I’ve been nominated to complete this challenge by several of you and after some convincing from my daughter, I’ve decided to give it a go. Instead of nominating 10 more bloggers, I would like to ask you all to post your favorite things in the comments so I can get to know you better.
I want to take this moment to thank all of you again for your very kind and encouraging comments. I have truly enjoyed reading your blogs and getting to know you better. Thank you for being a part of my journey.
I don’t mind acknowledging that I am different than a lot of the people I know and hear about.
I am PERFECTLY OK with this. I know my music and lyrics are not the typical main-stream songs blasted everywhere. I will not appear on any searches. Growing up and watching all the Westerns and TV shows, I never – not even once – wanted to be the cowboy or the soldier. I identified with the ‘good guys’ as most kids do, but to me the cowboys and soldiers were not the only good guys. I identified more with the American Indians living with nature rather than conquering.
I am not sure what exactly inspired this song when I started it. I often think about music videos and how that could help explain through images some of the themes in this musical piece. Possibly the new toys that could make sounds that added less traditional Western culture ideas and more ethnic and international instruments. I also like contrapuntal rhythms and themes, so you will hear a lot in these pieces.
Once we simplify the 12 notes and we are now able to find any Major scale very quickly (if you only did the exercise to find the other Major scales a few times you would see this is really easy….) and we can continue to explore the Major scales for other Keys. This is the foundation of the musical theory pyramid. It is important to understand how we get to the Safe Seven. No, you do not have to memorize every note in every scale, although ultimately that will help a lot. For now, try digging in and go over the Major scale for each of the 12 notes a few times. As you play the new Major scales, sing (or hum!) the Do Re Me song along with the notes you are playing. (tip for the day; as you hum each scale from the new starting note, you are changing keys!)
When we look back at the Safe Seven article, I showed a simple connection that I will repeat here:
C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1
There is a lot of math in music and music theory. But instead of confusing things and making you change from your creative hat to your thinking hat, I find the math connection actually simplifies the confusion. It allows me to see the connection the various notes have. Personally, I HEAR and FEEL music more than I THINK it through. I have friends that can convert and spit out scales, keys and modes as easily as some of us use Pandora, Spotify or I-Tunes to change a song. I am really amazed at their skills, but that is something I am not all that good at. But you will see how easy it is to understand the art and the science by following these posts.
If we look at the Safe Seven for each Major scale, we can make an easy conversion (or universal language) for describing note or chord progressions for ANY Major key. I know, I keep on harping on the Major scales, but the others will be really easy once we have this understood and comfortable with the Mystery of the 12 and the Safe Seven, so let’s keep going. For those of you new to this blog, I have no formal training and I am self taught. I can assure you I am no genius. If I can get this, so can you. I just hope to make it a bit easier for you if you are just diving in or curious about how this fits together.
Knowing now that we call the first note the Root, and the same note higher or lower on the keyboard are called Octaves, we will begin a simple conversion; Root = 1. Each note in the Safe Seven can be represented this way by assigning it a value of 1-7. We just assigned Root = 1, so moving up is easy. In the example above, C is the Root so C = 1 and continuing the scale, D = 2, E = 3, F = 4, G = 5, A = 6, B = 7 and the octave is again the Root or 1. Each Major scale can be represented the same way. Use the Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half system to find the Safe Seven and then assign each to their corresponding number and we can stop talking about note names! As we get more into chord structure and progressions, this will also come into perspective. But let’s not get stretched too far. Play with these exercises a few times a day and we will build our solid musical foundation quickly. I will also go into the names of the notes as they change keys and this can be confusing to many until you see the method to the madness.
I want to give you an idea of perspective on some of the articles I have posted and will continue to post going forward. This is the first video I have posted and while it is rather BORING, it is so informative at the same time. I guess I have recorded original tunes since the very late 1960’s. I recorded everything. I deleted a lot! But I recorded everything I could. I experimented and adjusted and re-did and failed a few more times than I succeeded in the early days to be sure! I also got into photography and then into video recording. I practiced the mundane over and over until I got the exposure right, then with video until I could zoom and focus manually. I joined the photography club in high school and learned to develop and enlarge my own pictures – something I thought was close to magic back in the day!
