Crushing Krisis

Category Archives: acappella

Arranging “I Do Not Hook Up” for acappella (and, i don’t. anymore. or ever, really.)

Friday, April 10, 2009

E and I got the word last week that the Drexel Treblemakers were putting out a last call for arrangements for this year’s repertoire, which meant several all-nighters between the two of us.

The TMs are a contemporary acappella group, which E used to sing-for and music-direct when she was at Drexel. “Contemporary acappella” means that they recreate modern pop hits with just their voices.

As an example, here’s perhaps their best arrangement of all time, of the Beatles “Eleanor Rigby”:

When I say “arrangement,” I mean just that – an arrangement of notes that make up the composite song that comes out of the group. Acappella songs don’t happen out of thin air. Unless you’re in a group of the finest doo-wop singers around (each equipped with pitch-perfect ear and all egalitarian when it comes to choosing what instrument to sing) it takes some specifics to turn a pop song into an all vocal jam.

It’s the job of an arrangement to replicate the song for voices in the form of sheet music. As an arranger, you might take the approach of transcribing each specific instrument individually for voice, or you might prefer to address the overall tonality of the song instead. Either way, it’s hard work – especially if you’re doing it by ear rather than from print music for the song.

“By ear” means you sit down and pluck out every note that’s being made in the song, transcribing its pitch, rhythm, and dynamics, until you’ve got an entire song. An average 100-bar rock song in 4/4 with six voice parts offers circa 3000 notes to transcribe.

It’s even harder when arranging for an all-female group, because you have less dynamic range to work with. With a bisexual group you have men to sing the lowest of the lows – you can duplicate a guitar easily, and cover most bass parts (or create the illusion of them by maintaining the divide between the lowest note and the next highest note).

Even an all-guy group has a massive range – as a baritone I can reliable produce soprano Ds and higher, which means a group of 12 of me would only be half-an-octave shy of the highs of a girl group … but with an entire extra octave on the bottom (and that assumes all girl-groups will be able to sing down to a Baritone D, which most cannot. TMs has always been special in that regard).

Female groups have a reduced range, which makes it harder to arrange well for them. Thrashy rock songs rely on a lot of low Ds and Es, and most girl groups don’t have them. And, girl groups largely wuss out when it comes to vocal percussion.

Luckily, the TMs have never had those two problems, and have stretched to crazy lengths to accommodate my arrangements. I had my good buddy Sara singing low C#s on “Stay,” and our maid of honor Amanda doing sub-woofer rattling kick drums on “I Think I’m Paranoid.”

Both of us used to arrange like mad for the TMs when we were in school – we arranged two-thirds of their first CD (That page has sound-clips, and The TrebleMakers on MySpace has whole songs. Listen to “I Think I’m Paranoid” on the former, and “Rhiannon” on the latter – one of the best all-female acappella arrangements I’ve ever heard (not surprisingly, by my wife)).

Since we’ve graduated we always have a glut of songs we want to do for the TMs, and this year we actually finished two – the most we’ve done since 2006. I arranged Paramore’s “That’s What You Get,” and Erocked Ingrid Michaelson’s “Die Alone. Mine was good-but-wobbly when I first heard it; E’s sounds even better than the actual version.

We both wanted to do another song had been debating between Rilo Kiley’s “Portions for Foxes” and “Breakin’ Up.” The former – a guitar rocker – was more my speed, but the latter – a sparse, funky tune – was better for E.

When we got the word that the deadline was looming E forged ahead with “Breakin’ Up,” which left me songless. The group now includes singers born after the release of Like a Prayer, so digging out an old Madonna chestnut wasn’t necessarily the best option (and that means they were only ages 6-9 when most of my favorite female modern rock was on the radio – yikes).

In a pinch, I went to the path of least resistance: Kelly Clarkson.

I love her. TMs love her. Audiences know her stuff. Easy pick.

The lead single from her new disc All I Ever Wanted is “My Life Would Suck Without You,” which is a bit of a … hrm, how shall I phrase this … piece of tripe. It’s a straight-forward DDR stomper with an unsubtle melody and absolute crap lyrics.

The next single is scheduled to be “I Do Not Hook Up,” co-penned by Kate Perry & new AI judge Kara DioGuardi. You can see that Kelly is already rocking it pretty fiercely:

The lyrics are a bit dishwatery, but the music is awesome – like KC fronting Fall Out Boy. Once I got past some of the lamer turns of phrase it was insta-love, listening to it ten times a day.

Last Thursdayish, on perhaps listen number six of the day and while contemplating if I could really arrange it for TMs due to the spread of notes in that main riff, I realized something major – the chorus is the same damn thing as “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down,” just a whole step higher. You can sing the melodies of each interchangeably.

Go ahead, try it.

Acappella groups love medleys, and I didn’t think the TMs could resist the next KC single combined with FOB’s biggest hit. My mind was made up. I walked home on Friday singing the bass notes of the song over and over, and began arranging as soon as I was in the door.

In crazy-record time – under 72 hours – I arranged the entire song by ear. That’s a big leap from the months it took my to do “Stay,” which started out as guitar tab on a cocktail napkin.

