Welcome to the Sea of Echoes

I’ve been setting up to play some more guitar but ran into a problem translating songs between the six string drop-D tuning I use on guitar and the ADADG tuning on my five-string bass.  So I decided to try to tune my guitar down to ADADG tuning and relearn a couple of songs. 

The advantages of this tuning are :

• the two low pairs of strings are copies of AD, so you can hop octaves just by moving across strings instead of across and up.
• I dont have to relearn any drop-D songs or scales that I already know (this is how I got to ADAD in the first place)
• Since I’m forced to use different fingerings I might stumble on some unique sounding riffs

Disadvantages:

• I cant use standard guitar chords or scales
• Learning new songs will be harder because I cant use standard tab
• the low A string on the bass sounds funny - especially tuned down 1/2 step you really only hear the overtones - this is true on the guitar as well

I’ve thought of going to a tuning in fourths like ADGCE.  If I used that I could use standard guitar fingerings, i’d just have to shift the roots five frets. 

I’ll stick with this another week or so and see how it goes - it’s good to stretch the mental muscles a bit.  So what kind of triads can we build with this tuning?  Here goes:

Major triads

Scale degrees indicated by number:

The root position chords actually sound pretty full once you get four strings going and it’s not too hard to shift major and minor.  They are for the most part just variations of the C shape,

Minor chords require very slight modifications:

Minor

Note that its very easy to find chords with repeated roots and fifths, but getting a single major third with the root on the D-string is tough.

I’ve been playing music seriously now for about four years and it still suprises me how every few months a new dimension opens in my perception. 

At first I was content to simply play the right notes in a chord to some kind of tempo.  After that came microtiming, timbre, attack, degree of legato, the level of stress in chords and intervals, anticipation and suprise in rhythmic phrases, the hemiola.  The list of musical features goes on and on.

Today I want to reflect on a the physical feeling one gets when hearing or producing sounds.  We all know that there are many notes to choose from and that there are overtones of each note at multiples of the fundamental frequency.  Recently I’ve started noticing that certain overtones seem to stimulate certain areas of the physical body, especially when sung, and that these areas might have emotional effects.

For example one day I was watching Rage Against the Machine at a concert and I was struck (literally) by a pounding feeling in my chest every time the kick drum went off.  It seemed that the sound of the kick drum was somehow linked to the resonant frequency of my chest cavity, and perhaps this is the function of the kick drum - so that when the kick fires it is playing not only the air at 30-60Hz, but also playing the chests and hearts of everyone in range.   Consider this then, that vibrations in this 30-60Hz band map to a physical space in the lungs or chest.

On the opposite end I was mixing some vocal tracks and noticed an unpleasant nasal quality to some vowels which could be removed by adding a band stop filter around 2kHz.   (Or by singing slightly differently).  So perhaps the nasal resonance is near this frequency and produces an attention-getting, but slightly annoying quality.  Think of Axel Rose singing “Sweet Child of Mine” - you’ll definitely notice him, but I dont think it would lull anyone to sleep.

It is possible to think of the human vocal tract as a vibrating string with low tones low in the torso and higher tones in the throat or head.  Higher pitches require higher levels of tension to produce and probably result in higher tension in the listener.  I wonder if we could show some other physiologial effects by considering vibrations at different frequencies.

Here’s a rough map of frequency to body position:

• C3 (131Hz) - deep chest
• C4 (262Hz) - middle of the throat
• F#4 - this is the natural tension-free note for my voice
• C5 (524Hz) - back of nasal passages
• C6 (1.04kHz) - top of the nose

Questions:

• What is the natural frequency of the chest cavity or heart?
• If the deep chest sounds stop at 100Hz or so, what areas of the body are stimulated by deep bass (30Hz)?

I often find that I get lost when counting rhythms.   When I was in band, they taught us to count this way:

one-e-and-a two-e-and-a three-e-and-a four-e-and-a

The problem comes when you skip a lot of downbeats, it’s hard to remember which beat you’re on.  I’m going to try counting with this system for a while:

one-e-and-a

two-ti-tan-tuh

three-de-dan-duh

four-ve-van-vuh

I used the version of the closest consonant that is easy to say fast.  

