The Big Think

Ha! The band Rush recently got to try one of their songs out on Rock Band. I won’t ruin the result for you.

A couple things I noticed, though: Geddy Lee is trained. I could tell by the way he supported some of the higher notes. He sang some of the really high stuff down an octave though. It’s not fair to have him sing the highest stuff full- voice without a warmup! I also noticed that Neil Peart and Alex Lifeson didn’t do so well on their respective instruments, even on expert, because the game had dumbed it down too much. They probably made most of their mistakes because they were playing the real thing, not the simplified (even on expert!) stuff that Rock Band makes you play.

All in all, though, good fun.

His music tends to work in all versions, I submit, because the notes-qua-notes are so good. Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, or [your favorite composer here] were constantly concerned with the instruments that played or sung their work: great notes, too, but intimately bound to their media. In The Art of Fugue Bach didn’t seem to care what the medium was; it would work no matter what. A lot of his music—not all, but a lot—is like that: incomparable notes, regardless of avatar.

I’m sure what ultimately turns everybody onto The Art of Fugue, not limited to musicians who understand its arcana, is how melodically expressive and rhythmically vital it is. You never forget, for example, how Contrapunctus 9 gathers like a force of nature from a galloping D minor to the most hair-raising D major final chord you ever heard. Bach universalized what he called “the art and science of music” by the power of gripping melody, rich harmony, towering perorations, intimate whisperings, explosive joy, piercing tragedy: the same human stuff we find in Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, and all the great creators. But nobody in music had the science down more than Bach did, and nobody ever wrote better notes.

full article.

This via Patrick’s website. This past year I did a few arrangements for this project. It’s a very cool idea of being able to assemble the parts that you need for your church service and have the computer print out the charts in the correct order and key (vs, chorus, vs, vs, whatever). I had a lot of fun doing the arrangements and only wish that I had gotten involved sooner. By the time they called me there weren’t that many arrangements left to do.

Anyway, here’s a video describing what the project is. The coolest part is the third section about Lifewayworship.com


LifeWay Worship Project from Patrick Watts on Vimeo.

Erin’s aunt and uncle, who play in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, are playing in a concert series in Europe soon. Check out this amazing two minute commercial about the concert series.

Here is an article describing how the commercial was made.

Don’t buy expensive cables. I agree- except.

When it comes to purchasing studio cables (XLR, 1/4″, RCA, etc), my experience has been that you’re much, much better off spending a few extra bucks for the nicer cable. Not because the quality of the copper wire is any better, nor because there’s any special voodoo done to the conductor, but because the quality of the connector is so much better. Cables in a studio environment, if they’re treated well, usually go bad within the first two or three inches of the end. This is because you’re constantly plugging and unplugging them. Paying a bit more for good connectors is worth it. Plus, the shielding is often better, which rejects RF interference.

In my old studio setup ten years ago, I would occasionally hear the high-frequency airline chatter from planes as they came in to land at our local airport. I’d bought cheaper low-sheilding cables and could tell the difference. But I have some cables in my current setup that are well over a decade old and are still going strong.

One other thing: once you put together a major setup (I have 100+ cables in my current studio), getting behind the gear, testing cables, and untangling the one that’s gone bad can be half a day wasted. Better to pony up a few more bucks up front.

Figure anywhere from $10-15 each for a decent cable (and up, depending on length). Yes, it’s an investment, but like buying anything of quality, it’s one you’ll only make once.

But the author is 100% right about Monster Cables. NEVER buy Monster. They’re a demonstrated rip-off.

“Keep Rolling from the Top“. The Boom Operator Blues.

This is making the rounds among my musician friends. Great stuff by Garrison Keillor:

It’s all about manners and maintaining a sense of integrity in a selfless situation, and surviving in a body of neurotic perfectionists.

Read the whole thing: A Foot Soldier in God’s Floating Orchestra.

(h/t to Erin’s Aunt and Uncle, who play in the Cinci Orchestra, for sending this.)

The new Melodyne plugin can do magic. (h/t Scott)

There’s a bunch of pictures of Sing over at Baylor Proud (h/t Patrick)

Sing 2008 is officially in the books. What a great show. I got back this afternoon after two completely exhausting two weeks that were about as good as they could be. I’m so happy and proud of all of the work my groups put into it. Time for a well deserved rest. It’ll take me a week at least to recover and do all of my laundry.

Thanks to all of my friends who made the trip up from Austin (as well as Matt and Jenna in Waco) to see the fruits of the groups’ labor. For the record, the final results are as follows (if you went, you’ll understand the descriptions).

