United Kingdom

Hello guys,
It seems funny starting a thread just to tell people you have put a couple of new songs on your profile, but I guess there is little point joining this site unless you want to exchange music and ideas with your notational brethren!
I am writing songs for my own ends, but also showing them here in the hope someone will take a fancy to one and want to cover it with their band.

The first song I added is a rather too slow gentle rock song called called 'Money Gone'.
Shortly I will be making a second faster version in my forming studio, and with proper drums; this one just has me plucking time on a muted bass guitar.
My friend and drummer wrote the words and melody style of the first verse, and I carried the idea on through the song.

Second new song is 'So Your Eyes'; this is my second version and has the fairly raw guitar intro that I added later to give a counter to the gentle verse when it arrives.
It is a song about loss and regrets... so nothing new there perhaps; but it helps to have a voice that works well in two octaves and at two different tonal pitches... like mine doesn't!
I wrote a lead solo in it that to be honest is a bit to fiddly for my fingers... I have only played finger style since taking up the guitar again last year after a twenty year lay-off, but rather than use a plectrum again I will probably let my drummer do the lead solo for me in the next version... he does proper plectrum lead stuff!

It would make this a useful excercise if someone heard the songs and gave some feedback... I have a reasonably thick skin so you don't have to be too gentle!
Equally if someone thinks their band can use one of the songs, either to practice around, record, or perform... be my guest! I don't have full music or chords written down, but I have the words and can soon work out what the chords were.
And good luck with your own songs too!
Mark D Phillips.................

Great potential in both songs Mark. I like the guitar tone and "airish" feel to "So Your Eyes". Could be the whole Bandmix conversion / play back thing but the timing seems to be a little loose, almost confused sounding.
I know its not at all unusual for the Bandmix player to give the songs a little drag / slow sound. (Seems to do it to minequite often)
Overall I liked and enjoyed both tunes.
And Yes sir this is the point of this site my man.
As far as I am concerned anyway.
Thank you for the music.

Hello Sentient Paradox and Sanshouheil,
It is good to have stuff I write given the once over, and even better by people who clearly know what they are talking about... my mum just says I'm better than Elvis! (well she did when she was still alive!)

Clearly my singing sucks... as I am too well aware, but the only way to convey my songs to someone who might help to make/sing them better is to make a version myself.
I remember hearing Pete Townsend talking about the creation of the demo track, as how he had hated "sitting all stary eyed" with an acoustic strumming through his latest song in front of Roger Daltry and the others.

When I set out to record my songs I can hear in my head the soaring vocal and ripping guitar lines over a compact bass and drums... the result is at first a big disappointment, but you know it's your own work, and soon you accept it as just being a start.
I must listen to them again, but I am pretty sure these two (money Gone is less than a month old) added tracks just have an improvised percussion either hand drummed on the back of my acoustic guitar, or more recently I have tried tapping out the rythmn on the muted strings of my bass guitar.

My drum friend Gwyn is keen to make a faster and drummed version of 'Money Gone' over Christmas, so perhaps I can make something that rocks a bit more... though there is still only him or me to sing the vocal line.

Thanks again for the feedback friends!
Mark......................

Hello again sentient paradox and Sanshouheil,
Looking back at my profile songs I see I still had the earlier version of 'So Your Eyes' on file... I wonder which you clicked on?
The big difference is the second version says 'Loud Intro' and as it says on the packet, has a loud raunchy guitar intro.
Yes the singing is still by me and as weedy as hell.
Guitar is okay at times but goes right out at other times... I had not long started trying to play lead with fingers alone at this point a year back; also I cannot sus the metronome and just hoped I could keep everything together by ear, and couldn't.
Cymbals if you hear any are done by me by mouth!
Some verses are sung in the lower octave and the others are in the upper octave; I need to find a singer who covers that range with power and tone, and I want thumping good drums that will keep some energy behind it right through.
Yes the drums on this are just me tapping the strings of my bass guitar... with a think some mouth cymbals!

Soon enough new songs will come to mind and these few will get forgotten like so many others, but it will be nice to get the best out of them while they are still around.
Cheers,
Mark..................

Mr. Phillips, please excuse my previous closed mind, I owe you a HUGE APOLOGY for my previous post. on a U.S. thread and I have apologized and humbled myself rightfully so to my entire country.
I don't know if you have seen my apology, and whether you have or not, if you choose not to forgive me I certainly will understand. I don't even really know you, but I did very unfairly publicly humiliate you and in so doing I publicly showed my ass.
I would like to publicly across two continents offer my apology
We come from such radically different cultures it is easy for us to misunderstand one another but after listening to your posted songs again I find myself humbled, we have a saying over here in the states AND THAT IS I AM SORRY!

One more thing, would like to wish you and your family, a Happy holiday!

Hello J Haley,
I didn't find an apology, but there was absolutely no need for one either!
I can recall a bit of across the pond rough and tumble and banter, but in England the more we love someone the more we insult them... if you meet someone and dislike them you are very polite to them!

Anyway, I am guilty of trying to wind people up a bit, and my bang on the head means I often chose the wrong moment.

Interesting you mention our radically different cultures; I think of us as being so closely linked... though the press sometimes humorously describes us as being two countries divided by a common language.

So best wishes to you and all my Yankee cousins!
Mark...................

ecchhh..

1st one is?

2nd track reminded me of Piper at the gates of dawn. >>??!!??!

3rd inconsequential.

Hope that helps..

Hello Captain Scott,
And I never thought I'd get a chance to say that for real!
I have to make the slightly arrogant assumption you mean my songs, as I started the thread with reference to them.
I have six or seven on my profile, but right now for some reason it just displays three so you must mean these three I guess.

The first is a guitar ballad to which you say "?" or similar; does that mean it fell entirely outside your previous experience? Seems unlikely, and it's not for me to question how you choose to express yourself so I only say, Okay fair enough, but it doesn't give me a lot to build on or work at!

Then the second you said was "the Pied Piper at the gates of dawn"; I think he came to the gates of Hamlin to call all the children out, but perhaps there is something else in the story I forget... okay, good to get a few words to chew over, but still nice if it was a little more explicit!

And the third song "Just inconsequential" you said; well by the same token I would have thought they were all fairly inconsequential, which tends to be what you find with amateur writing.

I guess in your world anyone who puts their songs up on site deserves to be shot down in flames... open season and fair game etc.
But it's okay, and still better than being completely ignored; a few specifics to work on (or even just to answer) would have been the icing on the cake!
Cheers anyway!
Mark D Phillips................

Mr Phillips,

When I say radically different, I mean we both speak the English language,
and I must admit there are times that I just don't understand what you are saying , I was reading one post where you used the term you felt dim
this term is very alien to me and please forgive me I don't mean this in an offensive way, but thanks to my beautiful wife she explained to me that this means you don't understand.

From a musical standpoint I must say that, what many would say, from across the pond the British Invasion (thats what we call the day the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 that I watched with my own eyes) that we here in the states were just as effected and enamored with Eric Clapton as you were with Robert Johnson, Howlin Wolfe, and trust me I have had the pleasure of just being where I am from,
I must say sometimes I feel a bit dim.

Hello J. Haley,
So perhaps the old adage of two nations divided by a common language is not so far from the truth... yes in the UK the term 'dim' implies not the sharpest knife in the box etc, you might just say not, not very clever... yes your wife was quite right, I was saying I didn't understand something.

Clapton was a great guy yes; but to be honest he couldn't hold a candle to the creative genious of Jimi Hendrix... interestingly, he and the band had a house quite near me here; a friend of mine who owns a local garage sorted their cars and got given one of Jimi's guitar straps.
He remembers being in our little one horse town (Heathfield) in 1970 when Mitch Mitchell pulled up beside him in a limo and said quickly to him that Jimi was dead in London and he was off to see what was what.
Mitch Mitchell turned up again around a year back to see my pal and said he was running a drum workshop for troubled kids in London... not very long after that he was dead.

But here it's still Christams, and what have we done... another year over... and a new one just begun: to quote John Lennon.
Nice to chat!
Mark......................

If I say PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN, you don't know what I am referring to>?

WOW

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Piper_ ... es_of_Dawn

try the link?

Hello Captain,
No sorry no idea, but I am from east of the village pond remember, and we're a slightly dim lot on this side!
I will check out the link Captain.
Cheers,
Mark......................

Aha... thanks,
Now I see Captain, and it explains why I didn't get the reference, I'm a bit too young to remember much Floyd!!!

So to hear your critique or evaluation of my song I need to go off and get up to scratch on a Pink Floyd song? So much easier had you just said, "well your guitar sounds weedy, the voice is pathetic, and the song seems to be about nothing at all!

Can I tease out any more info while we are here Captain?
I can accept the"3rd is incosequential" as at least it stating something I can get a handle on... but for the other two your posting below left rather too much to the imagination for a simple soul like me!

Posted: 24 Dec 2008 03:26 pm Post subject:

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ecchhh..

1st one is?

2nd track reminded me of Piper at the gates of dawn. >>??!!??!

3rd inconsequential.

Hope that helps..
......................................................................................


1st is ?
I wrote it trying to create a fairly innofensive guitar balled; one that someone who could sing and tell a story with both voice and guitar, like perhaps an as yet unknown Mark Knopfler type, could thread some nice guitar lines around the lyrics as they sang.
Did your '?' mean you couldn't even accept its claim to be a song at all, or that it was just too outlandish to even pass comment on?

I am not trying to be pushy or sound like I am being clever, I just came to this site wanting to join in with the to and fro of musical vibes... to try to break out of the little song writing corner I seem to be a bit stuck in at times.
Anyway, I am starting to go on rather so catch you later perhaps?
Mark......................