The Austin Arpeggio

The Austin Arpeggio Ezine Fall 2021

Table of Contents 3 . Letters from the Editors 5 . The Austin Art of Performance by C Scott 9 . Austin Venue Hours 11 . On the Record by Bao-Vy Pham 15 . Which Record Store Should You Go To?

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17 . A Community of Strings by Elias Gruber 21 . Parts of the Guitar 23 . Setting the Stage by Wyllis Washam 27 . Diagram of a Stage 29 . Puzzles

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Letter from the Editors

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Wyllis Washam

Hi, I’m Wyllis and I’m a freshman at LASA. I’ve lived in Austin for almost all my life. I listen to music all the time, and one of my favorite artists is Polo G. I really like playing tennis, I’ve been playing for about 5 years, but I also like playing basketball with some of my friends. I also enjoy playing video games.

One of my favorites is Overwatch.

Elias Gruber

Hi, my name is Elias. I am a freshman (like everyone who created this magazine) who has lived in Texas their whole life. I enjoy playing guitar, which is one reason I chose to join the music magazine group. In my free time, I like to read and listen to Radiohead, an alternative rock band. I am an avid player of chess, though I am not very good.

C. Scott

Hi. I have lived in Austin my whole life and enjoy the music scene and chose to interview performing artists because of their connections to the city and its people. I also have an interest in art and writing. I do theatre and have been in choirs, and spend a lot of my free time working on writing stories.

Bao-Vy Pham

Hi, I’m Bao-Vy! I love to watch random movies and TV shows in my free time and am probably on Spotify for at least an hour or two every day. Despite that, I still like collecting physical formats of music like CDs and vinyl records, though most of the records in my house are my mom’s. I also enjoy playing guitar, but I just started learning this year and am still a beginner.

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The Austin Art of Performance Shows in the live music capital of the world

By C Scott

A

ustin, Texas, the live music capital of the world. Musicians from all around come to play shows here; at the Saxon Pub, the Broken Spoke, and Antone’s, just to name a few. The scene is competitive and diverse, with all kinds of genres and all kinds of people. They perform for all kinds of reasons, for money, for fun, or something entirely different. Some of them are locals who know the city and its venues like the back of their hand, others are from out of state, looking for a new place to share their sound.

“You’ll find that there’s very few cities that are like this,” said Chris Melas, a local guitar player and music teacher. He goes on to say that it’s rare to find cities with as many good venues as Austin, and that he hopes it stays that way.

Melas plays with several bluegrass bands at different venues around the city, and he also has a couple of his students play with him at open mictype shows at places like the Butterfly The Austin Arpeggio - 5

Bar, a venue with an outdoor stage in East Austin. He says that his goal as a teacher is to get his students to a level where they can play in bands and be able to perform live shows.

“You’re in the business of selling parties,” Melas explained. There’s a process to finding the venues you want to play at, “you need to be interesting to a booker. You need to have a good video that shows you playing well, that the audio is good, the image is nice and crisp, all that.”

He said that, though getting to play at venues may be a bit of work, it’s worth it. Playing for an audience adds to a musician’s playing, to a band’s spontaneity. The audience and the band are reacting to each other, “so you’ve got feedback right away as to what they find exciting, so that you do more of it.” Playing for an audience lets you know what works and what doesn’t about your music and your performance.

Todd Thompson, a keyboard player and singer-songwriter who runs a

recording studio in Austin, describes the experience of performing as “an energy, which is hard to define.

But it’s really thrilling when it goes well.” He compared playing live to just being in the studio, saying that there’s a control while recording and being without an audience that you lose entirely when you play for an audience, when nothing can be redone. “The kind of chaos of playing on stage, you never quite know how it’s going to work.” He has good nights and bad nights, “but it’s always exciting.” He says he prefers performing live to being in the studio now.

Thompson is a songwriter, and he plays his songs with his band at shows. He said his favorite part of performing was, “When they’re singing your music back to you.

That’s, in general, probably the best feeling I can have on stage.” Melas said that the best thing for him was just having fun playing music with his friends. Live shows appeal differently

to different people, but most would agree that performing is a valuable experience for a musician. They make you better at putting on a show, at reacting to a crowd, at moving past mistakes, and persevering through a bad night.

“I think in the music industry… persistence is the name of the game,” says Nino Cooper, a member of the Dirty River Boys, an Austin band.

When asked what he liked best about performing, he said, “I just, it feels natural. I like performing, playing songs we’ve created to an audience and feeling that energy, feeling that feedback, and just that real time engagement with the audience.” He plays venues all around the country, but says that in Austin’s music scene, “There’s constantly great talent, constantly great shows going on.”

There’s something for everyone, every night. And that saturation makes things competitive, but it also makes the community flourish.

To get started playing in a scene like this, musicians have to book everything that comes their way, from ticketed shows to three hour background gigs at restaurants.

They get their footing opening for other bands, reaching out to venues and the people playing at them to see who wants to add another act to

their show, sending recordings and information. And after their band becomes a little more well known, they can make a website, start playing shows on their own, and start picking and choosing where they want to play.

