June 5 Storm Chase: Illinois Tornado Outbreak

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We were close to the tornado, roughly a quarter mile south of it, paralleling it as it tore an eastward course through the Illinois fields. Dirt and shredded corn swirled around its base like an aura. As Kurt Hulst and I  pulled aside and stepped out of the car to take pictures, we could hear the roar. It wasn’t loud, just audible and big, very big, an intensely focused sound like an immense blowtorch or a rocket engine. Yet, close as Kurt and I were to the tornado, we were out of its path and beyond the range of any apparent debris, and I sensed no particular danger.

A brief staccato of blue flashes suddenly lit up the base of the funnel, accompanied by a loud bang, and chunks of debris flew skyward and centrifuged out. The tornado had hit a structure out in the field, most likely an outbuilding of some kind.

Fortunately, there was little real harm the twister could do out there in the broad Illinois prairie. Not yet, anyway. But a little way to the east lay Yates City, and two-and-a-half miles farther, the community of Elmwood…

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The day had started off rather inauspiciously, with the previous evening’s aggressive SPC outlook degrading into a forecast for straight-line winds. The 12Z NAM, too, looked unpromising, and the RUC corroborated it, with mostly southwesterly surface winds veering with height to a unidirectional, westerly mid- and upper-level flow. A persistent batch of cloud cover from a mesoscale convective system threatened to minimize daytime heating and instability. In a word, the setup wasn’t one that suggested tornadoes.

But with a trough digging in from the west, rich moisture, great shear, and at least a semblance of clearing moving in from the southwest, Kurt and I decided to chance it anyway. Our friend and fellow Michigan chaser Ben Holcomb had alerted us the previous evening to the evolving weather situation, and after reading Friday night’s Day 2 Convective Outlook and scanning the NAM, which showed an impressive juxtaposition of the right ingredients, including high helicities stretching along I-80 from Iowa into Indiana, we knew that we had to go.

So off we headed for Illinois late Saturday morning. As Kurt pointed out, the forecast models don’t always have a good grasp on things. One thing we could tell from both the NAM and RUC, though, was that the best parameters now lay well south of I-80. Accordingly, we set our sights on Galesburg, and once there, we continued on, crossing the river at Burlington and heading west into Iowa.

I took a dewpoint reading of over 72 degrees on my Kestrel at New London. The air was juicy. But the clearing we had driven through in western Illinois was giving way to a an extensive mid-level cloud deck. Rather than continuing to forge farther west toward the cold front, we decided to backpedal eastward in the hope that convection would fire near the edge of the cloud shield. This idea became a moot point as the cloud cover rapidly expanded across the river into Illinois.  But better parameters still lay in our area. We were presently in an area of maximum sigtors and optimal 1 km helicity, and on the radar, a scattering of blue popcorn echoes suggested that localized convection was trying to get started. Anticipating that these features would all translate to the east, we drifted back in that direction.

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We soon noticed a cloud base with a tower reaching up toward the higher cloud deck. It showed on the radar, as did another stronger one directly down the road from us. As we headed toward it, the second echo progressed from yellow to red. Not far to our northeast, we could see a rain curtain. Skirting it, we moved east of the developing storm cell, parked, and got our first good look at it.

The cell was organizing nicely and was already showing supercellular characteristics–nice separation of the  saucer-like updraft base from the precipitation core; a strong, crisp, tilted updraft tower; the first signs of banding, and a hint of an inflow stinger. Positioned on the southeast edge of the convective cluster in southeast Iowa, it was in a favorable position to

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ingest moist inflow unimpeded by other storms as it drifted at 30 knots toward Illinois.

This was our storm. We tracked with it back across the river, watching it develop, watching the base lower and the first hint of a wall cloud blossom and put on muscle, watching it tighten as the RFD notch wrapped around it.

Just southeast of  Maquon, Illinois, we saw it: a cloud of dust billowing up from the ground with brief, streaming tendrils of condensation forming and dissipating above it. Tornado! It was a brief appearance of maybe a minute’s duration, but the storm was just getting started, mustering energy for the next round.

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We didn’t have long to wait. A minute or two later, as we proceeded down CR 8, a slender elephant’s trunk of a funnel probed its way earthward, intensified, and began gobbling its way through the corn, closing in to within a quarter-mile of us before turning straight east.

This turned out to be a beautiful, highly photogenic tornado, all the moreso for the amazing display of lightning that accompanied it. Kurt took some great video of it which will give you a much better appreciation for how

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electrified the tornadic environment was. At one point, at the 8:50 mark, you can see a bolt shoot directly from the funnel to the ground. I didn’t have the good fortune to witness the famed Mulvane, Kansas, tornado, but I’ve got to believe that this storm was similar in terms of its incessant lightning.

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The funnel morphed through a variety of elegant formations, and the overall storm structure was beautiful. It was a stunning and mesmerizing sight, but with growing concern, Kurt and I realized that it was making its way toward Yates City and didn’t show any sign of weakening.

Fortunately, the funnel veered slightly to the northeast, passing just to the north of the town. At that point, it was an intense drillpress spinning furiously a mile distant. We closed the gap and tracked with it as it headed toward the larger town of Elmwood, just a couple miles down the road.

What was the funnel doing? It appeared to be shifting to the right. Oh my gosh! Elmwood was going to get hit! The tornado was beginning to rope out,

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but not in enough time to spare the town. Taking a hard right, it plowed through the town center. Three-quarters of a mile ahead of us, power lines arced and transformers exploded, debris blasted into the air, and a large dust cloud billowed skyward.

It is a weird and awful feeling to witness a community get hit by a tornado. I’ve seen it happen twice before in Springfield, Illinois, and in Iowa City, but those were night time events. It’s different in broad daylight, when you can see what’s happening. The rather blurry photo shown here was taken just before the tornado crossed Main Street in downtown Elmwood. It’s not a very dramatic shot. You can see a few pieces of debris floating in the air and no more than a cloud tag to mark the presence of the tornado. But a second or two after the photo was taken, things got very nasty in that town. If there’s anything at all good to be said about what happened there, it’s that no one got killed or, as far as I’m aware, even injured.

A couple hundred yards south of Elmwood, the tornado dissipated. Gone, poof, vanished just like that. There’s a certain ugly irony about a force of nature that can wreak havoc in a community and then vanish a few seconds later without a trace. If the tornado had dissipated just thirty seconds sooner, a lot of people might have experienced just a good scare rather than a local disaster.

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Kurt and I continued tracking with the storm as it made its way toward Peoria. The next tornado soon formed–a larger, bowl-shaped cloud with multiple vortices. This broadened out into a large tornado cyclone with multiple areas of rotation that produced, among other things, a brief but spectacular horizontal vortex. Sorry, I have no photos to show of it. It had gotten too dark, we were moving, and any picture I took at that point would have been blurred beyond recognition.

In Peoria, we got a bit snagged by roads and traffic, but thanks to Kurt’s great driving, we soon found ourselves heading east on I-74. As we crossed the Illinois River, I could see what appeared to be a large cone funnel to our north making its way across what was probably Upper Peoria Lake, silhouetted by frequent strobes of lightning.

Catching CR 115 at Goodfield, we headed north to Eureka, then continued east along US 24. We were still tracking with the storm, which was slowly weakening as the next tornadic supercell to its north began to dominate. It was still no pansy-weight, though, and at Chatsworth, in a final show of strength, it spun down a brief but well-defined rope tornado.

As our storm merged with the northern storm around Kankakee, Kurt and I caught I-57 and headed home. After May 22 in South Dakota, I really didn’t expect that I’d get another decent storm chase in. But this El Nino year, which got off to such a rotten start for storm chasers, now is paying dividends with some highly photogenic tornadoes.

And the season isn’t over yet. There’s no telling what the rest of June may hold. I doubt I’ll be making any more forays this year into the Plains, but if the Great Lakes region continue to light up, I’ve got my camera and laptop ready.

To see more photos from this chase, click here. And while you’re at it, check out the rest of my images of storms, tornadoes, wildflowers, people, and whatnot in my photos section.

June 9, 2010 by
Filed Under: Nature, Outdoors, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Guest Blog: Jazz Pianist Kurt Ellenberger Tells Why He Hates Rhythm Changes

“I’m attracted to sophisticated harmony, interesting voice-leading, rich chords and dense chord voicings, and tone color…None of that is present in rhythm changes, and the ornate weaving through the static changes is just not compelling enough to mitigate what is missing.”–Kurt Ellenberger

Some time back, I wrote a post titled “Why I Love Playing ‘Rhythm’ Changes.” Evidently not every jazz musician feels the same way. Judging from the following post, jazz pianist Kurt Ellenberger may be slightly fonder of rhythm changes than he is of leprosy, but it’s a close contest.

I’d be tempted to whap Kurt for taking a whack at my article, except that Kurt is one of those rare musicians who makes me want to put my saxophone down and just listen to him play. He is a truly amazing, well-rounded pianist and complete musician who, drawing from a huge array of musical influences, can sweep you away on an inventive, marvelously textural journey that will make you forget there’s anything but the music you’re listening to.

