Proverbs 101

http://www.draac.com/laughin/proverbs.html

Quote :

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.

You know this is so appropriate to me right now.
I just had a situation with someone I thought was my friend where I had to face the fact that that person is really a small mind.
I'm wanting conversation on big things like what it's like to be homeless and what do we do about a system where you can work full time and then some and not earn enough to make it. And all she can do is bitch about Adele's dress.
It's like the whole first world (or maybe just America?) has lost any sense of proportion and reality.

Yup, the whole "unemployment problem" would have to include those who are "under-employed," who are working jobs with less hours or less pay than they'd like but when pickings are slim the people with degrees in art will flip burgers. Obama mentioned in the SOTU than under current minimum wage a family of four with both parents working full time making MW would still be considered below the poverty line. Shameful. My state already had a MW above $9 -- I believe it's almost $10 -- but then we have a higher COL to make up for it.

Umm...
What was the deal with Adele's dress.

Who or what is Adele?

Jenni wrote:

You know this is so appropriate to me right now.
I just had a situation with someone I thought was my friend where I had to face the fact that that person is really a small mind.
I'm wanting conversation on big things like what it's like to be homeless and what do we do about a system where you can work full time and then some and not earn enough to make it. And all she can do is bitch about Adele's dress.
It's like the whole first world (or maybe just America?) has lost any sense of proportion and reality.

Honestly, NoCo...

Honestly Lisa

Lisa wrote:

Umm...
What was the deal with Adele's dress.

Apparently, Adele wore a flowered dress that some people thought very little of. I'm not big on fashion so to me it's a dress. The only thing I have to say about it is I'm not a huge fan of the pink range of colors and would have chosen something with blues and greens. But apparently the women who fancy themselves knowledgeable in such things found it to be a horrible dress. My deal is a) she's being awarded a Grammy not a fashion award b) it was vintage c) I think everyone's just pissed because the fat girl decided to show up in something other than black.

Imagine my shock when you said, 'a grammy'.
I thought your friend was talking about her kid.
(Daughter actually.)

If I may gently expound on NoCoPilot's question: "Who the fuck is Adele?"

_Howard wrote:

If I may gently expound on NoCoPilot's question: "Who the fuck is Adele?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYEDA3JcQqw

She's a 24 year old Brit with an amazing voice. I'm not a huge fan of sad or breakup music but there is something about that song that is terribly evocative for me. I heard about her because people were making fun of her for being fat and I got into an argument with some of them because my view is that fuck size, she's got talent and I think people who make fun of others for things like looks are probably lacking in some respect.

She's not fat. She's normal.

But it sounds like her voice has a pretty limited range -- about an octave, before she goes into falsetto. I wouldn't call her a great singer.

Compare to great singers:

That was pretty.

In spite of playing multiple instruments by ear or memory (violin, piano, guitar, and drums) I cannot read music and I know jack shit about it. I don't even know what a falsetto is, although I will Google here in a minute. I have no vocabulary for what I like, I know whatever it is it comes across as "haunting" because I like Bill Withers Ain't no Sunshine but then I also like CCR's Run through the Jungle. They both give me chills. But I have no clue what the musical element that I'm hearing and responding to is. I also have no understanding of vocal range. I am as appreciative of Adele as I am of the lady you posted and that Scottish lady that took everyone by surprise on American Idol or whatever it was.

I do love Ella and Dorothy though!

One of the most amazing performances ever caught on tape, Adele Addison (an Adele who can sing!):

Jenni wrote:

I have no vocabulary for what I like, I know whatever it is it comes across as "haunting" because I like Bill Withers Ain't no Sunshine but then I also like CCR's Run through the Jungle. They both give me chills. But I have no clue what the musical element that I'm hearing and responding to is.

I look for technically good singers, singers who can hit and hold a note accurately. In these days of auto-tune and melisma (what I call "yodeling," popularized by Mariah Carey) it's damn rare to find anymore.

Here's an example of everything that's wrong with modern music: extensive auto-tune, limited vocal range, obvious editing between every couple of words, and an "obsession" with style over substance:

Has anyone here ever tried singing "Summertime"?
We used to do strange things at my house. One of the things was our version of, 'name that tune'...
My mother and I were kinda bored, so my father got lucky when nobody bid any lower after he said to my sister, "Kathy, I can name that tune in 7 notes." So she sings the first seven notes of "Summertime". His face is like, "WTF?"... because she can sing...
and I said, "Please, do it again... as many times as you like because he'll never fucking guess!" "Sing the whole damn song, it won't help!"
Mom: "Lisa... please."

I was invited over for dinner by one of the shuttle drivers at work. We talked about music a lot, he knew I liked & appreciated it.

After a delicious dinner he pulled an upright bass out of the closet, and his wife grabbed a microphone. They played five or six songs, just the two of them -- and my fucking jaw dropped. Carl's a good bass player, but man, his wife is a fucking awesome, shivers up your spine singer.

Check out Brigitte DeMeyer
http://www.brigittedemeyer.com/

She appears to have a range about as limited as Adele's but she's learned to use varying dynamics to mask it.

This was Adele's big hit from a couple years ago. When she leaves the vocal range in which she's comfortable, she loses all control.

NoCoPilot wrote:

This was Adele's big hit from a couple years ago. When she leaves the vocal range in which she's comfortable, she loses all control.

I just don't have the knowledge to hear what you are hearing. I can tell that when she hits higher notes she seems breathless, if that's what you mean.

Yeah, breathless and off-pitch and hurried and her tone is shrill. Obviously she's aware that if she leaves her home octave, she's fucked.

Go listen to Adele Addison again. Perfect control clear up into the stratosphere. Of course she's a clasically-trained operatic soprano.

If you want to feel physical pain from a singer, listen to Claudine Longet singing (I use the term loosely), "Love is Blue"... or anything really.

Yeah but physical limitations can make a song, too. "The Girl From Ipanema" was sung by Jaoao Gilberto's girlfriend at the time, who had never sung professionally before, probably not even amateurishly in the shower. Technically she's all over the place, pitch-wise. Yet the charming naivite works for the song, and has an endearing quality that made it a hit.

Same for Herb Albert with "This Guy's In Love With You."

Some singers -- Blossom Dearie, Mose Allison, Dr. John, Joe Cocker -- have made a career out of being sloppy singers.

Claudine Longet (Ms. Spider-killer) was one in a long series of amateur singers promoted by (and slept with) Frenchman Serge Gainesborg (Jane Birkin, Brigit Bardot, Bambou) to capture that naive innocence the French seem to like in their pop.

Ok, I hear the difference, I hear what you mean. It just didn't strike me as incorrect, I thought that was just the song.

But ironically, the Adele song from the Bess and Porgy movie does not in any way "speak" to me in the same way that Adele's Rolling in the Deep does. So while I can totally appreciate the technical skill that she demonstrates I don't feel it in my body the same way, it doesn't give me chills, it doesn't move me. Which I sort of find ironic because I'm often a stickler for doing things correctly.