Notes_Norton

One day, a housework challenged husband decided to wash his sweatshirt. Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to his wife, “What setting do I use on the washing machine?” “It depends,” she replied. “What does it say on your shirt?” Proudly, he yelled back, “Chicago Bears!”

Exactly!!! When I tried to see what it was to be normal and have a real job, I was a Cable TV Field Engineer (a technician with an engineer title to impress the customers). I flew out Monday and, worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday was a flight day, but I could take the red-eye out Thursday night. That allowed me to play weekend gigs with other part-time musicians. But the caliber of the other musicians wasn't what I was used to. I don't mean this as a negative, they had real jobs and families competing with their music time. I don't think I was playing at the top of my game then, either. It didn't have the same spark. I'd much rather play with musicians who are better than me, than I would to play with ones who are not as good. In my current duo, Mrs. Notes is a far better singer than I am. She is also a solid rhythm guitarist and synth player. Me? I play better sax/wind-synth and lead guitar than her (she doesn't play them), and I make the backing tracks. We inspire each other. Playing music is the most fun we can have with our clothes on. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

I can play very, very soft, but the tone is wrong for a lot of pop songs. That can be a problem with an acoustic sax. As the sax gets louder, the tone changes quite a bit, becoming less mellow, edgier (if that's a real word). Then, for certain songs, it's important to play the sax louder than it was designed to play at. Overblowing causes a nice, nasty sounding effect with a little added distortion. I can get tonal changes with volume if I choose the right synth module. The best one I've tried is the Yamaha VL70m. It uses what it calls 'physical modeling' synthesis. The good folks at Yamaha put computer models of tone generators like reeds, strings, cup mouthpieces, etc., bodies like boxes, tubes, cones, etc., and dampers like bridges, bells, and so on. As I play louder on the VL, the tone gets thinner and edgier but not quite to the point of being overblown. The VL is the only sound module I've found that actually feels like I'm playing an instrument, as opposed to playing synth patches. The VL also gives me a variety of trumpet, trombone, harmonica, fiddle, guitar, and other instrument sounds. Since guitar is my 7th instrument, I can play wind controller guitar better than my 'real' guitar. So for difficult guitar solos, the wind synth comes out. We've done a lot of yacht and country clubs where they want us to play for dinner, and then rock out for dancing when the desert comes out. For dinner, we set the PA up at about 65dba, so the diners can talk across the table. When done, we crank it up to whatever seems appropriate. I like the dinner sets as much as I like the dance sets. During the dinner sets, I can play delicately and then passionately when the meal is over. Playing at the appropriate volume for the gig and the audience you are facing today is very important. It's as critical as the music you are playing. The way I figure it is this. Music is my profession, it puts food on the table, and it paid off the mortgage. Anything I need to buy, to allow me to do my job better than my competitors, is a good investment. Wind synth, better speakers, better microphones, and anything else I need to buy and can justify the price on, is worth it. If it can bring in more money than it costs over the long run, I want it. More than that, it's survival. After leaving the position of side-man in bigger bands and becoming a co-leader of a duo, I've learned a lot about how to stay booked. And I'm still learning. For the majority of my life, I haven't had a Monday through Friday wake up to an alarm clock, and go to work job, making less than I think I deserve while someone who I don't even know gets rich as I live for the weekends. I'm sure I put more than 40 hours a week into it, but the only part that seems like work, is schlepping the PA set. The rest is music. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay — Danny And The Juniors

Where is the best place to sell a used chess set? At a pawn shop.

Palisades Park — Freddy Cannon I played bass for him in a short series of concerts, long after his fame wore off. He was easy to work with, and a real pro. It was a good experience.

Just because it isn't a contest, doesn't mean we don't take it seriously. And IMO there is no way to judge art and doesn't belong in a contest. Example: I was playing in a hired horn section. The alto sax player was a monster. He could sightread complicated charts that I would have had to woodshed. One day on break, a gal came up and gushed about my sax playing, telling me how sexy it was. After she left, I told him it was embarrassing for here to do that in front of him. He said, that he wished he could play a ballad as passionately as I do. That's when I realized, there are dozens of skills involved in being a musician: reading, phrasing, improvising, playing dynamically, tone, and so on. And what one listener thinks the best tone, phrasing, and dynamics are, another listener might disagree. So, how can you have a contest. Was Jimi Hendrix better than Terry Kath? Was Stan Getz better than Stanley Turrentine? Was John Bonham better than Bernard Purdie? I could go on and on. For gigging musicians, it's about showing up, using our strong suits to move an audience so that the club owner makes money while we are there. Or selling recordings, so the label makes a lot of money. If we do our job right, we make money, too, and then we get to go grocery shopping and pay the mortgage. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

