Nowarezman

I've been re-visiting Getz bossa nova stuff lately and falling in love all over again. He has a touch of a bluesy thing going, plus his use of vibrato and smooth dynamics just hit the spot. There's a YouTube posted up of Gary Burton giving a jazz masterclass. He tells a great anecdote about Getz. Burton was super-young when he started getting gigs with some serious jazzers (there were precious few jazz vibes players in those days). In a session with Getz on sax, Burton noticed that Getz never came in on the first beat or two of changes. He learned that Getz did not read music at all, but played totally by ear. So Getz had to hear just a tiny bit of the changes first, then he was good to go to come in. Now that's an ear! nat

My tic-list of guitar player common foibles: 1. same damn blues licks day after day after year after decade, etc etc etc 2. showing off speed just to show off speed 3. first album not that different from 21st album 4. complex and technically difficult material signifying nothing 5. little to no regard for what's been going on in other genres - a narrow schtick. 6. Derived from previously derivative material from prior players It's the rare guitar player that doesn't commit at least three out of the six. IMHO, Jeff Beck committed none of them. Rare among the rare. nat

Well, just prefix "Euro" to your nostalgia for "rack" and you have a universe of modern gear to choose from. Not all Eurorack is CV-only by a long shot. And there are MIDI to CV converters. In the old rack days, I loved my Roland Drum and Bass module and Roland Strings module. Had an ok Yamaha piano module, an FS1R rack, a Roland MK-50 Alpha Juno rack that I wish I never sold, and a Korg something, was it a M-50?....never went for the big dog Romplers of the day, 'tho. Had a K2000 to keep me busy. Now that was a fun machine, well built, super deep, versatile, covered all the bases from good pianos, electric pianos, B-3, to any sort of madness you could brew up using those algorithms. nat

Jeff Beck has left us. nat

One other thing - try to find an outfit that sells insulation to contractors. Or a contractor with a few odd batts left over after a job. If you buy the Owens Corning 703 or 705 from any outfit that sells acoustic treatment DIY stuff, you will likely get an ungodly markup. There's a place in Austin called Specialty Products & Insulation that will sell bundles of insulation off a palette to whoever walks in. E. St. Elmo if you're ever in town. Google will get you there. Looks like a dump - nice guys, 'tho. My kind of place! I don't know current prices and we all know about inflation....about four years ago I bought 12 panels for $80 give or take.

You can spray the fiberglass with an adhesive that will keep fibers from escaping. My take on all the great discussion so far: 1. gotta get rid of that ringing and echo. Small room ringing and echo makes for a terribly fatiguing listening environment, aside from the blatant inaccuracies. 2. The smaller the room, the more you need bass traps. I made bass traps from the recipe off of Ethan Winer's website. A dozen 4' x 2' Owens-Corning panels costs about $100 nowadays. I made mine with two panels each and they took care of (most of) the bass issues and also the ringing. Here's a link: Build a Better Bass Trap 3. Small rooms will have some problems no matter what you do. So the job here is to minimize the most gross problems. Shoot for making things sound good at the listening/mixing sweet spot and don't worry about how things sound at other positions in the room. 4. Try EQing the room after you've done a reasonable job with physical traps and panels. EQing is ok as a tweak, but the more you EQ, the more your system is lying to your ears. Best o'luck! nat

Classical music is like some huge, ancient city that you can wander through for a lifetime, or just visit and hit the highlights. The continuum of classical say, from the Brandenburgs to Ligeti's music for Kubrick's 2001 covers as big a universe as I care to explore. Any number of people can visit the city and never walk the same streets or see the same sights. nat

Ibanez PM-120 electric. If you want Metheny's dark tone, it of course nails that, but it's also a very versatile 2-pickup archtop hollowbody. Also just plays like a dream. It's the first electric guitar I've had that I can get good tones from finger-picking, also - which was not what I bought it for, but have been pleasantly surprised. The other 2022 purchase I'm over the moon with is the amp I'm playing it through - a Dr. Z M-12 which is not currently in production, but pretty easily found on Reverb. Just stellar cleans and takes pedals like no other amp I've every played through. 'Tho there's this one hitch - I've got some kind of nerve impingement issue with my left hand that's kept me off guitars entirely for a couple of months. Guess I'll spend 2023 cash on some sort of hand specialist, see if I can get back to playing again.... nat

