#put this in my drafts last night after playing this sequence and like pacing around my apartment for a few minutes bc ITS SO GOOD

[luckyguyy]

when Petrice is getting absolutely shut down by the Grand Cleric and then suddenly she gets shot in the chest with an arrow

and then it’s revealed a Qunari archer has snuck in

and then he shoots her again in the fucking head

and then you’re all just standing there looking at each other

and then Grand Cleric just calmly and coldly goes “Please, send for Viscount Dumar” from the staircase

FUCK

game of all time for real

[moonsandmelodies]

5 Underrated Game Soundtracks, as selected by Brevyn

Pictured: Sound Shapes

Criteria: Video game music with little exposure or no release outside the game.

After editing down my behemoth draft for what felt like forever, I have my own VGM list! As I’ve known most of these for 5+ years, doing my own list proved challenging, but I tried. See the entries from my friends Marilyn Roxie and Jan if you haven’t yet!

5. Various - Sound Shapes, 2012

Sound Shapes is a unique PS3 platformer where music is crucial. Finding coins adds new notes and rhythms to what you hear. Visit the level editor to see they’ve merged a sequencer with the 2D platformer grid.

With cute, colorful designs and no plot, SS is a calming escapist experience. The songs match this with their thoughtful, organic downtempo sound. They form simple melody-loops through synths, e-piano, mallets and other clear-cut sounds. These are refreshing, simple songs with a wide appeal. They could open the gate to enjoying EM for outside listeners and kids. This game makes both music and level design easy to grasp.

In the end, only Jim Guthrie’s Corporeal songs had their own release. I found this odd; what’s a musical game with no full soundtrack? I’d love full versions for Robot And Proud songs like “Aquatica”, similar as his other work gets. As time flies, the SS hype fades and a sequel looks doubtful. A true shame when the PS4 holds so much potential for their concept.

4. Jack Hall - Neopets: The Darkest Faerie, 2005

Yes, Neopets had a video game, and even it had good music. The Darkest Faerie’s sound is pure new age fantasy with flutes and celtic harp twinkling  in every corner. Battle themes aside, Hall fills the game with a strong sense of travel and enchanted feather-light ambience. Many songs ramble as a result, but his themes for known Neopets lands are clear peaks. “Meridell” takes every tone a medieval town needs; proud, tender, casual, a tad lonely. “Faerieland” is what you expect; cloudy new age bliss dipped in choir and rosy flute. Both songs recall Enya’s hits to charming effect. A moment I love is the sad little harp heard in Brightvale Outskirts.

While I can’t say ‘play all 101 songs together!’ I can direct you to my playlist of favorites.

3. Spencer Nilsen - Ecco The Dolphin Sega CD, 1993

Oh, Ecco. I didn't have to play the actual game to admire him. How? Hearing the Sega CD music. The SCD added CD audio to the Genesis, making this live VGM before the Nintendo 64. This gives us a rich, gorgeous new age score with all the right Vangelis-isms and then some. Flutes, mallets, piercing drums, synth shimmers; you name it. You say "Aquatic Ambience" is close as early VGM gets to ambient? Hear "Medusa Bay”. 'New age about dolphins’ won't prepare you for something so grim. I'd say the same for the rest, since Nilsen builds it around the high stakes in Ecco's quest to save his stolen pod. It’s a sad story once you look past the weirdness that aliens took them.

The synths perfectly merge space with water. Their cries and warbles reflect both alien threats and the ocean's mystery. Familiar as dolphins are, the lack of humans added to the game's alien aura. Said ‘warbling’ evokes pure water, changing pitch like a horde of popping bubbles. It's vulnerable, it's flexible, it improves any song. One of the best synth sounds I know.

I didn't need five "Machine" reprises, but skipping a few makes this a solid album. As VGM it's truly unique for its time. Hear this if you're a Tangerine Dream and/or Vangelis fan. “Saint Gabriel’s Mask” from the sequel is unmissable too.

2. Julian Soule - Pajama Sam 2: Thunder And Lightning Aren’t So Frightening, 1998

Before point-and-click fell from grace, Humongous Ent. won many awards. Pajama Sam 2 was my favorite. Why? The unique setting: a weather factory in the clouds. At World Wide Weather, talking chairs and living machines plan the weather.

Julian Soule's music completes this easygoing sky-world. His lively tap-along rhythms and piano chords are a great fit for the factory’s constant motion. A key trait is the sax peering through that motion. Not the usual bold, beefy saxo we know; this one is utopian, fittingly dreamlike. Someone make sky-jazz happen, please.

To contrast, the offices play it cooler with a lounge accent. The piano softens, joining warm bass to form some of HE's most relaxing songs. Now I know how I got my knack for easy listening.

I know HE is too niche for a music release, but I hoped for more interest post-vaporwave. After all, the popular Hologram Plaza sampled this game. 

1. Kevin Manthei - Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned For Danger, 1999

With such a wide range, ND's music could fit many lists. I can't choose from 30+ soundtracks, but I know STFD's belongs in my top 5. As the second-ever ND, STFD has many off-putting quirks. Awkward pacing, hammy acting... but the music is a thrilling neo-noir oddity by itself. Noticing it’s depths helped me find more respect for the game.

The persistent gloom was an early-ND quirk. Where the first game had murder, this had death threats. Kevin's strength for domestic yet secretive piano stays, but a jazz accent takes hold. Plucked strings, vibraphone, flute and double bass create a discreet, sinister aura. The intrigue lies in how it portrays NY at night. Themes like “Dwayne Night” and “Ext Night” dive you into the slow tension of trespassing. Empty parking lots and offices filled my mind. For a moment there, 10-year-old me got incredibly curious about the off-limits rooms I’d see in real life. They stress the city's size so well despite lasting under a minute. The '99 PC dust only adds to the effect.

[hoopslab]

By request: Garnett’s early impact (1990s Timberwolves)

In the  RealGM Top 100 Project 2017, there was a call from multiple posters for someone to look back into the early days of Kevin Garnett’s career, in the 1990s, and try to get a handle on his impact in those seasons. To whit: 

“Anywho, lost in all this chatter about how high Russell could jump (lol), next thread I'd appreciate some input on KG's 90's seasons. I feel like the prevailing thought on them is solid allstar level seasons, but not too special, but looking back at some stats/Minny's play at the time I feel that that take underrates him by quite a bit.” -- eminence 

“I'm with eminence - I want to see more about his 90's seasons”.-- micahclay

This sounded interesting, especially since I've written quite a bit in previous threads about Duncan and I've written several posts in the last day about Wilt and how he compares. Since they're the two frontrunners for this spot, and so far no one's really engaged or pushed back on any of my recent posts, it seems like a good time to do something different. So, 90s KG. 

KG graduated high school the same year that I did, so I paid attention that he was drafted. But I was going to school myself, Georgia Tech, so I didn't have as much time to watch the NBA as I had before and would in a few years. I got to Tech the same year as Stephon Marbury, who electrified campus, and when he went to the pros I paid more attention to his team...the Timberwolves, who the year before had drafted Garnett. So, let's step back a bit and look at Timberwolves history, and how KG came in and changed it. And try to get a better grip on what level his seasons were.

The Timberwolves were an expansion team that came into existence in 1990. Like almost all expansion teams, they basically reaked. In the three years before the 1995 season, they averaged 18 wins a year. In 1995 they won 21 games with a -8.22 SRS. Their main players to end the season was Isaiah Rider, Christian Laettner, Doug West and Tom Gugliotta.

KG as rookie, 95 - 96 season

In the 1995 draft, the Timberwolves became the first team to draft a player straight out of high school in decades. Garnett was a great prospect, but there was no template on what to expect from high schoolers. He started off the season coming off the bench. Googs, Rider, and Laettner were the main starters with Sam Mitchell and Terry Porter also in the mix. Here's a Youtube video of highlights from KG's first career game:

There are some fun elements in this five minute video. First, it's incredible how skinny he is. Second, right from jump, he's playing small forward (he's guarding Walt Williams). He comes off the bench, but one of the announcers mentioned that in preseason he was the team's leading shot-blocker. He has a couple of really good passes, one of them a semi-no look on the break off a steal. And, he knocks down a 22-footer from the top of the key to show that he already had a solid jumper even straight out of high school. KG came off the bench for the first 40 games of his rookie season, as the team tried to take it slow with him. In the games before he became a full-time starter (he did have one spot start in there), KG averaged 19.5 minutes per game, in which he scored 6.3 points (40.6% FG, 69% FT), grabbed 3.8 rebounds, dished 1.2 assists, blocked 0.9 shots, and added 0.8 steals with 1.2 turnovers. His average game score was 5.1. The Timberwolves were 11 - 29 in those 40 games (28% win percentage), similar to the pace that led them to their 21 - 61 record the year before (26% win percentage). About halfway through the season, he moved into the starting line-up. And he immediately began to play more like a future impact player. Garnett was "all legs and arms", as my grandma used to say, and he was youthful exuberance. He started hitting the glass, and more aggressively looking for his shot. He was everywhere on defense, guarding everyone. In some of the Youtube games I came across, I saw him guarding every position. He has multiple plays guarding point guards (see next clip, against Boston, for him on Dee Brown on multiple plays). Against the Lakers, he guarded everyone from Magic Johnson to Elden Campbell. He was stupidly mobile for a 7-footer, and also seemed to have springs in his legs. He was aggressive on help defense, and since he defended everyone from point guards to centers, the angles of his help defense are unique. On offense, he was comfortable operating in the post with his back to the basket; his jumper was a bit flat, but he showed he could knock it down out to 22 feet; and he showed good court vision with a real willingness to pass. Here's a video from later in his rookie season, in his best scoring effort of the season against Boston.

