chet baker FORGETFUL

Forgetful.mp3

FORGETFUL

Lately, you've been so forgetful
a kind of a
stop and go forgetful
that bothers me

That's how this tune starts. Forgetful.
i picked this one to do first because i'm lazy and i trust in things like visual cues and happenstance.

what the hell does that mean? beats me. 'cept it happens to be the truth.

i chose this one to be the first cuz something had to be first, otherwise there would be no second. or third. or 43rd for that matter.

i chose it monday morning. it seemed like a good time to begin something. and besides, i have been working on solo piano recordings for a few weeks and i happen to be in the neighborhood.

anyway, so this tune, my rendition, sucks. hard.
and what does actually make up the lion's share of the suckage?

well, there's so much to choose from. where to begin?
how about if i start with the methodology...

this is my first attempt. so let's be fair.


i'm not a singer. i've sung exactly twice in my life. one was just last month when i entered a jingle contest. another story. one for a later post. glad, right?

So....this tune 'Forgetful', my first chet tune in this project.

i began by finding the chart for the tune.

A chart, for those not familiar with us very hip musicians, is the piece of music we like to call a 'head chart' aka, 'leadsheet' aka 'chart.' this is the piece of paper on which is written the tune's title, the composer and the music.

the music on these charts, chart out the changes (the chords), the melody, the time signature and key. Also on these charts is everything else you would expect to see in a piece of music...everything except things like orchestral cues, dynamic markings. harmony parts and explicit solo manuscript.

so in this case ('FORGETFUL') i began by learning the changes (the chords) for the tune.

this is not as easy it sounds because apparently, learning the changes is not enough; one needs to put them in the right place...and at the right time.

who knew?

just kidding of course. i know all of this. but sadly, the doing is not made that much easier for the knowing.

so after the chords and the placement of the chords along the timeline of the tune (oh yeah, i forgot to say that before any of this, i needed to come up with a tempo, i.e., the speed of the tune. the tempo for FORGETFUL is 100 bpm (beats per minute) just so you know.


anyway, after the tempo and the chords, i began making recording passes. and this is where things get interesting.

To play music is one thing. to record yourself playing music is quite another. it demands a whole lot of shit. a whole lot of 'non-musical' shit. and if you don't know it, you can't record. and if your goal is to record...well you know where i'm going with this.

it's a bit of a juggling act, recording. especially if you are the musician as well as the recordist. not complaining. just fact. hard, cold ugly fact.

don't get me wrong. recording is fun...well, sometimes. to hear yourself playing can be both exhilarating and demoralizing, sometimes both and at the same time. which doesn't help my ambivalence with regard to my musicianship.

what you do is this:

make a new track, then click on about six buttons each choosing things like: monitoring system setting, midi patches, mono/stereo input, output device selection, recording level, monitoring level and routing matrix.

yeah. i know. all fun and intuitive choices...clearly intuitive. yeah, we were all born with this kind of technological background knowledge. uh huh.

suffice it to say it took me months to get so i could make these adjustments and settings in less than 5 seconds. i know. i'm fucking awesome. i know it.

with all these settings...uh...set, i can punch the little red bullseye in the transport bar of the editor window and we're off to the races. yep. off to the races.

except for the times i forget to arm the metronome, or set the other tracks to "not record" or un-solo the dummy tracks (if any).

if i haven't screwed the pooch on any of these parameters, it is indeed time to record, to 'lay down the snoopy and shred' as my good friend Woodstock Peef says.

In the case of 'FORGETFUL', this was less than smooth. i think i ended up recording and deleting about a dozen piano tracks before i decided to go ahead and lay down a drum track instead.

this'll get easier right?

well, perhaps.

Except when I need to lay down a drum track.

Drums are big. And because i don't want to drag my drum set into the living room, on account of that's where we eat and whatnot, i dialed up the fx editor and chose a MIDI patch from a music library (sadly the only music library) i have tucked away in the bowels of REAPER.

These VSti's--the virtual instruments available to use when recording a song is a much longer story than i care to relate right now. maybe later, over a beer or three.

Suffice it to say that they are digital samples of real instruments. Yeah, i know. what the hell?

Considering the Connection between Emotion and Melody

I took a bike ride.

