London Calling Lucia Iman

I've just returned from a fantastic trip to London. Lucia Iman performed at the Gibson Guitar Studios as the opening act for an Evening With Sellaband. If you have a soft spot in your heart for hardworking musicians, I urge you to visit Lucia's page on the Sellaband site where you can watch her performance and make up your own mind. It was an absolute pleasure to play bass behind this very talented musician.

Currently, she is number 5 out of 4000 acts and rising. I hope that all of you take a moment to read up on how Sellaband works.

Personally, I've always been skeptical of fund raising schemes, but after meeting everyone involved with this organization, I can endorse their business plan without reservation.

I'll be writing about all the craziness that is London in another posting. It will make you laugh and I'll get to vent my spleen a bit. But for now, do something good for the music world and check out Sellaband. You won't regret it.

Cheers for now.

Sessions Cafe

I live in Monrovia, California. The city has just celebrated its 121st birthday and is a charming community straddling historic Route 66 just east of Pasadena. Good schools, family values, old town, it's all here. Monrovia is a nice place to live and for many, a nice place to work. But the charm of the town is better described on an excellent blog called Living in Monrovia. I'm only trying to set the stage for my subject.

As a city wends its way through the years, there are always changes. Trends seem to come and go in cyclical fashion and yesterday's run-down areas become tomorrow's fashionable neighborhoods. We have our malls and warehouse stores nearby but I tend to support the smaller, locally-owned businesses. Monrovia also has had its share of home-grown talent in sports and in the arts.

I've been looking for a way to give something back to this town and to do it in a way that would nurture growth in the arts in general and music in particular. After a bit of brainstorming and a few creative meetings, Sessions Cafe was born.

Sessions Cafe will be a series of thirty minute music related interviews to be aired on KGEM, the local cable access educational channel. The content will also be available on the internet. My guests will range from notable producers, songwriters and musicians to local performers and educators.

The purpose of the show will be to create a buzz about music in the community. A vibrant music scene improves the quality of life and it has been shown that early exposure to music stimulates the educational process. This series will provide education, entertainment and exposure. The audience will be treated to anecdotes from some of my favorite story tellers, the people who had a hand in making some of the great recordings. I also hope to interview the local talent and the educators that work with tomorrow's talent every day.

What was it like to be on stage with a band like Canned Heat? Who are those folks that play every Friday at the street fair? What is it like to work with an artist like David Bowie? What does the high school music teacher have on his iPod? Who is giving lessons? Where can you hear live music around town?

All of these questions and much more will be answered on Sessions Cafe. I'll keep you posted as to dates and air times and if you're in the Monrovia area, please tune in to KGEM. And again, Sessions Cafe will be available on the web as well. This oughta be fun!

Lucia Iman Goes to London

Ah! The internet is a beautiful thing. If you haven't read "Critical Path" by Buckminster Fuller, get a copy and read it. Read it front to back and when you finish the last page, start at the front and read it again. One of his prognostications involves the democratization of political and artistic decisions based on a system whereby every household could vote on issues, the votes to be counted immediately and actions taken in accordance with the results. His view was that when this came about on a worldwide scale, changes could be made that advantaged the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time.

This is precisely what is occurring every moment of every day on the internet. As it applies to the music industry, the A&R departments of record companies are now rendered obsolete. The listening public is now the worldwide A&R staff. With the technology of the internet, anyone with internet access can affect what happens in popular music to a degree never known before. The marketplace has become truly global.

Lucia Iman studies voice with me and her story is remarkable. One of her avid fans is very web-savvy and convinced her to post her music on sellaband. It seems that this site was holding a web-based competition and the recipient of the most votes would be invited to participate in a concert in London, England.

Every day began and ended with updates on the progress of Lucia's place in the competition. Emails were sent and her popularity spread like tentacles to people and places we had never heard of. Because of the technology now at our fingertips, Lucia's music could reach an audience of worldwide proportions. The audience can now make decisions free of peer pressure or the head-pounding tactics of conventional advertising and marketing departments associated with the global marketplace. The audience has spoken...Lucia is going to London!

Ah...the internet is a beautiful thing indeed. This world and everything it has to offer is open for business and pleasure. Get online and shake hands with your fellow travelers. Look them in the eye and you will find that we have much in common. The more you realize the power at your fingertips, the degree to which YOU can affect what happens in this world, the sooner we will all live in peace.

And don't get offline before you check out Lucia's site. Listen to her music and make up your own mind.

The Gear Page

One of my posts was quoted recently on the forum of the Gear Page. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a comment that I had made regarding technique and musical knowledge, provided a topic for such a spirited and fruitful discussion between contributors to that excellent forum.

My original comment was, "I firmly believe that only an intimate knowledge of the rules gives one the right to break them." The comments on the forum ranged from agreement (which I interpret as an understanding of the concept which I was putting forward) to the thought that the comment was made by an arrogant, know-nothing armchair quarterback.

Well...fair enough. The comment on its own DOES sound arrogant and a bit pedantic. But it was misunderstood as being a blanket statement concerning the arts in general. I Do firmly believe in what I said...in the context of working as a musician in the commercial arena. In other words, playing music for pay. In the discussion, some famous names were used as illustrations to prove that rule breaking is important to the creation of new and cutting edge art forms. I'd like to discuss two of those names and perhaps make clear how my position is supported by these examples.

Charlie Parker, in developing his unique approach to soloing over chord changes, did indeed expand on what was, at the time, the accepted language of the jazz solo. Did he "break" the rules? or did he use the existing framework to create new rules? There is no question that Charlie Parker knew how to play the saxophone with a high level of technique. How could this come about. Did he practice? Is there a correct way to hold one's fingers on the keys of an alto saxophone? Can one blow into any one of the many holes of a sax, or is there one particular hole that is used according to the "rules?" Charlie Parker KNEW what he was doing. He knew the existing rules, he chose which ones to break, and he created a new genre.

Jimi Hendrix changed the voice of the guitar forever. There is guitar before Jimi and Guitar after Jimi. Now, Jimi did do weird shit to a guitar. But I'm going to stay away from lighter fluid and bashing, and stick to playing. I think that one of Jimi's biggest contributions to rock guitar was the absolute disregard he had for what was acceptable. Anybody could have turned a marshall all the way up and gotten feedback...try NOT to. But Jimi made it MUSIC. And he did it by playing with no inhibitions. He turned noise into music and forced the issue. He made the unacceptable okay. Did he break the rules? Fuckin'-A plus! He broke All of them. But Jimi, like Bird, knew what he was doing. He had plenty of gigs under his belt. Gigs that required him to play by the rules. And when he got fried on both sides with other peoples rules, he blossomed and made up his own.

Years ago, I was watching on of my kids play basketball in a six-year-old YMCA league. As the clock wound down, we were about to lose when he launched a hook shoot from the corner. Swish! We won and everyone went nuts. After the game, I had a talk with him and explained that although the shot went in, if he did that in the normal course of the game, his coach would probably pull him out for taking high risk shots. "What's high-risk mean?" he asked me. I explained that it was a shot that would need a lot of luck in order to be successful. "But dad" he answered, " I can make that shot all day." And he promptly went to the same spot and made three out of four tries.

He's in Europe now earning a living...playing basketball. What the fuck do I know...

