Last night I pulled out my
Oxygen 61 Keyboard,
connected it to my
laptop,
and auditioned
MIDI
horn voices from
Logic Pro X,
for the R&B song's quartet "horn chart." I've picked
a "trumpet," a "trombone," a "tenor sax,"
and a "baritone sax." I chose the voices then adjusted the
settings for them and made note of each setting. Except for some
ideas in my head, no composing of the horn arrangement has happened
yet; that'll start today.
Last night I officially started working on the arrangement for the
MIDI
horn chart for the R&B song. I probably got about 75-90%, or so,
of the trumpet part composed. It'll be the main melody part of the
horn quartet. AT this point the plan still also includes two saxes
and a trombone voice.
STRANGER DANGER:
I've been purposefully avoiding Season V of
Stranger Things
because I'm rightfully afraid I'll drop straight down the rabbit
hole and binge every available episode at the sake of my music agenda.
But I've decided to risk it and attempt to temper my viewing. I'm
dropping back to the first four seasons first. The last few months,
I'd watched some of the episodes via YouTube
reactors, about the first two and-a-half seasons, but the jump cuts
to prevent copyright hits made watching them a little annoying. So,
I'm back on Netflix, where
I started back with S1:ep.1,
"Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers."
Fellow modern TV-watching bingers will get it that I want to be totally
immersed back in the ST universe with a refreshed experience
of the whole cannon before I dive into Season V. I confess that I
binged into from the start into season 2 on Thursday while I did a
lot of 2025/2026 switchover personal and business data documentation
work. That was necessary crossover work, so I wasn't slacking off
the music project(s). But now that business is out of the way, so
Stranger Things gets slide in where it fits from this point
onward. And it's been a real bitch avoiding Seasin V spoilers.
Technically, this artist's retreat spilled into the first few days
of the new year. It was productive, though I didn't get to a lot of
the things on the agenda list that were potential. I didn't even get
one song for Album 2.0 Project
totally competed. In fact, all I worked on, artistically, was that
project's R&B song. I recorded the rest of the piano work for
the song as well as the bass line and the start of the MIDI horn
chart. I also have finished off the lyrics for the song.
Early yesterday morning, just past midnight, in a session that started
Saturday evening, I began recording the
MIDI
horn chart, playing on my
M-Adio Oxygen 61.
I started with the first trumpet, recording from the horn intro at
the start of the song, up to the end of the first chorus section.
Yesterday, in two chunks, I finished off the first trumpet.
Beforehand, I'd gone on a hike at
the Narrows Reserve
in the early afternoon and did some composing in my head for the
instrumental section, which will feature the horn chart.
For the record, the instrumental section through Chorus 3 was done
in seven takes; the Outro in three. Then I migrated the
stem
from the
24-Track
into the song project in
Logic Pro X
on my laptop.
Only three more horn voices, two backing vocals, and a lead vocal to
go.
Also in the wee hours of yesterday morning I finished off the lyrics,
getting that third verse out of the way and tweaking the rest of
the lyrics just slightly. And, of course, I can guarantee that odds
are in favor of more tweaking being done.
Though I knew it wasn't likely, I had some hope that I'd get to at
least the first cut of this project during
Artist's Retreat ‐
Staycation
2025, but that didn't
Happen.
My plan with this one is to
mix
and master
each of the eight* tracks in the order they will appear on the album;
that order has been determined for decades, and to do so with each
track in between finishing songs for the
Album 2.0 Project.
With the Heart Walks opening track, I also am seriously considering
adding a bass line. It initially wasn't intended to have one, but
I'm rethinking that. So, after I'm finally done with the R&B song
for
Album 2.0,
I'll drop into to start this project with Track 1, which may or may
not begin by writing and recording a bass line.
*) There are also two extra tracks from the Heart Walks
sessions that won't be on the album , but I'll mix and master
those, too.
It would have been a shock if I'd managed to get to the first track
of the ambient music album project during the
Artist's Retreat.
This one is solely a
remastering
project. There are five tracks and technically I could get them all
remastered in the same session. So, this one could be attended to
at any point during my little critical-pathways musical endeavors of
2026. Though it could easily be completed first, I'm not sure I want
this one released before Heart Walks,
however.
Recently I've been twice invited to audition for a particular
theatre production that is coming up. I'm not sure where I stand on
this. I've not yet come to a final decision about my future relationship
with theatre, at least with the local
non-professional theatre
community. And I also don't know if I want to pull a lot of focus
from the current music project(s). The particular stage production
seems like a nice opportunity but I'm skittish about most stage-work
right now. The last thing I did, I only did because I'd committed
to it before I started having second thoughts about me and most
local theatre. I still am looking at the exit door. I haven't walked
through it because a few people I still trust have urged me to hold
off.
Continuing work on the
MIDI
horn chart for the R&B song, I started on the second horn voice,
a tenor sax voice, Monday night. I composed and recorded the part
from the start of the song, the horn chart intro, though the end of
the second verse. I was able to record that in one take, thankyouverymuch.
