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Modules in Electronics
Posted by: Engr. Michael L. Zarco
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
The trouble with 'Idol'? The singing
May 21, 2006
BY THOMAS CONNER Staff Reporter
"American Idol" is a train wreck, no doubt. It's undeniably soggy with schadenfreude (the enjoyment we get from watching others suffer), which drives much of reality TV. But the moments that cause actual discomfort, for some of us, aren't the wrong notes, the bent keys or even Taylor Hicks' white-man's-overbite dancing. It's when the rare moments of hope and joy are quashed -- not by Simon Cowell's cutting sarcasm but by the contestants' own lack of trust in the songs they sing. There they are, crawling into an abbreviated song, beginning to develop an actual emotion or two and rushing toward a truly dramatic moment ... which they promptly ruin by oversinging the hell out of it.
Oy, the trills, the frills, how raw these kids' throats must be from week after week of belting and barnstorming. No moving sustained notes here -- every syllable of a song held longer than a beat must move up and down the scale like a San Francisco seismograph. Wow 'em with chutzpah, and who cares what the song actually means.
As we approach the fifth finals for the hit Fox talent show -- Tuesday and Wednesday nights on Fox -- these are not new complaints.
'Idol' finale will be good day for Powter
Singer/songwriter Daniel Powter will perform his hit single ''Bad Day'' on Tuesday's final ''American Idol'' performance show.
The pairing is a natural one as the Fox contest has been utilizing the song as the musical theme for exiting contestants throughout this fifth season.
''Bad Day'' held the top post on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, its popularity bolstered by the weekly airings on ''American Idol.''
Released in April, Powter's self-titled Warner Bros. debut bowed at No. 9 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 274,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Powter is scheduling early July dates for a brief U.S. tour.
Billboard
"American Idol" has endured many such slings and arrows for its outrageous fortune. But five years on, it's worth revisiting the criticisms that concentrate on these wearying vocal gymnastics, which seem to be the crutch of almost every contestant. Call it oversinging, or oversoul (a transcendent term used by some vocal coaches), "Idol" often is accused of dumbing down our understanding of good singing. But which came first: the oversinging or the "Idol"?
"These kids didn't invent this. They're all imitating what's already out there," says Los Angeles-based vocal trainer Roger Love. "That's the whole point of the show, despite how they market it."
Love has little love for "Idol." Perhaps that's why he's a regular guest on "Idol Tonight," a live pre-show yak-fest each week on the TV Guide Channel. He's also coached the singing voices of stars too numerous to list, from the Jacksons to the Killers, and his training technique turned Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon into more than just the stars of the film "Walk the Line."
"Simon is always saying a performance is 'so karaoke' or 'loungey.' Well, yeah. That's what the show is. It's about kids imitating other artists."
That includes the reliance on oversinging. It's an unfortunate habit that did not begin on "American Idol," he says. The show simply gave it a forum. An impossibly huge and, unfortunately or not, influential forum.
"When Mariah [Carey], instead of singing the notes as written, started riffing around the notes, making clusters around the melody -- that's when it happened," Love says. "The problem is, she started doing it so much you lost track of where the melody actually was. And she made that really popular. It's a style of singing that's interesting here and there, but a pain in every single song.
"And unless you really practice and slow it down, you can't imitate it. Mariah got up there with her incredible voice and said, 'Hey, look what I can do!' But not everybody can do that -- and a lot of people are trying. 'American Idol' begs them to. But it's like Luther Vandross said: 'A lot of singers think they're being paid by the note.' He could have done all those trills, but he didn't need to."
Becky Menzie, a staple of Chicago cabarets and a musical theater instructor at Northwestern University, looks to singers like Vandross, and even further back to a more complete era, for songcraft. "Let's go back to an old analogy: the '70s success of Barry Manilow. That old key-change thing, having a vocal piece have shape and get more exciting at the end -- some of those trills and high notes entertain, sure, but are they always tasteful and correct for what the song is? No," she says. "Tony Bennett knows how to end on a high note and wail and make you go, 'Wow!' Manilow made it with the key change. Burt Bacharach did it with orchestrations. The gimmicks are there for a reason, but no one's great if all they do is gimmicks. You have to understand what you're singing, what it's about, what it deserves. That's how you entertain."
Cliff Colnot sees "Idol's" brand of entertainment as little more than a dog-and-pony show. "It's just a talent show. It could be dogs or inventors [Cowell produces ABC's 'American Inventors' show]. The fact that they're singers is nearly irrelevant to what the show is about," says Colnot, a conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a composer who's worked with pop artists ranging from Richard Marx to Hugh Jackman.
He's hearing more of the oversinging in the pop and commercial singers he works with. "It's faux emotion. Mariah, Whitney [Houston], it's all a Pavlovian paradigm. You sing higher, then hold. Then you go higher and hold longer. Then you do a melisma [several notes on one syllable] around a super-high note and hold it longer, while the band goes through changes. And people go crazy. Why not just bring out dogs and do tricks?"
Oversinging used to be a trick singers pulled out only for a powerful punch in concert. Once Mariah -- or Whitney or whichever diva is to blame -- captured it on CD, our ears were retuned.
"Now it's become part of the language," Colnot says. "Once it got recorded, it moved out of the Apollo Theater, and now it's in our DNA."
Indeed, the bombastic "Idol" style of singing is everywhere now -- on radio, in concert, even on Broadway. In a March column for the New York Times, theater critic Ben Brantley blamed the increasing volume and sameness of Broadway singers on the influence of "Idol." "Quivering vibrato, curlicued melisma, notes held past the vanishing point: the favorite technical tricks of 'Idol' contestants are often like screams divorced from the pain or ecstasy that inspired them," Brantley wrote, then cited examples of the same trend showing up in Broadway's most popular musicals.
Jackie Presti has had enough of it. "There's no storytelling on Broadway anymore," says Presti, a New York vocal therapist who works with both Broadway and commercial singers. "That's not because songwriters aren't delivering it as much as it's because the singers aren't getting it. So many of them don't understand, or don't care, about setting up a story with the song or moving you with characters. God, now you sit in the theaters and everyone's just screaming at you right away."
Presti cites technology, not pop singers themselves, as the fountainhead of these trends. "It's actually what's in the studio these days that causes some singers to be lazy. You don't have to sing in tune anymore, with AutoTune [common studio software that corrects a singer's pitch]. So now more is expected of them live because of what technology has granted them in the studio. So they go crazy and belt everything."
It's not a model for a lasting career, she says. "Whitney Houston has her other problems, of course, but when she first started singing, I thought she'd been touched by God. But as the years went on, as everything had to be higher and louder, well now she has nothing left. They all go that way. [First 'Idol' winner] Kelly Clarkson has already been in [vocal] therapy. We ask them to scream their lungs out, and they do.
"And, frankly, it's a bad precedent to show our kids. We tell them to study hard and have integrity about what they choose to do in life, and then reality TV says, nah, you can succeed if you're the loudest and get people to vote for you. Forget the singers. Is that fair to any of us?"
tconner@suntimes.com
So who's the real deal in pop music?
May 21, 2006
BY THOMAS CONNER Staff Reporter
"American Idol" is a train wreck, no doubt. It's undeniably soggy with schadenfreude (the enjoyment we get from watching others suffer), which drives much of reality TV. But the moments that cause actual discomfort, for some of us, aren't the wrong notes, the bent keys or even Taylor Hicks' white-man's-overbite dancing. It's when the rare moments of hope and joy are quashed -- not by Simon Cowell's cutting sarcasm but by the contestants' own lack of trust in the songs they sing. There they are, crawling into an abbreviated song, beginning to develop an actual emotion or two and rushing toward a truly dramatic moment ... which they promptly ruin by oversinging the hell out of it.
