Music and humanity

I've been thinking lately about what music is & how we process it as human beings. What is it about music that moves us and why does one piece touch us profoundly while another leaves us unmoved? I'm not sure if it's possible to actually answer this question, it could be something that is better off left undicovered for fear of reducing it's magic. Imagine being able to reduce the beauty of art to a mathematical formula?? How boring. But the idea is interesting and worth considering to some degree. To get us started on this subject, attached is a beautiful talk on classical music by the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, Benjamin Zander. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did & it gets you thinking not only about how you listen to music but also about life itself.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day 2011. It's been a good year & I have a lot to be grateful for so my thanks goes out to God for everything I'm lucky enough to have and experience every day, particularly my health, my family and my friends.

Here's a little Christmas ditty from the fantastic Wellington two piece Rock'nRoll band 'The Hasslehoff Experiment'.. Ho ho ho...

Mojo Cafe - 16 December 2011

Intro

Do It Right
Lullaby
Control
The Old Man & The Sea
Heavens Above
Poison Tree
Let Me Count The Ways I Love You

Played Mojo Cafe again on Friday night, it got pretty crazy busy and was standing room for those who didn't arrive early. Considering I've been asked to host three nights in 2012 it was reassuring to see how easy it is to fill the place.

Anyway my set went ok, I had Matt sit in on the first two tracks. The first being an instrumental which he learned the piano accordian to accompany me on. Pretty phenomenal effort to get that instrument down in three weeks, and the second he did some percussion and vocals on the choruses of 'Do it right' which was the highlight of the set for me, along with the final track. Debuted a new song which I've tentatively titled 'Heaven's above'. I think it's a good song but I don't think I played it very well for it's first outing on Friday, I want to try it on my electric and dirty it up a bit, I think it would suit that more than straight acoustic guitar. I also had a few issues with my voice, I've had a pretty nasty cough for the past month which resulted in my vocals being pretty scratchy. I got through ok but have definately sung better.

Overall I give the show a 6.5/10, some good moments, the old man and the sea, do it right, mixed with some average, but I'm happy with it. Any time I get to play is worth it and I got to play with some of my Uke crew for the final song. I had three lined up to play but unfortunately one had to drop out at the last minute. Still, the other two (Angie & Ty) came through and we had a nice little hand clap thing going with the crowd:

Love that tune..

PS: If you're digging the shirt, it's from the awesome Duncan & Prudence - Newtown, WGTN. Alright!!

Where did you sleep last night?

As a Nirvana fan I was aware that the final song from their unplugged session, 'Where did you sleep last night?', was a cover of a Leadbelly track but I had never taken the time to check out the original. I know, shame on me! Well, I finally got around to picking up a cd and it's been a really pleasant surprise. I've been on a bit of a blues crusade lately, Son House, Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson (more on him another time) & I find Leadbelly to be a lot poppier than the other artists. You can hear it in this track, the basic strum, the chord structure , verse/chorus/verse, it's all pop. This may have been what attracted Kurt to him in the first place, as Nirvana's music is basically just high end pop artfully hidden behind noise, but I guess we'll never know.
Anyway, I put this track up because I think it's hauntingly beautiful in a way that only these old blues tracks seem to be. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:

Lordy, Lordy, Lordy - Recording

Paul setting up pro-tools

I've been trying to hammer the recording lately to get this goddamn record finished. I've recorded about 6 times over the last couple of weeks, twice doing demo's for 'trouble' & 'let me count the ways I love you' & the other times recording and re-recording the guitar parts for 'In the meantime'. It's the opening track on the album so is vitally important that it has an immediate impact. The good thing about the work that I've done so far is that I've come to an understanding about what I want. It'll be a double guitar track with one doing lead and the other rhythm. It sounds good but I just haven't been able to get the guitar sound I'm after. It's either too fuzzy, or too clean, or too hollow, everything except what I can hear in my head. I'm heading back in tomorrow to keep trying. It's been a frustrating couple of weeks doing the same track over & over again. As you can see we've been trying a few different recording techniques to get a decent guitar sound:

But nothings working yet. I really want to get this record finished by my birthday, March 1, so will keep persevering until I get the sound I'm after. Once this is done it's just the guitar parts for Secret Garden & Only a fool. Once that's done it's a clear run to the end with BV's and mixing. God, I'll be so glad once this is finished!

Meow Cafe - 05 November 2011

Played Meow Cafe last night in support of the Rodrigo Brothers. The boys just wanted someone to play some tunes after their gig so they could sit back & relax with their crew so I played a 10 track set that was fairly low key:

It's all just a joke anyway
This old house
Do it right
Only a fool
Poison tree
The old man and the sea
I remember
Trouble
Together, Forever
Let me count the ways I love you

I thought I played alright, my voice was surprisingly sharp considering I haven't gigged in a couple of months. It usually takes a while for my vocals to warm up but I felt good right off the bat. I played alright too, it helped that it wasn't 'my' night so there was nothing to be nervous about, I just jumped up & played. I'm still a few songs short of a good hour long consistantly good set. I have the songs but without help I'm limited with what song choices I can choose. For example I can't play most of the Pisces tunes because they need the full band to flesh them out & a lot of my solo tunes are quite delicate and requires the listener to really be paying attention. I think I need about three really strong solo songs that I can play when my audience starts to drift. At the moment I'm struggling to hold a pub audience for a full set. It's different in a more intimate setting but it's not always going to be like that. It just means I need to go up another level and find some bigger songs.

Overall I give the set a 6/10. Some good moments but it also showed a lack of substance in some of the songs when I'm playing in a louder 'pub' type atmosphere.

It was a fun show

Portrait - 03 Sept 2011

An early mix of 'Portrait of the young man as an artist', there was a 12 string in Allan's studio on the day of the recording which I used, which has added to the track hugely imo. There's about 20 sec of silence before the song actually kicks in. There's only really BV's to add & it's done. I may re-do the harp, but the guts of the track is there.
Portrait3sep11 by Martin Andrews