blogulism

How the muse arrives and departs...

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 00:46:35 GMT

I have to wonder sometimes... is it age, or is it just becoming more and more attuned to the body's signals? Or both? Or something else?

Whatever.

So I played last night out in Matituck, got about five hours sleep and now it's Saturday morning, I arrive at the studio at about 8:45am and I am totally ON FIRE. I have Coltrane's "Mr. P.C." whirring in me, and I can barely plug in my guitar - I just start playing and playing and it's just flowing like mad science. I put on the recording of "Mr. P.C." from The Paris Concert and play along - I'm locked on it like a laser.

An hour-plus whirls by, and then my first student arrives.

Student after student, and four hours later I can finally resume practicing again. A slightly different challenge: play along with a practice CD, following a iim7b5 - V altered cadence, eight measures in C minor (Dm7b5 - G7 alt.), eight measures in F minor (Gm7b5 - C7 alt.), etc. following the circle of fourths.

And I just can't seem to focus. Low blood sugar? Lack of fresh air? Mental exhaustion?

Whatever. Time for a break, to clean up, to write this, and then reality interrupts again: gotta leave to go shopping and on to home.

Songwriting as an Evasion of Work - Songwriting as a Part of the Work

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:15:00 GMT

Yesterday's disappearing post revisited: While Taylor takes his oboe lesson, I like to take my Steinberger guitar along and practice in the waiting room. So I was just beginning to tackle the G melodic minor scale played in block diatonic fourths. (The first chord reads G-C-F#-Bb-E-A, low to high, just so you can get your bearings.) These chords prove relatively easy to play, fingering-wise, but are a bitch for me to remember. And I get to the chord built on the third degree of the scale (Bb-E-A-D-G-C) and - blammo! - this bossa nova marches out, screaming "Follow me!" And of course I do, and in a matter of twenty minutes I have this progression with a wisp of melody that sounds like Jobim-meets-Glenn Lyons. Taylor's lesson ends and I borrow a pencil and scratch out the progression on the back of yet another project I've promised myself I'll tackle ("Diatonic Fourth Exercises for Saxophone" by Dan Gaynor). I even have a title for the song: "You Were Saying?" Then, a few hours later, I look at the chart again and - blammo! - the second verse appears: the same as the first but transposed a tritone! The good ones are like this. They just reveal themselves. Of course you still have to wash them off and comb their hair, but they simply arrive. One of the challenges of learning is to focus on a goal: "I am going to work on the G melodic minor scale played in block diatonic fourths." Very often, five minutes into that work, we find ourselves elsewhere: "Oh, I need to change my strings. Oh, what's that hard part in 'My Cherie Amour?' Oh, have to remember to call so-and-so." Or a song comes along. Sometimes the song totally sucks. If it totally sucks, then it's just as much a bunch of distracting static as anything else. "You Were Saying?" may totally suck. I don't know yet - it will take some more washing and hair-combing to see. But another challenge of learning, while focising on a goal, is to engage the heart. If I cannot put my head, my hands, and my heart into it, it probably won't do much, or go far, or lead to much. So "You Were Saying?" was a piece of my heart, a little crush on a chord.

Disappearing post

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:44:04 GMT

y'know, I just wrote a post - after what? two and a half years or something - and before I could put it up, it disappeared. Sunnuvabitch.

Strangers continue to visit from all over the world...

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:57:38 GMT

Yesterday I had a walloping 250 visits to this web site, mostly in a six-hour period, mostly to the Writing page, mostly for a minute. Folks came from all over the world - Singapore, Finland, Australia, Uzbekistan, Guatemala, the far-flung Isles of Langerhan - to view what? My resume? My writing credits? My links to the Korg web site? 'Tis indeed a mystery. In other news, I tentatively completed my second ambient CD last night. It's a recording from 2005, minimally edited and mixed for public consumption. Working title: "The Crystal Window." I burned a test CD and began listening in the car while driving home from the studio - always a good test. Gotta do just a little more listening, especially with headphones, but so far it's rockin' my world. I'm mulling over other titles. I'm thinking about buying an Epson printer that'll print onto CDs cuz my experiments in decorating CDs proved a bit too sloppy and slow. Next step - design a cover. Probably a fractal, but with higher resolution than "Dress Rehersal."

