In the gentle art of music production, it’s almost always the simplest instruction that gets the best results. Naturally, that always reminds me of the scientific principle known as Occam’s Razor.  For the last few days, I’ve been working on a very fun project with a couple of my neighbors (who are very busy professional musicians) and an excellent singing bassist with whom I’ve played with a number of times before.
This evening, we were working on vocals, and Singer took a few takes of one of the songs, but the vibe wasn’t quite happening. It’s a very strong, haughty song, and she felt she was being a bit too gentle with the vocal. When you’re working with amateurs or people without much experience, sometimes you have to hold their hands a bit, but when you’re dealing with professionals you can push them a little bit harder. I told her simply to “Step back from the mic a little, and just sing the hell out of it.”
She did, the song completely came to life, and we had our vocal take.
I wish I could embed this video, but the link will have to do. It’s a short animated illustration of an excerpt of one of Alan Watts‘ lectures, and it’s absolutely brilliant.
I’m still on a mini-sabbatical from blogging, but there’s lots to tell you about if I felt so inclined. Mixing for IrishBand, two gigs in Portland and Seattle (okay, here’s a picture from the Seattle show). . .
. . .opening up for the amazing Cirkestra, a fantastic day of music, dinner and the Oregon Symphony with the lovely and talented JapanesePianist, and for the next few days I’m taking a surprise trip to Northern California. As soon as I get back, it’s into the studio with MellowBand.
But like I said, I’m still on sabbatical, so I’m not gonna elaborate on any of that stuff. Sorry.
See you when I get home from NorCal. Hopefully I’ll be in more of a writing mood by then.
Man, I swear this blog gets more hits when I don’t post for a week than when I post all the time. I guess it’s a good thing I’m still feeling un-bloggish lately, then, in order to give everybody a chance to soak up a bit of beauty, humor, sadness (although there’s been precious little sadness lately!) and truth.
Times have been good, overall. Had a great gig on Friday, at which I got the chance to see many friends. I started mixing the EP for IrishBand (our goal is to finish mixing some time in December), and I had an excellent birthday. Got some new clothes. My friend LJ returned from three weeks in the U.K., so we went to brunch and then came back here to my place where she could upload the pictures and explain the stories behind all of them.
I had another excellent day yesterday, which involved a new friend and much random fun. We met at Powell’s, then watched a bewildering theater performance at Pioneer Square (we left after about ten minutes, scratching our heads with confusion), watched some buskers outside Nordstrom, bounced around between a bunch of closed restaurants (which finally led us to get sushi at Sansai), then we walked clear up to Vivace for coffee and dessert. Lovely day.
NewFriend is a piano teacher, so we’ve been looking for classical music we’ll be able to play together as a duo. I found a book of ‘easy to intermediate’ cello solos at Powell’s, which consists of classical pieces arranged for cello, with piano accompaniment. Perfect! It’s part of a two-book series; Book One is the piano book, and Book Two is the cello book. I bought the piano one because A) it was the only one they had, B) it had both the piano AND the cello parts on it, and C) I figured we could track down the complementary book at some point, or just photocopy whichever pieces we intend to learn.
When I pulled up at home, CellistSkip was standing next to his car, and he said hello. I brought the book over to show him, and he said, “No way. . .I think I used to have that book when I was a kid.” FlutistSusan came down the steps just then and I showed it to her too. “That sounds familiar,” she said. “I think I may actually have the cello book in my files somewhere.” She ran into her office, rummaged around in a drawer, and after about ten seconds pulled out a tattered copy of the companion cello book. The cover is gone and about half of the pages are missing, but it’s the same book. What a crazy coincidence, no?
So here are a few pictures. I wish I would’ve taken more, but I was too hungry to think of it when we got our sushi. The sushi was excellent, by the way, but the sunomono salad (with octopus, red onions, bell peppers and daikon radishes) was the hit of the day.
Perhaps I could recruit your help in locating a piece for NewFriend and me? We’re looking for Antonin Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance #2 in E minor, Opus 72, arranged for piano and cello. You know, it’s this piece (and what a beautiful performance this is!):
I could watch that all day. Thanks in advance for your help!
