NAAM

Friday
After work, I drove out to California and arrived at my hotel room later than I expected. As it turns out, it’s a five-hour drive from Henderson to Anaheim… a little longer than I had anticipated. I was tired when I got there… really tired. Having finished The Talisman, an hour before arriving at my destination, I was a mess. A WHOLE HOUR without entertainment is a horrid thing. :-)

I crawled into bed and went to sleep…. and slept… and slept… At about 10am, my sister called me on my cell phone to make sure I was up... Ooops! Somehow, the alarm clock didn’t work. I got up, took a shower, and… oh… I forgot to bring any information about the convention to California. The only thing I new was that it was at the Anaheim Convention Center and that my pass was at will-call. Fortunately, the hotel lobby was equip with a public computer and I was able to find a place to park online. My GPS knew where the Anaheim Convention Center was, so I was set.

I ate breakfast at McDonalds. I had never tried one of their breakfast combos and was pleasantly surprised when it was actually descent. I walked out of the restaurant and surveyed the landscape. It was kind of warm out and… WOW! I saw roller coasters in the distance! Right then and there I vowed I would not leave the city of California until I had ridden the ridge of at least one of those towering precipices.

I followed my GPS’ directions for a while and found a parking place. (In one mile, turn right on CA-15. In point nine miles, turn right on CA-15, then keep left. Turn right on CA-15 then keep left. Yeah… it can get annoying at times.)

I took a free electric bus to the Convention Center and was amazed at the size of the place… Everything around there is huge. After I finally got my pass, I headed into the convention hall.

Every manufacturer who could be remotely connected with music was there. Every company brought in their own carpet, brought in huge store displays complete with lights and demo rooms, had several sales-reps, and some displays were even multi-level. From Guitar manufacturers (Man, there are a TON of guitar manufacturers), to DJ speaker systems, to stringed instruments, to pianos, to night club lighting, to software, it was all there.

I saw TONS of stuff. Oh, and BTW, in case you’re interested, the market for electric guitars and guitar amps is overrun.

I was really amazed by some of the software that was there. Every aspect of recording was represented by some expensive software package. I found two particular products quite interesting:

First, I was paid another visit by Taylor Swift. No matter where I go, I can’t get away from her. Whether it’s a coworker who loves Country or a demo, she’s always there singing Love Story… Which brings me to a rabbit-trail. I wonder if very many people understand the lyrics of a lot of pops songs. In my travels with Country co-workers, I’ve heard so much symbolism and references to less-popular classics... classics you'd have to read in order to understand the lyrics. Love Story doesn’t really elude to much, but it’s still surprising for pop-culture. Then again, I will have to say the student pops composers I’ve run into seem to be very intellectual and possess a great knowledge of the liberal arts in general.

Anyway, I seem to hear that dumb song all the time. I guess vocalists tend to go flat a lot during recording sessions. Turns out there’s a lot software to fix intonation without distorting vibrato. I was amazed by the demonstrations. NOW I know why certain recording studios are so famous and expensive. With money and time, you can fix practically anything. (Not to mention quality. :-)

I have more to say, but for now, I’ll stop. It’s almost my bed time and even though I have another page written, I’ll save it for later. Meanwhile, you can see the weird guys that were at the NAAM convention: Most of the convention was pretty normal (pianos, software, guitars, drums, etc), but there were those funny things and "knock-off" musicians, as Mrs. Downs calls them…