Nowarezman

Wow - love that guy's voice! And I can hear those spicy quarter-tones and lovely string harmonics. Really nice - going on my playlist for sure. The track that got me all hot for an oud is this one: nat

I just bought a Godin Multioud - an acoustic-electric item, not very a traditional oud to say the least, but got a great price for a mint item. I want to first see if I take to oud playing before considering a pricier traditional oud. The plectrum looks like a plastic emery board - about 5" long. Very different from using a regular pick - you have to dig in pretty hard to coax the tone from the instrument. But I love the thumpy attack and the slight chorusing from the double strings. Pretty short neck - seems like most of the playing is in 4-5 semitones from the nut. It will take some time to develop good intonation on a fretless instrument. But being able to "bend" notes without bending is very cool. Don't know how closely I'll stick to traditional playing - those semitones will take some work! But why not start a new instrument at 69 years of age? Any advice as to good YouTube instructors or good books to work out of? nat

Thx for the compliment! The acoustic track has a lot of noise - but that's not the mic's fault. nat

Sleep in and don't consider it time lost. nat

Oh, I bought the Octava MK012 a long, really long time ago - maybe 1998? Plastic case, couple of capsules, pale grey metal - got it on a blowout from GC for really, I mean really cheap. The body had a dent - seemed to make no diff... They were just magic recording my Guild acoustic. Rich, detailed, solid. I think I paid something less than $100 - like I said, it was a GC blowout... Still have it - 'tho I use my Studio Electronic pair of se8s more now - I sold the Guild and now play a Martin OM-28V which has a gentler, more subtle vibe that suits the stereo mic pair better than the old Octava. Attached is an old track that features the Guild acoustic, recorded using the Octava. I think it's just an old Roland 1680 recorder - surprised at how good it sounds after all these years..... nat The Red Book.mp3

Musician's musicians, all the guys in The Band, and Robbie provided the most creative vibe and soul in all those great songs. Glad I got to see them in '71 (I think it was) in Houston. And got to see Levon drumming with his band in 2009 at the Austin City Limits Festival. He wasn't singing due to his throat problems, but still, just to see him again in person. Those first three albums by the Band were, and still are, just fantastic. Like Springsteen said (paraphrased) in some context, hearing them for the first time they were totally new while at the same time you felt like you've been listening to them forever. Only Garth is still around, word is he's pretty frail. My main piano influences outside of jazz are Leon, Elton, and Garth. Garth being the most talented and creative on keys IMHO. nat

In line with my previous post - no item of the current scientific consensus should be considered eternal, unchanging fact or final truth. Many seeming unassailable scientific "facts", using the best methods, arguments, and math of the day, have been replaced by newer, better conceptions. Even Newton - he was certainly wrong in so many fundamental ways. Don't forget he was also a dabbler in Alchemy and Numerology, too. The "most brilliantly correct" conceptions have to remain always at risk of failing at some point. It's the only way the scientific game can proceed. nat

Science evolves by a combo process of reason and observation for refining/extending truth - the newer stuff superseding the older stuff. So by definition, it is always "wrong" in the sense that this constant turnover strives to move to "one better" perpetually. But you see, that's a good thing! Beliefs, at least the more respectable beliefs, rely on intuition plus reason. But there is no community-consensus method to evolve belief, so it's rather static left to its own devices. It has to be challenged from an external source. Which is also a good thing! And the big point I'd like to make is that every scientist is in some part also a believer, as science makes a million dots, but belief and intuition provide many, many crucial connections between dots. Not to mention drawing new lines out to where they believe they can prove a new dot. People need the power of imagination, belief, intuition, to, well, believe they can go one better. Einstein was remarkably intuitive - a genius of intuition if you will. And he got a bit stuck at one stage of the development of quantum mechanics because that intuition "told" him something was wrong in the state of quantum. But he also came up with General and Special Relativity by the power of a combination of intuition, reason, and reason's factotum, math. And then others made the clinching observations later. Beliefs factor into both scientific progress and scientific stagnation. Watch Brian Greene videos - he's a real physicist, a string-theory guy, and he makes no bones about the fact that he's into string theory because he believes it's the best path to a truth that has yet to be established as a proven thing, a "truth" in the scientific consensus. And as an aside point to make - don't make the mistake that so many make that, when the experts fail, declaring, "now it's time to bring in the amateurs and mystics to sort this out!" nat