I was forced to on account of there was so much noise and disruption outside.

Utility crews are fixing some broken dirt. They must be using really dull tools. Either that or they're just plain having fun; little big boys playing together, with big ass equipment. Fun for the entire family. Loud fun.

Anyway i wrote the following while sitting on my favorite pedestrian bridge in Austin. It's one of several bridges spanning the Colorado River as it meanders thru the Capitol City. the bridge does a little meandering itself as its not straight; it undulates, wiggles its way across the green fast-moving water.

Trouble is, the city insists on calling it a lake. Which is puzzling because it's not. Not really.

When i first visited Austin i remember wondering why they named it Town Lake. It's clearly not a lake; it's clearly a river. Lakes are big and somewhat entire--monolithic like a pond or something, not straight and narrow like a...a river. Lakes are supposed to have an inlet and an outlet, at least that's what my Earth Science book claims.

Anyway they changed the name. It's not Town Lake anymore (although why they went with something as prosaic as Town Lake i've no idea). Now it's Lady Bird Lake (which you might find head-scratcher as well, that is,if you didn't happen to know that Lady Bird, silly sounding name as it is, happens to be the dead wife of one of our dead presidents: a Texan by the name of Lyndon Johnson. .

Yeah, so i sat down in the sunshine on this serpentine bridge that connects North with South and i wrote this: It concerns the mystery of Music.

After slugging my way through 'It Could Happen to You' this afternoon it occurs to me that perhaps the thing that eludes me--the element that remains missing--that has been missing all these years--is not so much an element at all but an attitude.

Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl Rast tells a story. He says that we have sometimes a grasping, clutching attitude towards life.

Says that we're all born with this 'monkey brain'-sort-0f-deal. I can totally see what he means. I mean it seems most of us are walking around with a fair amount of caution., some would say uncertainty, maybe even dread. And our response to this tenuous planetary life we got going here can sometimes be to hold on to what we DO have lest it too slips from our grasp.

Think about it:

What is the first thing a doctor does when we are born? He or she shakes the table or slaps the bottom of our feet, or cuffs our butt, to see if we are alive and well. And what is our response? we reach out for something to hold. like a monkey trying desperately to hold on to its mother as she swings from branch to branch.

This response to life extends past diapers, touching even the most basic of human needs: the quest of the human heart for meaning.

Br. David talks about the dilemma we so often face in life: whether to play it safe, take no risks, keep everything on an even keel so as to avoid the oftentimes troublesome unknown or do we venture past our comfort zones, test the boundaries set by inertia, and run the risk of tribulation?

until we discover that the truth is something that HOLDS US, that we give ourselves to it and then it holds US.

Not something that we hold onto, that we grasp and clutch to our breasts like the monkey clinging to its mother.

This becomes an attitude held in us, by us.

And this is what i am wondering about as i sit here on this breezy sun-drenched wavy gravy bridge.

This 'element', this 'attitude' about what it means to create music, to play 'good,' is it something i can give myself to and then let it hold me

or is it something that i must struggle to acquire then maintain and rigidly hold, wielding it like some Medieval knight crashing into battle?

Is this idle curiosity? NO.

This project, this all-inclusive resort for the high-minded that i've begun, has put me touch with all the elements of music that have baffled me since i first remembered that i wanted to play something 'good.'

Part of the project is me acting like i know how to do this shit. i know how to come up with changes, i know how to comp, i know how to engineer, i know how to improvise, i know how to operate instruments and on and on. Really?

So as i struggle to play what i hear, to sing the notes i hear in my head, to sound like a musician that has something meaningful to say, this one thought remains: what's it take to translate emotion into music?

I know this question yet its answer continues to elude me. But maybe this concept of attitude, once thoroughly adopted, is the same kind of deal: Brother David's deal.

Maybe this attitude about playing a melody--any melody--be it my own, the head of a tune, a solo line--maybe the element that is missing in me is not something that is studied and acquired and held on to and hauled out when the time is right.

Maybe it's an attitude that simply needs to be accepted and manifested.

Doubts come immediately of course.

But maybe that's part of it too. Maybe doubts are just indications of an immature attitude; one not yet fully formed and adopted. So does this mean that we can simply sidestep these doubts and continue to strive for this all-inclusive attitude?

