It's a Profit Deal
TC from Sondra K. sent me a funny link. Want to know what you're paying for when you buy Monster Cables? Well, almost half of it is MARKUP.
A Radio Shack employee has exposed the cost of a whole bunch of Monster products, as well as the prices Radio Shack charges. I realize they have to make money, but 80% is a hell of a markup.
Someone Invent a Better One
It's 2008, and nobody makes a decent, affordable CD organizer. Whom do I kill as punishment for this monumental failure?
I have between 400 and 500 CDs. I want to store them out of sight, against a wall. I do not want a heavy particleboard cabinet. I want to pay under a hundred dollars. There is nothing out there anywhere that will work.
There are tons of organizers for people willing to throw out their jewel cases. What kind of idiot buys a thing like that? You pay good money for album art and little pamplets and so on, and in order to use one of these organizers, you have to throw all that stuff out or, worse, use up an even larger amount of storage to contain it. And if you ever change your storage method, you get to spend a day putting every CD back in its box. Do these people take me for a goddamn moron?
Even funnier, the idiots who make CD storage invariably advertise the number of CDs you can store WITHOUT cases. So you see ads that say things like "UP TO 500 CDs," and then it turns out that if you keep the cases on, it's more like 15 CDs.
Here's what we need. A metal cabinet, just like a filing cabinet, sized for CDs. No heavy, ugly fake wood. The drawers are about six inches deep. You pull them out, and facing up in the drawer, you see three or four rows of CDs in their cases. There are a few things out there sort of like this. If you get one big enough to hold a reasonable amount of music, it's so expensive you might as well go ahead and build a dedicated CD room onto your house.
Yes, you can buy CD organizers that fit in existing file cabinets. Great idea. Except that the drawers are around 10" deep, and the organizers don't use it all. And--this is the really funny part--they charge at least twenty bucks per organizer, and each one holds around 20 jewel cases. So for my collection, five hundred bucks, not including the half-empty cabinet.
A while back, I mounted shelves on the back of an empty closet, to hold books I didn't know what to do with. I think I'm going to have to add three shelves for CDs and be done with it. The alternative is a crappy storage unit out in the room, where dust will get on the CDs and it will be an eyesore. Filing cabinets aren't pretty, but they look a hell of a lot nicer than big open CD racks.
Here's an example of the kind of cabinet that should be available, in metal, for $75. I can't believe someone had the gall to put a $360 price tag on an ass-ugly piece of cardboard on wheels. Whoops! I'm wrong! It's wood! But it's even uglier than most cardboard furniture, so it doesn't help.
I hate to spend a lot of money on CD storage, because within 5 years, all CDs will be considered garbage. We'll have better digital music, and it will be easier to store. I don't know how we'll do it; it's just an obvious prediction based on common sense. Here's a company that makes really nice metal cabinets for over four hundred bucks. That's insane. Five years from now, I'll be wheeling it out to the trash.
Particle board furniture is one of the great curses of the population explosion. There isn't enough real wood to go around now, so we literally sit and work on cardboard. It's all cheap, and it's all crap. In all likelihood, even the lid of my gorgeous, high-end grand piano is cardboard. I hate it. Give me real metal over fake wood any day.
No Comparison
I had to take the birds out for some air after coming home from the party, so I was sitting here with Maynard in my lap, surfing the web. And I saw a comment on my blog, mentioning the passing of Oscar Peterson, and I saw something about Ike Turner, who died two weeks ago.
Oscar Peterson was a treasure. I suppose you could say he never equalled the superhuman brilliance of his idol, Art Tatum, and that his style sometimes borrowed too heavily from Tatum's. But his music was always beautiful in addition to being clever. That is not true of Tatum's work, and a lot of jazz greats made music that was downright ugly. For example, I've tried to learn to enjoy Charlie Parker, and I just couldn't do it. I'll buy nearly any album, solely on the strength of Oscar Peterson's name.
If you're not a jazz freak, but you love beautiful, soothing music, try Oscar Peterson Plays Porgy and Bess. You don't have to wear a beret and shoot up heroin in order to like it.
It's very sad that the jazz greats are dying and nobody has come along to replace them. Musically, we have become a nation of peasants. Well, that's not true. Peasants have made a lot of great music over the centuries. We eat musical junk food. It's like Pez and TV dinners for the ears.
Ike Turner...not as great a loss. People keep writing about what a musical god he was. I don't see it. I just looked over the list of songs he composed, and almost all of them were crap. He didn't write "Proud Mary" (a song I have always found annoying, anyway), he did not write "Nutbush City Limits" (which I give a C-), and his biggest song, "Rocket 88", is a lyrical disaster. Musically, it's great. But it's just a blues tune, nearly identical to a thousand other blues tunes. And Turner's piano playing on the record is weak.