Kurt is also a composer, the jazz professor at Grand Valley State University, the creator of Frakathustra’s Blog (aka Also Sprach Frak), and the author of “Materials and Concepts in Jazz Improvisation.”

All of the above to say, Kurt is hugely qualified to express a conflicting opinion. He’s also a great guy with a nutty sense of humor. So I guess I won’t whap him. Instead, I’m featuring him here as a guest blogger, knowing that he has some valuable, thoughtful, and provocative perspectives to share.

Naturally I’ll be writing a rebuttal.* Ain’t no Hatfield crosses a McCoy without there be a return salvo. For now, though, it’s time for Kurt to share his thoughts in an article he calls…

Why I Hate Rhythm Changes

By Kurt Ellenberger

In case the title isn’t clear enough, I’ll say it unequivocally: I don’t like rhythm changes at all, I have no interest in the form, nor any affinity for it whatsoever, and I know I’m not alone. I’ve heard many of my fellow jazz musicians say similar things, but we’ve done it in a sheepish manner, as if uttering some kind of sacrilege against one of the sacraments of the jazz church. Sacrament or not, I think it’s probably the most banal structure in all of jazz.

That’s a provocative statement requiring some explanation, which I’m happy to provide. But first, some context and background.

When I was listening to jazz for the first time as a teenager, there were certain tunes that I never (for the most part) liked very much. As I became more knowledgeable about form and harmony, I found there was a consistent pattern to my dislike: They were tunes based on rhythm changes such as “Moose the Mooch,” “Rhythm-a-ning,” “Shaw Nuff,” “Cottontail,” “Anthropology,” “Dexterity,”and others.  There were few that I liked, a very few.  In fact, I can name them specifically, because there were only two that I can remember being interested in: Bill Evans’ studio version of “Oleo” and some of Miles Davis’ recordings of “The Theme.” That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate the playing and the technical prowess in display in countless other recordings, I just didn’t enjoy listening to the form, regardless of how well it was played, and that hasn’t changed to this day.

As a dutiful jazz student, I worked hard to learn the form.  I transcribed solos, studied them as jazz etudes, extracted licks and learned them in 12 keys, until I could make it through and play it in a reasonably convincing manner.  I say “convincing” because I always felt as if I was acting a part when playing rhythm changes. I had no passion for it and I couldn’t manufacture a musical love affair.  I’m sure that it came across as such, no matter how hard I tried.  I relied on clichés and formulaic licks, especially at faster tempos. I never felt like I was improvising; rather, that I was regurgitating my stable of licks in a form that was completely uninteresting to me in order to be employable as a jazz musician.

As time went on, my emotional detachment from rhythm changes made it harder and harder to fake it. I just couldn’t force myself to play those licks as required to maintain the facade.  When someone called a tune based on rhythm changes, I tried to avoid a solo entirely if at all possible.

I examined the form to see if I could figure out what I didn’t like about it, and it wasn’t hard to determine.  Rhythm changes is a 32-bar form (AABA). The ‘A’ section is eight measures in length, the first four of which are (as Bob writes in his post) a simple turnaround repeated. In the second four measures, the bass moves from tonic to dominant, highlighting the subdominant briefly, before moving back to tonic again(there are some minor variations there, but essentially this is what is found). The ‘B’ section attempts to generate some degree of harmonic “surprise” as it moves from tonic to V/vi (chromatic mediant). This transparent and trite interjection fails to surprise as it immediately decays into a string of very predictable secondary dominants leading to the dominant of B-flat, which then sets up the return of the ‘A’ section.   To summarize:

* There are three ‘A’ sections in the piece, comprising 24 of its 32 measures.

*The ‘A’ section is a prolongation of the tonic.

*The ‘B’ section is nothing more than a series of passing chords leading to tonic.

The form is therefore virtually static from a harmonic (granted, Schenkerian) perspective which is problematic for me. In general, I prefer music that has a higher degree of harmonic activity and direction, or, absent that (as in music of a more minimalist nature, much of which I enjoy tremendously), there must be some other complexity in play to retain my interest. These preferences have become more pronounced over the years. As a result, I’ve lost interest in a lot of tunes that are similar in construction.

