My Tunes | MidiMike

Archive for the ‘My Tunes’ Category

Oceans of Oil – Mother Earth is on Her Knees

Posted: May 15, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #American, #atari, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #digital, #environmental, #family, #guitar, #itunes, #keyboard, #life, #love, #lyrics, #Midi, #midimike, #mother earth, #music, #musician, #nature, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #singer, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals

As someone who truly loves the outdoors and nature (for a city guy!) I sometimes think there is no end to the way we have devastated the natural resources we were blessed with. Environmental tragedy after another, corporate greed and individual apathy seem to be everywhere at once. This is a disturbing and dark look (from my perspective) at what we are doing to our planet.

The music is rich with textures and soundscapes. One of the tricks I used was on the sound of the ‘toms’ as they repeat, the tuning changes and gets lower and lower. This is a simple MIDI trick. there are ways of doing this that can take a bit of time and planning, but what I did was very simple. As in the past, I use the keyboard to trigger the drum sounds when recording drum tracks. I recorded the simple beat with the tom sound. Then when I played it back, I started recording on the same track and used the keyboard ‘pitch bend’ stick to slowly lower the pitch as it played. That took about two seconds and once that was done during playback the drum toms would sound like they were being de-tuned in real time. Depending on how quickly the stick was moved, you could change the rate of pitch change.

My wife sings the melody and I add some vocal phrases and back up. To get her vocals to punch through the mix even though her vocals are smooth, I took a direct out (really it was an insert cable and we will get into that later) and fed her vocals into one channel of a stereo compressor/limiter to compress or ‘squash’ the levels, then I took the out put and ran it into the other (stereo side) side and used the limiter function. This allowed me to get a good signal by lowering the hot portions of the vocal track, and then pump it up to the point that the limiter would stop extreme levels from getting past a threshold point I set. I got a very clean vocal signal and smoothed out the peaks and valleys of the volume levels, allowing me to turn up the over all volume in the mix without distortion.

The Personal Touch does “The Pleasure Tax” – Rare Release

Posted: May 11, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #12string, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #digital, #dreams, #drummer, #drums, #guitar, #itunes, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lyrics, #microphone, #motivation, #music, #musician, #performance, #performer, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #retro, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #touch, #vocalist, #vocals

Recently I was asked in comments (The Observer) if a song I posted was recorded at home or in a studio. I replied but thought I might expand on that a bit and also introduce another version of “The Pleasure Tax”. As my brother and I got older we kept writing poems that were now almost always designed to be lyrics. We got better. Instead of playing the bongos, I played the toy organ I mentioned and everything else from there. Here is where I get to also blame my parents again. For Christmas we all got cool toys, but many of mine seemed to be music makers; recorders, tiny piano ‘tinkley’ toys, little ukuleles and eventually guitars with plastic strings and a drum set that was made for a three year old, but you get the point. So we got better and we played instruments and my brother started playing guitar as well. We had more toys to create music so when we wanted to record them (I was probably fourteen or fifteen by the time recording was a possibility) we wanted to add the various instruments and record them all together.

Through the years, we met other musicians and became great friend – or as I seem to recall – we met great friends that were also musicians. Eventually there was a central core of serious song writers. Sometimes there would be around eight or ten core writing members. It would seem there was a competition going (and there always was!) to write the coolest or most clever or the most groovy song. And we would have friends that would stop by and jam once in a while or would write lyrics and were willing to turn them over to a group of people that would fit them , with force if necessary, with a musical arrangement, melody line and harmonies.

The rambling link to all this is when we often played a collection of each other’s songs, we more than likely played with different performers supporting a few core members. Those were exciting days! One time you would sing the song and the lead vocalist was not there. So you let an ‘orbiting member’ do the vocal melody and you sing the harmony part. Most of us played instruments and sang – especially if we wrote the song as you can guess – so if the lead vocalist also played guitar, we filled in as a ‘core member’. On one visit or jam session you performed and sang your song all by yourself to the group. In other visits you were surrounded by full instrumentation and a choir of vocalists! So here is an example of all that tied into a version of this song by a full band I toured with. You heard us play live to an audience in Texas when we played the original song “Our Bodies Move” posted earlier. We also played other original songs and snuck them into our sets. One of them was “The Pleasure Tax”. We called ourselves The Personal Touch. Ric and I were a duo and when we decided to add a female vocalist as recommended by a booking agency they decided to sign us up for out of state gigs. We got some studio time when signing up and we performed some original tunes and some cover stuff…. done The Personal Touch way. “TPT” by TPT!

So this is rare original song of mine that was recorded in an actual studio. We are a trio and there was a studio drummer. Everything else is The Personal Touch with a very new vocalist.

Pleasure Tax – Sell Us Water, Sell Us Air!