Tuesday night I wrote and recorded the sax's harmony part during
the instrumental break. Again: One take, but we're only talking
nine measures, so, there was limited room for a misstep. To be
honest, in the technical sense, it was really two takes, but each
of those was one half of the whole section, so I only played the
whole section once while the record light was on. Last night I finished
the song in eight total takes: Verse 3 ‐ one take; Choruses
2 & 3 ‐ five takes; Outro ‐ two takes. Now I move
onto the MIDI trombone. After that will be a second trumpet.
My original plan was to have two saxes, one trumpet, and the trombone
voice in the brass quartet. I've since realigned that to two trumpets
and one sax, keeping the trombone. That second trumpet is likely
to be in the "soprano" position of the quartet.
Having finished the sax part last night, it's now migrated into the
song's
Logic Pro X
project.
Over the weekend I finished the
MIDI
horn chart for the R&B song, employing, as I've detailed recently,
two trumpet voices, a sax voice, and a trombone, from the internal
Logic Pro X
MIDI voices, executed through my
Oxygen 61 Keyboard.
And, as is my practice, I ran a sound cord from my
laptop
into track channels on the
Tascam 24-Track recorder,
rather than recording the performances directly into the LPX project
for the song. Then, of course, I migrated from the 24-track into the
LPX project.
In a session from late Friday night through early Saturday morning,
I wrote, rehearsed, and recorded the trombone part, which is mostly
the low (or the "bass") part. Because I worked and recorded
each section separately, as I've done with all these "horn"
parts, I again didn't have a lot of takes for each section:
Horn Chart Intro ‐‐ one take
Verse 1-Chorus 1 ‐‐ two takes
Instrumental ‐‐ three takes
Verse 3-Chorus 3 ‐‐ three takes
Outro ‐‐ three takes
Then later in the day, Saturday, I turned to the fourth horn voice
in my little MIDI horn quartet, the second‐chair trumpet. For
the most part, this second trumpet has taken the high end of the
horn harmonies, the soprano chair, if you will. This one also was
ultimately done in very few takes, for the same reason as the
other horn voices.
Horn Chart Intro ‐‐ one take
Verse 1 & 2 ‐‐ two takes
Chorus 1 ‐‐ one take
Instrumental ‐‐ three takes
Verse 3 ‐‐ one take
Chorus 2 &3 ‐‐ four takes
Outro ‐‐ five takes
And, of course, I've tweaked the lyrics a bit. I've rewritten a
couple lines in Verse 3, as well as replacing words in other lines.
Some of it has to do with vowel and consonant combinations that I
think will sound better. Some of it is to get more precise meaning.
Last night, after having
mixed
and mastered
a new demo of, now, all the instrumentation, rendering what
can be called, "the karaoke demo," I started playing
around with the melody for the vocal. First of all, I've been hearing
a very
Sting-like
R&B vocal, but I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to pull that type
of vocal off, not in the register I've been hearing in my head. I
gave it a bit of a try, but my voice wasn't warmed up, and I am
again in another bout of a slight soar throat. I'll be back on it
this evening, maybe trying something in a slightly lower register.
I think I'll first remix and remaster this karaoke version
to take a lot of low-end (i.e.: bass frequencies) out of the
EQ.
Some of the song seems a bit bass-heavy and muddy. I might try
pulling some of the EQ gain down for various instruments, too.
There's also one instrument that can stand to have some
high-frequencies tamed down a bit.
A LITTLE ACTING, A LITTLE MONEY IN THE BANK:
I have booked an acting gig, since it's outside the regular
non-professional theatre
community, as well as a short-term commitment that won't demand loads
of my time and attention and it's a gig with a paycheck. I'll
be doing another
guided improv
gig for the U.D. Law School.
It's coming up in a couple weeks. I won't be buying a Lamborghini
off my earnings, but extra cash is extra cash. Meanwhile I'll still
be able to focus mostly on my 2026 music ventures.
FREELANCE DV WORK, A LITTLE MORE MONEY IN THE BANK:
Still won't be going to the Lamborghini dealership for this one,
but I've also picked up a gig shooting some
staged readings.
I don't know how much detail I can give out, so at the moment I'm
giving no specifics. Again, there will be a stipend, or an honorarium,
but it's not going to amount to much. But, I'll cash the check.
Because, you know: "extra cash is extra cash." I'll be
editing the footage into the DV movies, as well. This still
isn't a major, time-consuming veture, so I will still be able to give
that good time to this year's music projects.
Last night I began to earnestly work on the vocal melody line for
the R&B song. I was correct when I said in the last blog post
that I might not be able to pull off a
Sting-like
vocal in the register I'd been hearing in my head. I did have
to drop the register, take the notes down a few steps. Now, any
resemblance to a Sting vocal is lost; though there wasn't going to
be a great resemblance to begin with.
I also had to excise some words to get a good rhythm for the vocal.
I guess my thought here is that if I could cut words but not
compromise the meaning of the line, the lyrics are not suffering
the loss.