Greetings, stranger! Where are you from?

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:55:00 GMT

This web site is hosted by Bandzoogle, and they do a great job of providing a user-friendly interface. One of the features they provide is a page that shows "site traffic." It tells me how many unique visits I get per day, how long the average visit lasts, how many downloads of audio take place per day and, most fascinating to me, where people are connecting from. Last month (July 2008), ferinstance, there were the usual connections from Long Island and other parts of the continental United States, but there were also a significant number of connections from London and the UK, Brazil, and Germany. In this first week of August I'm seeing folks fly in from Viet Nam, the Czech Republic, Spain, Italy, Austria, and France. So if you're webbing your way onto this page from some distant location - and most Webbers are visiting the Writing page, according to my Traffic Report - why dont you drop a comment in the little comment box below, next to the date of this post?

Can this blog be saved?

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:01:02 GMT

Life whirrs by too fast to spend time clacking away at a computer keyboard, rehashing whirred-by life. I prefer updating these here web pages, scrapbook-like. You want a piece of me? Then start left-clicking all over this site.

gig giggles

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 22:20:00 GMT

Back in the saddle with some live giggery. This past Saturday, June 30, it was with Johnny Volume at Port Jazz in Port Jefferson. This was as a sub for Skip Krevens, who is Johnny Volume's first-call guitar guy. My Number One Groupie, Miss Elk, was so devoted to my performance that she only took photos of me! However, the Fabulous Babe hanging with Mitchell Ames (Johnny Volume's front man and leader) got a shot of the two of us attaining some kind of expressive blues-rock moment here.

Here's a shot of drummer Hodge and I being overseen by the cartoon DJ...

Here's a nice sweaty shot towards the end of the set. I'm playing slide with my favorite chromed steel finger appendage: a Sears Craftsman 5/8" hex core deep socket wrench.

This gig was pretty much a template for the right way to do a bar gig. I got the CD of songs and songlist (including notes on background vocals and appropriate directions for certain songs: "cop horn line at intro," "add chorus effect on bridge to simulate Hammond," etc.) from Mitchell about three weeks in advance, got together once with Mitchell, got together once with the full band (including not-yet-shown-but-vital Phillip Gardner on bass), did my homework in between (practice with and without CD, prepare charts), alerted the local fan base, and BOOM! Now it's on to the next gig, and the next, and the next...

Severe nonlinear hangin' with Jimbo

Thu, 23 Nov 2006 09:25:33 GMT

Lessee... I guess it was the weekend before last that the Mighty James Keepnews came to the Beach of Sound to visit and make all manner of atonal squawks with the Coyote. Great fun and lots of great playing all around, but the audio record of the event is flawed. We're just gonna hafta try again. Jim's photos prove it actually happened:
Coyote agow in the stew-dee-oh...

still further aglow...

Back at home with my favorite professional wrestler and Black belt candidate...

The Elk, smiling the smile that only Jim can bring...

The two loves of my life. Note naughty bunny ears...

Some brief updating in an otherwise hectic life:

Changes at GuitarOne have downsized my income a bit. Just annoying enough to make my life difficult. I MUST MUST MUST send out a blanket e-mail to let the community know I want to get active with the gigging thing again. Also thinking about other sources of income, which means maaking up and sending out resumes, demo CDs, etc. etc.

Finally saw Ethan perform with Rob Balducci at the Patchogue Theatre. A great performance all the way around, although Rob and the headlining band deserved a larger crowd. Those that were there were very supportive, though.

The last few weeks were dotted with trips to the hospital for tests and pictures of my naughty bladder, which developed an infection again. One more lovely cystoscopy next week, and hopefully I'll be done with that for a while.

Sold a few guitars on eBay, which generated just enough money to pay some debts and maybe help through the Christmas season.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, for which I have much to be thankful.

