The guitarist and the end of oil....

We look sideways now at anyone who drives a Toorak tractor for their selfish use of increasingly limited and expensive oil resources. For non-Melbournians, Toorak is home to Melbourne's rich, and started the trend of having Four wheel drives (or SUV's for you yanks) for Mum's suburban runabout or for Dad to bully and agress other drivers.
As much as I love the electric guitar, in years to come electricity will become scarcer and more expensive and supplies will become intermittent and unreliable. (Sort of like what we've imposed on Iraq with our oil-hungry invasion).
Most dedicated musicians are idealists at heart, and will move on. We will still have our redneck heroes, who hopefully will deservedly be ostracised in the market place. This means goodbye to stacks and highpowered amps and stadium shows. Anyhow, everyone will be poorer and we won't be able to support jetsetting acts to bring out huge rigs with them, or to supply and run the rigs locally.
We will also be very resource concious as oil and fossil fuels will be kept for more important matters than for wasteful use of power. (Hmm, goodbye Friday and Saturday night footy under lights, and day-night cricket matches .)
The local muso will have his orchestral acoustic arch-top guitar that he can carry to the gig with his satchel of charts on the tram or train. The venue will probably have a piano set up on stage already. The percussionist will need to carry a large knapsack of tambourines, cowbells, maracas, and crash-together cymbals. And if he has muscles, perhaps a snare drum!
In the meantime, it may be realistic to give up the dream of owning an electrically hungry valve amp in preference for a solid state amp.

Wheat and the T word.

When politicians and other dangerous crackpots in society want to send us to war, they keep on about Chamberlain and appeasement prior to World War II. They tell us we should learn from history.
After the finish of the war, we accepted no excuses, such as "I didn't know" or "I was following orders". We hung them as quick as we could get them as we conducted the Nuremburg trials.

I personally don't believe in either nationalism or patriotism, whereever one currently is on Earth is where one belongs, and Government is there merely to service the people, who should NOT be there to service the Government.

Our "leaders" have contrary views to myself.On March 19th 2003 they led us to wage war on the hapless Iraqis.
From that day at least, any kickbacks to Iraq were payments to an enemy government.
That means officials who arranged these matters and politicians who either condoned, approved, or turned a blind eye to them are in fact by the politicians'own laws and parameters guily of treason.

We should learn from history: The evidence should be sought relentlessly as a matter of urgency and the full weight of the law brought to bear on the guilty parties.

Howard, Downer, and Vaille were amongst those who took us to war. I don't personally believe their declarations of lack of knowledge and the subtle inference of incompetence on their behalf. I believe that they cynically approved of the kickbacks.

The Australian Flag

The following quote is (as usual, misleading- what else can we expect from John Howard?) from the Prime Minister's web site for kids:
"When the Australian colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901, the Union Jack had been the official flag for 100 years to the day. A new nation raised an urgent demand for a new emblem. An official competition for a design was arranged, which attracted 32,823 entries. Five of these, which contained almost identical designs, were placed equal first. Apart from later changes in the magnitudes of the stars and the number of points, they had produced the present Australian flag."

In actual fact, it was Pig Iron Bob who during World War II: "issued a directive that there should be no restriction on the flying of the "Commonwealth Blue Ensign" and in 1953 "by means of a Commonwealth Act of Parliament - the Flags Act 1953 - the "British Blue Ensign" was proclaimed the national flag. Only since then has it had seniority over the Union Jack."

Prior to this, I understand the history to be that the flag was red, not blue, and the Union Jack was the superior symbol in Australia.
Menzies is usually thought of as the ultimate and ultra Anglophile, so it comes as a surprise to learn that he was such a closet radical!
http://www.ausflag.com.au/ausflag/bhist.html
So next time Grandad starts up about how "we fought for this flag", unless he is talking Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Iraq his memory is probably unreliable!

Gene Pitney found dead in hotel

Last Updated: Wednesday, 5 April 2006, 10:42 GMT 11:42 UK

Gene Pitney found dead in hotel

Gene Pitney

Obituary: Gene Pitney
American superstar Gene Pitney has been found dead aged 65 in his bed in a Cardiff hotel.

Pitney - who found fame with Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa - was pronounced dead at the Hilton hotel at 1000 BST.

He was on a UK tour and had shown no signs of illness. The cause of death is not yet known but is not suspicious.

