what is going on in your musical life

like, imagine you are developing a new friendship but in front of an audience

I have a lot of friends that are "improvisors" and we have lots of discussions about "how to improvise" and "why we improvise" and "what are bad and good things people do in improvisation" ... lots of analogies ... some of them end up being sexual.

but obv if this is a workshop for teenage girls, analogies to conversations and making new friends would be more appropriate than the more adult ones.

xp - oh i understand that. -- it's what is fun about the whole thing! it was the same way at the workshop, i had to get 3 volunteers to 1) show up to the workshop to lend a hand and 2) jam together/w me in front of campers and none of us knew each other at all. different than a professional performance opp of course but the concept is the same. did you get to rehearse at all? how well do you know them?
if this is intrusive i apologize. if given the opportunity to ask, i always have a lot of questions, lol

speaking of sexual though!! i usually assiduously avoid going there, as a rule. nothing i said yesterday would have inspired prurient material. however, when i went around looking at the post its i had them write on to express the thoughts or feelings they wanted to have in mind while they were improvising. there were 3 of them that clearly were related to sex. lol! teenagers, gotta love em. i was proud of them for being so open.

no rehearsal. I knew them socially -- 2 of the 3. The 3rd I don't think I'd met. They asked me to play with them because at one point months ago, when one of them was playing a show at my friend's house (where this show was), we were hanging out afterwards, and I semi-drunkenly demonstrated that I could play 4 and 5 stroke rolls. ... as in getting the stick to bounce 4 or 5 times in a steady rhythm. Dude was impressed.

ha seriously? that's funny
i'm impressed by your boldness of "yes i can play this giant ribcage with these strangers on a stage"

anyway -- another example of how socializing/networking leads to gigs

the time where i got frustrated as a drummer playing in a large group where everything was muddy and too loud to hear myself so I intentionally fell off my drum stool onto a broken bottle on the floor was more bold than just ... playing my instrument in a group w/3 guys: two guitarists and one modular synth player

i still have a scar from that bottle

indeed it does!! that is but one reason why i have been bummed to have been sick all summer --> result: my socializing has been minimal :( i was anticipating it being maximal and helping me get through the winter with all my plans but i will have to keep at it.

omg at the bottle, that is O_O you musta been real bored ;)

it was a really shitty improv. very bored.

also, it was the "ooh, you want to be punk/noise and play sloppy and loud, let me just take this to the next level" ... performative oneupsmanship ... there's a lot of that in improv too

i feel like once you get to a certain age/level of familiarity with a genre or scene things blend together and a certain jadedness and impatience can set in. And that's something I discuss w/friends who are also musicians quite a bit. Relatedly, how to combat that in terms of what you do. Like, I always feel the need to push myself artistically, to challenge myself. Whether it's on a technical level, or experimenting with a different aesthetic, or just doing things that I might feel uncomfortable doing? ... So, I have this project I do ... not very often ... because it's really just one composition/piece. The first few times it was a group called "Secretarial Pool" ... then a friend asked me to play and do that project but I was so exhausted from my job which entailed organizing artists to do various things, that I was like, "I'll do it, but solo, if that's ok with you?" and she was fine with that. So it became "Office Assistant" ... anyway, it was in between sets, a few before I played (this was one of those 5 band bill noise/experimental shows), and a friend (different friend) suggested, you should just really go for it and like take your shirt off during your set. .... And I said, "Actually, that would be great." ... So I did. Part of the way. Like, I don't think anything was actually exposed because the shirt had weird buttons in the back and it was kinda hard to remove while playing what I was playing musically. ... Again, probably not a suitable anecdote for your teenagers.

... it was not inappropriate for the show/venue just fyi ... quite tame compared to other things that have happened there ... it used to be a co-op space that I was a member of ... and, oh geez, that whole enterprise -- running a DIY venue -- would be a whole separate thread. I have so many stories. .... With just this space alone.

If you are reading this, Milton Parker, you can easily verify this.

About to perform with Ben Verdery's guitar orchestra

xpost Secretarial Pool / Office Assistant is an amazing project, glad that one is still going

^^ dude's band just put out a new album or something

Just bought a bass

nice, what kind?

last week i bought my first electric guitar and amp. unfortunately, just like my drums, i can't play them in my apartment at any decent volume. wondering how my blues jr IV sounds when it's cranked up past 1

Lol @ cranked to 1

seriously, it's so sad. it's not even out of 10 - the master volume goes up to 12!

It reminds me of when someone is dancing really timidly when you know they want to just let it rip

Always sad but also amusing

Gotta get one of those OX boxes :P

https://www.uaudio.com/hardware/ox.html

Is there no joy in headphone jamming?