After I got a decent handle on the melody I'm composing and did the
lyric editing, I rehearsed for a while. I actually did at least one
lyrical edit during this phase. I didn't rehearse for long because
my throat still is a little sore and I didn't want to push it. That
seems to be my karma: that when I'm about to record a vocal, my
throat is at some level of sore. I'm starting to believe it's
some sort of psychological reaction. But, I'm also brought to mind
that a few years back an
otorhinolaryngologist
told me that one of my maintenance drugs dries out the back of my
throat, so I'm guessing that is a factor.
I did set up to record in the bedroom. There's not great sound-proofing
there, but it's better than the rest of the apartment. But I'm not
settled completely on the melody. It needs some fine-tuning. Plus,
because of the sore-throat issue I wouldn't have been ready, anyway.
During the setup, I did put my new
V3 Preamp
between my
Shure SM7B vocal mic
and the
Tascam 24-Track recorder,
but I was getting noise that I couldn't completely eliminate, so I
pulled it from the chain. I'm hoping I can solve the issue because
the main reason I bought that preamp is to push the volume of that
mic's signal, which I have found to be rather weak when plugged into
the recorder, unless I push the gain to a place where, again, there
is too much associated noise. My rank-amateur status as a sound
engineer clearly is a hindrance in these sorts of situations. I'm
confident a seasoned engineer could fix these issues in a few
minutes.
I've taken a break from the
Album 2.0 project,
even though I've not recorded the vocals for the R&B song because
my throat's not well enough to do the song justice. While I let my
voice recover for a good vocal, I've begun the next step in the
process of
mixing
and mastering
the opening Heart Walks album song. And, I'm still considering
adding a bass line, which originally wasn't part of the arrangement.
The general plan is to finish recording a song for
Album 2.0
then mix and master a song for the Heart Walks, then go back
to the next Album 2.0
song, etc., etc.; because of the sore throat I've altered the plan.
The Heart Walks album, as a small few of you may know, was
recorded from circa 1984 through circa 1987, all at my music partner,
Rich Hisey's home, in his music room, on his
Fostex
four-channel multi-track cassette recorder, which I think was an
X-15 model;
a few years back, I picked up a
Fostex X-28 four-track cassette recorder
and that's what I played the multi-track masters on to put them on
my Tascam 24-Track recorder
to digitize them by recording them in real-time from the cassette tape.
Of course, the stems
have been transferred onto my laptop;
and now the stems from the opening cut are in a
Logic Pro X
project.
With the original multi-track master being four-track, there are
multiple instruments
bounced
onto each track (stem), except the track with the vocal, which does
have instruments on the track, but either before or after the vocal,
and only one instrument on each end. It was suggested that I get
some modern software to separate each instrument out of each track
to create a single stem for each instrument, for more dynamic and
versatile mixing. This, ala Peter Jackson's work with
The Beatles'Get Back documentary
and the
"Now and Then"
single ‐‐ That being the proper and ethical use of AI,
unlike the prolific, unethical theft of intellectual property running
rampet,including the unethical, unauthorized reinterpretations of
artists' work and the uses of their voices and images without permission.
I wasn't able to get good separation with the app I acquired, so
there's fifteen bucks I've probably thrown away. Clearly I need to
get more robust software for the task, unless I find I've misunderstood
the process with this app I have; but it doesn't seem I'm missing
any procedure. I may also opt to just mix the four tracks into a
stereo track as they are. The mixes on the stereo demos I have from
80s aren't hateful. There might even be something charming about
such a retro mix.
I'd thought that maybe I could slide back into this project to lay
the vocals for the R&B song over this long weekend and get
that song wrapped, but my throat is still not well enough. I think
maybe I'm suffering from an attempted flu virus attack. But since
I have enough brains to not be a dumbassed, anti-vax fool but rather
someone who knows science is a good thing, I've had my
mRNA
flu vaccine, which has made my symptoms reasonably minor, yet still
enough to interfere with good vocal work.
However, I didremaster
the karaoke demo to take some of the bass frequencies out of the
EQ
in order to eliminate some muddiness. I did it in the
stereomixed-master
rather than messing with EQ in the multi-track project. In retrospect
I should have gone back there, mostly because there is one instrument
that needs to have the high end tamed down without pulling those
frequencies from the whole mix. That instrument is more of a
problem in headphones so I still now have a better demo to play when
I work on full-on composing and rehearsal of the vocal melody, but
I will go back and tame that instrument's highe end at some point,
either as another iteration of the karaoke demo or when doing the
final mixing and
mastering.
WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF AN "EXPERT"?:
It's a great understatement to say that I am not a sound engineer
of the calibre of a
Geoff Emerick
or some such who would be well-known in those circles. The best word
to describe me is "novice," and that is the most
flattering word to use. I write this to preface that I am running
into an issue with the
mixing
of the opening song from this album project, an issue that I think
a half-seasoned sound engineer would be far more on top of. The
problem is that some of the
stems
for this song ‐‐ and one stem in particular ‐‐
have a lot of hiss to eliminate, but to do so at a good measure has
proven to take some frequency out of the recorded subject to a point
that dilutes the quality too much. I've fiddled with the
EQ,
I've used both the
High-pass filter
and the Low-pass filter,
but there's still noticeable hiss if I don't compromise the dynamics
of the recorded sound.