1st place: Kappa Kappa Sigma - 40’s sailors/swing club (Jump Jive and Whale)
2nd place: KOT (new orleans)
3rd place: Phi Chi (jail)

Remaining top 8 (no ranking awarded):

Chi Omega (barn dance/tresspassing)
Pi Phi (library)
ATO (hotel)
Tri Delt (day after Christmas)
Fiji (submarine)

The past few years I’ve branched out into building props for the show and this year I had the chance to build a few really fun ones. Here are some pictures of my creations:

Wagon Wheel Chandelier for the barn dance act. this was a lot of fun to build. I’m getting good at building round things, and wiring it up wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. The group ended up staining it and it looked GREAT on stage. Here’s a shot of it stained and laying sideways just offstage:

During their 2 minutes for setup the group puts the bulbs in and attaches the lampshades, then hangs it from the chains and plugs it in. The icky wood blocks are obscured by the lampshades and the whole thing hangs thirty feet off the floor.

A large 9′ tall grandfather clock. The door and clock face both open on hinges for the mice to peek out of.

Gear Stand in progress.

And my Piece de Resistance for the year, a 6′ diameter hanging clock. This thing is a monster, weighing well over 100 pounds. It looked outstanding onstage.

I also built two rolling tables (pictured here) and three benches, plus about 20-30 handheld discs that were painted as clock faces.

Here’s the painted clock face, and here’s what the stage looked like:

The big clock raised up at the beginning of the act. You can see the finished gear rack off to stage right (the left side), and you can just barely see the big grandfather clock in the center back behind the hanging clock. This was a really neat opening with all kinds of tick/tock/bong/cuckoo sounds, smoke, and slow motion going on onstage.

More pics:

600+ pages of music total.

Rehearsing the band (first music read-through) with some Sing Chairs looking on.

Dance rehearsals. I often go in to critique and help once the dancing comes together. This is one of my favorite parts of the whole process since we start to see it all coming together. It really starts to look like something!

Another Rehearsal

Kappa and Kappa Sig put on a coed act with 180 people onstage!

Me and Sing Alum Andrew Ginakis help out the ATO’s.

The “pre-stage” area (Roxy Grove Hall) right before the groups hit the main stage and perform for the whole audience. This group is Tri Delt. They had a (very colorful) “Day After Christmas” act.

Reindeer on pogo sticks.

Here’s one of the acts onstage. Yellow Submarine.

Me with Alliance Sing Chair Ryan Machen. Alliance put on an Island theme. Complete with:

Tiki Masks!

Alliance on stage.

Fifteen of my friends from Supper Club got to come up and see the show this year. We’ll need our own section of the house soon.

And here’s the band, without whom the show would be very… quiet. These guys are absolute pros at what they do. They’re able to see 16 acts worth of music (some years up to 20), and, in two or three days, they can perform the show almost flawlessly in front of a live audience.

Vince on bass in back, John on acoustic and electric, Pat on lead electric, and Scott on drums. Here we’re in the middle of a marathon rehearsal session.

John on guitar.

I love Pat’s funky orange axe.

The brass section! Well, 4/7ths of it anyway. From left to right: Rob, Tim, Jiro, and Chase.

Rob Page was one of my teachers when I got my Commercial Comp/Arranging degree. It was funny to have him sit and read my charts for two weeks. I kept joking that any mistakes were his fault since he didn’t teach me well enough in the first place. Rob’s a great guy who has played with some really big names (Really Big) and we’re lucky to have him on saxophone. The dude can rip a Think solo like you wouldn’t believe.

Music Producer Greg Bashara. Greg is responsible for hiring the band (based on what instruments I request) and making sure they get paid, so we’re really nice to him. He also listens to the house mix and acts as a liason between the enraged arranger (me) and the audio board when the fiddle mic doesn’t come on. Greg takes the brunt of my frustration.
I really like this picture. I stuck the camera down in front of Greg’s sax when he was playing between acts and lucked out with great framing.

Just realized that I didn’t get a picture of Barry this year. Barry handles synth and mini disc cueing. Nice to have somebody down there who’s been at it so long.

Some Sing Chairs:

ATO. They ended up going to Pigskin with their “Hotel California” act.

ADPi Sing Chairs Martha, Bethany, and Sammi. ADPi had the clock act. Unfortunately, they didn’t go to Pigskin, which was very disappointing, but they did a great job of leading their group, which is pretty new to the process. Looking for great things from them in the future.

