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4/23/2017

Had a great weekend, lots of downtime. Today I made sure to play a bunch of music since I haven’t dedicated much time to it recently. 

Started practice session with doodling around on a recorder. Nothing particularly structured at first, but trying to make improvisations sound nice. Afterward played the recorder part to the arrangement of a Top Gear tune that I’ll record ‘someday’. 

Bass practice session was me having some fun. Playing mostly the few riffs I’m working on. Somehow I seem to end up always playing things more and more harsh sounding (plucking hard). Really just playing around with ideas at this point, still exploring and learning the instrument. 

Took a break, then came back later to practice my kelhorn since I’ll be going to the orchestra practice again. One of the main things I wanted to work on after last time was making sure my intonation was correct. To help with that, since it’s not as simple as just moving a tuning slide on the instrument, I downloaded a tuner app on my phone. Probably not the most accurate program in the world, but looks to do the job. Really interesting to see what notes come out a little sharp/flat that I have to work to correct. 

Looking forward to the next orchestra practice. Hopefully I’ll feel a bit more confident in myself in the group setting. 

For fun I did some throat singing with the tuner on. For a while I’d wondered how well I was actually doing at keeping the fundamental tone constant while moving the overtone. Answer is that I do okay, but not great. Also really interesting to see the frequency halve when I start singing kargyraa style. For some reason I hadn’t realize the undertone was exactly and octave below the fundamental.

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A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Works been getting me down recently and I’m feeling a general lack of motivation in life. Apathy? Call it whatever you will. Feels like everything’s just spinning my wheels to go around in circles. Now, that’s not really true if I take a logical look at thing. At the very least I can say I’m trying something new with the orchestra. Knowing this doesn’t really prevent the brain from tricking you into feeling like shit. This disconnect of knowing that things are going great, yet feeling crumby only makes it worse. “I’ve got no reason to feel bad.”

Thankfully, my work place is actually amazing and gives me fairly flexible time off. I was able to take a personal day, which helped quite a bit. Mental refresher at the least. Now, it did put me a little behind the schedule I was on, but the mental health is more important.

This kind of thing just says that there’s all the more reason for me to keep working at getting myself to do (music) things. Things that will feel fulfilling. Getting started is the hard part when I’m feeling down. Normally once I get started I’m able to really enjoy myself, but sometimes getting started is impossible.

Here’s the Pink Floyd album that I referenced in the title. Thinking mostly of the song One Slip.

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4/18/2017

Little practice on guitar and then transferred over to bass. Had to get used to the wider gap between strings now that I’ve been playing on the guitar some! Nothing fancy, just playing around with things that I’ve already done before.

Feels like it’s time for me to start practicing trumpet and recorder again soon. 

I don’t remember the actual date this happened on, but this post was small so I’ll add to it! I got a keyboard interface from my friend a while back (he bought a new one from Haken at a concert and didn’t want to keep his old one around). Finally got around to plugging it in and toying around with it for a bit.

Seems that it’s not giving me a true 1-to-1 response like the keyboard that I have does. Could be the driver, the freemium software I was using, or some other unknown factor influencing this. Lots of variables in the equation. I’m sure I’ll play with it more in the future and might even to try to figure out what the issue was. Still, fun to be able to play a keyboard into the computer.

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4/17/2017

Went to my friends community orchestra practice after work today. Felt good on the way there, then got pretty anxious about the whole thing. It had been 8 years since I’d been in that setting, playing with a group of people and with a conductor. On top of that I didn’t know the people, customs, expectations, and was playing a new instrument. 

For the most part the practice went alright. I was a bit hesitant, but things got better as the practice session went on. At least my friend was just as nervous conducting the group as I was playing in a group again. I made some mistakes, came in at the wrong time at least once, etc etc. However, people were nice and I wasn’t the only one that made mistakes. The process was more of a dialogue between the group and my friend who was conducting, which made it feel more approachable. I hope to keep going to the practices weekly, which will help with the nervousness/anxiety of the situation. 

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4/16/2017

Got home rather late from a visit to my family and friends in my hometown. I was feeling a bit nervous about the upcoming practice session with the community orchestra my friend invited me to join for the song he’s arranged. As such, I got some practice in on the piece. Things were sounding/feeling pretty good.

Also pulled out my guitar for a while. Still don’t really know how to play beyond a basic scale, but you can make some nice sounds noodling around with the notes on a scale.

For fun I decided to see what the bassline from Pink Floyd’s Money would sound like. Answer was ‘not as good as on bass’, what a surprise. However, I tried moving it around by halfsteps and ended up stumbling upon the fact that this song from the Bastion soundtrack uses the sequence of notes. Ended up playing and singing along to that song for quite a while, which was pretty fun.

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4/14/2017

I’m planning on participating in a community orchestra in the near future. My friend has arranged a song for it and the kelhorn is nice option for one of the parts. I’ll be joining in and playing a similar part to the clarinets and oboes.

As such, I practiced the part quite a bit. It’s been a long time since I’ve played music with other people or a conductor. I’m a bit nervous, so I thought I’d make sure that I really know my part before joining in on the practice sessions.

It’s exciting to start doing things. Still not sure why I don’t dedicate more of my time to music. Maybe someday I’ll fully understand myself, but right now I sure don’t.

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Listen Highlight #8: Eloy - Mysterious Monolith.

Eloy is a band that I seem to forget about for months at a time only to end up listening to repeat once I rediscover them. My classification for them would be space prog rock. Lots of juicy synth in there. Additionally, they have a great meaty bass sound that I have a bit of a bias toward.

