Holiday Music and Electronic Music

So three months after my last post and I am still working on that same one Christmas song. It's been rough. Too much stuff going on. (Although I must admit I also did waste some time unnecessarily). Am I ready to throw in the towel on my plan to have a holiday album out this year? No, not quite yet. But it isn't looking good. I may have to settle on another EP. At worst, I may have to settle on this one song, but that seems far-fetched. The good news is I have to do just a little more recording on this song and then put it all together. The bad news is I'm not sure how I will handle the drum track. Will I play actual drums or will I go with my Yamaha synth drum sounds? I do want to actually play but we'll see.

Sometime in April I took a break from the Xmas song to record something using my Minimoog. This is a pretty amazing instrument in that it is a whole band in itself. Couple some of the melodic tones with a delay pedal and you get some very out-there electronic sounds.

I put together about a 5 or 6 track piece of different Moog sounds and made up a little electronic song. After doing this for a few days I felt the inspiration to do a whole album of songs made only (or almost entirely) on the Minomoog. I'm not saying I've done that already but it is another project that will be in the works.

What I came up with is a type of music that I have been searching for but could not find. I realize there are tons of music out there that I have not yet heard and never will. But based on my searches I have not found what I've been looking for. It all started with a Chernobyl disaster I saw online a few years ago. It had stock footage of Soviet nuclear power films and some very Moog-ish music playing along. The song was undoubtedly electronic and was most likely created on keyboards exclusively. What I don't know is whether the music was part of the film or if it was newly created for the documentary. The film's era is very hard to tell but I would guess it to be somewhere from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. The music fits in perfectly with that era and makes me skeptical that it was newly made for the program. But I cannot find any info about it and there is nothing in the credits.

How do I describe this music? It's outer spacey. It's futuristic in a retro sort of way. It's unsettling. It's early shoe-gazing music. It's sparse. It makes everything seem slow motion. It sounds like it was recorded in wide open spaces, like the glaciers of Iceland. It's atmospheric. It's ambient. It has that lo-fi feel. It gives warning. It can be ominous.

That's what I want to make. I don't have all the synth sounds I would like to have in order to do this. In particular there is a vintage sound which resembles voices singing "ohs" or "ahs" and it sounds really great.

I've listened to artists such as Suzanne Ciani and Klaus Schulze but their electronic art tends to not be very musical. I have no problem with long, drawn-out pieces even if they're not in a static rhythm. But it has to have a feel of musicality and a pulse to drive it. The "I Robot" album by The Alan Parsons Project has a lot of aspects of what I'm looking for, particularly the instrumental passages. I thought Kraftwerk may have been a source but their music sounds too gleeful.

I would like to find some of what I'm looking for from the period of 1969-1977. It has to be out there. But I haven't found it so I will try to make my own. I uploaded a super lo-fi version to my phone from my monitors of the song I made has unofficial working titles of "Moog Song" and "The Day Will Come." Here it is from soundcloud:




That's rather a short piece but I plan to make it a lot longer. I'm envisioning about 4-5 songs for a 40-minute album. And this is a project I believe I can get done before the year is up even if I start a few months from now.

But I really do want to work on the Christmas music. It has not been difficult as I thought it would be. The song I've been working on is rather funky and it keeps me in the spirit of working on it. I don't think it's strange to work on holiday music throughout the year, and it doesn't feel weird telling others that's what I'm doing. So onward I go!

Spring Update

So we're into the final third of April and I have not written any holiday or seasonal tunes! And to be honest, I don't really feel like it! I knew this would happen. I have not able to immerse myself into that genre of music as I had wanted to. But fear not--I have been working on other music. I have about four songs I am working on right now. One is lyrically complete and ready to start recording. The other three are more in the infant stages of writing. But I feel good that ideas are flowing. And at this time, I feel as though I'm going in the direction of shorter songs. The bulk of the music I love is pop & rock of the 1960's & early 1970's. If I had to sum it up into a range it would be 1964-1972. The majority of the hit songs of that era were all just about under three minutes long. So I'm probably going to keep them short and (hopefully) sweet. I'm also considering mixing all the songs in mono just to give the project that extra 60's sound. Some of my all-time favorite songs are in mono and only available in mono (as far as I know). Here are some of them:

Heart Full of Soul (The Yardbirds)

Gimme Some Lovin' (The Spencer Davis Group)

Can't Be Still (Booker T & The M.G.'s)

Ya Ya (Lee Dorsey)

Take a Heart (The Sorrows)

Down Home Girl (The Stones)

You Need Lovin' (The Small Faces)

Baby Don't Go (Sonny & Cher)

Barefootin' (Robert Parker)

Good Time Charlie (Bobby Bland)

I realize some of those may fall outside the specified range, but it's not an exclusive range. Anyway I'm not a huge fan of mono but it does give a recorded song more of a vintage, lo-fi feel. Plus, when comparing mono mixes to stereo ones of the thousands of songs I have in my library, the mono mixes usually sound louder and more balanced. Of course, that could have to do with mastering techniques as well. In the 60's most singles on 45 were punchy mono mixes made specifically to sound loud over the radio and on your home turntables. The Beatles released all their albums in both mono and stereo up through 1968. They involved themselves in the mono mixes and left the stereo mixing up to the studio staff.

I'm going to do this. And it's cool because I will still have access to make stereo mixes whenever the mood strikes or if need be. That's the difference between my recordings and the ones listed above. Many of those were recorded on two or three-track tape with the masters no longer available. Thus they are preserved for posterity in mono and nothing else. But it is fun to think about how they would have been mixed in stereo. I got used to a lot of The Beatles' earlier stereo output where most instruments would be panned to one side and the vocals on the other, with nothing much in the center. Those stereo recordings helped me better hear and figure out the different instrument parts so I could learn to play them. That's one of the reasons I prefer stereo overall--there is a lot more to be heard that mono mixes do not permit.