KG ended up with 33 points (14-for-21 FG, 5-for-6 FT), eight boards, four assists, three blocks, a steal and three turnovers. A few things I noticed in clip. The first two touches they show are both post-ups on the right block, and on consecutive moves he spins over opposite shoulders, making the resulting jumper in middle and getting fouled when he spun baseline. Also in this clip, he switches onto Dee Brown twice on D, once getting a steal and in the other forcing a contested jumper. He also, in the clip, has a nice on-ball blocked shot that he blocks softly to himself, then gets the rebound (and showboats a bit). In the second half of the season, with Garnett starting, the Wolves went 15 - 27 (36% win percentage, but worse MOV than first half). In the 42 games after he became a full-time starter, Garnett would play 36.9 minutes per game, averaging 14.1 points (53% FG, 67% FT) with 8.5 boards, 2.4 assists, 2.3 blocks, 1.3 steals and 1.6 turnovers.

Second year, 96 - 97 season

After finishing the previous season 26 - 56, in the offseason the Wolves drafted Ray Allen, but swapped his rights on draft night for Marbury. Marbury and KG were friends from childhood, and were styled to be the next generation Stockton and Malone. Right away, it was clear that the Wolves were a different team. Led by KG, Marbury and Tom Gugliotta they started piling up wins at a rate unseen in franchise history (low bar, but still).The only Youtube clip I can find for '97 is them against the Bulls. It was put together by a Bulls fan, but there are a few Wolves highlights in there.

Some points of interest from clip. KG is being guarded mainly by Rodman, and at least in the plays shown in the clip, he was giving it to him. At about the 5:30 mark on the clip, then in a montage from about 8 minutes to about 9 minutes, it's just a sequence of KG post-ups, defended mainly by Rodman, where KG just does his drop-step and shoots right over him. Shows his comfort in scoring from the block, and out to the midrange jumper. Around 9:45, KG is guarding Pippen, but helps off onto Jordan (actually overhelps), and Pip goes to the rim and get sthe pass for an easy shot. At 12 minute mark, KG and Rodman get into a pogo contest for the rebound. It's interesting, because one of Rodman's strengths is the quickness of his jumps, but KG gets up and down just as quickly for three straight jumps and wins the match-up as Rodman knocks it out of bounds. This is the lead-up to the famous Rodman-kicks-cameraman incident. On the season, Googs, KG and Marbury lead the squad. Gugliatta has by-far the best season of his career next to Garnett (a phenomenon that would be common in KG's career) and made his only All Star team (ditto); Marbury makes the All-Rookie team; Garnett makes his first All Star team as well; and the Wolves win a team-record 40 games and make the playoffs. In the postseason they face the Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets (57 - 25), and the young Wolves look happy just to be there as they are swept by the veterans. On the season, Garnett averages 17 points (54% TS), 8 boards, 3.1 assists, 2.1 blocks, 1.4 steals and 2.3 turnovers. He leads the team in win shares, BPM and VORP while Googs leads the squad in PER.

Third year, 97 - 98 season

After the success of the year before, the Wolves entered the '98 season feeling like a team on the rise. Garnett and Marbury were a year older and more experienced, and Googs was looking to build on his All Star season. And for the first half of the season, things went fairly well according to schedule. Here's a Youtube clip from their game against the Bulls in that period, where the baby Wolves snuck a win over the 2-time defending champs.

The Wolves straight-up out-energied them. In the clip, KG spent quite a lot of time on Jordan. Jordan quicked past him several times to score; KG ripped him clean once; on another, KG helped onto MJ and blocked his shot but teammate called for foul. KG was everywhere on the boards again, even in game featuring Rodman, and always sprinting the court. He hit clutch jumper with 30 seconds left to seal the upset. At the 41 game mark, the Wolves were 24 - 17, on pace for by-far the best season in team history. Up to this point, Garnett was averaging 17.3 pts (50 % FG, 76% FT) with 9.1 boards, 4 asts, 2 TOs, 1.6 stl, 2 blk. But, at that very point, Googs had to leave to have surgery on bone spurs in his ankle. He wouldn't play another game that season, nor would he ever play another game in a Timberwolves uniform. After Googs went down, Garnett had to take a more active role as both a scorer and rebounder. Over the last 41 games, in which the Wolves went 21 - 20, Garnett averaged 19.7 points (48% FG, 73% FT) with 10.1 boards, 4.5 assists, 2.7 TOs, 1.8 steals and 1.7 blocks. The Wolves would finish with the best record in team history and make the playoffs, both accomplishments for the second straight year. Their reward was a match-up with the 61-win Sonics. In the playoffs Gary Payton gave Stephon Marbury fits, as Marbury struggled to average only 13.8 points on 30.6% FG% with 7.6 assists and 3.6 TOs (regular season, Steph had been 17.7 pts, 42% FG, 8.6 asts/3.1 TOs). And Googs was long gone, on the sidelines. But through four games, Garnett led his young squad toe-to-toe with the more powerful Sonics. Powered by his 18 points (52% FG, 86% FT), 11 boards, 4.3 assists, 3 TOs, 2.5 blocks & 0.8 steals, the Wolves went back to Seattle for the deciding Game 5 tied 2 - 2. Alas, they weren't ready for the big time yet. Garnett had a disastrous Game 5, scoring 7 points (27% FG, 50% FT) with only 4 boards, 3 assists and a whopping 10 turnovers. Terrible way to end the season, but on the whole was a very, very promising season. In addition, 1998 is the first season that we have PI-RAPM for. Garnett's boxscore numbers were very good, especially for a 21-year old, but they weren't quite as good as the 1998 Rookie of the Year, Tim Duncan, who was in the process of taking the NBA by storm. Interestingly, though, it was Garnett that would finish 5th in the NBA in PI-RAPM for the year, behind Shaq, Zo, Mookie and Jordan and just ahead of Tim Hardaway, John Stockton and Karl Malone. Duncan would finish 23rd. Looking at the offense/defense breakdown, Garnett came in a very respectable 34th in ORAPM (slightly behind Duncan's 29th-place finish) that season. But it was in defensive impact where KG shined, finishing 14th (just behind Olajuwon). This would support the notion that Garnett's unique brand of versatile, be-everywhere defense was already making a bigger impact on his team's scoring margins than his box score stats would suggest (a trend that would be true for the length of his career).

Fourth year, 98 - 99 season

Garnett would get a huge contract extension in the offseason that many credit as the one that led directly to the NBA lockout. Also, it was widely rumored that Gugliotta and Marbury couldn't get along, and Googs would leave for Phoenix. The lockout lasted into 1999, a huge disruption, but eventually the league would start back up with a shortened, 50-game season planned. Through the first 18 games, Garnett and Marbury continued to show growth in their games (even if there was clear rust in their shots), as they led the Wolves to a 12 - 6 record out of the gates.

Garnett was averaging 19.9 points (45% FG, 74% FT) with 11 boards, 4.3 assists, 2.8 TOs, 1.9 blocks and 2.5 steals.

But, it turns out that Googs wasn't the only Wolves star that Steph couldn't get along with anymore. Amid swirling rumors that Marbury was jealous of Garnett's status as the franchise player, Marbury would force a trade that sent him to New Jersey. The Timberwolves could have accepted a young Sam Cassell back in the trade, but instead opted for a talented but injured point guard named Terrell Brandon.

Over the next 32 games, the Wolves would struggle to re-find their balance without Marbury. Brandon only played in 21 of the games as he nursed his injuries, and KG would miss three games as well. The Wolves would close the season 13 - 19, to end the season .500 and make the playoffs for the third straight season.

In the last 29 regular season games he played that year, Garnett increased his scoring but saw his blocks fall off the table to the tune of 21.3 pts (47% FG, 67% FT), 10 reb, 4.3 ast, 2.9 TO, 1.5 stl, 1.3 blks. 

In the playoffs, the Wolves would get the #1 seeded (and soon-to-be NBA champion) Spurs. While the Wolves were clearly outclassed, this gave us our first Garnett vs Duncan head-to-head match-up in the playoffs. They wouldn't disappoint. The Spurs won the series 3 - 1, but the 8th-seeded Wolves challenged them more than any of their higher-seeded foes on the way to their championship. In the head-to-head:

Duncan averaged: 18.8 points (51.8% TS), 10.8 reb, 3.3 ast, 3 blk, 0.8 steal, 1.8 TO

Garnett averaged: 21.8 points (48.9% TS), 12 reb, 3.8 ast, 2.3 blk, 1.5 steal, 3.3 TO

For the rest of the playoffs, Duncan would have much more success scoring than he had against Garnett...