I shared earlier that I used (and still own!!!) what I think was the first personal computer to come out with built in MIDI ports – The Atari ST! I used a software program back then to record the MIDI tracks and I could generate SMPTE time code and send a signal from the Atari to sync it up with recording machines (I had the Yamaha 4 track CASSETTE recorder during most of this). When I talk about old technologies and how we used to record songs (or develop pictures…) It is hard for some to understand the challenges we had and the lo-fi quality of the final mix or product.
I want to use this video as an example of many things I refer to in this blog. In this video, you will see what I saw when looking at the Atari computer monitor when I was playing or recording tracks. Keep in mind this is all MIDI equipment available years ago. The song I posted earlier will now be stripped of all guitars, vocals, effects and additional live sounds you heard on the full mix. As you watch the video you will hear the sequences being played back live into the VCR input. I took the monitor video out and connected to video in of the video recorder so this is a straight feed for both. In the recording software, each “instrument” has a separate track. Drums are all on one track with additional percussion sounds on different tracks, and as a reminder, each note (as triggered from my DX7 keyboard) represented a different drum/percussion sound coming from a drum machine. You can hear the metronome from the Atari ticking away in the back ground as it is set to record. As each track plays you can see the musical notes light up depending on the intensity of the track information. You can also see the tempo of the song, the names of the tracks and the measures and beats as they click by.
The main piano sound is probably familiar to many of you even if you are quite young. It is the classic Piano Tine sound from the Yamaha DX7 synthesizers. This video should also give you a sense of quality and resolution available at the time. It might be difficult to hear the difference in song recording quality today, but we are all familiar with video resolution and HD cameras and large screen TV and computer standards available now. Just think how this applied to the audio quality back then and then play some really old songs you grew up listening to. It gives a better appreciation and perspective for some of the classic songs that seem to live forever.
I have been influenced by so many individuals, bands, groups and performers over the years it is quite amazing. I was never stuck in a particular style of music. I am not a fan of opera or deep country music or blues, for that matter (I know, that will not go over well with some of you! HA!) as I lean to the other side toward open and interpretive styles. There are a bunch of names we all know and can pretty much agree on if you listen to rock, pop, jazz, R&B, country, etc. But I have almost always been drawn toward the unusual but talented; the bizarre and clever; off axis dead on target! I love bands with great vocals and harmonies. Some of my favorites are quite popular now! Household names sometimes, but many are just now getting recognition and others never gained much of a following…… I know what at least one feels like, LOL.
After growing up listening to the music of my parents and older brother and sister, I enjoyed groups out at the time. No need to go over ancient influences here. But as I was growing more and more music-aware, there were bands I really enjoyed – not just a song or two, but everything they would release. The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Procol Harum, Gentle Giant, Yes, King Crimson, Steely Dan, The Police, Chic Corea, Herbie Hancock, Frank Zappa, Simon and Garfunkel, Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and others before and after them just kept getting better and better.
Today I love a lot of music, but there are very few bands or artists I love most of what they do. For most it is hit and miss. Other groups are fairly consistent. Just no one I go out of my way to hear every song. Just me getting old, so no need to panic.
If you will, let me show you what has affected me growing up and songs from groups I consider the best of the best. I will probably get to your favorite groups to, but there are just so many over the years. As this is not a reflection of history, I will again avoid attempts to be chronologically accurate. Buffalo Springfield was one that managed to send me a message, and it helps to remember the times and the events surrounding some of these songs and those that lead to their hit “For What It’s Worth”.
I have been busy lately and responses have been a little slow lately. Work and projects are always taking up too much time, but it’s always the unexpected that throws you out of whack. While we had history, the recent reports of my mother-in-law’s health continued to decline recently. She was 93, so we knew there would not be a lot of time left. The death of family member or loved one is never easy. As we get older, we travel this path more and more as those we grew up with grew old too. There are very few friends and same generation family left if you live past 90. Those alive probably no longer travel easily.
Her request was to have her ashes spread in the river in the same location her late husband’s ashes were released.
My daughter, Alisa, takes care of this blog for me and she lost her grandmother. All the kids called my mother-in-law Nannan. Shortly after midnight on Memorial Day 2015, Nannan did not hold on any longer. This Memorial Day was for her.