I think the four songs I'm working on will be interesting. If I can get really serious about finishing them up and doing a few more things I may actually have something to release this year.

Christmas Music & A Holly Jolly Christmas Guitar Solo Tab

Merry Christmas! The day has officially arrived and although it is great I wish it were still a few days away. The anticipation always seems to be higher than the day itself and now as usual I will going through 'Christmas withdrawal' symptoms. Would be nice if the Christmas celebration would go on during the weekend since it did fall on a Friday this year. But the radio stations already start pulling the plug on the holiday music and the TV stations end their Christmas programming early on in the day. All that just adds to the feeling of withdrawal.

I probably will not be making any additional Christmas/seasonal songs for now. At least not for release during what remains of this year. I may still toy around with some ideas I have. But at the moment I am still fully absorbing the 'sounds of the season' as they say. I'll tell you the truth--it's really hard for me to just completely cut off the music once Christmas Day becomes yesterday. This may sound peculiar but I continue to play Christmas/seasonal music well into February and even March at times. It helps me accept the fact that the holiday season is over and deal with the sometimes brutal moods of winter.

I do have this seasonal tune I wrote some years back called "Wintertime Blues." I wrote it as a bit of a jazzy piece and envisioned a very simple arrangement of only guitar, bass, drums, piano & vocal. I may tinker a bit with it in the coming days and weeks.Would make a great addition to my future Christmas album of all original songs. And as I wrote before, I really want to release an album of Christmas classics as well. If all plays out well in the coming year I will make a serious effort to record another 8 to 10 instrumental covers of public domain holiday songs. Picking out the songs will be something I should start doing right now. It's a shame that I can only use public domain songs, though due to licensing rights. There are plenty of other songs I would love to record, such as "Let it Snow," "Christmastime is Here," "Little Drummer Boy," "Silver Bells" and "Holly Jolly Christmas" to name a few. Don't get me wrong--I totally understand that I can record cover versions of these songs. I just cannot sell them. And I want to put together an album that I can sell without worrying about paying royalties to others.

But speaking of "A Holly Jolly Christmas," I've always appreciated that 12 string acoustic guitar doing fills and solos throughout Burl Ives' recording. I especially like that solo after the key change and I tabbed it out for anyone who is interested. I don't have a video for this but I may make one soon since it would be a very short one. Heck, it may even already be out there on YouTube. But I've learned that everyone hears things differently so it's not a bad idea to present your interpretation to the world.

E  :----------------|--------------------|--------------------|
B  :------6---------|--------------------|--------------------|
G  :-5678--8-56-86--|5h6p5--------6------|--------------------|
D  :---------------8|-----8-4---68-86----|--------------------|
A  :----------------|-----------------6h8|-4-----46/7-8--8----|
E  :----------------|--------------------|----46--------------|

This tab will work for a regularly tuned 6 string guitar and also for a 12 string that is tuned down a whole step with a capo on the 2nd fret.

EDIT: I've decided to tab the cool little intro solo to the song as well. It's just as great as the middle solo and fun to play:

E  :----------------|----------------|-----------
B  :1-----0---------|----------------|-----------
G  :------------2-42|--------0-20-2--|-0---------
D  :----------------|-2---234--------|-----------
A  :----------------|----------------|----2------

E  :----------------|----------------|-----------

E  :------|----------------|-----------------|-----------------|
B  :------|----3-----0-----|----------1------|-----------------|
G  :----0-|234--4-02--2--0-|20----0-22--2----|-----------------|
D  :------|-------------3--|-------------0h20|h2-0-------------|
A  :------|----------------|---2-------------|----0--3---------|
E  :------|----------------|-----------------|-----------------|

Just to clarify--what appear to be '20' and '22' in the tab are actually 2,0 and 2,2.

EDIT 2: Made the video....

The Moment of Truth

This next song has been the longest in the making. I started recording it in 2002 and only finished it in 2010. I was satisfied with the instrumentation and arrangement but the original vocals left much to be desired. Originally I had sung the main vocal an octave lower that what you will hear in this version. I didn't like it. It sounded too laid back and wasn't a good match for the subject matter of the lyrics.

I worked on the instrument tracks for much of 2002 and 2003. I was very pleased with the music itself and definitely felt it was my best work up to then. Even to this day it remains one of my favourite songs and I really love the semi-psychedelic folk rock sound I created on it. Even a fellow musician of the reggae/rap genre had shown some interest in sampling the instrumental version for his own music. As far as I know, that never came to pass however.

The drums on this song sound very good to me just as on the previous song. The overall balance of sound and instruments is also very good.

I recorded multiple takes of the vocal track but none every sounded right. So for years I left the song alone until 2010 when I decided to try something different with it. What I tried was to sing the whole song an octave higher than originally planned. To me, that gave the song a much better sound and a sense of urgency that complemented the lyrics. It also made it much more difficult to sing the chorus without going flat. Nonetheless, I think it sounds great. And I added a falsetto harmony track on the verses. Icing on the cake!

Instrumentation includes: acoustic guitar; several electric guitar tracks; electric bass; drums, electronic keyboard (organ sound); and digital piano. The electric guitar used in this song was my very first electric. It was an Epiphone Les Paul Special which I no longer have. I don't have any pictures of it either.

Here is the song:




Since this is one of my personal favourite songs and one of the best sounding ones, I included this song in my 5-song EP which I released in November of 2011. This song can be found on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and various other music websites.

I never entered this song in any contest mainly because I stopped entering songwriting contests in the mid 2000's and this one was completed in 2010.

On my next post, I will have another one of my favourite songs. It's a song that also took on a life of its own for a while and some people can even sing some lines from its chorus even to this day.