As it turns out, there are times when music and mid-life crises must take a back seat to the mechanical obligations of the hard-earned real life that makes my fantasy world possible; the job that pays the mortgage, buys groceries, equips my oldest daughter with a bass guitar and puts gas in my car (provided I remember to stop by the gas station in time), with some dollars leftover for guitar lessons, Mac laptops and copious purchases from iTunes. On occasion, this job requires that I travel to some spot or another for some reason or another, though it usually involves paper fights, also known as litigation. As a result, I've had the good fortune to see the jaw-dropping wonders of a two-week trial in the Bronx, to compare and contrast the differences between mediations in San Francisco and San Diego, to ask the upright people of College Station, Texas to fairly compensate my employer for the consequences of a taking by eminent domain and to go toe-to-toe with elected officials in Topeka, Kansas. And, on occasion, I get a boondoggle to some resort destination that lures winter-abused Northerners down for conferences so they can swap temperatures in the 30s (or worse) for temperatures in the 70s (or better) in the name of continuing education and networking.
So, I found myself attending a retail law conference at a Marriott in Clearwater, Florida last November that conveniently came equipped with a sparkling ocean out front, less sparkly development for miles on either side, and some pretty awesome bridges across which a Minnesota runner could run and take it all in without need of Thinsulate. One afternoon after dutifully attending both general and break-out sessions in Conference Rooms That Could Be In Any Hotel Anywhere and before the scheduled dinner event, I laced-up my running shoes and headed south towards one of the high-arcing bridges I had spotted on the way into town. Having successfully located the bridge and hauled myself up and over it, I was pleasantly rewarded with a small park and public-access beach area waiting for me on the other side. It had preserved native wetlands, indigenous vegetation and included, I soon discovered, a small but peaceful bird sanctuary. The boardwalk trails beckoned, so I headed in to see what I could see. Before long, I encountered an observation area with a few benches, a view of the remaining wetlands and a lone old woman. I slowed to do some of the recommended observing and noticed the cranes, herons and other water fowl scattered about like motionless plastic lawn ornaments, (though in this case it would be a lawn that had been badly over watered and turned into a pond.) As I slowly passed the old woman it became evident that she was no tourist or retiree come to spend a few minutes with the birds. Rather, the over stuffed plastic bags nestled on either side of her and incongruous layers of tattered clothing betrayed the fact that, in all likelihood, the bench or some nearby make-shift shelter was what she called home. She and I were the only human visitors in the park from what I could see. I sat for a few minutes a couple benches down from her and took-in the refreshing island idyll that was managing to keep its metaphorical foot firmly planted between the rapidly closing double-doors of neighboring condos and hotels. I watched the birds, then the old woman, who, I found, was also watching the birds.
After a few moments, I was up again and on my way, but now with a shiny new marble of a song idea rolling around in my head. It struck me as a worthy parable of sorts that the homeless woman with so many wants and needs was the one with the time and interest in taking-in what little natural beauty was still left to be found while the tourists and retirees hurried by barely noticing the scruffy-signed park with few modern amenities.
Back in Minnesota a few days later, I cursed the declining weather to no effect. Winter and band practice, apparently, must go on. At the end of our next practice, Jim and Andy were energetically working on one of Andy's latest guitar bits that had set Jim in motion on the keyboards like a whirling dervish but with maybe slightly less whirling, though I'm pretty sure there was still some amount of whirling that did occur. As they discussed the structure of the music and how the keyboard piece and guitar would work together, I sat on the floor with my notebook, listening to the progressive iterations of the melody being born. I thought back to the homeless woman in Florida and my pencil suddenly got moving, words pouring out on the page like stale beer spilling from a bottle kicked across the floor at First Ave. after a show. When I could get a word in edge wise, I informed Jim and Andy that I might have just come-up with the lyrics to the song. Not too long after that, we recorded the following, again as insurance against the probability that our aging and overly-taxed brains would not remember what we had done from one practice to the next:
I won't repeat the disclaimer referenced in an earlier post because if you are still hanging around reading this blog you either have no common sense and therefore warnings are of no avail or you are of hardy enough stock that really you can take just about anything, no matter how egregious. So, we shall proceed then and get straight to the final version of the song which, if you like it, is to be credited to Jim and Andy and if you dislike it, well, then you're computer isn't working right and you should probably take it in for a tune-up and while you're there pick-up a nice set of headphones so that you can really appreciate the art involved here:
As for Clearwater, I'm thinking if our band ever makes it big, we might have to include a stop in Clearwater on our first tour. I know some conference rooms in a hotel there that really need something interesting to happen to them before they die.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Easter Bunny Gets Down At Easter
I will get back to songs and songwriting stories in the future (as the clamoring from the blogosphere is getting quite loud, unless that noise is just my washing machine getting off-balance again during the spin cycle), but I thought I would take a post to pause and discuss the process of learning to play the electric guitar at the age of 42.
I know the revelation in the last post that such efforts were underway was startling, especially given my history with the tambourine, which most experts agree is a simpler instrument to master, though I'm inclined to debate that. Well considered or not, I did indeed embark on a quest to learn to play guitar way back in the early days of my rock career, which would be about last May. Actually, thinking back, my 10 year-old daughter, Audrey, is really to blame for this folly. See, the genetic defect that has me hanging-out in basements and recording songs (when I should be spending my free time running calculations about how much more money I need in my 401k before I can retire to Hawaii), has manifested itself much earlier in Audrey's case. It just so happens that a few of Audrey's friends also decided to form a band last spring. Two of the other girls had extensive experience with guitar and piano and a third one at least owned a set of drums, so most of the bases were covered except for one -- the bass base. In need of a bass player, they drafted Audrey for the task and she eagerly accepted the challenge, mostly because she thought guitars looked cool and was keen to own one and put a bunch of stickers on it. Being the open-minded, music loving mother that I am, I said "no." We had no history of bass players in the family, no bass and it seemed clear that the "learning to play it" details were conveniently to be determined at some vague point in the future.
But, of course, she persisted in a way that was deviously calculated to cut me off at the knees; she said "please" 1,014 times, pointed-out that it involved music and then, in a stroke of brilliance, agreed to take lessons. Check mate. I had no answer to this, other than the fact that bass guitars don't grow on trees and, therefore, cost money, which we also know does not grow on trees. (Though as a side note, I have to say that in modern society, the "grow on trees" retort really doesn't have much sway anymore. Unless you own or operate an orchard, there are lots of things like apples, oranges and bananas that do grow on trees, and yet the orchard-deprived among us still have to pay for them.) Still, she had at least earned herself a trip to Twin Town Guitars wherein reluctant mothers can become better informed about how much non-tree-growing bass guitars actually cost.
Well, you all know the end of the story and certainly you are desperate for it to be here. Yes, she got a bass guitar, and a strap, and a cord, and some picks and a small amp. Oh, and a case and a tuner and a regular lesson time on Monday nights.
The scheduling of said lessons caused me to realize that unless I did something about it, I would be sitting and waiting in a perfectly good guitar shop for 1/2 hour every week, learning absolutely nothing about guitars except how many different things there are to buy for them. So, I signed myself up for lessons too. Which, of course, required me to buy a guitar for myself. And a strap, and a cord and another amp and some picks and a tuner. Thankfully, it came with a free case.
Which brings us to the Easter Bunny. In your first guitar lesson, you get oriented to the guitar and its relevant parts. There is the neck and the fretboard, the nut, the head stock, the tuning pins (I just call them the knobs) the body, and, of course, the all-important strings. On an electric guitar there are also things called "pick-ups" or "humbuckers" which register the sound of the strings as well as some knobs for volume and tone. All you need to know about the knobs is that they should usually be turned all the way up. As for the pick-ups, you just need to have them in order for the guitar to work.
Back to the strings. There are six strings on a guitar and they are generally tuned to certain notes, namely, EBGDAE. For people who care about music theory and really want to understand the structure behind music, it is helpful to learn the default notes for the strings. (I'm not in this group, but I didn't know that at the time of my first lesson.) Also, it helps in tuning your guitar if you know what note each string should register at on your tuner. The easiest way to teach young children and middle-aged lawyers how to remember the order of the notes of the strings is via a mnemonic device. In this instance, the Easter Bunny Gets Down At Easter. This conveys the fact that the first string on the guitar (which is the bottom one, not the top one) is tuned to E, the second to B and so on. This is what I learned in my first guitar lesson, and I will never forget it. Obviously, it is culturally insensitive and inappropriate if you don't happen to celebrate Easter or if you are bothered by the idea of His Holiness the Easter Bunny getting down, and yet, it works. No doubt there are other mnemonics for guitar strings, but don't even bother to tell me about them. As far as I am concerned, the Easter Bunny Gets Down At Easter and that is that.