Posted: May 7, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #12string, #acoustic, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #family, #guitar, #itunes, #life, #lyrics, #midimike, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #story, #truth, #vocalist, #vocals

Having written songs with my older brother from the beginning, I often bounce ideas at him to see what comes back. I remember (and take all of this with a grain of salt as I am not the best at chronology or details!) going up to him and saying something like… “I have this idea for a song and not sure where it goes, but I keep thinking get out of here leave me alone take it away, and that they want to charge us for anything. Soon they will sell us air and water”. Below is the result. I called it The Pleasure Tax, and it is more relative today. And yes, they do sell us air and water now!

I am very picky about tuning and tones used. Putting new strings on your guitar was sometimes a luxury. When I finally did it is like turning on a light bulb in a dim room. Yes, you could see before but now you can even read! Music can be like that. Things are not inspiring or do not sound very good and you change the strings (or reed, drum head, pads) and BAM! You want to go out and play it hard!

The tax is still out there, so be careful when you want to relax.?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592

Music by Michael S Kennedy Lyrics by Michael S and Charles D Kennedy

Intro:

Take it away………… The Pleasure Tax 4x

Verse 1

Take it out, or take it home.

Take it back, it hasn’t grown

Take it away or leave it alone.

Say what you want, or hang up the phone.

Chorus

Put new strings on your damn guitar.

Make it simple, but play it hard.

He says he likes it I don’t know why.

We don’t understand but we’ll give it a try.

Verse 2

Hit the road or face the facts.

There’s something that your system lacks.

The very next time you go to relax,

You’ll go down from the Pleasure Tax

Late Potato – Simple Beauty

Posted: April 29, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #12string, #acoustic, #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #creative, #demo, #guitar, #itunes, #life, #lyrics, #microphone, #midimike, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #performer, #personal, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #vocalist, #vocals

In another acoustic song of mine, you can tell that I was clearly influenced by my surroundings. In another career a long time ago in a galaxy….. never mind, but it was a long time ago I was working for a company that had a huge manufacturing plant in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I am teasing a little, but there was nothing around for miles that stayed up later than the cows in the fields all around. I was not used to that and I was going a little crazy in a bored sort of way, as I rented a place to stay until I got settled in the new job and town.

I have heard people talk about watching the grass grow but I had no idea they meant it literally. So there are fields and corn. More fields and soy. Other fields with potatoes. Cows and other live stock and then more corn. I was interested to find out that some farmers hedge their bets a little and not plant everything right away. Farmers in the next field over were planting late potatoes. I couldn’t resist. It sounded so ‘like me’. I often feel like a late potato. (Sagittarius – figured that one out already did you?) Can’t keep up. Everyone is ahead of you. Get knocked down but you still help those in need. Excited by the simple beauty of life all around. You might feel like a Late Potato too.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592

Couldn’t keep up when the rest of the world was running,

Couldn’t sit down until the fireworks were over.

Now, I have no need.

For things that take great speed.

CHORUS: They call me Late Potato

Late Potato

Late Potato.

Tried not to scream when the Earth spent all it’s money,

Tried not to laugh while the ax was getting sharpened.

Now, I have no need.

For things that take great speed.

CHORUS: They call me Late Potato

Late Potato

Late Potato.

Takes no time to lose, when I think that I am losing,

Gave my last dime when I was begging on the street.

Now, I have no need.

For things that take great speed.

CHORUS: They call me Late Potato

Late Potato

Late Potato.

Moog Swing

Posted: April 23, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #creative, #digital, #itunes, #keyboard, #Midi, #midimike, #Moog, #music, #musician, #piano, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #Yamaha

Here is an instrumental I want to share with you. Much of story telling is history, and much of my history might be considered ancient history to many of you. We take a lot of things for granted. It is hard to imagine times without smart phones, GPS navigation devices and e-mail. Well, it helps to imagine those times but in the music industry. When the first synthesizers came out you could create really cool new sounds but you could only play one or two notes at a time!!! The major studios had upped the game and could now record up to 4 tracks of audio on the reel to reel tape machines. Computers were so slow and had such limited memory that it was difficult if not impossible to record hi-quality tracks without it crashing or losing what you just recorded.

One of those new amazing synthesizers was from Moog. Even now you will probably recognize songs that used these new machines. Moog Swing is an instrumental I wrote in honor of the Moog sounds, although I did not own one. I programmed one of my tone generators to get as close as I could to mimic the classic Moog sound. This is all MIDI tracks recorded on the Atari 1040ST. I would have to look at my track-sheet notes to confirm, but I think the drum sounds came from a Yamaha RX15 drum machine. This is the same drum machine I used on the road in Corpus Christie Texas and you can hear it again in the song “Our Bodies Move” from my earlier post. Today, modern samplers and PC program plug-ins attempt to offer the popular sounds from the ancient tone generators and keyboards in wave play-back programs, but it is nothing like the real thing.