I started out sketching in as many of the bass notes as I could, skimping on rhythm unless it was important (which it is with the walks on the chorus), and then adding the vocals. I find that to be the easiest way to get started with a by-ear arrangement, as everything else has to fit between the two.

Afterward I went back to layer in the guitar riffs, heard mostly in the verses, before wrestling with chorus harmony Kelly notoriously stacks multiple harmony notes and auto-tunes them to sit tightly together, which makes it nearly impossible to pick them out. It’s more of a best guess situation, and I needed the guitars first so I’d have a litmus test for if I got the harmony wrong.

Finally, I fleshed out the interior chords of chorus and the remainder of bass rhythms, as well as brought the bridge to life. I spent the remainder of Sunday and Monday splitting instruments intro appropriate voice parts, fudging the riffs a bit where necessary to sound smoother for voice, and adding the “SWGD” medley to the bridge.

I finally gave in to sleep and needing to do other stuff, emailing the group my arrangement without all of the lyrics, syllables, and dynamics. I told them I’d go back and add them if they picked it.

TMs chose new tunes last night, and both “IDNHU w/SWGD” and “Breakin’ Up” were on their list. We’re still waiting to hear if either of our tunes made it in to the repertoire.

And that’s where I was through Monday night. Next up: open mics, impromptu press kits, twitter addictions, and impending broadway auditions.

Also filed in college, kelly clarkson | | Comments (3)

Trio Season 6 – Suite #6: Instants

Monday, November 10, 2008

Trio: Season Six, Suite #6: Instants
All This Time, Time Is Running Out (Muse), Will It Ever Come?

This Trio almost wound up being titled “Primer” because of the following three quotes:

On being primed:
If you’ve ever read an interview with a songwriter … you’ll hear a repeated theme: that you have to constantly be writing, and constantly be revising and playing. It seems sortof counter-intuitive, because at some point you’ve written a certain amount of material, and you feel like you should be playing or rehearsing that material. But … when you have a new idea it’s much more easy to capture that idea.

It’s funny that you can apply any kind of science to songwriting. You spend a lot of years as a songwriter thinking it’s just lightning that strikes you, but there are things you can do to make yourself more of a lightning rod.

All This Time
When the chorus came in my head I literally walked to the piano and played the entire song in one go and wrote the lyrics. It all happened in 30 minutes. … Effectively the whole song came at once. It was because I was primed. That’s the challenge, you know? You have to be working on songs to have other songs that work.

Will It Ever Come?
Much like “All This Time,” it came at this point that I was very primed, in the summer of 2000. I wrote a lot of what are still my favorite songs at that time … songs that I really still play very frequently. And this one was kindof in the middle, and it just got ignored. It was at the very beginning of Crushing Krisis and I blogged the lyrics. [Ed note: Literally; I wrote them out in nine minutes in the Blogger window. They were my 81st post.]

The next year when I went into the recording studio … I can honestly say I don’t know that ever played it before. And we did it in one take.

Lyrics and chords for “Time Is Running Out” are behind the cut. Read more…

Trio – the original singer-songwriter web session – returns for its sixth season featuring my original music, recorded live and DIY in my bedroom. You can download this Trio, grab the single of “All This Time,” or listen to a previous Trio:

Suite 6: Instants [15:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Also filed in Season 6, Year 09, college, laurel, piano, radiohead, songwriting | | Comments (2)

Where selflessness and procrastination collide

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

When I was in Boston with Erika she told me she likes to read CK when it is about my personal misadventures, rather than static ruminations or recaps of rocking Arcati Crisis shows.

That was two weeks ago today, on my birthday, although I just now typed “a week ago,” because I’ve definitely misplaced some of the intervening days. I’m not sure where they went – I haven’t been making many plans or playing much music – but they are gone.

Apparently spending days at a rapid rate just makes the passing of them easier – just like I’ve easily written more than 12,000 words today and now I can’t seem to stop writing.

Last Tuesday is the last day I can get a distinct fix on without referring to old emails or a calendar. I know I spent the day at work, plus another six hours working remotely because I felt like “tidying,” and that I subsequently spent three hours copy-editing my mother’s 536-word college paper. Not that it involved much copy-editing. Moreso, it was that I wrote her a ridiculous 1300-word rumination on her assignment and how she could marginally improve it, as it was already awesome.

(She claims that I did not get writing from her, but she is one of the most natural writers I know. She writes exactly how she speaks. It’s uncanny.)

On Wednesday Elise and I collected our pal Anna and crashed the auditions for our acapella alma mater, The TrebleMakers. Well, we didn’t crash, really. It was more like we were uninvited, creepy, old guests with valid, non-binding input on the audition process. I was wearing one of my larger suits and sporting some facial hair, the combination of which I’m sure projected the impression of a rumpled old man who just rolled out of bed in his pajamas.

(Think about this for a minute, my friends: the girls who are auditioning for TMs as freshmen were born after the release of “Like a Prayer.”)

As per usual, any encounter between us and acappella results in unparalleled excitement and lust for our harmony-singin’ glory days (which actually only ended in 2006). It also results huge laundry lists of songs we’d like to arrange – this time headed by “That’s What You Get” by Paramore and “Breakin’ Up” by Rilo Kiley.