The primary reason that I pursued jazz was because of my love for the music of Bill Evans, which goes a long way in explaining what motivates and inspires me musically. To be precise, I’m attracted to sophisticated harmony, interesting voice-leading, rich chords and dense chord voicings, and tone color, all of which Evans excels in. None of that is present in rhythm changes, and the ornate weaving through the static changes is just not compelling enough to mitigate what is missing. Yet I really was attracted to Evans’ recording of “Oleo,” going so far as to transcribe it in order to learn what he was doing.** His recording is remarkable in that it eschews the original harmony almost completely, and treats the form in a very free manner, with implied new progressions (especially in the ‘A’ section), prolonged hemiolas and other polyrhythms, and surprisingly chromatic melodic figures; in other words, it’s barely recognizable as rhythm changes, which is probably why I like it.

I write this with enormous respect and admiration for all of the great musicians who have done (and continue to do) remarkable things with rhythm changes. I can appreciate that on many levels, but I simply don’t respond to it emotionally, and without that, what’s the point?

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* ADDENDUM: To read my rebuttal to Kurt’s post, click here.

** It is interesting to note that, as far as I know, Evans recorded rhythm changes only once in a studio album (“Oleo” from “Everybody Digs Bill Evans”). I certainly don’t know the reason, but the fact that he didn’t record it again is notable for a jazz pianist of that era. I’ve wondered about it for many years, especially given my love for Evans’ music and my own dislike for rhythm changes.

June 6, 2010 by
Filed Under: Guest Posts and Interviews, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Michigan in the Crosshairs Today?

Most of the time when I chase storms in Michigan, it’s as a wannabe sitting in my armchair gazing wistfully at my radar as I follow the action out west. Every once in a while, though, I get something right here in my own state that’s worth hopping into my car and driving after with my laptop and camera at hand and hope in my heart.

Today is shaping up to be such a day. It’s about time. June is upon us, and that means the peak tornado season has finally arrived for Michigan. Frankly, that term, “peak tornado season,” strikes me as glaring overkill when it comes to Michigan. But we usually have a few incidents every year, and today could be one of them. Perusing the last couple of NAM runs, including the 00Z, and running a few model RAOB soundings, I’m casting my eyes on the Flint-Pontiac area, where surface winds appear to remain, if not backed, at least southerly at 00Z tomorrow evening.

With dewpoints at or exceeding 65 degrees below a warm front draped across central Michigan, straight westerly mid- and upper-level winds with 45-50 knots at 500 mbs, and forecast SBCAPE upwards of 2,000 J/kg, there certainly look to be some decent ingredients in the vat. Insolation will be either the eye of newt that either makes the magic happen tomorrow or the missing ingredient that quashes instability thanks to blowoff from storms farther west.

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Attached are a couple soundings, the first for 23Z at Flint and the other for 00Z at Pontiac. Not bad-looking hodographs, particularly for Michigan. As you can see, the surface winds are southerly. Farther west, they veer to the southwest, though they by no means create a unidirectional scenario. Interestingly, while the STP and Stensrud Tornado Risk indices spotlight the area around Flint, F5 Data’s APRWX tornado index bullseyes Grand Rapids down toward Kalamazoo. Maybe that’s because a 500 mb jet max noses into this area by 00Z.

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Traditionalist that I am, I prefer backed, or at least southerly, surface winds if I can get them.  So as of the 00Z run, I’m eyeballing parts east, probably up around Flint near the warm front. The morning run may tell a different story. I just hope it’ll be a positive one.

Here’s to sunny skies, decent CAPE, and a good, productive backyard chase!

ADDENDUM: I wrote the above last night. The morning picture changes things a bit. Specifically, the satellite shows a nasty batch of CAPE-killing clouds blowing into the area from an MCS out west. That’s bad news. However, the clouds show some clearing expanding in their midst. That’s good news. Moreover, Mike Kovalchick sent me an HRRR model radar image showing a supercell popping up in mid-Michigan at 22Z. I’m sure that’s dependent on decent CAPE, which presumes enough clearing for good afternoon heating.

This latest info is good to have, but it doesn’t change my game plan, which is to wait and see what happens by the afternoon.

June 4, 2010 by
Filed Under: Life, Michigan, Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Mastering the Sax: Building a Baseline of Ability

As I sat in my car by the railroad tracks last night out in the countryside, practicing my saxophone and doing my best impression of a Shady Character Waiting To Make A Drug Deal for the benefit of curious passers-by, it struck me how far I’ve come since I began woodshedding in earnest back in college. It’s a long way, but not far enough. There are high-school-age kids who can do what I do. Not many, but they’re out there, along with a host of college music majors who are blazing incendiary trails across today’s jazz firmament.

I can’t afford to think about it. Topnotch jazz programs featuring world class saxophone instructors have multiplied over the years, and out of that educational milieu are arising some brilliant young players. There are bound to be a few who at half my age possess twice my ability.

A few. But probably not all that many. Because while those music majors have been in the practice rooms busily learning their instruments, I’ve been in my car by the tracks doing the same thing. However, my practice schedule has probably been more spotty than theirs, and so have my opportunities to play jazz live with other experienced jazz musicians. Unless you’re in a position where you can immerse yourself in music without interruption, the demands of making a living have a way of imposing themselves on your practice time. They can stop you if you let them, but they probably don’t have to. You just have to accept a slower rate of growth that accommodates the rest of life.

The learning curve for mastering a musical instrument is different for everyone. We all have different circumstances, different degrees of natural ability, different competing interests that round us out as individuals, and so on.

I thought about this last night as I worked out some bop tunes in the key of F# and revisited “Giant Steps.” My storm chasing excursion out west last weekend had cost me several days of practice, and my fingers could tell the difference. But they snapped back into shape quickly.

Playing the saxophone is not like riding a bike. You don’t just hop back on and regain instant command after not having ridden in a while. You’ve got to reclaim old ground.

What does happen, though, is that when you practice diligently, you continue to raise the baseline of your abilities. Persistent, focused practice not only will put you at the top of your game, but it will also build and expand a musical foundation you can fall back on during those times when your practice routine falls by the wayside.

My book on “Giant Steps” patterns is nearing pub time, but to be honest, I haven’t spent much time actually playing “Steps” in recent history. So last night I broke out my workbook and my Aebersold CD of Coltrane tunes, and I got a pleasant surprise. It has been years since the period in my musical development when I saturated myself in “Giant Steps.” But I found myself navigating the changes, finding my way through familiar patterns, exploring ideas–not on the same level as if I’d been consistently practicing Coltrane changes, true, but well enough for me to feel pretty good about what I was doing. In fact, in some ways I played the tune better than I did in the past. Other musical material that I’ve acquired over the years provided a richer repository of ideas and technical finesse. Old and new came together, and while the result wasn’t perfect, it was at least coherent.

To sum up: Stick with your instrument. Never give up. Life has its seasons and its discouragements, but persistence really does pay off. Don’t measure your musical growth by other players, but by the satisfaction you get as you set and accomplish realistic personal goals. Be honest with yourself, be as diligent in practicing as you can be, be hard on yourself only when you have to be, listen to and study great players, and don’t get so obsessed with arriving at your destination that you forget to enjoy the journey. Do this, and over time you’ll build a solid baseline of craftsmanship and musicality that will serve you well during the off-seasons of your musical life.

May 29, 2010 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Life, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

May 22 South Dakota Tornadoes: Part 3

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There’s nothing funny about finding yourself trapped at the end of a dead-end road with multiple tornadoes bearing down on you. It’s not a scenario one anticipates when heading out on a chase, but it’s the one my chase partners Bill and Tom Oosterbaan, Mike Kovalchick, and I found ourselves in, along with seven other vehicles full of chasers, last Saturday in South Dakota.

Up until the moment when the road we were on ended abruptly at the edge of a farmer’s field, we were simply performing a routine maneuver: select an escape route and take it when the storm draws near. We and the other chasers had chosen 130th Street east of CR9 as our best eastbound option. It looked good on both DeLorme Street Atlas and Microsoft Streets & Trips: a nice through road connecting with 353rd Avenue three miles away. It was a perfectly logical choice, and things would have proceeded without incident had the maps been accurate.

What the maps didn’t show was that a farmer had recently plowed over the road, converting it to a field. We made that delightful discovery two miles down. The road had already begun to degrade, presenting us with a couple mudholes which Mike’s Subaru Outback plowed through without a problem. But the field was a show stopper. Suddenly, poof! No road. On an ordinary day, this discovery would have been an inconvenience. With tornadoes breathing down our neck, it was horrifying.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me backpedal a bit to set the stage. After stopping to enjoy the eminently photogenic fourth tornado that followed the beastly Bowdle wedge (see previous post), the four of us headed north to CR2/125th St., then turned east. The storm was morphing into a high precipitation supercell (photo at top of page). We watched it drop a couple more

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rain-wrapped tornadoes. Then it pulsed, catching its breath and gathering energy for the next round.

Dropping south down CR9, we pulled aside by a roadside pond to grab a few photos. The updraft area was a couple miles to our west, and while it didn’t presently seem to be tornadic, appearance can be deceptive. The cloud base was low, nearly dragging on the ground, with suspicious lowerings forming and dissipating. It looked like it could drop something at any time, and chances are it was even then producing random, momentary spinups.