In fact, my brain and the hamster therein seems particularly well-suited to mnemonic devices and other memory aides. Not only will I forever remember the order of the notes for the strings on a guitar, but I am able to recite the entire alphabet to this very day just by singing the song in my head. (I cannot recite it backwards because I did not learn a song that does so, though I've heard one exists.) The Great Lakes can be remembered by HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior) and my children memorized the clockwise orientation of North, East, South and West through the phrase "Never Eat Soggy Waffles." And, thanks to They Might Be Giants, we can forever remember the colors of the rainbow as ROY G BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet):
Additionally, I can recite the Pledge of Allegiance from memory and, with the help of Schoolhouse Rock, the Preamble to the Constitution. So, if you learn nothing else from this blog, you should at least come away thinking that the next time you need to remember something, memory aides are the way to go. In other words, remember that memory aides aid your memory.
From the Easter Bunny, you quickly move to fingernails. This is the other thing you learn in your first guitar lesson: fingernail length matters. In order to hold-down the strings on the fretboard (hopefully in the shape of a chord that will produce a pleasing sound) you need to use the pads of your fingers so as to best control the location of your fingers and the pressure on the string. It's sort of like typing. If you have really long press-on nails, it gets tricky. So, your instructor will encourage you to keep the nails on your non-dominant hand as short as you can. Accordingly, the nails on my left hand now look like this:
This was a big adjustment for me, as you can imagine, because the fingernails on my right hand generally look like this:
Then, there is naming your guitar. Now this is generally optional and not required. In fact, most guitar players that I know don't have a name for their guitar. Certainly there is B.B. King and "Lucille," but most of the immortalized female names in rock are song-related, not instrument related. There's "Beth" by Kiss and Clapton's "Layla," Elvis Costello's "Alison" and, of course, Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon." No doubt there are countless others that I'm not remembering due to the lack of a mnemonic device. Regardless, I'm not really a fan of naming guitars, but in this instance I felt it was necessary. To the extent I ever call my guitar by name, it's name is Hal, which is short for HAL 9000, the empathetic, sentient computer system that warmed your hearts in the Space Odyssey movies. The reason for this is simple: Hal is undoubtedly smarter about guitars and how to play them than I am. Eventually, I expect that Hal will become frustrated and impatient with the incompetence of his owner and seek to take me out in the name of higher directives. Below are photos of Hal, a Fender Telecaster, that you can provide to the authorities some day when they find me mysteriously strangled by my 7-foot guitar cord while alone in my own home with no signs of forced entry and my amplifier making strange, happy humming noises.
On a final note, it seems that as with most things in life, practicing is key to developing skill and ability on the guitar. Picks, amps, Beatles Songbooks, and guitar chord charts taped to the wall don't actually get you anywhere unless you put in the time. Unfortunately, the quality 10-20 minutes a week I am able to spend with Hal (aside from my now bi-weekly 1/2 hour lessons) makes for a very slow climb up the competency ladder. This is why I fear Hal will someday blow a humbucker and plot my end. So again, a word to the wise (and this blog is nothing if not a protracted cautionary tale) if you decide to pursue your rock 'n' roll fantasies in your 40s, remember to find time to practice. Perhaps this mnemonic device will help: POD. It stands for Practice Or Die.
I know the revelation in the last post that such efforts were underway was startling, especially given my history with the tambourine, which most experts agree is a simpler instrument to master, though I'm inclined to debate that. Well considered or not, I did indeed embark on a quest to learn to play guitar way back in the early days of my rock career, which would be about last May. Actually, thinking back, my 10 year-old daughter, Audrey, is really to blame for this folly. See, the genetic defect that has me hanging-out in basements and recording songs (when I should be spending my free time running calculations about how much more money I need in my 401k before I can retire to Hawaii), has manifested itself much earlier in Audrey's case. It just so happens that a few of Audrey's friends also decided to form a band last spring. Two of the other girls had extensive experience with guitar and piano and a third one at least owned a set of drums, so most of the bases were covered except for one -- the bass base. In need of a bass player, they drafted Audrey for the task and she eagerly accepted the challenge, mostly because she thought guitars looked cool and was keen to own one and put a bunch of stickers on it. Being the open-minded, music loving mother that I am, I said "no." We had no history of bass players in the family, no bass and it seemed clear that the "learning to play it" details were conveniently to be determined at some vague point in the future.
But, of course, she persisted in a way that was deviously calculated to cut me off at the knees; she said "please" 1,014 times, pointed-out that it involved music and then, in a stroke of brilliance, agreed to take lessons. Check mate. I had no answer to this, other than the fact that bass guitars don't grow on trees and, therefore, cost money, which we also know does not grow on trees. (Though as a side note, I have to say that in modern society, the "grow on trees" retort really doesn't have much sway anymore. Unless you own or operate an orchard, there are lots of things like apples, oranges and bananas that do grow on trees, and yet the orchard-deprived among us still have to pay for them.) Still, she had at least earned herself a trip to Twin Town Guitars wherein reluctant mothers can become better informed about how much non-tree-growing bass guitars actually cost.
Well, you all know the end of the story and certainly you are desperate for it to be here. Yes, she got a bass guitar, and a strap, and a cord, and some picks and a small amp. Oh, and a case and a tuner and a regular lesson time on Monday nights.
The scheduling of said lessons caused me to realize that unless I did something about it, I would be sitting and waiting in a perfectly good guitar shop for 1/2 hour every week, learning absolutely nothing about guitars except how many different things there are to buy for them. So, I signed myself up for lessons too. Which, of course, required me to buy a guitar for myself. And a strap, and a cord and another amp and some picks and a tuner. Thankfully, it came with a free case.
Which brings us to the Easter Bunny. In your first guitar lesson, you get oriented to the guitar and its relevant parts. There is the neck and the fretboard, the nut, the head stock, the tuning pins (I just call them the knobs) the body, and, of course, the all-important strings. On an electric guitar there are also things called "pick-ups" or "humbuckers" which register the sound of the strings as well as some knobs for volume and tone. All you need to know about the knobs is that they should usually be turned all the way up. As for the pick-ups, you just need to have them in order for the guitar to work.
Back to the strings. There are six strings on a guitar and they are generally tuned to certain notes, namely, EBGDAE. For people who care about music theory and really want to understand the structure behind music, it is helpful to learn the default notes for the strings. (I'm not in this group, but I didn't know that at the time of my first lesson.) Also, it helps in tuning your guitar if you know what note each string should register at on your tuner. The easiest way to teach young children and middle-aged lawyers how to remember the order of the notes of the strings is via a mnemonic device. In this instance, the Easter Bunny Gets Down At Easter. This conveys the fact that the first string on the guitar (which is the bottom one, not the top one) is tuned to E, the second to B and so on. This is what I learned in my first guitar lesson, and I will never forget it. Obviously, it is culturally insensitive and inappropriate if you don't happen to celebrate Easter or if you are bothered by the idea of His Holiness the Easter Bunny getting down, and yet, it works. No doubt there are other mnemonics for guitar strings, but don't even bother to tell me about them. As far as I am concerned, the Easter Bunny Gets Down At Easter and that is that.
In fact, my brain and the hamster therein seems particularly well-suited to mnemonic devices and other memory aides. Not only will I forever remember the order of the notes for the strings on a guitar, but I am able to recite the entire alphabet to this very day just by singing the song in my head. (I cannot recite it backwards because I did not learn a song that does so, though I've heard one exists.) The Great Lakes can be remembered by HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior) and my children memorized the clockwise orientation of North, East, South and West through the phrase "Never Eat Soggy Waffles." And, thanks to They Might Be Giants, we can forever remember the colors of the rainbow as ROY G BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet):
Additionally, I can recite the Pledge of Allegiance from memory and, with the help of Schoolhouse Rock, the Preamble to the Constitution. So, if you learn nothing else from this blog, you should at least come away thinking that the next time you need to remember something, memory aides are the way to go. In other words, remember that memory aides aid your memory.
From the Easter Bunny, you quickly move to fingernails. This is the other thing you learn in your first guitar lesson: fingernail length matters. In order to hold-down the strings on the fretboard (hopefully in the shape of a chord that will produce a pleasing sound) you need to use the pads of your fingers so as to best control the location of your fingers and the pressure on the string. It's sort of like typing. If you have really long press-on nails, it gets tricky. So, your instructor will encourage you to keep the nails on your non-dominant hand as short as you can. Accordingly, the nails on my left hand now look like this:
This was a big adjustment for me, as you can imagine, because the fingernails on my right hand generally look like this:
Then, there is naming your guitar. Now this is generally optional and not required. In fact, most guitar players that I know don't have a name for their guitar. Certainly there is B.B. King and "Lucille," but most of the immortalized female names in rock are song-related, not instrument related. There's "Beth" by Kiss and Clapton's "Layla," Elvis Costello's "Alison" and, of course, Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon." No doubt there are countless others that I'm not remembering due to the lack of a mnemonic device. Regardless, I'm not really a fan of naming guitars, but in this instance I felt it was necessary. To the extent I ever call my guitar by name, it's name is Hal, which is short for HAL 9000, the empathetic, sentient computer system that warmed your hearts in the Space Odyssey movies. The reason for this is simple: Hal is undoubtedly smarter about guitars and how to play them than I am. Eventually, I expect that Hal will become frustrated and impatient with the incompetence of his owner and seek to take me out in the name of higher directives. Below are photos of Hal, a Fender Telecaster, that you can provide to the authorities some day when they find me mysteriously strangled by my 7-foot guitar cord while alone in my own home with no signs of forced entry and my amplifier making strange, happy humming noises.
