SLMC

Fyrm Fouroux

At present there is a very unpleasant variant of the head cold going around my corner of the real world, which mainly presents as sore throat, some nasal blockage, but little in the way of full-on streaming (no, not that sort of streaming). The sting in the tail is that it apparently clears up and goes away, only to come back again a few days or a week later. Both myself and one of my rl music mates have been plagued with this for a while now. I know I was full of it when I did my Harold Hake: the Neurotic Psychologist performance at Rastafairy forrest stage back on June 1st. Then it went away. Now it is back. I don't want to cancel my gig at Sailors Cove today, though.

This is an example of something that sits within the interstices of the two worlds (RL and the metaverse). Although, potentially, it could affect any avatar that endulges in voice chat, the ones that are going to be most affected by this are the singers playing live music gigs.

My thoughts on the use of backing tracks are shot through with ambivalence. However, I do wonder whether the common cold might amount to mitigating circumstances. When faced with the choice of cancelling the gig or reducing the strain of singing on the voice by slipping in a few pre-recorded .wavs or .mp3s, I am inclined to favour the latter. I'm not suggesting that the whole show should end up being filled with pre-recorded stuff but that occasionally the singer is given space to sit back and sip on the hot toddy or whatever.

Another way to go would be to use a head-cold animation. I recently checked out some cool animation stores but did not see anything for the head-cold. One can then imagine the development of empathetic coughs and nose-blowing gestures for the audience. Brightly coloured tissues could replace the t-shirt as handouts for the gig. There are many possibilities. I am thinking of the blue box that appears on the screen. Instead of Do you want to allow your avatar to be animated by this dance? It might be Do you want to allow your avatar to catch this head cold? I gues there could be radio button choices as to what would amount to an acceptable level of incapacity (just the cough, just the watery eyes, or the whole damned gammut of miserable symptoms?) Sad

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Real life website http://www.lewismusic.co.uk

Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 8:49 am Post subject:

Any kind of musician's headcold or throat thing only makes a performance sound sexy super sexy.. like Barry White sexy...

... and then the performer sneezes and coughs and hawks and go's
"oh, scuse me, i feel terrible today"

see now, at that point, that's where the performer loses me.

So my suggestion is, if you're gonna perform and you're sick...
1) don't hawk snot loogies over the mic
2) don't tell anyone you're sick

The show, to the audience is awesome if the performer doesn't ever let us know how disgusting they feel.
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DJ Doubledown on The Sixty-One ~ SL DJ & Club Scene Blog
Ravelong Productions @ SLMC Info Island

ticious · Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 2085 Location: Chicago

It's very bad for a singer's voice (which is an instrument that needs taking care of) to try to sing around a sore throat (not to mention that it hurts like hell). And even if you're not that sick, I for one, can't always predict when I'm going to sneeze violently or go into a major coughing spasm. No one wants to hear that.

My vote would be that, if you're sick, cancel the gig, drink that hot toddy, take a nap and get well. Forget Second Life for a couple days and get your rest. I say this as someone who's just gotten over their first nasty head cold in years. I hated just looking at the damn screen (it made my eyes hurt and water). And those unpredictable sneezes did nasty things to my monitor. Fortunately, my wonderful venue staff and biz partners covered for me so I was able to take my own advice whilst the show went on without me.

I've had musicians cancel on me as a result of being sick. They have my sympathy and complete understanding (and gratitude as they are usually able to give me several hours notice). Honestly, I'd just as soon not have them on the stage whilst they're sick and would prefer to reschedule them.
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Joy is in the ears that hear
- Saltheart Foamfollower
- The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant

Jasmine Usher · Joined: 26 Sep 2007 Posts: 53 Location: Boston, Mass

First and foremost take care of you..

SL will be there when you recover from your cold

*Passes you a bowl of virtual chicken soup*
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Music is freedom

Silas Scarborough · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1184 Location: Rhode Island

Fyrm, there are no rules. My shoulder is very damaged and sometimes it tolerates gigs better than others. If I need to take the weight of the guitar off my shoulder, I'll throw in a canned tune and I'll tell people I'm doing it. If this means I fail SL Live Jams 101, hey, I'll take the "F" - lol

Good luck and I hope you feel better soon.
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Ever vigilant for da gooses overhead.

- Silas

My Web site is at myducksoup.com

Kiaranne · Joined: 30 Mar 2008 Posts: 25 Location: Vermont

I've only been singing live for just over two months now and have not been sick with anything that effects my voice. (Knocks on wood.) If I were to get sick with a cold I am pretty sure my vocals would totally suck no matter how many good drugs I took, Confused

, so performing would suck and the show would suck.... yup... I'd be canceling shows till I was all better.

ticious · Joined: 03 Sep 2007 Posts: 2085 Location: Chicago

Doubledown Tandino · Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:49 pm Post subject:

Hey, if I still gotta perform when I'm about to have a mental breakdown... you all can perform when you're sick!!!!
Hey... even my one sick hamster still uses the running wheel.... given, it's to sleep in, but still
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DJ Doubledown on The Sixty-One ~ SL DJ & Club Scene Blog
Ravelong Productions @ SLMC Info Island

Silas Scarborough · Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Posts: 1184 Location: Rhode Island

Tish, I was just jumping in because Fyrm is a bit mixed on back tracks. The only time I really don't like using back tracks is if one of them is someone singing. I love what Kim did with "House of the Rising Sun" but no matter what I do the singing isn't live so the song isn't and I just roll that one out when I want to give people a taste of what she can do. It does work when Kim does it as she sings it live and so what if the guitar is recorded.

But, as to taking care of yourself, if singing is going to make your situation worse, seems to me there's no option but to cancel the gig. What I'm doing won't make my shoulder worse as it's already borked so the best thing I can do is just shut up and play.
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Ever vigilant for da gooses overhead.

- Silas

My Web site is at myducksoup.com

Zak Claxton · Joined: 16 Oct 2007 Posts: 2008 Location: Podul/33/243/154/

Like the idiot I am, I sang through pneumonia throughout last December, until I finally got too sick to stand up for an hour in front of the mic.

In retrospect, it was a less than good idea.
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