Monday 29 October 2007

Month?

Wow. Almost a month. That's quite inexcusable, I suppose. The new band has been taking up a bit of my time, I suppose.

Still, I haven't totally neglected the playing. While I haven't been composing much, still working on covers a bit. As part of my lessons I have been working on Miles Davis'.
All Blues. Without going into it too much, here's something I sequenced in and did a bit of soloing/arranging on. Nothing too elaborate, but a bit of fun. I tried playing some of this organ stuff on non-weighted keys. I am trying to get back into that style of playing to at least some extent. Also, the finishing drums were played entirely by me. Can't say the same for the ones during the song. Ha.

What else? Tascam finally released the drivers for my recorder! That means I am actually able to record things on my computer. This is good. I've also got the right amount of midi ports now, so I can play in and out of all of my instruments without re-rigging. Getting a bit more out of the synth now, which is nice. Talking to this guy I met about a synth band, too. Could be interesting. I wish I still had that moog. :(

Tuesday 2 October 2007

Before this dance is through, I think I'll love you too.

Until Saturday...or maybe it was Sunday, it had been an unproductive few weeks. Paul has me working on 16ths in my jazz tunes, as they've been neglected of late in favour of triplets and swung eighths. Its significantly harder to play 16ths, and that's been a good challenge.

Compositionally, its been pretty dead. I really need to sit and work on my existing tracks. I had a pretty good run a few weeks ago, but I haven't had much time, or perhaps interest since. Started a new band with me on drums, and we've got shows planned pretty soon, so that's taken up a bit of my time and musical thoughts.

Being off piano for two weeks, though, I didn't want to sleep into stagnation. I've been meaning to learn Damien Rice's 9 Crimes for a while now, and on Sunday I finally figured it out after some heavy wrestling.

Its quite simple when you figure it out - there is almost always only one note, and its just eighths, but it took a while to get my head around it. I am not sure if its quite right, but its pretty close. I think some weird timing things are happening when the vocals come in, but I am pretty sure the piano line stays the same. Its hard to tell for sure though.

Tonight I tried another one that I've been meaning to tackle - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's Falling Slowly, from the soundtrack to the film Once. I had the soundtrack before I saw the film, but when we did go see it, I realised that it was in C major, (or is that a Minor) so I had no excuse.

I am pretty sure its a bit off, but I'll get there. I am working out the vocal melodies, too, but didn't record that yet.

These songs make me really wish I could sing though. It's painful.