Whereas usually such larks are promptly forgotten, on Thursday I fell ill completely out of the blue and spent the day home from work, during which I arranged like the unstoppable 2004-me that had a hand in a fourth of the arrangements on the TM’s last CD.

(Then there is my heavily documented debate coverage, followed by a frantic 24-hours of strategic planning between E & I that has not yet yielded our first (non-political) freelance website but might still, soon.)

Our weekend was consumed by more arranging and kitten-mania. Yes, the kittens from earlier this summer are back in our yard, and have been for at least a week – sleeping in flower pots and causing all manner of mischief in our box planters.

Having spent a childhood raptly absorbing The Price Is Right, I decided it was my personal calling from Bob Barker to have the kittens spayed or neutered, and hopefully adopted. All weekend I colluded with Elise to capture them, at one point setting up a complex Fudd-esque “kitten blind” behind our back door.

Elise finally caught the trio of them in a complex gambit involving a pet carrier and… well, mostly just the pet carrier. Subsequently, in my infinitesimal wisdom I elected to release all three of them into our powder room without calling to see if shelters had room available, or researching what is entailed in fostering a feral cat.

Yes, feral. Feral, and raised on the mean streets of South Philadelphia.

They don’t seem very feral in the “scary & rabid” sense. They mostly just huddle under our sink and stare dolefully when I stop by to feed them. However, they certainly are feral in the “not digging on humans” sense, which is going to make it hard to get them out from under said sink to fulfill the mission set out for me plainly after every Showcase Showdown.

I spent the majority of last night placing said calls and undertaking said research, to generally no avail. As for today, I worked my typical no-lunch-break-and-extra-hours day, fielded a few unhelpful calls from pet shelters, and then headed home for an unlikely duet of kitten wrangling and drafting various Lyndzapalooza promotional strategies (at least a dozen, last time I counted).

Which brings us to this unlikely hour, and my belabored point.

In the past week I have worked extra hours, proofread and critiqued, crashed and input, arranged and recapped, strategized and arranged some more, caught and herded, called and researched, and wrangled and drafted.

All of that, and yet I have not contacted anywhere about tuxedos for our wedding, submitted two months of transit receipts for reimbursement, or scheduled a much-needed dermatologist appointment to combat the disconcerting red splotches that have overtaken each of my laugh lines.

Was I procrastinating on all three of those tasks before my whirlwind week overtook me? Sure, at least a little. But, in the past week I really wanted to do all three. I tried! I gathered papers and picked phones off their cradles. I just never found a window open enough to accommodate the completion of any one of the tasks, let alone three.

A week later I have plenty to show for my continued procrastination, but not much of what I’m showing does anything to help me.

Am I spending my time selflessly because I am so good at procrastinating? Or, do I find myself procrastinating because I am committed to spending my time selflessly.

Excuse me while I sleep on it.

Also filed in elise, erika, madonna, memories, mom, stories, teevee, thoughts | | Comments (1)

More Screaming

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

What a beautiful day!

Okay, enough positivity, now for more introspection. This weekend reminded me of two things that I know and say all the time, but don’t put into practice nearly enough.

First, not coincidentally, is practice makes perfect – whether it’s practicing your singing or practicing what you preach. After a lengthy runs on some of my lesser played songs this weekend, my voice is warm and limber. The only way to keep it that way is to use it every day.

Second, the only reason to be afraid of an honest critique is if you deny its veracity (on some level, at least). This was evoked by two things specifically – a rather comedic exchange between a book-reviewer and a nasty Christian-publishing-house rep, and a reviews of an Off the Beat CD.

In the case of the former, the publisher just can’t take a negative review, and rather being constructive and trying to build a relationship with the reviewer, the rep lashes out. Repeatedly. In the case of the latter, former OTB music director Ethan Fixell took the lament that Off the Beat’s 2002 CD entailed too much “screaming” as a compliment – he and the group half-jokingly titled the next disc “More Screaming.”

How much truth existed in either review? Was the book truly that terrible? Who knows. I don’t think Off The Beat does all that much screaming – they just like to produce records that sound as authentically rock as the songs they cover. To a trained a cappella reviewer, though, that might come off an awful lot like screaming. I am sure that in each critique there was some element of truth, but for the artist it was how that truth was handled that was most important.

I can’t be afraid to record songs just because my voice is imperfect. It won’t get any better unless I sing, and hear myself singing; it’s unreasonable to expect perfection. Maybe I’m going to be flat, or scoop a lot, or use too many diphthongs – but, maybe I’ll convey exactly what the song means to say. And, once I do that, I have to be willing to hear all about those flat, scooped diphthongs, and to either own up to them or proudly say, “I meant it that way.”

Then, only then, will I get better.

Also filed in my music, self-critique, weblinks | | Comments (0)

(to find love is to know love)

Monday, April 4, 2005

My ability to be complimentary has been faltering, fading fast. After it, all that will be left is to analyze, to criticize, but not to enjoy.

Ask me about the last good record i bought. I’m not sure, but i can tell you about the last bad record i bought. The last five bad ones, actually.