For me, sequencing is fun and very versatile. I am not the kind of keyboard player that can jump in on any song and just start jamming. I do better if I can take my time and learn, practice, and improve before practicing with a full band. A lot of this might be from the lack of confidence in the early days, but in reality I find myself a jack of all trades and master of none. If I had spent more time on any one instrument, I might have gotten pretty good. Fortunately – or unfortunately, I have always been interested in so many different things that my chops were not the best. As a percussionist, I was able to hear what I wanted, but did not play drum kits so my feet and hands were always locked in perfect step! Sequencing gave me the ability to lay down rough performances on the keyboard (and remember I use the keyboard keys to ‘trigger’ the drum sounds, so I am still playing keys). Once recorded using MIDI – again I am not recording the sounds but the physical action and movements, I could enter the Edit Mode on the sequencer and make corrections to timing, notes, durations etc. until the piece felt good to me. For the drums, the standard practice is to use the Quantizing feature (I can go into this later as well for future posts) to make sure all beats were perfectly ‘on the grid’. I have used drum machines and sequencers since they first came out. The sounds are great but too often the result of overusing the quantize feature makes the drum tracks sound mechanical – unmoving – and even impossible for a real drummer. I preferred to leave a little slop here and there. I want emotion in my songs, not perfection.
In “Bassics”, I just enjoyed the new sounds I had and played with this Bass Guitar patch and came up with the basic groove. I like adding textures and unusual percussion/FX sounds to keep the songs flowing and changing. Available sounds are so much better now, but I still enjoy bringing out these old tunes.
The sound board or audio mixer represents the hub in most audio mixing and mastering functions. everything connects to the board. Even the lighting system will use channels in the snake to connect from stage to console. Things get plugged into and things get plugged out of the mixer as needed. Today’s mixers are blue tooth USB WiFi fire-wired and light-piped together and will connect to an amazing array of devices. So far we have focused on what gets plugged to the Inputs of the sound board. There are a number of connection possibilities for the Outputs as well. We have already discussed some of them earlier, so this can be brief as you already know a lot of this in general.
On most sound boards you have a number of analog-out options. In earlier discussions we talked about XLR and 1/4″ cables and connectors. These will continue to be the main ones used for outputs. On the front or face of most mixing boards you will see a stereo headphone out. It will usually have its own volume knob and probably a selector to pick the options to Monitor including Stereo Out, Solo, Effects Sends, Effects Returns, Sub or Groups, Auxiliary Returns, and other options. On the back or the top of the mixing board you will see the panel for Out-put connections in different sections. There are some rules to determine what type of Audio Cable is used and whether it is a male end or female end and whether it has two connectors or three (or more).
In the early days of mixing boards, microphones and keyboards, it was important which brand you purchased. If you wanted to get ‘that sound’ you had to have this mixing board channel strip or that particular keyboard. Later on the computer industry similarly shot through their early days and you had the Macintosh or the Windows PC. If you were brought up with one you could not be talked into the other. Most modern equipment from PC’s to Automobiles can do everything. They all have similar platforms and emulators. There is style and quality as there always will be, but you can get software mixing programs and microphone/guitar emulator plugins that will make your audio tracks sound like anything you want —-THEY CAN EVEN MAKE YOU SOUND LIKE YOU ARE SINGING IN TUNE!!
So if you like Pepsi, no problem. Want Coke? Press this button…… More comfortable using a Mac? Go for it.
All it takes is cash, a thorough understanding of what all the terms mean and a good idea where all the buttons are?!!?
Much of my early years I had tons of energy. Like most people my age, I got up early and stayed up through the evening. Unlike most, I got a bit extreme with this and as I started working I seemed to be able to handle the after hour and evening shifts quite well. Staying awake for 24 to 48 hours at a time was almost normal. I obviously was not! As most of the household was quiet and recharging their internal batteries, I would pull out my 12 string guitar. In the very late and dark hours, I would reflect on the day(s) past and go over experiences I or friends had. The fullness of the 12 strings (when I could afford to replace the old strings with new ones…) for me is just an amazingly soothing and inspiring environment. The guitar noodling started to reflect a mood and the experiences would turn into words, phrases or thoughts that I would repeat and refine until they started to gel into lyrics.
I would use this method over and over. Alone at night, lights out and everyone quiet or sleeping. Even now, decades later, this is still my favorite time to reflect and create. If you can, find your own time and environment that you can settle into quickly. If you cannot find the time – MAKE it. It does not have to be hours at a time. Rarely do we write a masterpiece or complete a painting or poem in an hour or so. The important thing is to set aside time – even little bits – and noodle, sketch, sing, or even think. Build your stage for creativity and perform there as often as you can. The masterpieces will create themselves…
Quiet Nights – An original tune I wrote based on this idea.
MidiMike 