From the outside it all looks simple and I am sure that 'normal' people - ie those who don't have pretensions to leaving the workaday behind and being a full time musical artiste - get tired of hearing artists, musicians, actors etc complaining about how hard their jobs are. I,myself, have, on occasions, also got exasperated by the drama queens.
How it seems from the outside: people get paid far too much for being little more than the focus of attention and adulation, having a great life doing exactly what they want to and sharing their pensees with the world. And that's pretty much what I am aiming at, give or take a million or two and the odd drawer of lingerie.
The thing is, it really is difficult to hold down a full time job and groom oneself for that big opportunity to strut one's stuff before a public on the verge of helplessness with gratitude and adoration.
The working life I am desperate to leave behind in order to function as your musical prozac, 8 oysters to a bar and little dose of insight into the workings of the human psyche (where its dealings with life and love are concerned) is teaching. It leaves me flat-out exhausted. Everyone wants your ass for something and it always has to be done now.
When I get home, what I really need to do is sit and rest for a few hours. What I need to do is practice my guitar playing, bass-playing, singing, the songs I put in my repertoire and write new material.
That's without the grooming sessions, dance lessons, photo-sessions and managing my own career from my front room and laptop. (Ok so I lied about the grooming sessions: I was aiming more at a cross between Barry White and J.J. Cale.) That's a second full-time job. And when the glorious public, whom we all want to serve, pays their hard-earned to see you deliver on all these fronts, ain't no-one going to accept excuses on the grounds that your full time gig is wearing you out.
Maybe I am just trying to do too much. Perhaps I should settle down with the pipe and slippers. Naah! I am hoping for a seamless transition but somehow I don't see it coming like that. If you have any ideas, I'd like to hear them.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Whys and wherefores. Part 2
The Silent Gap.
As I said above, this song dates from 1981-2, the tail end of my first writing period. I think I rejigged the music and added the bridge last year when I reviewed my old songs to make them compatible with the new ones. I was thinking about how parents never really know what their children are doing and, from kids' perspectives, how it was often best not to tell parents what they were doing. I remember this being the case in my teenage years. We always had the feeling that the parents weren't quite ready to know what we got up to. So not telling them was a way of protecting them. To this day, I have no idea how much they figured out. I decided to put it on the cd because I wanted a change of mood but having done it and listened to it in context I decided I didn't like it. However, as soon as I said this to a friend, she immediately said, 'Oh no. That's one of my favourites'. Go figure!
Palm Trees.
Spring 2010, Sting came to play in Dubai and we all decided to go - me, Chamath and my friend Khalid. However, I screwed things up by, first, forgetting that my visa had expired so I couldn't go and then, when I sent the other two over, not realising that Chamath couldn't cross the border because he was not with his sponsor (me). So he had to come back and had a wasted day and it cost me a fortune in taxi fares. While he was travelling in complete futility to the Dubai border and back, I wrote this from top to bottom. It took me about the full time he was away. I knew it was special as soon as I finished it, in fact while I was writing it. I recently found a scrap of paper with a crude outline for the lyric so I must have planned it sometime before. It was originally much more complex so I must have realised during the time Chamath was away that it wouldn't work and reworked it.
With a longish story like this one where you have event and attitude to compress into the song, not to mention, comment, it's all about economy - what you leave out and how much you can suggest in how few words.
The story in essence is that of two lonely people who find each other but make a silly mistake in the process, one which, ordinarily, could derail their affair, except that, having found each other, they decide to take a chance on it any way. The bridge explains all this and suggests the outcome.
Of course, I made a silly mistake myself, well, more of an oversight really, which I constantly forestall people's noticing by mentioning it myself when I play it live. Dates and coconuts don't grow in the same places! However, my overriding concern was with the exoticism that the housemaid seeks as an antidote to the crushing banality and hopelessness of her working life. Anyway, my actually reaching the notes is such a hit and miss affair that I don't think people actually notice the inconsistency. But I am sure that one day a pedant will come up after a show and say, ''Ere, you know what...'!
Blues For Billy Strayhorn.
BS has been a hero of mine ever since I read (and re-read) David Hajdu's great biography of him.
Here's the deal: a supremely gifted young black boy from Philadephia wants a chance at fame and the good life. He has almost all the attributes for this except one - he's gay and in mid-20th century America that makes him vulnerable. So he makes a deal with the devil (Duke Ellington) and accepts a rather ad hoc system of reward and fame in exchange for security and safety.
The result of this is that he is pretty much unknown outside of his own little coterie. Of course, his little coterie is practically a who's who of the talent in New York's Harlem renaissance so it ain't all bad news. Even so, he doesn't actually make any recordings of his own until quite late in life and these, while much admired by those in the know, were pretty well ignored by the rest of the world. He died of throat cancer in the early 60s, much loved and much-mourned by those who loved him.
What's not to like as subject matter for a song? I just couldn't believe that no-one had written about him before. Writing the song was a labour of love so I was petrified that I wouldn't do it justice. It had to be some kind of sophisticated blues format and getting that part right tied me in knots! I don't have the knowledge to write the kind of thing BS would have done so I went for a late 40s/early 50s r 'n' b feel, with doo-wop backing vocals on the verses and hearty men's shouty vocals in the chorus.
After it was recorded, I had to email David Hajdu to thank him for the book. I hope he likes the song....
Moments In A Life.
I have an uneasy relationship with nostalgia. I hate it myself and never indulge. Signing up with Facebook seemed to bring all those names out of the past and it gave me hives every time anyone tried to befriend me on the basis of past acquaintance. I have behaved quite ungraciously to a few people - unintentionally but apologies are still due.
But at the same time, I am getting on and have, on occasions, found myself wondering what it all adds up to. Out of these tensions, came this song. It's me talking to myself and trying to find meaning in random, unrelated events in my life. A lot of people don't respond to this song but I have always liked it more than most of my songs. It's kind of fatalistic. I modeled the music on Van Morrison's 'Wild Children', all those major sevenths plus the semitone modulation for the solo. That's an homage of a sort too.
Every Shade Of Blue
I consciously set out to write a blue song but, being me, had to go to extremes and so it's not just blue but every shade of blue. This gave me the opportunity to use the word 'gamut' - pretentious git that I am!