On a final note, it seems that as with most things in life, practicing is key to developing skill and ability on the guitar. Picks, amps, Beatles Songbooks, and guitar chord charts taped to the wall don't actually get you anywhere unless you put in the time. Unfortunately, the quality 10-20 minutes a week I am able to spend with Hal (aside from my now bi-weekly 1/2 hour lessons) makes for a very slow climb up the competency ladder. This is why I fear Hal will someday blow a humbucker and plot my end. So again, a word to the wise (and this blog is nothing if not a protracted cautionary tale) if you decide to pursue your rock 'n' roll fantasies in your 40s, remember to find time to practice. Perhaps this mnemonic device will help: POD. It stands for Practice Or Die.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Pssst . . . Over here.
As you can probably tell from the information that has been revealed in this blog, I have logged some time in the world of rock 'n' roll over the past nine months. Countless hours have been spent in the inter-galacticaly renowned Sonic Goat, additional hours stoking the creative fires of song-writing, an unquantifiable amount of time watching the experts on stage at First Ave., and at least a good 45 maybe 50 minutes trying to master the art of the electric guitar. (Do not get distracted by this revelation. I will elaborate in another post as necessary.) In doing all of the above, I have been allowed into, or perhaps obtained unauthorized entry into, the inner sanctum of rock and have learned or otherwise absconded with the secrets only insiders know. These are the super top secret, juicy tid-bits that the likes of Dylan, Hendrix, Plant and Gaga have gone to great lengths to keep under wraps. But, well, because we've gotten to know each other and you look like a nice sort of person who can be trusted, I'll let you in on a few things -- but you didn't hear them from me.
First, a few tips for singers and songwriters:
1. It is better to avoid using the word "pharmacy" when at all possible while writing rock 'n' roll lyrics. Unfortunately for me, I came across this sage piece of advice the hard way. Indeed, I committed the classic rookie mistake of incorporating the word "pharmacy" into a set of lyrics. As a result, I can now explain first-hand the reasoning and collective wisdom behind this rule of rock. First and most obviously, if you are using a song structure that involves rhyming, you've just set yourself up for a doozy of a task. True, there are options, such as "occupancy" or "frequency" or maybe even "narcolepsy," but really, it's a tight corner to get out of. Thankfully, I avoided that hazard as I installed "pharmacy" in the odd line that wasn't rhyming. But still, it doesn't exactly roll of the tongue when one is singing. Also (and here's where the true inside information comes in) it is likely to produce an overwhelming urge to want to sing an alliterative "fucking" right in front of "pharmacy." This is especially likely to occur once you have realized that you've committed this cardinal sin and are nevertheless trying to salvage the song. As you might guess, this in turn makes it tough for the band to get through the song or to ever really hear it without a phantom "fucking" running through everyone's heads. So, just remember, when you hit that point where you are tempted to write a song and you hear the siren call of "pharmacy" pulling you towards the rocky shore, just plug your ears and row hard the other way. You'll be glad you did.
2. It's incredibly easy to write a rock song. Again, those on the outside might think that songwriting is difficult and only for those who can channel some spirit world of lyrical advisers who will spin out yarns of mystical intrigue, obscure literary references, elaborate metaphors and maybe even some of those things mixed together in a rhyme scheme (all while avoiding, of course, the previously referenced temptation to interject "pharmacy"). Or maybe you think songwriting is reserved for people from Liverpool who can incorporate "ob-la-di, ob-la-da" into a kick-ass song without anyone really noticing. (Not to mention such topics as meter maids, savoy truffles, vengeful raccoons and walruses whose identity is at issue.) But that is so not true. As has been demonstrated in a previous post in this very blog, bad songwriting is incredibly easy. Van Halen did it with "Jump" and "Panama." Starship (previously Jefferson Starship, previously Jefferson Airplane -- clearly they were so distracted by naming their band they didn't leave enough time for lyrics) did it with "We Built this City," and Aerosmith most definitely knocked it out in under five minutes with "Dude Looks Like a Lady." And that's before I've even plumbed the depths of bands whose entire catalog seems to have taken advantage of this trade secret. Bands like ABBA, Hall and Oates, and Foreigner. So, you see, you too should feel free to give it your best shot. Don't give up. Keep on fighting. Don't stop believin'. You can make it if you try. Might as well jump. Go ahead, jump.
3. If you close your eyes when you sing, watch out for the mic. Gaga warned me about this last summer during her stop-over in the Twin Cities, but I just didn't listen. It's not the kind of hazard you would think about because so many in rock make it seem so effortless, but the dark reality is that if you close your eyes when you sing and move at all, it's quite possible that you will find your teeth hitting the microphone, and, well, it just doesn't make for a great sound or really polish your rock 'n' roll image when that happens. All the intensity and focus pretty much evaporates instantly when you taste the metal and get that weird sensation in your teeth. I really don't recommend it. (I'm pretty sure there is a divot in one of Jim's mic's from this very phenomenon, but let's just keep that between us. I'm not sure how much of that he saw at the time.)
Now, a few tips for the Jimmy Page wanna-bes in the audience.
1. There are things designed to keep your guitar strap from coming off at inopportune moments. You should get them.
2. Keep your guitar pick where you can find it. Even if you are not the lead guitar player in your band -- in fact, even if you don't actually really know how to play the guitar at all, except for one section in one song where your band mates have taught you a pattern you can play using only the 5th and 6th strings -- you should keep your pick someplace accessible. In the world of rock 'n' roll, the back pocket of your jeans is not as accessible as you might think. While it is a perfectly good place for wallets, cell phones, condoms and gum, it's not nearly as accessible as you assumed it would be when you have four counts to find your pick and start playing. I've heard they make devices that attach to the microphone designed just to meet this need for accessibility. I recommend looking into those. You're welcome.
3. Size matters. I'm not talking about the guitar or any physical attributes of the guitar player. I'm talking about the cord. The one that you will plug into your guitar on one end and, with any luck, an amplifier on the other end if your intention is for people to hear your instrument. While the length of the cord, as far as I can tell, has no impact on the sound produced, it has everything to do with street cred. See, if you show-up with a 7ft cord, you're pretty much telling the world that you don't really rock hard or even at all, because if you did you would need a much longer cord to accommodate your floor slides, lean-outs to the crowd at the far ends of the stage and your show-stopping stage dives. If you're lucky like me, though, your band mates will point this out for you during practice before it could ever possibly matter.
Given the risks I'm taking by disclosing all of this inside information, I think I'm going to stop there for now. But if you demonstrate that my trust in you was well founded, as I know you will, I might be willing to share some more tips with you down the road. Because despite my rock 'n' roll identity, deep down inside, I'm really just like you, stickin' it to the Man whenever I can, even though, in this case, that Man is the anti-establishment rock establishment, you know? Right on.
First, a few tips for singers and songwriters:
1. It is better to avoid using the word "pharmacy" when at all possible while writing rock 'n' roll lyrics. Unfortunately for me, I came across this sage piece of advice the hard way. Indeed, I committed the classic rookie mistake of incorporating the word "pharmacy" into a set of lyrics. As a result, I can now explain first-hand the reasoning and collective wisdom behind this rule of rock. First and most obviously, if you are using a song structure that involves rhyming, you've just set yourself up for a doozy of a task. True, there are options, such as "occupancy" or "frequency" or maybe even "narcolepsy," but really, it's a tight corner to get out of. Thankfully, I avoided that hazard as I installed "pharmacy" in the odd line that wasn't rhyming. But still, it doesn't exactly roll of the tongue when one is singing. Also (and here's where the true inside information comes in) it is likely to produce an overwhelming urge to want to sing an alliterative "fucking" right in front of "pharmacy." This is especially likely to occur once you have realized that you've committed this cardinal sin and are nevertheless trying to salvage the song. As you might guess, this in turn makes it tough for the band to get through the song or to ever really hear it without a phantom "fucking" running through everyone's heads. So, just remember, when you hit that point where you are tempted to write a song and you hear the siren call of "pharmacy" pulling you towards the rocky shore, just plug your ears and row hard the other way. You'll be glad you did.