That's where spares come in. A spare drum 'brain' would be a worthy insurance policy. It's like a spare tire for your car. Club owners remember if the band couldn't play, and they mourn the money they lost when they still had to pay all the employees. They talk to other club owners too. One of the best referrals we got from an owner, was one who said that he could hire us and forget about us, knowing we would be there, do the job, and create no problems. I've played with a 104 degree fever. In another band, the bass player checked himself out of the hospital to do the gig, and back in when it was done. When my father died, my mother checked my schedule before she decided what day to hold the funeral, because she knew I would take the gig. The club owners, bartenders, wait staff, and others depend on the band to bring home a paycheck and pay the rent or mortgage. We take our responsibility seriously. So true. When we are doing dinner and other quiet sets, especially in small rooms, what I normally play on saxophone, can be played on my wind synth at a low volume with the same passion as my horn. Bringing a spare wind MIDI controller and a spare sound module, set me back close to $3k, but in the 30+ years I've been gigging with it, it's an inconsequential amount of money. Plus, in all these years, I had a controller fail. We were playing outdoors, on a screen porch. The temperature dropped and it started raining. The controller went out of tune and was playing notes that weren't even close to what my fingers told it to do. I switched to the spare. I sent it off to get fixed, and the repairman said it was working perfectly. He surmised that something might have gotten wet, and dried off in transit. When I was a musician, on the road, only playing saxophone, I bought a used, student instrument as a spare, in case my pro horn broke. I schlepped all over the east and central USA, and never needed it. But it was reassuring to have it around. But that's just me. I know guys who aren't as careful, and never had a problem. Notes ♫

Mark Murphy is my all-time favorite jazz singer. Richie Cole is in the top 10 of my favorite alto sax players. When I was in a jazz band, Mark came and sat in. The guitarist and leader of that band taught at the University of Miami and toured with Ira Sullivan, so he had big name connections. I felt out of my league that day, like I was faking it. But it was a blast. I think this is a fine arrangement and performance of All The Things You Are — Mark Murphy and the Muse All-Stars with Richie Cole on alto. What do you think?

Man who rides in car is really driven.

You are definitely correct. But for me, it's worth the price. I make my living gigging, and I am a "The Show Must Go On" kind of guy. Having two power amps means if one goes belly-up, I finish the gig. I can cover my sax and guitar parts on the wind synth if I have to, so I bring two wind MIDI controllers and two identical sound modules. The chances of the sax or guitar plus two wind MIDI controllers and both sound modules crapping out is slim indeed. I bring two laptops to the gig. Identical data on both. If something goes wrong, move the USB to the second computer, and the show goes on. Since 2002, when I started bringing ThinkPads on stage, I've done this twice. The first time the Hard Drive was making a grinding noise, between songs I moved the USB->Audio interface to the second song. Nobody but us knew there was a problem. The second time, the CMOS battery in a computer died, and it wouldn't boot. At the time, I didn't know I could manually enter the date and boot it up. I just used the second computer. When I'm on a commercial gig, the bartenders, wait staff, manager, owner, and others are depending on us to make their living. If a private party, the host is depending on us to entertain the guests. No good businessperson lets his/her customers down. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

I get along with the guitar better than I do with piano. I can play things on the keys, but I can't do that left-hand bass+comp and right-hand melody. Probably because I haven't taken the many hours it takes to achieve that. I can sing and play bass or guitar, though, even though that also consists of doing two different things at once. But one is voice, and one with hands, not different things on each hand. I suppose most of the guitarists and pianists on this board are better than me, but my main axe is sax. Even on that, what I've learned through the years is there is always someone better than me, and always someone worse. It doesn't matter, it isn't a contest. I suppose my gigging era will end before I die, if I live long enough. Rap is now over 35 years old, and when rap becomes mainstream for the adult market, it'll be time to hang up my spurs. All eras end sooner or later. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Bare Trees — Fleetwood Mac

Thanks for noticing that. It got by me

Man who run in front of car get tired. Man who run behind car get exhausted.

Mama Told Me Not to Come - Eric Burdon & The Animals (covered by 3 Dog Night). I like the 3 Dog Night version better

My first guitar was a Gibson ES330. I'm predominantly a sax player, but on songs where there was no sax part, I'd either play bass and let the bass player play guitar, or play rhythm guitar using the guitarist's 'other' guitar. He played a 335 on stage, which I never got to play, instead, I played rhythm on Tele. After I quit the band, I saw a 330 in a music store, thinking it was a 335, I bought it. I later learned the difference, and decided the 330 was a better match for me, anyway. Years later, when I got serious about guitar (my 7th instrument) I bought a Parker Dragonfly/maxxfly because I didn't want to take the Gibson out and play it outdoors near salt water. Notes ♫

Been there, done that, with a good space above the amp, and the back off the road rack. After that, I put it in its own separate short rack and stacked the one with the PA and synth components on top. Then one day I lost a channel on the power amp, thought about it for a while, considered what would happen if both channels went out, and I went out and bought powered speakers. I'm on my second generation of powered speakers, EV ZLX-15s. Rack now looks like this: Notes ♫

Yes, it doesn't have to be a word part of the title, but it should be an association. I suppose this one is more of a private association. But I made the rules, so I guess it's only right that I am the first one to break the rules. I Can’t Control Myself — The Troggs

Gigging, I plug everything on stage into a Power Conditioner, which suppresses spikes and boosts power sags. The ground is the third pin of the power cable. Since everything is plugged into the same conditioner/ground, there are no ground loops on stage, no 60Hz hum. It also protects the electronic components from power spikes and dips. Insights and incites by Notes ♫