Going back to that "ethical use of A.I.," I'm sure I can
get an A.I. app that can solve this problem for me. The one I purchased
doesn't serve that purpose. I may have to look for one that does.
If anyone happens to actually read this, and if any of you happen
to have a good suggestion:
www.klstorer.com/contact.html.
SLIGHT MONKEY WRENCHING:
Me, working yesterday on creating flashcards which
now most of could be obsolete.
I worked quite a few hours yesterday on the information for the
upcoming U.D. Law Schoolguided improv
gig, where I'll play a couple witnesses. I used this day off to be
on track getting ahead of the game so I would not be cramming at the
last minute. Then, toward the end of the day, I was sent a revised
set of documents for the case. After having put so much work in
yesterday, it's safe to say that I was pretty frustrated about this
turn of events. I haven't look at the revisions yet but I get the
sense there are some significant changes, though I very much welcome
being wrong about this. The most irritating part is this twist may
mean I have to put work on any music projects on hold this week,
and I am not enthused about that.
Me, last week, comparing the facts & info from
the revised case documents against what I'd previously
put on my index cards for study.
There was supposed to be a
U.D. Law Schoolguided improv
yesterday, but the snowpocalypes that's attacked over a good portion
of the country, including the
Ohio Valley,
prompted the cancellation of the in-person mock trial. Rather it was
decided to hold in a zoom session, with fellow students taking the
roles of the witnesses. However, I've been asked if I can be available
next Saturday.
But we actors did do the Saturday sessions on campus at U.D. The
case was a robbery/homicide. I played the sheriff for the prosecution,
then a forensics and police procedure expert witness for the defence.
I must admit I panicked on the stand a few times in both roles,
having momentary problems recalling particular important details
that the character should know. The characters we play need to give
the law students the correct information from the files we've been
provided. I don't think I've ever not been at least a little nervous
that I'm going to forget some vital fact. I want to best serve the
law students.
I think I've written this before, somewhere in the archive of this
blog, that here are always built-in flaws in the facts and thus the
testimonies of all the witnesses; it's part of the learning experience
and training for the law students. So many times have I been studying
the facts and thought to myself, "This guy is an idiot" or
"Oh man, opposing counsel is going to have a field day with this
crap." I am often dumbfounded when the opposing counsel lets
something ridiculous slip by unchallenged. This is probably where
we actors come in more useful to the students as we have more of an
ability to commit with conviction to bad leaps of logic and nonsense
in our characters' testimonies, more so than another student with no
acting experience might have.
At any rate, overall, I feel good about the gig Saturday. Though it
is a bummer that the snowpocalypes has likely cut my paycheck in
half....but then, maybe not.
I have had a bit of
preproduction
work going on as the DV movie
director
‐‐ and the camera operator. There were a few inventory
items I needed: more heavy extension cords, a couple lite extension
cords, and a surge protected power strip, all as potential needs for
the location shoots.
I got those last Tuesday at a local Menards.
Micheal London also procured a wireless mic system with two
wireless Lavalier mics
and two wireless handheld mics. Jared will wear a Lavalier during
his performances. Michael will have a hand held to use during the
talkback
sessions. I'll be running from the wireless receiver into my
digital eight-track recorder,
to have better audio for the
final cuts
of the DV movies.
I should make it clear that Michael purchased the wireless system
as his property, or maybe OPC's property, however, I could stand to
own such a system, so that's going on my wish list. I also realized
that I could stand to have my own supply of
gaffer tape,
so I order some over the weekend.
STILL COMING THIS YEAR?....MAYBE:
I'm thinking that I may have to regroup on the
mixing
and mastering
of this album. If I had a newer
MacBook Pro
with an
Apple silicon chip
I'd be able to upgrade my
Logic Pro X
to the latest version that can better isolate the sounds on each
stem.
But I don't have the finances for that right now. I am going to try
to process each stem with a
High-pass filter
and/or a
Low-pass filter,
before they're loaded into an LPX project. That, to eliminate the
hiss tape noise and the hum tape noise inherent on the original
analog tape recordings. But I'll probably also search out a better
audio AI program to help me with the task. Then I'll load the stems
into a new LPX project for the first song, and try again. And again:
the proper and ethical use of AI audio technology. It's just that
I'm simply not gaining satisfactory ground with the current LPX
project; I need cleaner stems to load into a new one.
I have no idea what kind of delay this puts on the album project as
a whole. I'm not ready to drop my current goal of early to mid summer
for a release, but I am preparing myself for the possibility. If it
gets pushed beyond this year, I will be sad. I want this done and
out, but it needs to be the best it can be.
