Another Latest? - Simak's Reverie

Simak's Reverie 

 

Has it really been five months since my last song?  

This latest one, currently untitled, started with the aforementioned Talk Box.  I think.

Or maybe it started with a video on the 10ths interval... maybe this one.  A bit of noodling and I had some interesting patterns, made more interesting (or not) by using a super cheap analog delay, maybe ten bucks, that works only at low setting and absolutely destroys the fidelity.  It has it's place.  In either case, I wanted the music to be open instead of my usual super-dense constructions.  This spaciness combined with...

I had been reading short stories by Clifford Simak at the time so that's the source of the robot.  Plus a dash of that Marvin the Paranoid Android song Dr. Demento used to play.  Simak wrote in the 40's or so through the 70s.  His robots were intelligent and self-aware, but definitely servants of humans.  These robots would swap out a chip or disk or something and they'd go from being a doctor to a coal miner.  At the same time as these super-advanced robots in the future, there still existed typing pools and switchboard operators.  My robot is an intelligent nuclear-powered worker who fell off a trans-universal freighter, destined to float forever through space with only his thoughts.

A second video gave me some excellent tips on how to arrange strings so they sound, well, like a real composer wrote them.  And man, oh, man do they ever!  I cannot explain how happy I am with how the string section turned out.  Eventually the song turns into an excuse to use my metal-sounding pedals, topped with a warbling accordion melody.  

Somehow the song seems to have a narrative flow which wasn't exactly intended. I found out that in the world of literature, how I write songs is sometimes called the Push Method, where a scenario is created and the author thinks about where the story wants to go from there... and where it wants to go from this second place... and so on.  That's how I often write songs.  I'll have an idea and record it and then thing "What next?"  It's often a right-angle turn but somehow it all flows together.  

Except for my next song, which I hope to start this weekend.  This time I'm ripping off a Tom Petty song and making a more normal song.  Except you can't really rip off someone who uses the chords of A C D G.  And I can't write a normal song.

 I worked the Trans-U freight line

Alpha Centuri, mostly

A good life.

Model 3014-7B

It was a standard Tuesday

Outside the ship to fix minor damage

Defective tether: broken

They’ll write me off

I am floating

My power won’t die

And neither will I

Always alone

No one forever

 

Am I lonely?

I have all the writings of men

And my thoughts

I’m fine

Drifting forever

 

Thoughts On My Latest

 It's been nearly a year since I last felt compelled to write anything down.  Since then I've been practicing the cello more or less faithfully and I must say, it's a beast.  It is easily the most difficult instrument I've tried to learn.  Even now, almost a year in, if I don't play for a week then I squeak and hit multiple strings and generally make a racket.  However I also finally caved and bought a real wooden cello, that is if a $250 Glarry cello counts.

So about this latest song.... I wanted to capture my thoughts about it before I forgot them forever.

My intention was to make a normal, straight-forward song, using a melody from the verse of a Beatles song as the chorus as my starting point.  Big glassy guitar chords played against three part vocal harmonies, interrupted by a thick and gnarly fuzz riff.  Okay, so maybe not so normal.  But I tried to stick to more normal verse and chorus format, except I started with the chorus.  And no two verses share the same pattern.  And even though I had the (stolen) melody for the chorus, I had no idea of what to do for instrumentation on the verse, except that I wanted it scaled back.  So I kind of played the melody and noodled a bit, doing my normal method of recording me singing a guitar part and then figuring out how to play it.  It works, at least for me.  

Somewhere along the line I found myself playing bongos in the bridge and realized that my life wouldn't be complete without a Talk Box effect.  Fortunately I found one that doesn't use the drooly tube and also had pitch correction on it, which instantly boosted the quality of my cello playing.  So throw the cello on there.  Plus an instrumental passage.  And a key change.  Somehow my simple and sparse song bloated to 50 tracks (although, for example, the bass uses five different tracks throughout the song because of different tones and whatnot).  And also somehow, even with 50 tracks, it remained less busy than most of my songs.

In talking through this I thought about the song pattern, so maybe it's Chorus / Verse / Chorus / Alt-Verse / Bridge / Instrumental / Key Change Chorus / Ending

See?  Pretty normal!

For the lyrics, well, for decades I've had a song from Merry Melodies/Bugs Bunny floating around my head, "I Only Have Eyes For You", to which my faulty brain adds "They're in a jar on  my dresser."  Jumping from there I played with other phrases, like giving away your heart or asking for someone's hand.  

Here it is, in case I ever want to zero in on it again.

Blind Love 

 Now it's time to finally finish the song for Tim Chandler. 

Blame It On Miss Rigby

 

Blame it on that spinster Eleanor Rigby, but I’ve loved the sound of a cello for as long as I can remember.  In my late twenties, after learning how to play the electric bass, I really wanted to buy a cello for my thirtieth birthday.  However that was very early in the internet days so all I could find were cellos around $1200, both locally and online (Stringworks… why do you still tempt me so?) and so no cello.

One day, when I was a spry young lad in my early forties, I saw a guy play an electric cello at church.  Hmmmm….  I found the same cello online for a mere $300.  Now that’s a price I could take a chance on! 