Ok - i decided to check out the tc helicon “correct” voice processor a little more to see what it is doing and to figure out how to get the 2kHz boost that I need to cut.

One of the problems I have is that the device gets jostled in my gig bag so all the settings get changed each time I take it out.  I definitely think that theres a lot of coolness to the textures that the device can add, but some of the settings sound just terrible.  Yesterday the pedal was off through the whole rehearsal, which I guess was a good thing since things didnt sound that bad.

Still it would be good to dial in the “right settings” so I don’t have to figure it out during a show.

There are a couple basic features:

Pitch Correction: this is the big one and can be disabled with a footswitch.  Generally I find that a small amount helps smooth things out, but setting it higher than 50% adds a lot of distortion to the voice.  The pitch correction also doesnt really work if you’re just singing the wrong note, so it wont help if you have no monitors.

Warmth: this is a mild chorus effect, which doesnt seem to hurt at all.

Auto-shape: slightly better on.  The “shape” knob has more influence on the sound.  Since I’m usually light on top end, set this to 3oclock.

Auto-compress: this really muffles things with my mic - LEAVE IT OFF.  Set the compress knob to 3oclock to make up for the tight working range of the OM5.

De-ess: since i’ve emphasised highs, a lot of hiss can get through.  Turn the de-ess up to about 3 oclock to help with this.

Pitch correction: 12 oclock is about right.  Maybe a little less though its easy to turn off if it becomes annoying.

—

Tried these settings live and they dont really seem to work.  The biggest problem is a little excess gain around 5kHz which results in nasty feedback.   In order to cut this down we have to turn down the whole unit which makes the bulk of the vocals softer and a little indistinct.  There doesnt seem to be any real way around it for now so I’ve taken this out of the equation.

I wish I had a handy parametric eq to compensate for the mic a little.  Dont know if a rack mounted unit is the right choice though…

We’ve been having a lot of trouble with our live sound lately - mostly centering around my live vocals.  The two big problems are not being able to hear me clearly over the band and me being pitchy because of pushing and not being able to hear myself over the band.

Today I was able to get the guys to come play in the garage where things are a little more separated and I was relieved to find that my pitch problems mostly went away.  I could sing at a fairly comfortable volume the whole night - sometimes pushing a little, but never really having to scream to be heard.    I was using the TC Helicon to smooth things out a little, but when I would look down at it, it seemed like it wasnt doing that much.  When I went to check it out after the rehearsal i found out that it was in bypass mode, which makes the result of the practice even more satisfying. 

There were a few rough spots, but things sounded more or less the way I intended with a few exceptions.

The first was that the vocal tracks winded up with a lot of guitar.  I think this was because we left Kris’ mic pointed at his amp, but theres a chance that the vocal compressor is picking up guitar.  This shouldnt really be the issue because the OM5 I’m using is supposed to have a very tight polar pattern.  Actually one of the problems I have is that the working distance of this mic is very small - maybe an inch or so.  Backing off even a little can cause you to totally disappear. 

Second problem was that the first song was a little pitchier than the others.   The solution to this is to practice the chest-head voice transition and .

The final problem is that my setup is letting a lot of power through in the 150-750Hz range (frequencies sort of centered at the soft palate).  The guitar basically has enough distortion that it occupies the entire band from 50Hz-5kHz at a constant level, so to cut I need a lot more power (10db?) in the 1-3kHz range, either by changing the eq setup or vocal technique.  The problem with using on-board eq is that a lot of feedback can happen right around 3kHz, which will only cause the engineer to turn me down.

Things i need to do:

• stay right on mic all the time and learn to control volume by how loud I sing
• sing at a moderate pressure level that I can maintain
• warm up and practice the voice transitions
• see if I can boost the 1-3kHz range to get some clarity above the guitar using both fx and technique

Spent some time with a cool rendering package called Context Free Art.  It basically lets you create fractal designs.  Here’s one of mine.

I spend a lot of time thinking about Love - where it comes, where it goes, and how there could be more of it in the world.  A lot of that is just from doing basic things to take care of health - eating and sleeping right, getting exercise.  This design was to try to express the idea of infinite love through the infinite refinement of the fractals in the branching of the lungs and the eddies in the heart.