Oy, the trills, the frills, how raw these kids' throats must be from week after week of belting and barnstorming. No moving sustained notes here -- every syllable of a song held longer than a beat must move up and down the scale like a San Francisco seismograph. Wow 'em with chutzpah, and who cares what the song actually means.
As we approach the fifth finals for the hit Fox talent show -- Tuesday and Wednesday nights on Fox -- these are not new complaints.
'Idol' finale will be good day for Powter
Singer/songwriter Daniel Powter will perform his hit single ''Bad Day'' on Tuesday's final ''American Idol'' performance show.
The pairing is a natural one as the Fox contest has been utilizing the song as the musical theme for exiting contestants throughout this fifth season.
''Bad Day'' held the top post on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks, its popularity bolstered by the weekly airings on ''American Idol.''
Released in April, Powter's self-titled Warner Bros. debut bowed at No. 9 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 274,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Powter is scheduling early July dates for a brief U.S. tour.
Billboard
"American Idol" has endured many such slings and arrows for its outrageous fortune. But five years on, it's worth revisiting the criticisms that concentrate on these wearying vocal gymnastics, which seem to be the crutch of almost every contestant. Call it oversinging, or oversoul (a transcendent term used by some vocal coaches), "Idol" often is accused of dumbing down our understanding of good singing. But which came first: the oversinging or the "Idol"?
"These kids didn't invent this. They're all imitating what's already out there," says Los Angeles-based vocal trainer Roger Love. "That's the whole point of the show, despite how they market it."
Love has little love for "Idol." Perhaps that's why he's a regular guest on "Idol Tonight," a live pre-show yak-fest each week on the TV Guide Channel. He's also coached the singing voices of stars too numerous to list, from the Jacksons to the Killers, and his training technique turned Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon into more than just the stars of the film "Walk the Line."
"Simon is always saying a performance is 'so karaoke' or 'loungey.' Well, yeah. That's what the show is. It's about kids imitating other artists."
That includes the reliance on oversinging. It's an unfortunate habit that did not begin on "American Idol," he says. The show simply gave it a forum. An impossibly huge and, unfortunately or not, influential forum.
"When Mariah [Carey], instead of singing the notes as written, started riffing around the notes, making clusters around the melody -- that's when it happened," Love says. "The problem is, she started doing it so much you lost track of where the melody actually was. And she made that really popular. It's a style of singing that's interesting here and there, but a pain in every single song.
"And unless you really practice and slow it down, you can't imitate it. Mariah got up there with her incredible voice and said, 'Hey, look what I can do!' But not everybody can do that -- and a lot of people are trying. 'American Idol' begs them to. But it's like Luther Vandross said: 'A lot of singers think they're being paid by the note.' He could have done all those trills, but he didn't need to."
Becky Menzie, a staple of Chicago cabarets and a musical theater instructor at Northwestern University, looks to singers like Vandross, and even further back to a more complete era, for songcraft. "Let's go back to an old analogy: the '70s success of Barry Manilow. That old key-change thing, having a vocal piece have shape and get more exciting at the end -- some of those trills and high notes entertain, sure, but are they always tasteful and correct for what the song is? No," she says. "Tony Bennett knows how to end on a high note and wail and make you go, 'Wow!' Manilow made it with the key change. Burt Bacharach did it with orchestrations. The gimmicks are there for a reason, but no one's great if all they do is gimmicks. You have to understand what you're singing, what it's about, what it deserves. That's how you entertain."
Cliff Colnot sees "Idol's" brand of entertainment as little more than a dog-and-pony show. "It's just a talent show. It could be dogs or inventors [Cowell produces ABC's 'American Inventors' show]. The fact that they're singers is nearly irrelevant to what the show is about," says Colnot, a conductor with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a composer who's worked with pop artists ranging from Richard Marx to Hugh Jackman.
He's hearing more of the oversinging in the pop and commercial singers he works with. "It's faux emotion. Mariah, Whitney [Houston], it's all a Pavlovian paradigm. You sing higher, then hold. Then you go higher and hold longer. Then you do a melisma [several notes on one syllable] around a super-high note and hold it longer, while the band goes through changes. And people go crazy. Why not just bring out dogs and do tricks?"
Oversinging used to be a trick singers pulled out only for a powerful punch in concert. Once Mariah -- or Whitney or whichever diva is to blame -- captured it on CD, our ears were retuned.
"Now it's become part of the language," Colnot says. "Once it got recorded, it moved out of the Apollo Theater, and now it's in our DNA."
Indeed, the bombastic "Idol" style of singing is everywhere now -- on radio, in concert, even on Broadway. In a March column for the New York Times, theater critic Ben Brantley blamed the increasing volume and sameness of Broadway singers on the influence of "Idol." "Quivering vibrato, curlicued melisma, notes held past the vanishing point: the favorite technical tricks of 'Idol' contestants are often like screams divorced from the pain or ecstasy that inspired them," Brantley wrote, then cited examples of the same trend showing up in Broadway's most popular musicals.
Jackie Presti has had enough of it. "There's no storytelling on Broadway anymore," says Presti, a New York vocal therapist who works with both Broadway and commercial singers. "That's not because songwriters aren't delivering it as much as it's because the singers aren't getting it. So many of them don't understand, or don't care, about setting up a story with the song or moving you with characters. God, now you sit in the theaters and everyone's just screaming at you right away."
Presti cites technology, not pop singers themselves, as the fountainhead of these trends. "It's actually what's in the studio these days that causes some singers to be lazy. You don't have to sing in tune anymore, with AutoTune [common studio software that corrects a singer's pitch]. So now more is expected of them live because of what technology has granted them in the studio. So they go crazy and belt everything."
It's not a model for a lasting career, she says. "Whitney Houston has her other problems, of course, but when she first started singing, I thought she'd been touched by God. But as the years went on, as everything had to be higher and louder, well now she has nothing left. They all go that way. [First 'Idol' winner] Kelly Clarkson has already been in [vocal] therapy. We ask them to scream their lungs out, and they do.
"And, frankly, it's a bad precedent to show our kids. We tell them to study hard and have integrity about what they choose to do in life, and then reality TV says, nah, you can succeed if you're the loudest and get people to vote for you. Forget the singers. Is that fair to any of us?"
tconner@suntimes.com
So who's the real deal in pop music?
When we asked this slate of singers and vocal coaches which pop stars possess real vocal talent, they were, so to speak, broken records: Whitney, Mariah, Christina.
Nearly all of them revere Christina Aguilera.
"She's the last new artist that was really incredible," says celebrity voice coach Roger Love. "I teach Natasha Bedingfield, who's got one of the top pop records in the country, but there's still nobody out there who can sing like Christina Aguilera. She has a 3-1/2-octave range, and she sounds totally powerful with it. She co-writes or writes her songs, she sounds better live than she does on record, she's reinvented herself on her albums ..."
Voice therapist Jackie Presti and Chicago cabaret singer Beckie Menzie agree. Both also cite Mariah Carey. "Especially early on, what a good use of her voice," Presti says.
The list goes on, including Nancy Wilson of Heart, Cyndi Lauper (who "can really sing, though you don't hear it much," says Presti), Joss Stone. Great singers, all. And all women.
Who are the good male singers?
Menzie mentions Michael Buble. Presti pauses, uncomfortably, finally seizing on "that Josh Groban guy -- I guess he can sing."
CSO composer and pop arranger Cliff Colnot is the only one to reel off several guys: "Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Michael McDonald. Stevie Wonder would be way at the top of my list."
He grows testy when we mention the Whitmariahtina triumvirate.
"Mariah Carey? Oh, come on," he sneers. "If you asked who was the most famous, then yes -- Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera. But I didn't think that was your question. Mariah Carey ... is a little trick pony. She leverages her range like she should, but it's not new or unique. She's borrowing from other people. Stevie Wonder, Elton John -- Aretha Franklin, if you need a woman -- these people, in my view, are the ones who left a unique fingerprint in singing and interpretation."
But is vocal talent purely technical, or is interpretation an inextricable factor?
"Success as a singer is not so much about the voice as the gestalt of performance -- where the voice may not be perfect but the meaning of the song moves us," Colnot says. "The strongest component of longevity for the great jazz and pop singers is the ability to tell a story. That comes across to the lay person, even on 'American Idol.' Little Paris [Bennett, a former fifth-season contestant] reaching out to tell us something -- maybe she's flat on the G or rushing the end of a bar, but she's telling a story.
"That's often all that matters."
Thomas Conner
Oveall Scores of ECE Workshop Examinations
The 12 examinees who garnered the highest places are the following:
Name of Examinee Rating Place
Delos Santos, Alfeus B. 71 1st
Fonte, Gene Q. 70 2nd
Egido, Jemalyn E. 66 3rd
Soriano, Jason S. 66 3rd
Angeles, Julius L. 66 3rd
Lavapiez, Shena G. 65 4th
Albos. Danilo L. Jr. 61 5th
Enolpe, Karen N. 61 6th
Lagaya, Mark Allen 60 7th
Montilla, Teofilo Andhree B. 60 7th
Vergara, Irene Mae A. 60 7th
Nool, Alvin R. 60 7th
The following are list of average of the other examinees:
Name of Examinee Rating
Molina, Jayson P. 58
Postrado, Lemon T. 58
Banga, Rovi Jane L. 56
Masagca, Catherine V. 56
Bautista, Anele S. 52
Banaticla, Chesca P. 51
Lopena, Robie R. 51
Medialdea, Daven 49
Collantes, Kristine Cecilia B. 48
Reyes, Shirlbert P. 47
Carloman, Kristofer L. 46
Abila, Tzaddi Alephia A. 45
Salangad, Jennely N. 42
Soriano, Manilyn A. 40
Macalalad, Richard C. 39
Posted by: Engr. Michael L. Zarco
Results of ECE Workshop Fifth Examination
The 10 examinees who garnered the highest places are the following:
Name of Examinee Rating Place
Delos Santos, Alfeus B. 54 1st
Lavapiez, Shena G. 54 1st
Albos. Danilo L. Jr. 52 2nd
Fonte, Gene Q. 52 2nd
Egido, Jemalyn E. 50 3rd
Angeles, Julius L. 46 4th
Montilla, Teofilo Andhree B. 44 4th
Soriano, Jason S. 44 4th
Bautista, Anele S. 38 5th
Collantes, Kristine Cecilia B. 38 5th
The following are list of scores of the other examinees:
Name of Examinee Rating
Banaticla, Chesca P. 36
Vergara, Irene Mae A. 36
Molina, Jayson P. 34
Nool, Alvin R. 34
Postrado, Lemon T. 32
Lagaya, Mark Allen 28
Lopena, Robie R. 28
Reyes, Shirlbert P. 28
Salangad, Jennely N. 24
Medialdea, Daven 22
Macalalad, Richard C. 16
Soriano, Manilyn A. 16
Posted by: Engr. Michael L. Zarco
Results of ECE Workshop Fourth Examination
The 11 examinees who garnered the highest places are the following:
Name of Examinee Rating Place
Delos Santos, Alfeus B. 72 1st
Fonte, Gene Q. 70 2nd
Angeles, Julius L. 64 3rd
Molina, Jayson P. 64 3rd
Soriano, Jason S. 64 3rd
Albos. Danilo L. Jr. 62 4th
Enolpe, Karen N. 62 4th
Nool, Alvin R. 62 4th
Banga, Rovi Jane L. 58 5th
Lagaya, Mark Allen 58 5th
Masagca, Catherine V. 58 5th
The following are list of scores of the other examinees:
Name of Examinee Rating
Postrado, Lemon T. 56
Abila, Tzaddi Alephia A. 54
Reyes, Shirlbert P. 50
Collantes, Kristine Cecilia B. 48
