our new neighbors

Andrea and i were doing yard work a few Saturdays ago. you may remember Tropical Storm Gabrielle brewing in the Atlantic. i wanted to be prepared in case we got a lot of rain so i was on the roof cleaning out the gutters.

don't get me started on the gutters...they are worthless. the 1st time i cleaned them, we didn't have a hose. i pulled out all the big leaves and sticks, then Andrea handed me up a 2 gallon watering can, filled. my plan was to flush out the small stuff. we did this twice and the gutter, in addition to said small stuff, now held 4 gallons of water. thank goodness for the leaky seam, or that water could've been there forever!

during the gutter fiasco and subsequent yard duties, a moving truck pulled into the yard next door and several people started unloading. this is the house where Carlos and Sophie, the border collie we adopted over the fence, lived. we walked over to introduce ourselves, but they were pretty busy so we didn't hang around. over the course of the next week, i noticed a bunch of kids playing in the back yard. i love kids and ever since moving from Cary, where i was the adopted (creepy?) uncle, i've been jonesing.

these kids are great. 3 boys and a girl, ages 3 to 10. Zaria, the girl, is 3. she is adorable. the youngest male, DeShawn, is your typical 5 year old. at least, i think he's five. and he has braids! Markel (pronounced Mar-kell) reminds me of Chris Rock. he's funny. the oldest is Jeremy, aka, TJ. he's pretty quiet and introspective. at least, this is what i surmise after talking with them for a total of 1 hour.

when i hear them in the back playing, i go out with Krusty and they flock to the fence shouting "Krusty! Krusty!". it makes me feel good. they take turns throwing the ball for him and once they practiced throwing disc golf putters at my target over the fence. but what i really enjoy is talking to them, more importantly, listening to what they say. they are really funny.

Markel was asking me about Krusty...how long i've had him, where i got him, why i named him Krusty, etc. then out of the blue, he says "do you think it's wrong to kill nature?". i asked for clarification. "like spiders and stuff". i wanted to be a good example for him b/c kids are very impressionable and said "well, sometimes when bugs get in the house we squash them, but sometimes we catch them and let them go. i mean, i don't go around looking for bugs to kill or anything".

YEAH RIGHT! as the words were coming out of my mouth, i thought twice about saying it. i hope he doesn't see me out his window at night kicking the recycle bin scaring up roaches to squash. that's my nightly routine. i abhor roaches.

the conversation continued.

• markel - "do you think it's bad luck?"
• "to kill nature?"
• m - "yes"
• "i dunno. what do you think?"
• m - "i don't know either"

it was awesome.

Zaria is so tiny, she has to climb up the chain link fence to be able to throw the ball, but it goes right in Krusty's mouth every time. Andrea came home from work one day and stepped out back. Krust ran towards her to get some love and Zaria asked where he was going. "he loves his mama", i said. now, everytime she sees the dog, she asks "that dog loves his mama?". so cute! TJ was looking at me and said, "he loves is daddy, too". he's a good kid.

before i came out last night, a squirrel fell out of a tree and landed in the middle of our yard. they told me about it, complete with sound effects, and that got us talking about squirrels. in addition to roaches, i hate squirrels, too. maybe i'll explain why one day. suffice to say, i was upset the squirrel survived the fall, which they told me it did.

• TJ - "has Krusty ever killed anything?"
• "yep. two squirrels"
• t - "in this yard?"
• "no, no. it was in Atlanta a long time ago"
• t - "how did he do it?"
• "a squirrel got out in the middle of a big field and he saw it. he chased it down and shook it to death"
• t - "what about the other one"
• "we came over a hill and there were two. one got away and he got the other one. come to think of it, it wasn't dead after he attacked it so i had to kill it"
• t - "how did you do that?"
• (stomping the heel of my foot into the ground) "like that"
• t - "yeah, i guess that's how you'd do it"

it just goes to show that kids are kids, no matter what ethnicity, income bracket, nationality or anything else. they just want to be happy and have fun. maybe that's why i like spending time with kids b/c when i'm in that environment, it makes me appreciate the simple things, too.