The album that I finished back in January is finally coming out, one song streaming rn:
https://astralplanerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/seven-spheres
https://open.spotify.com/track/4KX7jL8yZv5dJvW9VqQ1De?fbclid=IwAR0rT_N-Sxn9RqzasN_JWFOhxJu6aYFOremfgqyts-IyfXlYIs4YPHz6v0g

started listening to guided by voices last week. life is good. dont want the honeymoon phase to end

Is there no joy in headphone jamming?

i really want to headphone jam! unfortunately my amp doesn't have an output jack

What? Can you get an adapter?

i'll probably just end up getting some sort of cheap headphone amp (Vox Amplug?) while the actual amp sits in the corner collecting dust

nice, what kind?

A used but good Peavey; $90 CAD including the case. I was looking for something inexpensive for teaching bass lessons. This is better than what I expected to find.

karl i was just reading about switching out the tubes in my fender hot rod deville, and apparently lots of people do that to give fender amps more room on the lower end of the volume knob. tubes cost like $12 and are supposed to be easy to swap out, so it might be worth a try.

caveat, i don't actually know anything about this stuff

that is intriguing! i'll probably hold off on modding anything until at least next month. i'm moving in a few weeks (location tbd) but hopefully my next place will be slightly more amenable to playing music, or at least be closer to a practice spot

I sang three of the solos from Five Mystical Songs at a church service on the last Sunday of July; it went well but my voice completely cracked on one of the Fs and I was SO ANGRY for days afterward

(xps) I have a Vox Amplug AC30 and it is surprisingly good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYbS7ZIZ1Ag
(this is not me in the video, btw)

Some press about the festival where I'm playing tomorrow:
https://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/local-arts/guitarists-descend-on-u-of-o-dominion-chalmers-for-a-weekend-of-cutting-edge-lectures-and-concerts
https://artsfile.ca/massive-guitar-gathering-at-uottawa-mixes-music-and-the-scientific-method/?fbclid=IwAR3iY4s_cysIiRcXWp7Vha2EpcAS58b87dAHeNSiFXwkQ_pgsYya2EtJJbw

One of my best friends, and a regular collaborator (we've had two bands together), has always made really interesting music. About two years ago he showed me these weird a cappella recordings he'd made, just him overdubbing his voice and singing. They are unquestionably some of the most interesting music I've ever heard, and stand head-and-shoulders over anything else he's made (or anything I've made, for that matter). It has the dense writing of Mary Lou Williams (a big influence on him) coupled with dense Ligeti fugues. They are completely bananas.

I told him I wanted to transcribe them for live performance. I've been asked to curate and compose for a concert to accompany the opening of the Rubens exhibition at the Art Gallery Of Ontario. (I'm having an antiphonal choir sing the final posted text from the Heaven's Gate cult, a suggestion aero made several years ago. I'm also arranging a couple of Julius Eastman pieces for two harpsichords, which will be performed-- the harpsichords are recreations of the Flemish harpsichords that would've been contemporaneous with Rubens.) We're also staging a performance of one of my friend's pieces.

It's ten-minutes long and is 27 overdubbed tracks of his voice. I am taking the day to transcribe it and arrange it for the antiphonal choir. I'm posting here because I'm really having a moment with his work, his is unquestionably some of the best and most interesting choral writing I've ever encountered and I can't wait til I'm done so I can send PDFs to all my friends to show them.

The writing is so dense I'm having to go track-by-track-by-track. I'm really good at transcribing from mixes but this is just too complicated for my ears. So exciting.

oooh this sounds incredible

Wow, that sounds amazing, I hope it will be recorded/released at some point (the solo version esp)?

My album is finally coming out tomorrow, and I'm actually really glad that I will be involved in attending/DJing/wrangling the PA for a friend's wedding this weekend, so that I don't get totally strung out on social media.

Speaking of voices, my deep listening Pauline workshop went really well last night! 20 ppl showed up and we got lots of positive feedback. Very enjoyable to hear and make human voices

xxp - what Dan said! I wanna hear this!

I have a couple shows coming up next month (both solo, 2 different projects). The curator/booker for one of them is asking me about merch, and I feel like there are way too many tapes, cds, etc. and plus, it's only a month away, so I think I will do a zine. ... Maybe at some point, I will have an idea for a shirt design and do shirts.

Jordan I would like to listen to your album. I need to figure out how to beat do that bc my listening situation is messed up!

Yeah yeah to different kinds of merch!! Toss me $15 and I’ll toss u a cool T-shirt. I’d like to make some merch actually but have been stuck.

fgti that sounds like fascinating work

LL - did my friend N0rman come to your workshop?

Ya DJP and sarahell it's right up both your alleys, I think. He hasn't made it available yet so I can't share it publicly but https://princenifty.bandcamp.com those are his albums. His albums are great but his choral work is beyond beyond.

Thanks LL, aren't you doing mp3s these days? The workshop sounded really interesting btw.

Hmmm I’m afraid I don’t remember a Norman. We did introductions and I got about 15/20 names for the email list however I do not have perfect name recall. Face, I could answer definitively!

Jordan - I do mp3 but my download/device situation is in flux. I might try to use WiFi/streaming on my old phone but right now I’m “cds in the car” for most enjoyable listening experience lol