This is just a small example. Actually, I am unconvinced that i will be able to like anything anymore in the very near future. As for my example, I’ve all but given up on buying records (one of the few true pleasures of my life; ask anyone) because all i seem to be able to do is dislike them. Going to a cappella concerts has become a sort of critical duty, as i am almost assured to whisper nasty things about them the entire time to whoever deigns to sit next to me. Riding elevators inevitably leads to a lengthy internal monologue about ugly hair styles, lamentable posture, and why some people even bother to get out of bed in the morning

My newfound inability to enjoy much of anything is infecting my free time. Why see a movie? Why eat at a new restaurant? So insidious is it that it has crept into my own art. Why record a song if it won’t be perfect? Why write at all if your words are not fully-realized and crystalline?

From there it is only a few steps to complete self-imposed isolation. Why talk to your friends if you have nothing nice to say? Why care what i’m wearing if i’ll be ugly anyway?

Have i spent all of my compliments already, along with my self-esteem? You’ve met me, so surely you’re familiar with both – at some point i’ve probably told you how wonderful, or fabulous, or beautiful you are, and you’ve surely witness me in some act of supreme confidence and hubris. Have i spent that all before my quarter-life crisis? Splurged, even, so that there is nothing left but scant ‘decents’ and ‘it was okays’?

After last month’s a cappella concert at Drexel i spent an hour or two mercilessly outlining the indelible failures that each group displayed during their performance. In the middle of this assured diatribe Maggie or Ed (i forget which; perhaps both) looked right at me (through the back of the seat or from the corner of his eye on the road, respectively) and said, “I enjoyed it because we saw a bunch of people doing what they love to do. It doesn’t matter how good they were.”

I spent some time thinking about that tonight. We saw a fun, decent mixed acappella group whose guest performer was a local singer-songwriter. Leah Kauffman. In the program she described her influences as “Laura Nyro, Fiona Apple, Joni Mitchell, and Elliott Smith.” I was first excited to hear her, and then almost immediately afterwards hostile and skeptical – how could she do anything but let me down.

She was pretty, shy but not slight, and told us she would start with a cover from Blue. Her “A Case of You” stuttered, as she plucked chords rather than strumming, and faltered slightly on that riff that traverses the length of the guitar neck. She allowed the song to taper off after the last chorus, muttering that she messed it up. After three more songs (two at the piano, and another on guitar) she slipped off stage, and the lights came up for intermission.

I am known for my ferocious reviews of singer-songwriters, but after the performance i could say nothing bad about Leah. She is 19, and she is not perfect, and she meant every word she sang to us.

She made me think of Maggie/Ed’s comment, and how i have lately lost that wonder in my life, and about something i used to say to explain why i liked singer-songwriters rather than big-voiced artists like Whitney or Mariah. “The art is in the imperfection.”

It is strangely-shaped in my mind as i mull it, unfamiliar in my mouth as i tongue its shape. If it wasn’t for Leah, i fear i might have never remembered it at all.

Leah told me that her website was broken, but took my email address she so could send me some songs.

I am glad still have the capacity to like something.

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Thoughts Right Now

Monday, February 21, 2005

Do you remember when i would just sit in my horrid little apartment sophomore year, just banging out as many posts as i had thoughts? Today i feel like that, only less horrid. I cleaned. I bought groceries. I took that pile of books to the used bookstore. I have every right in the world to sit and transcribe thoughts until sundown, at which point i’m going to a BYOB Mexican restaurant to drink margaritas on a work-night against my better judgment.

Anywho, allow me to digress to the though i came here to transcribe: I sometimes wonder what my co-workers do when they go home.

I mean, we see what i’m doing right now, and it’s not all that impressive, but it’s something. Some of them have children, so that pretty much explains what they’re up to. The rest? Some like sports, some go to gyms, some engage in serial home-repair. One creates terrific bead work that i’m going to make a website for sooner or later. Aside from her, though, rarely do i hear about anyone’s personal projects (aside from buying tickets, or getting in shape, or putting up gold-plated gutters).

Surely they must have projects – we are all comm people, after all – defined by our interest in devouring a enormous subset of all things, and governed by secret wishes to be star reporters or gossip rousers. Surely they must have a novel in draft form, or an article, or an experiment in social engineering. Something.

I try to ferret something out of them, but they are either entirely inscrutable or they really do just hang out and watch television every night. It’s hard for me to imagine it – being defined just by what i do during the day. It seems like a horrid fate.

We all know about my songwriting habit, and my blogging hobby, but in the last few weeks i’ve been working just as much on two others, one of which is arranging music. When you arrange a song, you have to listen to it many, many, many times. You have to listen for pitches and rhythms, tonality and feel. Sometimes you have to listen at half speed, or with a section looped indefinitely. You have to listen until your brain and fingers have absorbed the sound, and can recreate it in standard notation, however inefficient it seems at the time.

Before i ever knew about a cappella music or polyphony or even, hell, arranging, i used to arrange Tori Amos songs for guitar. I didn’t really understand what i was teaching myself at the time – i would just sit with the sheet music in my lap and slowly transcribe it into a single staff of guitar tab. Sometimes it was physically unplayable, but my software would still play it, allowing me to hear what six separate guitarists playing one string each could make of a Tori song.

At the time i barely could read music, let alone transcribe pitches and rhythms by ear. Over half a decade later I just listen to “Since U Been Gone” more than 200 times and somehow, after more than a dozen hours of magical effort, i have an arrangement.

