u/Mo_Steins_Ghost

My parents, born just six years before partition, left India during the ceasefire and settlement of Kashmir, to find a better life for me and my two older siblings.

I was born the year Rush formed. I grew up a brown, disabled first-generation immigrant in a rural state. I heard Subdivisions in my high school years and got hooked on this band my older brother was listening to at the time. Later, I'd discover and collect all their albums including Moving Pictures. It also heavily influenced my interest in drums which I'd always wanted to learn but finally took up with formal instruction around that same time.

Witch Hunt is a song that stays with me, and now, beyond the haunting lyrics, I understand why. It was written by the sons of lower middle class Polish and Yugoslavian immigrants who escaped persecution.

Red Sector A was directly influenced by the experiences of Morris and Mary Weinrib.

And not long after the Berlin Wall fell, and things became hopeful, they write Heresy, again capturing the issues of the moment.

Music, like most art, is social commentary. This is inescapable. But what often happens as bands find success is they become detached from their origins. Rush never did. They have made a point of revisiting their entire repertoire and paying respect to those origins because the hardships of your parents coming half way around the world to make a better life never escapes you.

And it has never escaped me. Their music got me through some very tough high school years and out the other side.

I never imagined I'd be seeing Alex and Ged in concert at 52. Their career has marked every year of my life, from the start to the present. And I am ever thankful to the boys for getting it.

Some context... Nathaniel (not to be confused with Nate) Smith aka The 80/20 Drummer, is one of my favorite Youtube clinicians. The guy is a real session drummer embedded in the NY jazz/fusion scene and he's one of my go-tos besides Emmanuelle Caplette (a human metronome). I love his take because it represents well what we drummers think of Anika, and because he'll call out things non-drummers won't notice. Sit back and enjoy!

I'm noticing an uptick in comments or posts describing in detail issues that ultimately turn out to be personality conflicts misinterpreted as "bad manager" or "bad employee" and curious if this is a real phenomenon or just Reddit's algorithm prioritizing these topics to create drama.

I really don't see it as much, but I might not be the best anecdote since I'm not dealing with newer entrants to the workforce. Are we really seeing this shift and what are your thoughts on it?

EDIT: This is not a statement about how I as a manager resolve personality conflicts (and I do; it is not my employees' responsibility to deal with them alone). This is more of an inquiry into the trend so that we as managers can get ahead of it and take appropriate steps... Company culture starts at the top.

Anyone else seeing this in these boards? In recent days it seems that ICs or new managers navigating the landscape are raising issues that are not necessarily material conduct problems/violations but just the standard idiosyncratic nature of people of varying personalities (some great, some so-so, some-awful) in social settings.

As my direct reports are other managers/team leads, I don't see this issue directly so much... but I am curious on your take as to whether this is just Reddit's algorithm or a larger pattern among employees, particularly new professionals in office settings.

Disclaimer: I'm not a professional singer or vocal coach but I've done disc jockeying, studio production, etc., and studied linguistics, broadcasting and voice technique to learn how to improve at V.O. (voice over)... So I'll try to break down some of my observations about how Geddy at 72 is sounding better than he has in decades.

The reason there is often a gap between studio and live vocal performances by the same artist has to do with the types of microphones used: Large diaphragm condensers vs. dynamic induction coil-driven microphones.

Large-diaphragm condenser mics in quiet studios can pick up a mouse fart from across the treet. The softer passages of Rush songs, even in, e.g. the verses of Subdivisions, can be sung at almost a whisper level and sound clear, intelligible, but relaxed. These are not suitable for stage performance. As good as their off-axis rejection is, it will still pick up guitar amplifiers and PA/line array loudspeakers, resulting in massive feedback.

Dynamic coil-driven mics, on the other hand, rely on sound pressure to activate the pickup above a certain threshold and consequently if there's a high volume threshold you've got to project your voice a lot more, but doing so in a controlled manner means controlling air from the chest to get more power without straining. The older you get, the more critical this control becomes as your ability to project high notes, notes with exponentially more wave power than low notes, becomes diminished.

So this is where the vocal training comes in. One big difference between Geddy's technique before and after that you can see visibly is that it used to be the case that when he would go for the hard parts his air movement would be as forceful as his mouth was wide. This is because he's using the muscles around the larynx and the throat to make the throat act as both the pump and the valve... and this is what causes the vocal cords to go haywire.

But in vocal training, you learn to separate these things and bring the power from the chest by controlling air with the diaphragm beneath the lungs, thrusting air through, not from, the throat. And the only thing your mouth is doing is shaping the sound.

There's a little work also in how he uses consonants, where he chooses to enunciate sharply or softly, to make the passage from one sound to the other work better, and not have such jarring shifts. But these glottal (back of throat), lingual (tongue), labial (lips) and dental/fricative (teeth, tongue against teeth)sounds aren't mechanics you'll see so much as you will hear.

So this is why now when you watch Ged, you might see him open his mouth wide while not necessarily going from soft to loud, because he's got control of the air flow at the chest, and he's just trying to maximize enunciation without blowing his vocal cords.

There are also a few places where he's transposing notes down but they probably could do a bit more of this by working more with an arranger, if so inclined... it requires transposing the rest of the music as well.

Overall, as a result of all this hard work, he sounds as good if not better than when I saw them in 94 during the Counterparts tour. And this is HARD work... I've spent 35 years doing it. By understanding more about how we produce sounds, and being more conscious of how he is forming them, Geddy has better control of his voice than he's ever had.

Hey all. I just wanted to take a moment to encourage everyone of all ages attending these concerts to protect your hearing.... Earplugs will suffice, but if you look for ear filters that have a 20dB reduction these are a good level of protection for concerts that can expose you to continuous sound pressure levels (SPL) above 100 decibels.

In adults, levels above 105dB will cause some degree of permanent hearing loss if exposed for more than an hour.

These days you can find a lot of ear filters online... Etymotic Research is just one example of a trusted, tested brand. But, if it's within your budget, you can also talk to an audiologist and get fitted for custom earplugs that allow interchangeable decibel level inserts.

Ultimately any level of ear protection is better than none, but it comes down to if you're ok with muffling the sound (e.g. foam earplugs, where higher frequencies will get more muted) or want more sophisticated ear filters that reduce the sound pressure while maintaining the clarity of the sound.

Stay safe and enjoy the show!