Skip to main content

Sing

Something that I've avoided during most of my time playing music is singing. The reasons why? I can't really sing in a voice that 1) is tuneful to my ear and 2) doesn't rip up my throat. I've never taken singing lessons and am frankly utterly embarrassed by my attempts to properly sing lead. That's probably why I like doing songs in karaoke where I don't have to properly sing. Doing "Copacabana," "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," and "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" don't necessarily require pipes; you just have to talk really fast.

Well, something has recently developed where I actually sing harmonies, and I don't feel weird about it.

Playing music with my friend Nick is always something I've enjoyed. We played together in the 11:30s and have jammed for fun many times since then. There's a great degree of comfortability in playing with him, and I don't feel self-conscious about trying different things out. One of those things is backing him up vocally on a number of songs he's been cooking up for the last few years. Since I'm familiar with most of these songs, I figured during one late-night jam to just sing along. Doing that didn't feel weird, so I've kept doing it since then.

I've seen plenty of examples as to why a drummer should not sing. Trying to hold a note in tune is hard when you're craning your neck as you're using your entire body to keep the beat. One very memorable moment I saw firsthand involved a Fort Worth-based band that one of my bands opened for. The drummer had no vocals in his monitor, had his vocal mike pretty high in the mix, and his voice was nowhere close to being in the right key during the entire set. I think I swore off drummer vocal mikes after that, but I've come around.

So, this leads me to where I am now; fine with singing in the background, but really have no interest in singing up in front.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J