Comments, Complaints, Concerns, etc.,

Nice to see you back, Pearl! Yes, I saw the footage of the London riots on the News.....I take it you had a good time then?

This week's topic - week 36 - is a topical one for me. I'm moving house today - going to stay at my daughter's for a while. She doesn't have an internet connection, so I'm hoping (actually, PRAYING!) there's a wi-fi hotspot nearby...otherwise I don't know when I'll get a chance to log in again. Once again I'm amazed at the psychic powers of Mr Hodge........!

See you round, soon hopefully....

:D :D :D

Vic

i had a GREAT time! My friends who are there are going bankrupt living there so i don't think i'll be moving. Wait...that may be my subject matter....

And, to make it more interesting, I'd like to incorporate an idea that I got from Vic just this morning:

One of these days I really will learn to keep my stupid mouth shut............!!!!!
Maybe you've somehow ended up in "The Village" and found yourself having a spot of tea with Number 6.

Been there, done that. We used to go to Wales every May for a week in a caravan, owned by a friend of my mothers - Dad used to love driving round those little country lanes, and one year he took us to Portmeirion. Amazing place! I actually got to go up the clock tower.....never saw Rover, though, that was a bit of a let-down!

There's actually a monument there to the summer of 1960 - apparently it was the hottest on record. I remember my dad telling me hot summers came in cycles - 1944 was an absolute scorcher. Unfortunately, he wasn't around to see the summer of 76, which was (then) the hottest ever - 1992 wasn't bad, either. Extrapolating that cycle, 2008 should be a hot one - but so far, we've had nothing but rain. I took a couple of video clips on Midsummers (hah!) Day - I'll try and dig them out.
Next weekend, I'll be at the 2008 Riverside Jam, playing music with old and new friends until the cows come home, as they say.

Ooh, I am SOOOO jealous - but I hope you, and all the other participants - Greg, Kath, Nick, Dan and Laura, Karen, Celt, etc - have a GREAT time. Make sure someone takes a video camera, or failing that, a digicam that can take video clips!

I'll be there with you in spirit, cheering from the sidelines!

:D :D :D

Vic

Ooh, I am SOOOO jealous - but I hope you, and all the other participants - Greg, Kath, Nick, Dan and Laura, Karen, Celt, etc - have a GREAT time.

Thanks Vic,

Unfortunately family commitments will not allow me to be there with the others this year
as planned. So I will join you in wishing them the blessings of good friends, good food and
Great Jams.

But we're working on getting something else for John to join in on!

Celt, this is early and still tentative, but if you can keep either Saturday, September 13 or Sunday, September 14 open, you might get to jam with a GN moderator you've not met yet...

Peace

David,

Sunday September 14 is out but Saturday may be doable.

Do I get any hints or should I just enjoy the suspense?

No hints just yet as I've just gotten notice from Karen that the dates may have to be changed to protect the innocent...

I'll call (and PM) you on this, but probably not until we get back from Chicago...

Hope the suspense doesn't give you too much stress :wink:

Peace

Hi... just wanted to say goodbye- I'll be in Sweden for the next 7 or so months and at least the 1st of those months I might not be able to check on SSG. See you around the boards as soon as I've got access to internet again :D
Otherwise, have a great August!

Cheers,
straycat.

Anne,

have a great time in Sweden

cheers
Paul

Re - week 43.

Funny one for us Europeans, this - we Brits are not going to have a coin in our pockets older than 1971.....that's when we changed from the old Pounds, Shillings and Pence to decimal currency, and all the pre-decimal coins are now out of circulation....

It's even worse for the Europeans - if Nuno(Spain) and Arjen(Netherlands) were SSG writers, the earliest date they'd be able to find would be about 2004 or so when most of mainland Europe changed to the Euro.....our own dear (and sadly, for the moment, missing!) Straycat would be struggling, too - no more Deutschmarks.....

BTW, just a little off-topic, but still on the subject of money - the Pound's taken a real hammering against the Dollar just lately, a few weeks back when Pearlthekat came to London, it was around £1 = $1.98.....now it's around $1.82 and falling by the day.....

