General Music Chat

I’ve been recording tracks for several different songs.
I usually do the guitar and drums first, then I’ll add bass or vocals.
Next I’ll edit - balance volumes, L & R channels, and miscellaneous fades.
Mixing takes a long time, especially if there is a lot of tracks. After every few changes, I have to listen to the whole song again, and see how it sounds.
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I have over 30 unrecorded songs.
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I’ve been recording brand new music, and setting it into ‘song-form.’ These are rough recordings, which help me to decide tempo and song lengths. Usually these songs are recorded to just a click-track. If the speed seems good - I’ll experiment and decide a drum pattern. Sometimes I’ll actually change the whole song around: same chords, but a different style of music.
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Also, I’ve been recording some new tracks for songs which are already complete, but which have been never recorded, or those songs which only have rough guitar tracks . . .
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. . . a guitar track here, a drum track there. I want to have a few songs prepped for the other fellows in the band to record.
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Often there’s 40 - 80 hours of behind-the-scenes practice, recording, erasing, re-recording and editing behind a 3-minute song.

^^ Cool post rhythm!

I am trying a new way of writing songs where I compose the melody first. This way, my choice of progressions seem more interesting because the melody can be in several keys, You can combine them and come up with cool key changes. It is also more difficult because it get frustrating when the melody doesn't gel with any progression lol.... it takes a lot of ear training to hear all the parts all at once.

Thanks for the inside information. I find it helpful and oddly reassuring that a song isn't as easy as it sounds to compose and master.

Rythym and Santos, Im starting a gig tonight with a woman who plays keys,gtr and sings. It will be standards and originals. She wants me to just fill up the song in real time. We are doing this in a bar situation. Ive done this a number of other times, but never on a regular basis. We are thinking of doing this every monday night. WHo knows it could develop into something.

When Ive played with her before sometimes we would start with a melody and build, the pressure is there cause youve got to move quick and improvise. I had been trying to find people to play with on monday nights and havent been able to get a steady thing going.

Im sure I will post up how it goes.

Rythym thats smart to experiment with different tempos. A lot of times in my haste to get something done I dont take the time and then get done and think man thats to fast or too slow.

Thanks for the reminders!

Great info RM.
I think I used to do this too but since I use the Key increasingly (could be a bad thing) find that they are starting to dictate what I do.

I think however being a loner at the moment also dictates a screwy mess as regards getting the right thing in place first. Great info, thanks again.

Chippy.

Rythym and Santos, Im starting a gig tonight with a woman who plays keys,gtr and sings. It will be standards and originals. She wants me to just fill up the song in real time. We are doing this in a bar situation. Ive done this a number of other times, but never on a regular basis. We are thinking of doing this every monday night. WHo knows it could develop into something.

When Ive played with her before sometimes we would start with a melody and build, the pressure is there cause youve got to move quick and improvise.

^^^ That sounds fun jw. Improvisation on a live setting is probably the most difficult to master. Its like you have to balance with thinking what to do next but still be "in the moment", all this while you are paying attention to the other musician's changes, and on top of everything, you still have to sound good. I think good guitar improvisers are people who have mastered their instruments or have been playing for a very long time where the instrument has become an extension of their self. Jw, I hope this becomes a regular gig for you because you are going to get so much enjoyment out of it.

Santos,

Im going to do this gig for a few monday evenings and see if we cn develop an audience and make some change out of it.

Very, Very different for me. Im used to high volume rocking out. This deal we played all kinds of genres that Im not used to. But I thought it went over well and the people there were enjoynig it and stayed for most of the night on a monday. I was given all the freedom to just solo or comp on top of the songs. I also got to do some of my own songs and some of my favs. Singing is not my strongest point, but I think I will develop this so in a few monthes I could go out and do gigs on my own. The only thing I need to get back into is some sampling or looping, like Paul does. Then I could do my own rythyms and solo over them in live time. My Delay Modeler will do 14 seconds or 28 seconds. I would kick it into a 2 chord jazz type thing and wail over the top, but Ive never really developed this skill. Ive always been a drums, bass, guitar type person so this is new territory for me.

Paralysis by analysis? Do you ever spend an ungodly amount of time tweaking a tune and can never seem to get it right? We don't spend anywhere near that amount of time (I wish I had that amount of time) on a tune. Songs just seem to naturally evolve on their own. There's almost no rhyme or reason to it. I can't force tunes to happen. We get something sounding halfway decent and put it in the repertoire and play it live for people. If they like it we find out quick. I can't tell you how many times we do something that I think is great and no crowd reaction and vice-versa. My musical "laboratory" is a live audience. Once we have a proven winner then we'll record it, try to keep it sounding "live."

I've done improv stuff where this one lead guy will give you signals. For example, say you're doing a blues thing in G, & you see him raise 2 fingers. That means you're gonna move to A, or up 2 frets. I couldn't quite understand all of his signals, not having played with him much, but I could usually catch on as other stuff changed. Dbl time, going soft, crescendos, the ppl who played with him regularly of course got it all, & it was like the entire band was his instrument as he flew along his fretboard.

I thought it was pretty neat, anyway. I've seen other ppl do this a time or two, but it was most often with jazz players, not rock or blues ppl.

Phil...I've done that using what's usually called the "Nashville Numbering System".

1. Root [if you're in A, 1 is A. In E, 1 is E]
4. Interval of a 4th [in A that would be D, in E it would be A, a 4th up.]
5. A 5th [ E, if you're in A, B if you're in E - a 5th up.]
and so forth.

First time I ever saw it I had no idea what was going on, but gradually figured it out, since I was following the progression by ear. Keyboard player held up 4 fingers, they went to D. Since the song was in A it wasn't hard to figure out, after a couple of times I knew what to expect.

I've always loved playing like that, which is why I like open mic nights so well. You never know what to expect. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, you know what not to try again. The best thing is, it will really make a musician out of you if you're an intermediate player. One night like that onstage is worth two months in the practice room...I did it for 3 years, when I started I was a pretty good player, but nothing to write home about. When it was over I had a reputation as one of the best musicians in the area. Several bands called me on a regular basis, not even bothering to hire a regular guitar player as long as I could make it. I loved every minute of it. Sometimes it was iffy, but usually it went pretty well, especially if I had played with the band a couple of times before.

JW I hope you have a great time with this, I'm jealous. I don't get to play much at all these days, and especially not under those conditions. Sometimes I really miss it...But I just found out we have an open mic night going locally on Mondays, I might try to start going when I can. Biggest problem is that work is sparse right now so gas to make the trip is not easy to manage, it's about 15 bucks a trip...so I might not manage to do it on a regular basis, but I will be there now and then. I can't wait...

Had my singer over yesterday morning.
We recorded "Sliding Rock:" lead vocals, and 2 harmony vocals - one rising and one falling.
I finished mixing that. Friday, the bassman comes over to add the final track.