Posts Tagged ‘#vocalist’

A spin off from an afternoon contemplating how many people get the basic premise of evolution wrong. I often hear descriptions as if the organism intends to branch off or enhance a trait or feature. Anyway, I wondered what was the first emotion and how quickly did the others develop. While I am at it, in what order? Did humans and other primates have dreams before experiencing emotions?

This was just a fun song in so many ways.  National news has always been a good source for ideas and material and Cut the Fat takes it all and smashes it into a kaleidoscope of political slogans to irrational fears.  In the recording I got everyone including neighbors, my kids and other relatives to sing and read news sections.  My wife Ellen did a quick run on the vocals to get a feel of the timing.  We never recorded another take.

Lyrics with few words but lots of passion. Prophetic, in some cases but sad throughout. This kind of pain is even more difficult to watch. I put it to a slow bluesy ballad with sparse chords and vocals. It is still a haunting tune to me. I only have old reel-to-reel recordings copied and recopied over the years but it still paints the mood very well.

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?

It is true.

The definition of insanity IS doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Doing something over and over while improving and perfecting is the definition of musicianship (or artistry in general).

Give your local artist a hug. They are the sane ones.

Practice does not make perfect: Perfect practice makes perfect.

Going over old recordings I finally found one of my gems from 1977. Back then I was learning to play guitar and my friend TR would jam with me. I knew a few musicians even back then and on the weekends we would gather at my place for dinner and a fun evening.

We would have about a dozen friends come over and after meals and a few drinks we would inevitably pull out the guitars and other toys. I didn’t spend much time learning or playing cover songs. That happened, but most of the time we wrote our own material. Our songs ran the gambit between topics of the day and the humorous things in life. I recorded on state of the art technology in those days: reel-to-reel tape recorders. I had a Tascam (Teac) 4-track machine back then so we could record an AMAZING 4 tracks at one time!

This song is one of our funnier songs. It wasn’t like we were trying to be like the Smothers Brother’s Comedy Hour from 1967, but we enjoyed humor in our music. This take starts with TR vocals and Ovation guitar introducing the theme of the song as I join in with my Ovation 12 string guitar.

Here is the only recording of that song. It is just the two of us jamming late after most others had crashed or gone home or to work. I learned a lot about harmonies during these sessions and still get a kick listening to us making up the arrangement as we go along.

Enjoy a funny blast from the past and wait for the end of the song for the lyrical punch line.

I want to share with you my latest 24 hour song. Written, recorded and mixed in one day. This is “Trance”.

MSK 11 2 2022

It seems to me
This is the place to be.
Outside everything
Inside nothing

In a
Trance
In a
Trance

It seems to me
This is the place to be.
Outside everything
Inside nothing

Internal Glance
Brain Dance
Another Chance

In a Trance

Outside everything
Inside nothing

In no specific order here, we have our third vocalist working with my cover band called The Chase. Performing with us now is Sean Bandy (Shoeless Sean to his followers). I don’t think I have any real pictures of this time. I will keep looking but so far nothing great.

Sean also played acoustic guitar and does a great job of working with the audience. We played songs from the Beatles to Zappa and from James Brown to Queen and he kept up with them all. I am playing keyboards and electric rhythm guitar, as well as back up vocals. I am not running sound at this point from what little I can remember. I posted a couple videos of us on my You Tube channel earlier. See the following links THE CHASE LIVE 1 and THE CHASE LIVE 2. These are more like music with pictures and old video clips. The video recordings I made for that time did not translate well to the leap in resolution 30 years later lol.

The Chase and vocalist Sean Bandy performing “Cross Eyed Mary” by Jethro Tull
The Chase and vocalist Sean Bandy performing “I Feel Good” by James Brown
The Chase and vocalist Sean Bandy performing “Freeway Jam” by Jeff Beck and “Black Friday” by Steely Dan

Which vocalist is your favorite from the few examples here?

After smoothing out the timing and lyrics to match the mood I was after for this new song, I wrote a melody that seems to fit pretty well.

I squeezed some of the lyrics as I mentioned and cleaned up the instrumental glitches (a technical term for anything that isn’t right) and added a few parts to the instrumental verison I posted earlier.

Minor changes go on for a long time in the final tracking stage. A lot of it will not be used at all and some will be low in volume so as not to hear distinctly. But similar to color splashes added to the face in a painting, it can really bring out the rest of the ‘image’.

What You Want: