Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

my music

More Screaming

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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.

Thoughts Right Now

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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.

Regrets

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Regrets [3.1MB] (Demo)

I claimed to want to record this all last month, but i just now got around to it. It’s still rough as hell, but it sounds exactly like what i’ve been hearing in my head (every fucking day) minus percussion. I personally prefer the version that clips my speakers so bad that i think they’re going to explode, but this one is more appropriate for general (non-destructive) consumption.

For those keeping score, that’s 3 of the new 18 songs recorded – except, i wrote a new one yesterday. So, 3/19.

Something More Tangible

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There are songs that I have been selfishly hoarding from you for quite a while now, content to let you think “Bucket Seat” was the last fully realized piece to emerge from my imagination – almost a year ago.

The reason for this obfuscation isn’t entirely intentional. Gone are the days when I’d pen something and Trio it just to work out the kinks; “Bucket Seat” appeared almost six months after its original conception. The chances of me writing and recording on the same day grow increasingly slim, as lately I’m lucky if I can make it through a full run of a song a month after I complete the lyrics. And, if it takes that long just to play it through, it’s taking me a much longer time to fully realize a tune.

The other result or, actually, causation of the song-drift is that my arrangements are becoming more deliberate. “Bender” languished even after I finished setting it to music because I knew its chorus wanted to be full of chords with non-standard voicings, but I couldn’t discern what they were. It took months of casual stabs, followed by one long night sitting on my bedroom floor, before I found quite how it was supposed to sound.

I have almost a whole album of new material sitting around, in various stages of completion. I’m a bit afraid of it, because its genre has proven to be unpredictable. “Are You” and “A Little Bit” are about as folky as I get, while “Bender” is of a more indy-rock persuasion (especially with those big ascending inverted 5ths at the end of the chorus). “Puzzle” and “Haze” are both straight-forward radio rockers that could probably use some added riffing, but “Crave” and “Caroline” seem to be shaping up to be Tori or Rufus style laments.

The straightforward riff and growl-to-soaring register of the vocals on “Regrets” could be straight off of a PJ Harvey disc, with the oft-played but ne’er recorded “Martyr” close behind on the scathing scale. “What’s the Use,” “Dream About Her,” and “Let It Be” are upbeat and cloying, almost a little too Jewel-like for me to enjoy playing them, whereas “I Would” is so languid that I can’t believe it came from my pen. “Crash Diet” could be country or complete grunge depending on my mood. “Sense” is ripped from those anonymous boy baritone-rockers who keep scoring single hits. Finally, “Ghost” still defies my description after a year of playing it, and “Strong” and “Automated” are too new to have yet settled on a consistent chord progression.

That’s eighteen songs in various stages of completion and performance. Eighteen! This from the boy who would otherwise have you convinced that he is mired in a year-long dry spell. Obviously this isn’t the case. The transformation in my musicality that I attribute to “Bucket Seat” was not actually from fecundity to drought, but from tossed-off inspiration to obsessed-over dedication – as it recorded it it insisted on being more than just a tossed off set of chords, and now that I’ve heard the results every new song clamors for similar treatment. “Are You” was simple enough to slip through the cracks, and “Blender” condescended to be released since I have no band in sight, but the others are shy and rare, shrinking from my gaze whenever I set about to pound out a new Trio.

Why am I saying all of this? Because, I want to be able to hear these songs, and for you to be able to hear them, and to do that they need to consent to be recorded in some form. Invoking them by name and genre here somehow makes them more tangible – asserting that they definitely do exist, and are waiting in the wings rather than floating like will-o-wisps around my head.