I found two songs on the list that aren't bad. One is "Rock me, Baby," and the other is "It's a Mean Old World." But nobody seems to mention those when they defend him.
Critics say his 1951 recording of "Rocket 88" is the first rock and roll record. Horse manure. What a stupid claim to make. Big Joe Turner recorded "Roll 'Em Pete" in 1938 (Ike Turner was six or seven years old), and it was the same kind of music Jerry Lee Lewis was calling "rock and roll" twenty-five years later, only better. And there are plenty of other songs out there I could cite. Fast, rhythmic blues is the same thing as rock and roll; I don't care what anyone says. And it has been around since before Ike Turner.
Ike Turner learned piano from Pinetop Perkins. And Pinetop Perkins didn't play Beethoven. He played boogie-woogie. That's what rock and roll used to be called. People call Ike Turner a pioneer, but I can't figure out why, and I have never seen anyone give a good, clear explanation of that claim. People also claim he was a great guitarist, but I can't find any famous examples of his playing. I can remember licks from nearly any great guitarist you can name, but when it comes to Turner, I draw a blank.
Phil Spector, the idiot who probably murdered Lana Clarkson, stood up at Turner's funeral and talked about how great Ike was and how unfair Tina Turner's book and movie were. Well, as far as I can determine, the movie's depiction of Turner as a second-rate talent that burned out seems accurate, and Turner himself admitted he used to slap and punch Tina. So...what am I missing here? I mean, who sits down at the end of a long day and listens to Ike Turner records? Who stands up at a party and tells the DJ to put some Ike Turner on? Who calls radio stations and requests Ike Turner songs? NOBODY.
I've had people recommend music to me all my life. The Who. The Beatles. Django Reinhardt. John Prine. Professor Longhair. All sorts of stuff. I've seen people reach into their LP or CD collections and say, "You have to hear this!" a thousand times. No one has EVER tried to get me to listen to Ike Turner. I just don't think there is much there.
You know who is a surprising talent from Ike Turner's era? Ahmet Ertegun. A Turkish immigrant! He ran Atlantic Records. He probably didn't know fried chicken from baklava, but he wrote marvels like "Chains of Love" and "Sweet Sixteen," and he also wrote "Midnight Special." That is, assuming the credits are accurate.
Incidentally, if you want to hear a great rendition of "Rocket 88," try Pete Johnson's version. Far as I can tell, Pete Johnson is the greatest boogie woogie piano player who ever lived. You will not be disappointed.
This Should Help
Country music sucks these days. If I hear one more Faith Hill anthem or one more doofus singing about how wild he was before he got old and arthritic and worthless, or one asshole bragging about how much he adores his wife for making cereal and driving the kids to school, I will almost certainly puke.
Most country music is flavorless, whoring pop. But before you say it all sucks, look at this.
So perfect and effortless she makes your skin crawl.
Here's another.
I have his "greatest hits" albums, and out of 42 songs, maybe 38 are nearly perfect country classics. And he died before he turned 30. To country music, he was Tiger Woods.
Now check this out.
If you don't like Lefty Frizzell, you don't like biscuits and gravy.
Now tell me this isn't a songwriter.
Okay, I guess he didn't write that. Geoff Mack did. But still.
This guy is known as a jazz guitarist. Sounds like country to me.
Let me send you off with this.
Oh, yeah. Aren't you glad we stopped listening to stuff like this so we could make room for Eminem and Madonna?
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Here's a find. The original Australian version of "I've Been Everywhere," sung by Geoff Mack himself.
Youtube Finally Good for Something?
Is this woman real? Is that really her voice? If so, God help Diana Krall.
Holy shnikies. RECORD AN ALBUM.
And then adopt me.
She also has a website, but there is no content at the moment.
Here she is answering a huge pile of questions.
I can't believe how much she looks like my salsa instructor.
Give Him a Kiss and a Big Advance
By God, I have two fabulous pieces of news. First, the amazing homebrewed ale I stuck in the Hoglodeck fridge a month or so ago is still fresh and tasty. Second, the music DVD I recorded, which doesn't work in my awful Panasonic DVD player, works just fine in the Hoglodeck's cheapo Sony.
Imagine. I have something like 1600 tunes on one DVD, and the machine holds 5. I should be able to keep my entire classical and jazz collections on three or four disks. And if I turn on the TV, I can see the file structure and pick the albums I want to hear.
I should just lay out there drunk for the rest of my life.