My Original Tunes on ITunes and a Heartfelt Thank You to My Followers

Posted: April 21, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #audio, #band, #cdbaby, #creative, #daughter, #dreams, #family, #genres, #itunes, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lyrics, #midimike, #motivation, #music, #musician, #performance, #performer, #personal, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #stage, #studio, #vocalist, #vocals

As demonstrated in the past, I have shared my compositions and songs with friends and family. When asked by a blogger (and now a good friend) in a comment on my blog if my songs were available on i-Tunes, I replied that I believed they are but have not checked. I know this sounds strange and it is! Of the number of things I have learned and accomplished over the decades, I have not learned how (or desired…..) to promote my own work. That is one of the reasons why my daughter had to give me a big KICK to start this blog and get my songs out there.

It appears I need another big KICK! I placed my songs on CD Baby as I am an independent songwriter/performer and I do not have the backing of a major label (Yet???!!). Thank all of you for checking out this blog and for comments I truly feel are precious and thoughtful. Many of you are encouraging and supportive and I very much appreciate it. I want to help others understand the music environment and cut to the root of many systems or procedures we use that seem too mysterious or challenging to beginners.

I did check and I want to make sure you know that my songs (individually and as CD’s) are available on i-Tunes, and they can be found in streaming services like Pandora, Spotify, X-box and many other channels. If plans go well I will also be releasing more songs this year and early 2016. My daughter posted the i-Tunes links on the midimike blog recently, and I wanted to let you know if you are not familiar with CD Baby that the songs are available in other channels. Deep down, maybe everyone wants to be a famous rock star, but I simply want to create original music, help others do the same and share them with people that are as passionate about life as I am.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/retrograde/id962542260

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/touch-down/id962542289

The Touch Lyrics

Posted: April 18, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: #family, #genres, #guitar, #humans, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lyrics, #Midi, #midimike, #music, #musician, #observation, #performance, #personal, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #touch

That stars in the sky don’t matter to me.

The crescent moon at night, I can not see.

Living for a future, that’s never there.

All I know are the feelings that we share.

CHORUS: But I can feel the harmony

Feel the truth no one can see.

Don’t have to see to know that it’s true,

When you touch me, I touch you.

When you touch me I touch you.

No sun to begin each and every day,

And so many words have nothing to say.

The difference between tears and a smile,

To know these things if only for a while.

CHORUS: But I can feel the harmony

Feel the truth no one can see.

Don’t have to see to know that it’s true,

When you touch me, I touch you.

When you touch me I touch you.

An easy smile and a touch of mystique

But strength alone is what makes us unique.

As long as you touch me, I will touch you.

As long as you touch me.

CHORUS: But I can feel the harmony

Feel the truth no one can see.

Don’t have to see to know that it’s true,

When you touch me, I touch you.

When you touch me I touch you.

“The Touch” – Understanding Humans

Posted: April 15, 2015 in MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #demo, #digital, #drummer, #drums, #guitar, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lyrics, #Midi, #music, #musician, #performance, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #vocalist, #vocals

Ideas from songs can and should come from all sorts of things. I try to observe experiences from other people. Too many writers base their material on their own personal experience. This is powerful but has serious drawbacks. One has to experience nirvana or tragedy in order to write about it. This can be limiting unless you have a very tumultuous life. Not good for health and well being of the artist. So I try to empathize, sympathize and understand the thoughts, mood and feelings of others as they experience life changing events.

I had been a musician with limited access to toys for most of the early years. Lots of time and not much cash or resources available. That did not stop me from observing others, and in fact probably offered me the time to observe. Anyway, a friend of mine and I were walking around and I noticed a person in a wheel chair. There was another person behind pushing the chair, but something seemed a little unusual for some reason and I kept watching the pair. IWE naturally thought the person pushing was there to help the person in the wheel chair. They went up to one of those bank ATM’s and much to my surprise, the person in the wheel chair moved out of the way and the walking person went up to the ATM display. What moved me to write this song was the fact that I had originally assumed the person walking was assisting the person in the wheel chair. The person standing started to use the ATM and they searched by hand for the braille instructions! The person walking was blind, and being assisted by the person in the wheel chair! We can touch others in so many different ways. That lead me to the lyrics and a better understanding of human beings. Not just their ability to assist others in ways we might not think of, but also how we (I) perceived something and came up with the wrong conclusion. I use a phrase that describes that effect; Many people have the correct observation but come to incorrect conclusions. This song, the lyrics and the music, mean a lot to me personally. I truly hope you find something here you can relate to.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/perigee

What I Do At Night – The Driving Song

Posted: April 8, 2015 in family, MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #atari, #audio, #band, #bass, #daughter, #demo, #digital, #dreams, #driving, #drummer, #drums, #family, #guitar, #keyboard, #life, #Liveband, #love, #lyrics, #Midi, #mixingboard, #motivation, #music, #musician, #performance, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #runningsound, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #tech, #vocalist, #vocals, #Yamaha

