Stuff about music, either mine or stuff I am listening to.
It was bugging the crap out of me that I posted that ugly version of “October.” So here’s a much nicer version.
Someone asked about how I miked stuff last time… This one was recorded with the ATM41HE pointed at the 12th fret from around 4 inches away, and the AT4033a/SM standing around three feet away, then the two signals mixed and panned apart from each other. This was a bit of an experiment. It provided a lot more “air” space in the recording than in some of the other ones I have posted. Not sure if I like it that way or not — it’s not like the room where I record has a nice warm tone or anything. In fact, there’s a big ol’ double-wide mirrored closet door, so usually I get slapback.
While I was at it, I wrote a new piece in this tuning too, which you can hear me whistling a snatch of at the start. 🙂 But you’ll have to wait until Sunday for that one — called “November,” of course.
By sheer coincidence, two different friends sent me links to a couple of notable fingerstyle guitarists within the span of just a few hours. One of them was Andy McKee; the other was Don Ross. And of course, these two guys play together from time to time as well. You can get a good taste of what these guys can do by checking them out on YouTube — for example, McKee’s version of “Africa.”
Wait, don’t go listen yet. I’ll sound awful in comparison. 🙂
Anyway, I noticed somewhere that the tuning that McKee was using was CGCGBbC. So I figured I’d give it a whirl, and this is what popped out after a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I developed a blister on my finger pretty early into the process, and ended up with a performance I am really not very happy with. Lots and lots of timing issues. 🙁 On top of that, I don’t think I managed to capture the resonance of the guitar very well in the recording this time… a tuning like this excites harmonics all over, and should sound rich and deep, but it sounds a little harsh and tinny when I listen through my desktop speakers. But here it is anyway. (If you still want to listen after all those disclaimers!)
Of course I had to write a song based on the wildfire experience. But honestly, the suburban wildfire experience doesn’t make for much of a song. Plus, I was also slightly annoyed at all the people saying stuff like “boo hoo, affluent SoCal people” when anyone who lives in San Diego County knows there’s quite a range of incomes and lifestyles around here.
So I decided to do the song from the point of view of someone who lives out near where the fires started — where there are lots of folks who have farms or ranches. Wrote it today around 2pm, and then wrestled with my recording setup for three hours (misconfigured recording input). So this is just a quick sketch of it done in the last hour.
The song is called Up Near Witch Creek, and it goes like this:
I wrote this song a few weeks ago, and have been too busy on the weekends to sit down and record it. Today I finally got the chance, so here it is.
This was one of those tunes that sort of clicked together with very little effort, for some reason. The first version, believe it or not, kinda had a disco beat (no, I don’t know why). Then I bluesed it up a little. Then I wrote a semi-Spanish-sounding guitar solo. Then I left for a conference, and hoped I wouldn’t forget it all.
Looks like I didn’t… so here’s a fairly quick take on it.
