Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

betterment

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I feel like staying at Drexel is like settling for obscurity. I will never be a rock star at Drexel. I will never be a Journalist at Drexel. I will never matter at Drexel. Is this defeatist? Maybe… but i don’t think so. I know i matter, but i just don’t know if i can make it happen here. Maybe that’s why i like the internet so much: for its ability to let me touch down in every city and town in the united states. What it comes down to is that i’m tied to Philadelphia, and the mere thought of leaving almost sends me into a fit of tears. If i transferred i would have to go to another city, and not just the outskirts of Philly or New Jersey. So, it might never happen. Justin is working on his transfer right now; last year in march i said i’d go with him. I still want to.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/2098373/

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Tonight, rather than blogging, i sat down and hammered out harmony vocals for “Never Say Goodbye” in midi (which involved me correctly writing it out as sheet music first, which is really freakin’ hard). They sound nice enough, but for them to get recorded i have to actually be able to sing them, which is a different problem entirely. I can sing well enough, but when i sing while listening to anything else my range tends to be restricted to notes matching the sounds around me. As such, almost all of my songs have melodies that are directly derived from their chord structure, and visa versa. To dub harmony vocals onto a song i have to hit all of the notes perfectly in regards to length and pitch. Then i have to go back and sing something totally different overtop of myself! I’ve never tried to do anything that provides the same sort of distracting sensation as attempting to vocalize something new while hearing myself sing something old. I have to disagree with what i already sang! Anyhow, i began working all that out tonight, and as you can see it’s not going to get any easier.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/1926813/

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Ugh. I really don’t know if i can truly survive this semester. It’s actively trying to kill me. If i am still breathing at the end of 10weeks and i haven’t dropped out of school yet then i’ll be a better person for it. I have the keys to the studio this week, and i’m gonna try to smuggle out some audio for you! Also, i’ve been practicing for an all-cover-song trio, and it’s gonna rock. Yay! I need positive thoughts right now. Ok… this is insipidly boring. G’nite.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/01/1866491/

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i have the oddest singing range: not high enough to sing along to the high parts of tenor vocals, but not low enough to sing most female parts an octave low. In a way i’m a bit intimidated by my higher range, because i’ve got to belt stuff out for it to come out on pitch. I always approach the notes from underneath for some reason, makes me sound shaky, so it’s either a shaky approach or a blind wailing of the note in question. Either way, it ends absolutely at E unless i venture into falsetto, even if i’m totally warmed up. Usually it’s more like D. However, it used to be C, so i’m getting better. Still not high enough to follow all of the Tenors i listen to (Peter Mulvey comes to mind; i can hit *most* of his notes) though i can sorta sing along with aimee mann note for note, but it gets sketchy on choruses. No word yet on the range of the song i have to sing in Good Woman of Setzuan.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1644353/

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Trio is a unique and mostly spontaneous thing, and i’d just like to emphasize that point. This week marks the twelfth concert of three unedited (and mostly unrehearsed) songs i’ve performed for this site, and out of the 36 songs that have appeared so far there have only been 4 repeated songs and 3 covers (two of them in #3). That means i’ve performed 29 original songs. Now, i am both modest and honest, so i can tell you that not every one of those songs is amazing. Sure, there are ones like “crashing” and “never say goodbye” that stand out as great compositions and performances and all that, but then there are those songs like this week’s “fad” and “burn” that are just not quite there. Both of them have their moments, but they both have some other (clunkier) moments where they lose your attention or make evident the fact they they never got “finished.” But, that’s sorta the point of trio; obviously with as much writing as i do not every song gets “finished,” but whether or not the song is set in stone this lets me bounce it to a few willing ears. Last week’s performance of two brand new untested songs drew a ton of positive feedback and really encouraged me to work on both tunes despite previously giving up on them. So… you really are changing my sound by responded to my performances, and whenever my next demo disc is finished you will hear the difference. So, thanx. xoxoxox

https://crushingkrisis.com/2000/12/1618095/