I'm not just drinking by the pool because I'm a fat lazy slouch. Oh, no. I'm finishing Treasure Island. I sent preliminary samples of the pirate book to my editor, and while he said he hooted out loud and disturbed people while reading it, they would like something with a little more pirate info and not quite so much wacked-out bullshit.
That Long John was a son of a bitch, wasn't he? Served him right, being named after a doughnut. Or a pair of scratchy wool drawers.
I'll bet he couldn't cook chicken planks for shit.
I'm strongly considering coming up with my own chicken plank recipe. I love those things.
Welcome to My MP3 Hell
Time to torture you with more piano stuff.
I believe it was in 2004 that I learned Chopin's 6th prelude, in B minor. I was pretty excited, because it was an entire classical piece, and I knew the whole thing, and I felt like I had MADE it. But I knew I didn't play it too well. I still work on it all the time.
Now I'm working on Chopin's waltz in A minor, Opus 34, No. 2. This is one of my two favorite Chopin waltzes. The other is the C sharp minor waltz (64, 02). My teacher surprised me a while back by suggesting I try it. I've been working on it for WEEKS.
It's interesting, because it's not technically all that tough, but it's still a bitch. It's slow, and the timing is weird but doable. But there are still hard things about it. For example, I have to do a bunch of trills with the left hand and somehow stay on a waltz beat. That's really hard, because it's something your fingers just do not naturally do. Learning to do it is like physical therapy. You just have to practice every day and take it on faith that eventually, your brain will grow the neurons or whatever to make it work. It's finally starting to happen, but I can tell it will be at least two more weeks before I feel good about the trills.
Also, you really have to watch the dynamics. This piece is full of all sorts of great harmonies, but you have to balance the volume of the notes, or it sounds awful. For example, if you're playing three notes at once, you can ruin the whole effect by sounding the middle note too loudly. Meanwhile, your other hand is doing something that also requires concentration, so you have limited CPU space for the harmony.
On top of all that, there are some stretches and jumps that are just barely hard enough to be a pain. And there are some things that require independence of the 3rd and 4th fingers of the right hand, which were flat-out impossible for me two weeks ago.
The funny thing about all this is that the challenges don't keep you from being able to play the piece. But they make your playing sound like a child's playing. As if you have no taste. It's smoothing out now, so I'm starting to be able to improve the timing and make it sound more elegant, but it's WAY off. I was shocked when I heard the recording I made tonight. Now I'm going to inflict it on you.
I was horrified when I heard that, so I recorded the prelude, to see if everything I played sounded like a ten-year-old. Thank God, it was a lot better. It sounds like a different person. It would be better if I fooled around with the microphone placement, but here it is.
I made a mistake in there that sounded awful while I was playing, but when I listened, I barely noticed, so to hell with it.
This is the most frustrating instrument on earth. If you want to play badly, it's no problem. You can bang away and make Elton John tunes sound pretty good. But if you want to play classical, you have to master the nuances, and it's hell.
The prelude really encourages me, because there are things about it that are a thousand times better than they were last year, and I know the same thing will happen to the waltz, and maybe a year from now, they'll both sound good enough to play in front of people. Real people, not you characters. And ten years from now, who knows?
Thank God I am Here to Point These Things Out
I have a question. Do any of you know women who have good taste in music and collect records?
I am an old fart, and I have never met a woman--not one--who had a record collection. And I would say that about 80% of the people I know who have good taste in music are men. Women are the reason Liberace, Barry Manilow, and Kenny G. are rich. I have never known a woman who owned a good stereo, except for my mother, and she had me pick out the components for her.
A man who likes good music will buy a good system, even if it looks out of place in a living room. A woman will listen to a tinny piece of crap stereo from Target as long as it looks cute. New wives are notorious for destroying stereo systems that took years to build. To make room for important things like huge vases with peacock feathers and a few sea oats sticking out of them.
I think men are to blame for rap and heavy metal, so we are not without sin. But it's weird, how little women care about good music.
Oddly, women mail tons of used panties to male musicians every year. Kenny G. could probably paper his walls with them.
Speak up if you think I'm wrong.
There ARE Other Speakers
This is so annoying.
I'm Googling "outdoor speakers" to see who makes decent equipment for a reasonable price. I got like six million results. I filtered out "Bose" (because they make overpriced shit), and it went down to about 600,000 results.
Last night, I found a Bose channel on my cable system. A whole channel for selling garbage to gullible people. Hmm...okay, that's nothing new. But all of THIS garbage comes from ONE COMPANY.
It's amazing what advertising can do. No wonder Bose is the Budweiser of audio.
"No highs, no lows, it must be Bose."
I want this crap OFF my TV. I'm launching a Bosecott.
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For God's sake, go vote for SondraK for Best Female Blogger in some contest or other.