Vocal Architecture

Some of my recent lessons have inspired me to write about a subject that is extremely important to good vocal production. I call it Vocal Architecture. Good posture is a must if one is to breathe properly for singing. But Vocal Architecture has more to do with the efficient use of body structures and how they interact.

The main area of concern is usually the neck and head. The weight of the skull sits precariously at the top of the spine and is continuously balanced by various muscles. A reasonable parallel would be the Segway Human Transporter which has an onboard computer that calculates and adjusts changes in balance at the microsecond level. An improper tilt can cause a great deal of unnecessary tension which will cause vocal fatigue and can also completely change the sound of the voice. Many questions can best be answered by looking back into primitive human history. The question here is, what is the proper position of the head and why?

I find that many singers hold their head a bit too high which causes multiple problems. The weight of the back of the skull compresses the neck muscles, the throat muscles are stretched unnaturally, causing tension in an extremely vulnerable area, and the entire balance of the body is put into a precarious attitude. Head tilt seems like a small detail, but once a singer achieves the proper balance, everything changes for the better... immediately.

I teach singers to "Lead with their forehead and look intently to the horizon." I also teach the importance of dropping the jaw to open the mouth wider as opposed to raising the head. Here are a few reasons why this is so important:
1. This position allows the skull to be balanced equally by all the muscles around the neck.
2. Focusing on "leading with the forehead" is a mental image that tends to help the singer picture the sound as emanating from the resonant chambers of the mask.
3. Dropping the jaw eliminates tension in the area surrounding the larynx which must be absolutely free of undue tension in order for the voice to be produced correctly.

Dropping the jaw also has a massive affect on what happens inside the mouth and throat. The very tip of the soft palate or, the roof of the mouth, is called the uvula. When the jaw is lowered, this little guy points downward creating a wider passage for sound waves to pass up into the sinus area. This could be compared to turning up the high frequency tweeters in a stereo system. The difference in the sound of an AH vowel when the jaw is dropped just a small amount is amazing.

As to posture, I prefer that a singer do vocal exercises standing with feet shoulder width apart and one slightly in front of the other. There are certain exercises that include slight crescendos or extensions of energy and I like to see a singer shift weight forward on the crescendo and back on the diminuendo. Merely shifting weight from one foot to the other will expend energy in the legs and usually results in better support from the torso.

I think of singing as a very physical process and these slight variations in balance will have good results without clogging the mental process. The physical aspects of singing, when drilled and practiced extensively, should become second nature. Good habits will allow more "CPU" usage to be alloted to the interpretation of a song.

So...getting back to the dawn of human history, I imagine primitive man as a hunter-gatherer who had to have finely tuned scanning skills in order to provide himself with food and to anticipate both the danger of predatory animals and the presence of food animals in the distance. Primitive man walked erect, thereby making use of his built-in periscope. To anticipate what was in store for him, he looked to the horizon...out and down. His horizon was much different than ours. When we look for what we need, we look at shop windows and billboards...we look up. Our scanning and awareness has deteriorated to the point that any distraction can cause us to trip or step off of a curb.

My take on Vocal Architecture may seem a bit quirky, but it works. Become primitive man and look down and out to the horizon. Sing with a purpose, as if survival were hanging in the balance.

How to Play the Bass

I was recently asked to write an article under the title, "How to Play the Bass." Personally, I think that a better title would be, "Why to Play the Bass." The twisted motives behind the "why's" make juicier reading than the "how's" anyday of the week. Well, I wrote the article and aimed it at the rank beginner but decided to spare the prey for another day (due to a gray area concerning rights of ownership). I will not, however, hesitate to bore readers of this blog with the aforementioned article. Maybe soon I'll get into the "why's" as well. A few people still have to die or move to Tibet before I can mention names though.

How to Play the Bass

The electric bass is a fairly new instrument developed and introduced in 1951 by Leo Fender. The electric bass or bass guitar was instantly popular among musicians who were playing bigger venues at louder volumes. It was much smaller and more durable than the string bass and became the bass of choice for many traveling bands.

Learning to play a musical instrument is much like eating good food. The process is best enjoyed one sensible mouthful at a time. Many young musicians bite off a huge mouthful, become frustrated, and put the instrument in the closet. I intend to keep things very simple and hopefully this article will inspire you play and enjoy the bass.

The first thing to do is to understand the function of the bass. The bass is part of the rhythm section of the band and cooperation with the drummer is of utmost importance. Listen to almost any song and you will hear and feel the interaction between the bass and drums. You will also find that the bass plays very simple parts but with a great degree of rhythmic accuracy. This interaction between the drums and bass is called "the groove" and it is the single most important factor in popular music.

Let's get physical. Sit on a comfortable stool or armless chair and hold the bass in playing position. Make sure that your feet are free to move, you're going to need them. Now count out loud, "one-and, two-and, three-and, four-and." Don't be self-conscious, every good musician started by counting out loud. Tap your right foot as you say "one" and "three." Tap your left foot as you say "two" and "four." Lean into each step as you count. The average pop song is under three minutes long so just count and tap for three minutes as the groove starts to take shape.

Let's break some musical barriers and concentrate on one string at a time. Play the lowest, fattest string on the bass. For right now, stroke or pluck the string with your finger, your thumb or a guitar pick. Whatever you use, try to make the string sound big and full. Let it ring and feel the low vibrations coming through the body of your bass. If you develop an appreciation for the way the bass feels, you can always practice with or without an amplifier.

Now, let's add playing the bass to our counting and tapping. Play the lowest string every time you say "one" while tapping your right foot. Take your time and be sure to feel the bass vibrate against your body. Now add a bass note every time you say "three" while tapping your right foot. As simple as this seems, playing long notes for three minutes at a time is very valuable practice and will help you to be a better musician.

By now, your counting and tapping should be feeling natural so let's add another bass note. Play a note as you say the "and" that comes between two and three. Your right foot will be up. If we use CAPITAL letters to indicate bass notes, your count looks like this: ONE-and two-AND THREE-and four-and ONE-and two-AND THREE-and four-and etc. Once again, take your time, count out loud and do this for at least three minutes. Remember that feel is everything.

After you can play/count/tap this pattern naturally, you can add your left hand to the equation. The bass neck is similar to the guitar but it is a larger scale. Many bass parts can be played using only the index and little finger of the left hand. Put your left index finger on the lowest string between the fourth and fifth frets. With your thumb on the back of the neck, put pressure on the string and play it. Try to make the note last by maintaining the pressure. This might hurt a bit at first but with repetition and practice, your note will sound big and full. Now, without moving your hand, put your little finger on the lowest string between the sixth and seventh fret. With your index finger still in position you should have a good grip on the bass. Apply pressure and play the note. Now go back and forth between these two notes and make each one sound good.

Let's put all of this together. Start your counting and foot-tapping. Remember to count out loud. Play the same pattern you played before. ONE-and two-AND THREE-and four-and. Now, each time you say "ONE" you will play a new note. Play the open string, then the note with your index finger and then the note with your little finger. Repeat this for the length of a pop song.

If you did everything in this article, you should have a good idea of what goes into playing the bass. If it appeals to you, dig in. There are thousands of sources for technical information but the most important source is you. Listen and Feel.

Lazy Is As Lazy Does

I have a thing about Laziness. It's the same attitude I have toward other human conditions like say, stupidity or addiction. To put it into Twelve step terms, I can love the afflicted person, but I hate the condition. I'm about to go off on a tangent here so if you don't want to read my version of self-evident truth, you are excused to turn on the TV and fill the void with bullshit.