An attitude that has at its core an unshakeable belief (trust) that there are notes to be played and i can find them.

It's a mystery.

But could it be, that i have yet to spend the requisite time in discovering the connections between these elements? Do i just need to keep going?

By sitting, by contemplating, by paying attention, is it possible to discover and make my own, this connection between an attitude about life and music that sustains me instead of drains me?

If i stumble upon one will it bend to the other?

If i'm able to discover the truth that holds me with respect to the essential life-giving elements, i.e., love, trust, courage, will the musical elements of melody, harmony and emotion follow suit?

Or vice versa. If through this project, i am able to discover precisely the connection between emotion and melody, emotion and harmony, will the truth that holds me up in times of uncertainty and despair come as well?

'It Could Happen To You"

It Could Happen To You.mp3




Ok. this is cheating but it's my blog right?

I'm beginning this blog, on this particular tune after i worked on it a little yesterday. which in and of itself, isn't really cheating.

but i think i have to do the whole thing over.

why?

there had better be a good reason. you're talking to a guy who HATES...Hates to turn around to go back to the house to retrieve something he forgot.

Hates to retrace his steps looking for an article he 'put in a safe place.'

Hates to go back to anything once he puts it to bed.

that said, i think i have to redo this whole tune.

because it doesn't sound good. doesn't feel right. doesn't work.

i keep hearing the way Chet did it.

that lyrical, round-edges tempo

those leisurely pursued changes

that sweet sweet melodic movement

yeah my version (even the practice version mind you...for practice purposes only kind of a thing) doesn't have any of these things. in fact these elements represent pretty much a diametric opposition to the way Chet did the tune. Not good. Not good.

Ok, so let's dive back into it and see if i can fix it.

Later....that same day.....

Turns out i didn't try to fix it. instead i decided to go with what i had in terms of tempo, drum part, keys and bass. I didn't have a vox or a horn part down yet.

i decided this based on a spur-of-the-moment reaction: i know. it doesn't make much sense. don't worry. turns out, it doesn't have to.

I figured, given what i already had down, i had nothing to lose by going ahead and fleshing it out. i could always build out a brand new version of the same tune, one more aligned with Chet's version.

First order of business: figure out why Reaper wasn't showing up in the version that preceded the new one that they told me to download: the one whose major updated feature seemed to be to fuck everything up: Firefox, Itunes, Safari, Word. The friggin OS for chrissakes!

Finally, i got it and it worked. So i hit out to see what i could do with the tracks i had in the can. They sounded ok and appeared to be in sync with each other which meant i had done a decent job copying and pasting the parts i laid down yesterday.

So i set up the mic to roll on a vocal track. Got the lyric sheet in front of me and tapped 'record.' it felt really good to sing the tune. i noticed it was easier to stay in tune. this was good.

But still, i have trouble hearing the bed when i'm singing. there must be a technique involved when recording . i wouldn't know. but i guess i'm going to find out, most likely by trial and error, the last refuge of an idiot.

one thing i did differently: i recorded my voice through several verses, only bailing if i really fucked up bad, i.e., forgotten lyrics, bad intonation, bad timing or rhythm. this is not different from any other tune i had done thus far.

but instead of moving on to the trumpet part, i had a thought about the arrangement. this meant leaving a hole where a vocal solo or a trumpet line would go. this worked out surprisingly well, arrangement-wise, that is.

The trumpet part threw me for a loop. it always does. i need to remember why i am doing this in the first place. it's not ready-to-wear, more like second-hand sportswear.

so the trumpet part went down but not without some moments of a shitstorm. mostly about the piece of crap i'm playing, the difficult playing the good stuff while the tape is running etc.

All this will no doubt continue through the project, through the process.