When they return my question, volleying: well, what’s your hobby, that always sounds so insubstantial. And, right now, it is. But, by god, the TrebleMakers will perform it live at a cappella fest 2005 or lose their voices trying, and then it will be real and alive and in the air, and i’ll know just why i spent a whole week of my live living, breathing, and singing every element of that damn song.

As for my other hobby, you can have a hint: inebriated cinema. I dare not say any more, because i… erm… have to go and fix the broken thing that Gina just found.

Also filed in corporate, guitar, meta, my music, thoughts | | Comments (0)

Monday, May 17, 2004

Also filed in audiopost, college, gina, theatre | | Comments (0)

Saturday, October 5, 2002

Elise actually had me convinced for a moment that i might be growing a tail, but after a few solid hours of slouching around reading Durkheim’s Suicide i’m starting to think that i’ve grown a tiny callous at the base of my spine to protect it from hard wooden chairs. Elise went on to point out that dinosaurs’ sometimes had “helper brains” located at the base of their tail to help communicate information to their brains in a more expedient fashion. This, she claimed, would mean the difference between “ouch, my tail seems to be on fire” and “mmm, do i smell cookies?”

Durkheim’s Suicide is a fascinating (and decidedly unmorbid) look at the Sociological phenomena that can be statistically correlated to the rate of suicide in late nineteenth century Europe. It works on the supposition that suicide can be view as an entirely unpsychologically motivated act — or at least that an individual’s reasons to commit such an act are entirely outweighed by the causal factors associated with their role in society as a person, worshipper, spouse, and so forth.

The remainder of this post will strive to address neither the topic of evolutionary adaptation nor the topic of one’s place in society can dictate behavior more than their personal intent. However, it is definitely about both. Sortof.

(If you don’t know me at all you probably should just skip down to the last post to avoid too much incoherent rambling).

As of two years ago today i had only completed three music courses on a collegiate level. None of them went towards improving my vocal skills. I was fully aware of that fact, and though i strove to improve both my volume and pitch on my own i had already begun to do the same through coursework. In 2001 i earned the ability to record in Drexel’s digital studio, and it was during the mixing of Relief that i became enamored with the idea of joining 8 To The Bar.

8 To The Bar is Drexel’s all-male acappella group. They’re about as close as one can get to being a certifiable Drexel Rock Star. I mixed Relief simultaneously with 8ttB’s studio album that Spring, sometimes literally finding both of our material on a single ADAT tape. The group’s then-president (and my co-producer) Bill spent the entire week coaxing excellent performances out of me, partially resulting in a tacit attempt to convince me that my voice could be used as more than just an implement of singer-songwriter angst. I, for the most part, disagreed.

In the weeks to come i found myself watching in jealously and awe as 8 To The Bar added new members — almost all of them in my singing range. It had never occurred to me to audition. The grace saving me from actual disappointment about this were The Treblemakers — 8ttB’s just-formed female counterparts. The Treblemakers were composed almost exclusively of my close friends (save for Selina), and as they began rehearsing i quickly became their groupie-at-large … locating errant members after practice began, fetching extra photocopies, and reserving seats for them at the 8ttB concert. By the following fall i was an actual member of the TM’s, albeit an honorary one, and i still gave no though to auditioning for 8ttB despite them adding two more people who sing the same voice part as me in addition to our collective friend Dante, to whom i cannot claim any semblance of vocal comparison.

As 8 To The Bar’s membership became updated, so did The Treblemaker’s … adding one of my roommates, one of the first people i met at Drexel, and one of my best friends. As the group’s membership shifted so did my honorary “role” … I went from being a photocopier to an arranger, and from fetcher of members to emergency practice percussionist. However, when the curtain went up i was still a seat filler rather than a performer — one role completely alien to me..

Yesterday night the girls held their yearly audition, and as of Monday morning they will officially be up to full vocal power. Meanwhile, 8 To The Bar is pretty much at full vocal power, but they’re also auditioning. In fact, auditions are Monday night right after Choir, as an email supplied by the 8ttB webmaster conveniently informed me this afternoon. From various grapevines i have heard that they’re looking for either a couple of exceptional tenors or as many as five or six new members. As tempting as this might seem, the odds really aren’t in my favor: i don’t have a stronger voice or range than any of the baritones currently in the group, and my reading and performing skills are equal at best to any basses who are planning to show up. But, for once, i’m actually considering the possibility of showing up.

Monday, effectively, is it. I’m in my second to last year at Drexel, and i vocally scratched and clawed my way into choir. Although i am by no means a fully qualified bass or baritone soloist, i am for the first time entirely capable of being a member of 8 To The Bar, and that leaves me with a choice: I can spend Monday night making them believe that i’m only not a part of the group yet because i haven’t tried out, or i can give it up entirely and get comfortable in my seat.

So many words to describe such an agonizingly small decision; it all comes down to a simple question of “will i, or won’t i.” Will is putting myself out on a line much more personal than the ones i’ve toed in auditions for theatre and choir, and won’t is admitting that after two years of becoming more musical i’m still not musical enough.

I really don’t want to grow a tail.

