The Work Diary

4.  Go to your parents' house and ask where the "Stereo" is.  You can also try asking if they still have a "Radio", but don't ask for the Tape Recorder as you might be directed to the "VCR" which would be wrong.  If you're handed a "Walkman", grab that too as it will come in handy later.

5.  Once you find the Stereo, insert the tape w/ the letter A facing out the window and make sure its rewound to the beginning.

6.  Find the "Mic in" or "Line in" input jack - it'll look a lot like the port where you stick your headphones on your phone.  You can tell the difference by seeing if there is a green ring around the hole.  If its green, thats for headphones - you want to use the other one.

7.  Plug an 1/8th inch wire from your iPhone / iPod / computer to the Stereo mic in.  Try to find this wire - my headphones actually came with one that unplugs at both ends.

8.  Simultaneously press record on the stereo (a red button with a circle immediately to the left of the play button (green triangle)) and press play on your i-Device at the same time.

9.  Wait 30 minutes for the recording to finish!

10.  When its finished, flip the tape over and repeat steps 1-3 and then 9 & 10 for Side B. 

11.  Slam that tape into the "Walkman", and you're now listening to possibly the first ever downloaded from the internet tape!

With every song I've come up with, the process always ultimately turns downhill toward: Is this even a decent song anymore?  Will anyone even like this?  Do I even like it anymore?  The mistakes always honk out to me, and I always wrestle with re-recording, which would take up time but to be honest they're never gonna be perfect and really I'm just fooling around on a bunch of instruments and posting the results on the internet.  The goal is to insert different sounds like organ, or piano, or bass, or drum into a song and hopefully internalize the effect and understanding how much a sound or instrument can disrupt the balance of a song.  Then hopefully down the road, if I do figure out how to come up with great great text and melodies, then my memory will be there to call on what instruments would be best to deliver the complete package.  I don't really have a lofty goal other than just trying to extract as much intel from completing each post whether its a cover or original. 
 

Takeaways
 - I probably shouldn't have put space in for mini-drum solos.  I foolishly thought I could just come up with something or imitate something, but as I should have expected, its really difficult.  Drumming is difficult because being even slightly off just sounds sloppy...  In the end I just said fuck it and had to move on w/ tackling the new video software. 

 - Johnny Cash's guitar picker was Luther Perkins who really contributed significantly to JC's signature style.  At first I wanted to scrap the song because I didn't think there was enough to learn from attempting this style, but I was wrong.  When you play bass, you're super exposed because if your timing is off, everyone can tell instantly - perhaps because there are no other frequencies down there to obscure if you're on time or not.  Well I think this guitar picking is even tougher because you have to try and be exactly on time and the shrill sound honks out even more if you're late or too early on the beat. 

 - I copied Johnny Cash's own guitar style of strumming on an unmic'd acoustic.  On youtube he's always singing and strumming along on a guitar, but you can't hear it because theres no microphone picking it up.  I used to wonder why he'd even bother - but I guess it would look pretty strange if he were just standing there and singing. 

Ishida

This one gets a solid C-  Like barely passing...
But its time to move on, and your first try at something newish it'll likely be pretty rough. 

You can really hear the difference between a band that is well rehearsed and really knows all the changes vs. someone who needs to practice.  Oh well down the road we can look back and see if I've improved.

Yes that is a yoga mat under the pedals to keep them from sliding away. 

Per the internet, a cell phone is more powerful than the computers used in the 60's to put people into space - yet my laptop still crashes when trying to make a video for the internet.  Does the necessity to upgrade ever end?

Logistics for the drum computer were the most difficult, because at first I got some cheap drum sticks (OK the cheapest ones in the store) but after watching some videos I learned that it really pays off to use well balanced sticks that can produce proper rebound off the drum skin.  This way when you strike down the drum actually puts the stick back in the air and to get a second tone you just gently "dribble" it back down.  I tried mounting the unit on a microphone stand, which had it sloping downward  - this caused the drum stick heads to hit the pads at an angle which began eroding away the vinyl surfaces, so I ordered a new stand to have it sit flat.  I hope it works. 

I learned that my guitar effect pedal has built in wah-pedals inside, but you need a compatible lever to make the bwow chicka bwow wow sound
- my organ pedal does not work.

Ishida

Bach
Bach is truly a brutal dictator.  Just kidding I didn't mean that...ok maybe I did.  Its just hard as hell and this is one of his easier pieces!  First I chose a short piece from my book, but I quickly realized it was too easy, so I tried another one and thought I could play them consecutively, but I still thought they'd be too easy even together.  Then I started this prelude foolishly thinking, "I can just play these three all together!"  and Bach LoL'd in my face - this one alone wound up taking almost twice as long as my posts usually take to record.   