Absolutely 100% re: the Rite of Spring. Gives me shivers. Y'all (I am a Texan, ok?) check out Faure's Requiem. I so want to convert someone, anyone, to being a Faure fanboy like myself! If not the Requiem, then his Pelleas and Melissande. nat

Huge classical fan here. Early childhood exposure was limited, but really stuck. Bernstein's Young People's Concerts especially - the combination of close listening, skilled and sensitive performance, deep emotional response, and the vision of an entire cultural world of musical genius, beauty, and feeling - I got the germ of all those things in the first half hour. I had always responded to music and listened closely as a natural, unthinking response. Bernstein taught me that was just the door - infinities of musical richness lay beyond the door if you would take the journey. All that gushing aside - I've made my forays into classical and I have my favorites. Even after 5 decades of serious listening and reading, a lot of music labeled "classical" escapes me. To my ear, there are a lot of boring hacks in the classical repetoire. It's not beyond me to criticize even the greats, either. For example, I generally can't stand Beethoven's orchestration of woodwinds - so often in the "big parts" of symphonies, those woodwinds seem to me to be shrill and overblown and almost funny, like something PDQ Bach would do, or Satie would lampoon. Classical music is an institution and is always suspect of being a sanctuary for snobs. Well, so what? - I don't care what snobs do. People get all snobby and stuck-up about all sorts of things - politics, hairstyles, athletic shoes, perfectly-tended lawns, proper grammar, correct pronunciations, expensive whiskies, the most carbon-neutral lifestyle, handbags, vacation spots, just about anything. Welcome to the human race. I listen the most to Faure, Chopin, Debussy, and Ravel. I study their sheet music, read their biographies, their critics, and the analyzers of their styles and harmonies, etc. Second in line come Sibelius, Walter Piston, Bach, and Early European music (the early stuff that is heavily modal and before "common Western usages and harmonic rules.) I do love Beethoven's Piano Sonatas - but I listened to his symphonies so many times I need about a ten-year break. What I like to listen to and study in no way constitutes what I think is the "best" classical music. I'm not up to the task of canon-making. I'm just an amateur and an enthusiast. nat

Live music is still performed and experienced as basically a stereo experience. The listener sits still or stands in one place, with the instruments spread out left to right in front of the listener. It's a convention, sure, not an absolute of some sort. If we all grew up in a culture where music was performed by placing the audience in the middle and the performers spread out in a surrounding circle, then a surround-type field of sources would sound normal and essential I suppose for serious listeners. And surely music composition would be different in some way to exploit the physical layout which would become in itself another cultural convention. On the other hand, movies obviously try to recreate a 3D experience since "life" is 3D. I do like stereo systems that do a good job of creating the illusion of a wide stereo field, with instruments you can pick out from left to right. But most popular music just doesn't need to provide that sort of experience. Classical, sure. Jazz, to an extent. The one music genre that to my mind could really benefit from surround is - the clue is in the name - ambient music. But that's a tiny genre in terms of listeners. Too bad. I could use me some immersive, submersive, engulfing, surrounding ambient goodness to give the sauna bath treatment to my soul from time to time. nat

Since for ever I've felt that no one has fully tapped the potential of the synthesizer. I don't even know what that would look like, er..sound like, rather. Not to say there have not been incredible synth productions and programmers and players....but IMHO we're still waiting for the first major virtuoso-composer-super-genius to blow our minds and make us rethink synth playing and programming from a revolutionary, revelatory new point of view. So that's my choice, since we're just dreaming here. nat

Hey, I recognize that video artwork from somewhere.....Windows Media Player effects from a while ago, maybe? Love the throwback vibe on your tune - that fuzz, that "indigenous" sound of your flute, the tremolo and smooth slow vibe. nat

Tough for me 'cause I'm 50/50 keys and guitars. If the house was on fire and I had to grab and go, I'd take my classical guitar - that's what I play 80% of the time lately. Fifteen years ago I played piano about 80% of the time. I'm not as good on the classical guitar as piano, and I've had to work harder on guitar to get where I am. For that reason, I just might favor the guitar, as it's more gratifying, having invested so much more time and trouble. Pretty weird way to think about things - yeah, I get that all the time nat

Very interesting, all the responses. Good thread idea, CA! I've thought about this very thing quite a lot lately out of coincidence. I need to pare things down, be less cluttered, go deeper not wider. Just where I am at this point in life. First off, I need my hands and my voice. Feet, too, at times. At my age I'm reaping what I've sown over six decades. Take care of 'em, boys and girls. You don't get new ones, at least not at this stage in technological evolution. Second off - I actively play keys and guitars, so here goes: One main single coil guitar, one main humbucker guitar. Right now I'm playing a Casino and an Ibanez PM-120. One bright Fender-y amp, one Brit voiced amp. Right now I'm playing a Dr. Z M-12 thru a Weber Blue Dog, and a '65 AC4. That's right, an ancient AC4, all original except for a few caps and a new Weber Champ speaker. So I don't really have a Fender-y amp, but the M-12, with pedals, hits some of the same territory. One good 'ol steel string acoustic, one beloved Classical nylon-string, one lap steel. Right now I've a Martin OM-28V, a Pavan classical, and a late 40s vintage Rickenbacher bakelite lap steel, an "ACE" with the horseshoe pickup and yes, the old spelling before the "ch" was changed to a "k". Nails the Running on Empty tone hands-down. For keys I need a piano. Right now I'm making do with a big MIDI SL88 controller and good software, but I'm working on buying a big upright - a Yamaha or a Steinway - once we move in a couple of month. For EP, I just like the Waves Wurly emulation. Not picky....EPs are wonderful, but not particularly subtle, instruments. I'd so love a real B-3. It was the first instrument I really, really wanted after hearing Booker T play Summertime. I got a Vox Jaguar transistor instead - which was cool - but not a B-3 by any means. So I now I play a midi keyboard and software. The B-3 software available these days is pretty freaking good! But there's no replacement for a real Leslie. Maybe some day.... For synths, I have a Modwave, a Poly Evolver, a Neutron, and a Model D (Behringer.) Kinda set for synths, not even going into detail about all the VST synths I've purchased. Most of the time I use Kontakt, Reaktor, Diva, and the Mellotron stuff from G-Force. Just bought the Roland Cloud 106, for that thing the 106 does! VSTs do all the old outboard stuff - compression/reverb/EQ/delays/saturation and on and on, except I do have about a dozen guitar pedals, all subject to frequent change. But "need" is one thing and "have" is another. What I need, really, is to stick to a handful of go-to instruments. Bond with them, love them, hate them, play them 'till I know every hemi-demi-semi wisp of their feel and quirks and strengths and weaknesses, which become my feel and quirks and strengths and weaknesses. And then go from there, all the above being just shopping, not "music" per se. nat

You could also try to run your old editor-librarian software using a virtual machine program like DosBox or the VMware Workstation (entry-level versions of these can be had for free...just google them up.) Windows also has a virtual machine program somewhere in the Windows feature set, but I've never used it. Per hearsay it's also good. These virtual machine programs set up a "virtual PC" in software that runs in a window - you can load Windows 95/98/XP, whatever, in them. I use VMWare all the time to run some old business software in XP that is better than any equivalent I've ever found that runs under current Window OS versions. I load it up and viola, I get a screen that shows XP booting just exactly like old times. Then you can install programs from CDs or even floppies (if you have a floppy reader!) just like it's 25 years ago. It sounds intimidating, I know - but the outfits that make virtual machine software have been making their products a lot more user and newbie-friendly over the years. nat

