I realize that this news was quite old, but I didn't even hear about it until recently. This is about the sad passing of Jorge Avendaño. He was the 6th grade band teacher at Zach White Elementary and several other westside El Paso elementary schools. I only had him in 6th grade, but he always remembered me throughout junior high, high school, and I even saw him when I was at UTEP and he remembered me. He was also the tuba player for the symphony.
I remember that he was very well liked. Just a very nice man and apparently generous as well:
Benefit for Jorge Avendaño
All I know is that he made band fun enough for me to continue. I know that a lot of people lose interest in music during school - I'll talk about my high school experience later - but suffice to say, I owe this man a lot. For me personally, he was my single point of introduction to formal music. I continued playing trombone through college and part of that had to be because when I first started it was made fun enough for me to continue. Sure, my parents encouraged me to play, but I was the one who had wanted to be in band, and I can only imagine that things would be much different had I not liked the first year.
The music world needs more Jorge Avendaños. People who are willing to take a group of 6th graders and teach them how to play an instrument and more importantly to make it fun!
Keep in mind, he did this year after year after year. I would see that as punishment. One would almost wonder what he had done in a past life to deserve this! He had to love what he did. Imagine what he had to listen to every day of his working life. Lots of squeaks and splats!
Thank you Mr. A.
I mean Jorge.
(He told me when I ran into him at UTEP once that me calling him "Mr. Avendaño" made him feel old)
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Sunday, June 8, 2008
A few samples
I'm going to point a few samples of music that have come out of my "studio" over the last year. I'm working on putting together a timeline of my recording, but haven't gotten there yet. So here is just a smattering of things I've done over the last year and some notes about each.
Jammin 3
Jammin 3 is just one of a series of jams I put together about a month ago. It all started with me grabbing a drum track and laying down rhythm tracks for the chords to Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Knockin has always been a favorite jam tune for myself and friends and since I was more focused on getting more full songs down on tape, it worked well.
This was a more acoustic version - rhythm and lead guitars are both my acoustic Takamine, there's a second rhythm track that is a Gibson Chet Atkins SST, and the drums and bass are both MIDI. I found the drums online (don't remember where) and I recorded the bass myself.
My fiance and I put Stay down roughly a year ago. I had just gotten my new mic (AT3035) and we were playing around one night to test it. Turns out it was a good take. I wanted to add drums, but since we did it without metronome there's some time problems (your genius gutiarist over here doesn't have the best rhythm in the world), and so I went back and manually added MIDI drums. I also added bass via MIDI, but this song is in a tough key and there's mistakes there. One day I hope to redo this song from scratch, but this was a fun take and still sounds pretty good.
1) With the exception of the vocal part, I wrote and recorded all the other parts. The piano, the bass, the cello, the guitar. I wrote the music in Finale Notepad and then exported to MIDI for the piano, bass, and cello. The guitar parts were recorded with microphone and my fiance put the lead vocals over it.
2) Its a solid recording. I cut and re-recorded and rewrote parts until neither me nor my fiance could stand it anymore. In fact, I had gotten to where I hated this recording until I left it alone for a few months. I thought there was too much reverb, just didn't sound right ect. Now I can listen to it and appreciate it for the original vision - a church sung version of O Holy Night. I have gotten some comments that it sounds a little "over produced" and I'm sure my fiance and I will rework for another Christmas sometime, but in many ways I wanted to "overproduce" it - I wanted lots of parts, I wanted lots of instruments, I wanted big church reverb and I accomplished all those things.
Jammin 3
Jammin 3 is just one of a series of jams I put together about a month ago. It all started with me grabbing a drum track and laying down rhythm tracks for the chords to Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Knockin has always been a favorite jam tune for myself and friends and since I was more focused on getting more full songs down on tape, it worked well.
This was a more acoustic version - rhythm and lead guitars are both my acoustic Takamine, there's a second rhythm track that is a Gibson Chet Atkins SST, and the drums and bass are both MIDI. I found the drums online (don't remember where) and I recorded the bass myself.
My fiance and I put Stay down roughly a year ago. I had just gotten my new mic (AT3035) and we were playing around one night to test it. Turns out it was a good take. I wanted to add drums, but since we did it without metronome there's some time problems (your genius gutiarist over here doesn't have the best rhythm in the world), and so I went back and manually added MIDI drums. I also added bass via MIDI, but this song is in a tough key and there's mistakes there. One day I hope to redo this song from scratch, but this was a fun take and still sounds pretty good.
I would have to say that this is one of my best overall recordings to date for a number of reasons. It was recorded at Christmastime of 2007.
1) With the exception of the vocal part, I wrote and recorded all the other parts. The piano, the bass, the cello, the guitar. I wrote the music in Finale Notepad and then exported to MIDI for the piano, bass, and cello. The guitar parts were recorded with microphone and my fiance put the lead vocals over it.
2) Its a solid recording. I cut and re-recorded and rewrote parts until neither me nor my fiance could stand it anymore. In fact, I had gotten to where I hated this recording until I left it alone for a few months. I thought there was too much reverb, just didn't sound right ect. Now I can listen to it and appreciate it for the original vision - a church sung version of O Holy Night. I have gotten some comments that it sounds a little "over produced" and I'm sure my fiance and I will rework for another Christmas sometime, but in many ways I wanted to "overproduce" it - I wanted lots of parts, I wanted lots of instruments, I wanted big church reverb and I accomplished all those things.
Welcome!
Welcome to Rob's Studio!
In the inaugural post for this blog, I'm just going to talk briefly about my purpose in creating this forum and to list out what I hope this blog will become.
At the end of the day, I just want this forum to be fun and interesting. I want opinions and comments about my recordings and what I post. I want to hear from others - whether you are a home recording artist or someone who enjoys music. I am an amateur. I don't do music full time, but I am very passionate about it. I think we as a society have lost the idea of amateur music and amateur musicians - I want to proudly declare that I do music on the side, I have a day job, I was NOT a music major, and I still enjoy every minute of it!
In the inaugural post for this blog, I'm just going to talk briefly about my purpose in creating this forum and to list out what I hope this blog will become.
- First and foremost I'm going to use this as a forum for posting my home recordings. I'm always happy to hear comments and suggestions on my recordings and I encourage others who are recording at home to send me what they're doing.
- Second, I hope to post about the music I'm listening to lately, and especially how its influencing my recording. Sometimes its more about how good a certain album sounds or what things I hear in a album that I don't like. I also want to post about artists who aren't well known.
- Third, I hope to post about the little bit of music theory that I know and how to apply that to songwriting and recording. I became interested in building chords and theory in high school when I was first learning guitar. Even though I never majored in music, I took enough guitar lessons - both classical and jazz - in college to learn a fair amount of theory. What I'm finding out is that theory is elusive for many musicians, even trained ones! I hope that I can post some hints and tips that have helped me over the years.
- Fourth, I will talk about my opinions in music. I played trombone and tuba all through college. I was not that good, but enjoyed it. It wasn't until high school that I started playing guitar and my musicianship REALLY took off. I have some strong opinions on what music education has becomes and the sad shape of adult musicianship that exists today.
At the end of the day, I just want this forum to be fun and interesting. I want opinions and comments about my recordings and what I post. I want to hear from others - whether you are a home recording artist or someone who enjoys music. I am an amateur. I don't do music full time, but I am very passionate about it. I think we as a society have lost the idea of amateur music and amateur musicians - I want to proudly declare that I do music on the side, I have a day job, I was NOT a music major, and I still enjoy every minute of it!
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