Blog Post #2

Vocal Blend– In an A Capella setting with multiple voice parts and a diverse range of vocal timbres, negotiating for a unified sound is an ever-present challenge. Having good blend requires each group-member to continually refresh their attention to the quality of the voices around them and to conform to the shape of the sound that the whole group is aiming for at any given moment. This term also applies to balancing the dynamics between parts and individuals so that the appropriate parts are highlighted at a given time.

Breath Support– This term refers to the singer's ability to sing with clarity at all dynamic levels (especially quieter moments) by properly orienting themselves with their internal breathing mechanism and instrument. Having good breath support allows the singer to more finely manipulate their dynamics within a phrase to imbue it with more artistry, and also to sing longer phrases with fewer interruptions (breaths). To the listener, this has the effect of giving the resulting sound a smooth unbroken surface.

Tall Vowels– This is a key component to vocal blend, especially in a more traditional choral setting. Features of someone singing with tall vowels is a more mature, full, sound, and a less distinct, more blendable, timbre. To sing with an open vowel, the singer must create a great deal of space in their mouth by voluntarily lifting the soft palate (the fleshy tissue at the roof of the mouth about a thumb's length from the mouth's opening).

It's not a rigid term, per se, but more of a commonly shared sentiment among a portion of the populace that aligns with the idea that A Cappella singing isn't worthy of being taken seriously as a musical outlet. More often than I would like, when I tell someone that I'm a member of an A Cappella group, I'm lumped into a category of people that are obsessed with the "Pitch Perfect" trilogy and that thrive off of the drama showcased in such films. At the same time, I don't get very upset when this automatic conflation occurs because one would have trouble understanding the joys of singing with a group of close friends that have common musical goals if they have never had an interest in doing so themselves. As for the legitimacy for this genres existence in terms of listenability, I find it fascinating to listen to when the human voice can do outside of a strictly tonal context. Some members of the A Cappella community have tremendous control over the percussive nature of their mouths and that is intensely entertaining to hear being integrated into a tonal texture.

Blog Post #2

Direction-  The word direction is very important to me for my musical/creative process.  I like to come up with some sort of direction for whatever I am working on, but in a very natural way.  This direction can be shaped, changed, or even completely scrapped as I progress.  I believe having some sort of original direction that is not concrete can help you to take a good idea and make something truly great

Authentic- When I am creating something, particularly music, it is important to me that the product is authentic to myself and my experiences.  When looking back on a completed project, it is refreshing to see a work that is reflective and unique of one's individual experience and processes.  This is a concept that can be applied to a group of collaborators as well.  In a collaboration, I would want to end up with work that equally reflects each group member's strengths. 

Creativity/Experimentation- I believe that going into a project with a really open mind of many possibilities for the directions you can take is essential.  In this class I definitely want to experiment with new ideas and processes, but also see what my creative process and previous experience can bring to the group.

I believe that people often assume PAT majors are only skilled in areas of music technology.  While this is one of our areas of study, every PAT major I have met is an extremely well rounded musician, and is able to think creatively at a high level. 

Reflections on Collaborations

With apologies for my absence, here is are results of our discussion in week 1:

Features of Successful Collaborations	Features of Unsuccessful Collaborations
Good communication; speaking AND listening with respect	Too many leaders / directions
Timely responses	Ego
Willingness to experiment	Going above / around collaborators
Trying out ideas or suggestions before dismissing them	Uneven delegation of work
Overcoming presumptions	Lack of responsiveness
Explicit expectations	Failure to follow through
Aligning expectations	Uneven sharing of credit
Defining roles and responsibilities
Not getting too attached to ideas
Common goals
Shared ground and common investment

Positive ways of dealing with friction	Negative ways of dealing with friction
Asking about it	Pretending it isn’t there
Not taking it personally	Assuming consensus
Understanding effect is not the same as intent	Avoiding conflict
Giving the benefit of the doubt	Sabotage
Explaining the offence	Manipulation
Admitting when you are wrong

Blog Assignment #2 - Jacob Rogers

Counterpoint - a lot of music majors read 'counterpoint' and think the restrictive pedagogic species counterpoint we all had to study Freshman year, which isn't not counterpoint, but is a narrow mode of studying it. Counterpoint to me is more a massive metaphor for the way two disparate bodies interact, whether that's melodic lines producing tonal harmony, a drummer and a bassist bouncing syncopation off of each other, dancers reacting and adapting to each others' movements. Its the study of the way things interact with different things, and how that relates to expression.
Form - another pretty universal term, but an important one. Form to me is whatever makes the structure of a piece of art function. In music its often used to refer to idiomatic tropes (12-bar blues, 32 bar song-form, sonata form) but in a broader sense its a means of thinking about how structural events are spaced out and paced.
Tonal Music - this is more of a pet peeve than anything, and something I hear people within my field mix up all the time too. Tonal and modal are not synonyms. Tonal and diatonic are not synonyms. In some bizarre turn, a lot of people seem to think that if music isn't atonal, than it is by default tonal, which isn't true at all. Tonality functions on specific hierarchical divisions of chordal weight, and pivots on the relationship of the V chord and the I chord. If it doesn't do that, if V resolving to I isn't the centerpiece of the whole piece, its probably not tonal music.

A word that plagues me, and has been a source of dissent for composers for generations, is honestly 'Classical Music'. The term bears a massive history of elitism and classism, racism, sexism, etc., and for most of the population calls to mind conservatism and antiquity. There are many 'classical' composers that I adore, but I see small interplay between much of their music and most of my music. Yet the idea of composed music has become so intrinsically chained to a very specific European tradition that its inescapable. To the point that I only know how to describe what I do to most people as classical music. Its a burden.
Also 'chamber music' but that's a different rant.

Blog post 2

1. "Workflow" is usually used in the context of DAW usage, and describes the development of a quick and convenient way of navigating the program. It is important to develop a good workflow to make editing/mixing/producing as efficient as possible.

2. "Sampling" is the use of a pre existing recording in a new musical context. It has been pivotal in the evolution of a variety of genres.

3. "Hook" is a melody in a song that draws the listener in. It is usually in the chorus of a song. It is important to have a good hook when composing popular music.

I have experienced music students outside of PAT assuming that I don't know theory or have experience in playing in more traditional ensembles. They assume PAT is all about the tech side of music, when in reality, most of us started out playing classical or jazz. The concepts learned from these backgrounds are still important in songwriting and production.

Blog Post # 2

1. Hitting the shed is something a lot of instrumentalists, especially in the jazz world, use a lot. When someone says that they have to go "hit the shed", they really mean that they have to go practice or hit the woodshed. A lot of times this term can get misconstrued, even by more classical players, but it's a term that's always been in the back of my mind as being very specific and different.

2. A lot of the time, I call certain microphones by their number, as is the case with a lot of audio engineers, and with all these random numbers flying around, it can be kind of confusing. When someone says that they want to use a 414 on the cab, or they wan to put a 52 on the kick, that can get really confusing to someone who's never heard those terms before, but to someone with that experience, it makes perfect sense.

3. This term hasn't been cleared up with me until recently actually, but working "in the box" means that you're doing everything in your DAW on on your computer, digitally. It means not working with a lot of outboard gear, or things of that nature. Not actually working in a box of some sort.


I think a lot of times when I tell people I'm into music technology or Performing Arts Technology, they instantly assume that I want to work in a studio or move out to LA and that I have limited experience with classical music when that's simply not all there is to PAT. I think also that sometimes when I tell people that I'm a saxophonist, they instantly think of figures like Kenny G and the song Careless Whisper, but fail to see the classical side that I specialize in, and all of the other genres and styles saxophone has been apart of.

Three Words

1. EQ - This is an abbreviation for "equalization", which essentially means changing the decibel level of specific frequencies within a sound source. This is used for a wide variety of purposes that range from enhancing the quality of a sound, making a sound more present in a mix, or lowering the chances of feedback in reinforced audio. It is a term that is used often in such an offhand way that it feels like a term that you have to be "in" on to know and it is used quite often which means that one has to be careful in using it so that everyone in the room understands what they are talking about.

2. Boost/Cut - These terms pertain usually specifically to EQing. They described raising or lowering the decibel level of frequencies within a sound. While these terms make sense in their usage, you could use any other way to describe the same action. Still, these particular words are what people in the field use to describe this process.

3. Aux - This is short for "auxiliary", usually the auxiliary input into an amplifier of some sort such as plugging your phone into car speakers. In many cases, sometimes humorously, I have heard it being used as a verb ("Are you trying to aux?"). It is also a term that is used on almost any mixer or in any sound system.


Producer - I wrote about this term last semester, but I still feel the same way about it. This term holds way too much weight to me. In my mind it means many different things to many different people. I feel like some people when they hear the word "producer" think of a DJ, or of a person sitting in their bedroom in front of a computer, or of a ghost-writer. While these are not all false definitions of a modern-day music producer, the term means so much more to me. I think of a producer as being a composer, recording engineer, musician, technician, psychologist. A lot of people as me if I am studying in school to be a producer. While many of the definitions of a producer in my mind match what some of my interests are and what I am studying in school sometimes, the question makes me uncomfortable and I tend to redefine the term to whoever is asking. It is both a too broad and too limiting term at the same time.

Three Words Assignment

1. I think that DAW is an incredibly useful word in the field of audio. It seems pretty basic- and in fact it is. But in a field where so much of the work is done on a DAW, it’s so much easier to have a one-syllable alternative to the clunky “Digital Audio Workstation.”
2. Another term that I like is abbreviating Sure microphones to simple “57” and “58.” Part of this is for practical reasons, as these are maybe the two most common microphones in audio studios around the world. But it also fits with the microphones’ role as the sort of rugged workhorse of the audio world- calling them their more formal, official names doesn’t seem to fit in with the aesthetic of these microphones.
3. A final word that I enjoy is more from the discipline of “student” rather than audio, but it is the abbreviation of undergrad library as “ugli.” This works for several reasons- ugly is much shorter than undergraduate library for one. But the abbreviation of ugli also reflects how most students feel about the library, especially considering that it is where many students spend miserable hours studying for classes.

A word from outside of the discipline that bothers me is the term “audiophile.” It seems to imply some sort of elitist subculture complete with pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo about improving tone. Or even worse, it suggests that maybe the audio is better, but that the average person would be unable to tell a difference or care. In truth, good audio makes a huge difference even to the untrained ear, and the field is, for the most part, very welcoming even to beginners.

Blogging prompt for week 2

In each discipline, and really in any human endeavor that involves a closed group, the members develop an internal language that has specific meanings and implications for them and either very different, or sometimes little or no meanings for those outside the group.  Even common words or expressions can take on new meanings within a group.

Your blog post should have two parts:

1. What are three of your favorite words or terms from the 'secret language' of your discipline or your own personal practice., and why are you drawn to them, or why are they important to your discipline? Help the rest of the class by explaining what they mean to you, to your discipline, and why they are significant.

2. Conversely, people outside of the group can tend to reduce the inherent richness and diversity of a discipline by using an unfair condensation of one or two words to describe the totality of the group, or by misusing or misunderstanding these terms.  What is the outsider description of your discipline, or a term that people use to describe your discipline that you find to be most inaccurate, reductionist or plain wrong?

Blog Post #1 - Oren Levin

I love to write and perform songs and this video is one of those songs of mine I recently recorded. I chose this video also because I edited the video as well as the mixing and mastering for the track.




I am also very interested in experimenting with contact mics. I like to do sound for film and sound design, so these types of mics may lead to very cool ends as well as cool musical possibilities.