Notes_Norton

There are only two kinds of music (1) music that appeals to me and (2) music written for other ears. I have everything from 3 chord blues to symphonies, including a continuum of rock from the 50s to present, many forms of jazz from big band to cool school to fusion, disco, salsa, reggae, soca, country, R&B, Tuvan throat singing, Bedouin, Klezmer, Brazilian, Cabo Verde, Afro Pop, Romani ("Gypsy" from India to Spain), and quite a few others. If it speaks to me, I like it, if it doesn't, it's for someone else. I also play many different genres of music. I find that playing different types of music. I can take from one genre and import to another and it might sound better - or not. If it doesn't I don't do it again. It's all good. Insights and incites by Notes

I have many hundreds of CDs, many hundreds of LPs, and hundreds of purchased downloads that I burn to more permanent media. I am a career musician, and music is a huge part of my life. I have a digital Walkman that I play in the car, it has over 10,000 songs on it, culled from my collection, and it doesn't include the hundreds of symphonies that I also have (they are too long for car trips, I'd spend 40 driveway minutes waiting for one to finish). I don't like Apple or anyone else having control of my files. Streaming is OK to listen to like radio to discover new things, but when I hear something I want, I'll buy it so that I can hear it when I want. I'll also save it in multiple formats so I can listen to it where I want as well. I have no use for iTunes. I do hope that Apple has the foresight to allow you to be able to keep the music you bought and saved in iTunes. I can't see them doing it any other way, it would be bad business practices. Insights and incites by Notes

He was a great piano player and carried on the NOLA style. You can hear Professor Longhair, Pinetop Perkins, Allen Toussaint and so many Mississippi Delta pianists in his style. He had excellent musicians recording on his albums with him. The rhythm sections always grooved and the background singers wailed. He didn't have what could be called a great voice, but he used it very well and very expressively. He carried the NOLA piano blues tradition to the modern age, his "Gumbo" album is a prime example. RIP good Doctor. Your music will live on.

I only buy them for 2 reasons (1) a song I need to learn and don't want to buy the entire album or (2) something I want that can't be found on physical media anymore. I'd much rather buy a CD and have it for keeps, Insights and incites by Notes

Is the mom of the seagull group a mother flocker? Are they gullable? When gigging do they have to wait their tern? Is there every a good pun or are they all groaners? Notes

I never liked iTunes, and as soon as I could buy MP3s at Amazon and other places, I deleted iTunes. So R.I.P. iTunes, you've gons the way of Netscape, Real Audio, and so many other things that have made the Internet what it is today. Thanks for your service.

You guys are making me jealous. See the hat in my avatar? That's my rock n roll toupee. I didn't intend anything political by the cartoon, I just can't resist a pun. I just laid down my cards and got trumped. And if Sting isn't armed, how is he going to play the bass? Putting his hands on his shoulders wouldn't work.

There are two kinds of bugs calld no-see-ums. 1) Redbugs (mites) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombicula 2) Sand Flies (midges) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceratopogonidae I have a dozen Spanish moss filled Live Oak trees, and never have been bitten by a Redbug On the other hand, I've donated a lot of blood to the Sand Flies. Here in the my part of Florida, near the beaches and salt water marshes in the twilight hours of dawn and dusk or very damp, cloudy days the Sand Flies come out in force. You can see them, but they are tiny little dots, about the size of a period in a size 4 typeface. There are only 2 parts to this insect, wings and mouth ;) They pack quite a bite for such tiny little things. Fortunately they leave no venom or toxin behind. When there are hundreds of them they can be an irritant. They aren't strong fliers so a big fan will keep them away. If that doesn't work, a citronella candle or putting a repellent on yourself does the trick. The last time I saw one land on my arm, I squashed it, and at least 100 more came to the funeral :D Notes

I have no problem with the snakes, and just keep them out of the house. In the yard, I'm careful where I put my hands. Even though in the 30 years I've lived here, I've only seen a few, I don't want to startle one. I've had a couple of pretty big scorpions in the house in that time. I invert a CD-Rom lid over them, slide cardboard under them, and evict them. If they get in the house, it means they are lost. I find if I take them back to the wildlife preserve about 300 feet to the west of me, they can't find their way back. Many years ago after a hurricane we had a hole in the screen of our screen porch. Construction and supplies were backlogged and we couldn't find either screen or a repair company for months. Wasps would get in through the hole and so we inverted a cup over them, slid the cardboard under them, and take them back out. Eventually the wasps new the routine and when we cane with the cup, they would fly into it and let us take them outside. We didn't even need the cardboard anymore. Most animals that live in Florida will leave you alone if you don't make them nervous. I've strolled past alligators, crocodiles, snakes, wasps nests, and bee hives with no problem. I will kill mosquitoes, and black widow spiders if they nest too close to somewhere I need to be, and I'll avoid all that I think could be dangerous if they think I'm threatening them. When I visited Australia, I avoided the >2,000 pound crocs and observed them from a safe distance. Humans are bite size to those beasts. In 5 weeks of being in the bush and the outback, I saw one snake, and I kept my distance. When I was in Costa Rica, a fer de lance got into the laundry room of the Arenal Lodge and I saw grown men with fear in their eyes trying to get it out by using long sticks. I often visit the Everglades National Park, and they are having a Burmese python problem. One ranger told me that if I see one sunning on the side of the road, I should run over it. I've seen them, but not where I could run over them, and to tell the truth, I probably would get out and take it's picture instead of killing it. For the record, the most dangerous animal on the planet, the animal that kills more humans every year than any other, including humans, is probably lurking in your back yard all summer, the mosquito. Now that's an animal to fear. Bob

Since I mostly do MIDI I work a lot with Master Tracks Pro (abandoned ware). I also use Audacity for simple things and Power Tracks Pro. I'm just learning Cakewalk. Notes

I had to sweep a coral snake out of our living room. It cooperated. I have a 6' Coachwhip that lives under my house. It got in the porch one day, and it did not cooperate. Whatever way we wanted to guide it (the door) the snake went the opposite way. It was totally freaked of us. Eventually he went out. Notes

Definitely. When making a backing track for my duo, I often make subtle changes to tempo. Common variances are to speed up the B section a bit and/or speed up the end a bit -- but there are so many song specific changes that it would be impossible to list them all. Slowing the tempo of a section broadens it, rushing it adds excitement. Even with dance tracks, where the dancer isn't supposed to notice any tempo changes, subtle and gradual tempo changes are very useful to add energy to the tune. Of course there is rubato, but I find that difficult for a backing track so I avoid that as much as possible. My first instrument was drums, and through the years as a predominately sax playing multi-instrumentalist I have had the opportunity to work with some great drummers, and also the opportunity to sub on drums while the drummers played other instruments (like melodic percussion or the drummer in one band who played trumpet too). The 'out of the grid' groove and the tempo changes are something a good drummer just does automatically. It feels right and in that way it is right. Most good drummers don't sit down and analyze things like 'I'm going to lay back the 2s and 4s' or 'I'm going to swing the 8th notes a bit', or 'I'm going to speed this part up a bit', they just feel it and do it without any thought. Which brings me to a related subject (hopefully not to hijack the thread). Thinking is done in practice sessions. When it comes time to play the music for a recording or an audience, thinking can be your enemy. The best music is made with no thought involved. That includes the drum track. Insights and incites by Notes

My first instrument was drums. I added sax, bass, guitar, wind synth, flute, keys, and vocals (not in that order). If I was playing some disco or EDM songs, I would want to quantize the drums. But playing pop, rock, blues, country and most other forms of pop music, I want to keep the beat, but definitely not quantize. I play the drums live into my backing tracks and Band-in-a-Box aftermarket styles. That way I can get the feel right. Quantizing is the opposite of the groove. Sometimes the 2's and 4's need to be played behind the beat a bit, sometimes ahead. It depends on the style and the song. Sometimes the eighth or sixteenth notes need to be pushed or laid back a bit too. Again it depends. Listen to some of my favorite drummers, (and Bonham is one of them) like Bernard Purdie or Hal Blaine. Two drummers with very contrasting styles, but almost never quantized. Al Jackson Jr. played for many Stax cuts in it's prime and his rhythm was great, sounded simpler than it was, and always grooved - never quantized. Back in the jazz genre Buddy Rich swung those eighth notes using the proper delay for each song and always staying true to the song as did Gene Krupa and Max Roach. Steve Gadd another versatile drummer who even managed to inject a slight groove into disco tunes. I could go on and on with Cobham, Bruford, Blakey, Ginger Baker, DeJohnette, Morello, and on and on. None of these great players are known for quantizing, but they are all known for keeping the metronome steady as a rock when needed. When recording, I don't quantize anything, drums, bass, keys, and so on. If I can't get it right, I just do it again. To me, quantizing and compression are the two tools that when overused suck the soul out of a recording. That's my opinion, fee free to disagree because when it comes to making music, there is more than one right way. PS, excuse me for not playing the videos. ATT has phone line troubles due to the rain we had recently, and the DSL speed is such that they play about 2-10 seconds before buffering again. Insights and incites by Notes