Also filed in betterment, college, elise | | Comments (0)

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

I am the sort of person that, once i have something fixed in my head, it overwhelms everything else in my life. That’s what happens when i ‘crush’, so to speak. I can safely reveal to you that this sort of attention is rarely paid to anything resembling work. When i’m at work i can become so focused on something that i’ll skip lunch breaks and leave later than expected, and i have been known to grow so engrossed in writing a paper that i forget to sleep or use the bathroom. However, the way crushing works is that it subverts other intended activities — and getting the records organized at work never crosses my mind when i’m working on a decent logic puzzle in the same way that writing a paper usually doesn’t distract me from writing a song.

Having spent all that time setting up what doesn’t usually distract me to no end, now let me (predictably) contradict myself: in the past week an official job i have has superseded everything else i could possibly be doing: working, sleeping, eating, spending time with Elise, and even getting near Blogger. The job, as it were, is to arrange Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” a cappella for eight or more women’s voices so that everything about the song – guitars, drums, harmony, et al – is represented in full by the singers.

It was not easy. In fact, looking back over the last week i would say i’ve easily spent upwards of fifteen hours on this barely three minute song with its half-octave of lead vocal notes and its five essential chords. Fifteen hours in front of my computer playing back the same collections of three and four measures back over and over as i first change a sixteenth note to an eighth note, and then from a major fourth to a major third of harmony.

Almost a solid day’s worth of arranging later and i have suddenly realized that Drexel had managed to teach me something, because i couldn’t do any of this three years ago – or even two. Possibly not even one. I haven’t mentioned it lately, but i’m currently in choir. Yes, choir. Singing in a group of over twenty people, some of whom are very highly distinguished singers who have been in such groups for well over a decade. I, by contrast, have been in such a group for going on five weeks. I start each session frazzled and rigid and end each one relieved and smiling and ready to belt out just about anything.

Conclusion? Some things do change, but the most basic of things always wind up the same.

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Sunday, March 3, 2002

There is someone asleep in my shower.

Actually, he’s not in my shower… he’s more half-in my shower, with his legs splayed out over my seafoam green rug in such a way that i cannot possibly get in to grab my toothbrush and face wash.

Apparently it was a good party.

I’ve never thrown a party before; the small gathering i arranged last month paled in comparison to this one. This, though, was a party … furniture rearranging, obsessive vacuuming, nearly eighty assorted jello shots, fifty dollars just in soda and chips, and two refrigerators full of assorted beer-like substances. I have yet to figure out how many people were here… twenty just from assorted a cappella groups, another ten certified friends of the house, and lots of random non-house friends. A large group of people, to be sure. And, funny things, too. For one, our extra room got turned into a concert hall when i brought all but two of my guitars out to play, and sudden i was being treated to a whole spectrum of songs — from a multiple-MC version of “That Thing” to what amounted to a full-band treatment of “The Only Gay Eskimo.” Recitals of Weezer songs upstairs. Me parading around nearly naked with a pair of underwear on my head.

I didn’t drink a drop.

Right now everything that i spent all day cleaning looks like it was swept over with an alcohol tinged cyclone, and we three roommates have decided to not do a damned thing about it until tomorrow morning when we wake up.

I don’t suppose that our friend in the shower is opposed to the plan.

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Thursday, May 17, 2001

The sky is so very grey that i feel like it’s drowning out all the reds and oranges in my personality and just leaving me calm with layers of blue and purple with maybe just a peak of yellow underneath. Or, maybe i just didn’t get quite enough sleep last night and am looking for an excuse to be low-key. Life is moving by very quickly as of late and i’m just trying to put in an appearance in every day and hour so i can at least say i was in on it even though it will be a blur in my memory.

I seem to be performing in a bar on campus tonight for an hour but i couldn’t explain to you how that happened if you were to ask me so you probably shouldn’t. I’ll get a weekly invite if i do well with the patrons this week and next, so if you have id (that’s identification, not the thing that hides underneath the ego and the superego and makes you all primal and stuff) you should come (Buffalo Bill’s, 35th and Lancaster, $5 cover, i’m on near 11pm). Also, my beloved Treble Makers are singing at the Drexel a capella show Saturday @ 4pm in Mandell Theatre, and they’re much cooler than i am even after you allow for the fact that there’s 10 of them and just the 1 of me. But, enough advertisement.

If one thinks ahead (i know, it’s frightening) to me actually being asked to show up with my guitar on a weekly basis, one would realize i’ll eventually have to get up off my ass and learn some new cover songs to play. In the last 24 hours i happen to have learned three, but that’s mostly because i just got an Ani DiFranco guitar book in my teeny metal mailbox and so now i am in study to eventually have an entire set just of Ani DiFranco songs (as if anyone can really tell the difference). I’ll definitely be Trioing my new covers this weekend, so keep an ear out for them. Should be interesting.

In a tangent tangentially related to my slow but sure musical growth and exploration, Gina seems to be moving into the apartment directly above mine for the summer (after which point i’m probably moving out). The ramifications of having Gina and I stacked one on top of the other with all of our various guitars and cds and things are rather exciting (probably more like terrifying to our neighbors), and life should definitely get more interesting. Or maybe just louder. We shall see. But, speaking of vertical neighbors, my downstairs neighbor randomly showed up at my door last night while my mother was fussing over my newly installed air conditioner, and a strange and uneasy conversation ensued. I have never been one to have guests over, especially on zero notice, so my entire third of the conversation seemed to be geared at getting one or more of us to exit the apartment. It’s not that i’m unfriendly, i’m just not really used to people being in my space. But, downstairs neighbor is very sweet and she likes to listen to me through the ceiling, so i won’t begrudge her some time standing on my threshold talking about where to get good 2for1 deals on whole frozen chickens with my mother.