2. It's incredibly easy to write a rock song. Again, those on the outside might think that songwriting is difficult and only for those who can channel some spirit world of lyrical advisers who will spin out yarns of mystical intrigue, obscure literary references, elaborate metaphors and maybe even some of those things mixed together in a rhyme scheme (all while avoiding, of course, the previously referenced temptation to interject "pharmacy"). Or maybe you think songwriting is reserved for people from Liverpool who can incorporate "ob-la-di, ob-la-da" into a kick-ass song without anyone really noticing. (Not to mention such topics as meter maids, savoy truffles, vengeful raccoons and walruses whose identity is at issue.) But that is so not true. As has been demonstrated in a previous post in this very blog, bad songwriting is incredibly easy. Van Halen did it with "Jump" and "Panama." Starship (previously Jefferson Starship, previously Jefferson Airplane -- clearly they were so distracted by naming their band they didn't leave enough time for lyrics) did it with "We Built this City," and Aerosmith most definitely knocked it out in under five minutes with "Dude Looks Like a Lady." And that's before I've even plumbed the depths of bands whose entire catalog seems to have taken advantage of this trade secret. Bands like ABBA, Hall and Oates, and Foreigner. So, you see, you too should feel free to give it your best shot. Don't give up. Keep on fighting. Don't stop believin'. You can make it if you try. Might as well jump. Go ahead, jump.
3. If you close your eyes when you sing, watch out for the mic. Gaga warned me about this last summer during her stop-over in the Twin Cities, but I just didn't listen. It's not the kind of hazard you would think about because so many in rock make it seem so effortless, but the dark reality is that if you close your eyes when you sing and move at all, it's quite possible that you will find your teeth hitting the microphone, and, well, it just doesn't make for a great sound or really polish your rock 'n' roll image when that happens. All the intensity and focus pretty much evaporates instantly when you taste the metal and get that weird sensation in your teeth. I really don't recommend it. (I'm pretty sure there is a divot in one of Jim's mic's from this very phenomenon, but let's just keep that between us. I'm not sure how much of that he saw at the time.)
Now, a few tips for the Jimmy Page wanna-bes in the audience.
1. There are things designed to keep your guitar strap from coming off at inopportune moments. You should get them.
2. Keep your guitar pick where you can find it. Even if you are not the lead guitar player in your band -- in fact, even if you don't actually really know how to play the guitar at all, except for one section in one song where your band mates have taught you a pattern you can play using only the 5th and 6th strings -- you should keep your pick someplace accessible. In the world of rock 'n' roll, the back pocket of your jeans is not as accessible as you might think. While it is a perfectly good place for wallets, cell phones, condoms and gum, it's not nearly as accessible as you assumed it would be when you have four counts to find your pick and start playing. I've heard they make devices that attach to the microphone designed just to meet this need for accessibility. I recommend looking into those. You're welcome.
3. Size matters. I'm not talking about the guitar or any physical attributes of the guitar player. I'm talking about the cord. The one that you will plug into your guitar on one end and, with any luck, an amplifier on the other end if your intention is for people to hear your instrument. While the length of the cord, as far as I can tell, has no impact on the sound produced, it has everything to do with street cred. See, if you show-up with a 7ft cord, you're pretty much telling the world that you don't really rock hard or even at all, because if you did you would need a much longer cord to accommodate your floor slides, lean-outs to the crowd at the far ends of the stage and your show-stopping stage dives. If you're lucky like me, though, your band mates will point this out for you during practice before it could ever possibly matter.
Given the risks I'm taking by disclosing all of this inside information, I think I'm going to stop there for now. But if you demonstrate that my trust in you was well founded, as I know you will, I might be willing to share some more tips with you down the road. Because despite my rock 'n' roll identity, deep down inside, I'm really just like you, stickin' it to the Man whenever I can, even though, in this case, that Man is the anti-establishment rock establishment, you know? Right on.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
"Would You Like Cheese Stix With That?"
Here's a thing I didn't know before: starting a band is a lot like other things, especially those other things that don't go like you thought they would. If you're me, the phenomenon of surprise at the difference between what you thought was going to happen and what actually happens is a frequent one. It happens when the children resume consciousness each morning and every evening when I return home from work. It also happens when I order pizza. I'm sure you can relate.
You start out thinking it should be a relatively straight-forward deal. You know what you want and understand, more or less, how the process works. But then you call the pizza place and they hit you with their specials: "Would you like two medium pizzas with two toppings tonight for $12.99?" No, thank you. I'll just have a large pizza, half pepperoni, half black olives. "Any ice-cold Coca Cola products to go with that?" No, thank you. "How about our famous chicken wings?" No, thank you. "O.k. Would you like any cheese stix with your order tonight?" And there it is. The Cheese Stix. It causes that momentary hesitation every time, in which I have to ask myself, "would I like any cheese stix with my order tonight?" And sometimes it turns out the answer is yes, I would like some cheese stix and while you're at it, we'll take one of those dessert things you've got as well. And, wait, can you go back? What were the other choices again?
Now imagine standing in front of a mirror, naked (not me, you, in front of a mirror, naked) with a dude on a computer sitting next to you. This is the cheese stix of starting a band, only, well, it gets a bit complicated because you didn't order the cheese stix in this scenario, it just somehow got added to your order by one of your band mates when you weren't paying attention. So, while you thought you were just ordering the pepperoni pizza of rock 'n' roll, it turns out you still got taken by the bastards in marketing for a whole lot more.
Let me sort this out a bit. First, the nakedness. Being in a band is very much like being naked. You have to try things out and, inevitably, as has been previously documented, fuck them up right in front of other people. This is a regular part of being in a band -- fucking-up. Well, at least in our band. In fact, there is usually way more fucking-up than really anything else, except for drinking beer and avoiding other responsibilities. (That part I do remember ordering.) And, if you're me, there are always new and exciting ways to get it wrong. You can remember the lyrics you were forgetting last time, and forget a new set that you've never forgotten before. Or, you can forget the lyrics you, yourself wrote or you can create timing issues where there have never, ever been any before. You can cough, be out of tune, make a face that causes someone else to make a mistake . . . The possibilities are endless.
Then, after a while, just when you think you might be getting used to being naked, along come The Cheese Stix -- the part you don't remember ordering, but your band mate (let's call him "Jim") claims was definitely ordered and in any event, here they are so they might as well not go to waste. In case my metaphor isn't working for you (though I can't imagine how that would be the case) I'm talking about the process of recording and producing a song, which as everyone knows, is the Cheese Stix of midlife rock 'n' roll efforts.
Perhaps if I come at it differently. In mathematical terms, it looks like this:
Except for the fact that you have your clothes on and there is no mirror, that is exactly what it is like to record and produce a song. I now know this from personal experience, though I never expected that I would.
It works like this: you are informed that songs will be recorded and you are provided with a time slot at The Sonic Goat. If you're Andy, this means you show-up at a time when I'm not there and record different guitar tracks. If you're me, this means you show-up at a time when Andy isn't there, but after he has been there, and record vocal tracks over the guitar tracks. This involves many unpleasant parts. First, there is the wearing of headphones so that the guitar tracks can be heard. This was my "We Are The World" moment when, for the life of me, all I could think about was headphone-wearing 80s pop-stars taking turns at the mic (and check the action between Kenny Rogers and Paul Simon. I think Kenny didn't see Paul down there):
Then, there is the singing while wearing headphones and listening to the guitar tracks. The best thing about this part is that you are the only one doing anything live, meaning that you are the only one who can possibly fuck-up and when you do you will have the spotlight all to yourself.
After that, you get to listen to your vocal track -- all, by, itself. Yep. No other sounds. Just the unvarnished tones of your voice. To enhance the joy of this experience, you get to listen to your voice over and over again after each take. Finally, if you are really lucky, you will get to listen to two vocal tracks simultaneously to determine the precise points of difference between them so that you can pick the best one ("best" being an extremely relative term, of course.)
Have I mentioned that I don't really like cheese stix all that much and that the naked-in-front-of-a-mirror analogy was meant to convey the unpleasantness of having to confront un-edited reality? Just checking.
Still, once the cheese stix have been ordered and delivered, there is really nothing else to do with them but eat them. So, we did. When we were done, we ended-up with the following, more-or-less final version of "Sun," the haunting original tune you will no doubt remember from the previous post:
So, now we know two things: (1) judgment day has arrived, and (2) be careful when ordering pizza.
You start out thinking it should be a relatively straight-forward deal. You know what you want and understand, more or less, how the process works. But then you call the pizza place and they hit you with their specials: "Would you like two medium pizzas with two toppings tonight for $12.99?" No, thank you. I'll just have a large pizza, half pepperoni, half black olives. "Any ice-cold Coca Cola products to go with that?" No, thank you. "How about our famous chicken wings?" No, thank you. "O.k. Would you like any cheese stix with your order tonight?" And there it is. The Cheese Stix. It causes that momentary hesitation every time, in which I have to ask myself, "would I like any cheese stix with my order tonight?" And sometimes it turns out the answer is yes, I would like some cheese stix and while you're at it, we'll take one of those dessert things you've got as well. And, wait, can you go back? What were the other choices again?
Now imagine standing in front of a mirror, naked (not me, you, in front of a mirror, naked) with a dude on a computer sitting next to you. This is the cheese stix of starting a band, only, well, it gets a bit complicated because you didn't order the cheese stix in this scenario, it just somehow got added to your order by one of your band mates when you weren't paying attention. So, while you thought you were just ordering the pepperoni pizza of rock 'n' roll, it turns out you still got taken by the bastards in marketing for a whole lot more.
Let me sort this out a bit. First, the nakedness. Being in a band is very much like being naked. You have to try things out and, inevitably, as has been previously documented, fuck them up right in front of other people. This is a regular part of being in a band -- fucking-up. Well, at least in our band. In fact, there is usually way more fucking-up than really anything else, except for drinking beer and avoiding other responsibilities. (That part I do remember ordering.) And, if you're me, there are always new and exciting ways to get it wrong. You can remember the lyrics you were forgetting last time, and forget a new set that you've never forgotten before. Or, you can forget the lyrics you, yourself wrote or you can create timing issues where there have never, ever been any before. You can cough, be out of tune, make a face that causes someone else to make a mistake . . . The possibilities are endless.
Then, after a while, just when you think you might be getting used to being naked, along come The Cheese Stix -- the part you don't remember ordering, but your band mate (let's call him "Jim") claims was definitely ordered and in any event, here they are so they might as well not go to waste. In case my metaphor isn't working for you (though I can't imagine how that would be the case) I'm talking about the process of recording and producing a song, which as everyone knows, is the Cheese Stix of midlife rock 'n' roll efforts.
Perhaps if I come at it differently. In mathematical terms, it looks like this:
Cheese Stix = sneakily or unexpectedly added item
and
Recording and producing a song = sneakily or unexpectedly added item
also
Recording and producing a song = being naked, in front of a mirror with a dude on a computer sitting next to you (who, of course, is not naked)
therefore,
Cheese Stix = being naked, in front of a mirror with a dude on a computer sitting next to you (who, of course, is not naked)
Except for the fact that you have your clothes on and there is no mirror, that is exactly what it is like to record and produce a song. I now know this from personal experience, though I never expected that I would.
It works like this: you are informed that songs will be recorded and you are provided with a time slot at The Sonic Goat. If you're Andy, this means you show-up at a time when I'm not there and record different guitar tracks. If you're me, this means you show-up at a time when Andy isn't there, but after he has been there, and record vocal tracks over the guitar tracks. This involves many unpleasant parts. First, there is the wearing of headphones so that the guitar tracks can be heard. This was my "We Are The World" moment when, for the life of me, all I could think about was headphone-wearing 80s pop-stars taking turns at the mic (and check the action between Kenny Rogers and Paul Simon. I think Kenny didn't see Paul down there):
Then, there is the singing while wearing headphones and listening to the guitar tracks. The best thing about this part is that you are the only one doing anything live, meaning that you are the only one who can possibly fuck-up and when you do you will have the spotlight all to yourself.
After that, you get to listen to your vocal track -- all, by, itself. Yep. No other sounds. Just the unvarnished tones of your voice. To enhance the joy of this experience, you get to listen to your voice over and over again after each take. Finally, if you are really lucky, you will get to listen to two vocal tracks simultaneously to determine the precise points of difference between them so that you can pick the best one ("best" being an extremely relative term, of course.)
Have I mentioned that I don't really like cheese stix all that much and that the naked-in-front-of-a-mirror analogy was meant to convey the unpleasantness of having to confront un-edited reality? Just checking.
Still, once the cheese stix have been ordered and delivered, there is really nothing else to do with them but eat them. So, we did. When we were done, we ended-up with the following, more-or-less final version of "Sun," the haunting original tune you will no doubt remember from the previous post:
So, now we know two things: (1) judgment day has arrived, and (2) be careful when ordering pizza.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Songwriting (ob-la-di, ob-la-da)
Although I was an English major in college, I never took any creative writing classes. If there were songwriting classes, I missed-out on those too. I just took the classes that allowed you read lots of books and poems and then sit around thinking and talking about what was up with Transcendentalism or The Romantic Poets or why William Faulkner seemed unable to win a wrestling match with any sentence he ever encountered. Still, coming and going from the same building where all the creative types thought creative thoughts was bound to have some spillover effect. But instead of some immortal teaching from a favorite professor serendipitously overheard in the hallway, the only creative directive I acquired was the mundane and oft-repeated "write what you know."
The partial retardation referenced in the previous post on this blog has precluded me from knowing as many things as I ought to, but one of the things I do know is this: I love the sun. I also know that my toenails look better clipped short and painted a dark color, but the sun seemed like a better place to start from a songwriting perspective. My love of the sun (more specifically its facility for heat and light) is well-known in the circles I run in (and I run in circles a lot). Indeed, my daughters have concluded that I am actually a lizard, badly lost and dislocated in Minnesota.
Lizard or not, I had made the mistake of mentioning, in what I thought was an off-handed way, to Jim and Andy that I might have written some song-type things and that I might be able to write some more of them if we formed a band. By "songs," I mean a grouping of words organized in short lines on a page without any melody or musical framework of any kind but which, in my mind, I imagined to be the kinds of words that one could sing to some music, if one wanted to. I had done this well before the "let's form a band" e-mail. It wasn't art so much as necessity that made me do it. Frankly, the unexpected and panicked run of loose thoughts across the backyard of my brain had gotten annoying over the years. A turn-of-phrase or poorly formed idea would get startled out of a crease and dart into the daylight because I hadn't realized it was there as I ambled along, preoccupied with my "what should we have for dinner tonight" concerns. Then it would just sit there, in the middle of the lawn, desperate for cover, but of course only drawing more attention to itself. Capturing them seemed like the only appropriate thing to do.
Of course, once you put a few rabbit-thoughts together in a pen, you know what happens. Cottontails everywhere eating the hydrangeas and really messing with your garden. This is why animal husbandry is best left to the professionals. I happen to be a professional, but I don't do anything useful. I'm a lawyer.
But back to the songwriting. Having recently solicited others to form a band and invested time, energy and most of my self esteem in learning to sing other people's songs, the next thing to do was what bands are known for the world over: create original music. This was Jim's point when he decreed that "we should work on original stuff next." Having practically volunteered by my earlier disclosure, Jim and Andy looked to me to come up with the word part of some songs. (Jim proffered some lyrics about the hollow feeling inside that happens when you discover the box of Wheat Thins is empty, but we're saving that for our second album, which is to be themed around dry goods with maybe a few ditties about perishables, too.)
So, how does one go about writing a song? What is involved and where does the creative spark come from? Honestly, I have no idea. I can only tell you what has occurred in the particular set of circumstances that I am familiar with. In my case, we had the initial "things I know" decision point -- sun versus toenails. I think we're all glad that the sun won out there. Then, there's the need for some words and possibly, though not necessarily, some rhyming. This requires a pen or pencil, some paper and a little bit of time. In this instance, I rounded-up a sunny day, my notebook, and a pencil and plunked myself down in the backyard one afternoon last summer, where I observed and enjoyed the sun and waited for the rabbits to start running. A few fistfuls of fur later, I ended-up with the following:
Streaming down from above
Raining bright, clean love
Golden delicious
California ambition
There is nothing more real
Than the electrifying feel
Of solar fingers white and hot
Give me everything you've got
Sun, give me sun
Set me down
Light me up
Give me sun
Illumination, sensation
Blissful radiation
Seeping down into my core
Filling me up, wanting more
Untie my nerves
Unwind my mind
Ease me out of
This world's bind
Sun, give me sun
Set me down
Light me up
Give me sun
Now, the thing about song lyrics all by themselves is that they seem silly all by themselves. A finished song, as we all know, includes both words and melody. This is how we usually first encounter them, hearing both together. With music there is a symbiotic relationship between the parts with each complementing and supporting the other. So, for example, when you see the words, "ob-la-di, ob-la-da," your brain simultaneously plays the music in your head (and you probably continue, unprompted: "life goes on, bra, la, la la, la, life goes on.") You don't know it any other way. If, however, you had never heard that song and I handed you a piece of paper with those lyrics on it and told you it was a song, you would be very underwhelmed. You would probably also double-check to make sure that you weren't relying on me for anything really important. But putting aside the "how-many-rock-gods-can-jam-on-the-head-of-a-pin" theorization for the moment, this is really just a long and ineffective way of saying, "don't harsh on the lyrics until you've heard the music." After that, you are free to conclude that the whole thing sucks. I'm just asking you to hold-off on reaching that conclusion until the appropriate time.
So, the "Sun" lyrics took their place in my folder and we practiced more or less weekly for a while. Then, one day, Andy sends an e-mail with a few MP3 files attached. The e-mail says something about how they're just snippets, not fully formed, likely not any good, but he's passing them along in case we find anything we like in them. One of them, titled "Test#1" sounded like this:
This particular snippet really stuck with me. I listened to the guitar line a few times and thought about what the melody wanted to say. I assumed I would need to write some new lyrics to go with it and wasn't quite sure how that would work as I've never had any music in mind, let alone presented to me, when chasing rabbits before. Then, the words to "Sun" started attaching themselves to the melody and I began to see how the two could work together. I e-mailed Jim and Andy that I thought I had some lyrics that would work with Andy's melody in "Test #1" and that I was eager to get their reactions. Jim replied that he was eager to react. At our next practice, we tried it out a few times and then recorded the following rough take to preserve how the song was coming together so we wouldn't forget it in between practices:
It should be noted that this version of the song is still very rough. We hadn't yet figured out the tempo, the drums, the bass line or whether three entirely different people should be brought in and directed to start from scratch. We have developed a universal disclaimer that we use amongst the three of us to deal with these issues whenever we are exchanging melodies, vocal renditions, lyrics or other ideas and it seems we would be well-advised to employ it here. The purpose of the disclaimer, of course, is to shield each individual from the inevitable harsh and unrelenting judgment, criticism and disgust that would usher forth without it. The disclaimer goes something like this, "I apologize for the lack of rhythm, timing, accuracy, in-tune-ness, and overall musical skill. I was/am, drunk, hungover, my computer had a virus, my computer was drunk/hungover, my metronome broke and/or I had a head cold when I did this so I couldn't really hear it at all and you might just want to ignore it altogether. I'm sorry I've wasted your time."
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "O.k. Now I've read the lyrics, heard the guitar melody, heard the two of them more or less together and been provided with a very comprehensive disclaimer. Surely now must be the appropriate time to reach that conclusion about suckiness that I was chastised about earlier." But you would be wrong. You have to wait for one more version and then we will have reached judgment day. That, my friends, is the final, Garage-Band assisted, Sonic Goat Productions version . . . which will be revealed in a future post.
The partial retardation referenced in the previous post on this blog has precluded me from knowing as many things as I ought to, but one of the things I do know is this: I love the sun. I also know that my toenails look better clipped short and painted a dark color, but the sun seemed like a better place to start from a songwriting perspective. My love of the sun (more specifically its facility for heat and light) is well-known in the circles I run in (and I run in circles a lot). Indeed, my daughters have concluded that I am actually a lizard, badly lost and dislocated in Minnesota.
Lizard or not, I had made the mistake of mentioning, in what I thought was an off-handed way, to Jim and Andy that I might have written some song-type things and that I might be able to write some more of them if we formed a band. By "songs," I mean a grouping of words organized in short lines on a page without any melody or musical framework of any kind but which, in my mind, I imagined to be the kinds of words that one could sing to some music, if one wanted to. I had done this well before the "let's form a band" e-mail. It wasn't art so much as necessity that made me do it. Frankly, the unexpected and panicked run of loose thoughts across the backyard of my brain had gotten annoying over the years. A turn-of-phrase or poorly formed idea would get startled out of a crease and dart into the daylight because I hadn't realized it was there as I ambled along, preoccupied with my "what should we have for dinner tonight" concerns. Then it would just sit there, in the middle of the lawn, desperate for cover, but of course only drawing more attention to itself. Capturing them seemed like the only appropriate thing to do.
Of course, once you put a few rabbit-thoughts together in a pen, you know what happens. Cottontails everywhere eating the hydrangeas and really messing with your garden. This is why animal husbandry is best left to the professionals. I happen to be a professional, but I don't do anything useful. I'm a lawyer.
But back to the songwriting. Having recently solicited others to form a band and invested time, energy and most of my self esteem in learning to sing other people's songs, the next thing to do was what bands are known for the world over: create original music. This was Jim's point when he decreed that "we should work on original stuff next." Having practically volunteered by my earlier disclosure, Jim and Andy looked to me to come up with the word part of some songs. (Jim proffered some lyrics about the hollow feeling inside that happens when you discover the box of Wheat Thins is empty, but we're saving that for our second album, which is to be themed around dry goods with maybe a few ditties about perishables, too.)
So, how does one go about writing a song? What is involved and where does the creative spark come from? Honestly, I have no idea. I can only tell you what has occurred in the particular set of circumstances that I am familiar with. In my case, we had the initial "things I know" decision point -- sun versus toenails. I think we're all glad that the sun won out there. Then, there's the need for some words and possibly, though not necessarily, some rhyming. This requires a pen or pencil, some paper and a little bit of time. In this instance, I rounded-up a sunny day, my notebook, and a pencil and plunked myself down in the backyard one afternoon last summer, where I observed and enjoyed the sun and waited for the rabbits to start running. A few fistfuls of fur later, I ended-up with the following:
Streaming down from above
Raining bright, clean love
Golden delicious
California ambition
There is nothing more real
Than the electrifying feel
Of solar fingers white and hot
Give me everything you've got
Sun, give me sun
Set me down
Light me up
Give me sun
Illumination, sensation
Blissful radiation
Seeping down into my core
Filling me up, wanting more
Untie my nerves
Unwind my mind
Ease me out of
This world's bind
Sun, give me sun
Set me down
Light me up
Give me sun
Now, the thing about song lyrics all by themselves is that they seem silly all by themselves. A finished song, as we all know, includes both words and melody. This is how we usually first encounter them, hearing both together. With music there is a symbiotic relationship between the parts with each complementing and supporting the other. So, for example, when you see the words, "ob-la-di, ob-la-da," your brain simultaneously plays the music in your head (and you probably continue, unprompted: "life goes on, bra, la, la la, la, life goes on.") You don't know it any other way. If, however, you had never heard that song and I handed you a piece of paper with those lyrics on it and told you it was a song, you would be very underwhelmed. You would probably also double-check to make sure that you weren't relying on me for anything really important. But putting aside the "how-many-rock-gods-can-jam-on-the-head-of-a-pin" theorization for the moment, this is really just a long and ineffective way of saying, "don't harsh on the lyrics until you've heard the music." After that, you are free to conclude that the whole thing sucks. I'm just asking you to hold-off on reaching that conclusion until the appropriate time.
So, the "Sun" lyrics took their place in my folder and we practiced more or less weekly for a while. Then, one day, Andy sends an e-mail with a few MP3 files attached. The e-mail says something about how they're just snippets, not fully formed, likely not any good, but he's passing them along in case we find anything we like in them. One of them, titled "Test#1" sounded like this:
This particular snippet really stuck with me. I listened to the guitar line a few times and thought about what the melody wanted to say. I assumed I would need to write some new lyrics to go with it and wasn't quite sure how that would work as I've never had any music in mind, let alone presented to me, when chasing rabbits before. Then, the words to "Sun" started attaching themselves to the melody and I began to see how the two could work together. I e-mailed Jim and Andy that I thought I had some lyrics that would work with Andy's melody in "Test #1" and that I was eager to get their reactions. Jim replied that he was eager to react. At our next practice, we tried it out a few times and then recorded the following rough take to preserve how the song was coming together so we wouldn't forget it in between practices:
It should be noted that this version of the song is still very rough. We hadn't yet figured out the tempo, the drums, the bass line or whether three entirely different people should be brought in and directed to start from scratch. We have developed a universal disclaimer that we use amongst the three of us to deal with these issues whenever we are exchanging melodies, vocal renditions, lyrics or other ideas and it seems we would be well-advised to employ it here. The purpose of the disclaimer, of course, is to shield each individual from the inevitable harsh and unrelenting judgment, criticism and disgust that would usher forth without it. The disclaimer goes something like this, "I apologize for the lack of rhythm, timing, accuracy, in-tune-ness, and overall musical skill. I was/am, drunk, hungover, my computer had a virus, my computer was drunk/hungover, my metronome broke and/or I had a head cold when I did this so I couldn't really hear it at all and you might just want to ignore it altogether. I'm sorry I've wasted your time."
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "O.k. Now I've read the lyrics, heard the guitar melody, heard the two of them more or less together and been provided with a very comprehensive disclaimer. Surely now must be the appropriate time to reach that conclusion about suckiness that I was chastised about earlier." But you would be wrong. You have to wait for one more version and then we will have reached judgment day. That, my friends, is the final, Garage-Band assisted, Sonic Goat Productions version . . . which will be revealed in a future post.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
No One Ran Away
After a totally unwarranted amount of disrespect was paid to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at our first practice session, two very important things happened: (1) I did not run away, and (2) Jim and Andy did not run away. They even agreed to show-up on a regular basis to continue their roles as facilitators of my delusion. Now, I'll never know what Jim and Andy were thinking, but as a fair and balanced observer on the scene, I can tell you that there was not even any grimacing or involuntary spasms on their part the whole time. (I can only assume they each suffered from an ungodly amount of boredom and were desperate for any distraction that came their way, which I unwittingly provided in spades.) Instead, what we did have a lot of was repeated takes marked with many, many stops and starts, usually because my timing was off or we had to figure out how we were covering the song with only one guitar and drums, as I am not able to contribute any instrumental skill whatsoever. Not even tambourine. Let me explain.
I have always considered myself partially retarded. Granted, it's a small part, but it's there, like the seam on a pair of socks. Most of the time you don't notice it, but sometimes it can be really, really irritating. Of course, there are many others whom I consider to be more retarded than me, such as Glenn Beck, The Kardashians, and Yankee fans. The point, though, is that there are certain things in life that seem to pose no discernable issues for most of the general population, but which continue to cause me difficulty. Complicated things like remembering to put gas in my car, getting out of bed in the morning, and eyeliner.
Alternatively, if you have ever thought about human beings as possibly powered by hamsters on wheels inside our heads (and really, who hasn't?), I have considered the likelihood that my hamster doesn't quite do it the way she should. She'll get going real fast and give the wheel a really good spin and then jump-off and wander around exploring the unchartered corners of my skull cavity. Usually, she times her return just before the wheel comes to a complete halt, but every now and then she's off and things have stopped and then she has to work extra hard to get the wheel really humming again.
Stay with me here.
What I'm getting at is the early practice sessions involved what I suspect was an inordinate amount of me forgetting lyrics and/or forgetting when it was time for me to sing them. This would occur even though I had just sung the song 12 times in a row and had the lyrics on a sheet of paper right in front of me. A typical scenario:
Jim: 1, 2, 3, 4
[Jim and Andy commence playing song as it is supposed to be played. Vocal cue arrives and is missed. Jim and Andy keep playing and look at me.]
Robin: Shit. Sorry. I missed it. Can we start again?
Jim/Andy: Sure.
Jim: 1, 2, 3, 4
[Jim and Andy commence playing song as it is supposed to be played. Vocal cue arrives.]
Robin: Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
. . . .
Shit. Sorry.
Then, there was the time when they encouraged me to try the tambourine (while still trying to remember lyrics and when to sing them). Let's just say no one has mentioned the tambourine in quite a while.
But despite the innate mental deficiencies and/or errant hamster that prevents me from doing several simple things simultaneously, or even individually in some cases, such limitations do not extend to my judge of character. Which is another way of saying, I picked really good band mates. Not only have Jim and Andy endured the highly frustrating wiring of my brain (though, truth be told, this may be why there are so many empty beer bottles laying around by the end of each practice, only half of which are mine) but they have each brought apparently limitless patience and vast musical skill to this endeavor as well. I usually just bring a six pack and my folder of lyrics.
Andy is our lead guitar player. He not only knows how to play a lot of songs, he knows how to learn a lot of songs in short order. He also has a habit of screwing around with little riffs and chord changes that constantly have Jim and I inquiring, "Wait -- what was that? That was really good. Do that again." Plus, he also knows how to plug-in his guitar and turn knobs on the amps and pedals and stuff, which I think is really impressive.
Jim doesn't really contribute much next to me and Andy. He just provides the rehearsal space, plays drums, plays keyboards, plays bass and plays producer on Garage Band. I'm a little disappointed that he can't do more than one of these things at a time (as I'm pretty sure his hamster is a type-A finance guy), but since it's his house, I guess he can do what he wants.
So, we practiced for a while and eventually got a few covers ingrained enough in my brain that I not only knew most of the lyrics, but also usually when to sing them. I think the surprise that occurred in Jim's psyche when we reached that moment was so profound, he didn't have time to consider the consequences before uttering the following in what sounded almost like an optimistic and encouraging tone, "I think we should work on some original stuff next."
I have always considered myself partially retarded. Granted, it's a small part, but it's there, like the seam on a pair of socks. Most of the time you don't notice it, but sometimes it can be really, really irritating. Of course, there are many others whom I consider to be more retarded than me, such as Glenn Beck, The Kardashians, and Yankee fans. The point, though, is that there are certain things in life that seem to pose no discernable issues for most of the general population, but which continue to cause me difficulty. Complicated things like remembering to put gas in my car, getting out of bed in the morning, and eyeliner.
Alternatively, if you have ever thought about human beings as possibly powered by hamsters on wheels inside our heads (and really, who hasn't?), I have considered the likelihood that my hamster doesn't quite do it the way she should. She'll get going real fast and give the wheel a really good spin and then jump-off and wander around exploring the unchartered corners of my skull cavity. Usually, she times her return just before the wheel comes to a complete halt, but every now and then she's off and things have stopped and then she has to work extra hard to get the wheel really humming again.
Stay with me here.
What I'm getting at is the early practice sessions involved what I suspect was an inordinate amount of me forgetting lyrics and/or forgetting when it was time for me to sing them. This would occur even though I had just sung the song 12 times in a row and had the lyrics on a sheet of paper right in front of me. A typical scenario:
Jim: 1, 2, 3, 4
[Jim and Andy commence playing song as it is supposed to be played. Vocal cue arrives and is missed. Jim and Andy keep playing and look at me.]
Robin: Shit. Sorry. I missed it. Can we start again?
Jim/Andy: Sure.
Jim: 1, 2, 3, 4
[Jim and Andy commence playing song as it is supposed to be played. Vocal cue arrives.]
Robin: Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
. . . .
Shit. Sorry.
Then, there was the time when they encouraged me to try the tambourine (while still trying to remember lyrics and when to sing them). Let's just say no one has mentioned the tambourine in quite a while.
But despite the innate mental deficiencies and/or errant hamster that prevents me from doing several simple things simultaneously, or even individually in some cases, such limitations do not extend to my judge of character. Which is another way of saying, I picked really good band mates. Not only have Jim and Andy endured the highly frustrating wiring of my brain (though, truth be told, this may be why there are so many empty beer bottles laying around by the end of each practice, only half of which are mine) but they have each brought apparently limitless patience and vast musical skill to this endeavor as well. I usually just bring a six pack and my folder of lyrics.
Andy is our lead guitar player. He not only knows how to play a lot of songs, he knows how to learn a lot of songs in short order. He also has a habit of screwing around with little riffs and chord changes that constantly have Jim and I inquiring, "Wait -- what was that? That was really good. Do that again." Plus, he also knows how to plug-in his guitar and turn knobs on the amps and pedals and stuff, which I think is really impressive.
Jim doesn't really contribute much next to me and Andy. He just provides the rehearsal space, plays drums, plays keyboards, plays bass and plays producer on Garage Band. I'm a little disappointed that he can't do more than one of these things at a time (as I'm pretty sure his hamster is a type-A finance guy), but since it's his house, I guess he can do what he wants.
So, we practiced for a while and eventually got a few covers ingrained enough in my brain that I not only knew most of the lyrics, but also usually when to sing them. I think the surprise that occurred in Jim's psyche when we reached that moment was so profound, he didn't have time to consider the consequences before uttering the following in what sounded almost like an optimistic and encouraging tone, "I think we should work on some original stuff next."
Friday, December 3, 2010
Singing
Singing. The very word causes people all over the planet to shudder in fear. Well, except for maybe the Irish, Italians, Spanish, Russians, Germans, Brazilians, Chileans . . . O.k. So the only people afraid of singing, really, are Americans. But, being one of them, the comment is still legitimate. Singing was always something I secretly enjoyed, but not something I ever sought to do in front of others, sort of like --- well, this is mostly a family blog and I'm just not going to go there. The point is, in over 42 years of living which included, as they so often do, high school, college and several years in New York City, I never took a single step toward forming a band or otherwise participating in organized musical activities. No choir. No orchestra. No musical theater. Instead, I did what any properly raised, first-born American, female WASP does -- I completely repressed and ignored the desire. Now, there are certainly reasons and explanations for such things, but I will leave that to the likes of Oprah and Elizabeth Gilbert to excavate and ruminate about and generally beat to death without accomplishing much of anything.
So what caused me, after so much time, to finally pursue my inner Karen O.? Death. Yes, death. The realization that I was, in all likelihood, at least half-way done with my spin on the merry go round had the predictable and cliched effect of causing me to run a mental inventory of what was in stock and what was not: "Responsibilities?" Chock full. "Sorry-assed Excuses?" Got plenty. "Singing and Songwriting?" Cavernous gap. Completely out of stock. ('Course, the bins for "Hangovers" and "Stupid Things I've Done" were spilling their contents out onto the warehouse floor, but that's neither here nor there at the moment.) I stared at the blank space for a while and then started writing a novel. I stared at it some more and got back into tennis. And then I stared at it again and fired-off an e-mail.
Still, I never really thought that singing would actually be involved. I mean (a) no one was going to accept the invitation, and (2) why would anyone ever take me up on such a thing? It was supposed to allow me to fill the shelf with at least one flimsy sack of "I tried" so that I could go tend to the business about the hangovers (how to increase the storage space, of course, as more inventory was certainly on the way) and see what could be done to strip the label off the bin of "Stupid Things I've Done" in the hopes that the contents would thereby somehow become unrecognizable.
But alas, the carefully laid plans of middle-aged women . . . sometimes work. Indeed, my e-mail did exactly what it was designed to do, no matter how much I wanted to pretend it was all just silliness. Objectively it is totally and completely silly, but subjectively it was cover for finally finding out if I could do it before, you know, I was cold and dead and couldn't carry a tune to save my already dead life.