Alright then, here is my rant on laziness. My theory rests squarely on the foundational fact that water seeks a level at which it will be at rest. Humans are seventy percent water. Physically we are, by definition, sedentary organisms. By using our minds, we can counteract our physical condition and act or react to our circumstances as required in order to improve the situation and once again find a spot where we can lay at rest. In other words, we do our best work in emergency situations.

Say that you are watching a show on TV. You're comfortable, there is a cold beer within reach, a bag of Chee-tos on your lap and a package of Ho-Hos next to you for dessert. You have no intention of moving when suddenly your ass bursts into flames! The emergency causes you to react and suddenly you become inventive. You discover by intuition that with a minimum of effort the flames can be extinguished with your beer. And as a thinking being, you will file this episode away under "emergency uses for beer."

If you think that the world of science is laboring away to discover new ways to make your life easy, stop kidding yourself. The vast majority of our daily conveniences were first developed as emergency measures. From table salt to video games, advancement in technology has been driven by two goals. 1. How to keep from getting killed so as to have the time to sit in front of the TV with beer, Chee-tos and cookies, and 2. How to kill everyone who is trying to disturb us from sitting in front of the TV with beer, Chee-tos and cookies. That's it in a nutshell.

The Space program was not developed to provide amusing video clips of astronauts eating blobs of floating food paste. It was developed for the same reason that the armed fortress was developed, to gain and hold the high ground against the enemy. As time passes and enemies become harder to invent, the more harmless technology of these developments filters down to the general population in the form of entertainment trinkets similar to the bucket full of shiny crap that ransomed the island of Manhattan from the original inhabitants.

As a musician, I have spent a lifetime using things that record and store the events that in ancient times would have existed only in the memory of those present at the time of performance. Magnetic tape, compact discs, floppy discs, memory chips, hard drives and all of the associated amplification and processing equipment were originally invented and developed for military use. Our table salt was originally used not to make popcorn taste better, but to preserve food so it could be transported over long distances to feed the armies while on their mission to kill everyone who was perceived as a threat to the right of the people to sit in front of the TV.

Pete, What the fuck are you talking about, you may well ask. Here is the thing. Being good at something, being good at anything requires hard work and practice. I accept that hard work and practice go against the grain of our natural disposition. Again, we only act decisively when faced with an emergency situation. So, in order to work hard and practice, we must invent a state of emergency. We must develop a sense of fear...fear of failure, fear of losing everything. Yes, almost any basketball player can make a freethrow...sometimes. Almost any teenaged guitar rod can play a blues lick convincingly...once or twice. Almost any American Idol hopeful can sing a high note...occasionally. But the player with a freethrow percentage in the eighties, B.B. King and the diva of the Met all have this in common. They worked hard and practiced as if their very lives were held in the balance. They developed their talent in a state of emergency. Their pain of failure was as real as if they were sitting in front of the TV and suddenly their ass burst into flames.

Occasionally, I may have a student ask me, "How much should I practice?" The mere asking of the question indicates a lack of fear and an inability to invent the state of emergency required for whatever success might lie ahead. To that student I say, "Practice as much as you think is necessary." But under my breath I say to myself, "Go get yourself a beer, some Chee-tos and cookies and park yourself in front of the TV. And when your lazy ass bursts into flames, you may be able to answer that dumb-ass question for yourself."

Declare a state of emergency...practice and work hard you lazy bastards!

The Bass That Got Away

This is the story of the bass that got away. That's bass as in "ace" not "ass." This is not a fishing story, although the story does start on a river somewhere in the wilds of Indiana.

During the late eighties, I was working somewhere between 150 to 200 dates a year, most of them fly dates. We would go in and come out before anyone got hurt. At the time, I was playing my 1964 Fender Jazz bass and every trip my thoughts went to the unmentionable consequences of possibly losing or damaging the venerable old girl. Well, the unmentionable almost happened one day.

We landed at the Purdue, Indiana regional airport . My bass, along with some luggage belonging to the other passengers had not fit into the small plane, but I was assured that the missing pieces would arrive from Chicago and be brought to the venue in time. The car that was to take us to the gig was late so, to entertain myself, I hid the keyboard player's bag and had him paged to recover it at gate five. Then I had a pleasant hour watching him walk back and forth in the tiny terminal, searching for gate five. There were no gate numbers as there was only the one gate and designating it by number seemed pretentious. This has nothing to do with my bass, but the story serves to illustrate the sophisticated nature of our surroundings.

When we arrived at the gig for soundcheck, I had a foreboding feeling. The "venue" turned out to be a barge fitted out as an old-fashioned showboat. The soundcheck and show would both take place with the barge...and us, being towed up and down the river behind some sort of stinky popeye looking scow. Even If the bass was delivered to the hotel, it would not make it onto the barge/showboat in time.

I panicked. We decided to forego soundcheck and repaired to the bar when the bass player in the opening band stepped in and saved the day. He asked me what kind of bass I play and when I told him, he told me that he also played a Fender Jazz and that I was welcome to use his. He apologized for the fact that it wasn't a "vintage" instrument but I was relieved that the show could go on and thanked him for his kindness. Then it was drinks all around til showtime and a good time was had by all...until I watched the opening band and discovered that the bass player was LEFT-HANDED!

That was probably the longest show of my life! I played his bass allright, right-handed with the strings upside down. Talk about keeping it simple. I immediately decided that I needed a bass to take on the road that I didn't worry would get lost or stolen.

When I got back home, I went about the business of building a bass that would fill the bill. I wanted a Fender style body but decided on neck-through construction as this would probably be more stable with the bump and grind of traveling. I found a blank "second" at Performance Guitars for very little dough. I already had a great set of pick-ups that Seymour Duncan had been kind enough to let me try and had enough hardware around the house from other projects to finish the job. Instead of shooting the guitar with lacquer, I spent evenings rubbing boiled linseed oil into the wood with steel wool while watching Twilight Zone re-runs.

Well, when I got the bass together, I instantly fell in love. It felt, played and sounded very much like an old well-worn bass but with one exception. I had decided to build a five-string but with a right hand string spacing much like that of my old Fender. Turned out to be a sweetheart.

I put some real miles on that bass and was happy that the old Jazz was now safe at home while I was out gallivanting. One night at the Miami airport we were told that our flight would be delayed due to bad weather in Dallas where we were to connect to our LA flight. I was able to get the band on a direct flight home but our luggage had already been loaded. The agent assured me that our luggage would be in LA by morning and would be brought directly to our homes.

Upon landing in LA, I registered a "lost luggage" claim as instructed by the agent as this would facilitate the pieces being delivered. The next day, as promised, the airline called to say that four pieces were on their way to my house. When the delivery came, the driver put two clothes bags on my doorstep and asked me to sign an invoice for four pieces. When asked, he claimed that this is what was put on the truck and that was all he was to deliver. The worst had happened, and I knew that I would never see that bass again.

After complaining, screaming, begging and charming a path through every poor bastard with a phone that worked for Northwest Airlines, I ended up settling for a sum of money that would allow me to build a replacement which turned out to be the "Man's Bass" described in an earlier blog entry. But what started as a cheap bass for the road turned out to be a friend I lost forever.

I wish I could say that I hope whoever is playing her now is treating her well and making beautiful music...but I can't...I'm not built that way. I hope that the fuckhead who stole her tripped on the curb as he ran across the street and the anvil case caught him full in the nuts causing him to fall out of the line of sight of the septic tank clean-out truck that barely shuddered as it rolled over his skull, forcing his brains through his nostrils.

And that is the bass in the picture above...the one that got away.

Breathing and Support 2

As promised, here is my rap on breathing. If you think you know anything or If you have had lessons, step into the way-back machine and degauss your brain. Remember rule number two, It's always simpler than it seems. A good way to maintain a receptive state of mind is to assume that everything I have to say is the truth. The information can be filtered or rejected based on your own criteria at a later time.

Let's start with that misunderstood bugger, the diaphragm. If you could imagine your torso to be a bi-level apartment building, tenant A lives upstairs and tenant B lives downstairs. Your lungs are tenant A and your stomach is tenant B. The diaphragm is the structure that serves as A's floor and B's ceiling. I would define a diaphragm as a membrane that serves to separate or divide two areas. In the case of your torso, the chest cavity is separated from the abdominal cavity by the diaphragm.

Touch your diaphragm...move it, feel it, tell it to do something...breathe into it. You can't, can you. Your diaphragm responds to the needs of your body on an involuntary basis. That's why a statement like, "Breathe into/from your diaphragm" is an absurdity. If a teacher ever says those words to you, ask for an explanation. You'll very likely get something similar to an auto mechanic explaining how a faulty muffler has worn out your tires...double-talk!

However, you can and must have control over the actions of your diaphragm if you want to sing. So let's use another analogy to describe the mechanics of breathing. Think of a syringe. A syringe has an opening through which things can go in or out of the reservoir. The diaphragm of the syringe is inside, you can't touch it. in order to draw something into or push something out of the syringe, the diaphragm is controlled by pushing in or pulling out the plunger.

Let's define the parts of our syringe in terms of our body parts:

Syringe opening = mouth and nose

Syringe reservoir = lungs

Syringe diaphragm = your diaphragm

Syringe plunger = the Abdominal Muscles

AHA!! This is the key to the whole shootin' match. You cannot control the diaphragm directly, but you can control the actions of your diaphragm by training and controlling the muscles of the abdomen. In order to accomplish this, you must first pinpoint the proper muscle group and learn to exercise that group without introducing tension or strain to any other area of the instrument otherwise known as your body. The following exercise will seem very simple but try it. It won't take much time or thought, and it won't hurt.

1. Find an object that you can balance on your stomach. A phone book, dictionary or any large book will do.

2. Lie down on your back and put the object on your stomach at just about the belt line.

3. Exhale as fully as possible without collapsing your rib-cage. All of the movement should be south of the solar-plexus and will be visible by virtue of the book on your stomach.

4. Inhale slowly and deeply, again, without involving the rib-cage. Picture the book rising toward the ceiling.

5. Hold the breath and count to four out loud. This will prevent you from holding the air by closing the throat muscles.

Repeat the exercise ten times. Then think about the benefits. In a few short minutes, you have relaxed and cleared you head. You have oxygenated your body to a higher degree than usual. And by mentally getting out of the way, you have allowed your body to practice efficient breathing in a controlled manner. The more you do this very simple exercise, the more benefits you will discover, and the more you will want to repeat it. Be good to yourself. Give yourself five minutes in the morning and five at night.

I once sat in a backstage dressing room discussing singing with Gary Puckett and the late great Brook Benton. Brook passed in early 1988 so this was one of the last shows that he did. Gary had asked Brook what he does to warm up. You had to be there to appreciate the charm and simplicity of Brook's answer. He stood up, looked at Gary and said, "Well Gary, first I breathe in...(takes in a huge breath and holds it)...and then I breathe out ( exhales fully). I do a few of those and I'm pretty much good to go."

If it's good enough for Brook Benton, It's good enough for me. Breathe.

Breathing and Support

My years of teaching have lead me to arrive at a handful of what can be characterized as valid assumptions based on experience. At the top of my list of assumptions is that the most misunderstood area of singing technique involves breathing and support. I find this to be interesting because breathing is so basic to living. Everyone breathes. We start when we are born and keep it up until we die. We do it without thought or plan. And yet, for some unknown reason, the moment we begin to study singing, we get confused.

When I begin with a new student, I ask a few pertinent questions to find out what the student may or may not know. This gives me a better idea of how to best address the needs of the student. My first question is, "What do you know about breathing and support?" The answers vary to some degree but I have yet to start with a new student, no matter what their educational or performance level, who knows enough about anatomy to have a clear idea as to how we breath.

A new student recently answered my question by stating that he had been told that he was supposed to breathe into his diaphragm. I asked him if he knew where his diaphragm was or what it looked like. The answer consisted of a few "um"s, and some inaccurate pointing. This was someone who had studied for over six months with a "reputable" teacher. Both the teacher and the student had been breathing all their lives, and yet the subject of breathing had not been covered in depth during six months of lessons.

I don't think that this entry can possibly address the subject as effectively as can be done on a personal level. But I will try to lay a foundation that may be helpful. The first thing that must be addressed is the absolute need for a student of singing to have a basic knowledge of the anatomy and function of those body parts directly involved in the singing process. My job is to make this interesting and to help the student develop an appreciation for the subject. If a student isn't interested in how or why things work, I don't think that I can be of much help.

The next concept for the student to understand is what I call my second rule, "It's always simpler than it seems." Breathing for singing is just not that much different than breathing to stay alive. My students have ranged from the totally un-studied, to gold and platinum award winning recording artists. And in every case, taking a breath before singing an exercise usually involved some sort of process. The un-studied are easier to deal with because they have a relatively clean slate and a minimum of bad habits. The simple truth is that the whole thing is very uncomplicated.

In my next entry I will go into a bit of detail and discuss some of the exercises that may help to simplify the concept of breathing and support. Just don't hold your breath!

Having Fun With the Podxt

Well, I've been playing around with this Line6 Podxt for a bit and I have to say that the fun factor is looming large. I really love the sound of a good guitar and great amp so most of my tweaking has been in the way of pretending that the Pod is what the display says it is, and tweaking the knobs accordingly. Consequently, I have a few thoughts.

First off, there isn't a piece of gear that will make a crap guitar sound like Jimi Hendrix. And sadly, there are plenty of young players with crap guitars out there who are misleading themselves into thinking that the Pod, or something like it, will turn their crap guitar into something that it is not. Given the choice between spending my dollar on a Pod or a decent guitar, I would start with the guitar. I'm playing an Mark Knopfler signature Strat,, a masterbuilt '54 Strat and a Gibson ES 135 with killer pick-ups. For bass I usually play old Fenders. I know that what I'm putting into the Podxt is the right shit, so If the result is crap, I would know where the fault would be.

Attempting to compare the Podxt head to head with a vintage amp is Fruitless and doesn't serve any purpose that I can think of. The first thing that comes to mind is that if you have a vintage Vox AC30 to compare it with, throw the fucking Pod in the corner and rock the AC30 for chrissakes! No, the pod can't compare with the dynamic tactile sensation of standing face to face with a vintage half-stack or a pair of well-oiled SVT cabinets. But that isn't really the point, is it.

