Poppa K

The Carolina Union Activities Board recently put on the third annual Air Guitar Competition. The object of the competition is to pantomime playing playing guitar and to get into rocker character and go crazy. There were about seven participants, two of which were PMA brothers. They competed under the names "Mystery Meat" and "Prisoner 2013100" (Prisoner 2 for short). In the first round of competition, the contestants performed a 60-second bit they had rehearsed and prepared. For the second round, they were given a clip they had not heard beforehand and had to play along.


In the small group that showed up (it was snowing that day), most people were aware of an older couple in the audience who seemed to be having just as good a time as the students. They were... I'm guessing in their sixties? Anyway. After the last round of the competition, the emcee asked the couple "So... do you guys have a kid here or something?" The man responded no. "You just walked in off the street?" Something like that. "Do you wanna give it a shot?" Of course! "What's your rocker name?" A brief pause... then the man replied:

"My name. Is Poppa K."

He got up on stage, took of his shoes, picked up his invisible guitar and strapped it over his shoulder. He gave the cue to the sound guy and the music began. Where the other air guitar players had gone wild, Poppa K took it slow and worked the guitar soft and smooth. The song was a sort of fountain of youth for him as he got more and more into it. The crowd went wild; college kids always love seeing people their parent's age doing the dumb shit they find fun! The song drew to a close and in a brilliant flash of youthfulness, Poppa K surprised everyone by jumping off the three-foot stage toward the judges. As he landed, the thud echoed through the stunned silence in the room. Once the crowd realized he had not been seriously injured, they cheered and applauded and went crazier than they had for any of the other participants!

"Did you hurt your foot doing that?" asked the emcee.

"Oh hell yes I did!" Poppa K responded as he limped across the audience to his wife.

At the end of the air guitar competition, they played 'Free Bird' and invited everyone to air-guitar along.

Mystery Meat won the competition, the prize for which was a $100 check. I gotta say, Prisoner 2 gets special kudos for staying in a very difficult character for a period of about three hours, much of that time being spent in a straight jacket! Myself and three other PMA guys helped Poppa K get to his car after the competition. He said that if he could have done it again, he would've jumped off the stage again, too. He had a blast - and you know what? I did too. Here's some pics I lifted from Facebook:

Mystery Meat

Prisoner 2

The Emcee, Paul, Me, Stanley, Poppa K, and Mystery Meat rockin out to Free Bird

The Story of Crosasaurus Rex

Hello Hello!! Tonight I performed 'The Story of Crosasaurus Rex' for the Music 143 class. I don't have the video footage from the actual dealio ready yet, but I'll tell ya what happened: I showed videos on the screen while I sorta stood there/acted it out. There was a little story line that went along with it. Here are the three videos I used, one of which you've seen before and two are totally brand new!!

Performance Concept

In the traditional performance context, a performer plays a piece of music to a large audience. Because of the nature of the concert venue, part of the meaning of the song could be lost. For example if the song is about love, the audience can appreciate the song that the performer's playing and even sympathize with the feelings expressed. However, it is unlikely that either the performer or the audience is literally experiencing what the song is about as it is being performed. I would like to propose two changes to this model while specifically leaving others the same. This is an idea I've been tinkering with for a while and would like to experiment a little bit.

First, instead of playing to a large, possibly anonymous audience (from the perspective of the performer), I want to reduce the audience size to one, two at the very most. This way the connection between the performer and the listener is exponentially more intimate. There would be a higher pressure on the musician, while the listener would appreciate the music so much more as it is intended only for them.

Second, instead of the audience and performer sitting together simply listening to the set that the performer has planned, the performer plans the set around what they anticipate the audience member doing at the time. The music will serve as a 'live soundtrack' so to speak. Put in context, the music would have a much greater meaning than if taken out of context. An example of this would be playing music while somebody is falling asleep, walking to class, or driving in the car.

This is different than just playing songs for somebody while they happen to be in the car or falling asleep. The songs are planned, practiced, and arranged ahead of time to give a unique performance. Ideally, the audience member would forget the individual who is performing and appreciate the music in that context. In that sense, it is like a traditional concert because the personal elements of the performer are overcome by the persona of the performance.

I think I've jumbled a bunch of confusing ideas together here, so let me explain in a nutshell. I'll use the falling asleep example, because that's the most relevant to me. I would plan out and practice certain songs to play (on guitar) and sing to somebody as they're falling asleep. The room and the person falling asleep would be part of the art in itself. If all goes as planned, the audience member would be asleep before the end of the performance. Then, the performer would pack up and leave without a word. If the two people involved wanted to discuss the performance, it would be the next day and not immediately afterwards.

What do ya think?

New Toy

I've been itching to play/have an electric guitar for a while, and opportunity knocked on my door last night. My fraternity brother just bought an Epiphone Les Paul and was getting rid of his old elecrtic. He gave me his Squier Strat for an amazingly awesome price. I love it soooo much!! I'm still working on transitioning (or would it be expanding?) from acoustic style to electric styles, and it feels great. by the way I've been trying to figure out exactly what color this is - some say blue, some say purple. What do you think??

Leb

Hello again! Today was the first day of classes for UNC's fall '09 semester, an exciting day indeed!

Two nights ago, I was with one of my fraternity brothers who was feeling down. After talking things out, we picked up guitars and made up a song on the spot. He played electric lead while I played rhythm on his steel six string; I was his support while he poured his heart out. It was an intense and deep moment, and we played for at least ten minutes without stopping or changing the music.

This particular brother is very spiritual, and has talked to me about what is called the 'language of the heart. ' I'm sure I'm not able to explain this nearly as well as he can, but it is not a spoken language, but more of a felt one. It is more of an abstract language about love rather than a language to write a shopping list or a play. In Hebrew, the word for this is "Leb." Although it does not specifically have to do with music, in that moment I felt the language of the heart between us. We didn't tell each other what was going on or what the other was going to play, but it worked and it was beautiful. I was so honored that I could be a part of that, and that we have the bond that allowed that to happen. Love - be it romantic or brotherly - is magnificent!

Half a Pachelbel

Today was the first day of RA training, and it went quite well in my opinion. I got to meet my coworkers for the next year and start building relationships with them. After the training was over, three of the more musically inclined guys made their way to my room, where we proceeded to jam. We had a drumset, two guitars, and a mandolin going (all of which were my instruments except for one of the guitars). The guy playing the mandolin was new to the instrument but picked it up with surprising speed - the man's got good string sense!

We all doodled around a bit with various melodies and chord progressions, but we locked together on one in particular and had a really awesome groove going. The chords were C, G, Am, and F repeated. In the key of C (which it was,) this is reffered to as a I V vi IV progression. The C chord, being built from the first note in the scale, is symbolized by roman numeral I; the G chord is built from scale degree 5 and is symbolized by roman numeral V, and so on. This can be heard in a great deal of songs, like "Don't Stop Believin" by Journey, "Let it Be" by The Beatles, "Sk8er Boi" by Averile Levinge... you get the idea. People refer to this as the "Pachelbel chords," but this is wrong.

Pachelbel's Canon is I V iv ii IV I IV V. In the key of C, that would be C, G, Am, Dm, F, C, F, G. If we compare the first four chords of Pachelbel's canon to the other progression, you see that they're the same except for the last chord. However, this is somewhat forgivable because a Dm and an F chord are the same except for one note (D minor is D,F,A; F is F,A,C). The real issue comes in when you realize that "Don't Stop Believin'" and the other songs have four chords, but pachelbel has - count 'em - eight! That's right, what many musicians think of as the "Pachelbel progression" doesn't even have the right number of chords! For a song that uses legit Pachelbel, listen to "Graduation" by Vitamin C. That doesn't really count though, because she (they?) actually has Pachelbel's original piece playing in the background. It's a very nice tribute, but you can see how that's not quite what we're going for.

Luckily for you, you've read this blog and you know the truth. Therefore, the next time one of your musician friends tries to impress you by saying "You hear that? That's Pachelbel!" You can turn around and say to them "Oh yeah? Then where's the other half?"

Monkey Love

The name of this blog is "Music and Tourette's," but so far the majority of my posts have been Tourettical and not musical. So! Here's a song I made not too long ago for Charlene. Be sure to watch through the first thirty seconds, because that's when it gets interesting!

Awesome Recording Studio

Ben and I in the recording studio

So my aunt and cousin came along with my mom to visit me this week . My aunt (Jean) and cousin (Ben) are from Cincinnati, OH so it was really awesome that they came. Ben is 15 years old and he and I are good buds. So anyways, our moms rented out this guest house type thing near Jordan lake.

Me doing my best to keep a pitch and remember the words!

Little did they know at the time that the guest house that they rented was half-house half-recording studio! After we talked to the guy who owned the place and he found out we were both musicians, he left the studio unlocked for us to play around with whenever we want. It was stocked with a full drumset, a grand piano, a double-keyboard set up, a Fender Stratocaster and a few mics. Ben sat down at the drums and I grabbed the Strat and we had a rockin good time. We played things like Hotel California and Mad World as well as random stuff we made up on the spot. We didn't actually record anything, we just played the instruments and had a good time.

Ben rockin' out on the drums