I've decided to break ‐‐ or, more accurately,
bend ‐‐ the rules, and reveal a little
more about a song. Here I am, on Saturday, auditing
a portion of the remix of the horn chart for the
R&B song, though isolated from the rest of the
instrumentation.
Unfortunately there's been little to no activity recently for any
music projects. But Saturday, I did finally
remix
and remaster
the karaoke demo of the R&B song. I rebalanced the mix, including
a fine-tune
sweetening
of the MIDI
horn chart *(see the video on the left). I also tamed that
one instrument needing some high-end frequencies lowered
or cut from the
EQ.
It needed a volume drop, too.
This mix and master serves as the templet foundation for the final
mix and master, but, of course there will be adjustments to the
multi-track master as well as the mastering project. For instance,
as I've listened to this latest iteration of the
stereo
master, it's clear the piano parts need to be boosted in their
high-end EQ and have their low ends tempered down. They're just
not reading clean enough in the mix. Hey, I may still not be an
audio engineer in the class of
Alan Parsons,
Todd Rundgren,
etc., etc., but I am getting better, if in baby steps.
Like most all my DV movie productions, I'm shooting these performances
three-camera,
using my
Canon Vixia DV cameras.
I'm recording the audio on my
Tascam DP-03 eight-track digital portable recorder.
Yesterday I migrated Thursday's footage and audio files from the
perspective machines onto a two terabyte external harddrive and into
the Final Cut Pro X
project for this gig. I didsweeten
the audio before I dropped it into FCPX.
There was a rather new and odd issue importing the DV footage from
the cameras into the FCPX project. It didn't seem like the DV files
were actually copying over, but rather FCPX was using their original
location on the
SD card
in each camera. It may have been that since each DV file was large,
making up almost five to six hours of footage on each card, that it
was simply taking a long time to copy over. Still, to be safe, I used
an SD card reader to copy all the files into a folder on the external
hard drive I'm using to edit together the DV movies of the three
performances. Then I migrated those into the FCPX project for the
first performance. And copying those in did indeed take a few hours;
the copying was not finished when I went to bed last night. Whether
or not I needed this work-around, at least the footage is accessible
for the edit, and I have a solution if I need it.
It turns out that I was not needed for the second half of the
guided improv
gig for the U.D. Law School,
which was rescheduled this past Saturday from the previous Sunday.
Of course, it cut my paycheck in half, but it did give me more time
and room to work on other projects.
My throat is in much better shape now, so I plan to give the vocals
for the R&B song a shot tonight. The last few days I've had an
idea for my approach to the lead vocal, which will get me to, or
close to, the melody line I originally heard. I'm going to at least
experiment tonight. I've been sucking on lemon eucalyptus cough
drops and drinking
Throat Coat tea
just to be safe. I know I have other gig projects to attend to,
but music has been getting the short shrift lately and I'd like to
get the recording of this R&B song finished.
I'll do another post soon where I go into some of the production
issues I've been having with the DV movies of the readings. But
for now: it's Two Down, One to Go.
My weekend was a big bust until the eleventh hour. I was down ill,
spending a lot of time conked out in bed or simply in bed watching
TV, and usually drifting in and out of consciousness. I managed to
rally toward the end of the day, yesterday, and got productive on
at least one project: the
Album 2.0 Project
‐‐ see next entry. I'm not 100% today, but I am
functional. Good thing, too. I have a lot of stuff that needs
attention.
VOCALIS REALIS:
After too much delay I finally got back to that lead vocal for the
R&B song, though my throat hasn't recovered as much to the point
that I could give it my all; I thought it had but I was wrong. Still,
last night I worked with a new remix of the karaoke demo of the song
and was able to mostly get a good start on the melody for the lead
vocal. A few high notes were a little weak and flat due to throat
issues, but I know where I want to go in those moments. No surprise,
I also slightly tweaked the lyrics.
I've gone back to the vocal register and melodic elevation I'd
originally envisioned, but went for it with a different vocal approach.
Earlier, I'd made a decision to bring everything down a few steps
because I was not getting the vocal I'd envisioned. But I came across
a short essay about the
Paul McCartney
of today, the legend in his eighties who's still selling out stadiums
and playing three-hour rock shows with amazing personal stamina. It
was posted on a facebook page called John Fan Worldwide and
it says in part:
?
Of course not. The high notes are harder to reach, and there
is a fragility in his tone now, a warble that wasn't there
before. But rather than shying away from it, Paul leans into
it...that fragility adds a layer of emotional weight that a
25-year-old Paul simply couldn't convey....
I've further been focused lately on what I find a masterpiece, a
career apex, from the late, legendary
Johnny Cash:
his brilliant, excellent cover of
Nine Inch Nails'
"Hurt,"
written by
Trent Reznor.