There is a huge difference between playing a gig that requires the pantleg-flapping, intense volume and sound pressure of a pair of Acoustic 360 bass rigs on the one hand, and a session where an accurate bass sound that sinks right down into the mix is what is needed. The first can be physically exciting although sonically inaccurate. The value is a matter of the moment. The second has to be right...forever. What the Podxt does for me is put a sound into my computer that gets pretty damned close to what an amp and a mic in a room would deliver to a recording console. It is, after all, a simulator.

But now, back to the fun factor. I have been very lucky. I have had my hands on a shit-load of great amps...and I mean GREAT amps. I know how they work and I know how to turn a knob ever so slightly to make a good Tweed Bassman sound amazing. I know that a Blackface Deluxe sounds different on the floor than it does on a chair. And I know that no two Vox AC 30s sound exactly alike although I have yet to hear one I didn't like. I love to tweak amp knobs to get that extra little magic.

And thats what I dig about the Podxt. If you know the amp that is being modeled, you can really have some fun. The Pod actually reacts to very subtle knob movements much like the amps we all worship. It also responds surprisingly well in two other areas that are difficult for many younger players to grasp. Many players step on some kind of pedal to play a solo without ever taking advantage of the controls on the guitar. I like to dial in a nice, aggressive sound and then roll back the guitar volume to clean up the sound. It just sounds more naturally dynamic and I think the guitar sounds better when you let it do some of the work.

The other thing that the Podxt does quite well for a simulator is respond to playing dynamics. A great amp will allow you to caress a gentle part and then jump on a chunky rhythm riff without any knob twisting. The Pod does a pretty good job of simulating these player controlled dynamics.

I'm having fun with this thing. It's different, that's for sure. But in a small room with a Mac and NHT powered monitors, getting a guitar sound could be a whole lot worse. Now if they could just make it smell like a '65 Twin...yeah, YOU know what I'm talking about.

PreSonus Inspire GT

Let me just start by saying that I couldn't win a medal in the Special Olympics of Digital Recording. I've been an analog dog for my entire musical life. My experience with trouble-shooting has always consisted of following cables, shaking non-responsive units, tapping, hitting or throwing, re-seating connections and as a last resort, drinking huge amounts of coffee while a qualified tech fixes the combination of original and "Pete-induced" issues. I find the virtual world of technology daunting to say the very least.

Having recently begun to set up a home studio recording environment, I have inundated myself in literature, reviews and manuals concerning all aspects of hardware and software. I've found that trying to keep up with the incredible rate of updates can easily rob me of valuable creative time, so my efforts have been to research and make hardware decisions based primarily on two factors. First, How does a piece of gear SOUND?, and second, Will an Idiot like me be able to figure it out?

I have been fighting tooth and nail with a usb audio interface that shall remain nameless. For some reason, input/output assignments were difficult and the bus assignments just wouldn't line up the same way twice. I'm more that willing to concede that the technical issues rested squarely on my inept shoulders. But as to the sound quality, I was not happy. Therefore my criteria had not been met. It sounded bad, and an Idiot like me was not able to figure it out. What to do? I started by putting it back in the box. The second step will involve a Craig's list posting.

I work on a 24" intel iMac which has 3 usb ports. With one port for the computer keyboard, one for the Cubase key and one for a Radium keyboard, using a usb interface required plugging and unplugging usb wires. Using hubs and bluetooth devices had proven less than satisfactory in my experience at Shangri La, so I decided to try a firewire interface. What I wanted was a box with holes in it that I could stick wires into so the signal would get to where it belonged. I was looking for a knobless, idiot-proof piece that would get plugged in, put on the desk and do it's job without tapping me on the shoulder every five minutes with stupid questions like, "Where do you want me to send this guitar part?"

I found my solution in the PreSonus Inspire GT. This little baby is a five-and-a-half inch square with holes in it that fit the right wires. There are no knobs. I'm used to turning knobs on real gear and have always thought that the knobs on most home-recording devices felt like repairs waiting to happen so this feature of the Inspire GT was welcome by virtue of its absence. The simplicity of the physical design is very similar to the Mac Mini in that there is nothing outside the box that can get you into trouble.

The installation happened so effortlessly and was completed so quickly that I really don't remember what I did, if anything. Re-reading the manual, you simply connect to the computer via firewire, insert the driver cd, drag the icon to the hard drive, click, and the bugger shows up on the screen and ready for business! A quick look through the audio preference pane on the iMac showed that the Inspire GT had already checked in to the computer. Cubase set-up was equally as idiot proof.

I plugged the audio output of the Podxt into the Inspire GT, and after a few level tweaks, I was recording. Just as simple as that. My second requirement for gear had been met with flying colors...Yes, an idiot like me could figure it out.

As to my first requirement, how does it sound, I can only say this. Once I started to record, I never gave it another thought. I'm in the process of learning my recording/sequencing software and have enough to think about. With the other box, I found myself constantly distracted with sound issues. After working for about two hours, I realized that I hadn't thought about anything but the task at hand. The guitar sounded like a guitar and that was simply it. The Inspire GT took care of getting the guitar to the recorder and the sound to my powered speakers. I was free to get confused about all the other things that tend to confuse me, chief among them, why couldn't I hear my fucking click track?!

But that safari is for another day. In the meantime, I love this box. It has really cut down on my shoe-throwing.

Tech Support? We Don't Need No Stinking Tech Support!

Ah, another day spent trying to install Cubase 4 into my iMac...FUCK!!

I should add that I'm a total friggin' ineptasaurus as far as computer recording goes. The good news is that I figured it out and all's well at Studio Pete...for now. But if this were twenty years ago, the only sound my computer would be making right now would be crunching noises as the cars going by my building run over the chunks I hurled through the window.

My journey toward techno-enlightenment started less than three years ago when Guy Fletcher convinced me that the Mac was superior to a PC. I had someone show me how to turn it on and proceeded to bluff my way through the learning process over the course of time. To make a long story short, I'm all over it now...to a point.

I recently decided that I would like to do some writing and recording at home so I invested in a 24" iMac and bought Cubase 4 which is a highly regarded sequencing and recording software program from Steinberg. I installed it without a hitch (I thought) and curled up with the tutorials. To get audio to the computer I used an M-audio Fast-track usb interface. I followed all of the instructions and set up my vst devices, made the appropriate buses, opened a new project in cubase, added an audio track, pushed record and...nothing, nada, nix.

The meter on the transport window was seeing the guitar signal but I couldn't hear it. Double checked my buses, inputs etc. Everything looked correct. Wait a minute! This is a new Intel Mac. Maybe the M-Audio driver wouldn't work with the mac. So I went to the M-audio website and learned that the unit should work with all OSX machines. There was a driver update but was only required to run Protools. Fuck it, I updated the driver anyway and voila! Now I could see and hear the signal. But I still wasn't getting the audio to the recording channel. Man, In the old days, you just started following cables til the problem presented itself. I had visions of the crew from "Fantastic Voyage" cruising through the routing system on my hard drive and searching out the problem on a molecular level. That not being an option, I had to think...and throw something relatively inexpensive across the room. Shoes are good as long as I don't hit anything...I wear 15s.