Nope, I haven't seen Trump as an answer, and it's short enough to be a filler. I do see Idi (Amin) from time to time, so the constructors are not above using controversial leaders as an answer. But I guess 3 letter fillers are more common (Ulm, Ana, Ena, Obi, Ibo, Ebo, etc.). l like the puzzles with themes (usually Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday, and sometimes Friday or Saturday). And I like clues that make me think in one direction and then surprise me when the clue means something else. I don't care for puzzles with too many sports or pop media names, being a non-sports fan and I haven't watched TV since the 1980s so I don't know most of those people. Slide one in every once in a while, OK, but if two or three names are in a section, and they depend on each other, there is a good possibility that the ipad comes out. Although I have learned that Mel had a diner and Reba had a TV show and somebody called Opie was a kid in Mayberry. Also somebody called Norm was on Cheers, Alda was on MASH, and Apu is somebody on the Simpsons, although I've never seen any of those shows. The things you can learn doing crosswords -- and if it wasn't for crosswords I wouldn't know what a Wapiti is (now I feel real smart). When they give music clues, I have to remember not to think like a musician most of the time. Doing crosswords is entertaining, and it gets me to use my brain in a different way. I guess that's why its entertaining. I often photocopy the puzzle, and do it with my wife, double-teaming the crossword constructor. When my duo partner (now my wife) and I gigged on cruise ships back in the 1980s there was no TV on board except for the advertising crawls and an old, videotape movie that would play again and again. So after 3 years at sea we got out of the TV habit, and when we got off, I hooked the cable back up, and a couple of months later, disconnected it, because we were used to doing things for entertainment instead of passively having entertainment fed to us. OK, we're weird, and it's not for everyone, but I think life without TV is better. Instead of watching I learned: to play wind synthesizer, to program wind sounds on the synth, to add lead guitar as my 7th instrument, about 500 new songs for me duo, to write styles for Band-in-a-Box, to run a mail-order business, to learn HTML code, to convert it to an Internet business, enough cgi code to run a shopping cart, and quite a few other fun things. (I told you I was weird!) Notes

If it is a natural point in conversation, and I think it would help the person I am conversing with, I'll mention Cakewalk. I don't push the product or try to force it into a conversation, but if appropriate I will tell people about it. BTW, I started on the Atari/ST computer. Tried a few sequencers (Dr. T's?) but ended up with Master Tracks Pro. I still use MTPro for MIDI sequencing when no audio is required. The interface is fast and clean. I never had an Amiga, but at one time I wanted one. I didn't have a commodore, but I had that Texas Instruments TI/99 or whatever they called it. The TI was pretty useless for music, it was my first computer, and taught me how to write in BASIC though I never got to the advanced stages of that. I moved on to other things when I got my Atari. After writing some styles for Band-in-a-Box/Atari and selling them through trade magazines I eventually bought a DOS5/Win3.1 PC and a Motorola Mac Classic ][ so I could sell to those platforms as well. I'm mostly PC now, as the Atari is gone and I see no advantage for Mac for the things I do on the computer. Insights and incites by Notes

I call that one clever. The best ones are those you don't get at first. For those who have done crosswords for a long time, have you ever noticed how words come in style for a while and then go out??? Some years ago you saw IBO, ULM (Einstein's birthplace), OBI, ENA (Bambi's Aunt), ANA (Literary Collection), and so many others everywhere, but they are rarely seen today. Insights and incites by Notes

It's really up to the composer. Personally, I would find 6/4 easier to read as the score would be less cluttered. If it only happened a few times in the piece, either way would be fine with me though. And if it only happened a few times, does the meter change aid a sight reading musician? If so it's the way to go. When writing a score, my personal opinion is that it should be as easy to sightread as possible. That includes the aforementioned time signature, but also careful about repeats, DC or DS directions, page turns, and so on. There are some who seem to want to either make it challenging or save paper to the point where it hinders a performance or requires some wood-shedding to get right. If it's easy to sight read, even those who can read but not sight read the piece will find it much easier to play. The less your brain is working on the score, the more resources you have to add expressiveness. Bob

Thanks. Space savings is good, but for our mics I need low/mid/hi frequency controls. Notes