'You Make Me Feel So Young'

You Make Me Feel So Young.mp3






You make me feel so young

you make me feel like there's songs to be sung

bells to rung and a wonderful

a wonderful what?

a wonderful race to be run?

a wonderful man to be hung?

a wonderful crap that is dung?

no...

the lyric is:

you make me feel like there's songs to be sung

bells to be rung

and a wonder fling to be flung.

yes.

and why do i bring this up, other than to be a clever sot?

cuz lyrics, like changes, can take on an extra layer, deeper than first thought.

the first pass through a tune is nothing to take for granted. i'm thinking here about my own process yes, but also the process i imagine when the writer is creating it in the first place.

don't get me wrong; i think i'm creating something as well, maybe not worthy of quite the originality of the ...er...original, but i am creating something right. I mean i'm not simply dotting the i's and crossing the t's here right?

well, i guess that's arguable. my point is that lyrics, like other elements of a tune, have to be just right in order for the song to fly...to be believable.

we've all heard songs that are all right but somehow don't quite hit it, you know? they miss kind of...they don't exactly make sense, don't compel us, don't draw us in, don't make us buy into the song's deal....

lyrics like those above: they need to be good. and yes there is such a thing as good and bad in this craft. i mean music is subjective (at least the individual enjoyment/appreciation of it) but as the Duke himself said:

"there are only two kinds of music in the world: Good and Bad."

anyhow, i'd love to expound more on this but i gotta move; there are multiple pieces of heavy equipment not thirty feet from where i am sitting in my living room here on 5th street in austin, texas and they are making music that i subjectively can't FUCKING STAND!

Well, turns out, i can't really leave. gotta finish this. i blame it on my puritan ancestry. never mind that i'm 100% Italian.

so, i just listened to the tune again. and this is what i think.

value judgement, value judgement. value judgement.

yeah, i think it pretty well sucks. the vocal is too strained, the tempo too quick (both over my head) and the keys are, well that track suffers from the same sickness as do the ones i laid before; just too much. too crowded. too....tooo.

I laid a trumpet track and what can i say? it's me playing trumpet the best i can. which leaves a territory of space between that and GOOD.

in all fairness though, the horn. let's talk about the horn for a minute.

First off, the trumpet: it has only three valves. three things to push down. three chances to change the pitch to reflect GOOD. hmmm.

can you understand how impossible this instrument is?

Don't worry, I'll wait.

yeah, three valves. to play what...something like 50 possible notes? wtf....seriously.......wtf.

yeah, and that's 50 notes on a good horn; one on which the valves behave themselves., i.e., that don't stick, bind, get stuck or leak? right.

and speaking of leaking....holy shit man. i have been trying to play this damn piece of plumbing for what, like a hundred years...since 6th grade right?

and i've never...ever heard of a horn that leaks. i mean leaks, as in spit, water, you know?

but this one, this broken down ancient student model Bach 1001 series with its tired valves and its bent and hammered and soldered bell, and its misshapen lead pipe and its wide ass clearance slides...

which brings me to the leakage.

now you'd expect a horn, if it's gonna leak, to spew from a faulty cork, perhaps on the spit valve. right? right.

no

this one leaks from the tuning slide. yeah, the tuning slide. that huge crook that comes off the lead pipe and connects the mouthpiece to the valves and eventually the bell. damn. i mean i never heard of this let alone saw it before let alone had a freakin horn that exhibited it...for God's sake.

anyway, on top of not being able to play a convincing solo on "you make me feel so young" the fucking horn is leaking spit on my feet!

and as a consequence, sounds like crap. all breathy and out of tune.

yeah man. some day. some day. some day i'm either gonna stop dicking around with shitty horns, or throw the thing under a bus.

and thus, you have my rant-o-the-day.

yay for you.

incidentally, i did get a decent trumpet track down for this tune and keeping in mind the reason i'm doing this in the first place (to develop a practice vehicle for Chet's tunes) it's all good.

i can move on to the next tune taking with me, dragging behind me, my ever growing sack of musical updates: piano fingering, chord placement, harmonic rhythm, trumpet technique and bass-on-a-piano chops.

yeah good luck with that.

Next Up.......the title track for one of my favorite Chet albums: "It Could Happen to You."

You Make Me Feel So Young

This tune is called 'You Make Me Feel So Young' and it is from the album...

Wait for it..............Yep...

It Could happen to You. Kenny Drew was the piano player on this August afternoon date in New York City in 1958.

I sat down to work on this tune Monday September 14th. I remember the date because it was the day after we got home from our trip out West. Man, what a trip. Colorado

Rocky Mountains

Two panhandles: Texas and Oklahoma

and...

Wyoming. Big deal? You bet. Know why?