You could spend your entire life studying Bach and still have your mind blown regularly I think.  In fact, Pablo Casals the famous Spanish cellist who played the Cello Suites internationally said when he was around 80 years old that he was still only scratching the surface.  My favorite Bach player of all time is Glenn Gould and you just have to imagine the ecstasy he must have felt by having such a command of the repertoire.  Then I imagine someone looking at my playing who maybe has tried playing piano a few times and he or she says "wow it must be amazing to play and understand music." but I am in the exact same position!  And it never ends - going on forever!  The more you practice the more you realize "merciful Jesus I'm only learning how little I know and how much farther there is to go!"  I guess it is pretty profound though that works like Bach even exist on planet earth.  My counterpoint teacher in college said that if aliens ever came to earth and for whatever reason needed proof as to why we deserve to even exist in the first place, that all we'd need to do is submit the Musical Offering by Bach (another collection that was composed for a local prince) and we'd be safe case closed. 

Keyboard
I used to think that Piano was more accessible than guitar because a single piano key is wider than a guitar string, so you have a greater change of hitting the note - more room for error.  But now I think its equally as hard.  You must be precise in terms of where on the piano key you are landing else the neighboring key walls trip you up as your wrist moves in new direction.  Its audible on a recording when your mind is consumed with trying to navigate obstacles instead of proactively landing on the right spot and triggering the note you want.  What you gotta do is eliminate a step by practicing precise landings instead of landing on a key and then worrying how to get off it a millisecond later.  Accuracy eliminates the second step of getting off it smoothly. 

The Harpsichord
Considered an early instrument, the harpsichord was a popular piece of furniture in the homes of wealthy European families, and often daughters were taught how to play in hopes of rounding out their candidacy for marriage to the son of another neighboring wealthy family.  If you press a key down, a trigger in the body plucks a single string creating a tone at a fixed volume.  If you had a "double manual" harpsichord, the second keyboard would trigger the plucking of 2 or 3 strings which would make the tone 2 or 3 times louder - so you had a softer manual and a louder manual.  Unfortunately, when the Piano was invented and mass produced for purchase, everyone quickly upgraded to the Piano because the technology allowed the force applied by the finger tips to be directly transferred to a hammer inside therefore creating a relative volume proportionate to the force applied which suddenly made the keyboard much more like a violin or wind instrument or voice because you could produce a whole range of volumes for dramatic effect.  The harpsichord reached its peak in popular during the early / mid 1700s - to put the timing in perspective Thomas Jefferson played the Harpsichord (and other keyboard instruments).

I spend so much time on the computer editing that I don't even know what to write anymore.  You listen to the same changes over and over that you don't even know if its good or if you even like it anymore!  Oh well 1 day late now I can work on something else!

Goals:

 - All I wanted was a short organ solo with a "keygrab" - a word I made up where you start an organ line by sliding your hand up the keys and hopefully land on a note that is in the supporting harmony.  I was able to capture 2 on the recorder yessss.

 - A bridge section with syncopation that fits back into the regular tempo

Heres a random photo so maybe it'll be more noticeable in my facebook feed.

Ishida

I made a song where I could play the bongos.

Things I can't be bothered with:

 - Setting up the camera to make a video

 - Dealing with iMovie

 - Making a click track because recording is frustrating and I just get annoyed that the metronome

Ishida

I wrote a song about a guy whose goldfish has cancer.

I was going to make a final recording in a kinda high school essay / draft style:
 - First you fool around on guitar and when an idea sounds good record it.
 - Then fool around on bass until it sounds kinda cool and record that.
 - Add a drum track
 - come up with a melody that fits with some rough lyrics
 - re-record the guitar part so its less "individualistic" and will blend better supporting the melodic theme / structure
 - Do the same for bass
 - Find a drum sample of a real drummer playing at the same tempo
 - Re-Record a final version of vocals that fits well within the more balanced version of everything else.

Unfortunately my guitar amp broke, so I couldn't re-do the guitar and bass.  Plus its 2 days late so I just slammed them together.  I wanted to do organ and a guitar solo, but wasted 2 days trying to fix the guitar amp. 

Pro tips
 - Don't oversing when trying to record vocals over a clumsy mix of instruments.  In my case, I get more nasal sounding.
 - Everything takes forever, so just settle on the thing that sounds pretty good and move on or else you'll spend forever on each thing and never finish

Ishida