Sounds Like Now
A blog by saxophonist Brian Sacawa
Archive for Music
November 30, 2009 at 11:34 am · Filed under Blog: Fall 09, Music, iPhone
There are more than a few Best iPhone Apps for Musicians lists floating around out there, but most of them seem tailored to the occasional musician rather than the professional one. As much fun as a virtual drum set or ocarina might be, they’re not really useful daily tools for a working musician (unless, of course, you happen to play in an iPhone Ocarina band). With that in mind, I’ve put together a list of what I consider to be the four best and most essential iPhone apps for performing musicians. These are all things that I use on just about a daily basis and have found to be absolutely indispensable when I’m on the road.
1. iStroboSoft by Peterson - $9.99
In terms of precision and accuracy there’s really nothing that compares to a Peterson strobe tuner. There are a couple things that keep an actual Peterson prohibitive to many folks, however: cost and size. Luckily, now you can carry around a bona fide Peterson tuner in your pocket via the iStroboSoft application. I’ve not had any issues with the application and have been impressed by how sensitive it is. Plus, it just looks great. The only thing that would make this app better is if they added a tone generator. Actually, this could be the perfect app if they added both a tone generator and a metronome, basically making it an iPhone version of the V-SAM.
2. Tempi by Employee Five Systems - $0.99
Until Peterson actually adds a metronome to iStroboSoft, however, there’s Tempi. I heard about Tempi from a friend who replied to my tweet soliciting iPhone metronome app recommendations. People can be very particular about metronomes, myself included, but this one does just about everything I need a metronome to do. You can adjust the tempo two ways: by dragging the slider, which allows you to move in 1BPM increments or by using the ‘+’ or ‘-’ buttons to go between “real” metronome markings, which I prefer. There’s also a “tap” function, which allows you to tap in a tempo and find out the BPM. Click here to see a screen shot. The best part of this metronome, in my opinion, is the way it sounds. I’m pretty picky about the sound of metronome clicks, but for me, the sound of this one is just about perfect.
3. FiRe - Field Recorder by Audiophile Engineering - $9.99
I don’t think the iPhone will ever have a recording app that comes close to the quality of my Zoom H2, but if I don’t have the Zoom handy and/or don’t feel like setting it up just to record a short sample, you can’t really go wrong with the FiRe - Field Recorder. FiRe gives you a fair amount of control over many aspects your recordings, including gain, recording quality, and metadata. It also has a built-in compressor that will optimize the quality for a given delivery method, like a podcast. FiRe also allows you to FTP any file to your web server, which, for me, has been its most useful feature.
4. Dropbox - Free
Dropbox is a service that allows you to sync files online and across computers. Their free account gives you 2GB of space, which is more than enough. Once you upload a file (any kind of file) from your desktop into your Dropbox, it is available instantly on any other machine, via the Dropbox website, or on your iPhone. You automatically given a “public” folder from which you can share any file within that folder by creating links to send to those you wish to share files with. In addition, you can also create shared folders that invited collaborators can access via their Dropbox account. On a recent 40-day tour, I was able to give instant feedback on new tracks Erik was creating for a project we’ve been working on even when I couldn’t get online via my laptop because of being on the bus or in a hotel room with poor internet service. For long distance collaborations or for collaborating during travel this app is essential.
March 26, 2008 at 11:29 pm · Filed under Blog: Spring 08, Copyright, Music
Michael Byrne’s article published today in this week’s CityPaper taking ASCAP to task is sure to stir up a firestorm. Keep those cards and letters to the editor coming.
November 30, 2007 at 12:34 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Fall 07, Experimental, Music
This from an article about the Brooklyn music scene in the Guardian today:
The Maryland city of Baltimore plays a big role in Brooklyn’s musical renaissance. Sitek lived there, and is an old friend of Celebration’s singer, Katrina Ford, still a resident. Brian DeRan, the manager of Gang Gang Dance and Animal Collective, is a Baltimorean. So is Jason Foster, who now runs Yeasayer’s label, We Are Free (he and DeRan used to run another label, Monitor, together).
What is it about Baltimore, of all places, that inspires such curveball creativity? “There’s nothing there,” says Foster. “Absolutely nothing. So you can do what the fuck you want.”
New Baltimore slogans? Baltimore: Brooklyn’s Farm System. Baltimore: Making Music Too Cool For Itself. Baltimore: Helping Brooklyn Think It’s Better Than You.
May 20, 2007 at 11:43 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Spring 07, Experimental, Improv, Music
Every pursuit has its innovators, people who are synonomous with their field and without whom we couldn’t imagine that field existing the way it does today. This thought came to mind twice yesterday. The first time was while I was watching Dogtown and Z Boys, Stacey Peralta’s documentary about the birth of modern skateboarding. Would there have been a Tony Hawk without Tony Alva or Jay Adams? Similarly in jazz, would there have been a Michael Brecker—an innovator himself—without John Coltrane? Michael Jordan changed basketball. Jackson Pollock. Zeami Motokiyo. Andy Warhol. The Beatles. And so on.
The second time the innovation thought came to mind was during Dilettante’s set at the Red Room last night, where they were the second act on a triple bill that included local laptopper Myo as well as the crack duo of super duper original instrument producer Neil Feather and violinist and microtonal mistress Katt Hernandez. Dilettante was tight, excelling at focused short form improvisations, which were unpredictably busy and anxious. Percussionist Andrew Eisenberg played tastefully eradically. There seemed to be nothing that bassist Ryan McGuire didn’t hear. And alto saxophonist/bass clarinetist Josh Jefferson had a firm grasp on extended instrumental vocabulary. It was actually Jefferson’s playing that got me thinking about innovation again, namely one of the biggest innovators in free improvisation on the saxophone: John Zorn. You couldn’t not think of Zorn when Jefferson played because he was so into his bag. I’ve always had a bit of admiration for players that can mimic so well—I’m secretly jealous (well, it’s not all that secret anymore) of all the Kenny Garrett and Michael Brecker clones out there now—but at the same time I wonder how much fulfillment one feels playing a vocabulary that is so singularly associated with another player. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I didn’t really have any problem at all with the Zorn tribute. In the pursuit of a distinctive individual voice it’s imperative that we investigate and learn the vocabulary and style of those who have blazed the trail for us. Yet I believe there comes a point when one needs to shed that skin and synthesize all those influences into a unique voice that one can call one’s own.
