An anniversary of sorts
Just time—in-between daughter-entertaining, studying-and-writing for next OU course assignment and hoping that all this penicillin will kill off the horrid throat infection I've been enduring since the weekend—to mark something of a milestone: on this day, exactly twenty-one years ago, I planted myself beside my bedroom record-player (for that it was—dates me a bit, I know) with my mum's Spanish guitar and her Mick Abrahams tutor record, and let Mick's voice guide me through my very first guitar chords. Even then, I wondered how long I'd keep at it.
Suffice it to say, over two decades later, I'm still strummin' and pickin', and have even added the odd other instrument to the roster (though if they've got strings and frets too, that helps). I count learning the guitar as one of the better decisions I've made, not least because it's often been a kind of escape for me—probably less so now than in the past, as I feel generally more content and comfortable with myself these days than has sometimes been the case. But there's a whole other post there; just not this time...
So, will I reach for the guitar tonight and, for old-time's sake, try and imagine how I strained to finger those first G and C chords? It's hard to say, what with all the other calls on my time, but... well, you know, I just might do that.
"One, two, three: dum-ching, dum-ching, dum-ching..."
Labels: guitar
Fun with a Futurama
Fear not—I'm still here! I've been submerged in my latest OU course assignment (which I'll be getting back to in a few moments), and have barely done any recording since the last post here nearly two weeks ago, so there's not a great deal to report.
OK, I have laid down a couple of tracks for Joy's children's musical activity sessions—for one, I added some electric guitar and bass guitar to one of Joy and Charlotte's keyboard-and-vocal tracks ("I'm A Little Teapot", if you must know :-) ) about a week ago. During this session, I plugged in a wonderful early-60s Hofner Futurama bass, which I've borrowed from a friend to play on a few tracks. It has real flatwound strings (instead of the roundwound ones you get on almost all guitars and basses nowadays) and a single neck pickup, and it is a joy to play, compared to "The Beast" (my Squier Precision Special 5-string). I should also add that my Christmas present is turning out very useful for my bass tracks!
Best of all, and partly because of the strings and pickup, the Hofner has this woolly, thuddy, slightly honky sound which you normally associate with mid-60s beat groups and Paul McCartney's basslines with the Beatles—-exactly why I wanted to borrow this bass for these particular tracks I've had in mind. It was perfect for my version of "The Wheels On The Bus" for Joy (as I mentioned last time, I was going for a Monkees-kind of "Last Train To Clarksville" approach), and I'm hoping to use it on a few more tracks before I have to give it back ;-)
Right, and now I really do have to get back to the study. See you next time...
Labels: childrenssongs, guitar, music
Session musician!
I got a rare chance to play on someone else's recording session last night (as opposed to one of my own), thanks indirectly to an acquaintance of ours who is over in India for some months. Basically, she will be spending Christmas there this year, and a bunch of folk from our church decided to send her a little something to see her through the festive season: a CD with some specially-recorded renditions of Christmas songs (presumably ones that she likes).
When I got wind of this scheme, I volunteered my services (instrumental, recording, etc.), and shortly afterwards my friend Ben, who is producing the recordings, invited me in to lay down some guitar tracks. To this end, yesterday evening I took my acoustic and electric, plus my Roland VG-8 and EBow, round to Ben's home studio, to see what we could get down in three hours.
As it turned out, the answer to that is, "quite a bit, considering". With the VG-8, I didn't have to spend much time messing with mike placement and so on, so I was more or less able to 'plug in and go', which saved us some valuable time. I played on three songs ("In The Bleak Midwinter", "Shine Jesus Shine" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (yes, the Band Aid one, and specifically the 2004 version)); another friend, Luke, had already recorded piano tracks for the three songs, which we would be building on.
With the first two songs, I recorded a number of short guitar parts (e.g. verse/chorus, or single verses) in different styles, sounds, etc., so that Ben could splice the bits together into complete tracks later. Before now, I personally wouldn't have thought of trying this approach (especially for a recording I wanted to sell), but now I've tried it for myself, I think it would work well for demos, or where I was recording another musician and time was particularly limited (as was the case here).
It was great fun playing lots of different guitar styles and sounds—everything from 'straight' acoustic rhythm guitar, through jangly 12-string electric (courtesy of the VG-8) and some solo and 'textural' parts with the EBow, all the way to dual harmony lead guitar on "Do They Know It's Christmas?" (the latter replicating Justin and Dan Hawkins' parts on the 2004 recording, which we're modelling our version on). It's almost like being a kind of musical Rory Bremner: how quickly can I switch between different "voices"?
Working the session last night, reminded me how much I enjoy this kind of thing: I just wish I had more time than I have, to play and record music both for myself and for others. To be honest, if we'd had more time, I would've had a couple more tries at improving some of my performances, following the advice of another recording musician I know (basically, when recording, don't settle for any "second-best" attempts if you can help it, as you'll hear your mistakes every time you play the track!). However, we had the time that we had, and I think in the end, the results should sound pretty good (especially if Ben can cut-and-paste the better bits together, and maybe play some extra guitar himself, which he's well able to do).
From here, I understand Ben's going to record the bass and drums with various other church people we know, as well as assorted solo and choir vocals. I'm really looking forward to hearing how this turns out, and hope that the results will help our friend in India feel like she has a part of us with her for Christmas.
Labels: guitar, music, recording, session
