Yr9-Wk44 My Notes

[CitiZenNoir]

Hi all (%

I'm going to make an attempt to jump in here again at this point.
I've been really feeling the need to write a song lately. Problem is, I've been severely blocked for the longest of times.
I did manage to churn out what I feel is right up there with my finest when I wrote my last one.
Alas, it didn't get me out of the writers block. Went right back into it.

I've really liked some of the topics from Nick. Especially 33 & 34 (I believe?)
I think I brought up writing a song from a picture long ago. Nick brought that a step furthur and put it in 3D!
As for the writing lyrics to fit in to an existing current hit song.... Wasn't that suppose to be a multi-part assignment?
I thought I read Nick say somewhere that he would tell us what to do with the lyrics in the week following....?

Anyway, I'll try and keep up.

Monday - I had written a PM to someone earlier today. I thought it was somewhat poetic in parts, so I was giving it a look over.
Copy/pasted it to 'WordPad' (where I do most of my song writing and idea putting).
Set about to block/blank out certain words to give it more of a fill in the blanks inspiration to move it more toward possible lyrical direction. Fortuitously, it was at this moment that Jimi Hendrix came on doing Little Wing.
SPOILER ALERT - Little Wing is a song whereby Jimi personifies a beloved city. He transforms Monterey, CA into a fun, freedom loving, yet dependable & dedicated, caring soul of a girl.
So, I felt it was time that I should write a song about a favorite city. Right now, I favor the Jimi treatment: The city being completely personified. Although, Morrison's LA Woman and RHCP's Under the Bridge (which contains 3 song elements: Song about LA, sad love song, and a song about struggling with dependency) wont be overlooked as options.
The PM seems to lean more toward the darker side of Morrison/RHCP, though that might not get used for this in the end.

Oh, term of endearment
What have the _____ done to you!?

I noticed that in all the _________ from the ______, there emerged a different you - You had become _________

Even our little meeting at ______ - I thought you were so sweet.... Very different from the somewhat cynical and devilish person you once were

The ______ are full of decay - So much so that it starts to take your soul with it. Such petty little people....

[CitiZenNoir]

Tuesday - I've been getting into Jazz Fusion of sorts lately. Actually, the Jazzier aspects of Jimi Hendrix (Blues/Jazz), The Doors (Indian/Jazz), and Early Santana (Latin/Jazz).
Researching an idea for a Tattoo, I came across the connection between Cicadas and Provence (France). (No, the tattoo has nothing ta do with Cicadas). This got me thinking back to my teen years, driving down the backroads in my beloved '67 Ranchero, cool summer nights, barefoot, windows down, and the fantastic doppler effect of the singing Cicada's swelling in and out of my head like waves crashing on some alien distant beach - (psilocybin may or may not have been a factor). Anyway, I used to really dig the Cicada's singing away

So, I thought, why not do a Jazz Fusion song with samples of real Cicadas as part of the music.
Chanson D'amour des Cigale (In French for their connection to Provence). Though, it seems they're quite revered by the Japanese as well. So, I think the music shall be of oriental flavor. Oriental/Jazz

[dhodge]

Now that cicada idea sounds very intriguing. Would make a very cool rhythm track and you could use a number of possible instruments for all sorts of contrasting layers. For some reason my head is hearing both vibes and a single distorted guitar. Maybe tablas.

Peace

[Chris C]

Hi Ken,

Lovely word "Cigale" - it takes me back to staying with a family in France at their beachside holiday home (a splendidly tatty old building that was once a small hotel). Apparent Massenet wrote a two act ballet called Les Cigale.

Hope you get to work on the idea. Vicki had a brief holiday in Bali last week and brought me back a CD of local music (which I liked) but they'd added birdsong, waterfall sounds, etc in order to sell to the 'mood and relaxation' market. In that case it sounded mostly slapped on top in a fairly random way and was therefore sometimes more distracting than complementary. How would you treat the cicada sounds? Would you use them like a constant drone instrument, or fade them up and down in spots, or maybe even take a short sample and experiment with some subtle pitch shifting? Hmmm... pitch shifted cicadas... Mexican sine wave??...