As I noted at the start of this, it was one of two songs written after I had decided which songs were going on the cd. Inconvenient that! I wanted a simple bossa on the cd and at that point there wasn't one so it dropped into my lap really. I find the subject of men's emotional lives, particularly after a break up, endlessly interesting and am unsure that it has ever really been handled very convincingly. That's why I have written several.
Occasionally, among other homages that I indulge in, I drop phrases of my mother's into songs and the 'high hopes' in the bridge of this is a case in point. The thing is the music's quite jolly which isn't very appropriate. I'll live with that!
Under The Mushroom
Chamath and I were having as discussion about psychelelics which I have tried and he hasn't - despite being interested in the idea. This was my attempt to explain what it was like. Unfortunately, it morphed into a commercial for buddhism midway through - though I suppose that's no bad thing. Since I last did acid a long, long time ago, it was some feat of memory. It's also a bossa - though I don't know whether that's appropriate for a psychedelic song. We had fun loading this with special effects in the studio - listen out for the strange treated vocals.
This song contains my final two homages - one a semi-conscious steal of 'Girl From Ipanema' in the chord sequence and the other, the initial 'pop' to Arthur Lee again. It's in imitation of the champagne cork from the opening of 'Que Vida' from Da Capo.
As I said above, this song dates from 1981-2, the tail end of my first writing period. I think I rejigged the music and added the bridge last year when I reviewed my old songs to make them compatible with the new ones. I was thinking about how parents never really know what their children are doing and, from kids' perspectives, how it was often best not to tell parents what they were doing. I remember this being the case in my teenage years. We always had the feeling that the parents weren't quite ready to know what we got up to. So not telling them was a way of protecting them. To this day, I have no idea how much they figured out. I decided to put it on the cd because I wanted a change of mood but having done it and listened to it in context I decided I didn't like it. However, as soon as I said this to a friend, she immediately said, 'Oh no. That's one of my favourites'. Go figure!
Palm Trees.
Spring 2010, Sting came to play in Dubai and we all decided to go - me, Chamath and my friend Khalid. However, I screwed things up by, first, forgetting that my visa had expired so I couldn't go and then, when I sent the other two over, not realising that Chamath couldn't cross the border because he was not with his sponsor (me). So he had to come back and had a wasted day and it cost me a fortune in taxi fares. While he was travelling in complete futility to the Dubai border and back, I wrote this from top to bottom. It took me about the full time he was away. I knew it was special as soon as I finished it, in fact while I was writing it. I recently found a scrap of paper with a crude outline for the lyric so I must have planned it sometime before. It was originally much more complex so I must have realised during the time Chamath was away that it wouldn't work and reworked it.
With a longish story like this one where you have event and attitude to compress into the song, not to mention, comment, it's all about economy - what you leave out and how much you can suggest in how few words.
The story in essence is that of two lonely people who find each other but make a silly mistake in the process, one which, ordinarily, could derail their affair, except that, having found each other, they decide to take a chance on it any way. The bridge explains all this and suggests the outcome.
Of course, I made a silly mistake myself, well, more of an oversight really, which I constantly forestall people's noticing by mentioning it myself when I play it live. Dates and coconuts don't grow in the same places! However, my overriding concern was with the exoticism that the housemaid seeks as an antidote to the crushing banality and hopelessness of her working life. Anyway, my actually reaching the notes is such a hit and miss affair that I don't think people actually notice the inconsistency. But I am sure that one day a pedant will come up after a show and say, ''Ere, you know what...'!
Blues For Billy Strayhorn.
BS has been a hero of mine ever since I read (and re-read) David Hajdu's great biography of him.
Here's the deal: a supremely gifted young black boy from Philadephia wants a chance at fame and the good life. He has almost all the attributes for this except one - he's gay and in mid-20th century America that makes him vulnerable. So he makes a deal with the devil (Duke Ellington) and accepts a rather ad hoc system of reward and fame in exchange for security and safety.
The result of this is that he is pretty much unknown outside of his own little coterie. Of course, his little coterie is practically a who's who of the talent in New York's Harlem renaissance so it ain't all bad news. Even so, he doesn't actually make any recordings of his own until quite late in life and these, while much admired by those in the know, were pretty well ignored by the rest of the world. He died of throat cancer in the early 60s, much loved and much-mourned by those who loved him.
What's not to like as subject matter for a song? I just couldn't believe that no-one had written about him before. Writing the song was a labour of love so I was petrified that I wouldn't do it justice. It had to be some kind of sophisticated blues format and getting that part right tied me in knots! I don't have the knowledge to write the kind of thing BS would have done so I went for a late 40s/early 50s r 'n' b feel, with doo-wop backing vocals on the verses and hearty men's shouty vocals in the chorus.
After it was recorded, I had to email David Hajdu to thank him for the book. I hope he likes the song....
Moments In A Life.
I have an uneasy relationship with nostalgia. I hate it myself and never indulge. Signing up with Facebook seemed to bring all those names out of the past and it gave me hives every time anyone tried to befriend me on the basis of past acquaintance. I have behaved quite ungraciously to a few people - unintentionally but apologies are still due.
But at the same time, I am getting on and have, on occasions, found myself wondering what it all adds up to. Out of these tensions, came this song. It's me talking to myself and trying to find meaning in random, unrelated events in my life. A lot of people don't respond to this song but I have always liked it more than most of my songs. It's kind of fatalistic. I modeled the music on Van Morrison's 'Wild Children', all those major sevenths plus the semitone modulation for the solo. That's an homage of a sort too.
Every Shade Of Blue
I consciously set out to write a blue song but, being me, had to go to extremes and so it's not just blue but every shade of blue. This gave me the opportunity to use the word 'gamut' - pretentious git that I am!
As I noted at the start of this, it was one of two songs written after I had decided which songs were going on the cd. Inconvenient that! I wanted a simple bossa on the cd and at that point there wasn't one so it dropped into my lap really. I find the subject of men's emotional lives, particularly after a break up, endlessly interesting and am unsure that it has ever really been handled very convincingly. That's why I have written several.
Occasionally, among other homages that I indulge in, I drop phrases of my mother's into songs and the 'high hopes' in the bridge of this is a case in point. The thing is the music's quite jolly which isn't very appropriate. I'll live with that!
Under The Mushroom
Chamath and I were having as discussion about psychelelics which I have tried and he hasn't - despite being interested in the idea. This was my attempt to explain what it was like. Unfortunately, it morphed into a commercial for buddhism midway through - though I suppose that's no bad thing. Since I last did acid a long, long time ago, it was some feat of memory. It's also a bossa - though I don't know whether that's appropriate for a psychedelic song. We had fun loading this with special effects in the studio - listen out for the strange treated vocals.
This song contains my final two homages - one a semi-conscious steal of 'Girl From Ipanema' in the chord sequence and the other, the initial 'pop' to Arthur Lee again. It's in imitation of the champagne cork from the opening of 'Que Vida' from Da Capo.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Whys and wherefores - the songs on 10 cents above a beggar - pappadom songs
I have been asked to write about the songs on this, my first commercially available cd. I don't know whether this is really that interesting but it's a dull afternoon and the appeal to my vanity is irresistible.
The songs were chosen from the collection I had available, both old and new, hopefully to make an interesting and varied songbook. As it happened, the only old song on the cd is The Silent Gap which I wrote in Athens in 1981-2. They were all new apart from this. A couple were only a few weeks old when I recorded them and actually displaced other songs I had intended to be on it.
So, in order then....
Every Night.
I was asked to write some lyrics of a very specific nature for an Omani guy about to record an album in various languages - Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Balushi etc. He wanted 2 English lyrics. I asked what kind of thing he wanted and he said one would be called What Kind Of Love Is This? but the other he had no idea about. I came up with lyrics for both - after much cajoling - and sent them to him but nothing happened.
In the meantime, I started writing again and it happened that I had music but no words for one song. Thinking that he had given up on my lyrics, I expanded the words of Every Night. It became a piece of candyfloss about 2 people who have trouble arranging their relationship to suit their different temperaments. Instead of leaving the conflict unresolved, I thought I would do the adult thing and find a rational solution. I also decided to include a little homily on human nature to make it a matter of universal appeal. Et voila!
(Later I used the other lyric too but I put it to music by Jaco Pastorius - 3 Views Of A Secret, in case anyone is interested - but, as I am not sure of the legality of this and cannot afford to find out, I am leaving that until later!)
The issue of autobiography inevitably raises its ugly head so I will deal with those elements as I go through every song but as far as this one is concerned there's not much here to interest anyone looking for clues as to my personality.
Romantic Warrior.
This was the second song I wrote in my renaissance as a songwriter. It is a slightly ironic take on the guy who eventually directed the video for the song and is a friend of my partner's. Nothing too complex about it, really. I just described more or less the situation he was in regarding this girl he was in love with. I just tried to make him sound even more quixotic than he really is. I also rather over-egged the gravity of his situation but I wanted to be relevant to the kids over in Sri Lanka in the same situation and also my own students. I presume that this is a common situation for young men in conservative societies. I suppose it must once upon a time have been relevant to kids in the west too but now they just leap into bed and family approval or disapproval is less of an issue. The song was just an excuse for an extended military metaphor. Was I ever in this situation? No. I was a well-brought up young boy and mothers always loved me! Though I didn't ask my partner's family about having my evil way. We haven't spelled it all out in gruesome detail but I stay in the family house and they look after me so I guess it's ok.
The Only One.
A fantasy of mine. I wanted to describe a relationship that had lasted from childhood and was expected to result in marriage and happy ever after. I was messing around with major and minor sevenths and the melody emerged. It seemed to suggest the outcome. It was a challenge to describe a youthful idyll. The father and mother bit did come from my memories of playing early sex games disguised as other games at the age of 10 or 11 but was not intended to be smutty. I wanted it to be as economical as possible and say as much as I could in a few strokes. The time slipping away is a bit of a cliche but the cliche was simple where anything else might have been overelaborate. I didn't want recriminations so I left it hanging in regret. The big job here was omitting. In the studio, I played the theme to Sarani and he turned it into a gorgeous Jeff Beck sort of sound. Perfect, as was his solo. Sort of bitter sweet.
Big Prize.
I like blues but I like complex blues forms that gently subvert the idiom. I also wanted to play with expectations by having the hero of the song being, instead of a thrusting, self-confident macho man type, a bit of wuss riddled with self-doubt. The idea of the song is that he can't quite believe his luck in having captured the heart of this person and doesn't think he is worthy. I also deliberately made hurdles for myself by choosing some challenging rhymes, just to see if I could pull them off. That makes it a bit far-fetched. I wanted to name check some things I liked (the Goodies, Iggy Pop, Candid Camera) and use some expressions not usually encountered in pop songs. Not sure if I used them correctly but having written them, I couldn't be bothered to check - a shameful confession, I realise! When we recorded it, I suggested a sort of Ray Charles organ sound, very churchy but we had a moment of cultural confusion since Ashanta had not heard of him, so we settled for this and he played a blinding solo.
But I'll Miss You More.
I always liked those songs of Arthur Lee's where the title seemed like the continuation or an incomplete sentence, so this is my little homage to him - more will come later. It was a rumination on how 2 lonely and improbable people can give each other support in times of need, the heroes in this case being a lonely drag queen and an unhappily married woman. I thought they could invent a little fantasy world to suit both their interests. It would have to be asexual, of course but that could give it charm. It would be, in spite of its unlikely dramatis personae, a story of innocence where each tries to rise above their particular hardship and things move in parallel. I give the husband short shrift but he is not intended to be a very sympathetic character.
The music actually came first - which is pretty unusual, when I was messing around with the D minor/C sequence. I liked the rhythm and repeated the effect on all the chord changes. Again, the problem was economising as far as lyrics were concerned. Personal relevance? Well, it obviously has resonances but I am not actually a drag queen and I do know/have met a number of dissatisfied women. The queen was actually based on a guy I used to know in Brighton - where else?! But they are not real people. I hoped that the slightly claustrophobic, smokey atmosphere of a slightly run-down but glammed-up bed-sitter would come across.
If You Want To Stay.
Playing with the chord sequence to Hit The Road Jack, I came up with this variation by changing the chords to sixths, sevenths and major sevenths. I wanted to write about a seduction and imagined how and where it would be. I wanted to create that tension where you don't know exactly what the outcome will be. I imagined a restaurant with messy tables, plates etc all over the place and a couple sitting amidst this when he makes his pitch. I wanted to put the ball in the seducee's court so it's rather an offhand seduction.
