Music Monday - #3
New Feature: Song Quotes
I am inaugurating a new feature for Music Monday. Each week I will post a snippet of a song lyric or two that has connected with me in some way, for one of any number of reasons, at some point in my life.
Like most young people, I used to pore over the lyrics of songs by bands and artists that meant something to me. I still do. I would seek out songs that spoke to me, that articulated things I couldn't say, with my limited emotional vocabulary.
This week, I'm offering up a bit of Paul Simon's 1975 classic "My Little Town, as recorded by Simon and Garfunkel on their last studio album. I found the notion of imagination being that which colored the world quite compelling at the time. Then again, I was all of eighteen:
And after it rains
There's a rainbow
And all of the colors are black
It's not that the colors aren't there
It's just imagination they lack
Everything's the same
Back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
Nothing but the dead and dying
Back in my little town
As for downloads, I wanted to do something a little different today.
I have uploaded four tunes I assembled in Garageband over the past few months and wish to share them with you gentle blog readers. They are my creations, although I didn't play any instruments in them, and if you like them, feel free to pass them on to whomever you wish. As always, right-click to download, and feel free to give me your feedback and critique.
The first track was something that I put together last December, as a gift for my blog readers. I know that a number of you have doubtless heard it, but I'm uploading it again, as there are a few regulars who started reading this blog since then.
It was assembled from about a dozen different loops, including the snippet of voice that you hear at the beginning, from several different collections of loops. The synth is a classic Arp from a free Virus loop sample that I got off a CD that came with a magazine, the voice was from another, the truck and crash from yet another, and most the other loops came with Garageband. The whole thing just grew and ended up as you hear it. I didn't intend to end with a crash, but it seemed appropriate, even if a wee bit cliched.
The second track was actually started on Father's Day, 2004. AE helped me pick out different loops, but the idea was mine. I used several Middle Eastern and Indian string loops, some banjo and a few African drum loops. I think there ended up being about a dozen or more loops used. It was mostly finished last summer, but I didn't like the way things ended up, so I removed a couple things, added a couple things and remixed the whole mess from the raw tracks this weekend, and I'm much more pleased with how this mix turned out.
The third track was thrown together on Sunday afternoon, in about an hour or two, from about fifteen guitar, bass, drum and percussion loops. I call it a jam because it sounds like that to me. It has a bit of a new rock feel with some twists. If I ever decide to re-work it, I will probably change the drum and percussion to make it a bit more interesting. There are a couple of places where I'd like to at least just remix certain elements - bury them in the mix a little, increase or decrease volume, reposition for stereo - but I kind of liked how it ended up.
The last piece was assembled from about six different string loops (cello and viola, I believe) and a sythesized guitar loop, with a bit of echo and delay thrown in for efffect. There are only a few dozen orchestral loops available in the origianl Garageband loop package, but there are now four more packs out, with one exclusively of strings, horns and woodwinds and the like. I'll probably put the pack on my birthday wish list. Then again, I will probably also get a MIDI based keyboard so I can play around with inputing stuff of my own.
I hope you all find something you can enjoy.
Jezzy blogs her Tori Amos Collection, and the Tori Amos Concert she attended this last weekend in her hometown of Sydney, Australia.
Drew, of Darn Floor, has a link for his MP3 Of The Week to the complete, out-of-print Ashley Cleveland album Big Town.
Some 77's rare demo and practice stuff, available for download on their website. Click one 'Media' and the click on the tape reel from here.
posted by Muzzy @ 10:02 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Thanks for the link. I think "Big Town" is Ashley's best album, though the follow-up, "Bus Named Desire," is quite good as well. I lost track of her after that, probably because radio lost track of her as well.
And . . . ooo! 77s!
Thanks for the links!
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