Cheers,

Chris

[CitiZenNoir]

Hi, David

Thankx for the read and the interest!

I can certainly see where you're coming from. Although, I have a distinctly oriental sound going on in my head with this one.
I'm guessing mostly a Japanese feel....? With bamboo flute, and those little bells that sustain for a bit (not sure if the bells are Japanese or not?) Def guitar, with a sorta sliding Japanese stringed sound. Maybe just regular drums in a jazzy way.

Though, the vibe/tabla bit sounds like it would be nice as well. If you have something in mind, and you're really intrigued by it, please feel free to play around with the idea. I'd love to hear it

Thankx again. And great to see you (%

Ken

[CitiZenNoir]

Chris

Yes, Cigale is a beautiful word. Especially if you say it like.... say, Charles Boyer (or at least, Pepe le Pew!)

I know what you're saying about the mood music. Not into that either. It would be part of the sound/music rather than
superimposed over it, for sure. Something that our own, Arjen did is stuck in my head as an influence for this. If I can dig up the song, I'll throw it up here so you can see what I mean. In addition to it being Japanese/Jazz, I sort of want it to be a bit psychedelic, perhaps. So maybe altering the sound of the real Cicada a bit with pitch shifting could be a possibility....? (%

I see it more as a drone effect throughout the piece, but like David said - there's a huge rhythmic possibility there as well.
The trick would be to steer clear of being overly kitschy with it. Say, if you took the opening to Strawberry Fields and instead of the mellotron used crickets chirping, and then the last note before the vocals came in - a long Cicada drone.... That could be neat, or it might border on Kitsch. So, I think some experimenting is in order

If I have time this weekend, I'll see if I can't throw together a short clip of what I'm thinking.

Thankx for the read and the reply, Chris

Ken

[CitiZenNoir]

Wednesday - So, sticking with the Jazz fusion motif, I'll draw some inspiration from my favorite album for this one: Van Morrison's, Astral Weeks.

The idea is a song called - Stars and Stones. Sort of a Jimi inspired bit about Stars and Planets.... The cosmos at the dawn of time. I've always been fascinated with the idea of 'the better half', or 'soul mates'. So, with this we have soul mates who are together in the cosmos, end up on earth together, meet, and go through the process of being together in the cosmos again and then back to earth, again and again, until they get it right. Sort of a tale of rebirth and reincarnation. Of eternal love and all it's struggles.... and glory.

Possible lines - Before the stars and the stones there was always you and me.
Or - Since the beginning there was you and I. Without form, without time....

Ken

[jamestoffee]

So, with this we have soul mates who are together in the cosmos, end up on earth together, meet, and go through the process of being together in the cosmos again and then back to earth, again and again, until they get it right. Sort of a tale of rebirth and reincarnation. Of eternal love and all it's struggles.... and glory.

Good idea. It reminds me of the movie Hancock
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock_%28film%29

[John Sargent]

Your log got me thinking about a Bob Dylan tune, not sure of the name but one line is "The Locust Sang off in the distance". I think they minimally used an insect sound in it.
On your Oriental sound, I thought od a couple albums by a group named "Jade Warrior" lots of flutes, drums, ethereal guitar, bells, tiny cymbals, wood sticks etc.

[CitiZenNoir]

Thursday and Friday - I got nuthin'. Work got a bit too crazy this week with this being a holiday weekend

MrEWorm - Thankx for the look and the reply

I'm pretty big on Dylan, though I have to admit, I've not heard that song before. It's called, 'Day of the Locusts' off of 1970's New Morning album. I gave it a listen on utube and really liked it
Cool back-story to the song as well.

Listened to a couple by Jade Warrior, too. Think I can get into that. Thankx for the suggestion

James

Never saw the movie, Hancock. Checked your helpful link though. Interesting. From what I read, it's not quite what I had in mind for the tale.... at least not in an immediate sense.
Though, perhaps their story was a bit helpful to me. From what I understood, they were paired at creation (or there-abouts) and set on the world together. Both having super powers.... Powers that diminish more and more the closer they get with each other. That was a bit puzzling to me....? Why were they paired if they couldn't be together? Was it something of a price to pay for Love? Do they have to choose between either having super powers (which can give them seeming immortality), or togetherness (which renders their powers nil and they lose immortality)?

With that in mind, I guess that's the rub, aye? For lovers to be together, something great must always be sacrificed. Every great story contains conflict, and the best sort, is inner conflict. No conflict, no story

Thankx for that, James

Ken

ps - sorry I haven't had time to look at anybody else's logs yet.

[CitiZenNoir]

Wednesday -
I came up with the first part of this in the shower today (I write a lot of my lyrics there).
And the last part in the car.
This is it, just as it came out. Might need some revising. And maybe more direction.
Picture it against a Jazz background with a repeating groovy bass vamp.
It's not meant to be symmetrical.

of all the people
I have been
well, I have never cared
for any of them
.... except-for-him
THE ONE YOU LOVED

of all the places
I have lived
Your heart was the most
...........................
................. Beautiful

all the things I would give
to be there with You now

to be anywhere with You

Ken

[jamestoffee]

Wednesday looks like a good start....person to be = person loved by you.....place to be = near you......something to give = ? have you back again......or you have the makings of a nouns you could use as an out line.....person....place.....thing.....idea

[Chris C]

Wednesday -
I came up with the first part of this in the shower today (I write a lot of my lyrics there).
And the last part in the car.
This is it, just as it came out. Might need some revising. And maybe more direction.
Picture it against a Jazz background with a repeating groovy bass vamp.
It's not meant to be symmetrical.

of all the people
I have been
well, I have never cared
for any of them
.... except-for-him
THE ONE YOU LOVED

SNIP...

I like that idea a lot Ken. I hope you keep going with it.

The shower is a wonderful place to write lyrics isn't it. I saw an interview with a very successful writer/performer talking about writing some of his hits in the shower and beating time on his chest as he improvised the lyrics.

I find that early morning is a great time for lyrics - you can often get the benefit from all the subconscious overnight work the brain might have done on an idea. So the wakeup shower can be a great time for songwriting. I've put together the major chunk of more than one song like that. Of course, there's then the dash to the pen or computer to get it all down once you've dried off!

Hope we get to see/hear more of that one.

Cheers,

Chris

[CitiZenNoir]

James

Thankx for the look

I like the noun bit. Completely escaped my notice!
Thankx for pointing that out
Maybe that'll take it somewhere.

Going back to the soul mate/cosmos idea....
I was brushing up a bit on my Eastern philosophy a few days ago.
Ended up reading about Karma at one point.
It seems the goal is not to have good karma, but to end up with no karma at all and get to Nirvana.
Until then, round and round you go.
I guess that's sorta what I was after with that story line, in a way. Except pertaining to the souls of two lovers
trying to achieve that and make it there together.

Chris

Thankx for the kind words and encouragement

Yes, the shower holds some strange powers indeed.
I don't know if it's the feeling of safety, the solitude, the sound of the water, the sense of regeneration....?
It does free the mind to relax though (Until you have to dash out soaking wet and write it down, yes!)

The subconscious mornings are magical too, yes!
Though, I don't find myself writing as much at that time.
Mostly, any problems I have that were unsolvable the day before are cleared up when I wake.
Mysteries are solved.... things of that nature.

Ken

[CitiZenNoir]

Thursday - Who Are You Tonight
That's all I got

*edit
So, as I was doing something menial with my mind disengaged, I came up with this:

it took You so long to put Us behind
tell me.... who are You, this time

(Night rhymes with time)

And I smiled to myself - Who are You, this time, sounds much better than Who are You tonight!
Then the smile ran away from my face - It sounded better because it sounded familiar.
I punched it into Google, and just as I expected - Tom Waits had beat me to it!
Oh well