately, no one gave me the advice I really needed on Thanksgiving:

"Stop. eating. you. idiot."

Later...

Life, the universe, and everything - Pt. III

2007-09-20T21:55:00.000-04:00

Upon logging out of Hotmail approximately 42 times a day, I am often sucked into one of MSN's many irresistible news flashes, which display links to up to the minute information along the lines of: "The ten hottest careers in 2015", "Man rides horse across the country", "Hermit crab saves family of five", " 'Hobbit' not modern human?"or "Brittney leaves kids home with Taliban overlord". You get the idea - really important news stories that I can spend my valuable time becoming informed about.

One fateful day I spotted a link promising to explain whether men really prefer blondes. Sounded scientifically important to me. This is something I should really know. The article was filled with the usual agenda at first but instead of being a poll of 500 men to find out if they prefer blondes over brunettes or redheads, it was from an evolutionary psychology perspective, asking if there are instinctive preferences in the male mind that underlie our obvious attraction to certain female characteristics. It went on to allegedly explain why (from an evolutionary 'need to procreate' standpoint) men are attracted to young (or young-looking) women with large breasts, small hip:waist ratios, and blonde hair. Interesting. The same article also addressed the question of monogamy in humans. Is it instinctive? When did it develop? Why?

That second question really got me thinking about the fact that while the majority of human (especially Western) cultures are monogamous, they are socially monogamous. The normal social convention is for men and women to have one lifetime or long-term mate, yet both sexes are still obviously and sometimes obnoxiously attracted to individuals of the opposite sex that are outside that 1:1 relationship and often even mate with those other individuals. If monogamy is a natural human state, wouldn't the desire to mate outside the "marriage" be non-existent? Many species of birds mate monogamously for life and have no partners outside their 1:1 "marriage". Does this mean that they have a highly developed moral code and that their conscience prevents them from doing so? I'm going to guess no on that one. It seems more likely that something in the evolutionary history of those species created an advantage for that type of union.

So back to humans. Going to the extreme and saying that humans are instinctively polygamous or outright promiscuous (although polygamous makes more sense in many ways) requires a lot of "throwing-out" or at least reinterpreting of a great deal of conventional thought, wisdom, religious dogma, and social conditioning. But are we suppressing our instincts for the sake of those things? And why?

There is certainly no shortage of people and groups that would oppose the idea that humans are not monogamous. Most obvious to me is the Christian community whose entire view on sexual relationships stems from the Old Testament characters Adam and Eve, the first two humans in the creation story. A literal look at Adam and Eve and Genesiaical creation has led the Christian community to place these two in a 1:1 relationship, singlehandedly populating the globe with their offspring. From a more allegorical perspective, maybe "Adam" and "Eve" are folkloric names given to the two sexes. Even their offspring could be representative of various social/civilzatory/moral developments in human history and pre-history (Cain and Abel like in Planet of the Apes - "Ape has killed Ape!"). It is hard to say from reading the first 2 chapters of Genesis whether the intention was for man and woman to be exclusive monogamous partners. But then there's that instincts thing again. It's hard to shake the thought that if monogamy were natural it would be...natural. Stuff to think about.

"The suppression of instincts is the foundation of civilization."
-Sigmund Freud

Lighten-nups...

2007-08-28T17:21:00.000-04:00

August has been a pretty crazy place so far. Here is the rundown:

We got back from a successful summer in Fredonia (only 6 credits left!) and started the real running. I had a couple of Jazz Cats gigs and then got to work helping my dad paint and floor a couple of bedrooms in his house. It went something like this:

Me: I'll just lay down this Pergo flooring and be on my way.
Pergo Flooring: Good luck.
Me: This should just snap together like a puzzle.
Pergo Flooring: Screw you.

So after sufficient knee/palm bruising, profuse sweating/cursing, and irresponsible beer drinking I found myself at a wedding where my dad married a lovely (much younger) lady named Kate. Here they are.
That night Jenny and I returned to Utica to find our street blocked off at both ends with police tape and barriers. We bravely stumbled toward our house in pitch blackness and discovered that several trees had violently rebelled against gravity. We reached our house to find it (and only it) roped off with a second ring of police tape. We called to a man apparently sleeping in a big city truck parked at the end of the street who told us we could enter our house (they had roped it off just to use up tape, not because of any possible danger). Apparently our house (according to our neighbor) had been struck by lightning. Fortunately, he was able to take this photo during an un-storm-related out of body experience:Unfortunately however, when the power came back on at 3am it fried the following electrical items:

My nice new Bose computer speakers
My nice new keyboard controller
Our DVD player
Our record player (yes, we have one)

Fortunately, two days earlier we had taken out a renter's insurance policy with State Farm. Unfortunately, the $500 deductible is per incident and we didn't get any coverage. Fortunately, items one and two are being replaced by their respective manufacturers. Unfortunately, we'll have to replace the other two things ourselves.

After a short period of mourning for our electronic devices, we headed of for a week of vacation in the least United of all the States, Vermont. Some highlights include:

The discovery and subsequent consumption of Long Trail Blackbeary Wheat Beer
Vicariously reveling in my sister Misti's successful conquest and subsequent consumption of a large fish.
Discovering that one of my new step-siblings...aww heck - siblings is part bovine.
And here's the motherload: taking in and capturing the sights and sounds of a real, live, honest to Pete, bonified, registered one-man-band! Now, before we continue I must tell you that I wasn't really sure if such a thing existed. In my mind the one-man-band had always been something of a myth, a legend that came to life only in folklore and through the magic of the moving picture machine. You have of course the disputed photo that graces the cover of the most recent print version of the Steve Weiss Music catalog (see right). The dispute being that this photo, like any of a sasquatch, or an alleged UFO, is so blurry and the image so small and ambiguous that it could just as easily be a hoax as the real thing. Then there's Bert from Mary Poppins (and we all know that that thing didn't work). And of course this guy: eh......? Anyway, now that I've set the stage: I was walking around downtown Burlington (they have a lovely pedestrian section of the downtown area with a variety of retail and eating establishments) and there he was, just past the yelling street evangelist.

This guy was cool. I was quite impressed with how deliberately he played all the parts of his setup. The hi-hat sticking patterns are a case in point - you could tell this guy had put in some serious practice. What a clever fellow.

Anyway, that about does it for now.

School starts soon. Can't wait.

Another weblog of note

2007-08-28T16:47:00.000-04:00

My friend Rev has a witty and wildly entertaining weblog here. If you enjoy mine, you might like his even better. I do.

2007-08-18T10:09:00.001-04:00

Free your pets!

2007-08-16T09:23:00.001-04:00

I have a long-standing belief that if your pet is unable to survive in the wild (like in the case of a worldwide virus that wipes out humankind, for example) that you should 1)train it to do so or 2)get a new pet that is nobler and more rugged.

This conviction has developed into a philosophy which, carried through, could potentially create short-term chaos (especially in major cities) but I believe would foster healthier, more sustainable relationships between (what we now call) pets and humans (which we now call "owners").

Allow me to present what I feel are some of the most important virtues of freeing your pet:
1) Many (not all) people are trapped in a false perception that their pets love them and they continue to believe and propagate this belief by forcing their pets to spend "quality" time with them. They accomplish this by restricting their pets movements by either locking them within some kind of structure or to some type of tether. If you set your pet free and it returns to you, you can be assured of its love for and acceptance of you, resulting in a stronger bond between you and your (now confirmed) friend. If it fails to return...who wants a friend like that anyway?

2) In 1859, Charles Darwin, in his book "The Origin of Species" posited that in nature the strong, capable, well-adapted individuals will survive and reproduce and the weaker ones will...not. Now this is where I may have irate pet-lovers (remember, your pet may not love you. How will you find out?) all over me: Release your pet and if it is worthy of surviving, it will. If not, it won't. This is not cruel, heartless, and diabolical. It is simply letting nature run its course like it does everywhere else. Domestic breeding has produced many species of ill-adapted dogs, cats and other common household animals. In addition, coddling of pets has produced animals that are incapable of foraging for food or using any means to defend themselves against predators (declawing cats?!). It might be cruel to say that these individual pets don't deserve to live but the true cruelty comes from those who fail to allow their pets to develop the necessary mechanisms by which to survive.

So this is my plight: free your pets for their own good and for yours. The long-term results of pets who CHOOSE US will be rewarding beyond our imagination.

(To see a running dialog between supporters and opposers of this philosophy please check out my Facebook group "Free your pets!")

New stuff

2007-08-05T12:00:00.001-04:00

My recording studio is gradually gaining shape. Over the summer I ordered a few new pieces of equipment that are pivotal to my ability to record multiple tracks simultaneously (Drum sets, guitar/vocal, small ensembles)and in cleaner quality than ever before. I had them all shipped to my apartment in Utica so they were waiting for me when I returned home last Friday. Here they are (in alphabetical order):

On Stage Stands (2)
One is a desktop mic stand and the other a single x stand for my keyboard controller.

Presonus Firepod

It's a firewire driven digital audio interface, with 8 combo jack inputs, MIDI interface 48v phantom power on all channels. So far I have used it to mic up my drums and play around with getting decent sounds from them. The great thing about this is that now I can record onto as many as 8 tracks simultaneously. This gives me greater mixing control over the final product. If the snare is too loud, I can just turn it down in the final mix! I can also apply compression, reverb, and any other effects I desire to individual tracks. Versatility is the name of the game.

Sennheiser HD280 Studio Monitor headphones (pictured with the Firepod)
Super clean, noise cancelling, pretty comfortable phones. Jenny says they make me look like an insect.

Shure Beta 52A Bass Drum/Bass Amp microphone

Industry standard for clean, punchy response even at very high pressure. Mounted on the new OnStage desktop stand.

Oktava MK-102 Cardiod Condenser Pair

These are not actually new but I am now able to use them for the first time and they sound great!

So yesterday I played for several hours with all this shiny new stuff. I put the Beta 52 on my bass drum, an SM57 on the snare/hats and the Oktavas as overheads. I'm having a bit of trouble with the bass drum sound if I don't have any effects on it. It gets slappy sounding at higher volumes even though no clipping is occurring. I'll continue tweaking as I experiment more.

Here's a quick audio sample. The drums are as per the described setup, the bass, organ, and synth sounds are GarageBand synths.

The return

2007-08-05T10:14:00.000-04:00

I plan to write a book on leaving home and then returning. The idea will be to explore the different types of change that you come back to depending on how long you are away. I just returned home after 6 weeks away and discovered that someone had moved all the realty/home for sale signs in my neighborhood to different lawns. Things like that. If you were to be away for one day, one week, one month, six months, one year, five years, 10, 25, 50 years, how would these changes vary?