When I was about 14 or 15, I used to be glued to the radio, listening to the Beatles, Stones, Animals, all the great bands. But my hero, the greatest singer of them all was Gene Pitney. The first record I ever bought was a Gene Pitney 45.
The only record player available to me was a non electric wind-up 78 phonograph. It was in the external laundry of a railway house in Irymple. I would screw in the sharp needle and spin the platter by hand to an approxiamate but wavering 45 rpm, and sing my heart out!
Over the years I collected virtually every LP of his that I could get hold of, including second-hand items which he sang totally in Italian.
Since CD's came out it has been very hard to get anything but the same core songs repackaged as Best of, Greatest Hits, and the like, along with some later material.
But his 60's and 70's albums were superb, and very innovative.
Gene had a huge vocal range.His trademark was multitracked vocals, of which he was the unrivalled master. (Of course, Les Paul had done it earlier on guitar!) In live performance, Gene would sing one part, and his pianist/musical director another.
The orchestrations were lush, but exciting, with superb arrangements.
The dynamics in his songs were superb.Gene did with voice and orchestra what Cream did with a trio: start a song simply, gradually build up to a huge finish. Usually with a soaring falsetto.
There were some great guitar parts, (one of the best 60's whammy bar solos was "Lips Were Redder")and the piano solo in "Billy You're My Friend" is as good if not better than it ever got in popular music.
The songs were very carefully chosen and varied, but one of his favourite personae was the shy romantic, who either lost or never managed to get the girl. Believe me, I used to thoroughly identify with that!
Back when we all grew up with the daily fear of nuclear annihilation, he sang
"Let's put our hearts together, there's nothing we can't face,
Now hate has gone forever, and love has taken it's place".
He sang of family separation (Don't Let the neighbours know), was a seasonal worker in "Follow the sun', running off to join the circus, gave advice to a young runaway, (Fool Killer), he told us East is East and West is West, and about a town without pity (Perhaps it was Tulsa, or maybe a town 24 hours away).
Then there were his girls: Maybe Mary Lou had eyes of Cornflower blue, but Brandy was his true love's name!
There is an industry full of Elvis, Buddy, Roy, imitators. Gene was simply inimitable.
A true great, who will be sadly missed.

The Alexander Technique

I have just finished reading "The Working Singer's Handbook" by Roma Waterman.
With apologies to Roma, I found the concept of the book great, and she seems very enthusiastic, but overall the book left me unimpressed.
I did find the chapter on posture very helpful and enlightening, however, and Roma has made me aware of the Alexander Technique.
Matthias Alexander 1869-1955 was a Shakespearian actor who was prone to voice failure during performance. There was no medical basis for his voice problems, so he studied himself in the mirror.
He discovered that he pulled his head back and down as he spoke, causing restriction in his breathing, the larynx was depressed and there was consequent tension in his voice muscles. To quote Matthias: “We tend to pull our head down and back into our neck (each individual in his own characteristic way) initiating a downward pressure, a collapsing influence on the rest of the spine and the whole body structure connected to it. For most of us, this pulling down is so habitual that it does not feel wrong and usually becomes even stronger when we ‘do’ something. In other words, we misuse ourselves most of the time, but particularly badly during activity.” (Alexander, The Use of the Self, p. 43).
Alexander had seen that the head/neck relationship not only governed the efficiency of his vocal production but influenced the overall pattern of muscular and postural use in his whole body.

To begin to apply his method beneficially, when you sing, be careful to have a good erect posture, neither leaning backwards or forwards, especially keeping the bodyline straight from the hips up, including the neck. Neither tilt your head forward nor back, and if you are aware of good breathing technique, you will have a good, open relaxed pipe to and from your voice box.
For the singing guitarist, use a boom on your mike stand, and avoid shoulder hunches.
If you watch any of the Cream video clips on my posts, watch Jack Bruce, who is quite good in his posture. Eric Clapton, on the other hand, either leans in to the mike, or tilts his head back when he intends to back off from the mike on the louder passages. Jack has always been a better and stronger vocalist than Eric!
If you are a drummer, the ideal is to wear your mike, because of the probability of strong and frequent body movement when you play.
But above all, if you are a serious singer and you can afford it, find a singing teacher who is aware of the Alexander Technique, and work on this very important aspect of your craft.
When you sing, your breathing should fill all of your lungs, which means your diaphragm muscles should be strong, and should push out! (Which is why opera singers, male or female, always look heavy around the waist!)
Your breath should come out smoothly, and gradually, in other words it should be controlled.

Which brings me to Dubyoo, (not Dubya, the mongrel president).

Lie on your back, put a phone book on your diaphragm (just under your rib cage), and take a deep breath in. You should be able to lift the Mother at least two inches, if your diaphragm is strong, it should be three to four inches. Pitch your voice to a note that lies comfortably in your midrange, preferably your natural speaking pitch, and let the breath out gradually while repeating "Double you, double you, " til you run out of breath. You should at least get to a minute! An early hurdle to overcome is the tongue twister when you are saying "double you" but hear "you double".
This exercise will strengthen your voice and increase your breath control.

To increase your vocal range (to its natural limits):
In broad terms, our voices have three distinct registers. (Johnny Cash lived in the bottom register, with an occasional foray into the bottom of the middle.)
Warm your voice up first, then: Start the dubyoos on your mid note, say "double you" three times, go as high as you can for three, as low as you can for three, back to the middle, til you run out of breath. I doubt if you will last as long as the straight dubyoos!
A good session would be five of each variation, unless your voice fatigues. If not, try ten of each.
If yes, think about Alexander!