In spite of his diffidence, I wanted to communicate the electricity between two people with an uncertain outcome to their evening. To add to the interest, the other party has a relationship so there is an element of choice involved. I wanted it to be strings-free seduction with total freedom but everything on the table. My 'men' are pretty unmacho so maybe the songs do reflect me more than I think they do!
(One aside here: I wrote the bridge - then promptly forgot that I had used the phrase 'your honesty is a curse' and used it as a song title!) I am quite proud of my bass-playing on the recording as I managed to conjure a floating effect which I really like. (Another aside: this was going to be the song for the video as the romantic warrior really liked it but it is 6 minutes long and we couldn't get permission to use the most suitable restaurant - Barefoot in Colombo. Also the director and actor didn't really 'get' my suggestions for the story line.)
The songs were chosen from the collection I had available, both old and new, hopefully to make an interesting and varied songbook. As it happened, the only old song on the cd is The Silent Gap which I wrote in Athens in 1981-2. They were all new apart from this. A couple were only a few weeks old when I recorded them and actually displaced other songs I had intended to be on it.
So, in order then....
Every Night.
I was asked to write some lyrics of a very specific nature for an Omani guy about to record an album in various languages - Arabic, Hindi, Urdu, Balushi etc. He wanted 2 English lyrics. I asked what kind of thing he wanted and he said one would be called What Kind Of Love Is This? but the other he had no idea about. I came up with lyrics for both - after much cajoling - and sent them to him but nothing happened.
In the meantime, I started writing again and it happened that I had music but no words for one song. Thinking that he had given up on my lyrics, I expanded the words of Every Night. It became a piece of candyfloss about 2 people who have trouble arranging their relationship to suit their different temperaments. Instead of leaving the conflict unresolved, I thought I would do the adult thing and find a rational solution. I also decided to include a little homily on human nature to make it a matter of universal appeal. Et voila!
(Later I used the other lyric too but I put it to music by Jaco Pastorius - 3 Views Of A Secret, in case anyone is interested - but, as I am not sure of the legality of this and cannot afford to find out, I am leaving that until later!)
The issue of autobiography inevitably raises its ugly head so I will deal with those elements as I go through every song but as far as this one is concerned there's not much here to interest anyone looking for clues as to my personality.
Romantic Warrior.
This was the second song I wrote in my renaissance as a songwriter. It is a slightly ironic take on the guy who eventually directed the video for the song and is a friend of my partner's. Nothing too complex about it, really. I just described more or less the situation he was in regarding this girl he was in love with. I just tried to make him sound even more quixotic than he really is. I also rather over-egged the gravity of his situation but I wanted to be relevant to the kids over in Sri Lanka in the same situation and also my own students. I presume that this is a common situation for young men in conservative societies. I suppose it must once upon a time have been relevant to kids in the west too but now they just leap into bed and family approval or disapproval is less of an issue. The song was just an excuse for an extended military metaphor. Was I ever in this situation? No. I was a well-brought up young boy and mothers always loved me! Though I didn't ask my partner's family about having my evil way. We haven't spelled it all out in gruesome detail but I stay in the family house and they look after me so I guess it's ok.
The Only One.
A fantasy of mine. I wanted to describe a relationship that had lasted from childhood and was expected to result in marriage and happy ever after. I was messing around with major and minor sevenths and the melody emerged. It seemed to suggest the outcome. It was a challenge to describe a youthful idyll. The father and mother bit did come from my memories of playing early sex games disguised as other games at the age of 10 or 11 but was not intended to be smutty. I wanted it to be as economical as possible and say as much as I could in a few strokes. The time slipping away is a bit of a cliche but the cliche was simple where anything else might have been overelaborate. I didn't want recriminations so I left it hanging in regret. The big job here was omitting. In the studio, I played the theme to Sarani and he turned it into a gorgeous Jeff Beck sort of sound. Perfect, as was his solo. Sort of bitter sweet.
Big Prize.
I like blues but I like complex blues forms that gently subvert the idiom. I also wanted to play with expectations by having the hero of the song being, instead of a thrusting, self-confident macho man type, a bit of wuss riddled with self-doubt. The idea of the song is that he can't quite believe his luck in having captured the heart of this person and doesn't think he is worthy. I also deliberately made hurdles for myself by choosing some challenging rhymes, just to see if I could pull them off. That makes it a bit far-fetched. I wanted to name check some things I liked (the Goodies, Iggy Pop, Candid Camera) and use some expressions not usually encountered in pop songs. Not sure if I used them correctly but having written them, I couldn't be bothered to check - a shameful confession, I realise! When we recorded it, I suggested a sort of Ray Charles organ sound, very churchy but we had a moment of cultural confusion since Ashanta had not heard of him, so we settled for this and he played a blinding solo.
But I'll Miss You More.
I always liked those songs of Arthur Lee's where the title seemed like the continuation or an incomplete sentence, so this is my little homage to him - more will come later. It was a rumination on how 2 lonely and improbable people can give each other support in times of need, the heroes in this case being a lonely drag queen and an unhappily married woman. I thought they could invent a little fantasy world to suit both their interests. It would have to be asexual, of course but that could give it charm. It would be, in spite of its unlikely dramatis personae, a story of innocence where each tries to rise above their particular hardship and things move in parallel. I give the husband short shrift but he is not intended to be a very sympathetic character.
The music actually came first - which is pretty unusual, when I was messing around with the D minor/C sequence. I liked the rhythm and repeated the effect on all the chord changes. Again, the problem was economising as far as lyrics were concerned. Personal relevance? Well, it obviously has resonances but I am not actually a drag queen and I do know/have met a number of dissatisfied women. The queen was actually based on a guy I used to know in Brighton - where else?! But they are not real people. I hoped that the slightly claustrophobic, smokey atmosphere of a slightly run-down but glammed-up bed-sitter would come across.
If You Want To Stay.
