Video Episode: The "Hammer-Spin" Sequence from Acro Camp

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The movie is coming along! After spending most of February dealing with a bacterial infection in my leg (which, by the way, the doc says is looking great and won't affect my fitness to fly in any way), I'm back to burning the midnight oil (and whatever else is nearby and flammable) and editing Acro Camp, Airspeed's first feature film.


The sequence in this episode is Jim Rodriguez's "hammer-spin" from the third day of flying at Acro Camp. Jim had just begun to get the hang of the hammerhead in the Super-D when he went up with Don in the Berz Flight Training Pitts S-2B. And he found out the exciting way that the Pitts doesn't need anywhere near as much forward stick.


The cool thing is that he also found out that the Pitts is pretty well-behaved when you get off the power and let go of the stick. It comes right out of the spin and wants to know what else you want to go do.


There's a lot of editing yet to be done. But I think that I have the workflows pretty well nailed down and it's going a lot more quickly than it was this fall. We have between one and three cameras and a cockpit audio track to load in for each flight and this was the first flight that I went and put together with that workflow. It worked like a charm.


On the musical front, I just got in a treatment of Acro Grass, one of the themes that we've crowdsourced to Airspeed fans, from Grammy-nominated audio ace Scott Cannizzaro and it's amazing. It's been spewing from my iPod all day now and I think I like it better each time.


If you're musically inclined and want to lay down some tracks for consideration for inclusion in the film's soundtrack, there's still time. I'm in no danger of finishing the film soon, so you probably have at least through April to get your tracks in.


I'm also working on the CAP NESA audio episode. As is obvious to anyone who knows me, the NESA experience made a big impression and I really want to capture the whole experience. Thus, the writing is taking its own sweet time. But it'll be a characteristically epic Airspeed episode when it comes out.


More soon. Stay tuned!

Production Update: Return from ICAS, T-38A, Acro Camp Soundtrack, and More

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Okay, I think my head is back from Vegas and ICAS 2010. Great convention, lots of contacts made, and lots of friends revisited.

And lots on the hot plate for the next few weeks. Don, Barry, and I go into the studio on Friday to record parts of the Acro Camp movie soundtrack. I have all of the basic tracks down, but the real magic won’t happen until we’re all together with the instruments set up and the click track begins.

And I’m close to finishing the episode covering the T-38A flight with the 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale AFB. With that one, it’s an embarrassment of riches because of all of the great audio and video we captured. It’s no longer an issues of having a long episode. It’s an issue of how to make it shorter and more concise.

Rod Rakic and I will also likely record Part II of the Zero-to-Hero series, covering his intensive instrument and commercial training and me covering my multi-engine rating and DC-3 type school.

And there’s B-17 footage, Huey footage, and other great eye candy still in the can that I need to edit and get out into the feed.

I cant say enough things about this audience. Truth be told, I’d do this for my own benefit even if none of you tuned in. But knowing that there are thousands of you out there who really understand this stuff and care about it makes it that much more exciting. I’ll be channeling you guys in the studio on Friday and gain over the editing desk with the T-38A episode.

Airspeed alive, fuel, oil, rotate, climb, best glide . . . Smoke on!

Acro Grass: Crowdsourcing a Piece of the Acro Camp Soundtrack

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Hi, guys. Lots going on. I’m editing material from a balloon flight, a T-38 sortie, an episode on how to hurl in an airplane, and lots of other stuff. Lots more aviation content coming your way soon. But lets take a quick detour to talk about the movie.

Unless you’ve just subscribed, you know that the movie, Acro Camp, is in post-production. We’re all awestruck by aerobatic flight. We wonder what it’d be like to fly upside down for the cheering kids.

At some point, you quit wondering, climb over the fence, and go find out. Four pilots. Two men and two women. Experience ranging from 300 hours to 12,000 hours. None of them had a tailwheel rating and none of them had flown any appreciable aerobatics. We took over a Part 61 flight school for five days this spring and those pilots flew aerobatics for the very first time. We loaded up the airplanes with HD cameras and digital audio systems and had cameras roving around the ramp and the pilot lounge to capture the entire experience. And now it’s coming to a DVD player, film festival, or side of a barn near you.

Acro Camp. Go find out.

Principal photography wrapped in May and I have something like four terabytes of content to make into a feature film. It’s Labor Day weekend 2010 as I’m recording this. If you’ve been following the Acro Camp blog at http://www.acrocamp.com/ or following me on Twitter as StephenForce, you know that I’ve been engaged in a film editing orgy of stupendous proportions, wading through all of the video and audio that we shot in May. There’s amazing stuff in there, from first tailwheel flights to botched maneuvers (witness the “Immel-Spin”) to formation sorties and everything in between.

I also did one other thing this evening in the studio and I think you’re going to like the concept. Maybe even enough to participate.

The aviation podsphere is one of the most open, inviting, and collaborative places in cyberspace or any other space. Everybody who can make it sits down together twice a year to record a live episode together. Even the Aussies bend over backward to be there, even if only virtually. We often appear on each other’s shows. We get input from audience members and fans and fellow aviation enthusiasts. Sometimes, we even turn the mic over to them. Were it not for Airspeed, I wouldn’t know half of the people that I now call my best friends.

When I announced that I was going to make a movie, I had two instructors, two airplanes, and a vision. I hung my credibility out there and asked you guys to join in. Then I sat back and sweat blood until I got at least four applicants.

I needn’t have worried. I got 51 applications from all over the United States and Canada and an utter embarrassment of riches in trying to narrow down the cast to Jim, Lynda, Michelle, and Paul. People volunteered and came from California, Florida, Indiana, New Hampshire, and Michigan to handle cameras, swap cards, and cover the experience. People flew and drove from Iowa, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and other places just to hang out.

The film has been a collaborative and social enterprise from the very beginning. So I though I might try getting even more involvement from those of you whose imagination this project has captured.

How’d you like to help out with the soundtrack? Yep. That’s right. I’m going to crowdsource at least one of the grooves on the soundtrack. Here’s how it’s going to work.

As many of you know, I usually write and record groove-based music for my audio and video episodes. Same thing for the movie. Repetitive, groove-based music that sets a mood and is engaging, but rides under the action and augments it without overpowering it.

I came up with a basic theme on my Martin Backpacker guitar about six months ago and it’ll be one of the themes that I use for stuff that happens on the ground. (By the way, I’m planning to have all of the music on the ground be in 4/4 and all of the music for the aerial sequences be in 3/4 or 6/8. Thus, this is in 4/4.) I’m including a bit of the theme here in this episode so that you can listen to it. It’s just a basic illustration of the theme and it’s very imperfect. It’s not the final version and I’m almost certainly going to re-record it for the soundtrack.

It’s called Acro Grass for the moment, mainly because it has a bluegrass feel and the Martin Backpacker guitar sounds very banjo-like when I play it. It’s in the key of D major and the tempo is 116 bpm. I recorded it with the Backpacker with a DADGAD open tuning like I used in Theme from Milliways (which you heard in the First Solo episode in 2006) and The Lake Parker Arrival (which you heard in April of 2008). Both pieces have made appearances in trailers to A Pilot’s Story as well.

I’m including the theme at the end of this episode so you can hear it. If you hear something about at theme that speaks to you and you’d like to contribute, here’s what you do.

Download one of the extended versions from the show notes for this episode at http://www.airspeedonline.com/. I’ve posted two of them: One with a click track and one without. Each runs a little almost 12 minutes, so you’ll have plenty of time to sit and jam to it and come up with your own additions.

When you’ve come up with your contribution, record it and then send it to me in electronic form. All I need in the early going is an e-mail to steve@airspeedonline.com with an MP3 or a link to where I can download your file and listen to it.

If I like it and want to incorporate it – or think I might – I’ll likely get in touch with you and get a permission from you to use it. Basically, you’ll represent and warrant that it’s your original work, you’ll agree to indemnify everybody associated with the project against third-party infringement claims, and you’ll grant a non-exclusive license to use your contribution in the movie, in the soundtrack CD, and otherwise. I’ll mention you in the credits and you’ll get to brag that your stuff made it into a movie.

And, if I can pull it off, I’d love to do something like put a picture of you up when your part is featured while the music plays during the credits, along with a notation of the instrument you play and what you fly. That would reveal some of the people who made the music to which the audience has been listening throughout the film.

In any case, I’m not in a position to pay for your contribution. That’s kind of why I’m calling it a contribution. I’m already about $10,000 into the project, not counting the hundreds of hours thus far. In the exceedingly unlikely event that the movie actually recoups its production costs and I can start paying people for their stuff, I might tickle your mailbox with a little something. But no promises. Don’t count on anything.

Some other notes of importance. What I’m looking for are short sequences and snippets that I can loop or otherwise incorporate into long and varied amalgams of the general tune appropriate to dropping into the film at strategic points. I’m not looking for a complete 11-minute opus that runs alongside, or incorporates, the track that I’ve provided. Don’t make a career out of it. Just bits and pieces that I can remix and assemble. Musical Lego blocks.

You don’t need to go into a fancy studio and you don’t need top be running Pro Tools to make this happen. Any reasonably good recording that’s on pitch and in time will be fine. Even if all you do is listen to the guide track in your headphones, play along while recording, and then send me the good parts, that’ll be fine. I’ll take it from there.

By the way, I got the idea from the Playing for Change videos. If you haven’t seen them, please hit YouTube and watch a few. And contribute money to Playing for Change for the work that it does. My favorite is Stand By Me. It starts with street musician Roger Ridley in Santa Monica, California and then dissolves to Grandpa Elliott and Washboard Chaz in New Orleans and then to other musicians around the world. None of them had met in person at the time, but the guys who made the videos put the parts together in post to make a cogent and beautiful presentation of the music. I want this tune to come together along those lines.

And note that each of them just listened to the guide track in their headphones and played. Use Pro Tools if you have it, but the musicians from Playing for Change did just fine without it. You can, too.

There’s no guarantee that your music will be used at all. And, if it does, I might twist and repurpose it in strange and beautiful ways, whether by adding effects, pitch-shifting it, increasing or decreasing the tempo, cutting it, augmenting it, and what have you. As with the Acro Camp campers and IPs, you’re going to have to trust me.

When you submit your stuff, do it in an electronic file. WAV is preferred. High-resolution MP3s will do in a pinch. Make it high and dry with no reverb or other effects. If there are multiple instruments, separate them one per file. Don’t send a mix unless it’s to illustrate a particular thought about placement or some other element and you’re sending the separate instrumental track as well.

The following things strike me as potentially interesting to include. (Not essential, but they’re what I’m hearing in my head when Jeb Burnside isn’t in there.) Wordless female voice, something like Enya or Cirque du Soleil. Strings like violin, viola, cello, or bass. Flute or whistle. And banjo. And, if you can make it work, trombone. Kent, this means you have to play in four sharps, but I think you can handle it.

I suppose that this is also a good time to indulge one more fantasy here at Airspeed. That fantasy is that Bela Fleck, Chris Thile, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor, Jordan Rudess, Tony Levin, John Petrucci, Mike Portnoy, Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, or Alex Lifeson listen to the show. Or that someone who knows the foregoing gods of musical motor skills listens to the show. And that one or more of them shoots some tunage my way. C’mon, guys! I’d almost take that over an opportunity to land a crippled 747 with the STS orbiter on top of it.