I'm not sure what's obscure and what isn't - but I suspect the average person nowadays has never heard of My Dinner With Andre (1981). One of those movies that could have been on the stage, as it's 99% conversation. But the movie has always stayed with me since I saw it when it came out in a little movie theater across the street from U of TX. Two vastly different men with vastly different experiences and attitudes in life discuss life over a very long dinner at a restaurant. That's pretty much it! So it's clearly not for everyone. One character is romantic, adventurous, mystical, extroverted - the other humble, humane, self-effacing, quietly profound in his way. Both are actors (surprise!) and old friends. We've probably all known a few very wild and adventurous sorts - lots of crazy storytelling and a terrific desire for extreme or transcendent experiences, however naive or even disingenuous. But most folks are just ordinary folks with school, jobs, modest hopes, modest middle-of-the-road lives. These are the two poles of possible ways of life the film examines, embodied in the two characters (guess which one Wallace Shaw plays.) Which one are you? Am I? Which one would I rather be? Which way is better in real human terms? Do I think I'm one when I'm actually the other? Can one be both? These were the questions the movie left resonating in my mind, even to this day. nat

So Oppenheimer. I started reading the big bio that the movie is based on a couple of weeks before seeing it. So for once, a Hollywood production that mostly sticks to a respected historical biography. And where it deviates...no big deal. Very interesting movie, worthwhile. The star is the story, pretty much. The pacing of the story is excellent, the screen-writing is good enough. No one pulls off an Oscar-worthy performance, which is actually ok, because that would involve a good bit more interpretation in the screen-writing and performing. Matt Damon has the biggest screen presence. Cillian Murphy is always good - here, too, as the very odd, soft-spoken genius he's portraying. Robert Downey, Jr. (nice seeing you again, Tony!) does very well, but he's only got a one-sided, narrow view of a character to portray as written. I recommend seeing the film, then read the book, then see the film again. There's a good bit of jumping around, time-wise, in the earlier parts of the movie that I would guess would confuse anyone not familiar with the outlines of Oppenheimer's life story. The movie tells an amazing story, but it's a good bit of a yet more amazing story in the biography. I do wish the film had some lines about Hitler throwing out the greater part of the world's greatest minds in physics because it was "Jewish science." But the film does do a decent job of bringing home the all-too-real fear that the Germans would have the bomb first - I can't even begin to imagine what the Nazis would have done to the entire world had they obtained that power. Brrrrrrrrrrr. And btw - at the Imax, it was LOUD. I wore my noise-cancelling headphones which cut the volume approx in half, which was perfect. My hearing is still pretty good, adjusting for age. But when things get really too loud, all I hear is gravel in a blender. I need a buffer in any kind of loud venue. nat

If the human race manages to survive and maintain scientific and social progress, at some point, we will certainly spread life to other locations in space. We will then be the guys that all the aliens have been looking for and arguing for eons about whether we exist. nat

I recently bought a pair of Genelec 8320As and a sub from SVS. (Jeez, what detail I get from these Genelecs!!) The Genelec website has some great articles about speaker placement and mixing point positioning. Their advice is a bit different than what I've read and watched from a large number of other sources. I've actually put their advice into practice, so my support for their take on all this is backed up by experience. I won't repeat their detailed discussions here - you can get started here. But one super-useful principle I came away with is this - you don't have spend as much money and buy as much sheer mass of treatment if you do some things that cost little or nothing to help decrease room artifacts in what you're hearing from the mixing position. Some "for examples" in highly condensed language: 1. Make the equilateral triangle of the mixing position smaller rather than bigger - a simple way to increase the ratio of direct sound you'll hear versus reflected sound. Cost = send me $50, thx. 2. Simply experiment with your mixing chair placement and speaker placement until you find as node-free a configuration as you can. Decreases the amount of damage control the treatment has to accomplish. An inch here, and inch there can make a significant difference. And get those speakers pointed very accurately right at your ear height. Speakers differ in their sensitivity to horizontal and vertical aiming - but just a few little degrees of difference will make an audible difference, maybe even a major difference. I think of listening at the sweet spot like looking through a telescope. The right focus and a just-so orientation of your eye to the viewing lens is a narrow set of criteria but is the only way to do it. 3. This tip is actually from Mike Senior (SOS guy and well-known studio guru). You just don't have to mix most of the time hearing the low lows and high highs. The great bulk of the work and important content is in between the extremes. Take those low lows out of the material entirely, mix away, and add them back in later after you've sorted everything else. Less low content, so less work again for the treatment, less node mess, and no "one-note" bass. I'm a huge fan of mixing with Avantone MixCubes 90% of the time - there are other speakers just as suitable. Get the mix sorted on those, and move to the big speakers and/or high quality phones for the high highs and low lows for a wrap. nat