I marvel at people who can write books. If I were to attempt to write a book it would be about 10 pages long and then I would be done talking. I am amazed at people who have enough to say to fill up hundreds and hundreds of pages. Where does all that stuff come from?

Info soon on my grad classes and new gear.

New Stuff...

2007-07-22T14:55:00.000-04:00

Here is some new summer stuff. I just finished a great grad class on Analytical Techniques and all this crazy thought has inspired me. I've been recording a lot of grooves and then creating tunes off of them. In the past this has not really encouraged a great deal of harmonic creativity but hopefully this new stuff is going in a good direction in that regard.

Metro - this is just the head

Weep in Years to Come - named after a short story by Irwin Shaw

Let me know what you think!

Two things

2007-06-18T18:57:00.000-04:00

Ok, this week a couple of things have caught my interest. One involves shoddy workmanship and one involves overreaction to nature, satirized.

Arts and Crafts
Every year at summer camp we had a designated time called "arts and crafts". During this time we would use materials like glitter, Popsicle sticks, construction paper, and glue to construct crappy replicas of stuff that I kept for many years first out of pride at building something myself and then eventually to avoid the guilt of throwing out a piece of history. I remember one year we built (replicas of) musical instruments. Some kids filled glass bottles to different levels with coloured water and then tapped them with pencil erasers. Some of us made a "guitar" by stretching rubber bands across a shoebox. Some kids made a drum out of a Quaker Oats canister and some paper taped to the top. Some kids made out under the supplies table. I wasn't so lucky. I was pretty irritated that my "guitar" looked like a shoebox with rubber bands stretched across it. The rubber bands were virtually impossible to keep in tune. You could stretch some tighter than others but they would slowly pull their way back into being limp strands of pasta with no pitch at all. Then we all performed a "song" together on the last day of camp. I was eight and it was the formative experience in my disdain for shoddy workmanship, especially when it comes to musical instruments. Enter:

A few months ago, I discovered that someone had stolen those camp counselors idea and taken it several steps further:
1. They had created a line of "arts and crafts" products that now encompass every musical instrument imaginable, audio equipment and various accessories.
2. They had marketed themselves into a multinational corporation, undercutting basically everyone (I wonder how they do it?).
3. They had fooled students and music shop owners into thinking that their products actually work.
4. They had expanded their product line to include 12 varieties of chili.

Just the name makes me shudder. Something about the extra "g". My first encounter with a Stagg product was a trumpet that one of my fifth grade students had rented from the local music store: "ONLY PENNIES A DAY!!!". Literally. I think it was the GLPTPOT 110 model, which stands for "Good Luck Playing This Piece Of Trash". This poor ten year old kid didn't have a chance at becoming the next Miles or Wynton or Billy in 6th grade. Every time I tinkered with it "aha" it worked for about 35 seconds and then something else would stick or fall off. The valves weren't numbered and there were no notched casings so good luck getting the them aligned after oiling, provided you even match the right valves and casings in the first place. Nightmare.

Next, I went to my local music store to buy some MIDI cables for some new gear I bought. I asked if they carried Hosa cables, renowned for their cleanness and durability. The helpful sales-16-year-old-kid-wearing-a-greenday-shirt-and-strumming- wild-powerchords-on-an-out-of-tune-unamplified-squire-strat led me to a dusty shelf, looked quickly and grabbed, to my horror, a 10' Stagg MIDI cable stating "this is all we carry, it's the same thing" (emphasis added). On further inspection, I discovered that the cable was actually a piece of cooked spaghetti with a MIDI jack on each end. So I found the Hosa cable myself (on the shelf above the pasta) and was gladly on my way.

At my next visit to my local music store (why do I keep going there?) I noticed Stagg's new line of cymbals. This one was my favorite:
Looks pretty nice eh? Like a nice dry, hand hammered plate. Good coloring, almost looks like a nice K Custom I have. Look closer though and you'll discover that it is actually a manhole cover rubbed with excrement. I was in utter disbelief that this gets passed off as a musical instrument. I will try to post a sound clip as soon as possible.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed today's rant. I'll have to get to my second topic later.

P.S.

2007-06-12T22:01:00.000-04:00

As an addendum to my last post, after hearing the piece, my wife was very concerned and asked "what are you so depressed about?". Understandable. But don't worry, I can only work in minor keys and the lyrics are scratch lyrics that I improvised to fit the melody that I was hearing. No one call a shrink yet.

In a flash of inspiration

2007-06-12T21:24:00.001-04:00

My favorite creative moments are ones in which an idea forms and develops in a really short period of time. Let me take you through a typical example:

One of the many ideas (often a bass line of some sort) that are incessantly swirling around in my quasi-subconscious catches my attention long enough for me to write it down or record it using my handy Roland Edirol R-09 or new MIDI keyboard controller (pictured at right).

If I can really easily hear and put down a second track, be it drums, a well voiced chord progression or vocal line, on top of the original idea then the idea has a pretty good chance of surviving and turning into something. This step is crucial because if the original idea is not simple/versatile enough to add on to then the idea is pretty much crap and gets thrown in the round file.
If the first two steps occur, the rest of the piece writes itself. There are musical "decisions" that are basically inevitable once I have started in a direction. The form takes shape next (verse/chorus, ABA, etc.) and once the groundwork is laid, harmonies and other arrangement/orchestration ideas develop.
When I write this way, I usually complete what I started in a few hours and rarely come back the next day and change anything (unless I am re-recording already existing material to improve quality, accuracy, dynamics or some other fine tuning element).

