Songs When I
was young, the two things I wanted most were my own printing press and my own
recording studio. I never could have guessed that one day, a machine I could
hold on my lap would perform both functions, and many others besides. There's
a lot to dislike about what technology has done to our world, but let's not
overlook the good side! Computers are wonderful tools, and they've brought a
lot of joy into my life. I
always wanted to record my own music, not because I thought I was a
particularly good musician, but just because I wanted to see if I could do
it, and whether it would be worth listening to. Some years ago I bought a DVD
by Roger McGuinn, Guide to Home
Recording on a Computer, demonstrating exactly how to get started,
and what do you know!? It's amazing what you can do if you just get the right
teacher.
Above:
my "recording studio." These days I input audio with a Roland
Duo-Capture EX, or a Line6 GX ToneDirect if I want
to select from a variety of tones. I often use the Janglebox
with the RM370/12, Ric 4003 bass, or Takamine acoustic-electric. I connect to
my desktop or laptop, running Adobe Audition, and it's time to grab an
instrument! Here
are a couple of recent photos of me as I try to produce moderately pleasant
sounds.
If
you're curious, here are a few sample songs I've written, recorded, and
mastered: THE
LATEST: OrchX When I was young, I really wanted my own symphony
orchestra, but my parents wouldn’t get me one (can you imagine?). But they
say patience is a virtue, and a few years ago I began looking at computer
software that created files that recreated an orchestral sound nicely. With a
little help (thanks, Anthony Longano at
Sweetwater.com!) I bought EastWest Sound’s
Symphonic Orchestra, Gold Edition. It took a couple of years to learn how to
use it and incorporate the sounds into Ableton Live, then master it with
Adobe Audition. But now I have a little over four minutes of an orchestral
piece that sounds pretty good to me. It’s a mishmash of debased Beethoven
with a dash of “Wild Mountain Thyme,” and I have no illusions it’s a great
masterpiece. But I enjoy it, and maybe you will, too. "FRED-RIC" -- SONGS WITH 12-STRING GUITARS, ESPECIALLY
THE 12-STRING RICKENBACKER (BYRDS) SOUND: I haven’t been working on many songs lately
because I haven’t been coming up with a lot of fresh ideas. But Jane gave me
the OK to buy a lovely Fireglo Rick 4003 bass not
long ago, and I just had to come up with something to use it on. I picked up
the 12-string, noodled around a little bit, found a phrase or two I liked.
Then I added a bass line, discovering what a beast that 4003 really is.
Pretty soon, I had something I liked well enough to post. This
one surprised me by the way it turned out. I've always loved Ringo's drumming
in the version of "Revolution" the Beatles released as a single. I
wanted to play a similar drum track and see what kind of music I would play
over it. I couldn't below what came out of me over that driving beat was not
at all frenzied -- it was almost laid back! It was as if the revolution
got revoluted, hence the title. Still, I kind
of liked the sound of it. So I went on the same way, not even trying to rock
out until the end. The
interesting thing is, I remember John Lennon once said he wanted the Beatles
to release a slow version of "Revolution," like the one that
appears as "Revolution 1" on the white album. He figured they'd
achieved enough commercial success they didn't have to do an up-tempo song --
they could afford to slow down and make sure people understood the words
instead of mindlessly dancing to the beat. Well, I don't have any words; but
then, no one in his right mind would hold me to the Beatles' standards
anyway. I
started working on this one in 2006, and got the first minute or so, but had
no idea where to take it from there. I put it aside and tried to forget it;
but every so often I found myself drawn back to it. Finally I decided I had
to finish the song, if only so it would leave me alone. I took Roger
McGuinn's lead break from "Bells of Rhymney,"
played it around with it a little, and that broke the logjam. I have no
illusions I improved on what he'd already done to perfection; but at least I
tried to add a few original touches -- a tribute, not a copy. The song
finally came together, after almost six years. and I'm pleased with how it
turned out. I hope you will be, too. There's
nothing too ambitious about this song. I just figured, I have an acoustic 12
and an electric Ric-12; why not come up with a little tune that uses both?
I have
to start throwing away, unopened, catalogs I get in the mail from stores
selling musical instruments. Recently, I got one and opened it up, intending
only to check out the prices some guitars were going for. I spotted a great
clearance-sale price for a 12-string Takamine acoustic-electric. I bought a
6-string Takamine acoustic-electric several years ago, and I absolutely love
playing it; I just couldn't pass up such a good deal on its big brother. My
Roger McGuinn 12-string electric Rickenbacker is a fabulous instrument, but
there's something special, too, about the sound of an acoustic 12-string ...
Well, once I'd bought the guitar, I had to come up with something to play. I
thought it'd be interesting to hear a song with the acoustic 12-string
(multi-tracked), a bass guitar, and a tambourine, nothing more. I kind of
like the way it turned out.
A lot
of my songs really amount to nothing more than an excuse to play my Ric
12-string (as if I really need an excuse). This song started when I just
began playing a simple little chiming pattern, cycling over and over. The
song grew from that, so I thought I'd call it "Ric Cycle." (And
I'll give it a better name as soon as I can come up with one.)
I know
that's kind of a squirrelly name, but I wanted the title to acknowledge three
songs from which I drew inspiration: The Byrds' Tiffany
Queen (off the Farther Along album), the Beatles' And Your Bird
Can Sing, and J. S. Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. Anyone
familiar with the Byrds recognizes the connections.
The Beatles Anthology proves their song started out as an experiment,
an attempt to take the Byrds' style and put their
own stamp on it; and the excerpt from Bach's piece was put to good use by
Roger McGuinn in Gene Clark's glorious She Don't Care About Time, and
then reprised by McGuinn in the Kennedys' Life Is Large. I tried to
take brief moments from those songs and put together something enjoyable.