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Hopping back into our vehicle, we proceeded farther south to the corner of 130th Street, where we once again parked. Here, we bumped into chasers Ben Holcomb, Adam Lucio, Danny Neal, and Scott Bennett. We had last seen these guys at a truck stop in Murdo; now here they were again, along with several other vehicles, all converging out ahead of the meso in the middle of nowhere. In the photo, left to right: Tom, Ben, Bill, and Scott.

As the storm drew closer, Tom pointed out that rotation was beginning to organize overhead. It was time to skedaddle. Back into Mike’s Outback we clambered, with Tom at the wheel, and headed east down 130th Street.

At this point, it’s important to bear in mind that every vehicle that showed up at our location had independently pre-selected 130th Street as a valid escape route. What followed did not begin as a desperate dash for safety, but as a calculated, run-of-the-mill tactical maneuver informed by commonly used mapping software. Most of the people involved were experienced chasers, some of them veterans. The reasoning behind our road choice was sound. Unfortunately, the information we based it on was not.

Thus it was was that two miles down the road, suddenly there was no road. At the front of a string of other chase vehicles, we were the first to make that

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discovery. Tom turned around and started heading back, yelling to the next vehicles that the road was out. It was then that a tornado suddenly materialized in the field maybe half a mile to our west, just south of the road. It was a regular drill press, spinning furiously as it made its way toward us. It finally crossed the road and headed east-northeast a few hundred feet away, but even as it did so, another, thicker funnel snaked to the ground at roughly the same place where the first one had formed. I don’t think most people saw this second tornado; it moved toward us briefly, kicking up dirt, then dissipated, though I could still see swirling motions in the rain bands where it had been.

In the photo, besides the rope tornado, notice the lowerings farther back. These meant business. We were at the eastern edge of a broad area of rotation that was dropping not suction vortices, but multiple tornadoes of various sizes, intensities, and behaviors. In my observation, these were NOT moving in cyclonic fashion around a common center, but east with the parent storm–and straight at us.

A large cone appeared to the west, which, gathering strength, moved through the field to our north. By this time, it was clear that we were in a truly lethal situation, cut off to the east by a dead-end road and to the west by tornadoes.

Windy? Hell yes it was windy. The inflow was cranking like a sumbitch, and from the looks of things, it was only going to get worse. I looked around for a ditch, but there was absolutely nothing that could have offered protection. I noticed a stout post a few yards away and contemplated lying flat and wrapping my arms around it. Tom had the same idea. Mike was eyeballing a large pile of stones a hundred yards away, thinking it might provide some shelter, but it was too far a dash with no time left to make it in.

It was at this point that UK chaser Nathan Edwards drove off the road and began heading south into the field. He told me later that he was simply attempting to clear some room for other vehicles to move forward, hopefully edging just a little bit closer to out of harm’s way, but Nate’s move prompted the rest of us to follow. In a last-ditch gamble, the entire entourage of chase vehicles began fleeing south along the fence boundary.

The tornadoes were close. Really, they were on top of us. I watched as two funnels formed a hundred yards west of our vehicle, twisting around each other and moving toward us like the “sisters” in the movie “Twister.” The rain curtain was full of swirls and braids. And what was particularly unsettling was that, as we dashed across the farmland, the business part of the storm seemed to be expanding, reaching out after us. For a mindless force of nature, this storm was displaying as close as you can get to malevolent intent.

It dawned on me that if ever there was a time to pray, and pray hard, this was it. I’m a Christian–a bit of an iconoclast in that I don’t buy into a lot of Western church culture, but I love Jesus, I’m serious about following him, and conversing with God comes naturally to me. I don’t mean just in a pinch, but as a lifestyle. You can bet that at this point, I began praying most intensely.

A couple hundred yards in, we encountered a wet area and ponding and were forced to forge our way into the cultivated field. It was there that the storm caught up with us in earnest. End of the road for real. There was nothing left to do now but hunker down, pray, and hope.

Obviously I’m here to tell the story. All of us are, every last person. That none of us were killed or seriously injured, or for that matter sustained  so much as a scratch, is in my book God’s love and mercy, pure and simple. A video clip by Adam Lucio shows a tornado forming right in our midst, not ten yards from one of the vehicles. I never saw it, but Adam’s video is conclusive and sobering. We came so close, so very close. The rear flank downdraft alone had to have been in the order of 100 miles an hour. Yet nothing truly bad happened to any of us.

Some may call that a lucky draw; I call it answered prayer. Believe what you will, but there’s more to the story, an experience uniquely mine that I’ve shared with only a couple people so far. Look for it in my upcoming, final post concerning this incident. Whatever you make of it, I think you’ll agree that it’s uncanny.

in-the-field
That’s it for now, but this story continues. What followed with the farmer who owned the field, the sheriff and police, and other locals is for another episode, and it’s still not entirely resolved.