What is my purpose for taking you through this process? Well, I just bought a piece of equipment that has made the practical and technical aspects of composing a lot easier for me. I've been needing some kind of keyboard around the house for a while because it seems vital for me to be able to plunk out stuff that I come up with. Doing this makes it a bit more tangible and gives it a better chance at being developed. I found a lot of M-Audio Oxygen 49's on clearance for $90 so I ordered one only to receive a call from a sales rep telling me that they were sold out and offering me a comparable item made by Behringer for $140. Being the shrude business person that I am, I somehow got him to give me the $140 controller for the clearance price of the other item! Cool! So now it is infinitely simpler and quicker for me to lay down tracks (I've been using GarageBand) and develop ideas. GarageBand has some pretty good softsynths (digital instrument sounds) and has several expansion packs available as well for more options.

So here's my latest "flash of inspiration". The process for this is virtually exactly what I explained above. I used GarageBand sounds for everything except the vocals, which I tracked myself. I recorded everything myself using the keyboard so it's all original material, no GB loops or anything.

Time is Ever Growing Cold

Let me know what you think and if you know any good producers send them my way!

I'm Trying to Decide Where to go Camping

2007-06-02T23:53:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to decide where to go camping. I have two personal days left from work and I'm going to use them, dammit. My plan is to have breakfast with my dad on Father's Day and then enter the forest for three full days with a minimal amount of gear and food. Here's my list so far:

Hammock - I have a nice one that I bought two years ago and have only used once. Well actually, I didn't even use it once. Like an idiot I didn't bring a warm enough sleeping bag for September and ended up having to crawl in bed with Nick at 3am.
Sleeping Bag/Blanket - I'm having trouble deciding on this. Since it's June I should be OK with a nice fleece blanket or two (maybe the Mona Fleecea) but I'm a bit nervous because last time I did that I had to crawl in bed with Nick at 3am. Did I mention that? A blanket is small and weighs like 4 ounces while a sleeping bag is large, bulky and weighs about 190 pounds (weights approximate).
Fishing gear - I have a really cool telescoping fishing pole that I bought at a garage sale for $5 (score!). It came with a great carrying case that looks just like mens jogging shorts from the '70s. I feel like I need curly hair, large glasses, and a mustache to pull it off. I might just bring line though and fashion my own rod in the woods.
Water Filter - because I don't want Beaver disease. Would you?
Clif Bars - mostly as supplemental food. I plan on using my fishing gear to procure most of my sustenance (leaves from trees behind my intended casting trajectory), and cooking up whatever mushrooms I can find.
Bamboo Flute - for entertainment. If that won't fit I'll have to hunt around for my Jew's Harp. I need to brush up on my Albrechtsberger concerto.
A Small Paperback Book - I'm carefully considering what to bring. My possible ideas are Walden (which I started but never finished), something by Kurt Vonnegut that I haven't read yet (there isn't much), Blue Like Jazz (I'd like to reread it). Still deciding. Any suggestions?
A Lighter - because I am not a fan of sushi.

I also still have to decide where to go. I have two main prospects right now. I really want to do part of the Northville-Lake Placid Trail. But it's 133 miles long and I would rather thru-hike the whole thing when I have more time (not that I couldn't do 45 miles a day if I wanted to). My other idea is Crane Mountain, which is out toward Johnsburg. I've been there a few times and I like this idea because it's not a really long hike to the top and I can kind of just chill and explore the mountain at my leisure. Still on the fence. Help me decide, America! Or give me a new idea altogether.

So it goes...

2007-04-12T00:48:00.001-04:00

RIPKV

Bosphorus 20" Masters Turk

2007-03-25T21:33:00.000-04:00

Here's a clip of me playing my new cymbal. It sounds so nice on its own I haven't felt the need to play it with any other cymbals yet. Here is just with my hats, snare and bass. Listen to the cushion of breathy wash that sits underneath the stick definition. The recording makes the stick sound a bit brighter than it is. It comes out a bit earthier and woodier live. It speaks so effortlessly with just a gentle push with the shank and crashes as smoothly as butter. Come to my April 21st gig and you can hear it in person!

March, march maaarch...

2007-03-20T21:34:00.001-04:00

It has been over a month since I have posted and a lot has gone down in that time. Where to begin...

Zildjian shmildjian...
Shortly after my last February post I made a great discovery that has changed my life for the better. For a couple years I have been keeping my eye on a great website, www.cymbalsonly.com. The website features high end cymbals and specializes mostly in Bosphorus and Istanbul brands, known for their desirable, complex sound that is borne from the hand hammered process by which they are crafted. The site lists every cymbal for sale with high quality sound clips of each individual piece in various settings. This is a place where I have spent hours comparing hundreds of cymbals. I always assumed that this dealer was out in the Midwest or somewhere. It just seemed like a Chicago type thing. I ordered some rivets from him and when I received them, saw that the return address was in Oneida, NY - about 20 minutes from me! I was shocked and thrilled, so I called up Tony and asked if I could come visit. A few days later I went out with my friend Bob (a fellow "user") to this veritable cymbal mecca and we both ended up falling in love, me with a Bosphorus Masters Turk ride (a series custom made for Tony) and Bob with a Meinl ride (also made to Tony's custom specs). I immediately went home and eBayed a Zildjian K custom (much to the chagrin of my wife), an old tom I had lying around and a Yamaha YESS mount. A week later I had my cymbal (I think Bob sold one of his kids and bought his the day after we visited). The cymbal had a big ugly white logo on the top side which I took off with acetone, I left the one underneath alone. Note the beautiful rust-colored spots that you can see in the close-up. Look for a sound clip soon, I would go record one now but it's late and I don't want to annoy the neighbors.