Anyway, here’s that theme: Acro Grass. Extended versions for use as guide tracks to record your bit:

With click track:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/Acro_Grass_Jam_Track_With_Click.mp3

Without click track:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/Acro_Grass_Jam_Track_Without_Click.mp3

Tempo: 116 BPM
Key: D maj

The Last Pure Thing on the Radio

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. If you want to listen online, please use the direct link below. http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedLastPureThing.mp3.

I’ve been volunteering with event-based airshow radio for three years now. I’ve really enjoyed working with guys like Dave Shallbetter of Sun ‘N Fun Radio, Fareed Guyot, Mike Morgan, and others from EAA Radio at AirVenture, Erik Utter from Arlington Fly-In Radio, and Don Costanza and others from FlightLine Radio. It’s a crew of dedicated people that really understands what the radio could be if it would dare.



And I might add that the airshow stations have been great about opening their arms to podcasters. SnF Radio not only hosts the annual Gathering of Aviation Podcasters and broadcasts a couple of Uncontrolled Airspace episodes, but puts podcasters on the air right after the airshow each evening. EAA Radio has UCAP on the radio a couple of times a week and hosts Podapalooza, now entering its fourth year. Arlington Radio has been broadcasting bits of Airspeed since 2006 or 2007. Flightline Internet Radio has put podcaster promos on the air and over the Internet for years.

So last year, just before Oshkosh, I began mucking about with a tune in tribute to airshow radio. I fleshed out the tune and actually got around to recording it a few weeks ago and it’s ready to release.

It’s called The Last Pure Thing on the Radio. I recorded the basic guitar, bass, and vocals at home and then went to The Soundscape Studio in Royal Oak, Michigan to lay down the drums. Then the whole ball of wax went to audio mastermind Scott Cannizzaro in New York for the professional treatment.

Scott not only mixed the piece wonderfully, he added some musical elements of his own. And he was able to get a college acquaintance, Chris Wormer, to play slide guitar on the track. If Chris’s sound is familiar to you, you might have heard his guitar stylings with The Charlie Daniels Band.

The artist name in the MP3 metadata is 7600, an informal band made up of music enthusiasts from around the country who collaborate remotely over the Internet. I generally release 7600 songs with the band name and then the specific folks who played or contrinbuted, so almost every 7600 song will show up as a separate artist on your player, but I think it's worth it to identify the particular humans who had a hand in the process.

I’ll post a link to an MP3 download of the song on the Airspeed website so you can download it and enjoy it for personal, non-commercial use. I hope you like it. It’s dedicated to all of the volunteers that make airshow radio happen year after year.

So, without further ado, I give you The Last Pure Thing on the Radio.

(Get your free download of The Last Pure Thing on the Radio at this link. PC users, right-click, select "save target as," pick a place for the file, download, and enjoy!)

[Lyrics]

The Last Pure Thing on the Radio
Steve Tupper

I vaguely remember FM radio in 1968
Before The Man took it over and made it all blah-blah-blah.
And I remember watching the airplanes take off and land at Battle Creek and thinking
“Man, it’s going to take a long time to get the money and the guts to do that.”

These days, I’ve got an iPod that’s connected to my head 24/7
‘Cause the radio’s still not what Mike Agranoff dreamed it could be
And it took a long, long, long time before I got the money and the guts
But I finally put together the money and the guts. (Yeah!)

And I heard somewhere that if you walk around at Oshkosh or Lakeland or Arlington
And you take along that same little transistor radio from 1968
Somewhere in the aether, there’s magic, love, and science
And some of it’ll spill into your ears if you let it.

A couple of guys are grading landings and talking trash on the afternoon show
And Dave in pre-production is working on four hours of sleep
And somebody just stuck a mic in the face of an eight-year-old kid
Who’s talking so fast about the airplanes that I’m not sure he’s breathing right

But I listen to the radio and I hear the engines roar
Washing over me again just like it did before

CHORUS
It’s the last pure thing on the radio
On the air (on the air) yeah, let the music play
It’s the last pure thing on the radio
Let the radio come carry me away


Low-power AM and FM and carrier current and whatever
And temporary antennas that they roll out once a year
Sometimes it’s not easy to get a good clean signal
‘Cause there’s a hill in the way. Or a tree. Or a gum wrapper.

But it’s the voices of people who love this stuff as much as I do
And they’ve been here since the Wednesday before the show
They get paid a campsite in a soggy corner of a field somewhere
And maybe the keys to a golf cart or a scooter someday


But from dawn patrol to signoff they lean into microphones
And spill out their hearts about whatever’s coming down the taxiway
And interview the local beauty queen and whoever else is handy
And maybe get Sean Tucker to cut a liner or two

It’s like a dream where your best friends take over the airwaves
Throw out the playlist and just put on stuff that matters
And everything stops when a fighter jet come screaming through for a low pass
And there’s even dead air just then, but everybody understands.

And they listen to the radio and hear the engines roar
Rolling down the show line just like it did before

CHORUS
It’s the last pure thing on the radio
On the air (on the air) yeah, let the music play
It’s the last pure thing on the radio
Let the radio come carry me away

BRIDGE

I like it at airshows when they have a VFR arrival window
And a lone 172 is crawling in on short final
‘Cause I like to stand up and hold my cap over my heart while that 172 touches down
And I know you do the same thing.

So I stand at the snow fence pumping my fist in the air
And shout for John Mohr as he makes the engine sputter upside down
With that little transistor radio sticking out my back pocket
Picking up dead air at all the right moments.

I listen to the radio and hear the engines roar
Washing over me again just like it did before

CHORUS
It’s the last pure thing on the radio
On the air (on the air) yeah, let the music play
It’s the last pure thing on the radio
Let the radio come carry me away

Let the radio come carry me away

MacDowell Piece Takes Shape

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show notes or links to show audio, please check out the other entries.

