Waltz of the Flowers - ACCORDION

This first draft of Waltz of the Flowers will need to be revised.  But the 2 hour to make it was put in!

"Face of a Clock" - Guitar Chords

Some rough note for Music Notation programming

"Face of a Clock" guitar chords Learn these!

"Afraid of the Dark" guitar chords - Am and E7

The Bass Line is the key to this song.   

"Allegretto" - Franz Haydn

"I Me Mine" Beatles Loop Verse

The song "I, Me, Mine" by the Beatles is known as the last song recorded by the Beatles.  I was reading that Phil Spector took the recordings and looped the second verse to make a final third verse.  I was surprised to read this and took the song's verses and played them side by side (Verse 1)  favoring the right speakers and (Verse 2) favoring the left.

To my disbelief there was playing the exact same piece of recorded music.  I gather because it such a fine piece of work, that when you do loop it you don't even notice because it's so fluid.  I had tried this with my own tracks (in creating a backing track and on a full chorus) that I wanted longer.

I actually like the orchestrations even though Paul McCartney and the Beatles may have not liked what Phil Spector added. I wrote a song called "The Climb" which was also a "Heavy Waltz" in 6/8.

Rewriting Lyrics (Day 4)

Listen to this song 

as it's being created updated and fixed!

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http://soundcloud.com/you/tracks

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"Dark Cloud" 

There’s no sun today, all the sky is grey

(the weatherman said that there might be rain

but were really not sure what the day will bring)

I know you could complain

but just have some faith, it all could change

Every Cloud has it's Silver Lining

              

Spot the misty rain, turns the Weathervane

(You may wanna take your umbrella and coat

you don’t want a cold or a bad soar throat)

and though it’s not all that great 

you’ll just have to wait, you’ll just have to wait                       

Every Cloud has it's Silver Lining

(in such a Magical way)

It will be God's perfect timing

Every Cloud has it's Silver Lining

You can count on it soon shining

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VERSE EFFECT

After writing the lyrics over I found there was a large middle section missing words.  I never loved how this section was performed so I decided to write some other lyric that was to be sung or spoken coming from a small "radio".

KEY WORDS

After rewriting these section I found that it made the entire support verse stronger.  So I decided to go into the other verses and exhaust myself .  I look for "key words" words like 


Weatherman
Weathervane, misty rain
umbrella and coat, soar throat
complain, faith, change


VERSE EFFECT
I always wanted to have the tail end of a sentence 'echo' or 'delay' after the last word is sung.  So I found this song was perfect to try it on.   I had to struggle for about 20 minutes to get the right type of echo until I felt it was comfortably sitting in the track.

MISSING GUITAR

Lastly I wanted to add some acoustic guitar and spent on hour on it but was not happy with my performance and threw it out. 

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"Dark Cloud"

 There’s no sun today, all the sky is grey

You might, think it’s a waste 

but just have some faith

it’s not gonna to stay

Every Cloud has it's Silver Lining

Drops of mystery rain, pave the darkened lane

and though, it’s not that great

It's not much longer, that you'll have to wait

Every Cloud has it's Silver Lining

It will be God's perfect timing

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

It will be God's perfect timing

Soon, you’ll stop and say,

“Look all these clouds, have gone away”


2:34

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While working in Garage Band I experience a loud violent sound and had to power down the program. What could be causing this??  It is indeed horrible and should not happen.  

This song is highly influenced by the work of Madness's "The Sun and the Rain", "Dreaming Man", Harry Nilsson's "My Old Desk" and the Beatles "Benefit of Mr. Kite" but think I am finding my own voice and sound.  This kind of swing feel has a certain piano + drum groove that is hard to get just right.  


The passing notes on the baseline going down and following it to where ever it may lead you.  "Good Old Desk" does the same thing with the chords moving two measure and later same thing but twice as fast.

Hum I was going to post but . . .

Hum I was going to post but . . .

After three days of work, I finally got together my hand written pencil music that I wrote out by hand.  But for some reason the brand new computer has been has be acting up.  The mouse and the keyboard. Mouse is sticking and I hate it!!

The four documents I scanned looked ok and so I went to upload but I kept getting the "error message"

"FACE OF A CLOCK" has finally got words and I did recordings with some guitar and accordion overlays.  The basic track was looped three or four times and then I did the over dubs.

It's too bad the computer will not accept jpeg today.   I thought that was such a universal method of upload picture files.   Well not today.

let's see if I can even post this rant I just made . . . or will it do more weird stuff just to frustrate me?

This photo is from my sister Jill's Wedding that I was asked to D.J.

"Off to the Hunt"

This is meant to be played as Fox Hunting engages on the meadow.  You know, the red-coated English-styled riders behind a pack of hounds? They are tracking down the fox to protect farmers crops from devastation. Tally Ho!

Also learning to play this week is "Minuet".  Challenging

"Michelle" for Guitar

"Michelle" for Guitar

Portable Stereo Microphone for the iPod

Now this is what I had been looking for.  Something that's strong and will let you record stereo where ever you go.  This was $200 but but well worth it when I saw it included inputs for XLR cables!  I can't wait to hear how great it records!

El Choclo

MADNESS

MADNESS

One of the best bands of it's time.

"Strawberry Rag" "Grinch Ending"

Eric Abrahamson 3 section version of "Strawberry Rag".  This was inspired by taking the first bar of something I wrote then expanding on the idea.  Most of it is sixteen notes which you can play straight but also you can swing it.  

Dave Caballero's Ending that sounds similar to the Grinch.  The basses here are minor and fix into what I was learning on "El Choclo" which isn't that hard once you put some time in practicing.