Johnny's interpretation is raw, intimate, and vulnerable. The
whole album,
American IV: The Man Comes Around,
exemplifies a music legend in his eighties who, alluding back to
the John Fan Worldwide essay, is leaning into the fragilities
in the vocals that age has brought on. I really love that whole
album. Just like I really like Paul's
McCartney III
from 2020. Both are recordings by great recording artists who are
at the top of the game as it is at the time. For those of you
fortunate enough to know who this is,
Harry Nilsson
did the same thing. Harry, at one point had one of the best voices,
ever, in pop music. His rendition of
"Without You"
is one of the greatest vocal performances in pop history. A few years
after that came out, he'd seriously compromised his singing ability
with a hard-core life-style of excessive drinking and heavy partying.
Yet he went on the record some great albums. Some of my favorite
work by him comes from the vocalist who could no longer sing
"Without You" anywhere close to the way the Harry of the
early 70s could. He'd compromised his instrument, yet he still gave
us some wonderful performances with the instrument he then had.
I am absolutely not putting myself on the level of any of these three
brilliant music makers. But I also don't suck. On the other hand,
as I've written in this blog before, and recently, I'm not the singer
I once was, for two reasons. One of those reasons has at least a
partial solution. I am not the singer I was in my teens, my twenties,
my thirties, because I'm not as in practice as I was then, especially
my teens and twenties when I was singing almost every day, and usually
a couple hours each of those days. I can greatly improve my vocals
today by getting myself back in practice, by warming up more,
by rehearsing more. The other reason is the one I need to accept.
The one that Paul and Johnny accepted: I'm older; age is going to
take a toll on capability regardless of the singer's attention to
staying in the best shape they can. So, as did Paul and Johnny
‐‐ and Harry ‐‐ I have to lean into the
capabilities I have now; though I know I can improve them to some
degree, maybe some great degree, who knows. But I'm still not
going to be the singer I was at twenty-five or thirty years old.
With "The Answer,"
off Virtually Approximate Subterfuge,
I'd already taken this approach. I wrote that song in, I believe,
1978 at the age of twenty. I had really strong vocal control in those
days and could slide seamlessly from my middle register into falsetto.
The original melody of the song had me doing just that in a few
spots. Forty-three years later when I recorded it for the VAR
album, the slides were anything but seamless, and hitting the upper
pitches proved a challenge. Again, some of it was not being in the
consistent shape the twenty-year-old's voice was in; but then there
was the sexagenarian standing at the 2021 microphone. I had to alter
some of the melody. But, you know what, the new melody works better.
As I wrote in my
On-Liner Notes page entry for the song:
...The new melody line...is a much better fit for the song.
The new melody is jazzier, and there's more of a jaded,
contemplative mood to it. It gives more weight to the pondering
of that dude, sitting on that bar stool, and I think, more
credibility to him and his musings.
I think, had I recorded an album at twenty and had put
"The Answer" on it, with that original vocal
melody...it would have rightfully reflected a young man
sitting at that bar...It would have come from a quite honest
perspective of relative inexperience with life. It would have
been the pondering of a young seeker.
The version that exists has more gravitas. It's a sexagenarian
on that bar stool, questioning humanity's foolishness from
a place of lived observation. And the pondering of the
challenges to humanity's understanding and approach to
spirituality is served better....
That this song, conceived when I was a much younger man, one
who could rightfully still be called a boy...didn't surface
to the world until the much older man was able to refine it,
is a good thing....
When I wrote this new R&B song, like I've already said, I very
much intended on a very Sting-like
R&B feel all the way around, including the vocal. I'm pretty
sure Sting is a first tenor; in my younger days I was a full-on
second tenor and age has probably dropped me closer to a baritone.
Still, originally I heard Sting singing this song, so my target was
to cop as close to a "Sting vocal" as possible. I don't
think a strong imitation was ever going to happen, even were I still
twenty-five-ish. But last night, even with my throat still a tad on
the gruff side, I managed notes in the range I'd first conceived,
just not terribly Sting-like.
There's more experimenting to do. There are some other approaches
to the vocal I want to try. And there's letting my throat heal more,
too. I'm impatient to get the recording of this song wrapped, but
I'm not going to rush it and compromise things. And if I find I need
to alter the melody to get something that works better, that's what
I will do.
Before I gave the vocal a shot, last night, I
remixed
the song then
remastered
the karaoke demo. Again, the idea is to fine-tune the mix as I go
along, getting it closer to that final, locked mix for the finished
recording. I've gained ground, to be sure. The piano parts are not
as muddy in the mix as they were, that due to my punching the high
end and tempering the low end of the
EQ
for each. But the balance of volume levels between all the instrumentation
is still off. The mix is still very much a work in progress.
Directed by Melissa Kerr Ertsgaard
Produced by Rhea Smith
Mary Jane navigates both the mundane and the unfathomable
realities of caring for Alex, her chronically ill young son.
She finds herself building a community of women from many
walks of life, and dealing with all of life's realities.
Mary Jane is Pulitzer Prize finalist Amy Herzog's
remarkably powerful and compassionate portrait of a
contemporary American woman striving for grace. It ran on
Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club during the 2023/2024
season.