“So we have a policy as to what we book,” Melas said, talking about the

“An energy, which is hard to define. But it’s really thrilling when it goes well.”

- Todd Thompson band he plays with. “It’s either it pays good, or it’s fun.” He explains that gigs aren’t going to be fun if you take every one. Once you’re able to, step back and make sure you want to do what you’re doing. Because, if it isn’t fun, and it doesn’t pay, “What are you doing all the difficulty for?”

Playing a show can require a lot of work, from bringing your instruments and your equipment to getting schedules worked out.

And some venues won’t have microphones or working PA systems (sound systems), so it’s good to have

Bluegrass performers at the butterfly bar

your own, even if it makes more things for you to carry. “You have situations where there’s not much of a stage, when you’re promised a PA system with microphones, and there’s not that. Maybe there’s only one microphone, and it’s not very loud,” Thompson said. “That’s one thing about being in Austin and playing a lot of live shows. You definitely see every kind of problem that can happen.” A member of your band could get sick, and you’d have to play with someone you don’t know, and you just have to make it work. “One of the most important things I’ve dealt with is once you’re good at playing music and you’re starting to book, buy a PA. Buy your own PA because venues have crap PAs in Texas,” Melas explains. PAs are your speakers, and they’re very important to the way your playing sounds, the impact it’s able to have on your audience. If the venue you play at has a broken PA, are you going to use that? “Or is it better to have your PA in your trunk and be like, ‘You know what, this PA sucks. I’m gonna use my PA.’” Melas said, shrugging. He stressed that being prepared is one of the most important elements of playing a show.

“I’m getting paid to carry the PA,

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The Dirty River Boys performing at the Saxon Pub

I’m getting paid to drive there, I’m getting paid to park on Sixth Street.

I’m getting paid to do all that crappy stuff, but the show’s for free,” Melas said, “The show is for free.” He’d do a show for nothing, the only thing the money is for is getting there and doing all the work to get set up.

Playing music is what he and his band love to do. It’s what Thompson and Cooper have based their lives around. Playing shows is a huge part of their lives, giving them the feedback and support they need to keep their careers going. “You play shows and you see people singing the lyrics back to you on songs that you wrote, and it’s an indescribable feeling,” Cooper said. Thompson also talked about how having an audience that knows your lyrics is one of the best feelings you can get as a songwriter.

“Some stages are better than others. Some places in Austin are more listening rooms or real stages. Other places are just restaurants, or bars.

So really, as you get better, you play more of the places where there’s more people there just to hear you play instead of going out to have a drink and maybe see some music,” The Austin Arpeggio - 7

Thompson explained. You get nights where the audience is great, they sing your music back to you, they clap when you’re done, and you get nights where they’re preoccupied, they don’t know who you are. But all of it is experience. It makes you better at putting on shows, at dealing with mistakes, at standing up on stage and just playing, not thinking about anything else.

Playing a show for a live audience is one of the best things about being a musician, it gives you all this immediate reward and feedback for your craft. It connects you with people you’ve never even talked to, but they’re cheering you on because they like your music. “I think it’s something that we can all relate to, no matter what language we speak, no matter what culture we come from, we can all connect through music. And I think that, you know, that’s the beautiful thing about it,” Cooper said. Music can bring people together without so much as a meeting beforehand. Whether you’re in the audience or on stage, a show can be an experience of connection.

Even for musicians who have been playing for years, there will always

be a thrill to performing. There will always be a rush of excitement at the applause and the atmosphere and the connection. “I mean [music] is the only thing I ever wanted to do,” Melas says. He’s been playing music for his entire life, and he still has fun doing it. It’s still very important to him. “It’s one of the things that keeps me sane,” Thompson said, “I really do enjoy it.” He said that many of the people he knew fell out of doing music as they got older, but for him, and many people, music is his passion, his thing. “It’s an interaction that happens between you and your band and you and the audience that is really unique compared to just conversation.”

A show is full of interaction.

Filled with unexpected good and unexpected bad. You have nights where the power blacks out and then you just have drums and vocals. Or maybe you didn’t expect to have a full crowd, but suddenly there are fifty people out there singing your songs.

You get to make music with your friends, for people you don’t know who came to hear your craft, who came to support you. The PA system might be broken, and you have to

send someone out to go get yours from the car. It could be an open mic, and you get to hear someone sing who you’ve never heard before, who just did it on a whim, but pulled everyone’s attention to the stage in just a few notes. The songs might be made up on the spot, deliberation seeping out into the crowd through the microphone. You get people who don’t even listen to your genre clapping and cheering just because you’re up on stage, doing what you love. You pull sound into the dark night and the colored lights and you make it belong to everyone. You put your voice and the singsong of guitar strings, the beat of the drums, the high fortepiano of a violin, the sound of boots on a wooden stage into everyone’s hands. And you make the audience feel your music. You make the air resound with the chorus.

answer. Cooper said, “I love music.

I can’t imagine life without it.”

Thompson gave a look and answered, “Man, why do I drink water?”

To a musician, performing is just what they do. It’s their love and their joy, and the nature of it is to be shared. Music is not private, it’s a message sung, strung, tuned, picked, and broadcasted out to the world. It’s a connectivity that can’t be matched by anything else. It’s in every language and every culture, every tap-tap beat of a pencil on a desk, every elegant sweep of a piano in a concert hall, every absent hum, and every heartfelt refrain. Music is one of the few things the world shares wholeheartedly, that spans across years and generations, miles and oceans. And musicians are the carriers, the conductors of our grand orchestra. The ones who pull our

a school pep rally to the quiet anticipation of a great orchestral performance, it’s all music. It’s all a melody.

And in Austin, it is made loud in the street corners and the venues. On Rainey Street and against the old walls of the Broken Spoke. It is made deafening in the nights while the bats fly out from under the bridge, it is heard among the skyscrapers downtown, on the steps of the Capitol.

From the doors of the Continental Club to Emo’s to the Moody Theater, on the stages set up for ACL, on the radio and in people’s homes, music floods the streets and keeps the city’s beat with an uneven, testy, incredible metronome. Letting anyone and no one know its lyrics so they can sing them in their own language, their own way.

The sky watches as guitarists step up

Chris Melas performing at the Butterfly Bar

All because you’ve gotten up on a platform and made noise into a speaker.

All because someone came to see it.

And why, what’s the bottom-line, atthe-heart-of-it reason? “It’s the best thing in the world. I mean, it’s my favorite thing to do, ever,” was Melas’

disjointed melody into something that comes out a speaker in a dark room, that falls away from a cello’s strings, that fills your head and doesn’t let go when it’s finished. That can be as simple as a clever lyric or as complicated as an entire symphony.

And from the clapping hands of

Image credits, in order of appearance: C Scott, Hubert Ryan, C Scott

to microphones and fiddle players pull their bows, as singers close their eyes and the bass pulls out the rhythm, as the middle of the Lone Star State lights up with hundreds of voices, all of them performing, all of them music.

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Austin Venue Hours

The Butterfly Bar during a bluegrass show

Every Day

Open and closing times of three local venues C Scott

- The Butterfly Bar

Sunday - Thursday Friday & Saturday

- Antone’s Night Club - Lustre Pearl

Antone’s while c Photo credits, clockwise from top left: C Scott, C Scott, Jason Scott

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11:00 am

12:00 pm

1:00 pm

2:00 pm

3:00 pm

4:

The Lustre Pearl while closed

Monday - Saturday Sunday

closed

:00 pm

5:00 pm

6:00 pm

7:00 pm

8:00 pm

9:00 pm

10:00 pm

11:00 pm

12:00 am

1:00 am

2:00 am

3:00 am

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On the Record How Austin’s vinyl businesses have survived through the years

By Bao-Vy Pham

F

The different records on the shelves of BLK Vinyl. Photo by Bao-Vy Pham.

or decades, record stores have consistently been highly successful businesses. The feeling of walking into one of these stores and finally finding a record that you’ve either never heard of and just catches your attention, or have been searching for everywhere is like no other. When customers get home, they can play their purchased records and see them on the turntable spinning and producing sound with their own eyes.

And once they’re finished listening to the album or single, they can add it to their ever growing collection.

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Austin boasts many record stores all around the city, and whether they’ve been here for decades or merely a few years, they have all helped music fans find their favorite artists’ albums in physical form. Every store has its own unique catalogue with different genres and decades, so music listeners can choose whichever fits them the best.

Besides an abundance of record shops, Austin also has its very own record pressing plant, Gold Rush Vinyl. Gold Rush Vinyl is Austin’s first vinyl record factory and works with many different clients from independent artists to record labels.

According to Jonathan Schanke, who is in charge of sales, customer service, project management, and production coordination, “We have two press operators and one shipping/packaging teammate. So two of them run the machines that we have and do the actual pressing of the records, and they do quality control, making sure all the music sounds good on it. And then they send it over to our packaging and shipping team member who packages it all up and gets it ready for shipping.”

It takes Gold Rush Vinyl about four to six weeks from the time that orders are

placed to have the records ready to be delivered to customers, which is the fastest in the world.

“That’s all dependent on when we’re able to get print in and when we’re able to get stampers,” Schanke said. “And so print obviously being what you put the vinyl into, the jackets, the artwork, and then the stampers being metal plates that are cut with the specific grooves of the music on them, which are

own collection served as the shop’s inventory.

“For the first three years until recently, we were all secondhand. So it was just going out to garage sales and estate sales and secondhand shops. And then once we were around a little while, people were bringing in records to us either getting rid of the records, or just selling stuff they didn’t listen to and doing trade and getting other records,” Brookbank explained.

Though according to Brookbank, this method of acquiring stock is sometimes inconsistent, which to him is the hardest part of running the store.