I lived in Austin while SRV was coming up. He played pretty frequently around town - I had heard a song or three on the radio and was pretty meh about him. His cover of Voodoo Child I thought was just a typical cover that couldn't touch the original - why bother? It was years and years until I saw him live - then I got it. Live, he just attacks that Strat - how does he not break half the strings every song? It's that sheer blues intensity that I never got off the recordings. Hendrix is a transcendent sort of stylist - opulent and flamboyant and all sex-magic-sensual-ecstatic-fantastic. SRV is just digging deep down in the dirt - hot, sweaty, working-hard-for-your-pay blazing blues all day long. nat

Surprisingly bad. Well, it wasn't "bad" as far as it went. But it was really bad in just how far it didn't go. To explain: Clapton's Crossroads at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, on a very, very hot day in June, 2004. Great, great time, so many great players, but my 14-year old son and I were totally beat with the 100 degree heat after some 10 hours on those unshaded metal bleachers. Finally the sun got low, a breeze wafted in, and off to the NW you could see a late-day heat-induced thunderhead slowly rolling Dallas-way from far off. No matter - the breeze felt great, and best of all, Jeff Beck was up next, one of the last acts. He played a fantastic solo version of Cause We've Ended as Lovers. Heaven! Then we're surprised by a lightening flash and somehow the big thunderhead is startlingly near. Jeff Beck walks off after the one tune, over and out. That was the "bad". Luckily, the last band was, appropriately, ZZ Top, and they strolled out with their beards and giant fuzzy dice and all, oblivious to the looming storm and played the concert home in perfect style, their full set. The thunderhead just slowly wafted away harmlessly in the cooling night air. nat

Craig, that's really interesting thing you've come up with. First thing I think of is that "melee" quality in the mid-range with complex mixes. It's also like when you're at a restaurant and there's just this one table - often a guys or girls-night-out sort of group in that highly elevated phase after a few rounds and before the food arrives - if they would just shut up, you could hear and think again, even with the rest of the usual background babble going on. I wonder if a transient attack attenuator would have a similar beneficial effect than notching everything out of a particular span of the upper mids. Surely at some point in some mix or other, chopping out a big notch will throw some little precious baby out with the dirty bathwater. nat

By far, when I read articles or listen to or watch videos from well-known mix engineers, they tend to take a mid-range first and foremost approach to mixing. They are greatly concerned to avoid distracting from that mid-range where the vocals and the universally reproduceable portions lie, (leaving laptop speakers and the worst ear buds out of the picture). The mid-range is, by nature, sort of like a free-for-all melee of competing sources. So it takes a lot of skill and sonic choices (and sacrifices) to get that mid-range to feel open and intelligible and unified. But once you've got that down, you can then tend to the airy highs and the thumper lows, adjusting to taste, but making sure they don't, as Ken said, do any poking out with respect to the central focus of the mix. There are exceptions, of course. Certain passages in a recording may leave spaces where the high highs or low lows can take the floor for a moment. And certain genres of electronic music have an unrelenting huge bass thing going on - but you can't do that with the majority of genres and styles. All said, the focus on the mid-range does often result in a careful taming of the tails of the audible spectrum. It is a shame if that leads to something like loosing the sparkle on an acoustic guitar or the bite of resonance turned way up on a synth. If those things are important enough to the overall recording, a good engineer will figure out a way to attenuate them just enough so they don't poke out but still come through nicely. Myself - it's a real struggle to mix that well. I'll generally sand things down for smoothness first, and then see if I can bring up some high detail or lovely bass part a bit without upsetting the general balance. nat

Joni's song about the child she gave up for adoption.

My first two acoustics were made by Alvarez - very good value in the $300 - $400 range. nat