I recently had a medical procedure, that, though it wasn't an
extremely critical procedure it was critical enough that the
physician tried medicinal treatment first before resorting to the
procedure. There was risk the doctor wanted to avoid if
possible. But it finally came down to needing the procedure. The
reason I mention it here is that my recovery from the procedure has
interfered with any artistic productivity since. I'm finally at a
place where I can get back to all the creative crafts competing for
my attention, though it hasn't been at the pace I'd hoped for.
SLOW PROGRESS 1:
Sunday, February 22, I started giving the lead vocal for the R&B
song another attempt, and was able to push to the placement in my
registry that I prefer for the song ‐‐ what I'll call
"the Sting
zone." I had success that day though the vocal needed finessing,
quite a bit of finessing to get to something that I'd be satisfied
with. But I wasn't unhappy with what I did that day; it was promising.
But six days later I tried to lay down the vocal and got what I
believed was a good take ‐‐ Take #11. After migrating it
onto my laptop
and into Logic Pro X,
I concluded upon listening to it in the mix that it was terribly
sub-par. So I deleted the sound file out of the LPX project and
off my computer. I need to get my voice in better shape and try
again.
If those few of you who might be following this blog may have
figured out, the vocal I want is at the top of my vocal register,
just on the brink of my needing to switch into
falsetto.
At the moment, for the variety of reasons I've recently detailed
(another f_____g soar throat*, my vocal skills being highly
out-of-shape, and my not being 22 any more), getting this vocal
as I'd like it to be has been a challenge.
*) It's worth noting that several of my prescribed meds
have a side effect of "hoarseness," or "sore
throat," or "cough," or the like, which makes
getting my vocal skill in shape more of a challenge!
I've also decided to give doubling the lead vocal line a try. And
I mean actually singing the lead vocal twice, not simply cloning
the vocal by making a copy of the track then offsetting the timing
in the mix by a minuscule amount to give the vocal a very dry
echo, which is effective; but I want to try a unison vocal duo with
all the subtle, and sometimes not-too-subtle, differences in delivery.
Doubling the lead vocal has been a common practice for decades.
The Beatles
did it often, and many other recording artists from that era and
onward, up into the present, have. I did it on last summer's
"Backward in Time,"
where on
"White Landscapes"
I cloned the lead vocal track, off set in the mix for that tight,
dry echoe effect.
Meanwhile I have started to edit together the DV movies of the
first two performances. I gotta say, though, I feel like I'm back
in high school or college and I'm late with my assignment.
Thursday, last week, I saw
John Mulaney
in concert for the second time, this time at the
Taft Theatre
in Cincinnati.
I had a great seat, too: second row, right in the middle, almost
perfectly exactly the same seat as I had the first time I saw him
in 2022 at the
Schuster Center
in Dayton.
Last time John's set was mostly about his addiction and recovery.
This time he focused on being a father, a husband ‐‐
he's married to
Elizabeth Muun,
and on the family of in-laws he inherited. He was excellent in 2022
and he was excellent last week. I have no photos from the show because
John is very strict about no pics or videos of his performance, and
even though I think a few people snuck a photo or two, my philosophy
is to respect the artist's wishes even if I can get away with not
doing so. We actually were allowed to take a photo of him
after he ended the show, as he was bowing, etc., but my phone was
off and by the time it fired up it was too late.
His opening acts were stand-ups
Mandal
and Andrea Jin,
and both were funny.
I thought I had finally wrapped
recording of the R&B song yesterday; I was wrong. I laid all
the vocals ‐‐ the lead and two harmony backing vocals
‐‐ and was initially satisfied. But during
mixing
I reassessed the performance on the lead vocal. It
still simply is not up to
snuff. It was better than my previous attempt, but I still struggled
with some notes, having issue with either their strength or their
pitch, or both.
In my last blog post I noted I'd decided to go with doubling the
lead vocal by recording two unison performances. I did do that but
on playback of the two I nixed the second one. I cleaned that track
out on the
Tascam 24-Track,
freeing it up for one of the two backing vocals. The lead vocal I
did use took five takes, but of course, later in the
evening, that fifth "good" take was relabeled as a
"bad" take. For those who might be interested, for
the two backing vocals, Take 2 for the first one was good, and the
second was done in one take. Those I kept.
I did render a
mastered
mix of the "finished" song with the rejected lead vocal;
that, to keep around to remind myself every now and then that I am
NOTFreddy Mercury
‐‐ because, you know, otherwise I might sometimes get
confused about that.
When I make my next attempt on this song's lead vocal is a good
guess. There were several weeks between the first and second attempt.
The third attempt may take that long, if not longer. Between now and
that next shot I must seriously attack getting my vocal ability
back to the place where I can pull off this vocal. I need to go to
the vocal gym....
This isn't focused as an
Album 2.0 Project
post because this subject goes beyond the boundaries of my trying
to record new music for the new album. But, if you're one of the
five(?) regulars you may know that I've made a couple
attempts to record a lead vocal for the new R&B song for the
new album and have not been able to bring off the vocal performance
satsfactorly. I've not been getting the high end of the vocal melody
on pitch or with either the smoothness or strength it needs.