I decided that there had to be an issue with Cubase so I went to the Steinberg website. Nothing there but circles and I went around all of them. I did find an update to Cubase 4.0.some fucking shit so I downloaded it and installed it. When I chose my hard drive as the destination, I got the message that the was "no previous installation"...the shoe just missed the lamp. I closed everything, restarted and by a fluke, hit "apple i" as I clicked the application. Hmmm, I opened the ownership pane and for some reason, the "read and write" button wasn't active and there was no owner. I clicked on the owner button and a drop down menu displayed a list of weird names, none of which was mine. At the bottom, was the word "other." I clicked it and another menu displayed a longer list of coded names. Halfway down the list, there it was! The user name that I registered the product under. I clicked it and everything in the ownership pane became active. I plugged in, played and recorded actual music into Cubase!

Nowhere in the manual, the tutorials, the installation documents, the online forums...nowhere could I find the solution. It makes me feel really stupid to think that everyone using Cubase knew this but me. Well, fuck it, I know it now. Tech support? We don't need no stinking tech support!

I just need plenty of shoes.

Superbowl VII

The Superbowl...I remember when the Superbowl was a football game, a game played to decide the championship of the National Football League. But in recent years it has become a week-long media event complete with up-close and personal "news" features concerning personalities who may or may not have anything to do with football. The television audience for this year's edition of the event will probably be split evenly between real football fans and those of the gentler gender who will be breathing hard in anticipation of a Prince "wardrobe malfunction."

As for me, I've grown relatively weary of the circus that surrounds Superbowl week. Yes, there will be new commercials and yes, I'm sure that they will be witty and innovative. But I can't get too excited about new, witty and innovative ways to convince me to use the same crap in a new box. Think about it. The football game is the free toy in the box. The real deal is to get us all to think that we can't live without seeing all the new commercials. We will watch them and talk about them at work and school on Monday. And somewhere in the back of our pea-brains, we will remember which soda to buy on our next trip to the convenience store. Why? Because the ad-men not only got us to look at the shiny watch, they also made us look forward to the therapy as if it were something we couldn't live without. Can you say, "Baaa?"

The last time I got excited about a Superbowl game was a long time ago...Superbowl 7, or VII for my Roman readers. I was excited about that game for a few reasons. First off, Billy Kilmer, the washington quarterback, visited his old alma mater which was also the school I was attending at the time. He convinced us that the Redskins would beat the Dolphins with no difficulty, so I did the sensible thing and put down fifty bucks for the Redskins to win. It never dawned on me that Miami had just finished the first ever undefeated season in NFL history. DOLT!

My second reason to be excited about the game was that I was to sing back-up vocals during the halftime show behind Andy Williams. Originally, the scheduled entertainer was to be Sammy Davis Jr., but supposedly he bowed out in some form of protest. I don't know if he was protesting the war, civil rights policies or just the fee he was to receive, my guess is the latter. I was eagerly looking forward to being on the floor of the stadium for the halftime show because there were no seats available to the singers and we were simply to stay on the sidelines during the game. Personally, I didn't care if I was singing behind Mr. Ed. I was going to see, hear and smell this game at ground zero!

I actually had hopes of winning my bet up until the end of the third quarter. After that, I just hoped that Kilmer would be maimed everytime he touched the ball. Fifty bucks was a lot for me to lose then...bragging prick! I have to admit that halftime was a thrill. There were ninety thousand in the Coliseum and millions watching on television...watching the game, that is. Andy's voice at halftime wasn't nearly as loud as the flushing of toilets and the ordering of beer that rings through every self-respecting football stadium during intermission. And as for the people at home, If anyone can tell me what song Andy sang that day, well you can't, so I don't even have to think of a prize.

No, the real fun that day was the dress rehearsal. As a bit of background, I had discovered a strobe tuner in the band room at school some weeks before. I used to take it into a practice room and sing long falsetto notes while staring at the tuner, trying to line up the wheels. As a result, I had become proficient at making sounds that mimicked mid-range feed-back. The sound system at the coliseum was primitive by today's standards and I'm certain that no-one had bothered to address the time delay issue regarding amplification of singers in a cement bowl. If I remember, we sang into RCA ribbon mics which were fed into speaker cabinets that were placed around the perimeter and at the top of the stadium. Sound travels at about seven hundred feet per second so as a result, whatever we sang would come back to bite us in the ass and feed back into the open mics. When my mic was on, I would emit my falsetto "ooooooh" with no vibrato and the entire coliseum rang as if there were massive feedback. The sound techs scrambled to make the "feedback" go away. As soon as the mics were on again I repeated the prank and once again they would scramble. God, what a prick I was, and how much time I wasted. But the set up was never going to work anyway and besides...it was fun.

So this year, I intend to enjoy the game and I'll try to keep the manipulation of my buying habits under my own control. I'm sure that Prince will sound great at halftime, given the advances made in concert sound equipment over the years. But sometimes you just have more fun when you're dealt a shitty hand. Remember, " It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools."

Chicago by 3

Have I Sold Out?

Have I sold out? I have been the quintessential analog snob when it comes to guitar and bass amplification. I've spent the greater part of my adult life pissing in the general direction of anything and everything new. During my years at Shangri La, we had just about any classic guitar and bass amp available. All of them were painstakingly maintained to original specifications. Pristine examples of '59 tweed bassmen, twins, deluxes and champs were strewn in every corner of the place. The Marshall collection belonged in a museum. Vox AC15s and AC30s? Had a roomful. And if so much as a handle or knob had been replaced, we would point and laugh. I had the luxury of access that allowed me to develop a finely tuned sense of outrage when forced to work with non-vintage equipment. I was an elitist of the first order.

I am no longer at Shangri La. Sadly, most of the amps, along with the room to record them in, are still there. I'm now living in a small house and have been jones-ing to make some great guitar sounds in a small room...with neighbors close at hand. No more, "Lets put two Marshall 100 watt rigs in the big room and see how loud they'll go" for me. Even my '65 Fender Champ would probably get me in trouble. What to do...what to do?

Well kids, I crossed the line and got my hands on a Line6 Podxt...that's right, a FAKE AMP. Fuck it man, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? I've had Gary Miller telling me to chuck my amps and try this thing for months now. What?! Chuck my '58 Ampeg B15? My '62 Fender Showman? My SVT? How can this little kidney-shaped piece of crap replace the handful of great amps I still had in storage? How? Just by plugging in...yup. I plugged my Strat into the little red plastic anti-christ and it was like experiencing the first of the twelve steps. I had to admit that I was powerless over tubes, transformers and greenbacks. My musical life had become un-manageable. Faced with the prospect of writing and recording guitar and bass parts in my living room without my trusty drugs of choice, vintage tube amps, I was paralyzed into non-productivity. All those little meddlers whispering in my ear, "try the pod, go on, it's ok" were really pissing me off. And now I had to make amends to the gods of tone and admit that I was wrong.

I've only spent a few days with this little gem so I don't feel qualified to write a proper review. I've only just scratched the surface of it's capabilities. But I suspect that it will prove to have more to offer than I will require. I've already discovered most of the trusty guitar amp sounds that I'm used to. Then I went to the Line6 web site and downloaded the bass amp/cabinet models. I own a vintage B15, a Polytone Mini-brute, an Ampeg SVT, heads by SWR andTrace Elliot, along with an Acoustic 370, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I'll be spending more time in front of my Mac and much, much less at the chiropractor's office in the future.

