Finally! Some Music!

So, with my blog name being 'Sounds on Shuffle', I figured that I should have some musical content. This is my latest musical endeavour. Going for the folky I-don't-care-I-can't-sing-well vibe with high energy and spirits!

We are also looking for an upright bass to add to the ensemble and/or a charming young girl to play tambourine and who can actually sing. In fact, a hybrid of both of those would be ideal!



Anyways, I don't post this to show off my 'talent'. There really isn't any. But, I post these to show you a glimpse of my musical personality! I play all different genres of music/things resembling music so hopefully you'll be getting something different from time to time! Perhaps it'll be like hearing Sounds on Shuffle.

Enjoy!

OBAMA 2

Looks like Michael Ignatieff, the Liberal Party leader, has taken a lesson from Barack Obama. Ignatieff is now using Facebook to promote himself. He also has a YouTube channel where you can watch him wrestle a duck and a twitter where you can follow his tweets.

Obama has paved the way of campaigning by means of Web 2.0 and social media. But, I think if/when every politician starts using it, then it just becomes another cold tool used for campaign. The warm and special bubbly feeling that we first got when we saw Obama accept our friend request, will turn into a cold, dark numbness. There won’t be anything special about it anymore because the politician won’t have any part of it. It will be their campaign team doing all the updating and personalization. Where’s the heart? Where’s the connection with the people? Gone. Gone. Gone like the mother sea turtle after she lays her eggs on the beach.




Until I see a politician playing Barn Buddy and doing those survey things on Facebook, I will not support them on the basis that they have a FB, YT or T.

H1NFUN

The #18 Corydon bus was unusually packed today. Every seat was taken and the standing room was getting sparse. As the bus filled up, I was pushed to the far back. I find it harder to keep my balance at the rear than up at the front for some reason, but I digress. As I held onto the bar overhead and rubbed up against, unintentionally, a man in a business suit, I instantly knew I was catching something. Not from the man-to-man bodily contact but from being in such a small confined space with so many people.

Winnipeg Transit, says it carries about 20% of Winnipeg’s work force to and from work. According to Winnipeg’s official website, the population of Winnipeg in 2008 was 666 600 people. So, 20% of that is 133 320 people. I don’t know what the statistic is for how many of those people are in the work force but if you factor in all the students and people without cars that use the bus as well, it’s probably a fair chunk of that.

The H1N1 flu is typically spread same way all seasonal flus are, through means of airborne germs and touching surfaces with the virus on it. People were definitely coughing and sneezing all around me. Also, the bar I was grasping onto was probably grasped by a many hands before my own. I’m not a germaphobe at all but I was a little freaked out.

This Winnipeg Free Press article talks about how the city has a plan if there is an outbreak of the flu. They’re even overcompensating and planning for 30% of the city workforce being infected when the initial thought was that 10-20% would be. They plan to move people around to different departments to cover for people who catch the flu. Police investigators will be put into patrol cars, fire-safety educators will be put in fire halls and a monkey with one arm will replace Mike Kelly if he happens to fall ill.

Along with the people who actually catch H1N1, the percentage of the work force that is unable to work is expected to be higher because people might have to stay at home to take care of a family member with the flu.

The H1N1 outbreak is supposed to get fierce this fall but I guess there’s not that much we can do about it. I’ll wash my hands frequently, cough/sneeze in the cuff of my arm, excommunicate people that are sick from my life (sorry grandma!) and try not to rub up against anymore suits.

I can't believe I'm doing this...

...but this act of immaturity can’t go un-blogged about. Really, Kanye? You’re 32 years old. Please act like it. You went onstage and humiliated and embarrassed a 19 year old girl in front of millions of viewers. Why? Just because you wanted people to hear your opinion. I’m sure Beyonce didn’t even agree with you.