I’ll leave you with two images, both taken when the worst of the storm had just moved past us. One shows some of the vehicles getting slammed by the still-hellacious RFD. The other is a GR3 radar grab of the rotation and our location relative to it, shown by the circular GPS marker.

With that, I’ll sign off. Keep an eye out for parts four and five.

tornado
May 28, 2010 by
Filed Under: Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 22 South Dakota Tornadoes: The Storm Chase of a Lifetime

Holy cow.

What had all the indications of an impending cap bust turned into an unbelievable chase day in South Dakota. Highlights included a ferocious, Greensburg-style wedge that narrowly spared the town of Bowden, and some smaller, beautifully photogenic tornadoes and amazing storm structure. I’ll need some time to process the events of this storm chase, which began in earnest just east of the Missouri River as a tower broke the cap and went absolutely crazy in an environment with CAPES approaching 5,000 J/kg. Right now, I’m chilling in a hotel in Aberdeen, and I probably won’t post in earnest for a couple of days. There’s just too much to write about, and I need to step back from it all for a bit. I’d share some photos if I had my photo processing apps installed on my laptop. As it stands, I’ll just say that I got some great shots, and I’ll be sharing some of them along with a more in-depth writeup in a future post, or perhaps several posts.

Tomorrow looks like another good shot at tornadoes once again in South Dakota. Since we’re already here, we may stick around for round two, provided that Mike, whose vehicle we came in, is up for it. If so, I’m game. If not, I’ll be more than happy with yesterday’s experience. I can’t imagine a storm chase getting any better than that–or any worse and emerging from it intact.

May 23, 2010 by
Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

May 22, 2010, South Dakota Chase: On the Road

After catching breakfast in Chamberlain, South Dakota, we–Mike Kovalchick, Bill and Tom Oosterbaan, and I–are heading west along I-90. We have plenty of time to determine where we want to camp out this afternoon until storms start firing later today.

If you’ve kept track of the present weather system, then you know that it has had a number of serious detractors, the chief one being a nasty cap. To complicate things, the NAM and GFS were initially wildly at odds. But Thursday night the GFS began to agree with the NAM on opening up an uncapped corridor from Nebraska into South Dakota, and from there the model forecasts became progressively more promising. The SPC Day One Convective Outlook now shows a 10 percent  possibility of tornadoes extending from the Nebraska border north through the Dakotas. The hub of the activity will most likely be in South Dakota, which means that we are sitting in the catbird seat.

It feels great to finally get back out on the road and chase the Plains again. I’ve missed the big action so far this spring. This setup may not be the year’s big event, but it shows promise, and it coincides with a time when I’ve got the funds to go after it. Whether or not we see a tornado today–and tomorrow, and maybe Monday, as we follow this system’s evolution–we’ll at least see some nice storms. And, I might add, some beautiful countryside. It’s been a few years since I’ve been in South Dakota. It’s good to be back!

May 22, 2010 by
Filed Under: Storm Chasing, Tornadoes, Weather Tagged With: , , , ,

The Giant Steps Scratch Pad: Getting Back on Track

Finally…the grunt work is done. I’m pleased to announce that today I finished keying in the last of the patterns and licks in my “Giant Steps” practice book. Not only so, but I completely revised the introduction and wrote a new section of “Preliminaries and Practice Tips.”

Preparing “The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” for publication has been a longer haul than I had anticipated, but the extra time and effort I’ve invested have produced a much better product. And in the process of transcribing it using MuseScore notation software, I’ve had ample opportunity to better consider my options for self-publishing.

“The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” will be available in C, Eb, Bb, and bass clef editions. I’m now weighing the pros and cons of print versus electronic editions and the feasibility of offering both. Whatever I decide, the hardest part is now behind me (knock on wood). I still need to figure out how to merge my text and music score files into a single document, and I need to create a cover, and I need to set up an online store. But the book in its essence now exists in a format that is a huge improvement over the scanned, handwritten material I had initially envisioned as an e-book.

Bottom line: If you’ve ever wanted to build the chops needed to play John Coltrane’s tune “Giant Steps,” this book will help you immensely.

Continuing on in the spirit of shameless self-promotion–hey, it’s my blog, and I get to do this sort of thing!–I thought I’d share the “Preliminaries” part of the section titled “Preliminaries and Practice Tips.” You know, just to whet your whistle, start a little buzz, put a bug in your ear, that kinda thing. I think you’ll find this little writeup interesting, maybe even enlightening, possibly even useful:

“The Giant Steps Scratch Pad” is straightforward. It’s about building your chops for Coltrane changes. Still, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind.

