Last nights post was written in bed so I was quite literally asleep when I wrote it. I'm sitting on my bed now, it is my favorite place. Why pretend I don't love my lazy Sunday side (or monday, or tuesday).
So I had a nice breakthrough recording horn tracks. See, I actually like the sound of my horn recorded on my cellphone or a cheap tape recorder better than well miked into a nice setup. I record on this Apple MacBook Pro, Pro Tools 8 or whatever. I abandoned most of my nice fancy gear as part of my vision to actually figure out my money so I can pay a good engineer to handle that end. So I demo on this lovely machine.
One of the frustrations of recording saxophone is the lack of body that gets to the tape. Coltrane even expressed this frustration. He knew what the problem was, it was the same thing then as it is now and it's the same reason I like the sound of my horn recorded on a crap machine with a crap mic: you need space to capture the whole picture. Put a close mic on my horn and it sounds just not right, much like the awful sound that comes through a pa on most rock gigs (unless my man Johnathan Schenke is on the board!!!). It winds up sounding thin and I wind up adding EQ and compression to fatten the bird up. I don't like that either. So last night I did the obvious. Took some getting over my lazy Luddite monophonic way and experiment with stereo tracks and....wait for it...2 microphones.
I use an old British Reslo ribbon mic about 2 feet away from my horn (never pointed into the bell, the sound comes out of the tone holes. On the bell you get a weak upper sound and a giant low B flat!) and an Oktava small diaphragm condenser mic (MK012) with the omni capsule about 8 feet away. No Eq, no compression necessary. It sounds like my sound I've worked hard to achieve. Sits right in the mix nice and easy. Never gotten a better recorded sound.
Pt2.....breakthroughs in improvising. When I was learning how to play guitar I realized right away that players like Jimi Hendrix were making things up right on the spot and players like Randy Rhodes or Van Halen practiced their solos. They were all fine players but I was too lazy to learn the solo to Eruption or Crazy Train. I could never retain transcriptions and kinda felt that was a phony path for me. It's rock, not classical and even back in the day orchestras improvised. Vladimir Horowitz was known to make a mistake now and then and improvise his way back into the written page. That must have been a thrill for the audience, that bit of spirit. But since we live in a world of recorded music, we expect perfection. We know when a piece by Bach or Chopin is off or then the solo to Crazy Train is not right and we criticize the player for being sub par or having a bad night. Bollocks.....
It's tricky cause I teach guitar now. The kids don't really like to improvise. There is this fear of making a mistake, playing notes out of the scale or just sounding bad.
I don't know how I did it, I must have just been willing to sound bad for a long, long time before I sounded any good. I still sound bad on my horn, not my sound but sometimes my lack of ideas is obvious. I read something the other night Charlie Parker said: "I'm not doing anything that much different really, just playing and trying to find the pretty notes". Ooooh. I like that. I'm noticing on guitar after a million years of playing that's what I'm naturally doing now. Finding little melodies anyone can sing to. I wouldn't want to listen to myself when I was young: bad tone, definitely what I would call wank on some of those solos, and sometimes just exploration.
What's the difference between wank and exploration Jef? Well, to me wank is knowing a bag of licks and showing them off. It's stripping away your vulnerability and covering up your insecurity. It's playing hard and fast in the comfort zone only cause you can. It's wank. Whether you are in a band or not it's like saying you aren't accountable to anyone cause you aren't connecting with anyone really anyway. It's okay, part of the process. Exploration is just that. You are trying something fresh. Going into uncharted waters and seeing if your boat will sink or float. It involves risk. I think that's what people don't like about it: risk. Players and audiences alike don't like risk with the exception of a few players and audiences. Me? Music is the one place I really like risk. I'm doing my best to carry that to the rest of my life.
So what is my breakthrough? I'm teaching the chords to Minor Swing by Django Reinhardt to some of my peeps. So far they are kinda enjoying it. Just thinking about these things and expressing them is causing me to search for the pretty notes. Play with more melody and connection. I'm starting to notice this and I'm really pleased. My playing is simply becoming prettier and for the crazy music I make, it needs that balance.
Speaking of playing better, the sun is now shining here in Brooklyn. I must go for a walk and breathe the air. Going to the farmers market at McGolick Park to buy some of those amazing farmers market eggs!