Duncan (after 1st rd): 24.6 points (58.7% TS), 11.7 reb, 2.7 ast, 2.5 blk, 0.8 stl, 3.5 TO

This is also the second year we have of PI-RAPM, and again Garnett shined there.

Garnett finished 6th in the league in PI-RAPM in 1999

(Duncan improved to 10th). Looking at the breakdown, again Garnett finished slightly behind Duncan in offensive RAPM (34th, vs Duncan's 30th) but ahead in defensive RAPM (Garnett 8th, again essentially tied with Olajuwon, with Duncan 31st).

Summary

Garnett played four full seasons in the 90s. Almost all of them had some sort of big shake-up mid-season, and we can see his production and the team's outlook change with each one. As far as accolades, he was a two-time All Star (but, there was no All Star Game during lockout-shortened 1999, which would have been his third selection). He made 2nd team All Rookie in 1996, and 3rd team All NBA in 1999.KG showed the tools that he would build upon, from his first game. His combination of length and mobility may just be unprecedented in NBA history, as not only was he playing small forward at 7-foot, but he was spending legitimate numbers of possessions defending guards (in the video clips, we saw him 1-on-1 several times on Jordan and Dee Brown). He was playing a lot of help defense all over the court, starting to show his rebounding chops, and generally being a nuissance on defense. He also showed a great comfortability and repertoire of post moves on offense, had soft touch on his fadeaway and mid-range jumper, and displayed range out to 22 feet. He also had great court vision and was a willing passer.Just as they would in his prime, these tools helped him put up strong boxscore numbers. However, just like in his prime, his on-court impact was clearly better than those numbers. Playing next to KG, Gugliotta had the best season of his career and made his only All Star game. Marbury was looking electric, like a superstar in his own right, but after he left Garnett he would go on to be a marginal impact player at pretty much every stop for the rest of his career. Garnett would finish 5th and 6th in PI-RAPM for 1998 and 1999, demonstrating the big impact that he was having on his team's scoring margins even as a very young player. Early in his career, it was his defensive impact that would outpace his offense. While that flipped in his prime in Minnesota, he returned to that defensive bent later in his career with the Celtics. We also got our first Garnett/Duncan head-to-head playoffs match-up in the 90s, and KG more than held his own (if only someone could have neutralized that Robinson guy, it may have been a more interesting series).All told, not a bad first few years at all for a guy that would still be making strong impacts out to at least year 18.

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON: HUSKIES WIN HOME AND SEASON FINALE 4-3 OVER UMASS

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - For the UCONN Huskies it was like a “playoff game” as their hockey ended their season with a wild 4-3 win over the number two nationally ranked UMASS Minuteman before a boisterous and exceptionally loud crowd of 5,035 that rocked the XL Center Friday night. UCONN finishes with an overall record of 12-20-2 and 7-15-2 in Hockey East. The Minutemen, the regular season conference champion, finishes their regular season record of 26-8-0 and 18-6-0 in Hockey East. They will host the ninth-ranked University of New Hampshire in the first round of the playoffs next weekend. “Sometimes it takes a bit longer to finds your rhythm and competitiveness. I was reading about that with (coach) Brad Stevens of the Celtics. I feel if the season was a month longer, we would be playing in the Hockey East playoffs for sure.  Overall, I was so happy for our seniors, Miles (Gendron), Max (Kalter), AND Karl (El-Mir) for everything we stand for, to have them graduate, make them better men, and we wanted to compete for trophies. "I was impressed by how they brought this group along very easy. When you have 12 younger guys it can go sideways and be a train wreck. What they did to keep this group competitive the last month of the season, we finished 5-3. I can’t say enough about their leadership. They got a well-deserved win tonight,” remarked head coach Mike Cavanaugh. Beating UMASS, who eliminated them from playoff contention two weeks ago, was icing on the cake for UCONN in a season that saw some successes and some failures. “That was very special for all us seniors. We love it. They're a great team over there. To beat the number two team in the nation was unimaginable two months ago. I’m so proud of everybody how we held together.” senior Max Kalter said with an enormous smile. The game-winning tally came against the third Minuteman goalie of the night for UMASS, Brad Avanaitas. UMASS pulled Avanaitas for the sixth attacker with 1:38 left, but UCONN's team defense held the fort allowing the team to end their season on a winning note. In the final five minutes, the UCONN team defense had two key shot blocks. The first was by Ruslan Iskharov on the goal line and Miles Gendron. Then add in Kale Howarth’s tight checking of the ever-dangerous, Cale Makar, that forced him to dish off the puck. Tomas Vomacka made an amazing lateral save on Brett Boeing’s bid to tie the game kept UMASS at bay and secured a win. “Ruslan made a block. Adam (Karaschik) had a block. Kale's check on Makar forced him to chip it out to the neutral zone. We also did a good job clearing out any rebounds. It was a very good defensive effort,” remarked Cavanaugh. One of the seniors he referenced, Kalter, was pumped about that sequence of play by his team. “That what it takes to win,” Kalter said. “We have gotten better each year here, and over the last month the program has been stepping up every year, and I think this group (2019-20 edition) is going to go far, so there will be more great things for this program.” Kalter hopes to continue to go forward to pro hockey and could likely see him debut in the ECHL in the very near future. For Gendron, taking off his UCONN white home jersey was not going to be easy. His sweater has a "C" stitched on in the upper left corner. It meant more than people could realize on the surface. “It’s really special the guys voted me for this,” said an emotional Gendron. “It just wasn’t handed to me and that means everything. I’m so very proud of these guys. We wanted to be the first group to win a playoff game. We fell short, but tonight this was our playoff game and we won it. "I have faith in this group. They are going to do it next year, and the crowd, that was amazing. To come here and cheer for us when we have nothing to play for…. It makes me realize even more I made the right choice to come here.” The win, coming through a very emotional and entertaining game, showed how UMASS will be such a post-season force. They picked up right where they left off in the second period scoring at 45 seconds in. Mitchell Chaffee took the pass from Mario Ferraro in the left wing corner. He was able to curl away from Ben Freeman, zip across the crease and stuffed his second straight goal (17th) into the net. UMASS head coach Greg Carvel didn’t let his team off the hook. “Congratulations to the UCONN seniors in winning their last game. For my team, it was a very uneven game. We didn’t come out to play in the first, and we finally wanted to play (late in the second). I sat down a few kids who didn’t want to play. We tied it up in the third, but that next shot right after that was a backbreaker. We couldn’t find a way to win the rest of the third. It was very disconcerting to me as a coach that on March 8th we can’t find a way to be excited to play a game.” UCONN answered back 36 seconds after UMASS tallied as Freeman came across the Minuteman blue line. He sent a high wrist shot that went off Filip Lundeberg’s glove and into the net to give the Huskies back. It would be a 4-3 lead that they never relinquished. “They score late in the second with point two seconds to go and score on the first shift in the third, everything was going their way, but we were able to flip the script and get the momentum back and got the victory,” said Cavanaugh. UMASS tried to switch their fortunes by putting Filip Lundberg in the net to start the second period. It didn’t faze the Huskies. UMASS put on strong pressure with three solid scoring chances in the first two minutes as Boening, Maker, and Chaffe was each denied. The Huskies struck for their third goal and a highly unlikely 3-0 lead. Again all three forwards were in on the goal like the Huskies second goal. Kalter sent the puck to an open Jonny Evans on the left wing. He made a gorgeous, blind pitchfork backhanded pass to Iskharov who then fired his sixth goal over Lundberg's glove hand at 8:08. They seemingly had UMASS in a vise grip. UMASS is not number two in the nation by accident. In the final two minutes of the period, the team tallied twice narrowing the gap to one goal. After a ticky-tacky holding call from the ref who was at center ice, Thomas Fryer, the Minutemen’s Hobey Baker candidate, and Makar, a Colorado Avalanche draft pick, displayed why he is so highly regarded. He had a discussion prior to a face-off with Bobby Trivigno. UMASS won the draw and began a perfect cycle. Makar got the puck at the left point and fed Trivigno at the right point. They then switched positions and as he was transitioning, Makar passed the puck to Jacob Pritchard at the right side of the net. The left-handed shooter was left unchecked and wired a pass to Trivigno who came in through the back door on the left side and made a perfect open-blade redirect at 18:48 for his ninth goal and got UMASS on the scoreboard but trailing 3-1. UMASS kept the pressure on UCONN and scored in the waning seconds with Makar again involved, Makar sent a pass to Marc Del Gaizo at the left. With a perfect screen by Chaffee in front on starter Tomas Vomacka, deflected the 55-foot shot past Vomacka with just .02 seconds left in the period to make it a 3-2 game with what could have been a dagger to UCONN’s valiant game long effort. “That is the mark of a good program. No matter what score the score is, and what period it is, we stuck to the game plan and kept competing,” said Cavanaugh. The Huskies struck first against the second best team in the nation as all three forwards on the line touched the puck in the red zone. Brian Rigali made a strong move on the left wing and got around his check. He swung to the right wing side and his shot was stopped by Matt Murray. The puck hit the back of his skate, and the Huskies' Kale Howarth had a crack at it. Then Brian Freeman was able to chip the puck into the net for his sixth goal at 8:24. The Huskies kept pace with the swift-skating Minutemen getting back pressure support and not allowing for second and third chances. “It was a point of emphasis this week that we were back pressuring them and we didn’t give up many odd-man rushes and not slowing them to enter the (offensive) zone uncontested,” Cavanaugh said in speaking of their game plan of trying to lasso the high-end and fast skating UMASS squad that operates so effectively as five-man units. When UMASS broke Vomacka, a Czech freshman who was making his seventh start in the last nine UCONN games, was there to make the save. For Vomacka it was his 14th UCONN game of the season. The Huskies were able to extend their lead to 2-0 before the end of the period. Rigali scored with Iskharov on a shorthanded two-on-one. He was able to settle down a bouncing puck and got around a sliding Del Gaizo and zipped his fifth goal through the five-hole at 17:51. NOTES: Huska's leaving UCONN made him the sixth netminder this year for the Hartford Wolf Pack. Huska was the New York Rangers' 7th round pick (184th overall) in the 2015 NHL draft. He played junior hockey for the Green Bay Gamblers (USHL). Huska played just two games for UCONN over the final six weeks of the season because of Vomacka's hot play. He last played against Providence College on February 26th. His stats for the season are deceiving. Huska posted a 5-13-2 record with a 3.34 GAA and .896 save percentage in 1,202:44 minutes of action. He was playing behind a very young team composed of 12 freshmen. One his highlight starts came against Yale on New Year’s Eve Day where he made 39 saves including a spectacular skate blade save with pads stacked on a two-on-one on the Bulldogs' Mitchell Smith. Huska career includes 69 career games, a 2.90 GAA, a career record 20-38-8 and just under 4,000 minutes played. He also had two career shutouts. A Nashville organizational source told Cantlon’s Corner that neither pair of freshmen Predators draftees, goalie Tomas Vomacka, or center Jacym Kondelik will not be offered pro contracts this spring. “While we like their progress, they have room for a lot of growth,“ remarked the source. They requested anonymity, “Vomack, we like his play very much, however, a goalie always need playing time and Kondelik has to work on his skating and has to get more physical despite being a 6’6 forward. Neither is ready for the AHL right now.” Now that they have Brian Boyle in Nashville, he's the prototype for what they want out of Kondelik. Gendron said he will take a few days to rest and talk with his agent as to what the Ottawa Senators, who drafted him, might want to do. Most likely, the Sens might sign him to an ATO with Belleville  (AHL), “I know the team is in a playoff push, and even if it's just to go to learn and practice with the team, I’m open to what they have to offer.” Since firing head coach Guy Boucher last week, they're still in organizational transition. A note for the new Governor, and his Chief of Staff... When UCONN hockey is home in their regular season and home finale, you should be there not at a Yale-RPI game. The Bulldogs are in the ECACHL playoffs that they could see next week. They should have been at the XL Center with this great crowd. Read the full article