Hallowe'en Report

Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:33:57 GMT

After the rainy, blustery weekend, Hallowe'en rose bright and warm. After school, Taylor and friend Kevin transformed into Darth Vader and pro wrestler Rey Mysterio in preparation for demand for treats from the helpless population of Sound Beach:

Accompanied by a Coyote and a certain Collie (dressed as TV star Lassie), Darth Kevin and Taylor Mysterio flee a particularly spooky haunted house:

A little later the sky erupted in an appropriate display of orange and black. Thanks to the relentless tugging of A Certain Collie, all I have as proof is this semi-abstract composition:

Now, three days later, a gallon-sized plastic bag remains full with Nestle Crunch Bars, Reese's Pieces, Snickers, Kit Kats, Tootsie Rolls, Hershey Take 5 bars (a personal favorite), M&M's, and countless other treats to rot the tooth, fatten the soft belly and acidify the stomach.

Last night at the studio I spent an hour-plus exploring the Digitech Expression Factory, a pedal the size of a wah-wah or volume with seven different tone/modulation effects (two wahs, one preset from Digitech's legendary Space Station, Whammy, Uni-Vibe, simulated Leslie, and A/DA Flanger) and seven different distortions (Jeez! I can't remember them all, but they include a TS-9, a ProCo Rat, an excellent Big Muff, a couple of Metal models, and more). Any of the seven tone/mod FX can be paired with any of the seven distortions and called up as a preset, or the seven tone/mod FX can be called up alone, sans distortions. It's also possible to set the tone/mod FX to neutral settings to hear the distortions alone. So much firepower demanded that I chart and list all kinds of stuff so that I can recall how to use the damn thing the next time I crack it out. Great fun to use.

Also at the studio, I dealt with the Never-Ending Headache of Replacing Tuners. The short form goes like this: Original tuners on Epiphone J-45 were big and clunky, so I installed vintage-style Grovers with butterbean keys. After a year or so with these, as I was changing strings on the J-45, one of the tuners began to slip repeatedly. Unacceptable. Rather than go through the rigmarole of complaining and getting a replacement, I decide to just order different tuners (Gotoh's near-identical design) and complain afterwards. So the Gotohs arrived yesterday (along with Lou Caronia's locking vintage-style tuners for his Les Paul after having them on back-order, waiting for a month and never hearing from Allparts, causing me to re-order them, but that's another story...). I begin to install the Gotohs, and AFTER I've installed two or three, discover that one of the keys is mismatched - it's a plain oval key, not a butterbean. So I take the Gotohs off, re-examine the broken Grover tuner, find it easily repairable, and put the Grovers BACK ON the J-45. So now I have three things to waste my time complaining about:
1) The crappy Grover tuners.
2) The mismatched Gotoh tuners.
3) The lack of followup on the back-ordered locking tuners.
If the locking tuners weren't for Lou, who is An Angel Who Makes Miracles Happen and A Nice Guy Besides With Patience to Match His Saintliness, and if the Grover and Gotoh tuners weren't for my own guitar, my repair business would have the Stink of Unreliability in the air.

Okay, enough bitching and moaning. Time to do the weekly floor-cleaning chores.

Michael Barber, Nikola Tesla, and Fabulous Babes

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 21:38:47 GMT

A visit from Michael and Christine Barber this past Saturday. They braved the tail end of a wicked rain storm with high winds to drive from warm Manhattan to the wilds of near-Eastern Long Island. They first took in a tour of the Coyote Music Studio, then headed further East to the Baldwin home in Sound Beach, then scurried still further East to see Wardenclyffe, the former laboratory of Nikola Tesla. "Who's Tesla?," you ask. Ever heard of a little thing called alternating current? Ever listen to a thing called radio? Ever turn on a flourescent light? Tesla invented more fundamental uses of electricity than little Tommy Edison could dream of in three lifetimes. You might start with Wikipedia's biography of Tesla . Then look at these photos Michael took of Wardencliffe in its current condition:

The large white industrial construction to the left is the remains of a film developing laboratory that took over the lab in the 1940s and remained active until the 1970s. They built quite a bit of tasteless white boxlike crap around the original building. They also used the pit Tesla dug (as part of his resonance tower designed to generate free electricity worldwide) to dump toxic chemicals. Here's another view of Tesla's lab:

...and the plaque honoring Tesla:

On a lighter note, we headed back from the lab to Brightwaters Dr. and had a delicious baked spinach ziti, salad, and apple/cranberry pie, all cooked by the amazing Elk herself. Michael and Douglas found themselves on the floor, talking music and making plans for the recording of tracks for D's next book, Play Mandolin Today!:

(Douglas is looking about ready for jusht one more glassh of that delishusss wine M&C brought.)
As promised, here are the Fabulous Babes:

That's Christine on the left and Deborah on the right. Behind them is the armoire that Deb's sister Gail painted for us.

I'm hoping to post some of Michael's music on this web site, but that won't happen today. It is now 10:40 am and I have two product reviews to complete for my employer. Of course this is webland, too, where 10:40 rapidly became 11:00 as yrs truly had to relearn how to post photos on his bloggish blogosity.
Ta ta for now!

Time, space and light. Did I leave anything out?

Tue, 24 Oct 2006 20:16:20 GMT

Yeow! At the studio 'till 11:30 last night uploadind pix of the studio, then up at 6:30 this morning to take care of morning chores and see taylor off to school. Then a walk on the beach with Trevor, hoping to experiment with posting photos here. I've managed to get one shot onto the home page.
Here we go! Trevor runs free as I face West, towards Port jefferson and a rosy dawn occuring perhaps over Pennsylvania and Guy and Gayle's home.

The same beach, sans collie...

...and here our Lassie impersonator gazes East towards the Daughter of Wisdom convent and the wilds of Rocky Point

Self-portrait of wind-blown Coyote. The frost in my beard is that of age, not temperature.

And you thought I was kidding about the Daughters of Wisdom! All born, curiously, between February and April of 1971 in the area in and immediately surrounding Boston MA, the girls have done rather well for themselves, now owning a bit of beachfront property in Sound Beach.

The Phantom of the Seashore is ready to return home.

Rain. I Don't Mind.

Sun, 25 Jun 2006 06:55:33 GMT

An area of low pressure has stalled along the east coast of the United States, sucking up moisture from the south and generating endless clammy, rain-drenched summer days. We are comfortable with air conditioning on, but movement outside is guaranteed to generate something like the creeping crud beneath one's clothing.

At the studio today I began with a rare hour-plus of personal practice. Back in January I purchased a blank diary and began to transfer my personal exercises into it as part of my commitment to get back in the saddle. Today's newest work included the cycle of major scales ascending (in 5ths) and descending (in 4ths) with my eyes closed and, finally, a listing of possible bending exercises. This is a severely unstudied area of contemporary guitar, and I am really eager to get some burn in my fingers as I work through the possibilities.

Two students presented a study in contrasts. Very close in age and, coincidentally, playing very similar guitars, one is deeply dedicated to scales, exercises, and steady practice. The other is turned on by sampling technology and the two-measure riff, and barely practices at all - in the traditional sense, at least. I find them both a challenge and a pleasure to help.

After instructional chores were done, Mikki and I reorganized the studio a bit. I'd been using a pair of large bookshelf speakers with my looping rig, and I knew they weren't up to the full-bore onslaught of multiple loopage and drum tracks. So of course I continued to use them until I blew out a woofer. Back against the wall, I chose to set up the full-scale speakers, a pair of Carvin PA cabinets on tripod stands. The only way to fit them in was to do some rearranging, which we did.

Mikki is off to Paris next week, studying for a month before returning at the end of July. I wish her a great trip, and will miss her contribution to the studio mightily.

Now it is late at night. Rain continues. Taylor is having his friend Dylan here for a sleepover. They're watching professional wrestling on TV in the living room. Here in the bedroom I tap awaay at the computer while Debbie dozes on the bed with our new kitten Charlotte. Little Charlotte may be a reincarnation of Veronica, so friendly and affactionate is she of the long black fur with the dollup of white on the belly.