Playing with the chord sequence to Hit The Road Jack, I came up with this variation by changing the chords to sixths, sevenths and major sevenths. I wanted to write about a seduction and imagined how and where it would be. I wanted to create that tension where you don't know exactly what the outcome will be. I imagined a restaurant with messy tables, plates etc all over the place and a couple sitting amidst this when he makes his pitch. I wanted to put the ball in the seducee's court so it's rather an offhand seduction.
In spite of his diffidence, I wanted to communicate the electricity between two people with an uncertain outcome to their evening. To add to the interest, the other party has a relationship so there is an element of choice involved. I wanted it to be strings-free seduction with total freedom but everything on the table. My 'men' are pretty unmacho so maybe the songs do reflect me more than I think they do!
(One aside here: I wrote the bridge - then promptly forgot that I had used the phrase 'your honesty is a curse' and used it as a song title!) I am quite proud of my bass-playing on the recording as I managed to conjure a floating effect which I really like. (Another aside: this was going to be the song for the video as the romantic warrior really liked it but it is 6 minutes long and we couldn't get permission to use the most suitable restaurant - Barefoot in Colombo. Also the director and actor didn't really 'get' my suggestions for the story line.)
Saturday, April 30, 2011
No man is an island
Just to clear up a few loose ends in the matter of songwriting and allied areas, the question arises, 'What do you do when you get stuck and can't solve any one of the many little problems that arise in song-writing?' We all need a fall-back position and someone on your bench, as they say in the US, is very handy, if only to talk out those problems and talk yourself into finding the answer - which is what often happens.
I have two, one for lyrics and one for the music. (As for the arrangements, I'm pretty much on my own or at the mercy of whatever happens in the studio.) When I am stuck for a dazzling rhyme, pithy phrase or just the mot juste, I call up my friend Marie who is a much more interesting and playful lyric writer than I will ever be, but, being a woman, she knows how to flatter a man by letting him think he made a brilliant decision or came up with a great idea. When I am stuck, I call her up and, social engagements allowing, she gives me a few moments of her valuable time. This usually results in her dropping something wonderful into the mix. I can't do this too often in case anyone asks me how I got the idea for that brilliant couplet. But, just occasionally, it will do the trick.
The problem is that I feel, in comparison to what Marie can do, that I am just fashioning a trashy bauble out of base metal that she can place a gem into. I'll live with it! Getting on the same wavelength is the important thing here. Marie and I honed our relationship over the years when I was adding verses and bridges to old jazz standards to elongate them for performance purposes. We discovered we had similar senses of humour and a no-holds-barred attitude to lyric writing absurdity so we could egg each other on to ever wilder flights of imagination. Being able to spend some time in hilarious laughter while you are being serious is very therapeutic and good for the creative juices. Having someone who doesn't even recognise the concept of box, let along feel constrained to think in or outside of one, is inspiring.
For the music, I turn to my friend Damien, my sometime musical accomplice, a sweet natured guy and all-round good egg. We have known each other for several years and have played together in many different configurations. He knows much more music theory than I will ever do and is well used to my calls out of the blue asking things like 'If a chord has this, this, this and that in it what's it called?' Or 'What can I substitute for this chord or that chord?' Or 'Where can I go from this sequence?' I learn a lot from these sessions and sometimes, it can change the direction of a song in an interesting way. Sometimes in pointing out alternatives, I find that what I had originally is ok anyway but you have to try it to find out if you like it.
As for most of the rest of it, you're on your own and so am I!
I have two, one for lyrics and one for the music. (As for the arrangements, I'm pretty much on my own or at the mercy of whatever happens in the studio.) When I am stuck for a dazzling rhyme, pithy phrase or just the mot juste, I call up my friend Marie who is a much more interesting and playful lyric writer than I will ever be, but, being a woman, she knows how to flatter a man by letting him think he made a brilliant decision or came up with a great idea. When I am stuck, I call her up and, social engagements allowing, she gives me a few moments of her valuable time. This usually results in her dropping something wonderful into the mix. I can't do this too often in case anyone asks me how I got the idea for that brilliant couplet. But, just occasionally, it will do the trick.
The problem is that I feel, in comparison to what Marie can do, that I am just fashioning a trashy bauble out of base metal that she can place a gem into. I'll live with it! Getting on the same wavelength is the important thing here. Marie and I honed our relationship over the years when I was adding verses and bridges to old jazz standards to elongate them for performance purposes. We discovered we had similar senses of humour and a no-holds-barred attitude to lyric writing absurdity so we could egg each other on to ever wilder flights of imagination. Being able to spend some time in hilarious laughter while you are being serious is very therapeutic and good for the creative juices. Having someone who doesn't even recognise the concept of box, let along feel constrained to think in or outside of one, is inspiring.
For the music, I turn to my friend Damien, my sometime musical accomplice, a sweet natured guy and all-round good egg. We have known each other for several years and have played together in many different configurations. He knows much more music theory than I will ever do and is well used to my calls out of the blue asking things like 'If a chord has this, this, this and that in it what's it called?' Or 'What can I substitute for this chord or that chord?' Or 'Where can I go from this sequence?' I learn a lot from these sessions and sometimes, it can change the direction of a song in an interesting way. Sometimes in pointing out alternatives, I find that what I had originally is ok anyway but you have to try it to find out if you like it.
As for most of the rest of it, you're on your own and so am I!
Friday, April 29, 2011
A never-ending series of problems
As previously mentioned, in the old days, I used to write for a band. At rehearsals, they would edit, pitch in with ideas, criticise or approve, participate in the writing and arranging process and work on the songs until, regardless of who claimed the original idea, songs became communal property so it was nigh impossible to say who did what. That's the way with folk musics of all sorts. A song may have been good but the band made it better and very often the band's performance became the song. There have been courtroom battles by disgruntled ex-band members claiming their contribution had made songs as memorable as they were and they had received no credit, either in shouts or cash for their contributions. Fair point.
When you suddenly start doing it all on your own, unless you have a knowledgeable and critical partner or friend, all those decisions have to be made by you. Bottom line - if it's good, thanks very much, it was nothing really. If it sucks - where's that hole in the ground?