The entire Planets album is a pleasure to listen to. The second track, On The Verge of Darkening Lights, is another one of my favorites from the set. I’m highlighting Mysterious Monolith for the repeating bass line in the middle section of the song. It’s something that I wanted to play, so I figured I’d share. 

This is an album that perfectly captures a sense of fullness that I seek after whenever I listen to music. To me, music is best experienced when I feel engulfed in it. Some recordings just aren’t able to give that, even if you crank the volume. Between the floating synth, pronounced bass, and German accent, Eloy provides something that I can really lose myself in. 

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4/8/2017

Played around on the guitar some more today. Still working on getting used to using a pick. Mostly played major scales, which is very similar to scales on the bass guitar, but with extended range coming from the two additional strings. After that I decided to look up how to play some chords. I’m going to have to look into it more because I was having trouble getting my hands to achieve the correct fret positions. My fingers also seem to press down on unintentional strings since they’re so close together. Playing multiple strings at once will definitely take some getting used to.

Picked up my bass for a while later in the day. Just did some minor brushing up, then learned the simple bits out of a lick from an Eloy song that I’ve enjoyed listening to. I’ll probably try to keep working in it since I’m not able to play the embellishments that are placed on top of the simple repeating riff. I’ll make a listen highlight out of the song.

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4/6/2017

Works been draining a lot of my energy lately with a couple of business trips thrown into the mix. Once again haven’t been practicing like I should, outside of throat singing while commuting. However, on a plus side I started actually trying to learn how to play the electric guitar that I got from my grandmother-in-law. 

Using a pick feels unnatural, as does the length of each fret. Also all the strings are so close together. It’s almost as if it’s a different instrument than the bass guitar! /s The fun part is that I’m learning. The not fun part is that I’m super clumsy at it. 

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3/31/2017

Got a decent amount of kelhorn practice in today. Going over the part for the orchestra as well as general technique.

Recently on my commute I’ve been listening to some professional throat singers and doing my best to sing along with them. It’s been quite enjoyable and also helpful. One thing I found is that I was trying too hard to mute the sound of my normal voice while producing the overtone. I believe my overall sound quality has cleared up substantially, and it’s also much less effort.

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3/29/2017

Been on a real bass kick recently. It’s okay though, because I’m having a lot of fun with it! Continuing to play with the various ideas I wrote down. Adding some further life and variations to them and working on how they might transition into each other.

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3/23/2017

One of my friends is part of a community orchestra. One of the songs he’s arranging for their next concert was originally done by a band that had a crummhorn player in its lineup. He’s asked if I’d want to bring my kelhorn into the mix to get that same sound. It’s scary, since I don’t feel ‘ready’, but I’m going for it. I figure I’m only going to get so many opportunities to grow. Gotta take them as they come.

I received the sheet music for the part and got to practicing it. I don’t have a specific part for kelhorn, but rather he wanted me to look at both the Oboe and Clarinet parts. Unfortunately the kelhorns range doesn’t extend as far as the other instruments so I had to markup the staff with edits for notes to be within my playable range. Gave my feedback to him and we’ll see what he comes back with, potentially some mashup of the oboe/clarinet parts.

Additionally continued noodling with my bass on the parts I was working on previously.

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3/21/2017

Had some fun on my commute recording the musical doodling my brain was bringing to me. When I got home I went to work playing them on my bass and writing down the bits that I liked. I think I’d like to build the various parts into a song, but all I’ve got is, at best, tangentially related bass blurbs. I’ll be massaging them and fitting them together over time. Hopefully I’ll be able to use some of my other instruments to flesh it out into something enjoyable. 

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3/19/2017

Did a longer practice session with my bass. Had a lot of fun with this one too. Played along to the the bass part of the ‘Flow Guides Aren’t My Bag’ section of Yezda Urfa’s ‘Boris and His Three Verses’. This is something that I’ve worked on in the past, so it was completely from scratch. 

After doing this I decided I wanted to try to play something by ear that was a bit simpler. I started bringing up Beatles tracks to find one that had a fairly simple, yet still interesting bass part to play along to. What I settled on was Lady Madonna. Was a lot of fun learning the part just by listening to it. 

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3/13/2017

Got some extended practice in, which is always good. Hit up the kelhorn, broke out the trumpet, and kept momentum on the bass. I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I will have to again, but I really ought to practice the trumpet more consistently to maintain my embouchure. Able to hit good high notes, but not able to play even mid range for long periods without taking a break. Definitely need to build those muscles back up.

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Listen Highlight #7: Yezda Urfa - Boris and His 3 Verses Including Flow Guides Aren’t My Bag.

Yezda Urfa is a band that I found out about early on in my introduction to prog rock. I had heard Yes and started dabbling in Gentle Giant, which is when I found out about ‘prog’ as a genre. I was intrigued and wanted more, so I googled it. There was a nice countdown blog listing out several interesting prog bands. Yezda Urfa happened to be one of them. 

On my first listen I was a bit turned off by the vocals, but the instrumentation really captured me. Their entire ‘Boris’ album is great. Lots of crazy stuff happening on it. This particular track starts off with pleasant guitar work, pronounced bass, and waves of synth. The vocals might not be the strongest part, but they’ve become something amazing to sing along to. The band’s lyrics often seem nonsensical, or provide little snippets of sense, but drift back into meaninglessness. 

Queue Flow Guides Aren’t My Bag. When this instrumental section hit I was entranced. It’s always changing up and switching between grooves on the guitar and bass while having the synth craziness all dribbled on top. Wonderful! 

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3/9/2017

Did some bass practice. Been a while since I played the bass. Forgot some of the licks I’d learned and had to relearn them. Also working on reforming calluses.