Crunch time yet again! I’m applying for a residency at The MacDowell Colony, North America’s oldest artist’s colony. It’s located on 400-odd acres near Peterboro, New Hampshire. At MacDowell, they give you a studio (read: cottage, barn, or similar structure appropriate to your particular art) and between two and eight weeks to just soak in your creative juices. No phone, no pool, no pets.

A mysterious guy named Blake sneaks up to your door and leaves a picnic basket at lunch time. You head to the main house for dinner and chow down with the other artists in residence and feed off of their energies. For a really great encapsulation of the experience, check out the December 14, 2007 installment of PRI’s Studio 360 or head to the colony’s website and watch the short feature MacDowell Moments.

Anyway, I’m applying as an interdisciplinary artist to write a series of folk songs and essays imagining the first folk music of the journey to Mars and back. All composed on instruments not larger or more massive than what an actual crew member would be expected to be able to take along in his or her personal volume and mass allotment. For me, that means, travel guitar, mandolin, Ashbory bass, music box mechanism, tin whistles, xaphoon, and other small instruments.

I have to submit two pieces of my work along with the application. Sometimes Alternates Fly seems a no-brainer. The other will be a song of the kind that I intend to write there at MacDowell. The song, Eleanor Flies, finally made it into a tangible medium this weekend and I sent the tracks to Scott Cannizzaro on Sunday to mix. We’re through two mixes so far and I think Scott’s going to finalize it today. Then I burn it onto CDs, do the written parts of the application (actually, finish them – I’ve been writing pits and pieces since early 2008), and send the whole thing to Peterboro.

Shown above is Scott’s workspace for the mix. It’s kind of cool to see the whole thing as waveforms. His skills are well in excess of anything of which the music is worthy and I’m really glad to have access to his services.

I’ll post the song here and/or to the show sometime soon. Probably after the application is complete.

Airspeed - Music - Part 3

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It’s high time to do another music episode of Airspeed and we have a great lineup for you today. As you know, I like to plug my iPod into the AUX input of the airplane’s panel whenever I can and have a soundtrack to my flight.

Note that, as inspiring as music can be, it can also be a distraction and might keep you from hearing important radio calls. Be absolutely sure that the music doesn’t distract you or interfere with any radio or intercom communication. You are the pilot in command and you’re ultimately responsible for the safety of your flight, so act accordingly.

Solas – Coconut Dog/Morning Dew

http://www.amazon.com/Reunion-Decade-Solas-bonus-DVD/dp/B000F1HG9M

First up is Solas with Coconut Dog and Morning Dew. I’ve always loved most music that requires motor skills to play and Solas delivers that in spades with its particular brand of Celtic music. My uncle turned me on to Solas when I was in Boston in 2007 for Civil Air Patrol National Legal Officer College. I was also finishing up my instrument rating and preparing for the checkride at the time and this tune from “Reunion: A Decade of Solas” became my theme music for the instrument checkride. I particularly like Seamus Egan’s guitar run about two thirds of the way through the tune because it’s intricate, it’s played well, and it’s back by knuckle-dragging triplets by the persussion. I’m the only guy I know who plays air bodhrán (pron. bow-rawn) and this piece should give you an indication of why.

[Solas]

Liquid Tension Experiment – Acid Rain

http://www.amazon.com/Liquid-Tension-Experiment-2/dp/B00000J7UT/ref=ntt_mus_ep_dpi_2

Many of you know that Liquid Tension Experiment’s second album is my perennial “blare-in-the-car-on-the-way-to-airshow” music. I really enjoy the mix of syncopation and change-ups among the really solid and driving stuff that you can really get your teeth into. This is the music I most closely associate with flying aerobatics. All adrenaline but under precise control. This is Acid Rain. Check it out.

[Acid Rain 1]

And, by the way, this tune gets the Airspeed award for best use of a cowbell in progressive rock. You gotta hear this. Huge, monumental buildup, a whack on the cowbell, and then off into more crunchy groove.

[Acid Rain 2]

Steve Reich - Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble - Music for 18 Musicians

http://www.amazon.com/Music-for-18-Musicians/dp/B000WDVNOM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1234710385&sr=1-1

I tweet every once in awhile about the Grand Valley State University’s recording of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. It is what the title says. It’s a minimalist meditation on a cycle of 11 chords, mostly in a stream of 16th notes. It requires cello, violin, two clarinets, two bass clarinets, four pianos, three marimbas, two xylophones, a metallophone, and four women's voices. You can’t actually play it with only 18 people unless several of the musicians double up on instruments. The piece is something like 45 minutes long and beautifully augments the parmonies as the pulses ebb and flow.

This piece is what it sounds like inside my head all the time. This music is almost transparent to me. It’s just there and fits right in with whatever I’m doing - tweaking little neurons from time to time when it hits something sympathetic. I don’t even have to pay attention to it. It just envelopes me and tells me that it’s there.

Ever read Louis Sarchar’s Sideways Stories from Wayside School? There’s a story in which Mrs. Jewels brings in Maurecia-flavored ice cream. Everyone thinks it tastes great, except that Maurecia can’t taste I because it’s – well – Maurecia-flavored. If I can take a liberty and say that Maurecia liked the ice cream a great deal because it was her best essence at some level and that it made her feel centered, balanced, creative, and ready for anything, then Music for 18 Musicians is Steve-flavored music. Here’s a snippet from Section VII.

[Music for 18 – Section VII.]

This is way too short to give you more than the smallest taste. It’s out on SACD and it costs twice what a regular CD does, but it’s worth every penny. Go get this music.