I told her I already voted for Sullivan.
Prospecting Begins
I really have to thank George Moneo for handing me yet ANOTHER way to waste time and money while becoming an even bigger hedonist than I already am.
I have the turntable set up, and I'm starting to find good records on Ebay. I can't believe how cheap this stuff is. In some cases, I understand why. I wouldn't pay a dime for an LP of a recording I could find on a CD. But why is the out-of-print stuff so cheap?
I found the coolest stuff. Two Richter recordings, for $18, shipped! Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and some other asshole. Prokofieff. I found Moiseiwitch on weird little 45 rpm records made of red plastic! I found Paderewski on the same label! I found a big ol' Moiseiwitsch LP I had never heard of!
I was hoping to find some Van Cliburn stuff, because let's face it, his in-print CDs suck ass. "My Favorite Debussy." "My Favorite Rachmaninoff." Yes, okay, the music is good, but that is NOT the way you record the classics. A few "sampler" albums are fine, but there are some chunks of repertoire you ought to record in a logical sequence or grouping. Like Rachmaninoff preludes or Chopin etudes.
Unfortunately, it looks like Cliburn's LPs aren't much different from his CDs. Same stuff.
I have a feeling jazz will be easier to find than classical music, but on the other hand, they seem to be doing a better job of moving it to CDs too.
I look forward to having some of this stuff just because it's old and weird.
George is now trying to make me buy real audiophile stuff to convert the plastic into 1's and 0's. I have this feeling I can do pretty well with the preamp out on my the spare NAD receiver in my bedroom, hooked up to the Sound Blaster Audigy on my spare PC. But perhaps I am wrong.
Note the Inferior Quality of the Font
People are commenting, trying to tell me "skin effect" justifies buying silly high-end audio cables sold by charlatans.
Believe it or not, I have heard of skin effect. After all, I did get a physics degree, and I took a course in electricity and magnetism in graduate school. A lot of people have written about it. I agree with those who conclude that skin effect is EXTREMELY unlikely to make an audible difference in a stereo signal at frequencies within the range of human hearing.
One thing skin effect does very well is separating the gullible from their money.
Let me repeat my beliefs.
1. Good speakers are well worth the money. Does that mean $100,000 speakers are better than $3000 speakers? I do not know. I do know that Helen Keller could tell the difference between $3000 speakers and $300 speakers.
2. Really REALLY cheap disk players sound bad. Anything that costs more than $200 will almost certainly sound fantastic.
3. As long as your solid state amp has plenty of juice and headroom, and it's made by a reputable manufacturer, it should sound just as good as the $90,000 solid state Krell or whatever your neighbor sold his kids' educations to buy.
4. I don't know if tubes sound better or not. I do know they're incredibly expensive on a per-watt basis, and watts and headroom are very important, especially if you have inefficient speakers. Also, tubes are a pain to use, and the equipment in which they are sold is generally so lacking in modern features, it will drive you nuts. I think it's much better to get a modern amp or receiver with a remote and plenty of connections and surround sound and a warranty. Even if it doesn't sound quite as good.
5. I don't claim vinyl doesn't sound better than digital. I claim digital sounds fantastic, and that I have not heard a real difference yet. The astounding convenience of digital and the phenomenal selection of digital recordings are well worth the tiny difference in sound quality, if indeed it exists.
6. Expensive cables are for suckers. Truly bad cables are bad, but extension cord from a hardware store makes excellent and inexpensive cables. If you want to tell me truly cheap interconnects are bad, I'm willing to listen, because the signal in an interconnect is very weak and probably more susceptible to damage. But I very VERY much doubt that there is anything wrong with the pretty interconnects Radio Shack sells for five bucks.
It's worth noting that some claims audio nuts make consistently fail to pass true blind tests. Claims regarding digital sources and cables fail consistently. Think about that before you spend your money.
No comments on this entry. This is my manifesto! The audio jihadis are already going nuts in the comments to other entries. I'll probably shut down comments on those entries, too. When you run down high-end audio equipment, people who have blown their life savings on it tend to get very angry. Some Usenet threads have run for months and have probably resulted in audio honor killings.
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I'll tell you my four high-end audio fables.
1. Once upon a time a guy named Steve decided to get a good stereo, so he started visiting the local high-end "salon." He listened to planar speakers, and they were great. So he bought a pair. The salesman told him he needed Transparent Audio cables for the speakers, and he sent Steve home with a used pair to try. Steve listened and listened, and he switched back and forth between the Gucci cables and his cheesy speaker wire. And he finally decided the Gucci cables sounded better. He sat and listened to them one final time, and he decided the difference was real, so he went to disconnect them and take them back to the store, where he intended to buy a new pair. And then he discovered he was actually listening to his old cheesy speaker wires. And Steve realized he was a dupe, and he saved $300.
2. Once upon a time a guy named Steve read an article claiming NAD made unbelievably good CD players at a fairly low price. Steve ran down to the high-end audio salon with his Onkyo under his arm, and the salesman played both players for Steve, switching them for him so he could compare. The salesman used planar speakers and an expensive Meridian amplifier and Gucci cables. And when it was over, Steve said he could not tell the difference and did not see why he should buy the NAD. And the salesman, who had magical golden audiophile ears, said he could not tell the difference, either. And Steve saved himself some more money, and the owner of the store killed the salesman and mounted his head on a pike in front of a Bose Wave Radio playing the Ramones.
3. Once upon a time a guy named Steve decided he needed a subwoofer to annoy his neighbors, so he went to a high-end salon in Austin and picked up a Definitive Technology subwoofer to try out. Oh, how Steve and the salesman grunted and groaned, putting the subwoofer in Steve's Toyota! But it was important, because the experts all said the Definitive Technology subwoofer was the best thing since cheap Thai hookers. And Steve took the subwoofer home and turned it on, and it sounded like MURRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMWUUUHHHHHHAAAHHHHH because it was very very SLOW! And Steve bought a cheaper Velodyne instead, and he was very happy.
4. Once upon a time a guy named Steve read about a portable CD player which the experts said was just as good as the nuclear-powered Mark Levinson setups they themselves had bought to mask their sexual inadequacies. So Steve bought one and took it home. And it did not sound as good as his Onkyo, and it had a funny sound in the left channel that went "ticky ticky ticky." Only Steve did not think the sound was funny, because he had paid $180. So he took it back and got another one. And THAT one went "ticky ticky ticky" and did not sound as good as the Onkyo! And Steve learned a valuable lesson, which is that audio experts have vivid imaginations and are generally old farts who have blown their hearing by standing too close to their $100,000 speakers.
The moral of these stories is, high-end audio is packed with bullshit, so watch out.
HOI Features One-Stop Blogging
What an exciting morning. I fried eggs on my new old Griswold #9 skillet, and they pretty much didn't stick. It didn't work perfectly, but it was more than adequate, and I didn't damage the finish.
You see what passes for an event in my life.
In other news, my 7.62 mm ammunition is supposed to arrive today. It'll probably show up too late for a trip to the range, but at least I can take the bullets out and arrange them in a Christmasy pattern, perhaps with a fruitcake in the middle.
I don't want to take the Communist Cannon to the range on a weekend the first time. People will actually BE there on a weekend. I'd prefer relative seclusion while I'm jamming shells and missing the paper and nearly shooting myself in the feet and so on.
I can't wait to get out there and start blasting. Maybe next year I'll get a gun with better accuracy, although I have no use for one, since I don't hunt.
A lot fo people have suggested AR15 variants. Damn, those things cost a lot. And they're way ugly, and not in a good ugly way like the PSL. They have a "Look what I just made in my basement" look. On the other hand, the Beltway Sniper used one, which is something I would enjoy mentioning when showing it to liberal guests.
Seems like the bolt-action crowd loves the Winchester 70 Stealth, the Remington 700, and some other gun made by Savage. I don't know much about it.
As far as I know, there is absolutely nothing in Florida that you need a scope to shoot. There are pigs, but people shoot those with $75 .22 rifles. There are a ton of deer. I know that, because I see them standing beside the Turnpike, waiting to cause accidents by playing "Frogger" with overnight truckers. I am POSITIVE this ridiculous hazard is the result of liberalism. Anyway, the deer here are so stupid you could probably kill them with an icepick.
I have partial ownership of some land in Kentucky, and there are deer on it, but my old man says the tool of choice up there is a 12-gauge with rifled slugs in it. Also, it's cold up there, and I would have to be outside with no stereo or couch, and I might have to pee behind trees. And I do not have the slightest clue how you go about shooting a deer. My father used to do it like this, if I understand him correctly: you go out in the woods with my grandfather and drink whiskey beside a trail, and then if you're lucky, a deer walks up and you blow his brains out.
I may be a bit weak on the details.
I'd rather shoot pigs. Pork tastes better than venison.
In other news, Liszt's etude in C major is nearly under my thumb. What a bitch that one has been. On the one hand, it's a great piece, because it's just hard enough to be a good challenge, and it's great for your fingers, and when you play it, it looks much harder than it actually is. On the other, it beats your right hand up something awful. I spend half of my practice time playing scales with my left hand and waiting for the pain in the right to go away.
I just started Chopin's A minor waltz (Op. 34, No. 2). This is fantastic. It's one of my dream pieces. Finally, something I really want to play, instead of something I don't mind playing.
Turns out it's not all that hard. And it's really beautiful. This is a great piece for young male pianists to learn, because while you're playing it, women will think about how deep and soulful you are, even if you're trying to imagine them naked the whole time.
I'm very pleased that I've managed to go so long without poking Pajamas Media. I was starting to feel like an addict. I have no idea what they're up to today, but I'm sure it's an embarrassment to all of us.
Hope everyone enjoyed the latest podcast. I'll try to follow it up shortly.
Sound effects are still a challenge. Expect me to rely on snappy dialogue and your imagination for the foreseeable future.
I'm still wondering what's happening with the Nigerian book. I'm very used to having people say, "God, your work is fantastic. But we're not going to buy it."
That's all the news for now. Back later.
A Partial List of Popular Musicians Who Should be Publicly Dismembered
Today I read that Guantanamo prisoners are being tortured with the music of Christina Aguilera. Before the liberal cry-babies get any traction with this ridiculous story, let me point out that we recently learned that President Bush tortures himself with an Ipod containing the song "My Sharona."
If Christina Aguilera is a slap in the face, "My Sharona" is a laser-guided bunker-buster that takes out your house and kills your whole family.
What would I used to torture terrorists?
1. Kenny G. I call him "Kenny G-Spot." It's like having estrogen poured into your ears through a funnel. Women have unbelievably bad taste in music, and they keep Kenny and his ilk in business. If I were God, I would make women pass a test before being allowed to buy CD's. And I would also turn the U.S. on to the Saudis' progressive policy on female drivers.
2. Disco. ALL disco. Again, women are to blame. Women like to dance, and men like sex, so they dance to make women happy. Result: K.C. and the Sunshine Band becoming rich and famous instead of being tied to posts and shot, the way they should have been. Two kinds of men like disco: gay men, and men who are such dogs they would drink septic-tank smoothies if they thought it would get them laid.
3. Indian music. Just abominable. Sounds like monkeys in heat. And everyone in every video wears orange.
4. Nine-Inch Nails. Inspirational music for serial killers. Background music for having sex with dead bodies.
5. All rap. It's like paying someone to yell at you. What's so entertaining about calling women whores and shooting the police? Vile music for vile people. But it will be with us as long as the parents of teenage children hate it. We need to convince teenagers we hate it when they pull their pants up and call us "sir."
6. Pat Boone. He seems like a nice enough guy, but listening to his music is like drowning in melted American cheese. And we don't need him any more, because these days, black people are allowed to record their own songs.
7. Prince. Okay, okay, you're a horny five-foot-two-inch androgynous badass. We get it. Reasoning with people who think this moron is talented is like telling radical Muslims the Koran is a good alternative to Charmin.
8. Michael Jackson. Slow people think the ability to dance well--to someone else's choreography--somehow equates to musical talent. Here's a newsflash for you: the song "Thriller" SUCKED. "Billy Jean" SUCKED. "Bad" sucked. Almost all of his songs suck. Listen to this idiot while not watching the videos, and see for yourself. Apart from all that, do you really want to finance pedophilia?
9. Jamiroquai. First of all, what the hell does "Jamiroquai" mean? How do you think up a word like that? Second, seeing this doofus on TV helped me understand how pit bulls feel when mailmen enter their yards.
10. Frank Zappa. Another imaginary talent. Being obnoxious may be amusing, but it is not necessarily a sign of genius.
I could go on for hours.
One day when I rule the world, children in public schools will be forced to listen to real music instead of songs about diversity and having two lesbian mommies. Maybe then we will see hacks like Prince working at Burger King, and B.B. King won't have to struggle to fill 2000-seat tents at state fairs.
Culture, Between Pizzas
Among my projects today, somewhere in between "overeat" and "view midget porn," I intend to Kazaa some György Cziffra MP3's.
Cziffra was a gypsy from Hungary. His last name is pronounced "Chief-ruh." Don't ask me about that funky first name. I've heard it pronounced "jurge," but who knows?
He was famous for playing Liszt, which means he was damn good. Most pianists can't even play Liszt badly. Liszt may have been the greatest virtuoso of all time, and when he composed, he composed for people of similar skill.
On the DVD The Art of Piano, another pianist describes his first encounter with Cziffra. He went into a bar where Cziffra was playing jazz, and he thought he was hearing four-handed piano. But it was Cziffra alone. He played with such speed he freaked out other concert pianists.
I'll see if there are any MP3's out there, and if I like them, it's time for some CD shopping.
Off-Tempo Blue Notes Soon to Torment Neighbors
It's an exciting day. But then, aren't all days exciting when you're a homebrewer?
I digress.
It's an exciting day because I'm scheduled to receive an Amazon shipment. Two Diana Krall CD's, a book on jazz piano theory, and a jazz piano instruction book.
I really like Diana Krall. Some people consider her "jazz lite," but that's wrong. She has an understated style, vocally and pianistically, but that doesn't put her in the same questionable category as Spirogyra and Pat Metheny. Billie Holiday's style was understated, too, and so was Frank Sinatra's. So what? Not everyone wants to be Oscar Peterson or Art Tatum or Ella Fitzgerald at her busiest.
Last night, I watched a Netflixed DVD of Diana Krall in Paris. What a class act. She introduced the musicians. She introduced the conductor and the orchestra. She even credited her arrangers. Contrast that with Michael and Janet Jackson, who hid Paula Abdul's choreography skills like a state secret.
One quality I really admire in jazz performers is the ability to take utter garbage and turn it into great music. A lot of the songs that are considered jazz standards are complete crap. Consider "Tea for two." Consider "Fascinating Rhythm." Ugh. But good musicians take these lumps of coal and polish them into diamonds.
Diana Krall has that ability. For example, on the Paris DVD, she took "The Look of Love," a botched abortion of a song, and made it beautiful. If you can save Burt Bacharach from himself, you are a true musical genius.
The DVD is phenomenal. I should see if there's a CD of the music.
I look forward to the jazz books because I have been studying for a year and still know absolutely nothing about jazz. These books were highly recommended by experienced pianists, so I plan to give them at least half an hour a day and see what develops.
I want to learn jazz for two reasons. First of all, there is more room in jazz for creativity than there is in classical music. There are a million ways to be creative in classical music, but in the end, you have to play what's on the page. I want to write my own variations and improvisations.
Second, I realize that even if I practice twelve hours a day until I die, I will never be a particularly good classical pianist. I started too late. But I can get pretty good at jazz if I try. In terms of technique, it's much less demanding. Some jazz pianists are technique monsters, but you can play jazz well without the kind of technique you have to have in order to be competent as a classical pianist.
So. Hurry up, UPS. Don't keep me waiting.
New Wav File For Your Amusement
I managed to record a passable version of Albeniz's prelude. Now you will be forced to listen.
I still haven't fixed the clipping problem with my digital recorder. It occurs to me that I have a manual that could help.
The timing on this piece is still rough, and it sounds worse than it is because Albeniz is a nut who uses eighth notes where he probably should have used quarter notes. But you're stuck with it. It should sound a lot better by next week.
Here:
Take That, Pendejo!
The piano is the weirdest thing. I've been playing around with the prelude to Espana for what, three weeks? And I thought I would never get through it. Tonight I was working on a section I thought was horrendous; I started on it last week. I was sitting on the bench, toiling away, feeling sorry for myself, when suddenly the section started playing itself. This afternoon, I could barely play it. Now it's so easy I feel like I need to stop practicing it separately.
I went on to the next six measures, which worried my teacher, and it turns out they're incredibly simple. I can actually play them NOW, with a very lumpy tempo.
This leaves the few measures at the end, which are crap, compared to what I've done so far.
When I started learning the beginning of the piece, I found it hard to get the feel of it into my head. It's possible to play a piece with the correct timing and still end up with something that doesn't sound like what you're trying to play. I have been listening to Barenboim's recording (the only recording I could find), but the melody of this prelude isn't obvious, and it's hard to keep in your head. I thought I'd never get it.
Then while I was working on the section I conquered tonight, I started to feel the melody. There was something about the fingering of that section that almost forced the melody to come out right; there was only one really enjoyable way to play it. And because the rest of the prelude is musically related to it, now I'm playing the whole piece that way.
I turned on Barenboim tonight, fearing the worst, and I'll be damned if it didn't turn out I was playing an infinitely clumsier version of what he played. We emphasized the same notes and took pretty much the same liberties with the timing. Is that cool or what?
This is so great. On Monday, my teacher is going to crap himself.
Oddly, that does not sound like good news.
Have Some Chopin
I managed to record myself playing Chopin's prelude in B minor.
I am amazed at how crappy my digital recorder is. If I knew of a better brand, I'd buy it tomorrow. There's tons of hiss, the notes of ordinary loudness sound like cannon shots, and the quiet notes sound like a banjo.
Listening to this, I realize that I took my teacher way too seriously when he told me to play it "incredibly" slowly. I'll try to redo it at a more realistic tempo.
I tried jazzing up the timing, but my teacher put the kibosh on that, so it sort of plods along like I have a metronome up my rear end.
