Singing Blather

The key skill for a musician is listening. The ability to play or sing is built upon many instances of making sounds, and then adjusting technique based on the result.

The same applies to bands. No matter how good the individual musicians, the band sucks if everybody doesn’t listen to each other very closely. If it’s just one guy, the band can play along with him, but if you ever wind up in some garage with two “band members” who don’t really listen, you might as well pack up your stratocaster because you’ll just be adding to the godawful din.

About six months ago, my singing voice was in great shape, because I’d been playing songs almost every day for months, and making small adjustments. I had good pitch control, and was getting pretty happy with my ability to phrase things in a way suitable for my voice, and without sounding like I was “putting on” an accent.

My current goal is to get back to that state.

I was not gifted with a natural singing voice. Fortunately, the great thing about “rock and roll” is that it’s an everyman’s music; you don’t need opera-quality “pipes” (they would help), but you do need to learn how to make good use of the equipment you came with.

First and foremost, that means hitting notes accurately. You can sneak up on them from below, but not above (a problem for me). It also means finding a way to avoid unflattering sounds: strained high notes or bleating like a lamb, in my case. Unfortunately, you may wind up having to sing every song in the same couple of keys because of a restricted vocal range where you actually sound good. That’s okay; if Ringo just sings a song or two per album, nobody notices it’s the same five notes. That’s one good reason to have more than one singer in a band – odds are their ranges are a bit different and you get a few extra keys to choose from.

Harmony singing is another great dodge, because two mediocre voices listening to each other and hitting the notes in a tasteful arrangement tend to fill out any harshness, and can easily sound comparable to one really good voice.

I like to sing with Matt, because we’ve played together for years, so we each know the other’s style idiosyncracies well enough to quickly knock together a pleasing harmony. Matt has a better natural vocal quality, but I have a good instinct for harmony and a slightly higher range. Back in the Stickmen/My New Invention days, I would do a couple of lead vocals, and also sing harmony about half of the time. It made things more interesting, and covered a lot of sins, I hope.

(Originally written 23 Jan 2007).

Rats!

Stoved my left middle finger playing post-turkey basketball. Was planning to record some guitar. Oh well. Can still work on lyrics for the Black & Blue Christmas record.

Long Road Review, Part 1

I’ve never done this, but I’m tempted to write a review of the Eagles’ new album. I’ve had a couple of weeks to get acquainted with it. Overall, Long Road Out of Eden is a solid double album, and has been worth the wait. No, it is not another Greatest Hits 1972-5, and there is no Hotel California or Take it Easy on there, but I think it beats their other studio albums, and will please four groups: (1) longtime or hardcore fans of the band, (2) casual fans of the eighties solo stuff, (3) new listeners of the adult contemporary persuasion, if such an animal exists, and (4) Mild sufferers from BDS (Bush derangement syndrome) who harbor a sneaking fondness for Nashville pop.

The advance single, How Long, is what I would call Nashville pop. That is to say, nominally country instrumentation, but actually thrashed out like rock and roll, with those cloying, siren-like artificial harmony machines put on the vocals. Thankfully, since the Eagles can do the flawless harmony thing without help, they only used the “robot” harmony on the choruses of How Long, and they left it off the rest of the album.

True Nashville pop requires a “cowboy” voice: the adam’s apple thing, liberal use of double negative, and downhome themes like pickup trucks, thankin’ the Lord, and knockin’ boots. For years I maintained that I disliked country, all the while savoring the Eagles. The Eagles make quasi-country music accessible through California-friendly accents, jaded LA cocktail party scenes, and penny-ante literary forays. Unfortunately How Long sounds good, but the lyrics are a disjointed mess of over-familiar one liners hanging in space, and lacking the focused, vivid purpose of say, Tequila Sunrise. Apparently it’s an oldie that they used to perform but never recorded, written by one of their old songwriting stablemates, either Jack Tempchin or J.D. Souther. Mrs. Swamptooth claims the song is about a spurned lover who still pines for her rock-and-roll beau. Fine. Whatever. But “Like a bluebird with his heart removed?” Sounds like a depraved adolescent animal cruelty thing. Still, quite catchy, and I found myself coming back for gratuitous repeat listens, and even singing along.

Along with the rest of the brick-and-mortar crowd, I had to find my way to a Wal-Mart to pick up my copy of the new album. That’s because the Eagles have an exclusive agreement with the chain for the first one-and-a-half years or something. A bit out of the way for me, but a good value at $11.98 for a double CD set, especially in our currently devalued yankee dollars.

Bear with me while I talk about the package; I’m a sucker for album sleeves, cover art, et cetera, which is why I still have yet to actually purchase any music in mp3 format. So ... Long Road Out of Eden. Of course it comes in the eco-friendly cardboard gatefold, rather than the clunky, creaky old jewel business. De rigeur for a band of conscience these days. Smelled like gasoline. I like the foldout design, but I have to admit I was put off by the title, which struck me as labored, pretentious, and a retread on the Eden territory already strip mined by so many book titles. Fittingly, the picture of the band has them walking across a desert landscape. Maybe the dune sea near Yuma where Victor and I re-enacted Tatooine droid action years ago. Later, when I heard the title track, I softened my stance on the album title.

Bob Dylan once said that the Eagles write good songs, but every note is predictable. Like their quality control is actually too good. The danger there is that overproduction can kill the feeling on the track. I suspect that’s why my friend Victor Allen, among many others, has complained that the Eagles have “no soul.” Well, I am fairly well steeped in Bob Dylan, and enjoy the spontaneous richness of his unstructured approach to song arrangements, which relies on superbly talented, empathic studio musicians – who often have never heard the song properly until he starts playing the master take. But I have to disagree with the premise, which is that music played crisply and with absolute authority cannot be played with emotional weight and exceptionally good feel.

Bottom line: the Eagles are an arrangements band. So were the Beatles. The songs are structured set pieces. Bob Dylan, along with jam-based blues groups like Led Zeppelin, are more akin to jazz combos in that individual songs “defy definitive interpretation” and the performances vary significantly. The test is when see the band live. With the Eagles, if you liked the records, you’ll like the show.

Tres Generacions

The dilemma now is: what instrument will Brandon be required to play? Will seems to be headed toward drums. Erika just might be a pianist. Well, there's always the guitar protege thing. It worked so well for "Bad 4 Good."

A New Birth of Swamptooth

Twelve dozen, four score, and seven years ago ... er, uh ... no. Two-to-the-fourth-power years ago, our four fathers (including Rich Amtower at that point), brought forth upon this land of fruits and nuts, a new music group, conceived in semiotics class, and dedicated to the proposition that a half dozen in-jokes mumbled along to a half-original tune resulted in a rock and roll song somehow interesting to the population beyond our parents' houses, and worthy of inclusion on Kevin and Bean's Christmas Tape (yes, tape). Now we are engaged in a half-hearted struggle, that occasionally tended domains and Classic Stickmen mp3s, though far below our paltry powers of expression to elevate into genuine classics, might not vanish from the earth, or at least the most used search engines. What was said here today will be but little remembered, but ... well, yeah. 'Nuff said. Long tall hat tip: Abe Lincoln.