Bautista, Anele S. 42
Lopena, Robie R. 38
Soriano, Manilyn A. 34
Medialdea, Daven 32
Carloman, Kristofer L. 30
Macalalad, Richard C. 24
Posted by: Engr. Michael L. Zarco
Results of ECE Workshop Third Examination
The 10 examinees who garnered the highest places are the following:
The 10 examinees who garnered the highest places are the following:
Name of Examinee Rating Place
Soriano, Jason S. 84 1st
Fonte, Gene Q. 82 2nd
Lavapiez, Shena G. 80 3rd
Delos Santos, Alfeus B. 78 4th
Montilla, Teofilo Andhree B. 78 4th
Egido, Jemalyn E. 76 5th
Vergara, Irene Mae A. 76 5th
Postrado, Lemon T. 72 6th
Enolpe, Karen N. 70 7th
Lagaya, Mark Allen 70 7th
The following are list of scores of the other examinees:
Name of Examinee Rating
Banga, Rovi Jane L. 68
Molina, Jayson P. 66
Masagca, Catherine V. 62
Carloman, Kristofer L. 56
Banaticla, Chesca P. 52
Bautista, Anele S. 52
Lopena, Robie R. 52
Abila, Tzaddi Alephia A. 50
Medialdea, Daven 48
Salangad, Jennely N. 38
Posted by: Engr. Michael L. Zarco
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Results of ECE Workshop Second Examination
The 11 examinees who garnered the highest places are the following:
Name of Examinee Rating Place
Angeles, Julius L. 70 1st
Nool, Alvin R. 70 1st
Delos Santos, Alfeus B. 52 2nd
Lavapiez, Shena G. 46 3rd
Fonte, Gene Q. 46 3rd
Montilla, Teofilo Andhree B. 42 4th
Vergara, Irene Mae A. 42 4th
Soriano, Jason S. 40 5th
Albos. Danilo L. Jr. 34 6th
Banaticla, Chesca P. 32 7th
Enolpe, Karen N. 32 7th
The following are list of scores of the other examinees:
Name of Examinee Rating
Collantes, Kristine Cecilia B. 28
Masagca, Catherine V. 28
Postrado, Lemon T. 28
Egido, Jemalyn E. 26
Banga, Rovi Jane L. 24
Abila, Tzaddi Alephia A. 22
Macalalad, Richard C. 22
Reyes, Shirlbert P. 18
Salangad, Jennely N. 18
Carloman, Kristofer L. 14
Soriano, Manilyn A. 10
Posted by: Engr. Michael L. Zarco
Results of ECE Workshop First Examination
The 11 examinees who garnered the highest places are the following:
Name of Examinee Rating Place
Albos. Danilo L. Jr. 58 1st
Angeles, Julius L. 50 2nd
Vergara, Irene Mae A. 48 3rd
Lagaya, Mark Allen 46 4th
Lavapiez, Shena G. 44 5th
Enolpe, Karen N. 42 6th
Medialdea, Daven 42 6th
Reyes, Shirlbert P. 40 7th
Lopena, Robie R. 38 8th
Montilla, Teofilo Andhree B. 38 8th
Soriano, Manilyn A. 38 8th
The following are list of scores of the other examinees:
Name of Examinee Rating
Banaticla, Chesca P. 36
Macalalad, Richard C. 34
Nool, Alvin R. 34
Carloman, Kristofer L. 32
Masagca, Catherine V. 32
Banga, Rovi Jane L. 30
Salangad, Jennely N. 28
Bautista, Anele S. 26
Collantes, Kristine Cecilia B. 26
Molina, Jayson P. 26
Abila, Tzaddi Alephia A. 0
Posted by: Engr. Michael L. Zarco
Friday, May 05, 2006
MOI Problem Set 2 and Takehome Final Examination
Click the links below to download. You need an adobe acrobat reader to view the files. These files will be available for 7 days or 25 downloads.
Problem Set 2
Takehome Final Examination
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