Rush – Out of the Cradle

http://www.amazon.com/Vapor-Trails-Rush/dp/B000065DTE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1234724599&sr=1-1

I’ve been a Rush fan since 1985 when my friend lent me a tape of “Exit Stage Left.” I think I prefer the “Signals” era most, but I have every album since then, including all of the live ones and I like them all.

Guitarist Alex Lifeson is a pilot and is, no doubt, the driving force behind the classic instrumental YYZ. Listen to the opening rhythm of YYZ. It’s the Morse code identifier for a VOR near Toronto. How cool is that?

But my musical adrenaline comes from drummer Neil Peart. I’ve been reading Neil’s book, Roadshow: Landscape with Drums and it’s fascinating to find about what goes into a rock tour of that size. I’ll definitely pick up Ghost Rider and Traveling Music, his other two books, soon.

There are no flies on Geddy or Alex, but I go to Rush shows to see Neil. I understand from reading Neil’s book so far that he’s uncomfortable with being called the greatest rock drummer ever. Okay, he’s a journeyman who takes his work seriously and I get that he might be uncomfortable with such characterizations. But Neil, I’d be lying if I said that you weren’t my favorite drummer. I hope that’s okay. And thank you very much for all you’ve done for me and others over the years. I know that Neil is a private guy and I respect that. But if you happen to know Neil and it’s convenient, please mention these small and grateful words to him.

The Rush piece that I’m featuring here comes as a little bit of a surprise. I hit me just right as I was waiting in line to pay for my sandwich at the Bloomfield Deli this year. It’s "Out of the Cradle," the last tune on Vapor Trails. It starts out with a percussive bit on the bass that oozes anticipation and energy and quickly builds into the song proper. And Neil gives it two thumps on the tom on the one and two counts just before the vocals come in. Bomp, bomp.

[Out of the Cradle 1]

And my favorite moment of the song comes after the first chorus. The band just lets the basic groove happen for a few bars. Too few bands do that. Just let you recover from the chorus and gather up the energy to head into the next phase.

I still get nervous before I fly. All smart pilots do. To shake that off and take command of the ramp, I stomp on the pavement. Sumo style if you will. Bomp, bomp. To that same one-two that Neil plays. Flight is about humankind’s departure from the cradle. This song is very nearly perfect for flying in that respect. After your next preflight, walk away from the airplane a few steps, clear your mind, look around the ramp, and then stomp on it. Bomp, bomp. Surge of energy. Spark of inspiration.

[Out of the Cradle 2]

California Guitar Trio – Punta Patri

http://www.amazon.com/Opening-Act-California-Guitar-Trio/dp/B0011AE8X8/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1234710478&sr=1-9

I first heard California Guitar Trio on public radio while working late one night in 1999. I bought the album “An Opening Act” shortly thereafter and listened to it a lot. It’s all live and recorded during one or more dates upon which the trio opened for King Crimson. One particular tune, Punta Patri, has a really powerful part to it. Take a listen . . .

[Punta 1]

I really like the driving guitars and the layered sound. Kind of hard to believe that it’s just three acoustic guitars.

I first identified this at the Wayne State University Law School’s library while I was researching some state regulatory schemes on service contracts. The Tom Hanks –produced miniseries From the Earth to the Moon was fresh in my mind at the time and all I could think of as I listened to that part was an Apollo Saturn V launch. The last major built-in hold for the Apollo-era launches was at T-minus 2:00. Interestingly enough, the really dramatic part of Punta Patri takes place two minutes into the piece. I choose to think that it’s not a coincidence. To hear it the way I hear it, let me superimpose audio from the Apollo 14 launch and you tell me what you think.

[Punta with Apollo 14 launch]

Yeah, I thought so. Really powerful stuff and wonderful use of acoustic guitars.

Theme From Milliways (Go for TMI)

Lastly, I’m pretty excited to over you this, an original composition. For those familiar with the Airspeed episode from October of 2006 called “First Solo,” this is the music from it.

I originally wrote it on a Martin Backpacker guitar tuned DADGAD. It’s named after Douglas Adams’ fictional restaurant at the end of the universe and for the cabin in Northern Michigan that belongs to my friend and legal mentor. The “Go for TMI” part got added when I decided to make it a part of my upcoming album, Songs from the Sheffield – The First folk Music of the Journey to Mars and Back. When the Apollo missions went to the moon, they first boosted into Earth orbit and then did a burn that sent them on a trajectory to the moon. “Trans-Lunar Injection” or “TLI.” I presume that “TMI” is therefore an appropriate term for the big burn that sends the spacecraft to Mars.

I sent all of the tracks to audio wizard Scott Cannizzaro a month or so ago and asked him to remix it a little and augment is as he saw fit so that I can make it available to Will and Rico of Wilco Films for use in the upcoming independent film, A Pilot’s Story. What came back was really amazing. I’ll play a little of my initial recording done in my basement and then play the whole thing as remixed by Scott.

[Theme from Milliways (Go for TMI)]

_________________________________

Check out Scott Cannizzaro at http://www.nycmixer.com/

All music selections used as permitted by 17 USC § 107. See the contact information in the sidebar for DMCA contact information.

David Kneupper and the Music of Apollo/Saturn V Center

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedKneupper.mp3.

If the music right after the Airspeed theme in this episode seems familiar, the chances are good that you’ve paid a visit to the Apollo/Saturn V Center at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. I fell in love with the music in 2001 during my first visit to KSC and watching Atlantis go up on STS 101.

Airspeed is as much about the inspiration behind aviation and aerospace as anything, and it struck me as that I ought to try to get the composer of that music on the show to talk about the music and what’s behind it. It turns out that there’s a whole lot behind it – Like being present at several launches, being a pilot, and having strong family ties to the US space program.


