Gardner also illustrates the relationship of the chakras to the overtone series. When you produce a pure tone, either vocally or instrumentally, it sets up vibrations that are strong enough to be heard, occurring mathematically on a vibrating string. Going from the root to the octave, the fifth, fourth, third, and so on…

This is one of the most effective, quick warm-ups for a flutist, and a tip I give every student: Play a low C, then focus the airstream slightly to sound the octave, the fifth, through the overtones, ascending as far as possible and still maintain some tone quality, then descending, one breath. Don’t force, feel your way up and down until you can seamlessly adjust your embouchure in that especially challenging third octave. It will limber up your chops in less than 5 minutes.

Same thing with voice. Start as low as comfortable and hum into your nose as high as you can, smoothly turn around and come back down to the “fry,” or when your voice rumbles in your chest, like a monster talking. Same quick results as above.

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It’s a distinctive style that no one has been able to copy. But greats like Bonnie Raitt, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, The Who, The Clash, and Van Morrison love to cover his songs as much for the wry, quirky lyrics as the music. With titles like Your Molecular Structure, Middle Class White Boy, Your Mind is on Vacation, Parchman Farm, Seventh Son, Certified Senior Citizen, Everybody’s Crying Mercy, it isn’t difficult to figure out why. He is famous for his razor-sharp hooks and realismo humor.

Do yourself a favor and check out this remarkable musician. He is the best thing to come out of the Deep South since William Faulkner. I wrote that last line, then checked out some sites. I found two citations that referred to him as “the William Faulkner of jazz.” Guess they heard the same thing I did.

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1. Thou shalt attend thy rehearsals with steady faithfulness.

2. Thou shalt not touch graven metal with thy bare hands.

3. Thou shalt not take thy sharps and flats in vain.

4. Remember thy performance dates and keep them holy.

5. Honor thy director that thy days be long upon the land.

6. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s bell assignment.

7. Thou shalt not tap thy foot with exceeding loudness.

8. Thou shalt not steal thy neighbor’s pencil.

9. Thou shalt return thy bells to their cases, shiny and unscathed.

10. Thou shalt return thy director to his or her car, shiny and unscathed.

So saith the handbell director. These commandments will hold true for other instruments as well

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Organist John Schmidt chose the Sonata in A Major, Op. 65, No. 3 as the prelude to the evening. AVAE, under the leadership of Kenneth Sheppard, performed two motets in new editions by Southwestern University musicologist and Mendelssohn specialist J. Michael Cooper–the Magnificat, Op. 69, No. 1, and the Nunc Dimittis, Op. 69, No. 3. These are sung in English, as Mendelssohn intended in his original manuscript, which he managed to publish before his untimely death.

The highlight of the evening was a superb performance by Georgetown’s Trey Gurley in one of the most beloved boy soprano solo anthems, Hear My Prayer. His pure, clear voice displayed an exceptional grasp of tuning and musicality for a singer his age.

John Schmidt anchored the program with the Prelude and Fugue in C minor, Op. 35, No. 1. The piece is almost orchestral in nature, with an intricate fugue statement in a slightly unconventional rocking 6/8 meter. A fitting finish to a most satisfying musical evening.

Photos by The Good Musician. Coming soon: a series on the Chorus Austin Central European concert tour.

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the cellist was one of my longest-standing, dearest friends
it’s an excellent example of a jazz-classical-pop ’60’s mashup
that’s my black cat, Saturn, in the window
shows our corner of Topanga Canyon
great example of John Martin’s classical guitar
great example of Wilson Fisher’s writing/singing for 12-string guitar
that was my life

Listen to all the Green cuts, accompanied by photo-montages of the band and what the life of a musician was like in the ’60’s

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Forty-five minutes later, a giant started blowing on 200-year old oak trees, stripping them of all their ball moss and dead ends, and then it turned into a whole army of giants whooshing through the sky.

OK. Maybe this is getting serious, like when you go to a concert and expect the Vienna Boys Choir, and you get Herbert von Karajan with a good dozen full orchestras, accompanied by the greatest light show on earth, and you wonder if you should head to the closet, which is more central, or to the bathtub, which is smack dab under a NW window. And that’s the direction tornadoes come from.

Then your hair stands on end, you can’t tell if the deafening crackle shot sounds are lightning, or some more sinister coup d’etat while you’re still deciding between the closet and the tub. The air is sucked right out of your lungs, and everything vibrates as if the giant’s shop vac on steroids is trying to rip us right out of the ground.

Just when you think you are easing skyward, BAM! The damn giants back a dump truck up to your roof and let loose a load of rocks. Big rocks. Made of ice. BLAM! A fearsome percussion line slams down torpedo after torpedo of ice. Pointed weapons, I swear. Then the lights blew out. The storm zapped inside my house and fried my computer.

Stillness has a sound. Zen for your ears. With just the tiniest, high-pitched froggy song. A couple more join, then stop. No noise. A sky devoid of city lights. No streaming traffic hovering just under conscious thought, in the ceaseless river of Colorado, Lamar, MoPac, Barton Springs Boulevard…

I sat under the moon for a good while tonight, rewinding the scenes in my head of trees split in two, a carpet of bright green leaves everywhere you looked. Sympathizing with my comrades who have tougher things to worry about–broken windows, crushed cars, ruined HVACs.

It furthers one to listen to cats and the sounds of a storm.

Peace.

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Post from: The Good Musician

Post from: The Good Musician

You can also find old radio show archives, such as Fibber McGee and Molly, the Whistler, and the Bob and Ray show. I remember hearing all these on long car trips when I was a child. Bob Elliott is comedian Chris Elliott’s father.

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Back to meme. My second meme, to be precise. My first was from Kay at Kay’s Thinking Cap, and the challenge was to name five things you know now that you never dreamed of twenty-five years ago.

Scott from Metal Martyr tagged me, along with these bloggers:

Dexie at Pop Music Scene,

Stacey at Hippie Sounds

Ana from Austin Sound check

Here are the “rules” (I prefer “guidelines” for keeping the meme alive.

1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share seven random and/or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Since this is the Music Channel, I will share random and weird things about my life in music. When I get the hang of dropping in images, you’ll see many more random and weird things.

1. Peak experience: sitting in the Green Room of the Opera House, having an early osso bucco dinner. Gazing at the sailboats in Sydney Harbour, preparing to sing William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with John Nelson conducting the Sydney Symphony. Check out the huge plate-glass windows facing the Harbour, tucked in the angle between the two sets of sails, or clouds as Utzon describes his sweeping roof lines–that’s the Green Room. Not bad, eh? The Ballet, Orchestra, and Opera Houses converge in that gigantic room. Of course that’s where the bar is.

2. Singing Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa with Princeton Pro Musica and the Opera Orchestra of New York. In Russian. At Carnegie Hall. With my daughter. How cool is that? Here’s a photo of me, my mom, and my daughter after this particular concert.

3. Making last chair flute in All-Region Band, 1962. The second chair eventually became the first flutist in the Dallas Symphony. I didn’t. But I have managed to cobble a career playing in bands, wind ensembles, orchestras, and chamber groups for four decades, from one coast to the other, and everywhere in between. That’s instrumental. I have an equally long vocal career.

4. I’m a stickler for tuning. If it wobbles, it hurts my ears. If it continues, I become nauseated. If the offender does not straighten out the pitch quick, I threaten to throw up on them. Works like a charm.

5. Some of the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard are bird calls, both in the city and in the wild. Chicago has it’s night hawks in the summer, soaring through the skyscrapers, feasting on the flying insects attracted by the powerful lights on the buildings. Australia has its warbling currawongs, cackling kookaburras, and shrieking sulphur-crested cockatoos.

6. I love to listen to people’s voices. Speech is full of music. I hear all kinds of melodic and rhythmic patterns. Life is full of music.

7. It’s freaking hard to make a living doing nothing but music. For a long time, I couldn’t face the reality of doing whatever you have to do, including the quotidian job you take to pay the rent while you’re waiting for your break. There’s a wise bumper sticker rolling around Austin: “Real musicians have day gigs.” There is integrity in that (see No. 3 above).

So I’m tagging these folks: Bruce Houghton at our digital music, Bryan Alaspa at Jazz and Blues Lounge, and Derek Griffin at Industrial Addiction.

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