This was for a shirt I made for my band One Over Eight.  While you’re here, won’t check out a demo of our song ‘The Scar’‘?  And if you want a shirt, leave me a comment and I’ll get in touch with you somehow.

Listen and Love

Had a really great show last night at Johnny V’s.  It was my first time singing, and so it was really great that we got to have a good time.  I’m really grateful for everyone who came out to support us.

The best part of the show was hanging around afterward meeting the guys in the other bands.  NotForNothing played a cool set mixing a female lead vocal and rap.  They had a nice groove.  BellaBella tore up the house for the closer with absolutely solid bass lines and a supercharged vocals.

I have so many thoughts about the show and how it went:

• The quality of the music wasnt the best and there were a few train wrecks, but I think we made up for it by having a good time.  Would be good to practice more.
• Having the props to mess around with before the show was a great idea, mostly because it kept me distracted and kept me from getting nervous.  It also gave people a reason to talk to us.
• The bands after us really got more movement with a little funk sound.  I think we should try to incorporate this into some songs.
• Had some feedback with the vocal fx/mic combo which was a little annoying, but tolerable.
• I really think that singing three songs is close to the right number for now.  John and John’s vocals were pretty good, and it’s just good to mix it up a little.

The gift

Above all the biggest difference in this show was that I wasn’t that nervous because I wasn’t so worried about trying to impress everyone.  Last year I was so new at this that I wanted everything to be perfect so people would be into the performance because I wanted them to like me.  I think the biggest difference is that this year I have Anne, and she loves me already, so it doesn’t really matter what other people think.  That kind of support is so empowering and so rare that I feel like I’m really lucky.  Thanks so much baby - I love you!!!  (just in case you ever read this )

The Focus of a Show

There’s actually a really valuable lesson here for all of life.  I started playing music because music tapped into all of these feelings that were buried inside me, and it was a way to connect with the part of my self that didn’t really have a voice.  The songs that came out of that period were a sort of coming out - me saying what I couldn’t really say, and a lot of the material was aggressive and dark.  All the songs we’re like “hey, look at me, I’m so [sad/angry/frustrated]“.  It’s really just a way to get attention.

I don’t really feel this way about life anymore, I feel like I’m finally figuring things out because of Anne.  One of the great things about being loved is that I can change the direction of the love arrow.  Instead of making the show about trying to get love and attention from people at the show, I can make it about sharing the gift of love that I’ve been given.  How awesome is that?!!!

So now the goal for me is to see if we can get people to let loose and dance.

(Photos courtesy of Flavian Vasile.)

I’ve been ruminating on a system of note names that copies solfege, but is easier to remember for english speakers and solves the problem that notes like “C-sharp” take too long to say when reading scales.

There are two systems: one for note names and one for scale degrees.

Note Names:

The basic idea is that sharp notes end with the “ar” sound and flat notes end with the “ad” sound.  (”ad” is easier to say than “at”.)

• A ar ad
• B bar(really C) bad
• C car cad
• D dar dad
• E er(really F) ed
• F far fad
• G gar gad

Scale Degrees:

Same system, but minor intervals, diminished and augmented intervals.  Flat intervals use the open “ah” sound. 

• One
• Two - tad(flat 2), tar(#2)
• Three - thray, thra
• Four - fay, far, forg (aug 4th)
• Tri (for tritone),
• Five - fav, fige (augmented)
• Six - sax, sig(augmented)
• Seven (sev) - sav(flat 7)
• Eight (could be one)

A natural minor key would read “one, two, thray, four, five, sax, sav, eight”.

I’m building an isolation booth for drums in my garage.

Drums are loud.  In terms of decibels, John could probably play at 120dB easily.  Comfortable speech levels outside are at about 70dB, so we need about 50dB of attenuation between the drums and the outside.

Here’s a plot of the attenuation we have, with no box, with the box itself, and with the box and the enclosing garage.

The box provides about 15dB of attenuation right now, though it is essentially transparent at 160Hz, 250Hz, and 500Hz.  It’s 8 feet long, so that’s a round trip time of 16msec or so.  We’d expect a resonance around 60Hz.  Or this could be the self-resonance of the walls or window.  Clearly we need some damping to improve this.

The garage doesn’t block anything below 100Hz, but it’s good for 10-15dB above that.

Need another 15 db overall to get to our target of 50dB of attenuation.  I’m thinking a second layer of ply with some kind of damping or absorbtion will be necessary.  Might be best to experiment with curtains or light duty acoustic tiles and then decide if we need the extra plywood.

After about three months of gigging in a band and dealing with the in’s and out’s of the bottom levels of the music industry, I’m starting to realize that I’m doing something wrong.  By that mostly I mean that expectations and reality are kind of far apart.  There’s a sea change happening in the music business now, which in some ways is a really good thing, but it also really changes the definition of what it means to be successful as a musician.  It’s important to understand this change and not to get caught up in old ways of thinking.

The basic things that have changed are easy to consider:

• Downloadable music has dropped the price of distribution to almost zero.  This probably also happened in the early days of radio.
• The cost of producing new music is low enough that the supply of music is essentially infinite and the barrier to entry to being a musician is probably lower now than ever.
• People’s appetite for music has doubled but cant really increase because listening to music takes time and there’s only so much time.  A given person can only have maybe five favorite bands at a time, and there the number of social divisions of people is probably on the order of a hundred.

So there will still be good musicians and bad musicians and the bad acts will never get very far.  But even in the good acts, success will be determined by who has the connections and can build the most effective promotional machine.  There are so many people who want to be rock stars that climbing this hill is going to be a long and expensive proposition.

When I started playing music at age 17 I did it because I loved certain songs and I loved the way songs could bring out feelings - sometimes feelings that you didn’t know existed.  Playing music was something I did because I just liked it.

The thing about music - like a lot of other pursuits - is that you can always get better.  You start playing songs, and then you want to write songs, and then you want to play your songs for other people.  This feeling of improvement is addictive because there’s no limit to how far you can go and it drives a lot of the desire to play music, at least for me.

There’s also an aura about musicians that makes them seem different from other people - they are more individualistic, more expressive, more free, more important than the rest of us.  When I started I didn’t really think about this consciously, because I saw the fun that people who were playing music were having and I wanted to experience that feeling of fun, of flow.  But I also wanted a little of the musician’s aura to rub off on me - maybe to make me a little cooler, a little more interesting, a little more valuable. 

The problem with wanting the rock star aura is that in order to be a star you have to have fans, and in order to have fans, you have to entertain people.  The quickest way to do that is to re-cycle some tried and true musical product that may not have anything to do with who you are.  Cover bands can be very effective at entertaining, and playing covers can be just as much fun as playing originals, but it’s not really art anymore.

So why do so many people want to be rock stars?  Is it because we want to be artists and have people recognize and appreciate our unique artistic message?  Do we want to entertain people and make them groove and have a good time?  Or do we want to have a tough bad boy/rock star image so we can get laid more?

It’s probably a little of all of these things.  The interesting thing is that the Artist/Entertainer/Rockstar goals are all a little different.

To be an artist, you might be willing to perfect your craft in solitude and maybe have a few friends appreciate it.  It doesn’t really matter if people get it because it’s a true expression of who you are.  And with myspace and youtube it’s easy to put yourself out there.

For me though, it’s a lot of work to perfect a song, and if we’re not going to play a show ever, it’s just not worth the effort.  I play in a couple of jam bands, and we have fun every couple of weeks.  It’s pretty low pressure - show up, have a few beers, play some songs and no worries.  But I don’t really practice for these jam sessions because there’s no pressure and no one will really care if I screw something up here and there.

Once you decide to play a show, you absolutely have to try to entertain people though.  And the side effect of that is that you have to change your artistic vision sometimes to be able to get people moving.  Even worse is that most places we’d want to play out depend on alcohol sales to stay in business, so you have to bring a crowd of people who are going to drink, which may not be who you really intend to play for at all.

Then after you’ve played a gig and no one comes up to talk to you and say that they liked your stuff, you begin to feel like you’re not getting through… 

I think what I really need is to find a way to play for fun with people around and not really having the pressure to make people show up and buy a lot of drinks…