That specific dilemma plays a big role in prompting this post, but
this post is about me getting back vocal skill in general, beyond
any particular music project. As I've written here before, some of
the wane in my singing can be attributed to aging, that can't be
denied. There's also the issue of some of my daily medications that
have the side effect of drying out the back of my throat and rendering
it somewhat sore, and that is a factor, for certain. But that's not
all of it, and these can be mostly worked around, maybe completely
so. The bigger issue has been, as with my musicianship, especially
on bass, a lack of consistant practice. I'm not singing a lot, not
warming up often, not keeping my vocal chords and my skillset toned
and in shape. Yes, yes: it's the same old story; I know, I know.
There are things I can do to recover and maybe even enhance ‐‐
maybe enhance ‐‐ my singing. I've been seeing ads
pop up on my facebook feed for a device that's supposed to work
miracles for a singers skill. It's some kind of little tube device
that the vocalist blows into and uses for warmups. It costs about
$50. I did on-line research for the devices ratings but everything
I came up with was suspect to me as planted.
So I asked someone who's a career vocalist and taught voice at a
university for decades. Her response was that using a simple straw
will give the same results. Her take was that the device is just a
more permanent item than a straw, the later which will eventually
deteriorate. The principle of the utilization is precisely the same
in her estimation. And how many bags of straws can I purchase before
I hit the $50 mark? Now my mission is to look up reliable instructions
on good vocal exercises and warmups using a straw. And I have at
least one straw currently in my kitchen....
MY SATURDAY AFTERNOON IN A PLACE WHERE THE PETS ARE SAFE:
Yesterday I attended the third
No Kings
rally. This time, as the first one on June 14 of last summer, I
attended the rally in
Springfield, Ohio.
I could have attended the one in
Dayton,
as I did for the second rally last October, but I chose Springfield
for a couple of reasons. One reason was convenience ‐‐ I
live closer to Springfield. But the more important reason is quite
politcal, and, in my mind, moral. Springfield has several times been
cast into the national limelight because of the racist, xenophobic,
nonsense about the Haitian community there. So, it seemed to me a
better statement to stand with them as well to be counted with those
in Springfield, Ohio, as opposed to the attempted destruction of
American democracy. Springfield, by the way, being a city where the
only thing that has ever been a threat to the pet population might
be an extraordinarily rare, random coyote.
Somehow I got the times wrong for the rally. I'd either misread or
originally read an erroneous announcement that it started at Noon.
I got there at about 11:45 and the area was abandoned, no one was
around. I was deflated. I thought maybe the rally had been cancelled
and I hadn't heard. But I went on-line on my phone and discovered
that the Springfield rally didn't start until 2:00. I drove back home,
ate the lunch I had earlier decided to put off until after the
rally, and came back a little before 2:00.
It was a nice rally, but smaller than I expected, depite that
Springfield is in
Clark County,
one of the many predominantly Red counties in Ohio. I was told by
some that the turnout was less than they had there in October, in
fact. I was worried this might reflect national turnout. To give
you some insight into my blogging, I wrote most of this entry last
night, so as I was writing it there had been no reasonable estimate
of how many people turned up, but some news reports stated that about
3300 separate rallies were planned across the country. I know there
have been predictions of at least 9 million people, but that was the
prediction. Now it's time for an informed estimation of what the actual
tally was. Though later in the evening, after I wrote that last
sentence, I read a couple social media claims of 8 million people,
but as of this morning I've seen no sort of authoritative accounting
that gives any reasonable estimate of national body count.
Here's my DV movie about the rally in Springfield:
And, here's that song of mine from last summer, that works for this
weekend, not only because of rallies in 3300 U.S. cities, but because
of quite a few more rallies in support from around the world:
YAY FOR THE NEW ALBUM!:
There's one pleased Macca
fan here as Mr. McCartney (aka: Sir Paul, etc.) is putting out his
first album of new material since 2020's
McCartney III.
He releases
The Boys of Dungeon Lane
on May 29. I have already pre-ordered both a physical CD and the
iTunes digital album.
The Boys of Dungeon Lane is going to be an album of reflection
of Paul's early life, I'm gonna to assume
pre-Beatlemania
days, or mostly so. He's put out the first single, just a few days
ago,
"Days We Left Behind,"
which seems to set up that expectation; it does seem to include
mention of John Lennon, but
it seems to be even pre-"Beatle," and it's clearly a quite
intimate remembrance:
We met at Forthlin Road
And wrote a secret code
To never be spoken
I stand by what I said
The promise that I made
Will never be broken
There is likely to be a concert tour to support the album, either
this year or in 2027, maybe a crossover 26/27 tour. However, unless
a great miracle happens, I probably won't be able to attend. The
miracle would either be a drastic reduction in his ticket prices
or I come into some great pile of money. The former is more apt to
happen but it's truly not at all in the odds.
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