Bob's forensic analysis of video

this is great. you should click over and read it from the source, but in case you're too lazy, here's a copy-n-paste:

Highlights include:

• Seth smiling and smirking his way through the whole affair, as he does with many things in life.
• Mrs. Updyke looking like the happiest bride in the world.
• Mr. Updyke, with beer in one hand and woman in the other, looking like a seasoned barbershop professional having a little fun.
• Me mostly sort of looking like I am in pain, which I was not. I was having the time of my life, but I was also trying to concentrate and not mess up.
• -02:57: Jerry assuring Seth he was playing the right note on his pitch pipe. Seth never grew to fully trust that pitch pipe. He always thought it was playing him the wrong starting note.
• -02:52: Me not sticking my opening note. If you’re going to be solid on any note, it should be that opener. And I swear I always hit it in our practices. Oh well. Everyone else stays right on key and I recover ok.
• -02:05: Jerry holding up his ring finger when we sing “Place a wedding band upon your hand.” This is the extent of what we could come up with, choreography-wise.
• -01:49: The crowd interpreting a pause as the end of the song and going wild.
• -01:02: Mr. Updyke leaning in to the mic and really emphasizing the crazy low note he hits here. People being greatly amuzed by this. (check out the look of horror on Andrea's face as I lean in...i think she thought i was passing out or something. then, when she sees all is well, she snaps back into a smile and continues singing. my personal favorite part of the whole video)
  
• -00:54: That’s right. Key change.
• -00:18: Seth taking us out with a cool-looking, commanding “bam!” hand motion that was actually a signal for “I’ve been holding this note for a long time and I am now out of breath.”
• -00:15: Seth, Andrea, and I coming in for some love and Papa Updyke shoving us away. He later explained to me that he was trying to get us to spread out and take a bow, but then came to the realization that it was too much to orchestrate. (in retrospect, it would've been nice to have mentioned my plans to you all. instead, it has a "Get the hell away from me!!" look about it. couldn't be further from the truth!)
  
• -00:09: The four of us celebrating the culmination of several months of work, and our shared musical bond, by warmly embracing each other.
• -00:04: Me getting a face-full of Updyke’s boutinerre, because he is so freaking tall.

i added my own thoughts in bold...

that'll do, Bobby. that'll do.

he promises to go back to writing about other stuff soon, which is good b/c he's got so much material. i promise to go back to not writing for weeks at a time, then pop in with the occasional rant about something dumb.

finally

by popular demand...

here's my first crack at posting a YouTube video. it's from our wedding reception on August 25, 2007. me, Andrea, Bob and Seth singing "Didn't Want To Fall".

sneak peek: Honeymoon pics

Warning: high resolution and unmodified. i.e., huge.

coming in for a landing in San Francisco, or "Frisco" as the locals like to call it:



sea lions at the wharf:


Frisco's infamous South Side Segways (SSS):


GGB:



Napa:


sunset from our B&B in Ft. Bragg, CA:


Andrea, the Mustang and some Redwoods:


a few of the Oregon coast:

some of the best tags on YouTube

Realtime
2005 Quarter Finals
"Yesterday I Heard The Rain"
Tag at 4:09
by far my favorite live performance of all time and the best tag in history.

Glory Days
2007 Quarter Finals
"Do-Re-Mi" Medely
Tag at 4:20
fun song. they finish with the "Tonight" tag.

Storm Front
2006 Finals
"Bare Necessities"
Tag at 2:25
the Lead passes the post off to the Bari at 2:43. pretty cool. these guys are really funny and got 3rd in 2007.

more to come, so be sure to check back...as if i need to say that.