So that's the first part of the problem - is the song ok? What does it need? Does it need editing? Are there too many verses? How should it be arranged? What instrumentation does it need? Harmonies? Etc. I freely admit to needing an editor but, in my defense, songs and their verses are like babies. You want to nurture, take care of and keep them away from all those nasty critics who would hurt them. I don't like cutting out verses once they are written. I write 5 or 6 verses because I need that many to say what I want but it is received wisdom that audiences have the collective attention span of a gnat so 5 verses (plus solo) is way too long. Think of all the great landmark songs, of which the first thing that is ever remarked on is their length - Boh Rap, Like A R Stone, Defecting Grey, Hey Jude etc. (Having said this, maybe I do the audience a disservice since Big Prize and Blues For Billy Strayhorn, both weighing in at around the 6 minute mark, seem to be popular wherever they are heard.) I have, however, started pruning, in the interests of getting a leaner, meaner, punchier song.
Then, regardless of how long a song is, is it any good? Am I just repeating myself? They all sound the same to me but I can remember them and don't start singing one verse to another's music so I guess they must be different.
As far as arrangements are concerned, without other people to muck in and help create something, the problem is hearing the song without actually singing it. Recording demos helps here even if they are rather primitive. Questions about structure - shall I have a couple of bars between chorus and verse two to catch my breath or would that slow it all down? - can be resolved this way. Important here to recognise that recordings and live performance are very different beasts. If you are singing it live, then, yes, you could leave a space but on cd, it may cause drag. If there are irregularities of meter and verse length, why, and where? And don't forget when you finally record them, you will have to remember where they are if you haven't been playing them live often enough to have become habit.
A lot of these problems are soluble by trial and error. If you are in a band of more than 2 people it is difficult to create arrangements on the spot in performance but for anyone who plays in a small enough unit to be able to change a song on a headshake, you can alter them on a nightly basis until they are right.
Of course, as I said in the last blog in this series, the concept of 'right' is moot here. I have been playing jazz-based music for the last 18 years and, in an improvised arena like that, I don't think of songs as ever finished. There was how I wrote it and how it is tonight. Sometimes they are close and sometimes not.
When you suddenly start doing it all on your own, unless you have a knowledgeable and critical partner or friend, all those decisions have to be made by you. Bottom line - if it's good, thanks very much, it was nothing really. If it sucks - where's that hole in the ground?
So that's the first part of the problem - is the song ok? What does it need? Does it need editing? Are there too many verses? How should it be arranged? What instrumentation does it need? Harmonies? Etc. I freely admit to needing an editor but, in my defense, songs and their verses are like babies. You want to nurture, take care of and keep them away from all those nasty critics who would hurt them. I don't like cutting out verses once they are written. I write 5 or 6 verses because I need that many to say what I want but it is received wisdom that audiences have the collective attention span of a gnat so 5 verses (plus solo) is way too long. Think of all the great landmark songs, of which the first thing that is ever remarked on is their length - Boh Rap, Like A R Stone, Defecting Grey, Hey Jude etc. (Having said this, maybe I do the audience a disservice since Big Prize and Blues For Billy Strayhorn, both weighing in at around the 6 minute mark, seem to be popular wherever they are heard.) I have, however, started pruning, in the interests of getting a leaner, meaner, punchier song.
Then, regardless of how long a song is, is it any good? Am I just repeating myself? They all sound the same to me but I can remember them and don't start singing one verse to another's music so I guess they must be different.
As far as arrangements are concerned, without other people to muck in and help create something, the problem is hearing the song without actually singing it. Recording demos helps here even if they are rather primitive. Questions about structure - shall I have a couple of bars between chorus and verse two to catch my breath or would that slow it all down? - can be resolved this way. Important here to recognise that recordings and live performance are very different beasts. If you are singing it live, then, yes, you could leave a space but on cd, it may cause drag. If there are irregularities of meter and verse length, why, and where? And don't forget when you finally record them, you will have to remember where they are if you haven't been playing them live often enough to have become habit.
A lot of these problems are soluble by trial and error. If you are in a band of more than 2 people it is difficult to create arrangements on the spot in performance but for anyone who plays in a small enough unit to be able to change a song on a headshake, you can alter them on a nightly basis until they are right.
Of course, as I said in the last blog in this series, the concept of 'right' is moot here. I have been playing jazz-based music for the last 18 years and, in an improvised arena like that, I don't think of songs as ever finished. There was how I wrote it and how it is tonight. Sometimes they are close and sometimes not.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Where do they come from?
In a response to this series of blogs, I was asked to write something about songwriting, the process, the inspiration etc. So, ever grateful for the attention, here goes.
How many times have you read an interview with some celebrated songwriter and the subject is asked how s/he writes. After a period of due modesty, out come those bloodcurdling words, 'I don't know where they come from, the songs just flow through me'! Instantly, you want to inflict lasting, disfiguring damage. 'Yeah right! You are just a conduit for the muse! The music of the spheres is flowing through you like electricity through a lightning rod!' Like we all wake up with a Yesterday tripping from our fingers.
The thing is that if you do fancy yourself as a songwriter and spend long hours sitting with guitar/piano and note pad hoping for something to coalesce, you do - if you are lucky - find yourself having those occasional 'what the hell just happened?' moments. Then you realise that these, all but inarticulate, song-smiths you have been cursing actually have a small point. That isn't the entire story of course, but it covers a large and thrilling part.
I presume that there are as many different approaches to songwriting as there are songwriters, so for it's worth here is my own contribution.
As mentioned in a previous blog, I used to write lyrics while notionally at work in a solicitor's office, so that I would have something to croon when Charlie and I sat down in our version of Lennon/McCartney's nose-to-nose sessions. If you are not prepared for these times, you find the band champing at the bit to get their teeth into their latest melodic breakthrough and all you have to sing over it is something mind-numbingly banal, like a shopping list. Plus I get inspiration (sorry! that word again. I didn't mean to) when I am alone and have some peace. I still tend to write in this way though, as a teacher, I am at everyone's beck and call, so, at strategic times of the academic year, I say 'thank god for exams!' Two hours when you are not only allowed but obliged to sit motionless and stare into space for 2+ hours. I used to bask in two hours of uninterrupted sex fantasies featuring various morsels of the concupiscent flesh I was supposed to be invigilating. Now I find my mind roaming over the more esoteric and intriguing byways of human desire and thinking about the many ways in people can start, participate in or fuck up their relationships. On a good day I can come out with 3 sets of lyrics. They're not finished - after all they are just words - but it's something to hang the music on - or vice versa. I always have a rhythm or maybe even a melody for these but I instantly forget it - I don't even try to remember them. After they are typed up and put into my pending book, they wait until the time is right and something can be made of them.