Does he have a publicist? Well, if he did, he probably doesn’t anymore after tonight. Either they quit or died from a brain aneurism. Kanye “apologized” on his blog shortly after the fiasco. (The link may or may not be working right now considering the mass hoard of people wanting to see if Kanye sounds as dumb as they think he is. Speaking of which, the server probably died of a bandwidth aneurism). Kanye has the audacity to say sorry for what he did while still raising himself up onto a pedestal. If his idea of damage control is blogging the word “sorry” multiple times in caps lock then has a lot of to learn. He’s simply just thrown out a piece of litter after a tornado has struck a home. But hey, this is nothing new right? This will be in the headlines and people will be talking about him. Is this good bad press for him?

On the other end, this was a great opportunity for Beyonce. Not only did she get to win an award but she got a great moment to show a display of selflessness and give TS a chance to shine. Even if she doesn’t care about TS, she still looks like Mother Teresa. I think in the media world, being comparable to Mother Teresa is a positive. Let’s hope this wasn’t planned or something though! During Kanye’s little dittle, she did looked genuinely stunned so I believe her!

My jaw dropped and my heart sang for little TS. I hope she can get over this ordeal quick and easy! She has the support of everyone in the world right now so she should be fine. On a side note, I respect TS as a musician because her story is quite amazing. Being a kid who really didn’t have friends in high school to a famous pop/country star is a very cliché but it is very cool it happened for her. Can’t say I enjoy her music too much though. I know how to play one of her songs because when I was volunteering at a music program at an inner-city school last year, my kids made me teach them.

So, just to sum things up, Kanye should stop playing around with auto-tune and ought to tune up his act. (Nice one Mike). Beyonce is in a great place and good on her for sharing her moment with TS. (I also have a mini crush on her now). And, TS should go to the “Mike Myer’s Rehabilitation Centre for People Who’ve had to be Embarrassed By Kanye West on Live National Television”.

P.S.: I’ll try not to do anymore pop culture blogs anymore!

I was cutting up onions and I'm uh, allergic to this song!

Apparently I can’t come up with my own ideas to blog about. Maybe everyone else just has good ideas to talk about and their post has effectively made me think and ponder about the subject!

My guilty pleasure is reading the GUILTY PLEASURES AND A GIRLS OPINION. She last post was about a certain event she occasionally experiences when listening to music. She describes getting goose bumps and a feeling of “serenity and peace”.
I’m sure most people have experienced this sensation in one way or another so no need to feel ‘crazy’. For me myself, state is reached during music as well. This is probably because music is something that I can understand and open myself to completely. It can probably be reached visually to an artist or painter when they see a beautiful work or just the beauty of nature. I’m not trying to say that visual people always 100% reach it visually or musicians always get there listening to music, it’s different for everyone. It always seems to happen for me when I’m listening to an instrumental break of a song.

The one I most vividly remember is when I was listening to Jimi Hendrix’s “Moon, Turn the Tides…Gently Gently Away” in my car, the volume cranked. It was spring and the windows were rolled up. This is an important detail. I was stopped at a red light as the 9 minute epic was just picking up. I’d say probably around the two minute mark for those of you who might go take a listen afterwards. When Mitch Mitchell starts hammering on the bell of the ride and guitar starts swelling from your left to right and back again, this is when it happened. Because the volume was loud and the windows were up, the sound consumed my car and I was sitting in the middle of it. The swells from the speaker to speaker hit me so much hard. I’m not sure what this is called, maybe the ‘music geek’ can tell me what this technique is called? But, just something about the chaos of it all but the intricacies of each individual part just overwhelmed me with emotion. The intense lead drumming and Noel Redding’s speedy bass runs really contributed to the moment. When Jimi comes in with vocals, this is when the feeling came down.

Physically during this process, my heart rate increased. I could sense my breath becoming shorter and quicker. A rush of emotion went through my body. From my stomach to head I believe. It was a simple yet complex emotion. I think the best way to describe it was many simple emotions erupting at once. It was a hot emotion, almost like when you get so flustered and mad you don’t know what you’re going to do. But there was a calm serenity through it all. That’s when it happened, my eyes started watering and when I realized this, I caught myself and calmed myself down a bit. I was a little disoriented after the little ordeal. I remember the light turning green and I had to drive cautiously because I couldn’t see clearly and my mind felt hazy.