“Giant Steps” cycles through three key centers spaced a major third apart. The tune is written in B concert (if you can really pin it to a single key), and it takes you through the keys of B major, G major, and Eb major. A quick glance will tell you that the notes B, G, and Eb (D# enharmonically) spell out a B augmented triad.

Formally, the tune consists of two eight-bar sections in an A-B format. Each section has its unique hallmarks:

* The A section can be distilled into a series of V7–I cadences that descend by major third, thus: F#7–BMaj7, D7–GMaj7, Bb7­­–EbMaj7. Simple enough, except that Coltrane had the audacity to insert a bar line in the middle of each cadence. So instead of a nice, perfectly symmetrical treadmill of chord changes, you wind up with this awkward roller-coaster: BMaj7–D7, GMaj7–Bb7, EbMaj7–F#7.

* The B section is essentially a series of two-bar ii–V7–I cadences that ascend by major third. But of course, once again Coltrane complicates a simple thing by beginning each two-bar phrase with a major chord, then in the following bar modulating abruptly to the ii–V7 of the next key. In other words, the chord series Am7–D7–GMaj7, C#m7–F#7–BMaj7, Fm7–Bb7–EbMaj7, becomes EbMaj7–Am7–D7, GMaj7–C#m7–F#7, BMaj7–Fm7–Bb7.

In a nutshell, “Giant Steps” was John Coltrane’s way of tweaking simple, essential musical formulae in a way that has had jazz musicians stubbing their toes ever since.

Just remember: The A section of “Giant Steps” descends by major thirds through three keys, and the B section ascends by major thirds through those same keys. Got it? Good. With that conceptual foundation in place, here are a few pointers for practicing…

I’ll close with that cliffhanger. Can’t you just feel the tension? You want to know my “Giant Steps” practice tips, don’t you.  I can just tell. Don’t worry, you can find out all about them once the book is released. So stay tuned, jazz campers. A little more work and then I’ll look forward to announcing publication.

May 20, 2010 by
Filed Under: Band, Jazz, Jazz Improvisation and Technique, Music, Saxophone Tagged With: , , , , , ,

MuseScore Music Notation Freeware

UPDDATE, OCTOBER 20, 2011: I wrote the following a year-and-a-half ago in May, 2010. Since then, newer versions of MuseScore have worked out the kinks I’ve mentioned below. That the developers of this program are committed to it long-term shows in the way it continues to improve and evolve. So if you want the real score on MuseScore today, make sure you read the latest comment from Thomas Bonte, one of the developers, and my response to his comment. This product is a winner!

A bit buggy but good results, and you can’t beat the price: that pretty much sums up my experience with MuseScore, a free music notation software that I found online a few days ago.

Since this happens to be not only my first encounter with MuseScore but also with music transcription programs in general, I have nothing with which to compare this software. I much doubt that it can compete with Sibelius or Finale, but then, neither does it cost $600. You can’t get more budget-friendly than “free.” And, shortcomings aside, this software is getting the job done for me as I work on my “Giant Steps” e-book.

So what are the shortcomings whereof I speak? Here are a few that have made my notation process a bit frustrating:

* Various items that I’m supposed to be able to drag and drop, don’t.

* Text settings: I customize them, hit apply, and nothing happens. Or something happens, but it wasn’t what I ordered. Kind of like telling the waitress to bring you coffee and you wind up with a cup of tea instead.

* The instruction manual leaves out some key information. It’ll get you up and running, but sooner or later–and my money is on sooner–you’ll encounter an issue that the manual doesn’t address. At that point, it’s a matter of guesswork.

* The program is prone to shut down if you try to make it perform too fast, or what it considers to be too fast. For instance, don’t make the mistake of hitting the “undo” button multiple times very quickly.

So much for the negatives. Those aside, MuseScore is doing what I need it to do for me, and while the going is slow (which could be at least partially due to my own inexperience), I’m pleased with the results overall. Moreover, as the first open source transcription program available, the possibilities for MuseScore are expansive. As has been pointed out in another review, this program could become to Finale and Sibelius what Open Office is to Microsoft Office.

Bottom line: If your needs for music transcription software are fairly straightforward and you don’t have a gob of cash to spend on the brand-name stuff, then give MuseScore a try. The advantages of this software easily outweigh its snags, and I have to say, the results look great! MuseScore is clearly a labor of love, and I think you’ll come to value this free, useful music composition tool.

May 18, 2010 by
Filed Under: Jazz, Music, Recording, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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