Bearly Coherent - Barry Carl  Do you have vocal problems? Is there a chuzzlewit in your group that's getting you down? Can't figure out what to wear onstage? Do you have a tough time sight-reading running sixteenth notes in Db in tenor clef? Do you forever wonder what wine goes best with your entree? Cheer up, my a cappella soul-buddies, cuz help is at hand! Hearken to the Bearly Coherent Songs of Experience. A world of infotainment awaits you.
Questions? Holla back at the Bear via the CASA contact page, or visit his megasite at www.barrycarl.com
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Written by Barry Carl
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Thursday, 10 May 2007 |
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At the East Coast Summit, I had what was for me a new and liberating experience. I’ve done quite a bit of improvisational music, but this was uncharted territory. I found myself onstage with not one, not two, but three incredibly gifted performers – guys I had literally just met. It was a very high and memorable moment.
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Written by Barry Carl
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Wednesday, 26 July 2006 |
There is a strange disconnect between the brain and the body of a performer that can, and frequently does, take place onstage. Against all evidence, one can force one’s self to believe that, at any given moment, one may become invisible in the midst of performance. Maybe it’s at the moment when the brain says “Whew! I’m done with my solo. Now I can be invisible.” Or maybe the singer’s brain says, “Hey, I’m in the back row. Nobody can see me back here” or “Everyone’s looking at so-and-so; nobody’s looking at me.” Wrong. There is no time during a performance when you aren’t important, no matter what part you play, where you stand, or what you’re doing – even if what you are doing is a putative “nothing”.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 31 July 2006 )
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Written by Barry Carl
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Thursday, 29 June 2006 |
Your voice is your instrument, but in the context of amplified singing, it is only part of the instrument. Like an electric guitar – or bass, more accurately – your sound must interface with an electronic pickup, which is going to have a major effect on everything you do.
If you sing as part of a larger group that uses only area mics and uses a single mic for soloists, you’d best read something else, since this will be of absolutely no value to you, unless you’re the kind of geek, like myself, who reads things and files them away for possible future trivia games and crossword puzzles. On the other hand, if your background is singing in area-mic’d ensembles and yearn to be a part of a one-on-a-part band, this might be for you.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 03 July 2006 )
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Written by Barry Carl
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Tuesday, 16 May 2006 |
It’s a show day, and you just woke up. You notice that your throat is a little dry and scratchy, and it feels weird when you swallow. Your nose is a bit stuffy, and you write it off to morning allergies. Throughout the day it gets worse, and by show time your vocal cords are coated with gunk, swallowing is torture, and you can’t breathe through your nose. Your voice feels like it’s swathed in an itchy wool blanket and sounds like a goose caught in a blender. What do you do?
You can’t send a sub. You don’t have one. You can’t cancel the show.You know that your group would sound lame without you, and it’s going to be dicey in any case because you don’t know what’s going to come out of your mouth from one second to the next. Trying to "sing the stuff off your cords" doesn’t work either, since it is thick and sticky and your cords feel like they’re entombed in gorp.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 18 May 2006 )
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Written by Barry Carl
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Wednesday, 05 April 2006 |
I am puzzled. I’ve known for most of my life that my reality didn’t necessarily coincide with that of other people, but today I hit a wall. I’ve been having fun all week, singing in the Verdi Requiem – one of my top five faves of all time – with the New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel and a great bunch of singers. It doesn’t get much better than that. There have been two performances so far, and they have both been dazzling. I had a great time, and the capacity audiences went wild. Case closed, or so you’d think.
I sat down with the Weekend Arts section of the NY Times this morning, and the reviewer, well, I don’t think that he and I were at the same show. He claimed to have been at last night’s performance, but he made the whole thing out to be this somber snoozefest. Well, it’s a REQUIEM mass, idiot. C’mon, you’re a critic. You’re supposed to be up on this stuff. What were you expecting? “Mr. Ed” reruns? And it was anything but a snooze. Lush, certainly; considered, absolutely; boring, no.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 14 April 2006 )
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Written by Barry Carl
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Saturday, 03 December 2005 |
 Whatever one might imagine the tangible trappings of success to be, one thing is certain. Success has a dark side. One of the most common rituals surrounding success, a gratuitous pumping called “having one’s carrot waxed”, can, if it goes unchecked for too long, cause permanent damage to both person and carrot.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with carrot-waxing, and taken on a per case basis, it has the net effect of making both the waxer and the waxee feel good about themselves. Everyone likes to feel good, and it feels good to make someone else feel good. Chronic carrot waxing has its own set of problems, but we’ll deal with those another time, maybe. Here we are focusing on an issue that only affects waxees.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 February 2006 )
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Written by Barry Carl
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Monday, 14 November 2005 |
 I slept with Sean Altman. In Las Vegas. In a bed the size of Rhode Island, with mirrors on the ceiling. At the legendary Flamingo hotel and casino, which, from that night on, Sean has referred to as the Flaming O.
I know that what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, and it only happened that one time, but it was traumatic, especially for Sean.
We hadn’t meant to spend the night together. The hotel desk had messed up our reservations. We were one room short and they were all booked up that night. It was late, like 3 am, and there was no alternative. We played a lightning round of “paper-scissors-stone”. Sean lost.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 February 2006 )
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Written by Barry Carl
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Saturday, 17 September 2005 |
I have to throw in my two cents, adjusted for inflation, on the above subjects. Lets start with microphones. I like them. A lot. If you were being unkind, or maybe just honest, you could say that Im mildly obsessed with them, which does make a certain amount of sense when you consider that a mic is my instrument, sort of. Since Ive been fortunate enough to work in some of the worlds best studios, using some of the worlds best, or at least most expensive microphones, I can honestly say that theres a huge and important difference, aside from price, between a good ol SM58 and, say, a vintage Neumann U47. Theres also a similar spectrum amongst the various pieces that comprise the audio chain that amplifies the tiny output signal of the mic and makes it loud enough to record, but thats a whole other subject. Im also happy to admit that under certain conditions I prefer the 58 to the U47, depending on what Im trying to achieve. To borrow a phrase, microphones are a lot like paintbrushes, and a savvy recordist uses them to bring out the best in a voice and to insure that the final track will sit well in a mix.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 07 February 2006 )
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