:D :D :D

Vic

Any alternate or open tuning is fair game provided you have not used it before in other of your original material. So Open G is out for you, Vic! You might try DADGAD or even something as elegantly simple as EADF#BE.

He's picking on me again!!! Open D's out, too - I used that for "Back On Track" in week 40. Don't like DADGAD - I tried "Kashmir" not long ago and had a lot of trouble with it. I DO love a challenge, though....brings out the competitive beast in me. Anyway, I thought, "What if I tuned to DADGAD, then raised the G to an A....DADAAD? D5 tuning? Well if E5 or Eb5 tuning's good enough for Steven Stills, I'll give D5 a shot.

So I'm currently noodling around in said D5 tuning - and I must say, I do like the sound of it! There's a vaguely exotic drone to it, and it's fairly easy to play a melody over chords.....

I think I'm going to enjoy this assignment, nice one David!

:D :D :D

Vic

We try to please, Vic. Or we try to please Vic, whichever phrase works. :wink:

I love DADGAD, but it does take some getting used to. It may be because I use it in numerous songs already. Since you like open tunings, Vic, why not try out something like open D minor, or open G minor sometime? Or open Gmaj7 (tuning the G (third) string down to F#)? Might prove interesting.

In a way, it's kind of funny, because when the Sunday Composers' Group was in its formulative stage, it was this sort of assignment that I thought would tie in very well with the SSG assignments. My original idea (based solely on most of the feedback that was calling for the creation of the Composers Forum) was to work more on general songwriting via music tasks such as using an alternate tuning, or maybe everyone starting with the same bass line or drum track to come up with a song, things of that nature.

So maybe we'll use some of these ideas here and see what happens. My biggest concern with the SSG has always been that we concern ourselves with all the aspects of songwriting, which obviously means the music. This isn't easy, especially in how we've evolved over the past six years, but I think it's certainly within our grasp. Thoughts?

Peace

Well - I've got the lyrics, I've got the music - in DADAAD (D5?) tuning - just got to put them together now and smooth out the rough edges, then record the darn thing. I definitely like this tuning - I found it very easy to get a melody going over basic chords. I'm definitely enjoying this assignment from a lyrical standpoint, too - far different to anything I've written before. I hope I'm not setting myself up for a fall here, but this has all seemed to come together almost too easily.....

Oh well, back to the music!

:D :D :D

Vic

So friday, I was talking to one of the guys at work who is a guitar player and a bit of a songwriter....
I was telling him about the idea I had gotten that morning in the shower for week 44's assignment.

He revealed that all of his songs were autobiographical.

That got me to thinking that prior to taking on SSG assignments, all of MY songs were autobiographical as well.

And I remembered how much I grew to hate writing yet ANOTHER song about ME!

It was like living your life looking in the mirror ALL the time.
Now, that might be fascinating for a brief amount of time.... or under the influence of certain psychedelics :twisted:
though certainly no way to go thru life!

So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank David, if not for 'pushing' me to write about something other than myself,
at least as THE impetus of my new found creations:

THANK YOU David :D

Just going with the last four songs I have posted here;
I have one that was inspired by a scene from a German music video from a band that I had never heard of (thankx Anne :wink: ),
one where I take on the persona of a GIRL and her diary, one from the perspective of Pamela Courson, and this latest one.... from the mind of a voluntarily commited psych patient thru a letter to his wife.

Those are some pretty big stretches :D 8)
And I've been quite pleased with what I've come up with.
I really feel that I have grown much as a writer thankx to the SSG forum.

Again - Thank You David, for showing me a world filled with wonder; and thankx to all of YOU for your wonderful support :D

Ken

Hi :D

Sorry that I haven't been around much lately.
As I've stated in the 'why are you here' thread, I can be kinda moody at times....
and lately, it has been one of those times.

I'm going to attribute it to a severe lack of sunlight here in the changing of the seasons;
I think that has really got me in a down and overly sensitive mood.
My apologies for being so grouchy.

Also, I've acquired Harmony's old keyboard set and have been fooling with that a bit.
(In addition to now working with samples in my recordings, and trying to get a handle on 'producing' tracks)

I'm also working on some of my own songs.... and am about to take the next step in a specific style of 'lyricizing'.
So.... be ready for ever more bizarre things to come :twisted:

Ken