I just sat down to listen to this and I had to play it again for my partner so she could see what I was so happy to listen to. Thank you for a delight.
So, truth be told, how many times did it take to deliberately screw up some of the timing and all? That's not all that easy to do!
Chris, I hope we get to hear a lot more of your songs in the future. Well done!
Peace
So, truth be told, how many times did it take to deliberately screw up some of the timing and all? That's not all that easy to do!
It's a natural talent of mine. :wink:
To be honest, the song is entirely autobiographical, and the messy bits were my normal outcome, and the smoother sections the lucky accidents. I think that the "Mojo" that Nick speaks about just happened to call briefly by during some of the passages. The "look at that pinkie go" talking part was scripted, but the other two asides were just ad-libs on that take. I did stuff up the breathing (several times), and make all the other mistakes (also more than once). :oops:
I took a term or so of starter lessons a couple of years ago, but mostly my learning path has consisted of highly undisciplined random noodling and improvising. This is fine when I'm just mucking about and day-dreaming, but it makes for some rude awakenings when I try and deliberately get a particular outcome. As Blind Kiwi pointed out, the confidence began to build as I went along, so some of it went quite well - although I did start to run out of vocal steam again at the end. But because of the theme of the song, none of that mattered.
I really do have trouble counting the bars, and whatever happened between the verses was just luck. And that really was the first song I've ever got around to singing all the way through, instead of incomplete bits. I did three 'takes' - the first was pretty similar, the second attempt at a recording was using an acoustic guitar (on that take I actually changed to a G chord at one stage, for some unknown reason. :shock: ) and the third take seemed a good enough balance between bad and forgivably OK. I absolutely must now spend some time taking Raystrack's advice about learning how to play on one track and sing on another. When I tried it once before I ended up helpless with laughter it was so bad. I really did have no idea when to start singing and when to stop, and had no clue when the next change was coming or where I was in the song. Complete disaster. It's the price you play for mucking around too much and not putting in enough time following a set score or getting the basic timing and ear skills nailed down, I guess. So I do have a lot of work to do, but at least I now have a direction and a bit more focus.
Despite the 'battered old acoustic' feel of the song, I was playing my Epi SG400 through a Johnson Blueline amp and recording the whole lot through a small condenser mic. That's what happens to me - I start out trying to sound like AC/DC and it comes out sounding like a combination of Frank Ifield and Woody Guthrie.... 8) Still, they're not to be sneezed at as role models either, I suppose.
Thank you all so much for your very generous support. My next effort at songwriting here is sure to be harder, but I'm determined to keep the ball rolling now that you've all kindly helped push start it.
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris
Just excellent - so enjoyable, so easy to relate to and so cleverly written. You've done the hard part and that's to get your first song done and up here so let's hope we see a whole lot more from you in the near future.
Excellent stuff
Bob :D
You are what you eat, eat well