In 1995 I learned the bass guitar on my own, messing around and figuring things out.  Again, this was before free lessons were everywhere on YouTube and I knew so little that I had to even ask I guy I knew how to change the strings.  There wasn’t much in the way of cello instruction on YouTube in 2015 either, so I mucked around in my usual way and made a few sounds.  I was able to get a decent sound if I wanted a simple, rough rhythm part on a recording (with lots of attempts and lots of editing) but I was far away from being able to play any kind of melody. 

But mostly the cello sat in a corner, making me feel only slightly guilty.

When covid hit and we were all sent home, I decided to practice it five minutes a day.  This went on for a week and I thought I was doing well until I watched some instructional videos and found that I was holding the bow wrong, that I was sitting wrong, that I was wrong Wrong WRONG!  I tried the “correct” methods and they didn’t feel right and it wasn’t long before that cello was back in the corner.  During this time, though, I did play it once at church, using my small bag of tricks and limited note ability for all they were worth.  There’s nothing like the prospect of public humiliation to make one practice.  I probably put in an entire hour of practice for that three minute song.

Last April I decided to stop sucking so much on the electric guitar and to buy a year of Tim Pierce’s online guitar lessons.  I started strong for a few months, slowed way down for a few, and then got my second wind, ending strong.  It really did make a difference!  Although I’m years away from being a real guitarist I’m light years ahead of where I was.

The “second wind” coincided with a video of a classical pianist who learned the guitar in a month.  She shared that although the style and techniques were different, the practice habits were the same for both.  One thing she shared is that it’s important to practice every day, even if it’s just ten minutes. 

A second habit I started was based on finding that someone’s dad used to pay him a nickel for every minute they practiced as a kid.  Sure, it’s only three bucks an hour but it’s a reward system that I could use to buy more guitar gear… guilt free because I earned it!

Somewhere during the last few months I decided that after the guitar lesson subscription ended that I would put my new-found practice habits to use on learning the cello.  May 2025 was going to be CELLO MONTH!

Let me first say that cello is waaaay more difficult than bass guitar.  Even getting a decent non-squeaky tone is a challenge.  It's now May 23 and so far I have practiced every single day, usually for twenty-five minutes but sometimes only ten.  The thing is that I’m showing up and working at it.  Being the dork that I am, it’s all on a spreadsheet… 508 minutes so far!  That’s nearly eight and a half hours (and $25)!  Wow!  I should HOPE that I’m improving!  My end goal is to be able to play the cello part from Eleanor Rigby as well as a cello part I wrote for a song.  There’s only about a week left and I don’t think I’ll be fluid enough to play either, but I’ll probably continue into June. 

Watch out, Yo Yo Ma!

 

 

 

 

friEND Update

It’s been a year since my last post, and also at least a year since I gave up on the “finding a local friend” thing.  And I can still honestly say that Since I Gave Up Hope, I Feel A Lot Better. (Thanks Steve… I know that’s not what you meant but the shoe fits).  There is still liberation in my withdrawal from society.

I realized that when I was a pre-teenager I spent most of my time alone doing creative stuff.  During my teen and very early 20s I had some friend time, mostly creating music or videos, but even then I would need alone time after.  Overall it seems that now when I have some free time, I’d rather spend it with my family or alone doing things I love instead of putting effort into trying to make guy friends.  I am fully embracing my lonerism… it’s best to lean into your strengths!

I think the dad-band played two, maybe three times in the past year.  If I can’t remember then that’s telling.  The first time was after an eight month break and was decent, possibly due to there only being the new guitarist.  The most recent was not so “decent” and I couldn’t wait to get out of there.  The previously absent guitarist is going deaf and blasted his amp right at me.  I asked him to move it and he did but it’s a small space so there isn’t much room for movement.  I would have asked him to turn it down but that’s just not rock ‘n’ roll!  Also both guitarists had loud hums in their amps, which isn’t normal but also didn’t add to the evening.  As a contrast, when I play bass or guitar along with recordings by myself in the basement, I come upstairs energized and refreshed.  I’m giving it time to make sure before I make the call, but it might be time for that season to end.  As it stands, I handed the reigns over to Mike a year ago so it’s up to him to put in the time to get us together so I’m sitting back to see how I feel when it finally happens, which due to his job will be at least another month.  Maybe my ear drums will have recovered by then.

Also in the area of the loner, in that past I’ve made intentional attempts to talk to guys at church, introducing myself and trying to make conversation.  Looking back at their reactions, it’s obvious no one was interested and they just wanted to go through the paces of church and leave.  So now at this new church, I don’t even try.  “Good morning” and a handshake during the brief meet and greet, walk in, walk out without trying to meet anyone, just like everyone else.  Church is supposed to be community?  Maybe for some.  As for me, nothing ventured, nothing lost.  And I actually like not having the difficulty of social interaction.

In the realm of work, there were three guys that I would occasionally swing by their office and chat with.  One is my age and the other two are quite a bit younger but have similar interests.  In all this time, none of them have ever initiated a conversation so I’m getting the hint and dropping that. 

I guess I’m not good at doing the friendship thing.  It takes effort and this well has done gone dry.  Why continue beating my head on a brick wall?  Hard like a stone.  A little contact every month or so and I’m good (Hey, Adam!  I really do appreciate you and am happy for you!).  I’m just not a “hanging out” kind of guy but felt like I should try because, you know, Christian fellowship. I don't feel that way any more.