David Kneupper [kuh-NIE-puhr] is an award-winning composer and sound designer currently living in Los Angeles, specializing in original music for museums, theme parks, film, and the concert stage.

David holds both a Master of Music Theory and a Ph.D. in Fine Arts from Texas Tech University, and has composed extensively for Universal Studios, the Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros., Six Flags, and many others. Recent projects include music for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Illinois, music for the US Pavilion at World Expo 2005 in Japan, and music and sound services for TimeRiders, a ride film starring John Cleese.

In addition to entertainment projects, David composes actively for the concert stage, and is the recipient of numerous commissions and awards for creative excellence. His Passacaglia and Fugue Rondo received its Carnegie Hall debut in 1993.

David is also an award-winning sound designer for both themed entertainment and feature film. His film credits as sound supervisor include What Dreams May Come, U-Turn, Sudden Death, Terminal Velocity, and Bad Company among many others. He is a member of the Motion Picture Sound Editors Guild, and former President of the Academy Award -winning Soundelux, the largest independent film sound company in Hollywood.

We caught up with David by phone at his office in Los Angeles.

[Interview]

David’s website: http://kneuppermusic.com/index.shtml

Want to buy a copy of the music? Try the KSC Space Shop at http://www.thespaceshop.com/ and/or call them at (321) 449-4444. I’ve had no luck in finding copies for sale at KSC since my first visit, but David says that he recently re-mastered the music and provided it for printing new CDs. If you want to buy a copy, call them up and let them know that you want one and, if you find out how they’re making it available, please e-mail me at steve@airspeedonline.com so that I can update the show notes!

Christopher Coleman’s review at TrackSounds: http://www.tracksounds.com/reviews/apollosaturn.htm

KSC’s web page featuring the center: http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/visitKSC/NASAtours/apolloSaturn.asp

Excerpts from The Music of Apollo Saturn V Center and The Star of Destiny used for comment and criticism as permitted by 17 USC 107 (fair use).

A Pilot's Story - Interview with Will Hawkins and Rico Sharqaui

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedAPilotsStory1.mp3.

Here’s an early look at the production of the new independent film, A Pilot’s Story. Many of you know Will Hawkins from The Pilot’s Flight PodLog, but not many of you know him as the extraordinary filmmaker that he is. He and Rico are working on the film with release scheduled for 2009 or 2010.

And you might be able to have a say about that release date. This is a labor of love. The aviation documentary is a largely untested genre, the success of One Six Right notwithstanding. And it’s not like there’s a lot of money around the economy for much of anything anyway.

But this is a film that needs to be made. Check out the interview with Will and Rico on this episode and then head to the film’s website and watch the trailer.

Then – and this is the important thing – scroll down and click the Donate button. Give what you can so that Will and Rico can complete this film.

I’m contributing music and other energies. Contribute what you can. Contributions that jingle help. But contributions that fold get the project made!



The story of flight is a sweeping saga that has exceeded the imaginations of even those who first dreamed it. And yet it unfolds (as all truly special stories do) in moments, places . . . and people. Always and ever in people.

Just above the heads of most of our brothers, sisters, coworkers, and neighbors there hang gossamer cathedrals of piled cotton below the cobalt dome of a perfect sky. But fewer than one in 500 will ever experience this through the front window of a flying machine. A Pilot's Story seeks out the special few who have answered the call of the skies, those with the discipline, aptitude, and courage to become pilots.


Filmed in hangars and homes, at restaurants and on ramps, A Pilot's Story tells the story of flight in the words of pilots themselves. What it means to fly an airplane all alone for the first time. What it means to fly an airplane for the last time. The easy rapport one can have with a person who is a complete stranger but for the shared experience of flying.

And the excitement that consumes pilots at the opportunity to share this world of aviation with non-pilots, airport communities, community leaders, and anyone else who will listen.


A Pilot's Story is a film for anyone who has sat all alone in an aircraft, firewalled the throttle, charged down the runway, and rotated. And especially for those who might if given the chance.

For most people, the sky is the limit. For a pilot, the sky is home.

This is the story of the journey home. A Pilot's Story.

More Pictures from the Thunderbird Groove Studio Session

This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or links to show audio? Please check the other posts.

More on the suburb rocking.

Here’s the acoustic setup. The same two RØDE mics, only set up on a single stand offset at about a 45-degree angle and about 18 inches from the sound hole. That’s an Applause acoustig guitar with a plastic round back. I got it in 1985. It’s a step down from the Ovation guitars of the time, but it really sounds good. It has a really bright sound and I use XL acoustic phosphor bronze strings on it to make it as bright as possible. The strings on it are at least a year old, but I haven’t played this guitar that much during that time, so I got a good sound out of it. Mostly repetitive stuff on the lowest three strings and letting the others ring a little as appropriate.

I was not ready to play for ten minutes straight and was hurting pretty bad for much of the takes. I got about seven minutes in on the first take before having to take a break. But I think we only had to do a couple of punch-ins. I liked what I heard in the control room. I’m sure there are miscues somewhere in that 10 minutes, but I’m optimistic about how it’s going to turn out.


Electric bass. This went pretty well. I think I flubbed a few things, but let’s face it: I’m a guitarist who owns a couple of basses. There’s a difference between that and an actual bassist.


Laying down the power chords on my trusty Carvin DC-127T. I got the money for this guitar by using my mileage checks from inspections of foreclosed real estate when I was a foreclosure property manager for a bank here in southeast Michigan. You could say that I traded apart of a 1989 Ford Tempo for it. Really nice studio guitar. Wish I had more time to practice with it.