I think it’s really an amazing thing when people can open themselves up to something and let it take over your mind and body, even if it’s for a couple seconds. I find this phenomenon to be some sort of divinity with some sort of higher power, whether it is with nature, a collective consciousness of human emotion or unicorns.
I’d like to hear any stories of personal experiences if you have any!

Boy, now that I step back and see what I just wrote, I do kind of sound crazy.

AHHHH-cah-pell-ah

As you can see, I’m practicing spelling phonetically for those radio quizzes.

I saw a video on THE DAILY HOPE last night, which was of a group singing an a cappella rendition of Ben E. King’s ‘Stand by Me’. The thing that caught my attention wasn’t the video itself, but of respect that a couple readers had for this performance style.

Being a “singer” myself, I’ve always had an admiration for the stripped down bare vocals of a group or artist that could pull off a song without any instrumental accompaniment. I believe this is when a performer is most vulnerable because there’s nothing to hide behind. If you stop singing, silence is the only thing that’s left. There’s no guitar riff or drum beat to take the wheel for you while you catch your breath. The silence is a part of your performance. It’s actually quite a crucial part of it. It’s the moment where you either have everyone waiting for your next note or it’s the moment that everyone hopes is the ending. In group performances, harmonies are usually sung to create layers and substance. Now with harmonies, you don’t have to be a great singer but you do have to be spot on with your notes for it to work.

Here’s an example. This is an a cappella version on Bon Iver’s song, 'For Emma':



In exchange for the guitar, “doo-woppy” vocals and harmonies are sung underneath Justin Vernon’s tranquil falsetto. I also quite enjoy Sean Carey’s soulful third verse. Specifically, I feel the most soulful moments of his brief solo are the hard ‘R’ he pronounces on the word ‘lover’ and the sliding in the note of the word ‘along’.

Using your ears, you can hear that they’re all quite talented musicians but using your eyes, you can see that they are devoting themselves to their note and committing to each other to create the beautiful sounds we hear. If you interested in checking out some more Bon Iver, I suggest looking at more of their Blogotheque performances first. You should really just check out all of Blogotheque’s take away shows because they have many talented artists performing. They usually take place in random locations in European cities, filmed in an artsy style. Bon Iver’s debut album,’ For Emma, Forever Ago’, has all the sultry harmonies but they are all sung by Justin Vernon. The story behind this album is quite interesting which I might bring up in a later post.

I don’t think I’m going out tonight considering I work at nine in the morning and have to get interviews for an article I’m writing for the Projector right after. Perhaps I’ll fool around with some melodies and share some with you!

Just a Disclaimer

I’m still trying to figure out what my blog will be about. We had a couple seasoned bloggers come talk to us in a seminar today. They were saying that it’s better to find a niche rather than blog about a topic that’s too general since it’s been done/being done by more than a handful of other people. I imagine my first couple posts will be all over the place, trying to figure out what the point of this blog will be.

Seeing as music is a topic that has oversaturated the internet with blogs, it makes it tough to see how I can incorporate it in mine. I completely agree with what Graham Hnatiuk of PROGRESSIVE WINNIPEG said about how there will always be someone who knows more about music than you, listens to more music than you and is just better at music than you. So, maybe instead of blogging about the external sources of music that we hear, I’ll write about the creative process that I myself go through internally when creating music. It can’t all be internal though. I’m bound to be inspired by something I find beautiful or different. When that happens, maybe I’ll explain why it affects me that way and what ways I try and come up with to achieve that effect in my own projects.

Plus, seeing as I can already feel CreComm taking over my life, this just might be the excuse I need to put down the paper and pencil and pick up my guitar and hum a couple melodies.