Till next time, J
So I had a nice breakthrough recording horn tracks. See, I actually like the sound of my horn recorded on my cellphone or a cheap tape recorder better than well miked into a nice setup. I record on this Apple MacBook Pro, Pro Tools 8 or whatever. I abandoned most of my nice fancy gear as part of my vision to actually figure out my money so I can pay a good engineer to handle that end. So I demo on this lovely machine.
One of the frustrations of recording saxophone is the lack of body that gets to the tape. Coltrane even expressed this frustration. He knew what the problem was, it was the same thing then as it is now and it's the same reason I like the sound of my horn recorded on a crap machine with a crap mic: you need space to capture the whole picture. Put a close mic on my horn and it sounds just not right, much like the awful sound that comes through a pa on most rock gigs (unless my man Johnathan Schenke is on the board!!!). It winds up sounding thin and I wind up adding EQ and compression to fatten the bird up. I don't like that either. So last night I did the obvious. Took some getting over my lazy Luddite monophonic way and experiment with stereo tracks and....wait for it...2 microphones.
I use an old British Reslo ribbon mic about 2 feet away from my horn (never pointed into the bell, the sound comes out of the tone holes. On the bell you get a weak upper sound and a giant low B flat!) and an Oktava small diaphragm condenser mic (MK012) with the omni capsule about 8 feet away. No Eq, no compression necessary. It sounds like my sound I've worked hard to achieve. Sits right in the mix nice and easy. Never gotten a better recorded sound.
Pt2.....breakthroughs in improvising. When I was learning how to play guitar I realized right away that players like Jimi Hendrix were making things up right on the spot and players like Randy Rhodes or Van Halen practiced their solos. They were all fine players but I was too lazy to learn the solo to Eruption or Crazy Train. I could never retain transcriptions and kinda felt that was a phony path for me. It's rock, not classical and even back in the day orchestras improvised. Vladimir Horowitz was known to make a mistake now and then and improvise his way back into the written page. That must have been a thrill for the audience, that bit of spirit. But since we live in a world of recorded music, we expect perfection. We know when a piece by Bach or Chopin is off or then the solo to Crazy Train is not right and we criticize the player for being sub par or having a bad night. Bollocks.....
It's tricky cause I teach guitar now. The kids don't really like to improvise. There is this fear of making a mistake, playing notes out of the scale or just sounding bad.
I don't know how I did it, I must have just been willing to sound bad for a long, long time before I sounded any good. I still sound bad on my horn, not my sound but sometimes my lack of ideas is obvious. I read something the other night Charlie Parker said: "I'm not doing anything that much different really, just playing and trying to find the pretty notes". Ooooh. I like that. I'm noticing on guitar after a million years of playing that's what I'm naturally doing now. Finding little melodies anyone can sing to. I wouldn't want to listen to myself when I was young: bad tone, definitely what I would call wank on some of those solos, and sometimes just exploration.
What's the difference between wank and exploration Jef? Well, to me wank is knowing a bag of licks and showing them off. It's stripping away your vulnerability and covering up your insecurity. It's playing hard and fast in the comfort zone only cause you can. It's wank. Whether you are in a band or not it's like saying you aren't accountable to anyone cause you aren't connecting with anyone really anyway. It's okay, part of the process. Exploration is just that. You are trying something fresh. Going into uncharted waters and seeing if your boat will sink or float. It involves risk. I think that's what people don't like about it: risk. Players and audiences alike don't like risk with the exception of a few players and audiences. Me? Music is the one place I really like risk. I'm doing my best to carry that to the rest of my life.
So what is my breakthrough? I'm teaching the chords to Minor Swing by Django Reinhardt to some of my peeps. So far they are kinda enjoying it. Just thinking about these things and expressing them is causing me to search for the pretty notes. Play with more melody and connection. I'm starting to notice this and I'm really pleased. My playing is simply becoming prettier and for the crazy music I make, it needs that balance.
Speaking of playing better, the sun is now shining here in Brooklyn. I must go for a walk and breathe the air. Going to the farmers market at McGolick Park to buy some of those amazing farmers market eggs!
Till next time, J
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