[canvaswolfdoll]

CanvasWatches: 5 Centimeters per Second

Got there.

Kind of.

Makoto Shinkai has other works listed on his wikipedia page, and maybe I’ll get around to those someday, but for now, let’s sit and be satisfied I’ve watched all the important ones!

Reminder that the score is two good films, two bad films, and two average ones.

Making this a tie breaker!

Also proof that any claims that Makoto Shinkai is the new Miyazaki are unfounded and dumb.

Anyways, time for 5 Centimeters per Second!

It’s a middle of the road story. Backgrounds are beautiful as always, character are flat, and a lot of good ideas that deserve more exploration.

It fits very nicely in the Auteur arc Shinkai went through to get to actual masterpiece Your Name. It was produced after the unwatchable The Place Promised in our Early Days[1] and works off the themes of a relationship stalled by time and distance first used in Voices of a Distant Star. What it lacks is the character complexity he sorted out in Garden of Words and plot structure and humor finally inserted into Your Name.

5 Centimeters per Second is draft three is what I’m getting at.

It’s also not a singular feature, but instead three short films (OVAs? Not sure how to use that term) that share a male lead and played in order, covering four phases in his life: Middle School with recollections to Elementary in part one, High School in part two, and adulthood in part three. Each also have their own title, so let’s go in sequence.

Episode 1: Cherry Blossoms

‘5 Centimeters per Second’ refers to the rate that cherry blossom petals fall. Mystery solved! Go home everybody! We’re done.

Okay, okay, there’s more than that. Basically, our story concerns a boy named Takaki Tono who meets a girl named Akari Shinohara during elementary school. The rest of the class ships these two, but being literal children neither actually have the capabilities to provide any romantic progress, so that’s fine.

Then Akari moves away, and that’s a real bummer, but they can communicate through letters, and if there’s one thing I can credit this film for is igniting a romance for sending mail to a sweetheart.[3] It’s very charming seeing the words and doodles on a page.

However, Middle School comes around, and Takaki’s family is moving to the opposite end of the archipelago,[4] so now it’ll be even more impractical for the two to meet up.

That’s okay. Takaki can make the trip now. They can meet one final time. At Akari’s home station. At 19:00! This is practical!

Unfortunately, snow storms conspire to make Takaki about 4 plus hours late. And the wind takes his love confession letter away! And this is set in the 90s, so he doesn’t even have a fun app to kill time on the train![6]

Eventually, the train arrives, very late.

And Akari had waited.

Could this have been resolved if they met in the middle and saved some time? Yes, but that’s not important! What’s important is Akari brought a homemade meal, and she waited all that time, and the two have a kiss under a snow covered tree like two stupid kids.[7] Takaki realizes they’d likely never meet again.

Due to the bad weather, the two spend the night in a random shack, then Takaki[8] heads home in the morning.

Akari looks wistfully at a letter she’d brought herself.

It’s a fine segment. The train journey is a good concept, but I feel like it could’ve been slightly lonelier. Open with him on the train, stalled on the last stretch, Takaki reflecting on what brought him here, cutting from him sitting on the train reading Akari’s old letters to the elementary school days to him pacing the aisles of the train to him explaining to his middle school friends he’s moving away. Or something better. Something to make the audience feel the agonizing wait and desperate push to see Akari one. Last. Time.

Episode 2: Cosmonaut[9]

I like Kanae Sumida. She deserves better. I hope she gets her life figured out.

So, we jump ahead to Takaki’s final year of high school. He’s in the archery club. But this isn’t his story to tell, because the kid is not actually a compelling character. Yet he’s captured the heart of Kanae Sumida, a shy girl who’s trying to learn to surf, get the courage to confess her feelings, and plan for her future. The final year of High School is a worrying time.

So Kanae narrates the middle act.

Now this isn’t a distant pining. Kanae often returns to school after attempting to catch waves in order to ‘happen’ to head home when Takaki’s heading out himself. They ride their scooters to a convenience store, where Takaki always gets the same coffee milk drink and Kanae takes her time picking out a drink. When Kanae catches back up with her own drink, she’ll find Takaki texting... someone...

Obviously Akari, but when Takaki takes over narration duties for a short time to reveal a great truth, we learn that the boy hasn’t been sending the messages about dreams of standing with her on an alien world, because it wouldn't be a Makoto Shinkai film without a lovingly rendered night sky and space stuff. It’s also implied that the two haven’t communicated in some time.

Back to Kanae, she’s unable to fill out the future planning worksheet that’s deeply entrenched in slice-of-life anime,[10] and it contributes to her melancholy.

However, when she asks Takaki his plans, he gives a vague answer, revealing he doesn’t have a trajectory set. Kanae finds peace in this, since if the object of her affections doesn’t have things figured out, why should she?

Y’know, it’s that whole unhealthy habit of placing your crush on an unreachable pedestal thing that gets to her.

But hey, it helps. Soul lightened, and between typhoons, Kanae catches a wave. She successfully surfs! Atta girl.

Riding high, she returns to the school to wait for Takaki to finish his archery. She decides that if she can’t confess the same day she rode a wave, then she’ll never be able to.

They go to the convenience store, and Kanae buys a smaller version of Takaki’s drink of choice, because she’s building her future on the afterimage of Takaki, but isn’t fully committed. They drink, then attempt to ride the scooters, but Kanae’s not starting. Takaki offers to walk her home.

On the walk, Kanae attempts her confession.

Only to be interrupted by a rocket launch, which is going 5 kilometers a second.[11] There’s kind of a theme of hearts moving in relation to one another.

Kanae can see in Takaki’s eyes that he’s focused on something. And it’s not her and never will be.

So she abandons the confession, but feels she’ll always carry a flame for Takaki. Which, unfortunately, is what happens when you put someone on a romantic pedestal but lack the courage to confront it. Eventually you decide it’s not worth an attempt, either because you view yourself too beneath them, fear rejection, fear discovering the person isn’t the portrait you’ve composed, or a mixture.[12]

The two reach Kanae’s home, and she cried herself to sleep that night.