Yes that would wor That would work Nigel, but for me, rotating the Samsons in and out of the repair shop is the better option. Two mixers would definitely take up more than 4 rack spaces, and rack space is at a premium for someone who does one-nighters. The idea is to make things as light and easy to set up as possible. We allow 1.5 hours setup time and 1 hour tear down time. One rolling rack space for PA and synth modules, two powered speakers, two small monitors, two microphones, two guitars (with amp sim/fx pedals), one sax, one flute, one wind MIDI controller, one pedal for wind MIDI controller, one tactile MIDI controller, two microphones, 3 computers (we only need two, but the spare is up and running at all times) and more cables than I want to count. The extra half hour set up time is because if I don't allow it, that is when a cable will fail risking me missing the downbeat. Entertainment purchasers can tell time, and some don't take kindly to bands starting late. We carry a suitcase full of spares and other devices that might go wrong. One-nighers are hard on gear. Insights and incites by Notes

Humanize in the various apps I've used it with has just been randomize. Things like vary velocity by _____, vary start times by ____, and vary durations by____. This is definitely not the same thing a good drummer does. And what the drummer does in most forms of pop music should be used as the basis for what other rhythm instruments do. A good drummer might rush certain beats or sub beats, and/or drag others. He or she does this in a constant manner, whether or not a click track is followed. It's the feel, the groove, or whatever else it's known by. It keeps it from sounding mechanical, and allows the rhythm to breathe. Now there are certain exceptions to this. Some EDM and other contemporary dance songs need everything quantized to the grid. It's how they are supposed to sound. But that doesn't work for rock, jazz, blues, folk, country and so many other forms of music. Snapping to the grid, over-compressing, auto-tune, and things we mentally do to 'perfect' the music, IMHO ruin the music. Feel free to disagree, but with over 50 years on stage playing sax, guitar, bass, drums, flute, and or synth plus vocals, you won't change my mind. Insights and incites by Notes

Humanize is randomize, which is definitely not the same thing. Drummers are precise in their variances to the rhythms, not random. If they are dragging beat 2 and 4 they will drag them by the same amount every measure. Humanize will rush or drag the beats by different increments. Insights and incites by Notes

Thanks.

I've played pro in rock bands since 1964 and have had the good luck to have played with some of the greats. I almost made it big, and got to be in the opening act for major stars, but the deal fell through due to money (the record company didn't want to pay). But it was a part of my life I wouldn't trade for anything. I agree. Tempos need to change, some songs need the B part faster, some songs need to constantly gradually speed up, some parts need to back off. Quantizing is terrible. It destroys the groove. Sometimes beats need to be pushed, or laid back a bit. Quite often the 2 and 4 of a 4/4 measure is consistently either behind or ahead of the beat depending on the song. In addition some instruments need to be ahead or behind the others by a few milliseconds. This is something rock, jazz, country, pop and other liver musicians have had to feel for all of history. Usually it starts with the drummer, listen to records done with Hal Blaine, John Bonham, Buddy Rich, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, Carmine Appice, Dave Grohl, Steve Gadd, Al Jackson Jr., Ginger Baker, or Bernard Purdie and you hear the opposite of quantization, instead you hear groove. Over compression destroys the dynamic response of a song. Try reciting prose or poetry keeping every syllable of every word at the exact same volume and see if it's expressive. Compression for guitar sustain, yes. Compressing vocals, no, unless the singer has poor mic control. Auto-tune? If I hear a singer with noticeable auto-tune, I turn it off. I hate it. When I sing or play sax, wind synth, flute, or guitar, I play with the pitch. Slightly out of tune is expressive. A little sharp adds brightness to a note, a little flat, tension. Sometimes I like to hit a note slightly flat and slide it up to pitch, sometimes a quick pitch/sharp/pitch attack adds to an accented note, sometimes sliding down the tails of a held not at the end adds expression, the list goes on and on. I had classical music in school. Even the classics teach things like rushing the start of a phrase and then dragging at the end of the phrase to end it in time, or dragging first then rushing, depending on the song. 2-beat triplets should almost always be dragged a bit. This list goes on and on too. For rock, jazz, blues, pop, country and so many other forms of music to be forced into 'perfection' will suck the soul of the music. Even when I sequence the backing tracks for my duo, I play the parts live so I can get the proper feel and dynamics. Drums first, bass next and layer after layer on that (I play drums, bass, guitar, sax, flute, wind synthesizer, keyboard synthesizer and vocals). I NEVER-EVER quantize or use auto-tune. I practice the parts until I get them right (there is no substitute for practice) and if I screw up, I'll record another track. I may combine the good parts of two or more different tracks, but that's all the fixing I do. Purposeful imperfections are perfectly appropriate and deliberate, an occasional accidental imperfection stays in as long as it passes my judgement test. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Insights and incites by Notes

It seems to be out of production. I'd be trading one orphan for another. Since I have 4 Samsons, that seems to be my best bet. I'd like to find something still in production from a reliable manufacturer. If I can't I'll just keep sending the Samson units back for repair once every year or so. Insights and incites by Notes