Sibilance

[Cluttermagnet]

Roadie Dirk Ristdagger strode purposefully to the microphone at center stage. A hush of quickly suppressed applause broke out from the audience, followed by nervous laughter. Ristdagger grinned inwardly, having experienced this amusing crowd behavior many times before.

Test!...Testing...Test!

boasted Roadie Dirk...

Sibilance... sibilance...Testing...Test!

he intoned, in his best roadie manner.The sound guy at the mixer panel gave him the thumbs up and the old roadie left the stage. All the eyes that briefly focused on him from the audience never failed to creep him out.

I never understood why any sane person would want to shed the Romulan Cloak of Invisibility and perform before a large audience...

he mused...

[Guest LilBambi]

*tap* *tap* *tap*Is this thing on?

[zlim]

ImgBam test for Surf Naked

[zlim]

Imgboot testing the 4 options: previewing 1 and 2 no good, 3 and 4 okay.

[Cluttermagnet]

Surf naked? Why, I'm in a tux right now. Just got in from giving the keynote address at Procrastinators International (our local chapter where I'm President for Life). Edit: Say, Fran- why don't you move this to the Cooler, Please? B)We don't want Roadie Dirk's formative years to get deleted in the Testing Forum again (do we?)Never mind, don't answer that.The origins of loudspeaker surfing shall remain- ah, 'murky'.

Edited September 12, 2010 by Urmas
Topic moved as per Clutter's pretty please –Urmas

[striker]

Brrrrrrrrrrr, you'd better don't get a flu then.

[sunrat]

I am a sound guy and have to do that "test, test" thing sometimes. The audience doesn't really see you at all.

[Cluttermagnet]

I am a sound guy and have to do that "test, test" thing sometimes. The audience doesn't really see you at all.

True enough. I have seen that the vast majority of sound setup is performed quite unobtrusively. But I have personally witnessed the 'false applause' incidents where a crew member, for whatever reason, approaches the mic on center stage to do sound checks. And the audience, impatiently waiting for the opening act to take the stage, is briefly fooled into mistaking the sound guy for a performer. So muted applause breaks out, however briefly, followed by moans and laughter. Most of the audience 'gets it', but not all. I've witnessed this any number of times- not often, but often enough.No, I was not that guy at the mic.Oh, and one guy really did say "sibilance" one time. That long ago moment is burned into my memory for some reason. He seemed to be rather enjoying his 15 seconds of fame. "Sibilance" is a fancy sounding word that essentially means 'treble' or 'hissy consonants'. And it is 'hissy', so it probably serves as a good 'treble check', I guess. Edit: BTW anyone know why they murdered music? I remember back when they still performed music.(Clutter dons flameproof suit and ducks behind barricades...) Edited September 16, 2010 by Cluttermagnet

[Tushman]

BTW anyone know why they murdered music? I remember back when they still performed music.(Clutter dons flameproof suit and ducks behind barricades...)

Funny you should make such a comment. I was thinking about the state of 'rock & roll' these days and the great bands we used to listen to when I was growing up. I still listen to Bob Seger & Journey very once in a while. I grew up with great music in the 80s & there was nothing like it. Of course if you're a child of the 70s, you might argue the same. Either way, they made great music in both decades. The way I see, the the 'hey days' are long gone. There's only copycats and just crap out there now.I realize that as I say this, every generation has probably gone through something similar, with parents yelling out "what is that crap?!" I wasn't old enough but, I hear when Elvis first burst on the scene that parents from that generation called his music crap and much much worse.Seriously - kids out there don't know what good music is even if it smacked them in the face. Edited September 16, 2010 by Tushman

[sunrat]

Different soundguys have different ways of checking the sound, usually for tuning the monitor system. You just need a woofy sound and a hissy sound to check a wide range of frequencies. Some use the old "test 1-2", some recite Shakespeare. One of my faves is "check, cash, credit".

Edit: BTW anyone know why they murdered music? I remember back when they still performed music.

I'm staying out of that one! I'll just say I don't listen to "pop" music any more. Lots of "classic" rock, 60s-90s pop, country, jazz, African and other world music, reggae, some current "alternative" stuff like Animal Collective and Sigur Ros, and a little classical.

[Cluttermagnet]

I'm rather enjoying the 'world music' thing lately. I got introduced to the work of the late Charlie Gillet (sp?) on the BBC this past year. Charlie played a wonderfully eclectic collection of world music, and they are re-airing some of his old shows currently.One prize find for me: I was hearing a piece faintly from the living room one evening as we sat having a late dinner in the adjoining room. "Shhh!", I said, and I ended up going into the living room and catching Charlie's name at the end of the show. I did a little searching on the BBC site and came up with a listing of that show. It had streams of every song he played in that half hour program. I quickly figured out what had so entranced me.It just goes to show that there is an exception to every rule. Although I largely have no use at all for this current generation of 'music' (very loosely speaking), I found a rare exception. From the 'hip hop' sub genre of rap, comes this 'crossover' song by Cut Chemist:The GardenThe link above has a stream of that piece. I found it captivating, hypnotic, addictive. Maybe that comes from having had my nervous system musically 'retuned' in the 60's. Anyway, it's a highly 'sampled' version of Astrud Gilberto's "Berimbau". If you go look up the lyrics and their English translation, it is actually deeply philosophical. Go figure. This is actually fairly musical for the hip hop genre. About 2 minutes into this 6+ minute track, it goes Bossa Nova, in a very nice sort of way. BTW this is a pretty inspired and creative adaptation of the original song. There is some pretty good string and percussion going on in the piece. I'm not at all surprised this was a breakout number for Cut Chemist. I found the rest of that album not very inspiring, however. I just never got into the rap...Sample of the original "berimbau" on Amazon here.A couple of translations of the lyrics here.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Cluttermagnet

[sunrat]

Nice track Clutter. There are some pretty interesting remix tracks around like this. Take note, however , of what it says on the page:

This isn’t rap, it is hip hop. For those who don’t know the difference, turn on the radio and listen to what’s being played. That is rap.

I think "rap" refers to the rhythmic vocal style which went steadily downhill after Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" (1982), possibly the first rap hit.A berimbau is an African single-stringed bowed instrument consisting of a stick and a coconut. It is the sound heard at the start of the track. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berimbau

[lewmur]

Funny you should make such a comment. I was thinking about the state of 'rock & roll' these days and the great bands we used to listen to when I was growing up. I still listen to Bob Seger & Journey very once in a while. I grew up with great music in the 80s & there was nothing like it. Of course if you're a child of the 70s, you might argue the same. Either way, they made great music in both decades. The way I see, the the 'hey days' are long gone. There's only copycats and just crap out there now.I realize that as I say this, every generation has probably gone through something similar, with parents yelling out "what is that crap?!" I wasn't old enough but, I hear when Elvis first burst on the scene that parents from that generation called his music crap and much much worse.Seriously - kids out there don't know what good music is even if it smacked them in the face.

Yeah, every generation. As far as I'm concerned, the "hey days" ended about 1950. There hasn't been any "great music" since the Big Band era.

[Cluttermagnet]

Yeah, every generation. As far as I'm concerned, the "hey days" ended about 1950. There hasn't been any "great music" since the Big Band era.

There was some very cool stuff written and performed in the 1930's. I'm very fond of a lot of it including Glen Miller et al. They were also putting out some terrific jazz in that era. We have a wonderful weekly program on one of the PBS outlets in our area that features music of that era. He calls it "Hot Jazz Saturday Night". Good stuff. But I did like the Beatles. They made music even more 'mood altering' than it had been in previous generations. And that's saying a lot.

[Cluttermagnet]

Nice track Clutter. There are some pretty interesting remix tracks around like this. Take note, however , of what it says on the page:I think "rap" refers to the rhythmic vocal style which went steadily downhill after Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" (1982), possibly the first rap hit.A berimbau is an African single-stringed bowed instrument consisting of a stick and a coconut. It is the sound heard at the start of the track. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berimbau

Very interesting. Yes, I had detected the presence of some sort of African instrument in the track. I think I had at least a hazy consciousness of the difference between the two genres. I have no use for rap, personally. So much wasted creativity goes into it. Sad. Too bad. I experience it as sort of like getting lectured by an angry street person- to a beat. Hip hop I generally find slightly less offensive than rap, though just barely. Ironic- although it is a highly derivative form, you can clearly hear the music desperately trying to escape, at times... Edited September 18, 2010 by Cluttermagnet

[ross549]

I'll just say I don't listen to "pop" music any more. Lots of "classic" rock, 60s-90s pop, country, jazz, African and other world music, reggae, some current "alternative" stuff like Animal Collective and Sigur Ros, and a little classical.

Wow- someone else who knows who Sigur Ros is.... :)Adam

[sunrat]

Wow- someone else who knows who Sigur Ros is....

Yep, awesome! You may also like music by fellow Icelanders Mum, and Jonsi the singer from Sigur Ros has a good album called "Go", as well as an excellent unreleased live show from Amsterdam available on some torrent sites.Funny after I mentioned those two bands as "current". I realized they have both been around over 10 years. Edited September 28, 2010 by sunrat

[Cluttermagnet]

clutter, the track gets better as it progresses, glad i didn't just cut it off.

Glad you liked it. One of the rare few that 'broke through' for me. That field is largely a 'vast wasteland' IMO. Edited November 2, 2010 by Cluttermagnet