A friend of mine has a humprous response to a serious subject. Dave Young wanted to start a Me Neither Movement in support of the Me Too Movement from the time he read about it.
With my help he created a song parody to help introduce viewers to the Me Neither Movement.
Time for a llittle fun and music! Here is Dave Young’s:
MIDIMike.
This is nothing more than my usual ramblings at people that keep turning on lights every time they come into the room and I am sitting in the dark. Then to add insult to injury, they leave the bright lights on when they go out of the room! AARRRGGGhh. Keep your big bright ideas to yourself.
This song was originally a vocal jam to a new synth bass line I came up with using a sound I created on my Arp Odyssey. It just had a good tempo and a nice feel, so I called it the big ‘D’ jam. (yep, it is in the key of D). The vocal scat became repeated lyrics and the song became one of my first original contributions to the duo and later a trio I formed with my brother in law Ric Ahlers called ‘The Personal Touch’. Later I would use that section of the lyrics for an updated piece I called “Bookin’”, cause the is the main feeling when I drive and listen to the song. Not sure anymore what the lyrics are about. I know something about observations of beautiful women pretending to be unapproachable. What do you expect from 1984, George?
A little while ago I posted a poem called “Reflections”. I recently turned the poem into lyrics.
This might be a good time to detail my recording process a bit. As I write and record my own songs, I am trying (in my mind) to create a working demo of the song. Something you can listen to and get a good idea of the song and it’s potential if performed and/or recorded by an established band or artist. Because I play most of the instruments on my recordings and I do most of the singing, I know there is a lot of room for improvement. I am not the best guitarist, pianist, or vocalist around, but I write really good songs. I get them ‘good enough’ and then I move on to the next song I am writing or to the next project I am working on.
When I post my songs they are fresh from the mixing board and have not been edited and cleaned up like a formal studio version. As with my new release on CDBaby called, “The Enemies in Your Head”, the versions available on-line through Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, Youtube Music, Pandora and the rest have been mixed but also mastered to make them sound a bit more professional.
“Reflections” will be on my next release, but if you use any of the services above and dozens more, you can listen to my music by searching for my name or CD names.
Hint: If you search for Michael Kennedy you will probably not find me. There are a lot of us!
If you do an artist search for Michael S ——- or —– Michael S. Kennedy you will see my releases. They are available for download and the entire CD sounds better streaming after the mastering process.
Any way, here is “Reflections”, hot off the press.
MIDIMike
A hard and simple look at the chances most people never have, even though choices are everywhere. Even still, thinking no chance will ever really come, we continue on. Friends would ask me to do some audio gig or help them get their gear set up. More than a few were acting as if they were in debt to me and owed me a big favor. That is where I came up with the first two lines. Then it was clear that for many chances would be rare, but sadistically many are available to others. The best chances you will ever get are Barely Perceptible.
I have a rough version of a new song called “What You Want”. Well, it is called that now because I put lyrics to it from an earlier Lyric Post.
This is a tune using an old Yamaha drum machine I recently became caretaker of. I set up a nice but simple drum pattern using my Alesis MIDI drum pad and recording again in Studio One 5 by Presonus. I am using the internal sounds in Studio One 5 to play the bass guitar parts, triggered by an M-Audio MIDI keyboard I got with the drum machine and some other cool toys.
After the beat was down and feeling a bit more fun to play with, I added the two guitar parts using my Ibanez electric guitar. I recorded two tracks but instead of hooking up my amplifier and all my pedals, I plugged straight into the mixingboard so it would go direct-out to my computer input.
I used one of the many plug-ins included with Studio One 5 to add effects to the guitar. The built in guitar tuner plug-in is also really handy and I like the way it operates. So no need to connect to a tuner after each practice take. Each guitar track used the same plug-in but set to different guitar effects.
I am working on adding vocals but for now here is “What You Want”.
I have been working on a new musical piece I call “If When”.
This is a jazzy feeling groove. I am using loops for the drum tracks that I have mashed and cut and edited to give the odd shuffle feel. I use a MIDI controller to trigger tom fills and cymbal crashes to fill out the persussion tracks. Then I add a piano chord progression that plays with the timing of the verses. The piano and bass guitar come from a plug-in in my recording software.
I wrote some lyrics earlier that might fit this so it will eventually have vocals and usually a different name once the lyrics are assigned. I might also add a ‘solo’ instrument like a muted trumpet or other soft horn sound if the next song doesn’t start bubbling up right away. Please enjoy a short groove from my studio.
MidiMike 