It’s a bittersweet story, and yet another good seed that could blossom into a fuller piece. Again, Takaki himself is bland, but if we give him personality, a subplot about an interest in aeronautics and cosmonautics and how he doesn’t even notice the world around him for the ideal girl he drifted away from, and it has potential to be a melancholic full film on its own. Or even keep it as a short film, just build the male lead.

Cosmonaut is my favorite of the three parts, though.

Episode 3: 5 Centimeters per Second

I don’t feel bad for Takaki. He deserved this ending.

Takaki is a working man now, fresh out of an unsuccessful three year relationship, wherein the woman broke up over text, saying that in all their time together, their hearts had, at best, moved a mere one centimeter closer, because might as well complete the trilogy with the analysis.

His hang-ups on Akari still lingering thirteen years after she moved away during elementary school, and a long term relationship ended because of it, and a depression setting in, Takaki quits his job. Then he just kinda floats about, stops at a convenience store, looks at a magazine article about the rocket launched back in the second act, which is leaving the solar system. What a distance it’s managed to cover, and Takaki’s still got no solid plans nine years since it left the atmosphere.

Takaki and Akari share a narration about a dream of their childhood promise to watch the cherry blossoms someday.

Then the two suddenly cross paths walking over some train tracks. Was that? Could it be? They turn to double check. A train passes, cutting them off.

Then there’s a musical interlude, because it’s a Makoto Shinkai film and you’ve got to have a random AMV just before the conclusion.

We see scenes from the rest of the movie cut together! Takaki and Akari as children! Train ride! Kanae catching a wave! (I hope she’s moved on. Met a nice guy. Forgot the stagnant mess that is Takaki) Takaki’s dull, meaningless life!

Then the train passes.

Akari’s gone. Because of course. They haven’t talked in over a decade, and even if she found that undelivered letter from Act One it doesn’t mean she has to linger. She’s apparently engaged now, and Takaki is a dumb kid from when she was a dumb kid waiting at a train station five hours after the two agreed to meet.

Because nothing waits. The earth turns, the waves crash, rockets leaving the soolar system, and Cherry Blossoms fall at 5 centimeters per second.

So just move on.

Takaki, seeing his last hope of reclaiming the past vanish behind a passing train, smiles and walks off. Did he learn anything? Who cares, he’s unflavored frozen yogurt. Cold and devoid of sweetness.[13]

Takaki refused to live in the present or look to the future, and what do we have? A nothing.

Takaki’s dull.

This act isn’t even a good seed. It’s the conclusion to a narrative I don’t care about. I can’t even offer any advice on it that isn’t ‘cut it, expand one of the previous episodes.”

The Film

It’s fine. It’s an okay movie. Critically lauded, so if you feel like watching it, you won’t feel cheated. But I wouldn’t put it on a list of must watches. It’s not hilariously bad, it’s not specifically boring, it’s not particularly deep, and it’s not Your Name.

It’s the middle of the Shinkai scale of quality. Don’t avoid it, don’t pursue it.

If 5 Centimeters per Second was a person, it’d be Takaki Tono. Defined by the females its features, and not giving the proper due to Kanae.

Thanks for reading. If you like this analysis on an anime film, check out my other reviews (including other Makoto Shinkai films), my webcomic about a living muffin, and maybe support my patreon. I’ve got a Digimon review series that’ll be living there until I finish the first season at least. The show had an effect on me.

Until the snow clears and the train brings my next work,

Kataal kataal.

[1] Do you know how hard it is to get me to quit a movie? I’ll wait for a conclusion. Heck, I sat through 2001: A Space Odyssey![2] You need a whole lot of nothing to bore me off a paltry 90 minute journey. [2] The movie will have its day eventually, I promise. [3] Not that I have a sweetheart. Or the address of any distant friends. Or stamps. [4] Which is fun to say. Say it with me. Arch-i-pel-a-go.[5] We should find excuses to say it more. [5] What’re you, 6? This is a written essay! No one’s talking along with you! I bet you feel real silly. [6] And it doesn’t seem he brought a book. Must’ve been a boring trip. [7] Fun fact! Not only am I pessimistic about any young love (IE, starting in middle or high school), I actively root against them. Because I’m a monster. [8] I’m just now noticing how similar these names are to two Digidestined. Huh. [9] Back in the fourth grade, we did a class play about the California Gold Rush. I was stuck into three songs in a row. The middle one was called Argonauts. I liked it, but not the other two, which I scarcely recall now. It didn’t occur to me that I could simply refuse to perform the other two songs. I also didn’t like my long term sub at the time. Anyways, that’s what I think about whenever I hear the ‘-naut’ suffix. [10] I don’t know how true to life such worksheets are. It’s possibly as accurate as Sailor Fukus in High School. [11] As some who completed a Couch to 5k, that’s official fast. [12] Suffice it to say, there’s a reason Kanae appeals to me. [13] I keep meaning to get frozen yogurt. There’s a place theoretically within walking distance. But then I have to remember to go there.

[theimmediateband-blog]

Songblog #003: ’With The Fireflies’

Introduction:

A friend of mine, who also happens to be one of the most brilliant songwriters I have ever heard, baulks at the idea of finding catharsis through the writing and performance of his songs. I think great writers want to evoke, or explode, or humour, or transport the listener regardless of their own personal experience: the writer’s, that is. I think that a great writer, too, can tap into whatever it is that makes us human, without having to resort to salacious over-sharing or cliche.

Catharsis, then, is more easily generated than wisdom is accrued and shared. It’s like hanging your dirty washing up and inviting a storm of other people’s tears to clean it for you.

I am, the last time I checked, 97.8% catharsis. I can only write when I’m wrestling with something deeply personal that I couldn’t, otherwise, comprehend or come to terms with.

So, much of our album ‘Manbuoy’ (still on sale at a very favourable price on bandcamp... cough! cough!) is songs either about divorce or about falling in love… two life-changing events that could only find release through the medium of ham-fisted chords and embarrassingly unambiguous lyrics.

I like both of these things: the ham-fisted-ness and the embarrassingly unambiguous.

It is my way, but it is not the only way.

My dad went through a Subway menu board of cancers following his first diagnosis in 2007: prostate, bladder, kidney, lung and liver. He and my mum bore all of the challenges that the disease put in their way with remarkable bravery and - I have to say - a real lack of melodrama. I know that some might - ultimately - interpret me writing a song about my dad’s death as incongruent with the quiet dignity that they showed - after all, you - dear reader - are not Dermot O’Leary thrusting a microphone into my noggin on flagging early Saturday evening ITV - however I had no choice in the writing of this song. I sat down full of the biggest sadness I have ever felt, mostly unaware how that that sadness had permeated every cell, and this song is what came out.

When my marriage failed and, eventually, broke apart, I found such succour and comfort in music, particularly The Joy Formidable’s ‘The Big Roar’ and particularly, particularly ‘The Everchanging Spectrum Of A Lie’ and ‘The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade’. They saved my life, I think. Certainly saved me from finding relief in things that would have considerably shortened it. 

I’ve found sanctuary in other music over the years… The Smiths ‘Hatful Of Hollow’; The Cure’s ‘Disintegration’; Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’; De La Soul’s ‘3 Feet High and Rising’; Wire’s ‘Chairs Missing’; Husker Du’s ‘Candy Apple Grey’… all at different points in my life, facing different challenges, and all for different reasons. Some deal with emotional turbulence in a very explicit way (‘Disintegration’), others offer a soundscape and poetry that I could escape into with my emotions (not from them) (‘The Big Roar’); and the rest either offered actual escape or a proxy defiance (see also every great soul 7” inch I own that isn’t ‘just’ about fucking).

This song, then, is part of the way I’ve been coming to terms with my dad’s illness and then his death. I actually started writing it a week or so before he died, at the end of July.

I think I wanted to write something that reminded me of him and I together, and of his unremitting love, sense of adventure and curiosity… all of the things I hope I most share with him. I don’t think I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve, in all honesty. It was an exhausting and very emotional period. At times like that being able to pick up a guitar, and play, and leak tearful music, even when actual tears won’t fall, is a salvation. This song came from that, but the nuts and bolts of the writing are lost in the turbulence of the time, which means that the next section will be atypically light on detail.

The Writing:

The biggest difference that I’ve found between writing now and writing then, in the original run of the band (1992-1997) is that now, when I’m writing, I’m not forcing something out. It’s enough for me to hold the emotion that I’m feeling somewhere within me. To let it osmose and to not interfere with it too much.

The sense of imminent loss and love, tiredness and confusion that I was feeling about my dad, was a fertile primeval gloop. I didn’t have to encourage or search for any images, they came unbidden. The chords sort of fell under my fingers, because they sounded like the kind of chords that my dad would have liked… the kind of progression that he might have enjoyed.

I wanted it to remind me of James Taylor’s ‘Fire and Rain’ because that’s a song that my mum and dad like, and it’s also a song about loss, and living with a sense of loss, trying to put it into some kind of perspective.

I didn’t want it to be a facsimile of that song, though. So it’s a different set of chords, a different progression.