Winter springs into now

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 21:22:09 GMT

There is no way of relating the immensity of change over time, and a blog that reads from "now" backwards is worse than that. I suggest you scroll down to the bottom of this blog, then read upwards to understand how it all has come to this "now." Mom passed away on Debbie's birthday, March 16th. The tale of her passing will become a family story, a bit of myth. Her brother, my Uncle Don, awaits his turn to let go of this mortal coil. My sister's husband, Guy, is probably completing his first visit to Sloane-Kettering hospital in Manhattan for treatment of a rare form of cancer - adrenal cancer. These are not easy times for my family.

More lightly, my complimentary copies of Play Guitar By Ear arrived today. The publisher managed to begin shipping the book without sending me any copies. This past Friday, Steve Kottmeier, one of my guitar students, walked into the studio with his copy of PGBE, ordered through Amazon dot com. This was the first finished copy I'd seen. My sense of it is that the book publishing business is just a shade more transparent than the music business, which is to say, "How do you like your slime? Deep black or dark brown?" My publisher managed to make up for this small oversight by sending, not 12 complementary book/CDs, as provided for in my contract, but a generous 15. Which of course will be deducted from my yet-to-be-seen profits.

Now I must try to pull this web site together a bit more.

tides, and mom

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 22:07:06 GMT

A chilling walk on the beach. Temperatures in the teens (F) with a wind chill near zero. The waves whipping up a foam like the head of an Orval beer. Taylor is back in school after a week-long winter break, the last wave of articles for G1 is completed, and the corrected CD for Play Guitar By Ear is finally corrected, and will be sent off to the Hal Leonard publishing team today. So a couple days of relative lessening of the stirrups on my schedule. I purchased a mandolin in preparation for my next book, part of Hal Leonard's Play Today! series, to be cleverly titled Play Mandolin Today! I don't feel a calling to the mandolin, but I feel its kinship to the guitar. Also on the boards are instruction books on bluegrass guitar and jazz-rock fusion guitar.

Mom is doing better. She went into the hospital last week after slipping while negotiating her bed. Medical attendants saw she was weak, she was admitted, and it was found that her kidneys had just about shut down. She was brought to a bigger hospital and kept in intensive care for several days. Last night she went to "intermediate care," at least a step less critical than intensive care. My sister Carol and her family have been doing a heroic job of caring for Mom this past year-plus, and Carol continues to be wonderful, calling and e-mailing the greater family with news and updates. Assuming my mom continues to improve, I will come up to Massachusetts this coming weekend. If she takes any turn for the worse, I will be there as quick as the speed limit allows. If you are reading this in a timely manner, please send your love and light to Wilma Baldwin.

the middle of the middle

Wed, 22 Feb 2006 21:30:17 GMT

Gray. Cold. And this will be the warmest day for a while. A distant gray sun squints through a bland gray sky above gray grass upon which a gray stop sign is perched. Even under an electron microscope (god! That eyepiece is cold!) the atoms of a fragment of gold are gray. We on the Northeast edge of the North American continent on Earth call this February.

One bright spot: the blog log times have corrected themselves, making my comments on their incorrectness appear, well, incorrect.

Laundry spins, Taylor showers off, Trevor romps outside (dog! That bone is cold!), Elk counsels, and the Coyote writes for Guitar One: a review of the Paul Reed Smith singlecut needing much input from the PRS team, the lovely Vox DA5 portable amp needs a quote from the Vox team, eager readers will sift through my brilliant commentary on the music and technique of Boston's "Rock & Roll Band," and a question or two for "Noise and Feedback" will probably need answering.

One dark spot: the Tiger Lily Café in the person of Joanne tells me that "...our Café is not the right setting for your music." My response:
"...1) This music evolves. Currently I am working with more beats: light ambient, hip-hop, electro-pulse rhythms which make it more accessible to the casual listener. Perhaps I might drop off another CD of my more current work for your consideration?
2) When you offer live music at Tiger Lily, what is it that you wish for the music/musicians to bring?"

Laundry stops spinning, Trevor barks, and we move forward. Including a reminder from the spell-check that gray is grAy not grEy.

another fine day

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:48:33 GMT

A morning walk/jog to the beach. The tide was moderately low, so we could walk on the Sound Beach side of the beach, past the Daughters of Wisdom convent (all born between March and May, 1971), down to the old pilings. A pocketfull of beach glass, mostly clear. Then, a wild crowd! A man I've nicknamed The Pastor, another fellow with two black labs, a couple riding bikes, and another couple walking, all within the 500 feet of the end of Woodhull Landing Rd.

Morning work on the web page, laundry, a game or two of chess. Now to complete a final article for the magazine, shower, touch up Lou's neck, and run some errands before helping aspiring guitarists to place that finger on that string at that fret at that moment, while remembering to pick it in that direction. As always, I include myself in the group.

The automated time post thingie that appears below this will tell you it's about an hour earlier than it actually is. In my world, it's 11:48.

...later that same day

Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:28:21 GMT

It took more than a half hour to clear the workbench for Lou's neck, then another forty-five minutes of sanding (400 grit dry, then with soapy water) and polishing (liquid chrome polish in lieu of No. 7 polishing compound) to accomplish what has been waiting for me to do for well over a year. Somehow, carving out an hour and a half from my schedule has been that elusive. Then it was lunch (turkey breast and greens on toasted whole wheat, mayo, mustard; a tall glass of white grape juice and seltzer) along with a couple of games of chess against the computer. Of 1945 games played, I have won 967 and drawn 319. I look forward to passing the 50:50 ratio of wins : games.

A listen to "Postmortal Postman" reveals a good sketch. A thousand improvements possible, but a good sketch. Now it's off to the studio to give instruction as to just how to place the tip of that finger on that string at that moment while picking said string in that direction. Also, corrections to the CD audio for Play Guitar By Ear.

further adventures on sound beach

Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:04:43 GMT

I've discovered that the times logged in for these pages came out incorrectly. As I write this, it's 9:36 am. What will it say on the entry?A good morning. Overcast, but mild. The usual delicious breakfast prepared by The Elk: fruit (today, juicy pineapple) with yogurt, nuts, and craisins (dried cranberries that look like red raisins. I wonder why I never saw craisins until the past ten years or so?); whole wheat toast with peanut butter and honey; and a latte prepared on the Mr. Coffee espresso maker, a gift from Elk to Coyote. I leashed up Trevor and walked with Taylor to the bus stop, speaking for a bit with Mary from across the street. Mary's family is from Ireland, and Mary still has a lovely brogue. Her Mom is in poor health, and Mary was in Ireland for a week and a half. Prayers to Mary's Mom. Trevor and I walked/jogged to the beach. The tide chart shows a low tide at 6:35 am, high tide at 12:29. The tide chart also gives some funny numbers: high tide is rated 6.8, low is -0.8. My guess is that this is with relation to sea level. Research! Well, the tide was medium high when we got there, and rising pretty quick. We could walk past the drainpipe/mini-groin on the Miller Place side of the beach, but we didn't go far. The water was big, gray marbled with green, bits of brownish foam. Gulls hanging motionless midair. Two women and their black lab (we've met before). Ten pieces of beach glass: seven different shades of green, one clear, one brown, and one of the very rare deep blue (but this is a tiny shard and not yet ripe, to be returned to the beach tomorrow). And one pinkish coral-like rock pocked with tiny holes. A couple of plump raindrops, and it was back home. Now to write and spend an hour or so with the neck of Lou Farbstein's Coyote Telecaster, which needs a sanding and polishing before returning to him. Check the time on this entry: as I post it, it is 10:05 am.

can I change the font size?

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 07:22:16 GMT

So let's see if this works any better...This is xx-small. This is x-small. This is small. This is medium. And this is large.

later that same day...

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 07:18:20 GMT

8:19 pm - I don't like the layout of this blog. The column is too tight, and you can't read much at one time. Must find a better format! And as I write this, a gig at the Tiger Lily cafe is calling and a letter from the Postmortal Postman awaits.