Cuz before i got there, i seriously doubted its existence. I know it sounds goofy. But it's true. I figured i hadn't been there, so what the hell do i know. I mean i hadn't been anywhere out West for years and years, well into my fifth decade. And what the hell do i know about anything that i haven't seen with my own eyes? Hence, Wyoming, a big hunk of a cattle-driving state, without benefit of my senses, who knows?

But now i know. i know because i've sat at a table in Cheyenne. I drank a Wyoming beer. I drove down a road with a big sign on its grey shoulder that read WELCOME TO WYOMING.

So there you have it.

all right so i went to wyoming. good for me. what matters here is: i came back to austin and took up this project where i left off.

again. good for me.

But it wasn't easy. really. Predictably it was a slow day. i felt deflated. i was quiet. i was lonely.

I meditated for awhile, not because i thought i should. but because i was taking care of myself. i knew what i wanted, what was going to make myself feel better. so i sat for a while (in the garage on account of it wasn't hot, which was absolutely euphoric) then did two loads of laundry because it needed to be done and doing so made me feel like i was doing something useful, then i opened the computer...and nearly lost it.

Bullshit. Just Bullshit. That's what the computer had for me yesterday.

Bullshit comes in many flavors: financial, relationships, work, not-work, business and business-related. Especially this last one. Business.

Bullshit tasted like business yesterday. Bills, returns not credited, emails not answered and on and on and on. The bullshit supply is inexhaustible. The list stretches from the tip of one's nose to the top of the Eiffel Tower. And back.

Yeah so enough about this non-music mental paraphernalia.

I decided to run this particular tune because, well because it was the first one that came to mind as i made my way to the piano. yeah. that's how it happens. i wish i could say it was something else, a well-thought-out design borne of Conservatory-trained mental prowess perhaps. But no, not so much.

I just pick these tunes out of a hat so to speak. Oh well.

So i picked 'You Make Me Feel So Young.' And i thought, "i know this tune; i've listened to it a zillion times. i know it sounds trite. but you gotta understand; these tunes, all of them, are like my little cousins; i know how they wipe their noses on their sleeves, what kind of candy they hide in the cuffs of their bluejeans.

But once again, i am surprised at my inability to translate this intimacy to musical language. music is a mystery. the more i learn the more i don't know.

Jesus I hate that.

But i digress.

I begin. I read the chart. I see the changes. I see the chord changes and try to envision how this all works. How does Kenny Drew work this shit? How does he comp in such a way as to compliment Chet. How does he outline the chords rhythmically as well as harmonically? How the hell?

So what the hell. So i practice the changes, moving through them, figuring out inversions that permit fluid movement from one to the next.

I play through the changes, fingering each one and the best i can. I try to make sense out of the three or four notes in each one as they pass by at 165 MM.

It's not easy. At all. But after maybe half a dozen passes they start coming easier. I begin knowing what's coming next. And so i keep trying. Time after time i train wreck. Train wreck. A musical yard sale.

But i keep setting it up. And getting back up when it knocks me down. Such is life right?

And now that i've talked about everything BUT the tune, I feel myself too tired to continue this tonight. It's almost 11 and i gotta get some shut-eye.

Cheers.

Point of Indulgence

Ok sportsfans, this is not strictly a post about the project; in fact it will have pretty much nothing to do with it.

well maybe not totally nothing, perhaps it will obliquely touch on what i've been doing with this chetbaker project thing.

I only say this out front to help those of you who don't have time.

Go ahead and skip over it. head on out to something more fitting...say, fly-fishing or extreme fighting.

But those of you who feel that little twine of connection between kindred souls (and that's everyone), read on.

It's just that i feel a little off kilter. Scared maybe.

The obvious question: Scared of what?

Well let's see now.

I've been away.

Went out west for a little over a week. Drove. It was wonderful. K and I drove in her red convertible; a pretty snazzy little number. The weather was fine the entire two days it took us to get from Austin to Denver.

Warm weather, bright sun, audacious storms, impressive sights. I could do that forever i think.
No i couldn't. not really. cuz you know why?
At some point necessity would collide with adventure. and then...

the vortex would open up and....

The vortex? huh...