Ryan, an Alliance chair, in his native islander garb.

The great guys from Phi Kappa Chi right after leaving the stage. They (obviously) had a prison act. Third place Pigskin!

Chi Omega chairs. They made Pigskin with their barn dance act (with the wagon wheel chandelier). Great bunch.

Tri Delt went to Pigskin with their Christmas act. Colorful!

Following is a three part panorama of the stage when they announce the winners. Pictured here are all of the Sing Chairs involved in Sing 2008. They decorate the stage with props from each of the acts. They also give out the people’s choice awards, announce the 8 that are going to Pigskin, then announce 3rd, 2nd, and finally, 1st place. It’s nerve-wracking for everyone involved.

I really like this pic. A chair shot it from the stage and sent it to me:

That’s 2200 people looking back at you.

First place this year went to the coed group of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Kappa Sigma. Here we are with the spoils:

Lots of parties happen after the show, and Erin and I always get invited to several and drop in on as many as we can. Here’s the Alliance party, where there was, hilariously, LIMBO!

I’m not as limber as I used to be.

The fun Alliance crowd, along with the gift they gave me: my very own Tiki Mask! He’s got attitude.

When I was in college I was never a big part of the greek scene. Between spending all of my time in the music building (music majors are notoriously busy), and not having the necessary funds to pay dues, I never really saw the purpose of the greek system. Now that I’ve been working with them for the past 18 years, though, I can see just how great it is. Sing is such an incredible leadership lab that I can’t imagine any mere class curriculum even coming close. These students (some of which are barely 19) have to work with large budgets, manage big groups of their peers, deal with outside professionals (arrangers, backdrop artists, choreographers, designers, costumers, etc), and take an act from nascent idea to full blown stage production. I’ve worked with over a thousand Sing Chairs in my career so far and overwhelmingly they’ll say how much the show taught them and how proud they are of their act. I have the extreme privilege of getting to be with them as many of them go from timid new Chair to confident leader. As always, I am incredibly blessed to get to do what I do for a living and can’t wait to see what the show brings next season!

All in all, a fantastic year.

Total pages: 368
Total “active measures”: 10,310
Total number of measures: 24,001

My charts for Sing 2008 are done! I still have to copy everything onto card stock and organize it all into folders (which will take a couple of long days), and mix the mini disc (another three or four days), but the vast amount of work is behind me. Sipping on a Glenlivet 18 and enjoying being finished.

I’ve found a new favorite artist. Jonathan Coulton. Check out his website, especially Chiron Beta Prime. Heh.

So what happens when you’re Van Halen, the last song in your set list is the million-seller “Jump” with its synthesizer-keyboard opening…and the recording you’re using to play back the synth is accidentally run at 48K instead of 44.1K?

this does.

I know the unmitigated terror that comes when you’re performing a show and see an unstoppable train wreck hurtling down the tracks right at you. I want to laugh at this, but I just can’t.

This is nuts. Crazy. Loco.

…the UK-based Performing Rights Society — the Brit equivalent of ASCAP or BMI — wants to make listening to music loud enough for anyone else to hear an offense punishable by hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Robotic drums! Pretty soon they’ll make something that threatens the lives of actual musicians (rimshot) (h/t brother Ross)

Everybody go to Sean’s page and take his 2 question quiz. He’s doing some personal research and needs input.

what a great story.

Barry Brake and Ken Slavin get a great write-up in the San Antonio Current. Barry just finished producing Ken’s CD “I’ll Take Romance”. It’s a wonderful romp through some good old standards re-imagined with lush Brakeish harmonies and instrumentation. The production is top-notch and Ken’s vocals are smooth as Hennessy. Congrats to them both.

Like many people, I tend to put off difficult stuff until later. Luckily, I can do a bunch of easy work now and let the other stuff slide until closer to deadline. I work really well when under a tight deadline, so I know that the shorter time will add motivation later on.

I’ve been putting off doing a difficult arrangement for several weeks now and finally got up the motivation to tackle it. It was partly the weather- a rainy day always puts me in a productive mood. Give me rain and a hot cup of tea and I can sit happily at my desk for hours.

As is usually the case with these things, once I got into the music I discovered that it wasn’t very hard at all. The whole thing took me about four hours to knock out and I loved every minute of it. Typical.

One day I envision doing all of the (supposedly) hard stuff first and then really feeling “off the hook”.

Now after working on it for the last four hours I just have to get the music out of my head. That usually only happens when something else comes along to take its place.