Whoever could play their instrument and sing at the same time was always the best musician in any band I was ever in....they usually wrote songs, too. But I've always valued all-around musicianship rather than virtuoso capabilities on one instrument....probably cause I ain't a virtuoso on nothin' nat

The only electronic track I can remember hearing on the radio in the 90s (KGSR in Austin was the go-to station for me) was Little Fluffy Clouds by The Orb. Anyone else ever hear this tune? If you're not familiar with the tune, can you guess who the two people are in the sampled interview bits? (the first sampled interview clip is about 15 seconds in right after the British radio voice bit). I still love this clever little track - nat

Lotta great electronic music from the 90s. That was the decade I got into electronic music - not the 80s (unlike everyone else seemingly.) 90s electronic bands/projects like The Orb, Underworld, Amon Tobin, Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Autechre, Orbital, Future Sound of London, Meat Beat Manifesto, Bola, Air, tons of these sorts of acts - I still listen to all that stuff pretty regularly. It's the golden age of electronic music for me - not sure how many other people think of the 90s that way, 'tho. nat

Christine had such a soulful voice - she wrote straightforward, heartfelt songs. Without her, the band would have started to feel too showy, maybe even a bit frivolous or flaky. I really admired her talent - and the crowds would hush and really listen to her. nat

Radio in the car is still a habit. KMFA in Austin is a great classical station funded by members. KUT is an NPR station - still love Fresh Air, All Things Considered, Radiolab, Texas Standard. And on some station, somewhere along the FM dial, some station is still playing Hotel California or Barracuda, if all else utterly fails.... nat

I've still got 700-800 CDs. We will be moving in a couple of months, so this is a current question. I've decided, for now, to keep them, but I'm transferring them all to storage binders. Once you get rid of the jewel cases, which are a pain anyway, you can store an immense number of CDs in far less space using binders. The paper artwork/text thingies fit right in front of each CD. I'm not 100% convinced that all this free streaming will last forever. Maybe, someday, somehow, musicians and other creatives will get their respective acts together and learn how to stand up to the rapacious middle-men and the world will learn that, no, I'm sorry, but all this stuff other people have created is not just yours for free as if by right. There is stuff I have on CD that I can't find anywhere on any streaming service, so far at least, 'tho I don't hunt for these particular albums obsessively as I've got them on CDs anyway. There's also this - I prefer to have control over my own music collection. I've digitized all the CDs, got them organized on USB and hard drives - all uncompressed, ready to listen to. I've made dozens and dozens of playlists, folders, etc. No wifi to fart with, no bluetooth pairing that works/not works/works/not works, no streaming service to navigate, no ads, no unasked-for content starts playing, no cludgy streaming interface, no outages, no internet. Just me and the playback. Ahhh! Serious listening time. Couldn't live without it. I do stream, I must admit - but mainly I use the streaming service to find new stuff to listen to and for background music. nat

Good points, all. I think it was Blake that said something like "everything that exists was once an idea." Not sure exactly what Blake himself meant but his statement reminds me that art is not "creation from nothing", rather it's a set of skills that allow you to say something in a particularly interesting or creative manner. So you have to have something to say, first of all. The art part starts after that first non-artistic square one. Artists have sometimes rebelled against the above formulation - saying in effect that art is not something you make that references something else. Rather it's just what it is, alone. I think that's great nonsense, to not put too fine a point on it. Nothing exists without context and is in it's own way, a door to endless points of view from other points of view. Context makes it all - the web of endless reference and cross-reference is where meaning and creativity exist. nat

Reaper's for Tweakers. That's why it polarizes. To tweak or not to tweak, that is the proclivity. nat

Basically it's just to have a presence with my music available. I want the presentation to have a little class, some nice design, eye-candy. Something that looks good at first blush, then makes it easy to listen to a thing or two (videos probably) and then easy ways to drill down if I've actually got someone that interested. Income? I'll have a link to Bandcamp, so that will probably be the way any possible income could be generated, but money is not a motivation here, at least in this white-boarding stage.