So, that brings us to the part where I arrive at Jim's house for the first band practice. I cannot think of a word that really describes how I felt. Nervous? Damn straight. Excited? Most definitely. Incredulous? Believe it. But I think what comes closest is vibrating. Not vibrating like --- again, except for the swearing, this is a G-Rated blog, so I'll thank you to stop that -- but vibrating as in the effect of a tuning fork. According to Wikipedia:
Vibration is occasionally "desirable". For example the motion of a tuning fork, the reed in a woodwind instrument or harmonica, or the cone of a loudspeaker is desirable vibration, necessary for the correct functioning of the various devices.
This is the kind of vibration I mean. The desirable kind that is necessary for the correct functioning of various devices, me being the various devices. Of course, Wikipedia goes on to say that:
More often, vibration is undesirable, wasting energy and creating unwanted sound – noise. For example, the vibrational motions of engines, electric motors, or any mechanical device in operation are typically unwanted. Such vibrations can be caused by imbalances in the rotating parts, uneven friction, the meshing of gear teeth, etc. Careful designs usually minimize unwanted vibrations.
Well, I admit that "creating unwanted sound and noise" does seem to be relevant here as does "imbalances" and the "meshing of . . . teeth." But never mind. We are going to proceed with the part I like better that talks about functioning properly. Now, I promise not to get all Dr. Phil on you because, how should I say this -- I hate that shit -- but if I am going to even pretend to be honest about this experience, then it needs to be said that I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do when it was time for me to sing. I envisioned the most likely scenario as follows: I would, in fact, attempt some sort of sound-making which I have always liked to call "singing" which would have been followed by Jim discovering an unforeseen problem with his musical equipment and Andy suddenly remembering an urgent obligation he had to attend to somewhere else -- urgently. Still, what I felt was the promise that, one way or the other, I would finally find out something that I had wondered about for a good part of my life -- exactly how many keyboards does Jim really have?
Five. Jim has five keyboards. No lie. He also has several amps, a drum kit, a bass guitar, a tambourine, several microphones and stands and a Mac computer all set-up with Garage Band. There is a bunch of other stuff too, but I don't know what it is called or what purpose it serves. This nice little set-up he has in his basement also has a name: Sonic Goat Studios. It looks like this:
So, Andy and I arrive for our first group practice session and amble down to the basement. I notice the microphone on a stand in the middle of the room. Now, truth be told, I had seen Jim's basement before and was generally familiar with it. But in my previous visit (which, I should note, was at a holiday party that contributed one of the hangovers to that bin I was talking about and at which I found myself behind the drums demanding that someone show me how to play them), there had not been a microphone so prominently located. Of course, anyone who has done any kind of actual singing before would expect such a thing, but alas I was not in that category. To me it looked like a snake rising up from the ground all pissed-off already. It practically hissed. I hate snakes.
As Andy gets his guitar plugged in and talks technical talk with Jim about the amps and yada yada yada, I am trying to get an angle on this whole singing thing, especially the part with the microphone. Maybe if I just stand far away from it they will hear me enough but not so much as to actually be able to decide if the sounds I am making are good or bad. We do a sound check and I talk into it, which tells me we are now moments away from blast off. Running away occurs to me, but I decide that it would only create more problems. Instead, I exit the Sonic Goat and relocate to a different part of the basement (one without any microphones or expectant band mates) so that I can practice and hear myself -- alone.
When I return they joke that they thought I ran away. Ha ha ha. (Still a possibility.) But, despite the nerves, I also know that this is it. This is what I have wanted to do and try and experience. It took me 42 fucking years to get to Jim's basement so the pain-in-the-ass lawyer part of me is not about to let the pansy-assed part of me bail out now.
So, Jim counts us in, I channel my best Karen O., and open my mouth and sing:
Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
Take our hands out of control
Take our hands out of control . . .
So what caused me, after so much time, to finally pursue my inner Karen O.? Death. Yes, death. The realization that I was, in all likelihood, at least half-way done with my spin on the merry go round had the predictable and cliched effect of causing me to run a mental inventory of what was in stock and what was not: "Responsibilities?" Chock full. "Sorry-assed Excuses?" Got plenty. "Singing and Songwriting?" Cavernous gap. Completely out of stock. ('Course, the bins for "Hangovers" and "Stupid Things I've Done" were spilling their contents out onto the warehouse floor, but that's neither here nor there at the moment.) I stared at the blank space for a while and then started writing a novel. I stared at it some more and got back into tennis. And then I stared at it again and fired-off an e-mail.
Still, I never really thought that singing would actually be involved. I mean (a) no one was going to accept the invitation, and (2) why would anyone ever take me up on such a thing? It was supposed to allow me to fill the shelf with at least one flimsy sack of "I tried" so that I could go tend to the business about the hangovers (how to increase the storage space, of course, as more inventory was certainly on the way) and see what could be done to strip the label off the bin of "Stupid Things I've Done" in the hopes that the contents would thereby somehow become unrecognizable.
But alas, the carefully laid plans of middle-aged women . . . sometimes work. Indeed, my e-mail did exactly what it was designed to do, no matter how much I wanted to pretend it was all just silliness. Objectively it is totally and completely silly, but subjectively it was cover for finally finding out if I could do it before, you know, I was cold and dead and couldn't carry a tune to save my already dead life.
So, that brings us to the part where I arrive at Jim's house for the first band practice. I cannot think of a word that really describes how I felt. Nervous? Damn straight. Excited? Most definitely. Incredulous? Believe it. But I think what comes closest is vibrating. Not vibrating like --- again, except for the swearing, this is a G-Rated blog, so I'll thank you to stop that -- but vibrating as in the effect of a tuning fork. According to Wikipedia:
Vibration is occasionally "desirable". For example the motion of a tuning fork, the reed in a woodwind instrument or harmonica, or the cone of a loudspeaker is desirable vibration, necessary for the correct functioning of the various devices.
This is the kind of vibration I mean. The desirable kind that is necessary for the correct functioning of various devices, me being the various devices. Of course, Wikipedia goes on to say that:
More often, vibration is undesirable, wasting energy and creating unwanted sound – noise. For example, the vibrational motions of engines, electric motors, or any mechanical device in operation are typically unwanted. Such vibrations can be caused by imbalances in the rotating parts, uneven friction, the meshing of gear teeth, etc. Careful designs usually minimize unwanted vibrations.
Well, I admit that "creating unwanted sound and noise" does seem to be relevant here as does "imbalances" and the "meshing of . . . teeth." But never mind. We are going to proceed with the part I like better that talks about functioning properly. Now, I promise not to get all Dr. Phil on you because, how should I say this -- I hate that shit -- but if I am going to even pretend to be honest about this experience, then it needs to be said that I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do when it was time for me to sing. I envisioned the most likely scenario as follows: I would, in fact, attempt some sort of sound-making which I have always liked to call "singing" which would have been followed by Jim discovering an unforeseen problem with his musical equipment and Andy suddenly remembering an urgent obligation he had to attend to somewhere else -- urgently. Still, what I felt was the promise that, one way or the other, I would finally find out something that I had wondered about for a good part of my life -- exactly how many keyboards does Jim really have?
Five. Jim has five keyboards. No lie. He also has several amps, a drum kit, a bass guitar, a tambourine, several microphones and stands and a Mac computer all set-up with Garage Band. There is a bunch of other stuff too, but I don't know what it is called or what purpose it serves. This nice little set-up he has in his basement also has a name: Sonic Goat Studios. It looks like this:
So, Andy and I arrive for our first group practice session and amble down to the basement. I notice the microphone on a stand in the middle of the room. Now, truth be told, I had seen Jim's basement before and was generally familiar with it. But in my previous visit (which, I should note, was at a holiday party that contributed one of the hangovers to that bin I was talking about and at which I found myself behind the drums demanding that someone show me how to play them), there had not been a microphone so prominently located. Of course, anyone who has done any kind of actual singing before would expect such a thing, but alas I was not in that category. To me it looked like a snake rising up from the ground all pissed-off already. It practically hissed. I hate snakes.
As Andy gets his guitar plugged in and talks technical talk with Jim about the amps and yada yada yada, I am trying to get an angle on this whole singing thing, especially the part with the microphone. Maybe if I just stand far away from it they will hear me enough but not so much as to actually be able to decide if the sounds I am making are good or bad. We do a sound check and I talk into it, which tells me we are now moments away from blast off. Running away occurs to me, but I decide that it would only create more problems. Instead, I exit the Sonic Goat and relocate to a different part of the basement (one without any microphones or expectant band mates) so that I can practice and hear myself -- alone.
When I return they joke that they thought I ran away. Ha ha ha. (Still a possibility.) But, despite the nerves, I also know that this is it. This is what I have wanted to do and try and experience. It took me 42 fucking years to get to Jim's basement so the pain-in-the-ass lawyer part of me is not about to let the pansy-assed part of me bail out now.
So, Jim counts us in, I channel my best Karen O., and open my mouth and sing:
Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
Gold lion's gonna tell me where the light is
Take our hands out of control
Take our hands out of control . . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)