It's way more complicated than it sounds. You have to pedal over and over, and you have to shift the melody from one hand to the other, and there's a place where you play chords while emphasizing one note and barely playing the others.
I'm just thrilled that my memory is good enough to get me through it with no catastrophic screwups.
I Cheated
Just like a damn lawyer. I just substituted the faster version.
I am Becoming Quasi-Competent
This piano thing gets weirder by the day.
I am determined to stop looking at the damn keys, because I want to keep my eyes free to stare holes in the sheet music until I am able to sight-read. Tonight, while working on the prelude to Albeniz's "Espana," I decided to get hardcore.
I have one of those sleep masks they wear in old cartoons. It came from a package of goodies I got on an airline flight (yes, they used to give away goodies). I put it on and started practicing. Amazingly, it went about as well as it had when I was looking at the keys. I say "amazingly," because this piece has jumps of about three octaves, and it runs up and down most of the keyboard in big steps.
It's hard to believe that you can reliably put your hand out, blind, and hit the very key you want, out of 88, but you can.
I think it's a great exercise, because not only am I free to look away from the keys; I can hear the music better. When you stare at the keys, part of your attention is directed to what you're looking at, so you don't concentrate as much on what you hear.
There's really no reason to ever look at a piano keyboard. Art Tatum was blind as a bat, and his technique was so sure and agile, it used to amaze Vladimir Horowitz. If a person who can barely see the piano can be a virtuoso, no one should have to look at the keys.
Chopin is really falling into line. My teacher gave me a lot of suggestions yesterday, and I thought they'd be hard to implement, but they're already becoming routine. In particular, he said that someday I'd want to try to emphasize only the highest notes in a series of chords. Apparently, that's supposed to be pretty tough. But I'm already doing it, so I am oozing smugness.
I also managed to play the opening passage of the Albeniz prelude with both hands, at normal tempo. I couldn't do that at all yesterday. WHOO HOO. I even did the trills! He showed me how at my lesson, so I started using them when I practiced later on.
Man, this is great. I can nearly play something.
Hey, here's something funny. That package of airline goodies included a pair of nail clippers. Times have changed, huh?
First Prelude Grabs Ankles
I know you don't care, but I can now play two...TWO...whole pieces of classical music. Today I managed to get through Chopin's Prelude in B Minor more or less correctly.
It's a big deal to me. My instructor started by telling me I was going to end up learning about one piece this size per week, and it took me THREE weeks. I insisted on learning to play it without looking at the keys, which was a big change, and it really slowed things down.
Also, the pedaling is horrendous. There are places where you hit the pedal about six times in a measure. And no measure is spared. Compare that to my only other piece using the pedal--Rondo Alla Turca--where you have a few measures where you hit it once or twice.
I started working on the pedaling on Sunday, and I was convinced I would never get it. Then yesterday, it just started working for no apparent reason. I can't understand it. But now I'm doing it nearly almost correctly. I expected a week of suffering. My instructor gave me all these instructions about doing it while playing with just the left hand, and going over and over the hardest four measures. I don't know what I'll tell him at my lesson, because I didn't have to do any of that.
YEAH, baby. Watch my smoke.
This is so great. I cannot lie; I have not always followed through with learning music. I worked on the banjo for three years in my teens, and since then, it's been hit-and-[mostly]miss. I bought a flattop in college and twiddled around with it, but I didn't really learn to pick until I was in my late twenties. And then it was the banjo deal all over again. I followed that with the mandolin.
I have two electric guitars I have never been able to fall in love with. I started playing flamenco and loved it because it was so easy, but I could not stand having vampire nails on my right hand, so I had to stop.
But the piano is different. Instead of practicing less each month, I practice more. Good thing, too, considering what my piano cost. If I hadn't kept up with it, I would have died of embarrassment. It's one thing to put nine hundred bucks into a guitar and only play it occasionally. It's totally different when it's a half-ton monster that takes up a fourth of your living room.
When I really get good, I'm going to find myself an old concert grand! I swear I am! Six feet, seven inches is just not enough. I need NINE FEET OF NOISE.
Well, maybe not. But I'm going to check out some concert grands to see if I'm missing anything. Some day.
This is great. I wish I had a doughnut.
MIDI File Fixed
I think I straightened it out.
Banjo Interlude
For no apparent reason, I decided to make a quick wav of my banjo playing and torment you with it.
I took the thing out of its case today for the first time in like four years. I had no idea nickel would start to turn green in an air-conditioned house. I had to Sheila Shine all the metal parts. Hope it won't take the varnish off the wood.
My timing is horrendous, but I managed to get through the tune and recover from my mistakes:
Y'all come back now, y'hear?