While the chord sequence was taking shape, just strumming and picking in front of the TV, the mournful cycle of reminiscence about my dad was continuing somewhere in the background of my conscience. I think that acknowledging this aspect of writing, without explicitly calling on it, is important. Brains will find words to fit your music if you give them a bit of flour and water (the music, even in its most nascent state), some yeast (whatever emotion it is that you’re holding within) and the gentle heat of, say, an airing cupboard (the act of gently bringing all of this together.)

This is how writing is working for me, currently.

I’m appalled it reads like a hooky guide to meditation. Or baking.

It doesn’t matter how long you have to leave the dough to prove, the less consciously you try to force something to come, the more likely something interesting will eventually arrive. 

“Use your feelings, Luke…”

I’m not saying that a whole song will come, fully-formed, like this… but its shape may come, and some of its defining features…

Remember, hard, that you can jot down any old nonsense in the first instance. Don’t baulk at words or ideas that are either patently shit or useless. Think of it as a song gradually coming into focus. There is plenty of time to tighten things up once the basic form has been summoned.

That’s what happened with this song.

A friend - a great songwriter and lecturer in popular music at the University of South Wales - suggested that this blog might be more useful if his students (who find lyric writing - in particular - a challenge) could see the different drafts of the lyrics, but these days there are rarely drafts. One of the benefits - I’ve found - of working digitally is that I can move, amend, change as I go… without obscuring the original sense of the song with too many words and annotations. Having written that, though, I’m intrigued to write in ink on paper again!


Ultimately, of course, you can do what you want, however you want... that’s the only truly pertinent wisdom in this section.

The Tools:

Yamaha LA8 acoustic guitar (circa 1997), Vintage AV3 semi-acoustic guitar, Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal, Korg MicroKONTROL MIDI keyboard, Shure SM58 dynamic microphone, Aston Origin condenser microphone, Unbranded condenser microphone, Roland DUO-CAPTURE EX USB Audio Interface, Sontronics ST-POP Pop Filter, Aston Spirit & Origin Shockmount made by Rycote, Garageband 10.2.0 Audacity MacBook Pro

Various rubbish microphone stands.

Lyrics & chords:

    A It was a storm-heavy night Em7 I could taste the thunder on my tongue   G A head full of adventures D       G Well I loved them when I was young

We were so far away from home And many sights had passed our eyes You said you’d worry about me Until the day that I die

       A   D We were  on a hillside      G   D With the fireflies On a hillside With the flreflies

You said that I’d try things Out of curiosity And you were worried Those things would be bad for me

There was a night in Liverpool When your words came back to me Coming up in a bathroom And I could hardly breathe

We were on a hillside When I was just a child On a hillside Chalking up the miles I was on a hillside With the fireflies You were calling out my name But I was swallowed by the lights

Dm     A Why do they glow and float upon the evening breeze (breath)? Is it all electrons or are they supernatural beings? (Where do they go when the sun is out instead?) F       D       A When I have a question who will I ask it to? G  D Well dad I tell you now that it will still be you… Dmaj7 Still be you…

We are on a hillside With the fireflies Forever on a hillside With the fireflies

Influences:

James Taylor’s ‘Fire And Rain’. It’s one of my mum and dad’s favourite songs. Also, Bob Dylan’s ‘Tangled Up In Blue’, especially in the way that it dances around those A major chords.



Lyrically it’s part Tangled Up In Blue (if Dylan’s travelogue had been enabled by a borrowed Maxi hiccuping along the motorways of Western Europe in the late 70’s) and part ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’. The opening to that book is one of my absolute favourite openings to any book. It’s poetic without being Poetic. 

The main influence were the memories, and sitting down in front of a keyboard and just letting them wash over me… typing out words when they coalesced out of the images.


Recording:

I recorded this at home. I recorded the first 2/3rds of the song to a click (the ‘metronome’ on Garageband) and turned the click off for the last chorus, so that it would accelerate naturally towards the end. The main reason for using the click was so it would be easier to do multiple takes of the fiddly guitar bits, if necessary, and then comp the actual finished guitar track from the takes when I got it right. Without the click that would have been nightmarish. In the end, the click made the recording of the guitar nightmarish, anyway. If you’re playing arpeggios with any degree of feeling, you have to have the freedom to let them roll and ring out at their own pace. By trying to weld them to a click track, I spent many hours frustrating the hell out of myself, killing the spirit in the part, and hurting my fingers (and going through strings).

In the end, the majority of the acoustic guitar track in the finished recording is the guide track I sat down and recorded in the first ten minutes of the session. There’s a bit of a tuning issue in the second set of runs (after the first chorus), but that take captured the flow and the feeling of the part much better than anything else I subsequently recorded. Also, the guitar - whether it was down to the newness of the strings, or a serendipitous mic placement - just sounded so much better for the guide track than it did subsequently.

Up until this session, I hadn’t quite realised what a huge difference mic placement and orientation can have when you’re recording an acoustic guitar. I’m sure it’s true of other acoustic instruments, too. I’d blithely assumed that sort-of-knowing where to position the mics, and sort-of-remembering in which direction they were pointed would allow me to replicate the same sound across different takes on different days. I was wrong. So so wrong!

Subsequently I have learned that this is a major issue for engineers. Some high-end microphones even come with built in lasers so that their placement can be measured, and replicated, to the greatest accuracy possible. It’s not just enough to think, well I pointed the shitty, unbranded condenser at the 12th fret on the guitar and had the Aston Origin vaguely pointing in the direction of the soundhole.

Try to remember how far the microphones were away from your playing position. Try to remember how they were orientated in their cradle or grip. Try to remember how you were sitting, and what was around you, especially if you’re not in a sound-treated room (a rug on the floor in front of me made a noticeable difference to the sound arriving at the mic, for example).

I experimented with a few different mics and combinations. I tried a Shure SM58 with the cover / popshield off (in essence, an SM57) so that I’d have a combination of dynamic and condenser mic to blend, imagining that this would give me the best of both worlds, but the SM58 was quiet and - when boosted - too noisy.

I tried combining a DI from the Fishman Rare Earth humbucker I have in my acoustic, but that sounded noisy and pretty awful, in all honesty.

During this session I had *massive* problems with the boom mic stands I was using. The Aston Origin is cast metal, and not a light microphone, especially in its shockmount. I struggled terribly with the boom arms gradually shifting due to the weight, on both of my stands. These are unbranded stands bought from a local music shop for £20-ish? As soon as I have the funds I’m definitely going to invest in something much more heavy duty, perhaps with a counterweight (although balance wasn’t really the issue) but with a proper lock on the arm.

Don’t scrimp on cheap mic stands (like I did). Eventually you’ll end up buying a half decent mic, and if it keeps moving or falls over and gets damaged because of a shitty stand, you will not be very happy, trust me!

My hands must sweat pure hydrochloric acid because I went through a couple of packets of strings recording the acoustic parts for this song, and that’s despite rubbing the strings down between takes. Once the strings went dull, the part went dull. The Yamaha acoustic that I use has a relatively small body. I imagine that bigger bodied guitars will carry what tone there is better than a smaller bodied guitar, when the strings lose their initial zing.

That initial zing can be a pain on some recordings, but here, with lots of open notes alongside fretted notes at higher neck positions, it’s essential to give the part a sparkle. You can’t eq that sparkle back in, in my experience. Once it’s gone, adding top-end in the mix is just going to make things sound thin and - potentially - noisy.

As with the guitar part, I had envisaged comping the final vocal from a number of different takes so that I could build one, ‘perfect’ (ha ha!) vocal. It didn’t work like that, though. I’ve used that approach numerous times in the studio, but there I had a brilliant engineer working with me (Russ Hayes) who could make sure that the sound was consistent; whose editing skills are seamless and well beyond what I can achieve on Garageband / Audacity; and whose presence meant that I could concentrate on performing the vocal.

When I’m recording by myself, there are so many factors that can interrupt the flow. I have to press the buttons to start recording, for example, and then place myself in front of the microphone in a consistent position. It sounds like a small thing, but it can be very disruptive, especially when I was trying to drop in for certain lines.

The finished comped vocal - assembled like this - sounded dull and bitty. I tried to bounce some of the tracks down to keep things manageable, but forgot to turn all compression and limiting off for that bounce. When I came to assemble the final take, some of the lines had more compression / limiting and eq on them than other lines. It was a mess.

In the end, I decided I’d do a one take run through of the song through the Aston Origin and use that - warts and all - and that’s what is on the final mix. It’s not perfect, by any means, but it does have a narrative to it and it does give the song a shape.

I recorded the handclaps with the Aston Origin. They’re quadruple tracked, which is a trick I learned off Russ… it just makes them sound fuller, and stops the transients from them dominating the mix (when I’ve only single-tracked handclaps before, they cut through the mix without having any real presence (as in actuality, not in terms of their eq). 

Backing vocals were quadruple tracked too, to soften and widen them (each take is panned to a different degree, to give them a natural stereo width).

The lead guitar at the end was suggested by a friend who heard an early mix of the track. It’s just my cheap Vintage semi acoustic DI’d via my Big Muff.