I'm self-taught on acoustic guitar. Started when I was a freshman in a dorm - my roomie had a Martin D-28 that he never played and he was fine with me playing it all I wanted (he spent all his time at his girlfriend's). So I just started picking out the notes from songs I liked - James Taylor, Leo Kottke, Donovan, Beatles, and a little bit of Doc Watson, slowed way down. My grade point average was really bad that first year, but I made big strides on guitar It takes a lot of time, starting on acoustic guitar. First hurdle is that your fingertips hurt until you build callouses. Then you have to decide to use a pick and strum, or fingerpick, or attempt both. I stuck with fingerpicking - never bothered to get good with a pick. After you get the big open string "cowboy chords" down, you have to cross the big Rubicon of barre chords, where you use the first finger of your left hand to hold down all six strings, then place the other fingers to make the various chord shapes. This also will probably cause a bit of pain - and lots of beginners give up right at this point. It can be done! You just have to persist. The big problem with being self-taught is that you inevitably build some bad habits that can become quite entrenched and eventually serve as a barrier to further progress. Just a few lessons with a good teacher can help you avoid the more common bad techniques. My bad habits were: 1 - pressing the strings too hard with my left hand. Eventually this led to carpal tunnel! And it always hindered my speed and smoothness. Eventually I switched to a classical guitar, eased up the pressure, and sort of had to start over once the carpal tunnel healed via surgery. (Yes, surgery!). 2 - trying to play too fast too soon. This is universal mistake, I think. 3 - never warming up or stretching a bit before playing. 4 - just playing the same old things over and over a gazillion times. This is a good problem to have in that you have to just love playing to fall into this bad habit. And I love playing anytime, all the time. But I have to force myself to progress and not just indulge my favorites. Best o'luck - there are a lot of good YouTube channels with acoustic guitar lessons. Nothing's as good as a good, in-the-flesh teacher, but if I had had YouTube in the 70s, I would have gotten a lot further a lot sooner and maybe even skipped the carpal tunnel. nat

Notes, you should give classes in common sense - you're a master. nat

We had an adviser come to the house and explain all the Medicare ins and outs. We decided to not go with the Advantage plans, but with a Medicare Supplemental Plan G. The Advantage plans typically have lower monthly premiums, which has proven very successful as a selling point since lots of folks are on slim budgets. But the Supplemental plans we felt gave us a better deal for the long haul. Basically the Plan G supplemental picks up the 20% that Medicare doesn't cover. And we don't have to deal with preferred providers - any medical outfit that takes Medicare we can go to in any city, any state. nat

The connection between age and artistry is a very real thing, I must add to the discussion. It's worth considering when getting to know an artist in depth. There are certain patterns or arcs of artistic careers that seem to come up again and again. The problem is whether you apply the concept of age to increase your understanding and appreciation of an artist, or whether you use the concept of age to pigeonhole them and reduce them, typically in a pejorative manner. It's still true, if the only thing you know about an artist is their age, you know nothing about the artist. But if you know, say, that Paul Simon turned 60 in 2001 with some of his best music yet to be produced, you know that his achievements in his older years are remarkable and unusual. More power to Paul!! He inspires me endlessly. I think it's fair to say, "wow, at his age..." in admiration. But if you are a rock journalist who considers anyone over 30 as automatically washed up, well, that's moronic. nat

I tracked for a long time keeping one headphone cup off, one on. I did get what I felt was too much bleed as a matter or course. The lo-fi, low cost solution I turned to was to simply use cheap earbuds for hear the mix while I tracked. The earbuds block almost zero ambient sound, so I can hear myself fine, and their output is so tiny, the bleed problem disappeared. If I wanted a sexy, effects-laden and loud cue mix to inspire my singing, this cheapo technique would not work. But I just need to hear the beat and pitches clearly, and to know exactly where I am in the song. My imagination provides my big cue mix. On a tangent to the specific topic, I also track my vocals one phrase at a time. I'll do maybe five or six takes of the same phrase, then move to the next phrase. It all goes back to school band where the teacher would yell "STOP!" in the middle of our playing, and say "go back to measure 16 - we're going to play the four measures starting from there over and over again until we get it right. So concentrate and we can get this part behind us. Ok, one..two..three..." nat

Well, the big critique of capitalism by the Marxists was always centered around the degradation of the worker to the economic benefit of the owners of capital. I studied Marxism a good bit in college, and in Grad School at the University of Denver School of International Studies. Back before the Wall came down and there was this mean ol' nation called the U.S.S.R. and China was still reeling and patching wounds from the Cultural Revolution. Nowadays the political discussions center around empowerment rather than class struggle. But the Marxists (I most certainly am not a Marxist if you are wondering) did put a big finger on the real, persistent tendency of worker/producer abuse under capitalism. But here's the other side of the coin - the standard of living, worldwide, has been, in the large view, improving in an astonishing manner over the last, say, 100 years. Capitalists and conservatives like to take 100% credit for this amazing historical trend. They should cool their jets and read around a bit more thoroughly. It's all far too complicated to identify a single "ism" to account for the progress. We have to muddle through a maze of complex and interlinked social, political, and economic factors to maintain this wonderful trend. So I don't go for painting any ongoing or historical ism with the total blackout brush. Or crowning any new ism as savior. We need to stay fiercely discontent, no question - but not despairing, not nihilstic, not vengeful or entertaining evil dreams of apocalypse to cleanse a hopeless world order. It's not a hopeless world order by any means. Unless enough people believe that it is. nat

Peter Gunn. All-time greatest of all time for all time. No disagreements allowed. nat