Sugar Plum Fairy

This difficult piece of music is one of the most memorable Christmas songs from composer Peter Tchaikvosky from his Ballet the Nutcracker Suite.  Repeated themes in different voices in a single scale.  He uses many Chords but mostly explores the diminished chord.  The trouble I have is the two note voicing of the chords that seems to never follow or repeat.  There are two notes that outline a chord.

The last stanza repeats an interesting pattern using the circle of Fifths that leads you back to the top "Em". I find it 80% easier to think of the only the chords and then play the 3-7 to the 1-5 pattern.  The odd bass line is very simple octaves but the last chord changes to a V chord and the octave doesn't change pulling the two hemisphere of your brain apart. 

Lessons with Eric (Piano Abrahamson)

THEORY BOOK
pages 58 - 62

1) Scales: A minor (review), C Major (review)
                new E minor, G major )review)

      Practice hands separate then together, play as 1/2 notes

3) "At The Races" (Fix fingering last stanza)

4) "Water Lilies" - Slow (practice last two measures only)
                   Use my Octave Theory

5) "Minuet in G" - Bach

Plugging In Revisions

I have made new ideas that are variations and more detailed melodies that work over the same progression.  I am having trouble deciding weather to throw out the original or make a variation on the second time around.

What I decided to was to keep the original file, and make a copy with the changes, (hold on I have to correct some spelling).   Then I can go back and combined the two without loosing all the hours of work,  A wiser man a short amount of time, but I'd rather be the Tortious than the Hare.

PRINT MUSIC - Tutorials

Take the time to look through the Tutorials.  There are things you can learn in there to make things easier for you.

• Short cuts (holding down keys on the keyboard)  to switch from an eight note to a quarter notes 

          (less time + effort dragging place to place)

• Set up a mouse with two areas to click on (left + right), plus "zoom" 

          (Hold the command key)

These are rough notes from listening to yesterday's recording. After playing the song on the piano over and over trying to read what I wrote, the mistakes that I made were possible ideas for variations.  

While listening through the 12 minute recording, I'd look for 'good idea' that could be possible real parts to learn and add to the song.   I'd stopped, rewind and listened carefully to write down the notes and rhythms that I heard, in order so I can read + play it later.

This is very difficult and labor intensive, (It can not be done with someone else in the room talking to you about something else!) .  Even though I can read better I still have trouble looking at some notes to know what they are.  I can write notes down but not read them back as well.

This is the only way I know how to embellish and flush out a song properly!

EMBELLISH:

1. Make (something) more attractive by the addition of decorative details or features: 
2. "blue silk embellished with golden embroidery".
3. Make (a statement or story) more interesting or entertaining by adding extra details, esp. ones that are not true.

"On Time" Self Evaluation with New Edits + Mixes!!

1) Farm Town World

1. Seems to be playable.

2) Patiences

1. Seems to be listenable.

3) Place You Get To Go"

1. But when was the piano out and replaced by and organ! 
2. Seems to be pretty smooth.
3. Seems to be listenable.

4) "Work Smart" - Sounds good but needs work!!

1. Seems to be listenable but still questionable.

5) "Captain/ Jumps Ship/ Paradise Island"

1. English accent is strange.  I give it an 8.  Music sounds good though.
2. Background vocals are pretty good, in the back.
3. Transition sound fine, surprisingly no trouble.
4. Fade to wind
5. The title on this song changed from "SpeedBoat" to "Paradise Island"
6. This song was just notated.
7. Seems to be pretty listenable.

6) "Afraid of the Dark"

1. Afraid of the Dark (awkward lyric) 
2. Afraid of the Dark (5 plays) good version guitar good
3. Right lyric, good guitar in the background, weird fade
4. Seems to be listenable.

7) "Lone Ranger"

1. Good sound effect
2. strong lyric and lead vocal
3. Slightly screwed up guitar.
4. good sound sound effects
5. back background vocals
6. the machine guns are not cowboy guns
7. by 2:24 could start fading but it keep going!
8. 3:00 minutes!
9. Break with a horse sounds effect sound good
10. 3:32!

8) "Face of a Clock" - Sounds good but needs work!!

1. Good start but goes no where at all.
2. cut sooner to a vocal
3. Is there a vocal?
4. until :52 then it changes and slight distortion
5. Questionable!

9) "Day Turns Into Night"

1. strong start and lyric
2. blow away all this stuff I've had enough (drug reference?/ no)
3. Chorus sounds good in the headphones anyways)
4. No perfect but good.

10) •Waltz in G minor

1. Distorted near the end
2. Maybe remix after you get the others done.

11) •Zap!

• strong start 
• Very listenable
• good song
• keeps your attention!

12) Dark Cloud

• strong start no lyric
• Sounds good but needs work!!

ONYX - Blackjack

Tonight I took the "Left and Right" Line Outs I had on the computer headphone jack and went into  ONYX Black Jack "Outputs" .This instantly gave me a better signal and no more awkward protruding adapters.  If I have only know to do this before!

• Select Apple
• Drag down to "System Preferences" and Open 
• Select the "Sound' icon.  
• Then choose "Output" and switch from "Internal Speakers"
• to "ONYX Blackjack" USB

I was so happy to see the 'volume knob' on the hardware working,  9 time out of 10 things like this do not work for me!  I did a few edits to the end of 'Waltz in G minor" which I:

• Added a "phaser" effect to the first 35 seconds
• Removed the troubled areas 
• Cutting into the repeated sections 
• Shorted the ending by about 10 seconds (2:04) (1:
• Downside: You can hear the changes on the recording.

I could go back to the original tracks but would have to record the drums over.