It's not in the same league as any of those three pieces of music, of course;
but if you take it on its own terms, it's not half bad. This
is the second song I recorded, and of the 24 I've done so far, it is still my
favorite; it's just simple and fun. At first I called it "Byrds Tribute," but I can't sing, let alone do
harmonies; and without harmonies there's no "Byrds."
It's mainly fun with my Roger McGuinn 370-12 Ric, and some very basic drum
and bass tracks -- something the Byrds might have
done as a warm-up, say, the day after they got together. Anyway, I thought McGuinn
Tribute was a more appropriate name than Byrds
Tribute. Of course, now I may hear from McGuinn, saying, "Uh, don't
do me any favors. Name it after somebody else." I
really enjoyed doing this one. A lot of Rickenbacker over a bass rumble and a
lively rhythm track -- what's not to like? ATTEMPTS AT BLUEGRASS/COUNTRY One of
the problems with modern life is, we don't mosey enough. There's something
satisfying about just kind of moseyin' along. I
thought I'd do my bit by coming up with a little music to mosey by. This
is a simple little bluegrass breakdown, with acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle,
mandolin, piano, and bass taking turns. I have a lot of nerve trying to do
this, since guitar's the only one of those instruments I play decently. But I
tried not to get in over my head, and I think it worked out. This
features the same instruments as Try A Little Blue Grass, except the
melody is prettier -- which means I probably heard it somewhere else and
forget where. LIGHT CLASSICAL Manic Depression in Three Parts And,
as a change of pace, a sort of light classical piece. If I ever became
wealthy, I'd hire some real musicians to do this properly. This
is the first song I recorded. I hadn't yet figured out how to record drum
tracks properly, so I wasn't ready to try anything with a beat. I had this
wistful little melody in my head, so I sat down at my Casio keyboard and
started playing. Weeks of trial and error later, I had something I kind of
liked -- a little sad, but not terribly so. FEATURING ACOUSTIC GUITAR This
is too primitive to be called a "song" -- it's a combination of two
little items I've used as a warm-up as far back as high school. But I have to
admit, I kind of like it. Sometimes I overproduce these songs, and simpler
can be better. This one is just me on my Takamine acoustic/electric, with a
little processing from my Line 6 GearBox and some overtracking. I tried doing it "honestly," just
me in one take; but it really sounded better when I cheated and combined
several separate tracks. I call it DropDed because
I used the tuning known as Drop-D, not because I don't know how to spell
"dead."
This
is DropDed backwards. Definitely not to everyone's
taste, but I've always enjoyed music played backwards, in small doses. I
wonder if you can guess what my favorite song was on the Beatles' White
Album. That's right, "Number nine ... Turn me on, dead man." The
title pretty much says it all -- it's just a dreamy noodling around on the
piano and guitar. I
wanted to do a fairly straightforward piece featuring acoustic guitar, and
this is what came out. The title is sort of my approach to life: I start slow
because I usually mess things up at first; but as I get the hang of what I'm
doing, I pick up speed. "Adani"
is the name of a rhythm track on my Casio, the one that starts the song. I'm
not sure what it's supposed to mean, and a Google search didn't turn up
anything that seemed relevant. All the other titles of rhythm tracks on the
Casio are generic names of musical styles, so maybe that's what this is
supposed to be. In any case, that rhythm track was what got me started
working on this song, and I couldn't think of a better name, so I used it as
the title. MISCELLANY - I DON'T KNOW HOW TO CATEGORIZE THESE! I know
the best songs come from good melodies, but sometimes a rhythm really catches
my attention. The drum track that opens this song was one I came across on my
Zoom drum machine, and I just had to do something with it. I picked up my
bass and came up with a bass line, and went from
there. The whole thing felt like a strut, and it's
no big deal, so I called it "A Minor Strut." (Also, it's in the key
of A minor).
In my
head this sounded like a kind of 60s beach song with no words, heard in
delirium -- or maybe the surfer song from hell. It's all over the place,
including a quotation from the "Hawaii 5-0" theme song. But it's
different, and different is good; I'd like to avoid doing the same old thing
over and over. As for the title, if you were around in the 60s you remember a
brief phase when everything was "fab" and "gear." While
I'm not a huge fan of metal, every once in a while I crave just a little of
it. You'll understand if you have been in a mood where you want to hear anger
and testosterone, snarling guitars, and gloriously tasteless lyrics. I'm a
little amused, however, by the typical metal gloom and doom posing, and
especially the whole "I'm so f***ing
evil" bit. One day, when I hadn't been taking my meds, a mental image of
Girl Scouts eating poisoned S'mores popped into my mind, and this song
started taking shape. It's schizo, sort of
half-celebrating metal and half-making fun of it. It's not good enough to use
for anything, so I called it "Scrap Metal" -- and you can probably
remove the S- for a more appropriate title. The lyrics may be hard to
understand, so click here if you want help with
them. Don't waste time griping at me, though, if you find them offensive; my
answer will be, "Well, duh!"
I had
this fish I liked to take for walks, and ... No, wait, that's not right.
Actually, every so often my Fender bass calls to me, saying "Pick me up,
take me for a stroll." I'm always glad to do it, because I never had a
bass guitar until recently, and I never knew how much fun they are to play.
But they sound kind of lonely by themselves; they need other instruments to
accompany them. So sometimes I'll be messing around, and I come up with a
little bass part that begs to be developed into a song. That's the case here:
the song, such as it is, really amounts to an excuse to fool around with a
bass....
This
is the only one I dared sing on -- and that only with the use of some
"studio magic" to make it clear my ghastly singing is meant to be humorous.
This was for my granddaughters, Michaela and Veronica, who were not overly
impressed but did want to know how I made myself sound like an elf ... In
case the words are too hard to understand, they are:
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