Is the Podxt the ultimate answer? Probably not. Is it a suitable replacement for an amp on a live gig? Time will tell if old school tolex junkies like me will flock to kiss the hem of its garment. But I have to say that I am impressed. When deciding which amp to use for a specific part, there should only be one thing to consider...what soundsthe best...period. And the Line6 Podxt sounds pretty friggin good to me. Have I sold out? Don't ask til you've tried one.

Ken Fischer

It was with great sadness that I learned of the passing of Ken Fischer. My friend Bobby Salomone called this afternoon to wish me a Happy New Year and during the course of the conversation, he asked me if I had heard about Ken. The details of Ken's passing are not as important as the contributions that he made, and the legacy he left to the world of guitar amplification.

Ken designed and built guitar amplifiers that have "Holy Grail" status among the tone-freak upper echelon of players fortunate enough to have plugged into one of his creations. His Train Wreck and Komet amps have already achieved iconic status.

I learned to love one of Ken's creations during the time that Mark Knopfler was at Shangri La recording his album of the same name. The studio was almost obscenely outfitted with an array of vintage tube amplifiers. Mark could choose from multiple tweed Fenders, Vox AC30s or AC15s, Marshall 45s or 100s, and other rare units made by Watkins, Magnatone, you name it.

One day, A package arrived and Mark had me unwrap what turned out to be a Ken Fischer Komet 60. It was beautifully done up in red so we paired it with a vintage red Marshall basket weave 4x12 cabinet. When I first saw the Komet, I thought, "Gosh, that sure looks nice...now lets plug in one of these real amps and go to work." Then Mark Spent the morning putting the Komet through its paces while graciously showing me how full of shit I was.

The red Komet responded to every nuance of Mark's exceptional technique and played a big role in the recording of the "Shangri la" album. The greatest guitar amp, sitting in the middle of a room, doesn't sound like anything until someone plugs in. I was lucky enough to witness a great amp being played by a guitarist who was able to coax everything out of that box of metal and glass.

Ken Fischer built amplifiers that respond to the abilities of great players and his passing puts into focus the finite number of units that are to come from his hand. I am grateful to have experienced Ken's fine work first hand and I very respectfully wish him eternal peace.

James Brown and Gerald Ford

James Brown...Look at those two words...James Brown. I know a lot of words, but I don't know any that can be added to the words, James Brown. You can say that Bootsy is funky, or that Aretha is soulful. You can say that Prince can dance and that Tina works hard. But you can't say shit about James Brown that can make the image any clearer.

James Motherfucking Brown, man! I wonder if he ever scribbled his ambitions into a notebook when he was a kid. It must have said something like:

1. Sing my ass off

2. Write my ass off

3. Dance my ass completely off! Could you imagine James at the Jr. Prom? Glad I wasn't there, I might've run home for the last time and just hacked my feet off.

4. Reap the rewards of 1,2 and 3 and get laid...alot!

5. Get real high and shoot my truck, along with a lot of other shit.

6. Spend my entire career scaring the shit out of anyone with the balls to front a band.

James WAS the word "hard." James was any verb followed by "hard." Live hard, play hard, dance hard, party hard, laugh hard, cry hard, walk hard, talk hard, you name it, James was hard.

I'd love to describe what it was like to see James Brown live...but I can't. I really and truly can't. I don't write well enough. When I close my eyes and remember how it felt to be in the second row booth at the Vegas Hilton when "Livin' in America" was his comeback release, all that I come up with is "Fuck, man" and that's not good enough, so I won't even try. James Brown live was the ultimate "you had to be there" moment. I'll let someone else try to describe what it was like, I don't have the chops.

James left us Christmas morning. I think it should be a law that everyone...EVERYONE listen to 30 minutes of James Brown per day and watch 30 minutes of James Brown concert footage every Sunday. The world would be a better place...guaranteed!

Oh yeah, and did you hear about Gerald Ford?

Manners

After driving home on Christmas night, I have come to the conclusion that courtesy cannot be legislated. It seems that the diversity of the population in California has so many differing concepts of what are good manners, or if in fact, manners are even to be given a place in everyday behavior, that driving on the freeways has become an ordeal governed by Darwinian laws rather than vehicular codes.

I have always thought of the turn signal as an expression of courtesy. Signaling one's intention to change lanes at potentially lethal speeds seems to be a nice thing to do. If you are nearing your exit, it makes good sense to let drivers around you know that you intend to move over. It is also the law that you do so. But for some unknown(to me) reason, a turn signal has become a red rag waved in the face of a bull. Everytime I use my turn signal, the driver in the lane I wish to enter is stimulated by the blinking light to speed up and so impede my entry to "his" lane. As a result, I have found that the only way to make a safe lane change is to ignore the law and go while the gettin's good, so to speak.

Doesn't it seem silly that a driver, moving along the highway at sixty-plus miles per hour, would have such ownership anxiety over a chunk of asphalt that he would risk the safety of his passengers as well as those in the cars around him by speeding up to prevent another driver from safely going where he wants to go?Why is that? What gives drivers that level of nerve?

I think that it is because driving is an anonymous activity. We don't know who is in the car next to us and we will probably never meet face to face, so it seems safe to tell a BMW to "fuck off!" or an SUV to "eat shit, motherfucker!" Maybe there is a sense of power associated with hemming in a more expensive car. We feel safe in our cars. When we are behind the wheel, we can say anything to anybody without being held accountable. We can hurl the pent up hatred felt for our boss or our mother-in-law indiscriminately at strangers...strangers who are trying to change lanes.

I wonder what would happen if we behaved with the same vehemence when we weren't in the safety of our armored cars. How many times have you accidentally bumped someone's shopping cart and profusely apologized? You wouldn't think of screaming "Get out of the fucking way, asshole!" at the top of your lungs. If someone is weighing carrots, we don't give them the death glare and lay on the horn. If someone were to drop their ATM card, we pick it up and say, "excuse me, did you drop this?" Or when an elevator stops and opens its doors, do we intentionally stand in the doorway until they close again, preventing fellow passengers from getting off on their floor? Of course we don't.

So what is the difference? Why do we find it so easy to be nice when we can see the other person's eyes? I don't think that the threat of retribution is a factor. I wouldn't expect a grandmother to bounce a can of creamed corn off of my head if I rammed her shopping cart. And I don't think that anyone would kick me in the balls for cutting in line at the bank. It's just nice to be nice, isn't it? But just let us get behind the wheel and we become the commander of a Panzer division, hell-bent on the destruction of all that crosses our path. The frightening thing is that we achieve our most destructive state of mind when we are most heavily armed. A car is, after all, a most effective weapon at highway speed.

Laws attempt to make us behave. But we do as we like according to how much we think we can get away with. We speed until we get caught. We roll through stop sign unless we see a police car. And we always look for a black-and-white before we throw a soda can out the car window.I look forward to a time when driving under the influence of being an asshole becomes an infraction on the same scale as littering, which carries a hefty fine.

So let's be nice, just to be nice. When someone signals a lane change, don't get possessive about cement that doesn't belong to you. Say "after you" and realize that the split second added to your drive home made life a little easier for a fellow human. Let's start the new year by having some manners.

Nasal Singing...or Is It?

What does it mean to sing with a "nasal" placement? I've taught a few students who have come to me with the question, "How can I sing less nasal?" In each case, careful analysis of the mechanics involved in phonation and resonance proved to the students that what they characterized as "nasal" singing was, in fact, exactly opposite to what they had thought.

To illustrate, I'll introduce a hypothetical student...let's call him "Hypo" for short. Hypo sings with a pronounced twang and he has been told by his school choir teacher that he sings nasal. I am of the opinion that a musician, whether a singer or instrumentalist, will be more successful if he knows "what" he is doing, "how" he is doing it, and if he is doing it with "intent". So I begin by asking a few questions.

Me: Why do you want singing lessons?

Hypo: My teacher says I sing nasal.

Me: Do you know what your teacher means when he says that you sing nasal?

Hypo: I guess it means that I sing in my nose.

Me: How do you sing in your nose?

Hypo: I don't know.

Me: Did your teacher ever use the words "septum" or "palatine uvula" when he told you that you sing nasal?

Hypo: ...Um...huh?

Me: Hypo, sing this note for me...AAAh...

Hypo: Honk...

Me: OK Hypo, now hold your nose like you're going to dive into a pool and sing the note again.

Hypo: Honk !

Me: Sounds the same, doesn't it? So, can you tell me how you can be singing in your nose if you can plug it up and make exactly the same awful sound?

Hypo: Nope, But that's what my choir teacher said.

Me: OK Hypo, Today, you are going to learn two things...no , THREE things. One, Your choir teacher is either full of shit, lazy or both. Two, If you want to get a good grade, you'll keep that to yourself and pretend to listen to what he has to say. Three, before you walk out that door, your going to learn how to sing "Aaah" instead of "Honk!"

What is mistakenly described as singing nasal is actually singing without the benefit of the resonance available in the sinus and nasal cavities. The first thing to be determined is if there is a physical abnormality that would cause this condition. Does the singer have a deviated septum? Has the nose been broken? If not, then it becomes a matter of mechanics, placement and resonance. Using the proper mechanics will place, or focus the voice in a way that optimum resonance can be achieved.

There are two ways to illustrate the resonance of the facial cavities. First, I have the student hum a musical exercise or melody. This proves to the student that there is a substantial amount of sound produced which does not come out of the mouth. Then I use the sound "ng" as in the word "sing". I have "Hypo" sing the word sing and sustain the final ng, or perhaps sing the word "singaah". From a mechanical standpoint, the sound "ng" is produced by closing the back of the mouth. The base of the tongue raises to meet the descending uvula which is the tip of the soft palate. This valve-like closure causes all of the sound to be focused up the back of the throat and into the cavities of the face, including the nasal sinus cavities. I call it "humming with an open mouth". Opening the ng sound to the aah sound will train the mechanism to maintain the same resonance for the open vowel as that accomplished by closing the back of the mouth.

Pete's rule number two states that "It's always simpler than it seems." The remedy for what is mistakenly called nasality proves that rule. It really is just that simple, but like everything worth doing, it takes repetition and lots of practice. Come see me and I'll prove it.

Music Theory

The study of Music Theory as it concerns the young musician in what I call the “pop-rock” area of music has been reduced in large part to articles in magazines dedicated to the selling of cosmetically redesigned instruments and equipment by massive chain and mail-order stores to the next generation of hopeful rock stars. Armed with the latest in phrase-sampling, pitch-shifting, tempo-slowing technology, this army of tablature junkies is learning less and less about more and more with every double-picking, speed -drilling issue of their favorite rock rag.

Personally, I read as many music magazines as I can get my hands on. And periodicals serve a great purpose in introducing young musicians to a world of ideas which most probably would remain undiscovered given the dismal state of artistic education in our school systems. The responsibility shifts then, to the student. The young musician who has found an area of interest by mastering a lesson found in a magazine must not stop as if a new continent has been discovered. For every door opened represents a long hallway of unopened doors behind which waits the information so intrinsic to a well-rounded musical experience.

Even a cursory musical education should include studies in traditional harmony, simple counterpoint, ear-training and dictation in melody, rhythm and harmony, and basic music history. Literacy results in freedom of expression and opens the doors of meaningful dialog between like-minded people. This can be said of any area of endeavor dependent upon cooperation and interaction. The more inclusive education becomes, the broader the horizons will open to the young musician.

There are two methods whereby musical education can be acquired with efficiency. The traditional method is to seek out a respected mentor or expert in a chosen field who will provide a structured course of study. Additionally, we now have available a huge body of information via the internet where the ocean of knowledge is limited only by the curiosity of the seeker. In combination, these two methods offer the opportunity of combining a well grounded, traditional education in music with the most up-to-the-minute research materials available.

Curiosity is a key element in the study of the arts. The young student must be determined in seeking out a good mentor who will teach in such a way that the student’s hunger leads him on a quest for further knowledge. Young musicians have a tendency to champion certain styles, artists or factions before they have learned enough to formulate educated opinions. Students should be encouraged to experience as many genre as possible. This will ensure a broad palette of musical ideas as well as a much higher level of pure enjoyment.

The following is a list of what I would consider to be important elements in the basic education of a young musician. A complete list being impossible, these are suggestions which, if investigated with a curious mind, will result in an fruitful search of further knowledge.

1. Rhythmic Notation. Learn how to read and write rhythms properly. This is a language you should know inside and out, no matter what instrument you choose.
2. The Musical Alphabet. Learn the names of the notes on the Grand Staff. Don’t be afraid or intimidated. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet of which only 7 are used in musical notation.
3. Intervals. Learn how notes relate to each other. This is the basis of Melody and the foundation of Harmony. Memorize how each interval looks as well as sounds.
4. Harmony. Take a beginning Harmony class at a community college. It won’t cost much and after two semesters of structured education, you will amaze yourself at how simple it is and how much more you understand.
5. Music History. Read about the lives of great composers and the times in which they lived and worked. You may find that what you thought were stodgy old stiff-necked squares were actually living, breathing, fun-loving pranksters much like yourself.
6. Analysis. When you have the fundamentals of rhythm, melody and harmony under some control, work on analysis. Listen to a favorite song and use your ears and the knowledge between them to write down the notes, rhythms, harmonies and how they interact to form a piece of music.
7. Listen. Listen to everything you can get your ears around. Don’t get caught up in listening only to what you think you like. Growing as a musician requires that you abandon some of the musical prejudices which may have drawn you to study music in the beginning. Embrace flexibility. Listen without judgement.

Some Final Bits of Advice

1. Don’t hesitate to make mistakes. That’s how you will learn to do it right.
2. Your progress is directly related to the hours spent on learning your subject. Ever wonder why some of your pals are such experts at video games?
3. No matter how much you practice or how hard you study, someone is practicing more and studying harder. Music has nothing to do with peer pressure so don’t try to compare yourself with others. If you put it all in, if you put forth maximum effort and work to your potential, you can be satisfied that you will be the musician you deserve to be.


Each and every musician brings his heart and soul to the musical table. How deeply a musician’s intentions are perceived by his audience is directly related to the level of musical skills mastered by the musician. If an author wants to report a conflagration, the flames of which destroyed half the village as the townspeople, tears streaming in rivulets down soot-stained faces stood transfixed by terror…and all he knows how to spell are the words “hot” and “bad”, his report may be somewhat disappointing in terms of impact and emotion. Great musicians possess large musical vocabularies as the result of curiosity, study and hard work. Not everyone is cut out to be a great musician. But by doing the work, you are guaranteed the opportunity to try.