|
|
Friday, October 5th, 2001
|
3:44p - The Acoustics of a 'Vator; Fond Thoughts of Music and Moxie
Here’s a link for all of you, just for jollies; sometimes The Onion has some funny articles. Someone sent me this one recently, and I liked it fairly well.
Something I noticed this morning is that the elevators (or, if you prefer, the ‘vators) in the building where I work have some uncommonly good acoustics. I rode one of them up and down thrice consecutively, just to sing in it and listen to the uncanny echoes and reverberations. I sang and toned and whistled and whootled, just to hear it. I tried it with the elevator moving, and with it still. That drone (of the ‘vator’s motor running, and its movement up and down the shaft) isn’t half bad, I thought. I like tricks. I like ingenius devices. I would like to record the vocals for a piece of music inside an elevator at some point. I know just how I would mic it: me in the back corner, facing out, with one mic in the center, angled toward me and down just a hair, and a second mic on a boom, higher, close to the ceiling, angled up and facing more toward the wall than toward me. I need to get a portable DAT. Or even a decent dictaphone (Later note: or a portable 4-track). It made me think of reading about the recording sessions for R.E.M.’s first full-length, ‘81’s Murmur. For several of the tracks, Michael Stipe sang not in the actual recording studio but in the stairwell leading up to it; for others, he supposedly sang naked. Yeah, I imagine I’d sing in the buff on some songs, too. I like the freedom and in the ingenuity in comparatively simple choices like that, like singing in a stairwell or an elevator for the acoustics, or singing in the nude for the mood of it. That’s more interesting and more resonant with me than any technical studio wizardry; it’s more personal. I miss that aspect of the recording process. Speaking of the recording process, though, after next weekend I should be much further along in the quest to record at home; I’m hoping to have a mixer and/or four track up and running by that point, which would make me very happy indeed. That, of course, will be a giant step in the right direction, because if I’m not with a band I ought to at least be cataloguing and realising my ideas on my own as much as I can. And that would be A Good Thing, and an enjoyable one, but it isn’t the same as playing in a band and being a part of an ongoing collective or a continuous collabouration. That’s what I miss most, I think; even more than performing regularly. With the right group, every act of creation is a performance before the universe and a performance before one another. Early last week, Jonny X and the Groadies came through the area and stayed at my place. The sound tech for the band is the Italian Edge, Jer; he and I (and also Phil, that guy with the Eyes) used to play in a band together. They came through on their way south to Atlanta; they were pretty beat, and we didn’t do too much other than go out to the grocery store for provisions for their trip. Going through the store with them at some silly hour of the morning reminded me of our own band stopping at the Bennington, VT Hannaford on our way home after gigs, for pumpkin muffins and Polar Orange Dry. I miss the oddball moments like that, too. Jer had been in Bennington for several days before he arrived – and incidentally, the band got to open up for WESLEY WILLIS while they were there; I was envious – and he stopped at the Smokers’ Den and bought an unsettling amount of Moxie; he and I sipped Moxie as we drove the van around last week. The two of us, and a cat named Matt, were the only ones I know of (ever) that could stand that stuff.
And while I’m on the subject, with all this talk of Bennington: I noticed that in addition to recent hits from Harvard and NYU, I’m also getting the occasional hit from my old alma mater. I’m curious: if I may be so forward, do introduce yourself.
A word of congratulations and appreciation: good music is being recognized as such. The soundtrack for the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? was just named Album of the Year at the 12th annual International Bluegrass Music Awards. The album isn’t bluegrass, though; it’s old time, which to some extent both preceded and beget bluegrass.
current music: Lemon Jelly: "Homage to Patagonia" (3 louches | share your thoughts)
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
absintheur's journal