The final thing I added was some keyboards to add a little texture to the bridge and the later choruses, via my Korg MicroKONTROL MIDI keyboard, triggering one of Garageband’s preset sounds.

I had some issues with a couple of plosive sounds in the vocals, so copied the problematic ‘p’ sounds ( for example, “many sights had *P*assed our eyes”) to a separate track, and dipped 50hz-100hz via an equaliser, and that sorted the problem out.

And then I mixed it. Which was relatively easy because the key parts - the main vocal and guitar parts - were all in one take and had the necessary dynamics in their performances. 

It’s only very lightly limited and compressed (barely mastered, you could say) because I very much wanted to preserve the dynamics / the narrative of the track. I think this is really important for solo, acoustic recordings. I hear a lot, via my work, of acoustic songs that are limited to high fuck and lose any sense of development because of it. A highly compressed / limited, cheap(ish) acoustic guitar sounds dreadful, too. For my tastes, anyway.

If you have any questions, hopefully I’ve worked out a way for you to comment below! 

Good luck with your recordings. I hope this has helped, even the tiniest amount.



[arthur36domingo]

J.K. Rowling’s Top Tricks for Working Magic With Your Writing

One of the most miraculous aspects of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world is that it’s just so darn big. If you’re an aspiring author, you may wonder just how Rowling managed to crank out so many books, use so much imagination, and keep the ideas flowing.

Here’s a secret: she didn’t just wave a magic wand. She wrote every single one of the 1,084,170 words in the Harry Potter series (and lots more in her other books, plays, and movies). How does she keep churning them out? Will the wizarding world ever stop growing? And what’s the real trick to becoming a bestseller?

Before you stop reading and start googling “Hogwarts School of Writing and Wizardry,” here are eight steps for diving into your writing, creating a routine, and not giving up—even when it seems He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and all the forces of the Dark Arts are against you.

1. Believe in Magic.

Okay, not literally (at least, unless you do). But this tip is just about believing in yourself as a writer, the content you create, and your ability to keep going. Take it from J.K.: she had always wanted to be a writer, and she kept inventing stories until people read them (and boy, did they read them). To make it as a writer, you have to believe you’ve got the magic it takes to make words come alive on the page.

It all started out as a dream for J.K. Rowling, too. Hear the world-renowned author talk about her pie-in-the-sky idea of becoming a writer.

2. Treat writing like it’s your job.

This is true whether writing is, in fact, your job, or whether you just want it to be. Treating it like a job means setting aside time to finish what you need to do. Some authors give themselves strict daily word limits (Mark Twain averaged right around 1,800).

J.K. hasn’t talked about giving herself a word limit, but she has made it clear that she puts in her time. Since she hit the big time with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone, in the American edition) and managed to make it her full-time gig, she’s careful to put in her eight hours a day—even if that sometimes means working through the night. But before that, when she was a single mom on social assistance, sometimes it was all she could do to snatch a spare moment to scribble a stray idea.

In her words:

You’ve got to work. It’s about structure. It’s about discipline. It’s all these deadly things that your school teacher told you you needed…You need it.

3. Treat writing like it’s not your job.

Yes, that’s the opposite of Step 2 and no, you’re not reading it wrong. It’s important to set a routine, make yourself fill quotas, and be serious about this gig, but if it’s too much of a job, you risk losing the magic (remember Step 1?).

That said, don’t over-stress about things like words per day if it’s not your style. For some writers, tallying up those numbers is a big motivator. But for other writers—and also for certain projects or stages in creating a new project—it’s not all about hitting a word quota. It’s about brainstorming, coming up with lists of names and ideas, making a chart of how your story will unfold, or doing research about the history of wizards in Europe. That sort of work feels a lot more like a game.

4. Inspiration can strike at surprising times. Be ready.

If you chain yourself to your desk and stare at a piece of paper hoping for words to appear on it, they’re probably less likely to materialize than if you mix in a little bit of Step 3. But sometimes a lightning bolt strikes—and you’re suddenly imagining a kid with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.

For J.K. Rowling, the idea for that kid “fell into” her head while she was staring off into space waiting for a train from Manchester to London. No, she didn’t happen to be on Platform 9 ¾; she just happened to have an idea. But unfortunately, she didn’t have a pen.

This might sound like a cautionary tale against not being ready for inspiration striking. But being ready isn’t just about carrying a pen, post-its, or an iPad: it’s about being prepared to let the ideas flow. Rowling says of the experience:

I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn’t know he was a wizard became more and more real to me […]Perhaps, if I had slowed down the ideas to capture them on paper, I might have stifled some of them.

There you have it: a delayed train and lack of writing utensil were all it took to conceive of one of the greatest literary franchises in recent history.

And it wasn’t the only time she found herself short of materials, either: another famous anecdote tells of Rowling scribbling down the names of the characters on a barf bag on an airplane. Luckily, it was unused. That’s why Rowling says:

I can write anywhere.

It doesn’t mean you should deliberately forget to bring stuff to write on or with when you’re traveling from point A to point B. The lesson here is to keep your mind open to ideas that drop into it.

5. Plan ahead. Way ahead.

The idea for Harry Potter may have fallen into J.K. Rowling’s head in that train station in 1990, but actually writing the story took a lot longer. Over five years, Rowling mapped out the entire series, book by book. She had the plot developments, characters, names, and rules that governed the wizarding world all figured out before she so much as considered the words “Chapter One.”

That shows the importance of planning. Readers learn the word “Horcrux” for the first time in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince—six whole books into the series—but by the time they’re fully explained, you realize that they’ve been showing up ever since the very beginning. (Note: that wasn’t a spoiler, in case you haven’t read the books. Maybe you know to look out for Horcruxes, but just try figuring out what you’re looking for.)

Anyway, by planting a seed early in her series that would become central to the plots of the later books, J.K. shows the vital importance of planning before you write.

And here’s the kicker: this doesn’t apply only when you’re writing a multi-book series. One book, one story, an article, a blog post, you name it: create an outline, determine when you’re going to incorporate key details, and don’t start at the beginning without knowing the ending.

6. Kill your darlings.

This quote isn’t from J.K. Rowling; in fact, it’s most often attributed to William Faulkner.

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.

The gist: be willing to leave stuff out, even if you think it’s good. In other words: edit, edit, edit.

This is an important one after Step 5: you may have made a thorough plan that looks really solid in bullet-point form, but once you start turning it into prose you might find out that some details don’t work as well as you thought they would, or a scene leads somewhere unexpected, or maybe doesn’t lead anywhere at all. It can be agonizing, but willingness to adjust your plan and edit your writing is key to success.

Our author of the hour, J.K. Rowling, is no exception. She wrote, re-wrote, and re-worked the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone not one, not two, but fifteen times. Here’s what she has to say about those early drafts:

You have to resign yourself to the fact that you waste a lot of trees before you write anything you really like, and that’s just the way it is […] It’s like learning an instrument, you’ve got to be prepared for hitting wrong notes occasionally, or quite a lot, cause I wrote an awful lot before I wrote anything I was really happy with.

Be willing to make changes, and know that you might end up cutting out words, sentences, and entire sections you thought belonged. The reason? You might love those little darlings, but to a reader they might just be unnecessary details. Which leads us to…

7. Write like a reader.

J.K. Rowling says she didn’t have a particular target audience in mind while writing Harry Potter; she just thought of what she would want to read.

Ask yourself questions like these: Are you giving away a juicy detail that could come later? Including a “darling” idea that you’re proud of, but doesn’t really advance the plot? Telling what happens, instead of ending the chapter (or book) on a cliffhanger?

This ties in with planning: keep the excitement and the mystery by not giving away your secrets too early. J.K. Rowling says she had finished her first draft of the first Harry Potter book before realizing she’d included some key plot elements that shouldn’t show up until much later in the series. So it was back to the drawing board.

Plot and pacing are the meat and potatoes of writing for your readers, but it’s also important to work in time for some sweet, sticky candy to keep your readers addicted. Rowling does this with things like fun-to-say names (Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans), out-of-this-world concepts (earwax flavor), and characters that real-live humans can truly empathize with (no, not Bertie Bott—Harry and his friends). Her ability to capture readers’ imaginations and hearts is as much about the details of the wizarding world as the sequence of events in the series.

Hear Rowling talk about where some of her ideas come from—the blend of influences from her life, pure invention, and human motivation is exactly the reader-focused recipe we’re talking about.

8. Read inspiring quotes about writing.

The overarching tip here: love what you write and don’t give up. But we’re going to give the last word (or words) to J.K. Rowling. Sometimes all it takes is a push from a role model to get you rolling in the right direction, so keep these mood boosters nearby if you’re feeling down on yourself or writing. Believe us: J.K. knows what she’s talking about.

Can you make that kind of transformation with Polyjuice potion?

Failure is inevitable—make it a strength.

A step up from writing for your reader: being your reader.

I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It’s totally for myself.

Maybe you thought you are what you eat. Not according to J.K. Rowling.

What you write becomes who you are…So make sure you love what you write.

