Inner Clock

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For years I had heard about people developing their “inner clock” but had no idea what that really meant in practical terms. I just figured it was people playing with a metronome _all the time_. It wasn’t until I started going through this book that I bought a while back, “Bass Grooves: Develop Your Groove & Play Like the Pros in Any Style“, that I started to see one way of developing it.

Along with stylistic exercises this book has a whole section on playing to a partial click. Meaning, the metronome will only sound on certain beats (e.g. 1 & 3, or 2 & 4 or just beat 1, etc.) of every measure. At first the goal is to simply feel the beat accurately, independent of an instrument. The next step is to play a notated exercise against that click, with the goal of locking in with it yet sounding relaxed and musical at the same time. BPM starts at 40 and gradually moves up to 80.

At first this seemed impossible to me, but I took it slow and started getting the hang of it. I’m still in the early stages but can already feel a difference with my sense of timing. Looking forward to seeing what it can develop into.

Demolition Man

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Today I chose to notate the bass part of this classic jam by The Police. I love this riff. As I think about it, the bass line _is_ the song. There’s a lot that happens in the way of other parts being introduced throughout the piece (vocals, horns, guitar solos, drum fills, etc.) but the bass line never varies. It’s very hypnotic and beautiful in it’s simplicity. When you got something this cool why mess with it?

Marillion

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I love this band. I first got into them with their Misplaced Childhood album (which I listened to repeatedly) back in 1985. Then “life happened” and I kind of lost track of them after the Clutching at Straws record. Then sometime around 2013 a friend told me that they were still at it so I decided to check them out. I ordered their “Sounds That Can’t Be Made” album and was hooked again. Since then I bought a couple of their live DVDs (which I think at times are better than their studio albums, super good!), went to the “Marillion Weekend 2015” in Montreal, saw them play in San Francisco on their F.E.A.R tour in 2016 and recently received their excellent All One Tonight – Live at The Royal Albert Hall DVD.

Their story is fascinating. They went from early massive success to almost complete obscurity to helping pioneer crowd funding to cultivating a large dedicated international fanbase and hosting their own music conventions every 2 years – much of it as an independent band creating their own fantastic music their own way. I’m really happy to see them have this level of success and recognition all these years later. Congrats, guys!

Karma

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I believe that I bought my first copy of Karma Moffett’s “Golden Bowls” album back in 1999. Since then I have picked up additional copies as gifts for friends. It’s so rich and beautiful in it’s composition, performance and production. Wonderful to study (some serious harmonic overtones happening here), meditate to or just have playing in the background. Sets a deep, peaceful and serene vibe. One of my all time favorites.

I’m Buzzed

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I love Michael Landau’s playing. He comes up with really unusual melodies and chord voicings that sound amazing to me. His playing can be fluid and gentle and then suddenly powerful, fierce and raw.

I decided to notate the main theme of his song “I’m Buzzed” as part of my Hearing and Writing studies. While this does not reflect all the various nuances of his playing (slides, vibrato, bends, etc.) it captures the main rhythms and melodies. To be honest I’m a bit buzzed that I am able to even do this much. Looking forward to what’s next.

While researching the piece I found this great video of Michael explaining how he plays the song as well as this clip of him playing it with his band at the legendary “Baked Potato” in Studio City, CA.

Where you least expect it…

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As mentioned in a previous post I feel that inspiration can happen anywhere and from just about anything, if we are open to it.

I had been wanting to write a new instrumental song for a while. I wanted it to be melodic, powerful and totally unique from what I had done before. I imagined it as being done and had the thought that before I knew it I’d have something cool. A little while later this magazine showed up:

At first I didn’t notice anything special or unusual about the magazine. It was nicely designed and well written but nothing stood out to me. Right before I was about to put it into recycling the orange tape on the back of the guitar headstock caught my eye:

I realized that it was probably the tuning of the guitar, a tuning that I had never used before. I grabbed my guitar, set it to the pitches indicated and within a couple hours had two new songs that were totally unique from anything I had done before. All from something that I was about to throw away.

I love it when stuff like this happens but looking back at it now makes me wonder just how often this type of thing could be happening. Where the seeds of what I want could be right in front of me and I just don’t see it.

72

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I bought this guitar years ago after learning the hard way that if I find something that I really like I should grab it before it is no longer available. At the time I was looking for something “a little different” and this fit the bill. Part stratocaster, part telecaster, part precision bass, the ’72 was one of the “Fender Pawn Shop Series” models introduced in 2011 and only in production for a couple of years.

Here’s the official press release from Fender:

“The Pawn Shop Fender ’72 presents an unusual combination of classic Fender design elements, not the least of which is its semi-hollow Stratocaster body with an f hole. The result is a truly distinctive instrument with a huge sound, with other features including a U-shaped Telecaster neck, rosewood fretboard with modern 9.5” radius and 6105 frets, Fender Wide Range humbucking neck pickup and Fender Enforcer™ humbucking bridge pickup, early-’50s Precision Bass-style dual-knob chrome control plate with master volume and center-detented pickup blend controls, ’70s-style hard-tail Stratocaster bridge, ’70s-style Fender “F” tuners, mint green pickguard, bullet truss rod, three-bolt neck attachment and deluxe gig bag.”

The other day I pulled it out of the case and put some new strings on it. Forgot just how much I really love this guitar. Feels and sounds great, plus it looks really cool!

Photo was taken at a SF Guitarworks setup workshop a couple years back.

 

Pulse

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I used to listen to this live Pink Floyd album while taking day trips through the farm lands and forests outside of Eugene, Oregon. Disc one has some great songs on it but it is disc two that I love. This disc has the band playing “The Dark Side of the Moon” album in it’s entirety. It was then that I became convinced that TDSOTM is one of the greatest rock albums of all time. So many great songs, fantastic sonic textures and production techniques that would become the new state of the art.

Hans Zimmer

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Last year I took the Hans Zimmer Film Scoring course on Masterclass.com and really enjoyed it. While there wasn’t too much technical information in this class it had plenty in the way of mindset and approach that Hans used in various real world situations, which helped him to become one of the most prolific and successful film composers of our time.

I particularly enjoyed doing the assignments, creating compositions based on specific limitations/requirements. My Music Sketch #55 “Perception” was based on the following assignment:

“Think about one of your favorite directors. Find an interview in which he/she talks about the making of one of his/her lms. Use this as a jumping o point to create your own version of a score that’s informed by how the director talks about their intentions behind the film. How can you translate the director’s approach to telling the story into a score that helps serve that narrative?”

The director I chose was Terry Gilliam and the movie interview was about his film 12 Monkeys. The key point I got from the conversation (which inspired the song) was this:

“We seem to be inundated with information. It’s hard to know what the real stuff is, which is the stuff that counts, I think that the hardest thing in modern society is to know what to listen to and what not to.”