The fluorescent lights in the control room caused a lot of hum in both the Washburn bass and the electric guitar. Thus the dark foreground. Tim shut out the lights in the control room and that took care of most or all of the problem. Kreuch took this through the window while standing behind Tim at the console. I don’t like using flash much for photography (although I’m not like the National Geographic guys who never seem to use it and always seem to have blurry shots whenever they’re in low-light situations). Thus, I didn’t show Kreuch how to use the flash. A good thing, too, because that would have goofed up this shot. Kreuch was rock-steady to get this shot, considering that the shutter speed must have been something like 1/4 sec.

Can’t wait to get the music finalized, write the commentary, and get down to recording and editing the episode proper. Stay tuned!

In the Studio Recording Thunderbird Groove

This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or links to show audio? Please check the other posts.


I’m rockin’ the suburbs
I’ll take the checks and face the facts
Some producer with computers
Fixes all my sh*tty tracks.

- Ben Folds
Rockin’ the Suburbs

Yeah, I’m a Ben Folds wannabe in many ways. And last night’s activities put a little finer point on it.

I spent four hours at The Soundscape Studio in Royal Oak last night recording the incidental music for the Thunderbirds summary episode. Definitely in the suburbs. It's on Rochester Road near 13 Mile Road in the norther Detroit burbs about 20 minutes south of my house.

This is the first time I’ve ever recorded in someone else’s studio and it was a real treat. I took in my drum kit, two basses, an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, and lots of other stuff.

The objective was to come out with backing music that I could use for the Thunderbirds summary episode, in which I’ll give a fully-produced account of the ride. I needed a driving and repetitive theme to back some of the commentary and drive some of the moments.

I started with a guide track that consisted of a basic drum beat at 62 bpm along with my voice counting off groups of measures and also cuing the transitions. I had the guide track going throughout the session so that I could synchronize everything and figure out when I needed to change stuff.

The piece is 10 minutes long. Most of it is pretty much the same repetitive figure in E, but I changed up the drum cadence (snare and high-hat only, straight cadence, and a triplet cadence on the kick drum) and the guitar figures on occasion to create maybe five or six different flavors in the piece. There’s also a chorus (if you can call it that) that uses power chords on electric guitar. That appears twice – Once about five minutes in and again about eight minutes in. That way, I have two climax points that I can use in the episode. The first will probably be the big pull on takeoff and the second one will probably finish out the episode.

Also, I used the Ashbory bass (pictured above) for the fretless, more acoustic sound in the first five minutes and then switched over to a Washburn electric bass beginning with the first chorus.

It’s not going to air as a full ten-minute piece. Rather, I’ll pick the appropriate parts when I get to the editing and dump in maybe 30 seconds here and a couple of minutes there. It didn’t really need to be 10 minutes long. I could have recorded a whole bunch of two-minute variations. But I didn’t want to have to record a whole munch of separate guide tracks and it also lent a cohesive frame of reference to record everything as a single stream.

Parts might suck or not. The most appropriate will go into the episode. Others won’t. I might or might not post the whole thing as an MP3 download just for giggles.

That’s Stuart Logan, one of my partners in the law firm, and Jim Kreucher, my best friend. Stuart is a student of may musical styles, but is especially a maven of 1970s punk. I met Kreuch in 1983 during our junior year of high school. When we build a recording studio in Hillsdale, Michigan (yeah, we built a recording studio in Hillsdale, Michigan – long story), I did a couple of albums of my own in there and Kreuch spent countless hours at the console engineering the stuff. He’s also a good rock vocalist, though he insists that he’s not.

Stuart and Kreuch joined me to schlep stuff in from the car and to generally hang out in the studio.


Tim Smith engineered the session and is doing the mix back at the studio as I write this. He plays drums for Zug Izland and most recently appeared live at the Juggalo Gathering on the main stage with Ice-T, Three Six Mafia, and 2 Live Crew in Cave in Rock, Illinois. He’s a genuine, skilled, and down-to-earth guy who thankfully didn’t laugh at my bringing in way too many instruments, obviously having too much else on my plate to have fully prepared the music, and having to stop and punch in a lot.

Having recorded myself for years and years, it’s really nice to be in a facility with the right equipment and have an engineer who understands how to mic everything. All I had to do was tell him what we were recording next and prepare to play the instrument. Tim immediately miced it out and had me ready to go. If there are any deficiencies in the recording, it’ll be with the performer, not the engineering.

By the way, I’ll have Tim’s mix to use in thinking about how to incorporate the piece into the episode, but I’m also sending the session to Scott Cannizzaro to see what he can (or wants to) do with it. Scott is the studio wizard who worked up the Airspeed theme music a few months ago and did simply amazing things with it. You probably heard the discussion on the episode featuring Scott.


Goofing around on mando. I brought a few other instruments in case we ended up having extra time. We ended up finishing recording with maybe 35 minutes to go, but decided not to try to do another piece. Frankly, I could have done all of the recording at home to an acceptable level (to me anyway), but I really wanted to use acoustic drums for this piece and the only real answer was to get into a studio with someone who had the right equipment and expertise. I can do any of the other fussy bits at home. They won’t be the quality that Tim achieved in terms of engineering, but it was time to knock it off for the evening.


Nice shot of the drum setup. Microphones everywhere. A good old Shure SM57 on the snare, RØDE mics for the ambient overhead stuff, and others to which I didn’t pay attention. I’m pretty pleased with what I heard in the control room when listening back.

I picked up a Pearl Joey Jorison Signature snare drum late last year. It’s all-metal and just cracks every time you hit it. I let the thing ring because I like that sound. I have at least one friend who sticks a maxi-pad or two on his kit to cut the ring, but I think that the metallic ring gives the snare a more business-like, slightly industrial sound. I could beat that snare all day. More 8K hearing loss anyone?

Anyway, the piece is recorded and I should have a preliminary mix this weekend. Scott will get a FedEx with the session DVD sometime next week, and I’ll get to writing. The session was a lot of fun. I could have played better. I just didn’t rehearse enough. But it’s going to be great for the intended purpose. And, after all, it’ll have the benefit of me mixing it into the episode, Tim’s engineering stylings, and possibly Scott’s mad skills in post. Producers with computers fixing all my sh*tty tracks

Contact information for Tim Smith and the studio:

The Soundscape Recording Studio
3323 Rochester Rd. (across from the McDonald's)
Royal Oak, MI, 48073
248-320-6706

The Music of the DC-3 Episode

This is a regular blog post. If you’re looking for show audio or show notes, please check out the other posts.

If you liked the music from the DC-3 summary episode, here are links to full 128 Mbps MP3 files of the music. Please feel free to download and enjoy for your personal, non-commercial use. You can also use it for airshows and similar events, provided that you notify me and credit me to the effect of: “The music is 'Cold,' composed and performed by Steve Tupper for the Airspeed podcast. http://www.airspeedonline.com/.”

I wrote the basic tune a few years ago, but worked it up more fully for the DC-3 episode. The tune is from an album project upon which I’ve been working for years called Songs from the Sheffield: The First Folk Music of the Journey to Mars and Back.”

The project imagines the folk music that will arise out of the first human journey to another planet (presumably, Mars in 20 years’ time). A pre-echo, if you will, of the first folk music of humanity’s next frontier.

Journeys of discovery focus the voyageurs who take them. From rafts to tall ships to canoes to prairie schooners, the journey strips away most things not essential to survival. Yet the journey requires constant reminder of the reasons for which the voyageurs take the risk. Through the ages, the common denominator has been songs and stories. Sea shanties. Chants. Rounds. Calls and responses. Hymns. Simple, yet compelling and memorable. Some sacred, some crude, some profane. All must be capable of performance by voice and/or personal instruments no larger or more complex than a crewmember could reasonably be expected to carry in his or her personal space or mass allotment and that could be played in the zero- or low-gee environment that will comprise at least half of the expedition.

I'm hoping to work these and others up into a demo worthy of a residency at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire in late 2009.

Ambitious? You bet. But remember that I went from average Joe 185-hour ASEL IA to DC-3 type-rated in a little over a month and am nothing if not driven. The application deadline is April 15, 2009, so I have some time, but I really need to nail both the composition and performance. If you happen to be a luminary in the art world and would be willing to be a reference for my MacDowell application, please contact me at steve@airspeedonline.com and we can talk more about the project and why and how I intend to use the time at MacDowell to create something really special.

In the meantime, watch the short video, MacDowell Moments at http://www.macdowellcolony.org/ to find out why I'm so excited about this possibility.

Here are the three arrangements that appeared in the DC-3 episode.
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Mandolin and Xaphoon:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/ColdMandoXaphoon.mp3

12-String Guitar:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/Cold12String.mp3

Mandolin, Xaphoon, 12-String Guitar, and Ashbory Bass:
http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/ColdFull.mp3
_______________________________________

Enjoy!

Behind the Scenes with Pilot and Audio Ace Scott Cannizzaro

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A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Scott Cannizzaro. He’s a pilot, an Airspeed listener, and an audio professional at The Soundtrack Group in New York. Scott offered to take some of the Airspeed music and work it up, which is to say take it into the studio, remix it, pinch a little here, poke a little there, and see what he could do with it.

So I went back to my ADAT session tape, extracted the individual tracks (four drum tracks and one each of guitar, mandolin, and bass) in .wav form, dropped them into a .zip file, and sent them off to Scott.

A few weeks later, when I opened the files that he sent, I broke the space bar on my laptop because my chin hit it so hard. Scott took some well-intentioned recordings with passable (but not brilliant) performances, and turned them into something you might find as a theme for a prime time TV show.

I usually don’t like to talk about administrative or housekeeping stuff on the show. After all, people tune in to hear about airplanes and aviation. But I was so impressed that I thought the audience might enjoy it if I had Scott on and devoted an episode to the process.

So here’s the conversation with Scott. I’ve included all of the basic tracks and even put the new intro, its entirety, at the end of the episode. You can hear us discuss what Scott did with each of the elements (including tossing out the drums) and understand how it evolved in Scott’s capable hands.

Scott’s contact of information appears below. Thanks, Scott!

Scott Cannizzaro
The Soundtrack Group
936 Broadway
New York, NY 10010
212 420 6010
nycmixer@mac.com
http://www.scottcannizzaro.com/

The Lake Parker Arrival

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Very much in the mood for an air show this week. Only a few weeks until Sun ‘N Fun down in Lakeland. I leave tomorrow to go see Greg Summer of The Student Pilot Journal in Titusville near Kennedy Space Center and then go play some golf with my brother and my dad on Jekyll Island in Georgia. But it won’t be an airshow.

I now have almost 30 outtakes from my checkride all set to go and the commentary is about a third of the way written, but my voice is still shot, thereby making a new episode a little difficult to cut just now.

So I sat down this weekend and recorded a little meditation I’m calling The Lake Parker Arrival. It’s me on 12-string guitar, six-string guitar, and mandolin. I tried laying down a little Ashbory bass, but I think it muddied the mix, so I left it out. Kind of like Ben Folds leaving the string section off Give Judy My Notice. Actually, nothing like Ben Folds, but you get the idea.

Anyway, there’s a link to the file here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/The_Lake_Parker_Arrival.mp3. Please feel free to listen to it and pass it around for noncommercial purposes or use it at any airshow for which you happen to need music. Just give me credit.

I’ll be back online soon with an update for preparations for the Battle Creek air show and, as soon as my voice comes back, I’ll record the checkride episodes. In the meantime, it’s time for a little R&R with the family.

Tray tables and seat backs!