Musical season
The musical marathon is over for the season. I did Beauty and the Beast at Ilion High School, The Pajama Game at Mohawk High School and then Hello Dolly at Guilderland High School.
Last Monday was the first day I've had off in three weeks. With my earnings I am paying off the "loan" that I used for my Edirol R-09 and Oktava mics. I also bought a hardshell case for my drum hardware as my hockey bag is falling apart and it's only a matter of time before all my stuff ends up falling on my foot, and a bag for my bass drum pedal. The rest pays for gas etc that I used traveling. Each year I enjoy the season more and am a bit sad that it's over because I don't play as much any other time of the year. But.....

Thornberry's gave me a gig!
For eight months (since we moved into Utica) I've been trying to hack my way into the jazz scene here. Since Utica's scene is so anemic it has been more like trying to create my own scene. I've visited literally dozens of club, bar, restaurant, and hotel owners to try to get myself some gigs in town. So far no one has bitten. I've gotten a lot of "we should talk"'s and "I'll give you a call"'s but no one seems that interested in supporting or being part of creating a younger, hipper scene around here. A few weeks ago, someone asked me if Thornberry's (a restaurant downtown) by the Stanley still had live jazz. I hadn't even considered the place so I went down to talk to the owner and a few days later we actually sat down and scheduled a gig for April 21st. I called up some really great players from Albany and that's that. I'm really pumped and just had a whole stack of fliers printed up. I want to promote the heck out of it to make sure that I end up with people there and can get more gigs! Wahoo!

Miscellany
The Elements is being performed tomorrow night by my Senior High percussion ensemble at school. Also featured is a string quartet of mine.

I'm working on updating the layout/ease of navigation on my personal website. I think that the current format seems a bit amateurish. Hopefully that will be up and running before too long.

I'd like to post again before another month goes by.

In Music News...

2007-02-16T23:25:00.000-05:00

"The Elements" is currently en route to Oklahoma and the Percussive Arts Society HQ there. I made up a really nice score engraving on Sibelus 4 (what a great program!) and printed it on 11x17" paper so it's like a real booklet. Hopefully they will like it enough to give me $1500!

Musical season is about to hit. I've done one already at Hamilton College in Clinton and I have three more to go, all in March. Usually I have rehearsals until late at night Sunday through Wednesday and then shows Thursday through Saturday or Sunday. So basically March is a blur of driving long distances, carrying drums, drinking coffee, eating sour patch watermelons and some playing thrown in there. Then at the end I have a few bucks in my pocket and my chops are in pretty good shape. I would do it full time if I could.

I've finally set my drums back up in the house after bringing them home from the New Years Eve gig. I was reading part of an interview with Chico Hamilton (I think) and he mentioned that for the first three years of studying, his teacher wouldn't let him play with more than a snare, bass, hi-hat, and ride cymbal. I really like this idea and am trying it (with one extra cymbal). I think that it forces a lot of creativity and innovation where many players just rely on their 49 toms and 86 cymbals to create interesting sounds and ideas.

Here it is, I've taken over Jenny's studio for a while.This is also the first time I've used the Edirol R-09 (still my closest electronic companion) to record them and I'm pretty happy with they way it has come out so far. I've experimented with various placements and the most rounded, balanced sound so far is dead center about 4 feet in front of the kit and about 5 feet off the ground, aimed roughly at the snare drum.
Here's a clip from one of my latest ideas, Distance (from my upcoming album, still in the concept stage). You can read on as you listen.

Everything but the drums was recorded into Garage Band (the piano and bass are GB softsynths), bounced to disk and then burned to a CD. So then I recorded the drums while playing along to the CD in headphones. The plan was to bring the drum track back and simply sync it up with the rest of the instruments. It's all digital, it should line up right? Well, after several syncings and things not lining up I figured out that a CD plays just a minute amount faster than an audio file from a hard disk. So the burned CD that I was playing along to was resulting in the drum track being less than one metronome click faster than the original wave file. So even if I sync the tracks up at the beginning, by about 15 seconds in you can hear a noticeable phase beginning and by the end the drum track is 3-4 seconds shorter than the rest. Ahhhhhhhh! If I had an iPod or other mp3 player instead of the CD all my problems would be solved. So time for an innovative solution. I played the CD running into the line input on the R-09 (have I mentioned I love this thing?), creating a live recording of the CD playback (at the faster speed). Then I used that recording instead of the original file to line up with the drum track and viola! Synchronicity...

Life, the universe, and everything - Pt. II

2007-02-16T22:29:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about the idea of God and trying to sort through and verbalize my perception/conception of what or who "God" is. When I hear people say that they "don't believe in God" I wonder what they mean. Do they mean that they don't believe in the Christian idea of God? Do they mean that they don't believe in any higher power? Or any creative/sustaining force? I also wonder what has brought them to that conclusion - that there "is no God". Have they been turned off by some religious group claiming that "God" can only be who and what they say he/she/it is? Are they hopping on the atheism bandwagon (which I think can be as much of a bandwagon as the theism one) because it's fashionable or liberal or badass?