Sitting with my guitar is when the work really starts and when, on a good day, some kind iof magic can happen. I used to try to force this or bring ideas to the guitar and sometimes the latter still happens. But what I like about this part is that you can let random events dictate the course of the song and take it out of your hands. Here is where those conduit-for-the-muse illusions start. Mostly, it's a question of trying to avoid my own cliches and surprise myself. The more songs you write, the more difficult this becomes, I should imagine. Sometimes it's easier than others. It's just a matter of bashing around on the fretboard, letting my fingers fall where they will until something interesting comes along.
Sometimes I struggle to avoid my own tried and trusty formulae, banging round the fourths, majors to relative minors etc and sometimes it's just a question of managing to hear something familiar in a new way or to give it an unexpected twist. I will sometimes start with a hideously difficult chord and find a melody to fit it and see where it takes me. Another pet method is to throw chords with common notes in and work them until they form an interesting structure with a kind of drone. Yet another way is to take a well-known chord sequence and play around with it until it sounds novel. The more chords you know the easier and more interesting it becomes. And you have to let yourself become suggestible and be prepared to let the melody and chords take you where they will.
Once you have some kind of chord sequence, with melody attached, it becomes a question of sifting through the lyric book to find something which goes with it. It could be a phrase that fits, or a rhythmic nuance and a mood that suits the melody. Almost anything, in fact. At this point, I discover just how usable my lyrics are. They usually invariably need tweaking, occasionally de- or reconstructing. but if you are lucky, you end up with something. I find that I take a lot of care over the words but let happenstance guide the music. Every Shade of Blue and But I'll Miss You More both happened that way.
I used to have a manic compulsion to try to finish the entire song at one sitting and sometimes it still happens. But nowadays I often don't even pretend to and I don't worry if the chorus or the bridge is unfinished. When I'm in a different mood, I will bring another kind of flavour to the song. It's all about trying to catch myself out and let chance take a role. To that extent, it is possible to feel that you are just an instrument and if you are very lucky you can surprise yourself.
On this note, the concept of finished becomes a relative thing. Sometimes they are never finished - it becomes a case of 'this is how I will do it for now'. The when you have been playing it a certain way for sometime, you get bored and find something better. Keeping things fresh is the key to it all really. Starting with a title, working from an unlikely situation, trying to illustrate a maxim or platitude. It helps to keep a playful quality to it all and treat it as a game to amuse yourself.
So that's it for now. My recommendation to aspiring songwriters: find a school in need of invigilators for exams and hunker down for the duration while letting your imagination wander. I suppose prison would do almost as well......
How many times have you read an interview with some celebrated songwriter and the subject is asked how s/he writes. After a period of due modesty, out come those bloodcurdling words, 'I don't know where they come from, the songs just flow through me'! Instantly, you want to inflict lasting, disfiguring damage. 'Yeah right! You are just a conduit for the muse! The music of the spheres is flowing through you like electricity through a lightning rod!' Like we all wake up with a Yesterday tripping from our fingers.
The thing is that if you do fancy yourself as a songwriter and spend long hours sitting with guitar/piano and note pad hoping for something to coalesce, you do - if you are lucky - find yourself having those occasional 'what the hell just happened?' moments. Then you realise that these, all but inarticulate, song-smiths you have been cursing actually have a small point. That isn't the entire story of course, but it covers a large and thrilling part.
I presume that there are as many different approaches to songwriting as there are songwriters, so for it's worth here is my own contribution.
As mentioned in a previous blog, I used to write lyrics while notionally at work in a solicitor's office, so that I would have something to croon when Charlie and I sat down in our version of Lennon/McCartney's nose-to-nose sessions. If you are not prepared for these times, you find the band champing at the bit to get their teeth into their latest melodic breakthrough and all you have to sing over it is something mind-numbingly banal, like a shopping list. Plus I get inspiration (sorry! that word again. I didn't mean to) when I am alone and have some peace. I still tend to write in this way though, as a teacher, I am at everyone's beck and call, so, at strategic times of the academic year, I say 'thank god for exams!' Two hours when you are not only allowed but obliged to sit motionless and stare into space for 2+ hours. I used to bask in two hours of uninterrupted sex fantasies featuring various morsels of the concupiscent flesh I was supposed to be invigilating. Now I find my mind roaming over the more esoteric and intriguing byways of human desire and thinking about the many ways in people can start, participate in or fuck up their relationships. On a good day I can come out with 3 sets of lyrics. They're not finished - after all they are just words - but it's something to hang the music on - or vice versa. I always have a rhythm or maybe even a melody for these but I instantly forget it - I don't even try to remember them. After they are typed up and put into my pending book, they wait until the time is right and something can be made of them.
Sitting with my guitar is when the work really starts and when, on a good day, some kind iof magic can happen. I used to try to force this or bring ideas to the guitar and sometimes the latter still happens. But what I like about this part is that you can let random events dictate the course of the song and take it out of your hands. Here is where those conduit-for-the-muse illusions start. Mostly, it's a question of trying to avoid my own cliches and surprise myself. The more songs you write, the more difficult this becomes, I should imagine. Sometimes it's easier than others. It's just a matter of bashing around on the fretboard, letting my fingers fall where they will until something interesting comes along.
Sometimes I struggle to avoid my own tried and trusty formulae, banging round the fourths, majors to relative minors etc and sometimes it's just a question of managing to hear something familiar in a new way or to give it an unexpected twist. I will sometimes start with a hideously difficult chord and find a melody to fit it and see where it takes me. Another pet method is to throw chords with common notes in and work them until they form an interesting structure with a kind of drone. Yet another way is to take a well-known chord sequence and play around with it until it sounds novel. The more chords you know the easier and more interesting it becomes. And you have to let yourself become suggestible and be prepared to let the melody and chords take you where they will.