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/perigee

**This is MidiMike’s daughter. I help my dad out with his blog. I wanted to tell all of you that this is, by far, my favorite song that my dad has ever written. If you stop to listen to any of the original tunes, I would highly recommend this one!! Thanks.**

And now a message from my dad:

On most of my tunes, I play all the instruments and sequence the drums and other sound effects. I usually sing lead or I have my wife take the vocal lead. Once I started working in music stores selling instruments and sound equipment, I asked friends (and customers at the time!) to come over and lay down guitar solos or I might have a guest vocalist. What I do at Night was one that we did ourselves. I play all guitar parts and the back up vocals. I think at this time I had graduated from a Yamaha MT4X (I think they were called and this was a 4 Track double speed cassette recorder) to the Alesis ADAT. So now I had an amazing 8 tracks to record on! Actually I needed one track to record the SMPTE time code so the Alesis ADAT would sync up to the computer (now I actually have a PC and put the Atari in deep storage). I can go into this details on this system for a later post when I am feeling nostalgic, but it allowed unlimited MIDI tracks on the PC or Atari and connect to the playback of the ADAT.

The song itself reflects my thoughts on a number of topics. I really like to drive. I don’t have a fast or luxury car. I just like to drive. When I have some free time or just want to think, I often find myself cruising the local country side. I would listen to music while driving and that sometimes adds to the frustration. Most of the music you hear on commercial radio is garbage or re-packaged songs and ideas I have heard for the last few decades. Like a lot of us struggling artists and performers, we see a bunch of bands with lots of air-play and they are just so-so. OK music, but nothing special. As a songwriter, I get so tired of the same theme or idea in every song on the radio and they seem to get played non-stop.

One line reflects this fairly well…. ” so I turn the radio over to the right, playing the same songs as the other night”. Originally titled – “Rainy Day”, What I do at Night has become one of my favorite driving songs. Enjoy.

Slick As A Dream

Posted: April 1, 2015 in family, MUSIC, My Tunes
Tags: # mixer, #audio, #band, #bass, #daughter, #demo, #digital, #dreams, #drummer, #drums, #family, #guitar, #keyboard, #Liveband, #logical, #love, #lyrics, #Midi, #mixingboard, #motivation, #music, #musician, #performance, #piano, #poetry, #recording, #recordingstudio, #retro, #runningsound, #singer, #song, #songwriter, #sound, #Soundengineer, #soundman, #speakers, #stage, #story, #studio, #studioengineer, #synthesizer, #vocalist, #vocals

Plain and simple, the lyrics are about my daughter. As a proud parent, I am often overwhelmed by the innocence, beauty and unlimited potential when holding a new-born in your arms. Not to get weird here, but there is nothing like it. As I cradle, rock or talk baby-talk, it is difficult not to think about the new life I am holding, how fascinating they are and to drift into thoughts of what will happen in their future and how we can make that path easier. This song also features Gary Jefferson on vocals. You will hear him a lot on my tunes, and he was the vocalist in the demo recording the band did in the studio. He has pulled me into a number of projects and I often ask him to help me with mine. There are so many musicians I depend on and work with regularly. I will introduce you to them and the work they have done in future posts.

Most of the music is sequenced along with the drum tracks, I play the rhythm guitar parts and had a friend come in for the guitar solo, while my wife adds back-up vocals. All grown up and with children of her own, the meaning of this song gets deeper and closer to the heart every year.

“Slick as A Dream” (c) MSK 1988

Slick as a dream, this beauty machine

Sharp and so cold, young – just as old.

Moving so sweet you can feel the heat

Smiles of sorrow can’t wait ‘til tomorrow.

One thing you’ve learned: love has to be earned

Pain must be shared, embraced if you dare.

Nightmares are gone, but she carries on

Can’t forget her, love lasts forever.

Tender love cries slowly hypnotize

The helpless day now melting away.

And if you dare she’ll become aware

Give those who bleed whatever they need.

She knows exactly who she is.

And exactly what she needs.

MidiMike

Available on iTunes and CD Baby

Social Media

MSK original Songs

Archive for the ‘My Tunes’ Category

Oceans of Oil – Mother Earth is on Her Knees

The Personal Touch does “The Pleasure Tax” – Rare Release

Pleasure Tax – Sell Us Water, Sell Us Air!

Late Potato – Simple Beauty

Moog Swing

My Original Tunes on ITunes and a Heartfelt Thank You to My Followers

The Touch Lyrics

“The Touch” – Understanding Humans

What I Do At Night – The Driving Song

Slick As A Dream

Archives

Available on iTunes and CD Baby

Social Media

MSK original Songs

Archive for the ‘My Tunes’ Category

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: