Another in a string of minor miracles unfolded when I ran into my next door neighbor, Wayne at the Goodwill Store.
I was looking for a selfie stick type apparatus, so as to hold my phone closer to my head when I record my busking sessions.
Through serendipity, I left my phone with the "audio recorder" running for almost an entire day, last week. I think I turned it on planning to record Bob's radio show on AM 800, and then wound up forgetting that that was why it had been placed near the radio. I threw it in my backpack before going out to busk.
The next day, I had the amusement of fast forwarding through almost an entire day of audio, hearing myself humming to myself: "Dixie Lilly," by Elton John, which was stuck in my head that day, then hearing myself pedaling my bike and mumbling about the skeezers along the way "Can I have something for free at your expense?" along with other clips of people that I had run into and exchanged words with.
But, the crowning jewel was the almost two hours of busking, when the phone, its microphone peeking out of the top of one of the pockets in the bag, captured the sound, and gave me a truly candid sample of how I sound when I don't think I am recording myself, and even when I don't think anyone is within ear-shot at the Lilly Pad.
I wondered how close I came to obtaining a recording of me being arrested, preceding perhaps 15 days of silence as the thing sat in the property room at the jail, because I wasn't sure if the situation with the cop had resolved itself.
It was a pleasant surprise. I didn't sound bad, to me, at all.
In fact, listening to it in the apartment, I was entranced by it and found myself in the same state of mind with the same sense of well-being that I get at the Lilly Pad; one of the few occasions when I don't fear death, and think that I am enacting my purpose in life, as if everything before and after is just preparation for it. No wonder I get butterflies in my stomach as the time to go out and busk approaches. Like right now. It is 9:38 PM.
So, I got the idea to record my busking sessions each night. My phone will hold something like 150 hours of me doing that.
Every once in a while the stars will align and it will be quiet there at the same time I am playing well.
Plus, there are the comments made by people, mostly positive (the "You suck!" messenger hasn't been around for at least a year) that could be used on a future CD as samples of some kind.
And, when I had my head turned in the direction of the phone, the vocals cut through the mix yielding a pretty decent live recording.
If I could just find a selfie stick, I would be able to elevate the phone upon it, perhaps leaning it up against the gate right by my head so it would be a foot away from my mouth and two and a half feet from the guitar.
I told Wayne about looking for such a thing. This led to a discussion during which I told him that I was thinking about buying more data for my government phone so as to use it as a hot spot.
Wayne said: "I told you I'd give you my password, so you could use my network..."
He was wondering why I had never asked him for it.
I had asked him, about two years ago. It was when Travis Blaine was staying with me. Whatever he had said at the time, I misunderstood as being "no."
I had blamed it upon the presence of Travis Blaine. I thought maybe Wayne was hesitant to give me the password, knowing that Blaine would also be privy to it. Maybe he wanted to tell me that he would give it to me some time when this strange "special snowflake" of a person who was crashing at my place for 20 bucks a night was not around, but didn't want to say that in front of him.
So, I now have access to wi-fi in my apartment, without having had to purchase data for my government phone (upon which my free monthly 2 gigabytes lasted approximately 5 days) or to start paying T-Mobile 52 bucks per month for unlimited data. And, to top it off, I am pretty sure Wayne is on a network that has "blazing" speed, with plenty of bandwidth, an all that. He works for Apple as a customer service rep, right out of his apartment, and was outfitted by them with "all the latest."
This might mean the return, after 4 months away, to blogging almost every day.
Now it is almost 10 PM on a Tuesday night, and, having received such a blessing as free internet ("If you ever need anything..." I had said to Wayne) I feel like I should go out and "give back" by playing my songs, exuding peaceful vibes, and showing at least the amount of appreciation to Lilly that using the spot for at least a couple hours would.
Last (Monday) night, I played for about the usual 80 minutes, and got a 10 and a 5 from one group to go along with a few singles on what was to be a 20 dollar night, rounded off.
I guess, if you are reading this, the internet connection works...
Through serendipity, I left my phone with the "audio recorder" running for almost an entire day, last week. I think I turned it on planning to record Bob's radio show on AM 800, and then wound up forgetting that that was why it had been placed near the radio. I threw it in my backpack before going out to busk.
The next day, I had the amusement of fast forwarding through almost an entire day of audio, hearing myself humming to myself: "Dixie Lilly," by Elton John, which was stuck in my head that day, then hearing myself pedaling my bike and mumbling about the skeezers along the way "Can I have something for free at your expense?" along with other clips of people that I had run into and exchanged words with.
But, the crowning jewel was the almost two hours of busking, when the phone, its microphone peeking out of the top of one of the pockets in the bag, captured the sound, and gave me a truly candid sample of how I sound when I don't think I am recording myself, and even when I don't think anyone is within ear-shot at the Lilly Pad.
I wondered how close I came to obtaining a recording of me being arrested, preceding perhaps 15 days of silence as the thing sat in the property room at the jail, because I wasn't sure if the situation with the cop had resolved itself.
It was a pleasant surprise. I didn't sound bad, to me, at all.
In fact, listening to it in the apartment, I was entranced by it and found myself in the same state of mind with the same sense of well-being that I get at the Lilly Pad; one of the few occasions when I don't fear death, and think that I am enacting my purpose in life, as if everything before and after is just preparation for it. No wonder I get butterflies in my stomach as the time to go out and busk approaches. Like right now. It is 9:38 PM.
So, I got the idea to record my busking sessions each night. My phone will hold something like 150 hours of me doing that.
Every once in a while the stars will align and it will be quiet there at the same time I am playing well.
Plus, there are the comments made by people, mostly positive (the "You suck!" messenger hasn't been around for at least a year) that could be used on a future CD as samples of some kind.
And, when I had my head turned in the direction of the phone, the vocals cut through the mix yielding a pretty decent live recording.
If I could just find a selfie stick, I would be able to elevate the phone upon it, perhaps leaning it up against the gate right by my head so it would be a foot away from my mouth and two and a half feet from the guitar.
I told Wayne about looking for such a thing. This led to a discussion during which I told him that I was thinking about buying more data for my government phone so as to use it as a hot spot.
Wayne said: "I told you I'd give you my password, so you could use my network..."
He was wondering why I had never asked him for it.
I had asked him, about two years ago. It was when Travis Blaine was staying with me. Whatever he had said at the time, I misunderstood as being "no."
I had blamed it upon the presence of Travis Blaine. I thought maybe Wayne was hesitant to give me the password, knowing that Blaine would also be privy to it. Maybe he wanted to tell me that he would give it to me some time when this strange "special snowflake" of a person who was crashing at my place for 20 bucks a night was not around, but didn't want to say that in front of him.
So, I now have access to wi-fi in my apartment, without having had to purchase data for my government phone (upon which my free monthly 2 gigabytes lasted approximately 5 days) or to start paying T-Mobile 52 bucks per month for unlimited data. And, to top it off, I am pretty sure Wayne is on a network that has "blazing" speed, with plenty of bandwidth, an all that. He works for Apple as a customer service rep, right out of his apartment, and was outfitted by them with "all the latest."
This might mean the return, after 4 months away, to blogging almost every day.
Now it is almost 10 PM on a Tuesday night, and, having received such a blessing as free internet ("If you ever need anything..." I had said to Wayne) I feel like I should go out and "give back" by playing my songs, exuding peaceful vibes, and showing at least the amount of appreciation to Lilly that using the spot for at least a couple hours would.
Last (Monday) night, I played for about the usual 80 minutes, and got a 10 and a 5 from one group to go along with a few singles on what was to be a 20 dollar night, rounded off.
I guess, if you are reading this, the internet connection works...
In my experience, the "You Suck!" guy/gal is close to being a myth. I've also never been asked to play "Freebird" either, which is too bad because it's kind of a neat tune.
ReplyDeleteIt'd be great if you can get internet access from Wayne. Internet access is both difficult to get, and expensive. I live in, if the internet can be said to have a center, the center of the internet and access here is especially crappy because the class system is particularly vicious here. The first 5 years here in San Jose I had no internet unless I wanted to go to a coffee shop or to the local card room. I finally got internet when my boss realized it would help him, so now I have just enough access to do Ebay business and watch YouTube videos in 640x480. It takes over an hour to upload one minute of video to YouTube so YouTube's out and I suspect uploading any audio to anywhere is the same, so that's out also.
As far as criticism of your "music" goes, I've found people to tell me I'm awful only the times I was really and truly awful. You're a guitar-playing skeezer. The bar is low. People are gonna reward you as long as you don't have a needle hanging out of your arm etc. and you can play recognizable chords.
OK I'm thinking, get one of those cheap folding music stands, stand it next to you, and rubberband the phone to it, pointing toward you etc. A grab-and-run phone thief won't want to deal with it (where they might be find with grabbing a little selfie stick sort of thing).
ReplyDelete