Wow, that post got much more literal as it went along.

Even the music i brought with me to work today is sorta greyish sounding, and it’s all new so it’s just flying past my ears as i try to absorb some little pieces of it. But, i think i come here to actually work, as odd as that might sound, so i’m off for now, into the grey. Wish me luck.

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Saturday, May 12, 2001

You know, sometimes resolve in one part of a song is just a bridge to more tension in the rest of it (which is really what “Bridge” is about musically and lyrically). Remember when i said i had resolve with Selina? Well… that was resolve on our whole post-romance situation, which leaves us now just as casual friends who happen to share two common months of history. But, i’m finding out that doesn’t mean all that much.

The sad thing is that i never learned to like Selina as her own self, just as who she was when she was with me, and now that i get to observe her without me and with me (but not with me) i’m finding out that i don’t like anything about her at all. Today i totally blew up at her in the middle of our fraternity car wash (i’ll get to that…) to the point where i think some of the other members got inbetween us in case i decided to go berserk and pummel her. Honestly, it’s like now that i have resolve about never wanting to be back with her and knowing that she’s moved on to someone else, i don’t feel as though i have to treat her delicately or pull any punches. She’s honestly no one i’d ever be able to be friends with, and i honestly think i can manage to dislike her. Maybe just if i try real hard…

I wasn’t allowed to sing along to songs on the radio at points while dating her because my pitch wasn’t good enough for her. That’s one of the meanest things anyone’s ever done to me. Last night she told me in the middle of a party that i “was allowed to sing to Ani songs, but not to that song” and i just turned around and told her to shut up. The ironic part? For all of her many talents, Selina is far and away not one of the better singers i know. She goes flat every run-through of her song with the a capella group and she can’t sight read her parts – and she’s so busy bitching about her many inabilities and issues that i learn the parts from shutting my mouth and opening my ears before she ever even tries to read the music.

Sorry you’re having to read all of this … there’s really no point. Or maybe there is … i hold all of the cards; i don’t like her, i don’t want to be nice to her, and i no longer feel belittled by any of her talents. I know now that i don’t have to like everyone, even if it makes me look bad. And, honestly, i don’t look all that bad.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2001

I just spent 12 more hours in the recording studio, interrupted only by a short lunch break where Bill and i debated the merits of Britney and Christina again those of Motown girl groups. Before lunch we finally nailed down Bill’s awe-inspiring all-vocal rendition of Rusted Root’s “Send Me On My Way” in all of its glory, and afterwards we started to play with my stuff.

First on the agenda was sorting through the “Under My Skin” backing vocals from last night, which was not easy. I had to go through each set of vocals to see what parts were keepers, then decide if any of the keeper parts would interfere with each other, then mix the keeps down to a separate tape. Next came the bass, which was all fuzzy and un-bass-like. We separated it into a clean acoustic bass (which it is) and the fuzzy electric sound and mixed the two versions to separate tracks on the mixdown tape. Finally, my vocals and the guitar were mixed down as is. So, the mixdown tape now is in possession of all of the right parts, but at none of the right volumes. I made a wan attempt before leaving the studio at getting all the volumes correct into a final mix for cd, but my vocals were too low and some of Laurel’s backing parts were fuzzed over. However, the rough draft mix might be the one that gets debuted on here… we shall see.

After much UMS foolery, we moved on to recording some other things. We decided the “Bridge” from last night sucked and tried it again once before giving up. Then we recorded (mostly in a single take) “Never Say Goodbye,” “Deadweight,” “Relief,” and an obscure new song “will it ever come.” “Never Say Goodbye” was a simple thing to do, whereas “Relief” was awful. It just sounds bad. My guitar has way to much treble for the sound i like from the song, and all of my vocals sounded disinterested. Nevertheless, i finished it and recorded a second take of vocals, and then mixed the song down with the best parts from each vocal. Yummy.

“Will It Ever Come” was weird. Bill was just waiting for me to do something, so i told him i was going to attempt something new and launched into it. What’s hard for me about the song is that there’s lots of little fills on the lower strings of my guitar which i tend to be rather random about, but the vocals must follow the guitar, so i have to duet on the fly with whatever i’m playing. I somehow made it through in one take, and as we started playing it back i found myself singing along in the next octave, so we recorded that too, and now i’m starting to think the octave version is going to be the lead vocal.

Our final endeavor of the night was overdubbing on “Never Say Goodbye,” which right now features two of me, a guitar, Bill, and two pianos. I was planning on just adding my own backups, but Bill seemed to have lots of good ideas that weren’t ever going to be coming out of my mouth, so we got him behind a mic a recorded. Bill’s harmonies were too-perfect at points – pulling me into that dreaded adult-contemporary sound that i am desperately avoiding, so i’m not going to use all of them. My backgrounds mostly involved me singing non-existant harmony and cursing, but there were several pretty bits that i saved. As for the pianos… i was just fiddling with our keyboard while Bill listened to his harmony mix, and he (almost without telling me) patched my fiddling into the tape. After my first pass through we made one more just to be safe, and then called it a night (the song is in “B,” so i basically just played B and all of the sharp keys. Lovely and simple…).