A record pressing machine at Gold Rush Vinyl. Photo by Jonathan Schanke. put into machines and then press the plastic into the records, that presses the grooves into the records. So we need those things to put the final package together.”

When the records are finished being manufactured, they then can be given to the labels and artists so that they can distribute them across the world. “I would think there’s probably around 70 different labels and distributors, majority, that we work with,” Dan Plunkett, co-owner of the major record store End of an Ear, said. “So we order from them once a week to once a month, some overseas, some over here.”

Meanwhile, some stores prefer to get their records from other sources. When John Brookbank, who is the co-owner of BLK Vinyl, first started out, his

“It’s kind of feast or famine,” he said.

“Sometimes we’ll get thousands of records in, and then sometimes we’ll go like a month where there’s only a few hundred that come in, and it’s not great stuff. So it’s all kind of ebbs and flows, the kind of good stuff that we get in since we don’t do a lot of new releases or Record Store Day or reissues and stuff.”

To Plunkett, the most difficult part of managing End of an Ear is customer service. He says that the store has a good clientele though, so they are able to deal with it well.

Something that both Brookbank and Plunkett do have in common is their favorite part about running a record store: learning about new music. Being in the store all day has exposed them to new genres and artists that they never would have paid attention to otherwise.

“I get to live in a jukebox for 50 hours a week,” Brookbank said. “So I get to listen to a ton of music. Some people can listen to music on their earbuds at work or whatever, but I really get to learn all about all kinds of music.”

“There’s just always so much stuff that’s

already come out and coming out that I’m always learning about new stuff like, ‘Oh, I didn’t even know that this jazz from Madagascar happened in Paris in the 60s. What is this about?’” Plunkett said.

However, recently, the usual routine of record stores and pressing plants was interrupted by the pandemic.

Many businesses were forced to close temporarily, and when they reopened, they had to find ways to adapt to the new norms and restrictions brought forth by the coronavirus.

Gold Rush Vinyl had to be shut down for about a month and a half, and they were the only manufacturer that had to do so. “That put us in a tough spot because we had to shut down our machines for a month and a half, and they didn’t like being fired back up two months later,” Schanke said.

Due to this, as well as the recent high demand in vinyl, Gold Rush ended up falling behind on orders, with their turn times increasing from the previously mentioned six weeks to about seven months. And since there was already a shortage in capacity, this makes getting records pressed even harder for artists and record labels.

Pressing plants were not the only businesses having a hard time. Local record stores had also experienced quite a setback due to COVID-19.

“When it first was [happening], we were hearing about it,” Plunkett said. “We’re like, ‘What’s going on? What is this?

How serious do we take this?’”

BLK Vinyl and End of an Ear both ended up having to close their doors for several months. But while the stores were closed for in-store shopping, they still offered online shopping. End of an Ear also offered curbside pickup.

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“I’ve been saying, it was a little bit of a blessing where we were only two years in and that I learned how to do Instagram and stuff like that, like sell through eBay. And there’s a site called Discogs that is a record marketplace,” Brookbank explained.

To help financially with this sudden transition, End of an Ear additionally got Payment Protection Program (PPP) and Small Business Administration (SBA) loans.

“There’s a lot of things that helped us keep going, like all the employees just stayed employees,” Plunkett said. “We didn’t lay anybody off. We just reduced our hours and were kind of hunkered down. And it worked, so we were lucky.”

When the situation improved, and restrictions loosened up as new COVID-19 cases decreased, the two stores opened up for appointment shopping. After some time, they fully reopened for normal in-person shopping. It was then that their sales, which had been reduced, began to pick up again.

“Once we started doing in-store shopping, we were noticing that we might not have as many customers, but the average per sale was higher,” Brookbank said. “People just weren’t buying for a little while, so they were spending hundreds instead of tens of dollars on records every visit.”

The coronavirus isn’t the only challenge that physical record stores have been facing. With the recent rise of online stores that deliver to your doorstep, many people are finding it more convenient to purchase their music digitally. However, there are still many music fans who prefer having a physical experience where they can actually see and hold the music in their hands.

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Part of the charm of record stores is that customers are able to flip through boxes and boxes of records and see if they can find anything that they like. There’s no real way to replicate that exact experience when shopping online.

“Just artwork will speak to you or just a record from somebody that you didn’t know existed,” Brookbank said. “We have listening stations too. So every record in here, for the most part, is open where you can bring it over to a listening station and check it out and just spend hours in here.”

End of an Ear sometimes houses instore performances from bands, which Plunkett says is another great part about record stores.

“They have this magic, like music in the grooves that just still fascinates me.”

- John Brookbank “We were doing an in-store here with the artists in Amarillo, and I was like, ‘There’s all these other musicians in here,’” he said. “But we had like 85 people coming in-store and I was like, ‘All these people are talking about music projects or projects they’ve met in their interviews,’ and it just becomes another meeting place and I was like, ‘Man, that’s great!’ That’s what record stores are for.”

In addition to musicians, record stores can also help you meet people who have a similar music taste to you, Plunkett said. “‘Cause you need these people that

have obscure taste that you just meet in person like, ‘Oh, you need to meet so and so, cause he’s into Brazilian folk music like you are.’” Plunkett said.

Schanke says that record stores are also a good way for smaller artists to distribute their music without the help of a major label.

“I think it’s essential for artists who are kind of starting out. But then again, it’s also essential for majors,” Schanke said.

“Major labels will house the records in so many different retail shops. It’s important for the flow of the economy.”

Nevertheless, Schanke still agrees that though shopping for a record in-person is a better experience, online shopping is quicker.

“It’s a little bit of both. There’s days when I don’t have the time, and I wanted to get the Leon Bridges Coming Home record, and I probably would have found it in Waterloo,” Schanke said.

“But I was like, ‘I just want this right now. I need to buy it right now.’ And so I just ordered it online.”

Schanke thinks that it’s best for digital and physical shopping to coexist, and that “​​there’s got to be some way to bridge those gaps too,” since they both have their own unique feelings and benefits.

With music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music becoming more prevalent, vinyl’s practicality and usefulness had been debated by lots of people. Despite this, there has still been a surprising increase in demand for vinyl records lately.

Plunkett says that being in quarantine may have to do with this. People had to spend all their time at home, so they started putting more time into things that they were too busy for before.

“They’re just kind of like, ‘Oh, now

it’s time. I can explore my collection,’” Plunkett said. “We sold a bunch of stuff via Instagram, so people could see stuff all the time. Like, ‘Oh, that’s a record I don’t have.’”

or artists that are expecting their music on vinyl to sound exactly how it sounds on digital, we’re like, ‘That’s just not the way it works. Vinyl isn’t meant to be perfect like that.’”

Collections are one of the main advantages that records and other physical formats have over digital streaming.

According to Schanke, Gold Rush Vinyl has noticed through their social media accounts that there has been a lot of interest in records from younger generations.

“It’s always nice at a gathering, people looking through your record collection, as opposed to showing them a Spotify playlist on your phone, like, ‘Look at this playlist I made,’ as opposed to, ‘Look at my record collection,’” Brookbank said.

Plunkett says that since records are something tangible that you yourself own and have a copy of, you also don’t have to worry about the music being deleted or having to scroll endlessly to find what you’re looking for.

“People can kind of see it as like building a library of books so like, ‘Oh, okay, this is my world,’” Plunkett said.

“Where the computer stuff, sometimes it’s just more nebulous, you’re like, ‘I’m not sure what I have.’”

“We had our marketing intern last year come in and present us the idea of getting on TikTok,” Schanke said.

“We’re like, ‘Vinyl on TikTok? That doesn’t make any sense. Who’s gonna watch that?’ She’s like, ‘Well, this company’s putting out videos for paint mixing and there’s millions of likes on videos of paint mixing. We can do this thing.’”

He says that the intern mostly targeted popular fandoms like those of One Direction and Harry Styles. With just a few videos, the company accumulated millions of views.

“These younger generations are obsessed with vinyl,” he said. “We’re

like, ‘Wow, we didn’t realize there was that much love for vinyl at the younger ages.’”

Schanke thinks that this may be because younger music listeners are used to consuming music through digital platforms.

“Having something physical is something that’s kind of novelty,” Schanke said. “And we’re starting to see that it’s a resurgence happening right now.”

Though there are many possibilities that could stunt the resurrection of record stores and vinyl records in general, it seems that at least for now, there will continue to be an increase in demand and interest for them. And even if the popularity of vinyl drops, there will still always be a place for it in the music industry. There’s always going to be a group of people that prefer physical forms of stores and entertainment, and since artists get paid more from physical sales, it’s very likely that there will always be new music that will be pressed onto records as well.

Just like how physical record stores have their own special experience, listening to music on a record also has certain attributes that no other format possesses.

“They have this magic, like music in the grooves that just still fascinates me,” Brookbank said. “Just the fact that a diamond tip needle can go in a little plastic groove and produce music that sounds really good, that sounds a lot better than usually what you can get on streaming services.”

Schanke says that another part of vinyl’s allure is how the format is imperfect and how it has a “warm, fuzzy sound.”

“Sometimes we get electronic artists

A pile of records produced by Gold Rush Vinyl. Photo by Jonathan Schanke.

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Which Record Store Should You Go To? A quiz to find the perfect one for you

By Bao-Vy Pham With so many different options in Austin alone, it can be hard to choose which record store you should stop by. Visiting them all would be fun, but if you’re short on time, take this quiz to see which is the best for you and what you’re looking for!

START

Ideal shopping style?

What genre do you usually listen to?

(A/C) A little bit of everything (B) Jazz, rock (D) Soul, country, blues

Favorite decade of music?

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(A) 2000s-now (B) 70s (C) Depends (D) 50s-60s

(A) Online

(B/C/D) Curbside or in-person

Small, cozy shops or large stores?

(A) Large stores (B/C/D) Small shops

If you picked mostly....

Only want records or also CDs, DVDs, & Blu-Rays?

(A/C) Everything!

(B/D) Just records

Located on North Lamar, Waterloo Records is the largest and longest running record store in Austin. The store carries lots of different genres and artists and additionally sells some CDs and movies.

(A) New (B) Used (C/D) Don’t care

Buying used or new records?

How much money are you planning to spend?

(A) Don’t know yet (C) Afternoon (D/B) Evening

When are you going to shop?

What part of Austin do you live in?

B.

BLK Vinyl

C.

End of an Ear

BLK Vinyl is a more recently opened record store on 6th Street. The store is smaller and specializes in jazz, psych, and garage rock from the 50s-70s, but has other genres as well. It also has a budget section in the corner for those not wanting to spend too much.

(A/C) A lot (B) Not much (D) Medium amount

(A) Central (B) East (C) South (D) North

A.

Waterloo Records

End of an Ear is another major record store of Austin and is situated on Clawson Road in South Austin. The shop carries both new and used records from many decades and genres. It also has CDs and Blu-Rays.

D.

Breakaway Records

Breakaway Records is located on North Loop and sells vinyl and some cassette tapes as well. The store has mostly soul, R&B, doo-wop, and country, but also carries several other genres.

Information provided by The Austin Chronicle, TimeOut, Visit Austin, and Google Maps.

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A picture of a classical guitar’s soundhole

A Community of Strings An Overview of the Austin Classical Guitar Society

By: Elias Gruber

Y

ou have always wanted to learn an instrument and perform music. Finally with the help of Austin Classical Guitar you have been able to do so. You get onto the stage and sit down, everyone watching you in The Austin Arpeggio - 17

complete silence. You play your song with precision, hitting every note perfectly.

The audience breaks the silence with an eruption of applause. You smile, amazed you were able to perfect such a complex piece and

learn an instrument so quickly.

The Austin Classical Guitar Society (ACG) is a non-profit organization that helps people learn how to play the guitar and makes music

more available to people.

ACG is a place where you can play and learn music with others. In addition to teaching people to play the guitar they also have concerts and help schools in poorer areas have a successful guitar program.

“Austin Classical Guitar is a nonprofit organization that exists to inspire people in our community through deep personal experience.

And what that means is that our organization exists to fulfill that mission rather than to make money.” says Matthew Hinsley, the executive director of ACG. He believes that guitar can be more than just a musical instrument and that it can create friendships and a community of people helping each other learn.

He says that “The concert is one way we serve people.

It’s our organizing principle.

It’s the excuse for people to get together. But when they get together, there are other things that happen.

We make friends with each other, we smile, when people arrive, we share the celebration of beauty, we maybe perhaps share across cultures, maybe the artist is from another part of the world.”.

ACG has many programs.

One of which is the ensembles. An ensemble

is a group of people who play music together. At ACG there are two adult ensembles and a youth ensemble. In the ensembles over fall and spring, you learn various pieces which you play at the end of the season in a concert.

“Community ensembles are an opportunity for people of all ages to get together and make music as a group, and find friendship

“The concert is one way we serve people. It’s our organizing principle. It’s the excuse for people to get together. But when they get together, there are other things that happen. We make friends with each other, we smile, when people arrive, we share celebration of beauty, we maybe perhaps share across cultures, maybe the artist is from another part of the world.”

- Matthew Hinsley

series and youth ensemble, which he conducts. “It’s music that our ensemble can play and develop to be able to play if they can’t play it yet, but they can maybe play soon.

And things that they can be expressive with, things that might hopefully move them, that when they play it, they enjoy it. It’s like puzzle pieces, you find all these pieces that kind of fit together in a season that complement each other.” he says.

and camaraderie, and a chance to make something beautiful,” says Hinsley.

Another part of ACG is the concerts, they are a chance for people to show what they have learned and also an opportunity to bring in future guitarists to ACG. The concert sets include the ensemble’s concerts, the community engagement concerts where Joseph Palmer, community engagement artist, plays free concerts at schools, nursing homes, and other places to share music and bring people in, and others including independent artists.

A lot of thought also goes into picking the songs for the community ensemble to play. Joe Williams, the artistic director and composer in residence(a person who composes music on site), curates the music for ACG’s concert

A lot more goes into a concert than just a person getting on a stage and playing music. Lots of preparation has to be done before a concert can be performed. “There’s a lot of pre-planning that goes into [a concert]. Generally, The Austin Arpeggio - 18

Matthew Hinsley Playing Guitar The Austin Arpeggio - 19

what happens is the artistic director, Joe Williams, has a plan for the season. He’ll say that we have this artist on the stage. And then from there, I ask certain questions about the technical aspects of that concert, such as do we need amplification?

What kind of lighting do we want? That type of thing.

And then I contract the people that we need to have.

And get them scheduled.” says Jess Griggs, director of production. The third section

teaching teachers, and much more.

“It’s like puzzle pieces, you find all these pieces that kind of fit together in a season that complement each other.”

- Joe Williams “Guitar in schools kind of comprehends everything that I’ve just described with regard to

about guitar, have inherited 100 guitar students. Our job is to make that work.”

In the future ACG is planning on expanding all their programs and reaching out to more people. They are also making a new venue to play all their concerts which is

of ACG is guitar in schools, the way ACG helps schools create successful guitar programs. One part of it is guitarcurriculum.com, a website for teachers and students to help learn and teach guitar. It also includes helping guitar classes by providing instruments,

our

guitarcurriculum. com and our services that make guitar possible in schools. Now, that’s a tricky one, services that make guitar possible in schools, that’s a wide range of things.” says Hinsley,“For example, right now, today, in AISD, there is one school where a longtime teacher left. And now two new teachers who know nothing

assical l C n i t s e The Au th Ensembl u o Y Guitar

hopefully going to be complete and in use by December 3.

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Parts of the Guitar A guide to the anatomy of the guitar.

By: Elias Gruber Body - The part of the guitar that contains the upper bout, lower bout, sound hole, and bridge. It is the part you rest on your legs and pluck the strings.

Bridge - It is the anchor for the strings, where the strings are held taut.

Lower Bout

Sound Hole

Frets - The metal lines that represent half-note intervals on the guitar.

Fretboard - The flat peice of wood that holds down the frets and gives you a flat surface to push on a string and change its pitch.

Head - Houses the tuning pegs and headstock. Where you tune

Strings

the guitar.

Lower bout - The lower half of the body. Anchors the bridge

Bridge

and helps provide a place to rest the guitar on your leg.

Neck - Contains the fretboard, frets, and nut. It is where you press your fingers down to change a strings pitch and also The Austin Arpeggio - 21

Body

connects the head and body. If the head connected directly to the body the strings would be too short and the notes too high pitched.

Neck

Nut - The small peice of plastice that spaces the strings.

Headstock Nut

Strings - The nylon

strings you pluck to make sound.

Sound hole - The hole in the

Fret Board

front of the guitar, where the sound comes out.

Tuning Pegs

Upper bout - The upper half of the body which

Frets

contains the sound hole and halps provide a place to

Head

rest the guitar on your leg.

Tuner - A device that

connects to the headstock and helps you tune your guitar.

Upper Bout

Tuner

The Austin Arpeggio - 22

Setting the Stage All the different perspectives of how a music performance is run

By Wyllis Washam

W

hen you step onto the stage you hear the crowd roar with excitement as they see you. You’ve practiced your music and know it by heart. Before the show you made sure everything sounded good and all the lighting was ready to go. As you take a deep breath and let it out you start the show.

Musicians, sound engineers, and lighting technicians all need to work together on the stage to make a performance sound good. If somebody doesn’t do their work or makes a mistake the whole show could fall apart and which could be a big disappointment to all the fans.

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Stephen Yates has been doing lighting for about 26 years and currently does lighting for the band Modest Mouse.

He says that he is constantly busy and has to work hard everyday. “We are the first in as lighting guys,” says Yates. “Lighting has to go up before anything else can go on the stage.”

Carlos Sallaberry is a sound engineer and has worked with all sorts of bands like Maroon Five, Bon Jovi, The Rolling Stones, and many more.

When he was young his two older brothers were original members of a famous boy band called Menudo. One day when Carlos was nine he went to a recording studio with his brothers and was blown away. “When I went to

the recording studio with them I was blown away,” says Sallaberry. “This is what I want to do, I want to be a sound engineer.”

Lighting and sound don’t have much interaction between each other, but they need to work together to be able to get things set up. Over the years, there has been a bad relationship between lighting and sound.

“Unfortunately, throughout the years there has been this rivalry between sound and lights. I don’t know why.

I never played a part in that rivalry because we are together and we have a show to do,” says Yates.

Louis Svitek is a guitar player who

plays all different genres of music, such as industrial, funk, rock, and all others. At a young age Svitek was inspired to play the guitar from TV shows and from other bands he saw. “I just grew into it from watching some shows on TV,” says Svitek.

Svitek performs at festivals and live performances and Svitek says he enjoys performing and feels good while being up on the stage. “I feel good. You feel like you’ve got control of 10,000 people,” says Svitek. “It depends on how many people there are but when you’re on stage and you got that many people and they’re watching you that energy is insane.”

Before Svitek performs it’s just practicing and making sure everything sounds good and everything is working, but after the show when Svitek goes backstage it can

sometimes turn into a party with his fans. “Before the show, there’s nobody backstage but the band. But after the show a lot of times for us, it would just turn into one big party.

People would come hang out, have a couple of beers and it would get a little crazy,” says Svitek. Svitek also enjoys interacting with his fans to an extent but nothing too wild. “You might sign some autographs, hang out, maybe have a beer or something, but nothing crazy, every once in a while you would have fans that want to hang out with you the whole night, but you can’t do that,” says Svitek.

In order for a show to work properly something called sound check has to be done. Sound check is making sure every instrument sounds good on the speakers and that they’re not too loud and not too soft. “Sound check, basically, they just want to make sure

all the microphones on the drums work. So the audio engineer on front in the monitor will listen to those lines and make sure that they work, then they’ll listen to the guitar lines, they’ll listen to all the microphones,” says Sallaberry. Sound check now has digital consoles so not much is involved and everything is already recorded.

Touring is something all members and crew of the band have to do. It can be tough but it can also be rewarding.

“My very first tour I was making $10 a day and we were eating bologna sandwiches,” says Svitek. “I got a little more successful with some groups and things were a little smoother and a little more comfortable.” When you’re touring as a member of a band you have to sacrifice lots of events and important dates that you usually contribute to

Some Lights with Haze Photo taken by: DanBrady The Austin Arpeggio - 24

A Giant Soundboard Photo taken by: IvyMike as a member of your family. “The toughest part is that you’re never with your family,” says Sallaberry.

“I miss important dates, I’ve missed birthdays, I’ve missed Christmas, I’ve missed wedding anniversaries, I’ve missed graduations, I’ve missed father daughter dances, I’ve missed football games for my son, I’ve missed everything that’s important to the family,” Sallaberry adds. Another tough part about touring in a band is that you can be miserable and have lots of bad days. “When I was younger, I was much happier to be on the road. I loved touring, but as I’ve gotten older, I get very homesick,” says Yates.

“It’s a lot of long days. I don’t sleep well on the bus. So a lot of sleepless nights and I also miss my family, I miss my wife and my daughter,” Yates adds. Even though there are lots of negatives about touring, Yates and Sallaberry both say that their biggest reward is that they are able to see the world and places that they have never even heard of.

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Yates and Sallaberry both went to ACL this year. Sallaberry said he had a lot of fun and worked on wireless sound. “ACL was a lot of fun. I worked with someone that we coordinated all the wireless frequencies for all the stages,” says Sallaberry.

“This touring has provided me with travel around the world, which I would have never had unless I was touring.”

- Stephen Yates

Yates said that he didn’t have such a good time. It was hot, dusty, and just too much for him. “It was a bit of a nightmare. It’s just so big, dusty, and hot,” says Yates. Yates also adds that he thought the crowd was really enjoying ACL and they were having a great time. “Everybody really seemed to be enjoying themselves and the crowds seemed to be loving it. It didn’t seem like it mattered who was playing everyone was just at a stage like oh there’s music let’s go, let’s have fun,” Yates adds.

A stage light up close Photo taken by: zaimoku_woodpile The Austin Arpeggio - 26

The Diagram

All the different parts of a simple sta

By Wyllis Washam

1 While on a stage there are lots of aspects that are used to make the performance sound good. Here is a diagram showing where all the different parts of a stage are found and where the musicians usually stand on the stage: 1- An amplifier for the Acoustic Guitar, usually in the back of the stage 2- Drums, always in the back of the stage and can sometimes have vocals 3- An amplifier for the Bass Guitar, usually in the back of the stage 4- A monitor for the Drums, facing the Drums and either to the front or side of the Drums 5- Bass Guitar, usually to left or right side of the stage, could also have vocals 6- Main Vocals, usually in the front and center stage and can also have a Guitar or other instrument they play 7- Acoustic Guitar, usually to the left or right of the stage, could also have vocals

7

8- Monitor for the Acoustic Guitar, facing the Guitar and in front of the Guitar 9- Monitor for the Main Vocals, facing the Vocals and in front of the Vocals 10- Another monitor for the Main Vocals, facing the Vocals and in front of the Vocals 11- Monitor for the Bass Guitar, facing the Guitar and in front of the Guitar

8 The Austin Arpeggio - 27

age

of a Stage Back of Stage

3

2 4

6

5

11 9

10 Front of Stage

The Austin Arpeggio - 28

Puzzles Sudoku

9 3

6

2

5 3 7 3 1 8 4 8 2 1 5 4 9 4 8 6 8 1 7 5 4 8 1 7

The Austin Arpeggio - 29

Crossword

Music 1

2

3

4 5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

Across Across highest adult male singing voice/countertenor 2. highest adult male singing voice/countertenor six stringed instrument, can can be acoustic, 5. six stringed instrument, be acoustic,electric, electric, or classical or classical 6. the place where a band would perform the place where a band would perform 7. getting louder getting9.louder instrument with black and white keys 11. ticks at theblack beat and white keys instrument with 12. group of musicians ticks at the beat group of musicians

Down Down

1. person that leads an orchestra 1. person that leads an orchestra 3. thenotes notesof of a chord played in succession, either 3. the a chord played in succession, either ascending or descending ascending or descending 4. sound system 4. sound system 8. the soundtrack or sheet music 8. or sheet 10.the the soundtrack material that records are music usually made of 10. the material that records are usually made of

Key: 1 conductor, 2 alto, 3 arpeggio, 4 PA, 5 guitar, 6 stage, 7 crescendo, 8 score, 9 piano, 10 vinyl, 11 metronome, 12 ensemble

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