I don't believe in "God".

That is, I don't believe that "God" is much like the one that I grew up being taught about. You see, this is why I hate labels so much. If I call myself a "Christian", everyone who hears that will interpret it differently. With that one word I have no hope of communicating to anyone what I actually believe. A large number of people (also calling themselves "Christians") will assume that I think and feel and believe in the same way that they do and this could not be further from the truth. Another large number of people will assume that I will fit a certain stereotype having a lot to do with suits, ties, men's breakfasts, exclusivity, hypocrisy and judgementalism. If I tell you that I believe in God, then you will probably juxtapose your schema of God on my statement and, unless I explain in more detail, to you, I will believe in the same God you do (or if you don't, the most ridiculous version of it that you know of).

So I don't like the question "do you believe in God?" because no answer that I give will really be the truth.

Does that matter?

Do I need to be able to communicate clearly what I believe about "God"? My evangelical protestant background says: "Yes! If someone asks, you must be ready with an answer and a good one too, real convincing like. So that the person you're talking to might convert to our faith". My gut says: "Not really. It's more important that you follow what you believe than be able to talk articulately about it. Believing quietly and living with respect and love will probably not convert anyone to your religion, but the last thing I want is someone who thinks or follows something that they have not sought out themselves and are not truly convicted of."

Having said that, here are some things that really resonate with me. They come from the Bible because that is my most familiar frame of reference. From what I know, many other religious texts have very similar ideas. And many people who are totally nonreligious feel convicted of the value of these things just because they are decent people.

1. Love God and your neighbor as yourself - duh. You know my thoughts on the "God" part.
2. God's laws are written on the hearts of man - so stop telling people what is right and wrong. And stop insisting that they believe in a specific view of "God".
3. Seek and you will find - If you want to know what is right and true and good, you will figure it out. If you don't want to, no amount of convincing arguments and church self-help plans will get you anywhere.
4. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling - departing from the view of "God" that I grew up with has been scary at times. The rewarding part is that I'm thinking for myself and not just swallowing what an authority figure feeds me.

More about what I think "God" is like in a subsequent post.

Air and Fire

2007-02-06T16:35:00.000-05:00

So, we're basically finished. I'm in the process of engraving my manuscripts using Sibelius 4.

Here are the 3rd and 4th movements (Air and Fire) together. I didn't like the way movement 4 started so I connected them with a suspended cymbal roll from the end of mvt. 3 and you need to hear them together. Look at the below post for a description of Fire.

Disaster!

2007-02-04T09:47:00.000-05:00

At about 6:15 last night, as I was traveling from the office to the bedroom, I was alarmed by a horrific cry of distress. I knew that Jenny had just left the kitchen and had been headed toward her studio, a risky path to traverse especially at night when the path is not clearly lit. Being the energy-conscious people that we try to be makes this voyage even more treacherous. You must first extinguish the kitchen light and then travel nearly 22 feet in nearly utter darkness before reaching the next light switch. God help you if you are making the longer journey from the kitchen to the living room: the dreaded coffee table is poised in the shadows, ready to assault your shins should you walk with too reckless an abandon.

Upon hearing the anguished cry of my dear wife ("help, help! I'm stuck") and unable to even imagine what harm had befallen her I decided to postpone my search for chapstick, that ever elusive salve, and go to her aid. Thinking quickly, I gathered up a flashlight, cellular phone, and machete in case I had to illuminate the situation, call for help, or slay an attacker. In my haste, I nearly skidded out on the kitchen floor but, regaining my composure, proceeded quickly yet cautiously toward the sound, ever increasing in urgency.

When I reached the office, I cautiously peered in, inquiring as to the nature of the peril that I would witness. Indeed, a gruesome sight awaited me and I quickly set to work gathering as much information as possible that I might most expediently free my wife from harm.

She explained that she had safely arrived at the studio, avoiding the dangers of the darkness, but that upon leaving she had misjudged her proximity to the open door and as she passed by, her shoulder had brushed the apparently flat surface of it. But contrary to her initial belief that the smoothness of the wood would simply deflect the fabric of her sweater and allow her to pass by unscathed, the razor sharp hook-shaped latch that bolsters the door shut caught a single thread of her garment and immediately snared it. As soon as Jenny felt resistance to her movement, she knew something was wrong. Instinctively she tried to pull away, but this only caused the hook to sink more deeply into the sweater, threatening to ravel an entire line of weft from the fragile weave. Realizing that further struggle would be in vain, she decided to call for help.

By the time I had arrived, Jenny was pale and in the early stages of hypoanthropomorphic shock. I assessed that the safest and least damaging strategy was to manually remove the hook from the sweater. The hook had already extracted nearly an inch of thread from the shoulder area but the sweater was worth saving even though it was clear that it would never be the same again and was probably no longer watertight. I instructed Jenny to back toward the door. Even though it seemed that this was closer to the danger I knew that the only way to free her was to release the tension that was holding her captive. She slowly stepped backward and as soon as she did I held the hook in one hand and delicately removed the thread with the other.

This tale is a cautionary one, warning all who read it of the dangers hidden in, of all the unlikely places, your own home. Please take heed of my proclamation that you are never as safe as you may seem - for even the most hale and hearty man or woman can at any time fall prey to an unexpected disaster...

