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A handful of years ago, Charlie and a group of friends wrote a song which was nothing but nouns. It didn’t make much sense, but it sure had nouns. Continue reading beautiful carelessly sultry
Continue reading Acoustic Lovely Sarah Through the Wall
Everyone but me.
Though I understand, I don’t get it.
Speeding it up a little and moving down and back up a few times, all I needed was a brief refrain at the end, a turnaround between verses, and it felt complete. What if the Light at the End of the Tunnel is Just the Headlamp of an Oncoming Train? A rockabilly shuffle on the drums is loads of fun, but it’s hard to keep up if you’re not practicing regularly. The drums seem to have survived most of this trip. When you commit to writing 14 songs in 28 days there’s a bit of a time constraint. When I started recording the springy lead guitar I realised that, though it was recording, it wasn’t coming out of the amp, and it wasn’t coming through the computer to my headphones. I could hear a tinny little noise straight off the strings on my Stratocaster, but even that was muffled by the headphones. Knowing I could do it over, I soldiered on. I didn’t do it over. This is what I sound like playing lead guitar when I can’t hear myself. Maybe I should try it more often. Blues without harmonica seemed wrong. Then the piano started complaining about being left out. I’ve written a handful of short verses which I might record some day, but if Hoagy Carmichael’s Stardust can survive as an instrumental for more than a decade, this one will be okay.
Sometimes it’s clear the transcription is simply to allow a performer to indulge in a work written for an instrument other than the one the play. Wynton Marsalis playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” on trumpet comes to mind. One of the first compact discs I bought when they became commonly available was Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” which had long been a favorite of mine. Rather than the traditional violin, this was arranged for flute and performed by James Galway. It’s a very different sound, of course, and Galway makes it work. The flute isn’t quite as delicate as a violin can be, but a skilled flutist can make us forget that during the peaceful movements. When winter arrives, though, it seems to have been written for the instrument. The biting winds of winter are colder in a flute than a violin. I no longer own that copy. These days, my favorite recording of the Seasons is Lorin Maazel’s arrangement and performance on the traditional instrument. But when winter comes, I always miss the flute.
Mark Knopfler knows how to compose a soundtrack, eh?
And now, it’s one less.
Let’s get out of the subjective and put some numbers to it. My buddy Chris Curtis shared this list of the 20 Rock and Roll Hall of Famers he’s seen live:
Here’s my short list:
How ’bout you? Here’s the list. Who have you seen live? |
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ongwriter friend Charlie Cheney keeps telling me that song lyrics should lean heavily on nouns. Show, don’t tell. Pack the song with people doing things in places with stuff, instead of talking about feelings and interior monologues and all those abstracts.
y Michael Hedges Pandora station has been playing a lovely little harp-like guitar piece for a while. I listen all night so I don’t always check to see who’s doing what. (Okay, sometimes I do. It’s music.)
uring 
ecently a friend reluctantly admitted (his words) that he doesn’t like Steely Dan.
fter repeated listenings to Cream’s Born Under a Bad Sign a few years ago I went to my music room to play around on my bass. Rather than trying to copy Jack Bruce’s bass line, I played what it made me feel like.
lassical music has a long history of instrument-swapping. Lute tunes transcribed for guitar. Harpsichord pieces performed on piano. Since guitars and pianos are easier to come by these days than lutes or harpsichords, this is a good thing for modern performers.
he idea of progressive rock appeals to me. Take elements of classical and jazz and blend them into some variation of rock and make it, well, progressive. Since it requires composing, arranging, and performing skills beyond that of 3-chord blues and pop bands, it’s not always executed well. For myself, since I’m as fussy and opinionated about jazz and classical as I am about any other genre, I’m three times as fussy about prog rock.
‘ve added a countdown timer over in the sidebar that tells us all how many posts I still need to write and how many days I have left to write 300 posts by this blog’s 10th anniversary.
hile we’re on the subject of the 
Sing Along!