{"id":2142,"date":"2010-04-27T14:32:32","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T21:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anthologysd.com\/blog\/?p=2142"},"modified":"2010-09-22T11:08:44","modified_gmt":"2010-09-22T18:08:44","slug":"sound-observations-from-raul-midon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/2010\/04\/27\/sound-observations-from-raul-midon\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound Observations From Raul Midon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cWhenever a new technology comes along, there\u2019s a trade-off,\u201d says Raul Midon. \u201cFor instance, thanks to PDAs, people don\u2019t have to remember phone numbers so our memories are worse. With Google, we lose the ability to do research.\u201d<\/p>\n

Midon is not a Luddite railing against progress. He\u2019s actually a gadget freak, which makes sense for a guy who is proud to declare himself \u201cengineering-inclined.\u201d However, he is enough of a student of history to recognize that the technology of one generation inspires people differently than others.<\/p>\n

Take Morse code. Please. No one uses it anymore, right?<\/p>\n

Wrong, Midon does.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not performing music in venues like Anthology, where he will be on Friday, April 30, he\u2019s a ham radio enthusiast and engages in conversations with people all over the world after his shows on a walkie talkie.<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, little things such as the sound the dial makes as it moves from frequency to frequency can inspire him musically, as can the aforementioned Morse code.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a song I do called \u2018Sitting In The Middle,\u2019 and the melody is basically my ham radio call sign in Morse code: KB5ZOT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besides the musical inspiration, Midon gets lyrical inspiration from being a HAM. Not in a literal sense, but in an emotional sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, you\u2019ll talk with a guy down in Christmas Island or a guy who\u2019s on a ship in the middle of the ocean for three months,\u201d he said. \u201cTo me, three months on a ship is like three years in New York. Of course, to him, it may be the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that Midon gets so much pleasure talking with people in remote areas, since many of his biggest fans are some of the biggest names in show business. People like Stevie Wonder, Shakira and Spike Lee, who helped give Midon his big break when he invited him to share the stage with Terence Blanchard, Angie Stone, Cassandra Wilson, and Bruce Hornsby at a show in Carnegie Hall.<\/p>\n

Music is a career that Midon always envisioned, even though he couldn\u2019t actually see the road in front of him, both literally and metaphorically.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Both Midon and his twin brother, Marco (who now works for NASA), were blinded as infants after spending time in an incubator without adequate eye protection.<\/p>\n

“At the time, they didn’t know you have to protect the eyes from the oxygen of the incubator, so a generation of people were blinded in that way,\u201d he said.
\nBrilliant musicians like Wonder, Ray Charles and Diane Schuur have given rise to a belief that blindness is the ticket to musical greatness. Midon doesn\u2019t see it that way.<\/p>\n

I don’t believe that blindness makes you a better musician,” Mid\u00f3n said. “I think perhaps it focuses you in a very pragmatic way. I knew I had limited job possibilities, but the Mid\u00f3ns don’t believe in backup plans – like ‘Do music, but get your teaching degree in case it doesn’t work out.’ That’s never been our modus operandi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that I had this talent, so blindness focused me on developing that talent. But I don’t think it made me play better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe it has helped him hear subtleties that a less musician might otherwise miss. For instance, while his newest CD, \u201cSynthesis,\u201d features a live band, he performs the songs on acoustic guitar by himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn some songs, I use a steel string and others I use a nylon style,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve discovered that if I am doing a song that requires a bass line, a nylon guitar is more distinctive.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s another sound observation.<\/p>\n

By David Moye<\/strong><\/cite><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

WHAT: Raul Midon<\/strong>
\nWHEN: Friday, April 30th, 2010<\/strong>
\nTICKETS for 7:30pm show: $10 – $38 BUY TICKETS<\/a><\/strong>
\nTICKETS for 9:30pm show: $10 – $30 BUY TICKETS<\/a><\/strong>
\nMORE INFO: Artist Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhenever a new technology comes along, there\u2019s a trade-off,\u201d says Raul Midon. \u201cFor instance, thanks to PDAs, people don\u2019t have to remember phone numbers so our memories are worse. With Google, we lose the ability to do research.\u201d Midon is not a Luddite railing against progress. He\u2019s actually a gadget freak, which makes sense for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[893,17],"tags":[693,694,169,92,99],"class_list":["post-2142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","category-past-shows","tag-david-moye","tag-raul-midon","tag-singer","tag-singer-songwriter","tag-vocalist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2142"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2142\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthologysd.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}