Sing Play Survive

sound ideas to help make it through music school

Posts Tagged music

Friday Fun: A cappella hits network TV

Dec 18

Posted by Bryan W in Free Time, Friday Fun, Music Schools, Wow! | No Comments

I have to say, I’m not a big a cappella fan, and I rarely watch TV. I just came across some of the videos from The Singoff, a new reality-contest-show-whatever on NBC. Unfortunately, most of them solidified my dislike for a cappella AND TV.

However, a link to “Come Sail Away” by the Tufts University Beelzebubs popped up. Styx performed by an a cappella group? I’m in! I didn’t like the fact that they had to trim the arrangement for the show, but I had a good time watching the clip. Like all of the videos I watched, the Bubs have some pitch problems, but I suspect that it has to do more with the monitoring situation than it does their skill (And I’m pointing this out so I don’t get any hate mail about not choosing a perfect performance). Here they are having a ton of fun on national TV.

And since TV is a bad way to REALLY know what someone can do, I also found a video from a non-televised ‘Bubs performance… It’s much better.

If you like what you see, you can vote for them on December 21st, using the instructions in the above video. You can also find them at www.bubs.com

Friday Fun is a weekly feature at singplaysurvive.com that hilights fun and distracting performances by college students and independent artists. If you’d like to suggest a group or a video, please email me at contact@bryanwegman.com.

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Friday Fun: a lil’ something for everyone

Dec 11

Posted by Bryan W in Free Time, Music Schools, Wow! | 1 Comment

Happy Friday. I hope you enjoy a nice weekend. Need to unwind tonight? This video is not for you. Want to broaden your horizons and peek at a little excerpt from the wildest performance of Rite of Spring you’ll probably ever see? Here’s something you might enjoy:

Dolls On Parade from Tyler Jensen on Vimeo.

I had the bright idea of taking my girlfriend to that for one of our first dates. I promise that it was as wild (or wilder) in person than what the video can even begin to show (and lucky for me, we’re now engaged).

Now, if you feel a need to cleanse yourself of that, or just  to just watch some students play their beeehinds off, you can have a look at this:

Enjoy the weekend. Don’t study too hard!

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Correction(ish): U of Michigan NOT the first iPhone orchestra?

Dec 5

Posted by Bryan W in Frustrations, Music Schools, News, Wow! | 5 Comments

zee_pr_thumbOh Twitter. I woke up this morning to a message from a German performance group called ZEE (Zaboura Eichstaedt Experience) who informed me that they performed with iPhones BEFORE the U of M concert. I felt kind of bad for my mistake, until I saw that they were an “orchestra” of 12. Now, I just have questions:

  1. Is an ensemble of 12 considered an orchestra? Maybe they were the first “Chamber Orchestra”, which would mean that U of M can keep their title!
  2. Why do colleges and groups like ZEE insist on using an antique word like “orchestra” to describe such innovative ideas? Is it to make the group seem more credible? I guess that makes sense to an extent, but it reminds me of music schools that have groups with names like “Rock Combo” or “Latin Ensemble”. Do you use those names help keep the riff-raff out of your institutions?

Colleges and “legitimate” musicians: quit being pretentious and come up with names that reflect the spirit of your group! We’re all creative people, so that SHOULDN’T be hard. If the music is good, it won’t matter if you call your group “The Glennhaven Conservatory Festival Portable iTelephone Konsort” or “Band of Geeks”, because people will respect you for what really matters: the quality of the performance…

…and if the music is lousy, don’t desecrate the word “orchestra”. ;-)
Learn more about ZEE at http://www.zeeing.de/home.htm. For a quick peek at a school with great ensemble names, take a look at the Berklee Ensemble Department homepage (and then send them a note asking to remove the word “ensemble” from all the names).

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Celebrate the Small Milestones

Nov 17

Posted by Bryan W in Health and Wellness, Practice | No Comments

I was looking at my blog stats, and noticed a couple of cool things. I just had my 50th visitor to the site, this is my tenth post, and I’m going to announce it with my 100th tweet (that’s Twitter-speak for an update, if anyone’s been under a rock for the last year).

Are these small numbers even worth celebrating? Of course they are! I know that there are blogs who get that many visitors every 60 seconds, and I know ten posts isn’t much. But guess what, it’s ten more posts than I had two weeks ago, and it’s 50 people who had never seen my blog before.

But why am I sharing this here? Because it’s a great reminder of how everyone should treat their practice time. Don’t wait for your next great performance to give yourself a pat on the back. Instead, celebrate the little things. Whether you just memorized another eight bars, or sped up the metronome by a few clicks, you should be proud of your accomplishment, because it’s something you couldn’t do yesterday.

This is one of the best tips I can offer to help yourself stay motivated and avoid burnout. What’s your latest practice-room accomplishment? Let me know in the comments.

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Home Made Acoustic Panels for your Practice Space or Recording Studio

Nov 9

Posted by Bryan W in Recording, Surroundings | No Comments

Installed Acoustic Panels

A view of the panels, as installed in the recording space

A couple of years ago, I rented a practice and recording space with a friend for a project we were working on. It was a nice space, but the acoustics needed a little help (most rooms have the same problem). We looked around for cheap soundproofing techniques and cheap acoustic panels, but we didn’t find much other than the commercially available foams. So, we decided to design and build our own panels.

I documented the process and posted it on a website called instructables.com Here’s a link to the whole process. This might not be the easiest project to do if you’re short on tools or time, but if you’re thinking of building a studio space, or would like to tame the echoes in your practice room or dorm room, this is a great way to do it!

You can also read the book that we used to design the panels, Home Recording Studio Build it Like the Pros

Have you done anything to improve YOUR practice space? Leave a note in the comments.

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