Anyhow, Bill’s off on his Spring Break now, but i’ve got sole possession of the studio until Monday morning, so i’m sure i’ll be spending all of my free time within it. Which means i’ll either starve to death or have my own cd by Monday. Aww yeah.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2001

From the studio: Mornings are for Bill’s all vocal rendition of Rusted Root’s “Send Me On My Way,” afternoons are for me. We ran out of tracks to record all of his a capella percussive glory, so we switched to a second tape, but for reasons i don’t really want to get into we couldn’t seuge up the two tapes, so now we’re doing it totally blind … trying to punch the percussion tracks in at the exact second we need them. Fun, eh? After this i think we’re headed to lunch, because i’m getting a bit loopy, and then it a marathon run through the rest of my demo, which should be simple compared to this and “Under My Skin.” Yeah. I’ll update you later….

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Monday, March 12, 2001

Bill (the Senior who i recorded with tonight, who happens to be the head of the aforementioned 8 to the Bar) seems to be convinced of my vocal talents despite the fact that i haven’t yet manifested any of them. At this point anyone online who has cared to hear me sing has heard me through the various audio on my site, and i think it’s clear that i’m not so bad as a potential indy rockstar but i’m not going to be cast in any musicals or super boy-groups anytime soon. Despite this, Bill claims on the strength of my old demo cd that i have a massive unlocked potential, and that as soon as i learn to sing with confidence and to support notes i will “have the kind of voice that gets cast as the lead in musicals.” Bill’s a nice guy, but i’ve never heard him build anyone else up in quite the same fashion as he does me. Either he thinks i need all the encouragement i can get (and i do), or he really has that much faith in me. Which is scary.

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Sunday, March 11, 2001

Wow, that was a long day. I’m not sure where it all went… i ushered for two concerts and talked a little bit to her and wound up in the recording studio engineering someone’s Senior Project.

Have you ever seen the second Batman movie? You know how Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle are dating each other and fighting each other as Batman and Catwoman at the same time? The scene that always stuck out for me is when they’re making out at Bruce’s place and as they grope each other they catch all of the scars that they’d left on each other in their battles. Of course, neither of them says anything since their identities are supposed to be secret.

I was thinking a lot about that scene today. I don’t know exactly why, but it just felt accurate… like each of us had our Superhero selves in public and only ever revealed our secret identities to each other when we were all alone – and now when we’re alone all we can do is poke and prod at each others wounds without the other ever being able to say a damn thing about it.

Does that metaphor work for you? For additional metaphorical material, see Ani DiFranco’s “Superhero” or “Pulse.”

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Thursday, March 8, 2001

I somehow forgot to mention the two neatest things that happened to me yesterday, and god knows they’re pretty neat. so excuse me while i switch into banal-blog mode to update you on some happenings in my life.

Firstly, i manged to snag myself vocal lessons for next semester. Now, i don’t know how much this shows through my incessant prattling, but i’ve wanted voice training for years. Long before i became musically inclined singing was one of my favourite things to do, but i was horrible at it and was constantly being persecuted by my friends for my lack of ability. Playing guitar gave me the most basic of confidences in singing, but i’m still unsure of myself when singing on my own and i still have no formal training on how to sing. So, the fact that one of our voice instructors wants to make time for me in her schedule is very cool.

A bigger compliment came from Bill Hull, who’s currently in charge of the aforementioned Eight to the Bar. I mentioned off-handedly to him that i was finally starting voice training and he replied that i ought to audition for the next opening in Eight to the Bar. Audition! For an all male a capella group that’s half composed of Vocal Music majors! I tried to deflect what i thought was an obvious attempt at flattery, but Bill was quick to point out that he is one of the few people on campus in possession of a copy of my demo, so he knows full well that i can actually sing when i put my mind to it. He tempered his compliment by admitting that i certainly have plenty of technique to learn from voice lessons, but then reiterated that i would stand a good chance of being a member of the group’s new lineup in the fall.

Eek. I’m not used to feeling this good about myself all at once. No wonder i keep writing songs tonight…

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Wednesday, March 7, 2001

Petland did indeed make it into our Battle of the Bands, somewhat due to the fact that i dragged Amy along with me to judge the bands knowing full well that her eyes would pop out of her head when she heard them. Yes – i’m a manipulative little bastard, and yes – i plan to love every second of their live set. Also confirmed were two local favourites: jazz hip-hop trio Fresh Batch and the hard-edged Dead Susan. Interestingly, both bands are fronted by members of the Drexel male a capella group Eight to the Bar, which seems to have no shortage of golden voiced guys to lend out to local bands. Their most recently acquired member was my fellow male lead in Good Woman of Setzuan, who plays guitars and drums after the fact of having an amazing tenor voice that i’ve been jealous of for an entire year now. Obviously i should be sucking up for the next spot in the group … but, oh, yeah, i should probably learn to sing first. I knew there was a problem…