Once you have some kind of chord sequence, with melody attached, it becomes a question of sifting through the lyric book to find something which goes with it. It could be a phrase that fits, or a rhythmic nuance and a mood that suits the melody. Almost anything, in fact. At this point, I discover just how usable my lyrics are. They usually invariably need tweaking, occasionally de- or reconstructing. but if you are lucky, you end up with something. I find that I take a lot of care over the words but let happenstance guide the music. Every Shade of Blue and But I'll Miss You More both happened that way.
I used to have a manic compulsion to try to finish the entire song at one sitting and sometimes it still happens. But nowadays I often don't even pretend to and I don't worry if the chorus or the bridge is unfinished. When I'm in a different mood, I will bring another kind of flavour to the song. It's all about trying to catch myself out and let chance take a role. To that extent, it is possible to feel that you are just an instrument and if you are very lucky you can surprise yourself.
On this note, the concept of finished becomes a relative thing. Sometimes they are never finished - it becomes a case of 'this is how I will do it for now'. The when you have been playing it a certain way for sometime, you get bored and find something better. Keeping things fresh is the key to it all really. Starting with a title, working from an unlikely situation, trying to illustrate a maxim or platitude. It helps to keep a playful quality to it all and treat it as a game to amuse yourself.
So that's it for now. My recommendation to aspiring songwriters: find a school in need of invigilators for exams and hunker down for the duration while letting your imagination wander. I suppose prison would do almost as well......
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Where Next?
So what you do when you feel you are haemorraghing songs and experience the urgency (and arrogance) of anyone who thinks they are creative and absolutely must share your every deathless creation with a world spell-bound with anticipation (or not)? Well, if you are me and a gigging musician, your first impulse is to find a stage in order to strut your stuff and bask in the public's adoration. The only thing is you are just the teeniest bit uncertain as to whether your latest meisterworks are any good or not. Sure, friends have listened and nodded approvingly, but then friends always do. It's not exactly the dispassionate and level-headed critical analysis you are looking for.
An additional complication is that you work in the Middle East. The only possible audience are bored ex-pats for whom every social event is an opportunity to parade around in their latest threads (hand-made by poorly-paid Indian tailors) and catch up on the latest gossip. They attend events organised by hotels for whom every occasion must come with a buffet and an air of suffocating wholesomeness. Your blows against the empire will get lost in the hubbub and in any case they only want to hear Mustang Sally or Hotel California. Any prospect of a responsive but critical audience is stillborn. Music is just part of the package unless you are one of the occasional acts newly arrived on the international scampi in a basket circuit who visit the local Intercontinental from time to time. (Words calculated to cause any self-respecting Goan F & B manager to break out into an acute case of the yawns being something along the lines of, 'Hi. I am a singer-songwriter who writes literate adult pop songs for people with experience and varied tastes. Is there any chance of a gig at your establishment?' It's not exactly the Venga Boys is it?)
As chance would have it, I was approached by someone putting a small charity event together to raise money for computers and stationery items for a school in Zanzibar. Would I be interested in contributing to the event by performing? Is Qaddaffi worried? Of course I would. Just tell me where and when and point me to the stage
Next problem, how to present these little gems in a sympatico setting? Called up my guitarist friend, Santhosh Chandran, one of the most amazing musicians and asked him whether he would be up for it. (If you don't believe how great he is go to this link and see for yourself (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYnna2B5tXo )
I wanted something different in order to stand out from the common ruck. He agreed to do it and I told him I would ask another friend Abdulwadud Al Dawoodi who plays the violin in the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra. We picked a few songs - a fast entry and quick getaway being the ingredients for maximum impact - sketched out some arrangements much to the bemusement of Abdulwadud who had never done improvised head arrangements before and turned up at the event.
As usual, at these things, everyone presses their case and egos run rampant so we got squeezed out and didn't actually get to perform until the very end to a small but dedicated crowd. However, they were very warm and insightful in their appreciation, not to mention gratifyingly incredulous that I had written the songs myself.
Mission accomplished!
I repeated the event but with another guitarist the next time. Lightning doesn't strike twice and it was less successful. Never mind. Just for a short time an intelligent audience reared its tentative head (but I would say that because they liked me!)
Tonight Zanzibar, tomorrow the world!
An additional complication is that you work in the Middle East. The only possible audience are bored ex-pats for whom every social event is an opportunity to parade around in their latest threads (hand-made by poorly-paid Indian tailors) and catch up on the latest gossip. They attend events organised by hotels for whom every occasion must come with a buffet and an air of suffocating wholesomeness. Your blows against the empire will get lost in the hubbub and in any case they only want to hear Mustang Sally or Hotel California. Any prospect of a responsive but critical audience is stillborn. Music is just part of the package unless you are one of the occasional acts newly arrived on the international scampi in a basket circuit who visit the local Intercontinental from time to time. (Words calculated to cause any self-respecting Goan F & B manager to break out into an acute case of the yawns being something along the lines of, 'Hi. I am a singer-songwriter who writes literate adult pop songs for people with experience and varied tastes. Is there any chance of a gig at your establishment?' It's not exactly the Venga Boys is it?)
As chance would have it, I was approached by someone putting a small charity event together to raise money for computers and stationery items for a school in Zanzibar. Would I be interested in contributing to the event by performing? Is Qaddaffi worried? Of course I would. Just tell me where and when and point me to the stage
Next problem, how to present these little gems in a sympatico setting? Called up my guitarist friend, Santhosh Chandran, one of the most amazing musicians and asked him whether he would be up for it. (If you don't believe how great he is go to this link and see for yourself (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYnna2B5tXo )
I wanted something different in order to stand out from the common ruck. He agreed to do it and I told him I would ask another friend Abdulwadud Al Dawoodi who plays the violin in the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra. We picked a few songs - a fast entry and quick getaway being the ingredients for maximum impact - sketched out some arrangements much to the bemusement of Abdulwadud who had never done improvised head arrangements before and turned up at the event.
As usual, at these things, everyone presses their case and egos run rampant so we got squeezed out and didn't actually get to perform until the very end to a small but dedicated crowd. However, they were very warm and insightful in their appreciation, not to mention gratifyingly incredulous that I had written the songs myself.
Mission accomplished!
I repeated the event but with another guitarist the next time. Lightning doesn't strike twice and it was less successful. Never mind. Just for a short time an intelligent audience reared its tentative head (but I would say that because they liked me!)
Tonight Zanzibar, tomorrow the world!
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