If you’re waiting on publishers, agents, or other forces beyond your control, you just have to let those forces do their thing. It’ll work out in the end.

Wait. Pray. This is the way Harry Potter got published.

How could you not feel inspired?

We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.

In the end, we can’t promise that these tips will snag you a Pulitzer Prize, but setting a writing schedule and letting your imagination run free are important first steps.

The post J.K. Rowling’s Top Tricks for Working Magic With Your Writing appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/rowling-work-magic-with-your-writing/

[ber39james]

J.K. Rowling’s Top Tricks for Working Magic With Your Writing

One of the most miraculous aspects of J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world is that it’s just so darn big. If you’re an aspiring author, you may wonder just how Rowling managed to crank out so many books, use so much imagination, and keep the ideas flowing.

Here’s a secret: she didn’t just wave a magic wand. She wrote every single one of the 1,084,170 words in the Harry Potter series (and lots more in her other books, plays, and movies). How does she keep churning them out? Will the wizarding world ever stop growing? And what’s the real trick to becoming a bestseller?

Before you stop reading and start googling “Hogwarts School of Writing and Wizardry,” here are eight steps for diving into your writing, creating a routine, and not giving up—even when it seems He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named and all the forces of the Dark Arts are against you.

1. Believe in Magic.

Okay, not literally (at least, unless you do). But this tip is just about believing in yourself as a writer, the content you create, and your ability to keep going. Take it from J.K.: she had always wanted to be a writer, and she kept inventing stories until people read them (and boy, did they read them). To make it as a writer, you have to believe you’ve got the magic it takes to make words come alive on the page.

It all started out as a dream for J.K. Rowling, too. Hear the world-renowned author talk about her pie-in-the-sky idea of becoming a writer.

2. Treat writing like it’s your job.

This is true whether writing is, in fact, your job, or whether you just want it to be. Treating it like a job means setting aside time to finish what you need to do. Some authors give themselves strict daily word limits (Mark Twain averaged right around 1,800).

J.K. hasn’t talked about giving herself a word limit, but she has made it clear that she puts in her time. Since she hit the big time with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Sorcerer’s Stone, in the American edition) and managed to make it her full-time gig, she’s careful to put in her eight hours a day—even if that sometimes means working through the night. But before that, when she was a single mom on social assistance, sometimes it was all she could do to snatch a spare moment to scribble a stray idea.

In her words:

You’ve got to work. It’s about structure. It’s about discipline. It’s all these deadly things that your school teacher told you you needed…You need it.

3. Treat writing like it’s not your job.

Yes, that’s the opposite of Step 2 and no, you’re not reading it wrong. It’s important to set a routine, make yourself fill quotas, and be serious about this gig, but if it’s too much of a job, you risk losing the magic (remember Step 1?).

That said, don’t over-stress about things like words per day if it’s not your style. For some writers, tallying up those numbers is a big motivator. But for other writers—and also for certain projects or stages in creating a new project—it’s not all about hitting a word quota. It’s about brainstorming, coming up with lists of names and ideas, making a chart of how your story will unfold, or doing research about the history of wizards in Europe. That sort of work feels a lot more like a game.

4. Inspiration can strike at surprising times. Be ready.

If you chain yourself to your desk and stare at a piece of paper hoping for words to appear on it, they’re probably less likely to materialize than if you mix in a little bit of Step 3. But sometimes a lightning bolt strikes—and you’re suddenly imagining a kid with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.

For J.K. Rowling, the idea for that kid “fell into” her head while she was staring off into space waiting for a train from Manchester to London. No, she didn’t happen to be on Platform 9 ¾; she just happened to have an idea. But unfortunately, she didn’t have a pen.

This might sound like a cautionary tale against not being ready for inspiration striking. But being ready isn’t just about carrying a pen, post-its, or an iPad: it’s about being prepared to let the ideas flow. Rowling says of the experience:

I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, while all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn’t know he was a wizard became more and more real to me […]Perhaps, if I had slowed down the ideas to capture them on paper, I might have stifled some of them.

There you have it: a delayed train and lack of writing utensil were all it took to conceive of one of the greatest literary franchises in recent history.

And it wasn’t the only time she found herself short of materials, either: another famous anecdote tells of Rowling scribbling down the names of the characters on a barf bag on an airplane. Luckily, it was unused. That’s why Rowling says:

I can write anywhere.

It doesn’t mean you should deliberately forget to bring stuff to write on or with when you’re traveling from point A to point B. The lesson here is to keep your mind open to ideas that drop into it.

5. Plan ahead. Way ahead.

The idea for Harry Potter may have fallen into J.K. Rowling’s head in that train station in 1990, but actually writing the story took a lot longer. Over five years, Rowling mapped out the entire series, book by book. She had the plot developments, characters, names, and rules that governed the wizarding world all figured out before she so much as considered the words “Chapter One.”

That shows the importance of planning. Readers learn the word “Horcrux” for the first time in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince—six whole books into the series—but by the time they’re fully explained, you realize that they’ve been showing up ever since the very beginning. (Note: that wasn’t a spoiler, in case you haven’t read the books. Maybe you know to look out for Horcruxes, but just try figuring out what you’re looking for.)

Anyway, by planting a seed early in her series that would become central to the plots of the later books, J.K. shows the vital importance of planning before you write.

And here’s the kicker: this doesn’t apply only when you’re writing a multi-book series. One book, one story, an article, a blog post, you name it: create an outline, determine when you’re going to incorporate key details, and don’t start at the beginning without knowing the ending.

6. Kill your darlings.

This quote isn’t from J.K. Rowling; in fact, it’s most often attributed to William Faulkner.

In writing, you must kill all your darlings.

The gist: be willing to leave stuff out, even if you think it’s good. In other words: edit, edit, edit.

This is an important one after Step 5: you may have made a thorough plan that looks really solid in bullet-point form, but once you start turning it into prose you might find out that some details don’t work as well as you thought they would, or a scene leads somewhere unexpected, or maybe doesn’t lead anywhere at all. It can be agonizing, but willingness to adjust your plan and edit your writing is key to success.

Our author of the hour, J.K. Rowling, is no exception. She wrote, re-wrote, and re-worked the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone not one, not two, but fifteen times. Here’s what she has to say about those early drafts:

You have to resign yourself to the fact that you waste a lot of trees before you write anything you really like, and that’s just the way it is […] It’s like learning an instrument, you’ve got to be prepared for hitting wrong notes occasionally, or quite a lot, cause I wrote an awful lot before I wrote anything I was really happy with.

Be willing to make changes, and know that you might end up cutting out words, sentences, and entire sections you thought belonged. The reason? You might love those little darlings, but to a reader they might just be unnecessary details. Which leads us to…

7. Write like a reader.

J.K. Rowling says she didn’t have a particular target audience in mind while writing Harry Potter; she just thought of what she would want to read.

Ask yourself questions like these: Are you giving away a juicy detail that could come later? Including a “darling” idea that you’re proud of, but doesn’t really advance the plot? Telling what happens, instead of ending the chapter (or book) on a cliffhanger?

This ties in with planning: keep the excitement and the mystery by not giving away your secrets too early. J.K. Rowling says she had finished her first draft of the first Harry Potter book before realizing she’d included some key plot elements that shouldn’t show up until much later in the series. So it was back to the drawing board.

Plot and pacing are the meat and potatoes of writing for your readers, but it’s also important to work in time for some sweet, sticky candy to keep your readers addicted. Rowling does this with things like fun-to-say names (Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans), out-of-this-world concepts (earwax flavor), and characters that real-live humans can truly empathize with (no, not Bertie Bott—Harry and his friends). Her ability to capture readers’ imaginations and hearts is as much about the details of the wizarding world as the sequence of events in the series.

Hear Rowling talk about where some of her ideas come from—the blend of influences from her life, pure invention, and human motivation is exactly the reader-focused recipe we’re talking about.

8. Read inspiring quotes about writing.

The overarching tip here: love what you write and don’t give up. But we’re going to give the last word (or words) to J.K. Rowling. Sometimes all it takes is a push from a role model to get you rolling in the right direction, so keep these mood boosters nearby if you’re feeling down on yourself or writing. Believe us: J.K. knows what she’s talking about.

Can you make that kind of transformation with Polyjuice potion?

Failure is inevitable—make it a strength.

A step up from writing for your reader: being your reader.

I just write what I wanted to write. I write what amuses me. It’s totally for myself.

Maybe you thought you are what you eat. Not according to J.K. Rowling.

What you write becomes who you are…So make sure you love what you write.

If you’re waiting on publishers, agents, or other forces beyond your control, you just have to let those forces do their thing. It’ll work out in the end.

Wait. Pray. This is the way Harry Potter got published.

How could you not feel inspired?

We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all of the power we need inside ourselves already.

In the end, we can’t promise that these tips will snag you a Pulitzer Prize, but setting a writing schedule and letting your imagination run free are important first steps.

The post J.K. Rowling’s Top Tricks for Working Magic With Your Writing appeared first on Grammarly Blog.

from Grammarly Blog https://www.grammarly.com/blog/rowling-work-magic-with-your-writing/