February 5, 2007 at 8:33 am · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Improv, Music, Reviews
The Red Room played host to two of Boston’s finest last Friday as Tim Feeney and Vic Rawlings schooled the faithful on the sound of silence. Although Tim confessed that Friday’s set was one of their louder efforts, both musicians operated in a dynamic space that ranged from niente to about mezzo piano. Yet within those seemingly narrow confines there is much that transpires and holds your interest. Both musicians play with such poise and conviction that they compel you to engage, drawing you into a world of sonic subtlety. Texture appeared to be the overarching theme to their set, which oscillated between the white-noisey and moments of pure beguiling consonance, with both textural flavors being equally elaborate and complex. Perhaps the most refreshing and virtuosic aspect of Tim and Vic’s set was the patience and restraint they displayed. Less levelheaded musicians might get bored or anxious working in the confines that they choose to. So it says something about their musical maturity that they are able to not only maintain their self-control but also that they can expand that space into a universe of infinite possibilties.
January 30, 2007 at 6:49 am · Filed under Art, Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Film, Improv, Music
All dressed up and no place to go? Allow me to suggest the following activities taking place this week in and around Baltimore:
+ Meet the Artist: Matthew Barney: The acclaimed artist and filmmaker best known for The Cremaster Cycle, and more recently for his collaboration with Björk in Drawing Restraint 9, will be at the Hirshhorn this Wednesday at 7pm with Guggenheim Museum curator Nancy Spector discussing the influence of Joseph Beuys‘ art on the evolution of his work. If you really can’t make it, dont worry: due to the anticipated overwhelming response, the musuem is offering a live webcast of the event.
+ Tim Feeney & Vic Rawlings: The better half of Non-Zero leads a double-life as an improviser and this Friday he comes tramping through Baltimore with fellow Boston-based musician Vic Rawlings (cello/electronics) for a 9pm set at the Red Room to make some sounds you’ve never heard before and will probably never hear again.
+ Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone: Just-opened exhibit at the Contemporary Museum, featuring art created by/for small handheld devices.
January 28, 2007 at 11:51 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Winter 06, Experimental, Improv, Music, Rock
Last night was rock night at the Red Room with two extremely divergent but complimentary takes on the music. Up first was Kioku, a sax-percussion-laptop trio from NYC, performing “traditional Asian folk music within a new context of collaborative experimentation and improvisation” and more than a touch of funk and free jazz. Central to the group’s gimmick is the use of asian percussion instruments, including a taiko drum and several varieties of gongs, which were not exploited for their inherent sonic uniqueness, but rather co-opted to form a sort of colonialist drum kit. I suppose since it was a Red Room show I expected the music to be a bit more free-form and stream-of-consciousness. Instead, you got the sense that each compositional decision was carefully orchestrated and structurally predetermined. The group’s polish and refined sound was the giveaway. Yet built into that structure were opportunities for each member to elaborate and saxophonist Ali Sakkal delivered an inspired Evan Parker-esque solo interlude between sections.
If Kioku was the sound of refinement, then Needle Gun, a pubescent noise quartet from Baltimore, was the antithesis. Their sound hit you like a ton of bricks and was a beautifully rich, complex cacophony of raw energy. Needle Gun played with absolute unfettered ferocity and abandon, providing a perfect counterpoint to the evening and allowing the superlatives flow freely from my pen. It’s nice to see the kids doing something productive.
January 14, 2007 at 1:59 pm · Filed under Blog: Winter 06, Literature, Music
When Jonathan Franzen wrote a letter to Don DeLillo lamenting the death of the social novel and his (Franzen’s) place in the world as a fiction writer, this is part of the reply that he (DeLillo) sent:
“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.”
Change ‘writing,’ ‘writers,’ and ‘write’ in the above quotation to ‘music making,’ ‘musicians,’ and ‘make music’ and you’ll get a converse truism.
December 20, 2006 at 6:32 pm · Filed under Blog: Fall 06, Interviews, Music, Performers
“You can only live in music, as it were, if you have other interests, if you see the parallels with literature, if you see the parallels with painting, if you see the parallel with the development of political process, and if you have an interest, and then you have the ability to deduce, then all this becomes part of your innermost being; and this comes out in the music; and therefore, music really becomes your life.”
Daniel Barenboim, Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society
December 13, 2006 at 7:02 pm · Filed under Baltimore, Blog: Fall 06, Experimental, Music, Performances, Recordings
Last Friday’s performance of Unsilent Night in Baltimore lives on! Among the throngs of participants and supporters was one of Mobtown’s most renowned experimental percussionists, Bob Wagner, who came to the event packing a recording device and a microphone on the end of a very long boomstand. Bob herocially braved frigid fingers and tired arms to document the event in sound. Bob writes:
The mic I used is a Sennheiser hypercardiod, so there is very little side sound. (Actually I was hoping for a bit more traffic and city noises.) The sound of the boomboxes is very primary. Also, the recording is a mono two track recording- both sides are identical. I did almost no editing . . . [The recording] is slightly normalized. No other effects.
Download the complete performance here.
Update: Photos from the performance are can be viewed here.
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