Fire

2007-01-31T17:52:00.000-05:00

Here's the final movement, Fire. The intro is supposed to imitate sparks being struck and the crackling of lit kindling. I'm not sure I like the way the intro turned out, I might have to tweak it a bit. The timpani at the beginning represents the underlying roar of the fire and the other instruments are flares of flame etc. as the fire spreads. Listen for the conversation between the snare drum and timpani in the middle and then the doubling of the snare part with the brake drum (the actual sound in the recording is heavy snare sticks on a metal chair rack). Let me know what you think!

[The audio clip has been removed from this post. You can find it in the 2/6/07 post entitled "Air and Fire"]

Movement 3, Air, is still to come. I was having issues recording it and then found errors in two of the transcribed parts.

Water

2007-01-26T23:05:00.000-05:00

Here is a recording of Movement 2 from "The Elements".

It is mostly aleatoric, with a form that consists of various instructions to the players at 7 rehearsal letters. Each new section has an approximate time length and then the instructions change to move the piece through 3 major phases. Every performance of this movement has the potential to be quite different depending on how the players are interacting with one another. Check the post entitled "Earth" for the instrumentation.

The recording process was a bit different with this and unfortunately I feel compromises the interaction between the players. Because I could not rely on a click for anything except the first 4 measures (the only thing that is in time) I recorded one part at a time, took it home, put it on CD, played the next track with it the next day, took those two home, put them on CD... the process took 4 days.

Movement 4 is almost finished, I just need to add one short clip at the beginning and I will post it Monday or Tuesday!

Oktava blues...

2007-01-23T20:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I got my new Oktava microphones in the mail the other day. They are beautiful. Russian made condensers with interchangeable capsules (comes with a cardioid capsule; hyper-cardioid, and omni-directionals are available), including a -10 decibel attenuation pad (reduces the sensitivity for loud situations). These mics were first recommended by a professor that I had last summer and then I saw them being used to live record a Respect Sextet gig in Syracuse. The band swore by them and so, when my gig money fund grew enough, I ordered them to use with the Edirol R-09 (see post: "24 bit wav..."). Alas, they arrived and it turns out the R-09 doesn't supply enough phantom power to power them. So now I am conflicted. Do I send them back just because I am unable to use them right now, or do I keep them until I have the gear (audio interface and macbook laptop) to use them? This could potentially be a few years wait, but I don't want to just buy them again in three years when I have the other gear... I think I'll keep them for now just to look at :)

In other news, I've been using the R-09 just about everywhere. At school, I'm recording my students' lessons and rehearsals to analyze their performance and my teaching. I recorded a couple sets at a Dusty Puppies gig last week. I recorded myself and others playing at a CNY Jazz Jam session. I'm continuing the percussion ensemble project (I'll have more up soon, I promise (as if you are waiting on pins and needles)). Here are a couple samples:

I'm conflicted about this one. I haven't listened to myself play jazz in a while and I'm happy and unhappy with what I heard after the jam session on 1/20/07. On this clip of "Afro Blue" I really like the style that I'm exploring and some of the ideas that I come up with but I feel that the playing is really sloppy. I hadn't really played much in several weeks and this was the first thing I played that day (excuses, no doubt), but hopefully you can hear what I intended come through in spite of the time issues and overall sloppy playing.

Life, the universe, and everything - Pt. I

2007-01-15T22:12:00.000-05:00

I recently received an email from a friend I hadn't talked to in a long time. He asked the question "where are you worshiping these days" and it prompted me to think about it and put it into words. Any of you who know a bit about my upbringing and relationship to God/religion/church will hopefully appreciate my response:

We are worshiping in a lot of places - living rooms, coffee shops, sidewalks, bars, etc etc... I'm starting to really embrace the idea that God is a lot bigger than any of the organized church structures I've seen or been a part of. I feel like most churches are less about discovering the creator/driving force of the universe on an individual basis than about conforming to a certain set of ideas about who or what God is. No matter how 'good' or scripturally sound a church's doctrine or philosophy is, there is no way that it will fit each person who is involved the same way. Most that I've been around turn out to be more about control than about letting God be God and letting Him/Her ;) affect individuals in the best way for them. I sometimes feel that organized religion of any breed can become control obsessed, even while making the best arguments regarding scripture etc. I'm also very irritated with Christians getting upset with people of other religions for being violent, unjust, or backwards when the people who are those things are fringe extremists and Christianity has those people too (the Crusades, Columbus slaughtering natives, the settlers destroying Native American civilizations, radical Pro-Lifers, GodHatesFags.com). So I've basically been taking a step away from all those things and trying to live by one principle: "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself". I find that people are more deeply and positively affected if I simply behave like a decent person, love them to the best of my ability, and choose to fight battles that are actually important than if I bombard them with religious rhetoric that they have come to associate with judgmentalism and exclusivity. I've found that the best worship for me comes when I am choosing to enjoy the life that I've been given and pursue things that give me joy and satisfaction (making music, socializing, exploring nature, etc...). It has been really freeing for me to realize that this is ok - that I don't have to feel pressure to be closest to God while in a church building, singing or listening. It has made the idea of "praying without ceasing" make more sense to me because my communication with "God" can be constant, non-verbal interaction with the world around me.

Thanks Joe for making me consciously think through this, it was a good thing for me.