The Chronicles of Harmony-a

last year some time, i had a hankerin' for some barbershop. i don't remember what prompted it, but i went looking for an album to buy online and found "4 Voices" by the quartet Four Voices. it was my first exposure to modern barbershop. up until then, i (falsely, but understandably) assumed it was a genre performed exclusively by guys with big giant mustaches, straw hats and matching red and white striped blazers. and sometimes canes.

after becoming enthralled with with the Four Voices album, i started looking online for more information. the Barbershop Harmony Society website has a bunch of good stuff. that's where Bob found the learning mp3's of "Keep the Whole World Singing"! (the recordings of us singing that are somewhere between awful and terrible...we were just kids then). i also looked on YouTube and found a ton of entertaining stuff...including people who film themselves singing the 4 different parts of Barbershop "tags" and splitting the screen, Brady Bunch style, so you can see them all at once. hilarious. and brilliant. this guy was the first, as far as i can tell. raw and unproduced, which i like. conversely, this guy is the reigning king, but sounds a little too perfect for my tastes. no question he's good, though. i digress.

my plan was to listen closely to the Four Voices version of "Didn't Want to Fall" and record the individual tracks using a keyboard, a computer and a Bass Podxt. i borrowed Matt Wood's keyboard (still have it, in fact) and got the first couple measures done, but then the parts pretty much became indistinguishable. particularly, the Baritone part. wow. what an awesome part! if i were to join a quartet (rather, another quartet) that's the part i would want to be. in my opinion, it's what makes a quartet a barbershop quartet. all these great 3rds and 7ths...

so i had the first measure or so recorded using the keyboard. in addition to sounding like crap, everyone else in the project let me know that it wouldn't be all that useful to them. but i wanted to do it anyway b/c i knew the way my brain works and i would benefit from it. eventually, i got wise and contacted the fine folks at the Barbershop Harmony Society and purchased the sheet music to the original arrangement of the song by Joe Liles. it's slightly different from the Four Voices version, but close. between the two, i figured we could make the version we wanted to perform.

on May 22nd, i gave the music to our resident musicologist, Matt X. and asked if he could record the four parts from the sheet music onto four tracks using a piano. with that, i reasoned, i could tell which part was which and make the minor changes between the 2 versions and record them onto one learning track for us to use. "you don't even have to sync them up", i said, trying to make it easier on him. what i got back was masterful.

he recorded the song, string quartet style, using violin for the tenor and lead, viola for baritone and cello for bass!! it was amazing! and he delivered it in 24 hours! but...it was in the key of F and the Four Voices version is in E. X even asked me before he started if i wanted him to do it in E to match 4V, but i declined. big mistake.

at this point, i had

1. the CD version as done by Four Voices
2. 1/4 of the song done keyboard style
3. the full Matt X. string quartet version in F
4. a live version of Four Voices singing it in E and
5. yet another live version by a quartet called Joker's Wild (in F)

it was getting confusing keeping track of all the different versions and instead of making it easier to learn the song, it was making it much harder for everyone.

we needed a definitive recording people could use to learn their part, myself included. throwing caution to the wind and confronting my insecurities about singing, i began the process of recording myself singing the 4 parts of the song using the same multi track recording program i had used with the failed keyboard project. it's a good thing my studio is so advanced or else it might not have turned out so good: a crappy PC mic that's the size of half a roll of Life-Savers, a mic stand made of a rubber band and a bottle of Windex, and a paper towel, folded in half and stretched between my hands, held in between my mouth and the mic to reduce the popping sound of hard consonants. watch your back, Taylor Roberts! i'm coming for you!!

after getting about half the song done, up to the bridge, i sent it out. the plan was to give it to them incrementally and i would keep working on it until it was done.

the first crack was awful. my technique was to listen to the Four Voices version (and when necessary, the Matt X version, followed by using the keyboard to modulate down from F to E), record 4 or so measures of bass, then go back and do the same for lead, then bari, then tenor. everything was going ok, sort of, until i played the Four Voices version along with mine. i was getting flatter and flatter with each additional recording segment. i was enraged.

without headphones it was hard to really hear what was going on. and being in the apartment, i couldn't turn the speakers up OR really belt it out during recording (those insecurities i mentioned). so i scrapped the whole thing and started again, much to the chagrin of the group. they were like, "no, it's fine, we can use it", but i am stubborn like that. i mean, if i'm gonna record it, i want it to be in key, you know? and i was a little angry...at myself and at Barbershop for being so hard.

but at this point, my confidence was blown and it was much, much harder for me to do the 2nd time around. i couldn't seem to find the pitch and was flat over and over. my blood pressure was rising. i would tell Andrea, "I'm gonna work on the song tonight" and the next day, she'd say, "Did you finish?". finish?? Finish?? HA. i'd just give her 'the look' b/c i had only gotten 4 or 8 measures done in 2 or 3 hours. this period was pretty upsetting. i began to question whether i could even do it or not...and whether we, as a group, could pull it off.

yadda yadda yadda, i got it done all the way to the very end. i had the 50 or so different segments of the song merged into 4 and everybody had a mix of their part, plus multiple combinations (3 parts in the left, your part in the right, bass-bari, bass-lead, bass-tenor, tenor-lead, etc...), but all the mixes were originating from the same 4 tracks, so it wasn't "confusing", per se.

the lead and bass parts were pretty easy to hear and record, but i still couldn't figure out the baritone and tenor parts at the very end of the song. the Four Voices ending is different from the Joe Liles arrangement, and trying to meld the 4V tenor part, which Andrea liked, with the original Bari part (4V does this crazy thing where the Bari takes it up an octave, which we didn't want to use) was tough. so Bob and Andrea were kind of on their own. they came through brilliantly.

barbershoppers like to finish their songs with tags, defined as "...usually the last four to eight bars, and often considered the best chords in the song." during the tag, it's not uncommon for someone to hold out a long note while the other members sing around that note, finally resolving at the end and holding it out for a while. this is called the "post". that was my favorite discovery in my barbershop journey; the first time i heard a post (the double post on the 1st song of the Four Voices album, "It's a Brand New Day". the lead starts it off for 4 bars, then the tenor picks it up and finishes it off. it's extremely sweet). Seth was nervous about the post and was afraid he wouldn't be able to hold it out, etc., but if you were there, you heard with your own hears that he nailed it. he really did a great job. way to go, Seth!

i have since gone back and finished the last 2 parts and the song's done for now. it's funny how the 2nd half is all sloppy compared to the 1st half. when time was getting short, my perfectionist nature gave way to "get it done, already!!!". with better equipment and some spare time, i would like to do it again with fewer track segments, so as to have a more consistent mix from segment to segment. i already have folders on my machine called DWF, DWF2, DWF3, etc... what's a few more??

Barbershop?

"that ain't been popular since ought-6...dag nabbit!!"
- Bart Simpson

so, anybody who's interested in the story of our Wedding Reception song performed by myself, my wife, Bob and Seth, should just go to Bob's website. the link is on the right. there's nothing substantial i could add to his recounting.

i will say that Andrea and i had so much fun hanging out with Bob and Seth practicing over the months. as time became short, we were making them come over 2 or 3 times a week...on top of all the work they poured into doing all the other reception music, which kicked ass. those two guys, plus the other 2 Witchger men (Kevin and Bob, Sr.) are the real heroes of our wedding day.

so yes, everything Bob says in his blog is true (except the part about him not being a "...rare, undeniable, dyed-in-the-wool musician." oh, he is. you better believe it). it was pretty rough during the Feasibility Testing phase of the project. i'd say if we hadn't locked in on a few of those "Keep The Whole World Singing" chords, we may not have pursued it. but as they say, that's what keeps people coming back to Barbershop! that feeling you get when you really ring one out!

i can't say it enough times publicly how indebted we are to Bob and Seth. we are very indebted to them. they would say, "no, it was fun!" or some other deflecting comment. but i don't even know how much work they put into our wedding. only they know. hours and hours and hours...more time than i've put into anything recently.

thank you guys!!

too much to write about

so instead, i'll just post this picture.