Photos

2007-01-15T13:10:00.000-05:00

I was cleaning out my iPhoto library and picked out a few shots that I've taken in the past year or so that I really like. Click for the full sized image:

This is my sister, Sharah, riding in Harrisburg in the spring. Her team from Rocky Mountain College made it into the national finals. I like the point in the horse's gate that this shot captured and Sharah's textbook posture. The light and slight overexposure reminds me of an old photograph from the early 20th century.

This is one of my favorite photos that I've taken. We were at a wedding in April in Lake George. The feet are our friend Doreen's and the dress is Jenny's. I like the color of the wood, especially where the light hits it. The splash of blue and purple in the dress are just enough to catch your eye.

This is from the same wedding, outside before the reception. Gives me the impression of an old fashioned sense of community.

Jenny has been dabbling in painting for the past few years and is developing a nice eye for shape and color. She collected some slate tiles (shingles maybe?) and painted a few of them. I like the balance of this and the feeling of motion that it has.

Another of my favorites, an abandoned booth seat from Joel's Spanish Food in Utica. I was waiting for my car to be repaired one day and we had just gotten our new camera so I walked around town for a couple hours and experimented. A few good things came out and this is one. I like the thought of thousands of people sitting here inside the restaurant (not all at once) talking and yelling to the cook and spending afternoons enjoying food and each other.

One more: this is a leaf gradient from September to November, 2006. Of course it's January and now they blend in to the mud.

Earth

2007-01-14T16:21:00.000-05:00

Here is a recording of the first movement, Earth, from my four movement piece for percussion ensemble based on the four elements. Click the play arrow to begin playback.

A quick overview of the piece:
All 8 players have a part in movement 1 (Earth). Movements 2 and 3 (Water and Air) use four players each and then they are reunited for movement 4 (Fire). For each movement I've chosen a palette of instruments that gives the impression (to me anyway) of that movement's element and tried to reflect in each movement the ancient ideas of self associated with each element (Earth=Stability, Water=Emotions, Air=Thought, Fire=Desire). The instrumentation is as follows:
Earth:
Temple Blocks, Bongos, Two Woodblocks, Guiro, Tumba, Bass Drum, Gong, Marimba
Water:
Vibes, Two Triangles, Snare Drum, Bongo/Wind Chimes
Air:
Four suspended cymbals graduating in size
Fire:
Snare Drum, Four Tom-Toms (played by two players), Bass Drum, Timpani, Suspended Cymbal, Gong, Brake Drum

score shot from Earth. Click for larger image

A bit about the recording process:
Using my trusty Roland Edirol R-09, I assembled the instruments needed and recorded them each to a separate file. Unfortunately, since the R-09 does not multi-track (not complaining, that is simply not its job), I was unable to play along with previously recorded tracks whilst recording new ones. So I played to a click track, hoping that my rhythmic sense was good enough that I could later transfer the files to my Mac and layer them there. One hitch: at the end of the movement there is a long ritard (gradual slowing down) which I could not rely on the click track for. Fortunately all but three instruments are out by that point so I simply recorded all but those, went home, layered, bounced to a CD and recorded the final tracks the next day using the CD as a playalong.

Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think and check back for updates as I continue to finish and record the remaining three movements.

Weblog Links

2007-01-13T20:13:00.000-05:00

My cousin Stephanie, an architect in Stuttgart: Entropy by Grace

My mom: Toys and Games

Disclaimer

2007-01-13T19:50:00.000-05:00

I, the undersigned, hereby declare my disdain for the word "blog". It sounds like "blob" and I don't like it. From hereon out, I shall refer to this and all weblogs as "weblogs", preferring to think of the word as compounded from the words "web" and "log" and not from the words "we" and "blogs", as in "we blogs are having a party". That is stupid.

24 bit WAV @ 48kHz!

2007-01-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

My newest gadget is Roland's Edirol R-09 portable PCM recorder. It is a big step up in audio quality from my previous setup (SM-57 mic --> 1/4" --> 1/8" --> Griffin USB iMic --> Mac Mini) and obviously infinitely more portable/concealable. It records in WAV format up to 24 bit and 48kHz, or MP3 format from 64-320kps. It is equipped with a pair of microphones that produce nicely balanced stereo recordings, the option to hook up external mics (which I have already ordered from Oktava USA), some built in reverb settings, an easy to manage menu and file system, etc. etc...

Very exciting. I have a variety of projects that I plan to use this for. First, I've just finished a four movement piece for percussion ensemble based on the four elements (earth, water, air, & fire). So I'm recording the piece track by track to submit with the score to the Percussive Arts Society's composition call. I will post a clip from "Earth" as soon as it's finished in a couple days.

I also now have the opportunity to record any live concerts that I go to (with the appropriate permission, of course) and use clips for UticaJazz.com, record rehearsals for review, record ideas off the top of my head that I don't have time to write down, record and layer any composition ideas that I have (that may get tedious since the R-09 does not multi-track).

The new year...

2007-01-13T10:33:00.000-05:00

I've decided that I would begin posting off and on now that it is 2007. Perhaps the closest thing I have to a resolution, although I guess a resolution is supposed to be something that takes will-power and this does not. No pressure of failing here.

I plan to record my current thoughts on life, the universe, and everything (in order not to forget the path I take arriving at where I currently am), as well as my current endeavors in the world of music & sound, and their relationship to neat electronic devices.

This weblog is named after an album by the Wayne Shorter Quartet.