Maybe i mean that feeling i can get when my thoughts run over the speedbumps.

Speedbumps...wtf?

Uh, yeah. those little considerations of the rational mind that, when considered seriously, derail whatever else is going on.

I know you know what i'm talking about. it's a universal experience. albeit unique to each of us...which is why i won't go into it right now; not sure it would resonate with anyone else.

i'm compassionate that way.

But back to why i'm feeling so...strange.

i'm home...that is, i'm in my new home. another one. Yet another one.

After fifty years, i find myself bouncing around like one of those crazy super balls i used to get down at Crayton's Drugstore, on Fall St.

It started about five years ago.

Right after i blew my family up.

Apparently thirty years was long enough. long enough to be married, to live a householder's life, to raise two children, to play in the same bands with different rotations of musicians, going to the same workplace, talking to the same people about the same things in the same place at the same time.

It put into motion this thing...this different thing..this new, different thing.

Predictability morphed. Maybe 'morphed' is too gentle a term; perhaps a word that better fits the violence that this next phase in my life took on would be more appropriate.

Jarred, shook, jostled, spasmatically exploded? I don't know...suffice it to say that since my life took an abrupt left turn, i've found myself...well, that's the thing...i've NOT found myself.

No, this is not just a middle-aged guy crying in his beer, although i've been known to do that too. This is more like a guy trying to make sense out of something that seems resistant to the process. It resists being found out.

And if this sounds like just more sour grapes, well I can't help that. I really don't feel a victim. How could i really? I mean, it was my decision to light the fuse.

I watched as it burned evenly and then not so, steadily and then fitfully, until it sparked and sputtered toward the motherlode...and blew everything to hell.

it was all me. nobody held a gun to my head. it was me...pure and simple.

so why is it that i feel scared?

well shit, if i knew that, i wouldn't be pulling on your coat, now would i?

Course by 'you' i don't think i really know what or who i mean. No one is reading this blog, cept me. and i happen to be writing it, so what's the point?

Right. What's the point.

The smile dissolves, the compassion bounces back from the surface of the self-reflected mind. i recede within. again.

..............................................................
............................................................
.................................................................................................
But wait. I'm not gone. turns out i can't go. turns out i have to stay now.
Till i let myself know. Till i know where i am and where i'm headed.

And this project, this Chet project is part of that process. in some less-than-explicit way, it's part of remembering who i am.

And to this i say:

Ladies and gentlemen
Here's my advice.

Pull down your pants

And slide on the ice.

"Do it the Hard Way"

Do it the Hard Way.mp3



Life is surprising sometimes.

Like when i found out that i really didn't know Chet's music as well as i thought.

Yeah that'd be today.

I've listened to every one of Chet's recordings. That's gotta be like 4 million or something.


I've listened to them in the living room,
the bathroom,
out-of-doors,
the bedroom,
the kitchen,
the dining room,
in the car,
on the bus,
while walking,
while running,
on the way to the dentist,
to my folks' house,
to work,
to graduate school,
to church,
to the grocery store,
to the gym,
to concerts,
to the store,
to the park and
to the woods.

I thought i would know his music by now.

Today i got a surprise.

It happened while i was working on "Do it the Hard Way," a tune from Rodgers and Hart's Broadway play Pal Joey."

Now let me say up front that I find Broadway music in Broadway shows, uh...distasteful.
I avoid it like a cowboy avoids a Saturday night bath.

Like a visit to the dentist.

Like a colonoscopy.

Like going to bed when i'm all sofa-snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug watching a 1950s film in glorious Black and White

But i love this tune. despite its origin and so i chose it for my work today. I thought it was going to be a relatively docile activity. Ha!

All right then. Sometimes things don't go the way we think they will. Amen.

I started by thinking i'd change things up, try something new and different; a departure from my usual procedure.

Not that what i've been doing represents anything more than a rather incipient method of learning the skills and techniques pertinent to this project. I love the music, i love what it does and i want to learn what i can from the musicians, the composers, the lyricists.

I want to be a musician able to translate what i feel, what i hear through whatever instrument i am holding. yeah that's what i want and this is the attitude i bring to each session. and indeed to the project's session today.

So, today, working with this very familiar tune, i was not in any way prepared for what happened.

I began today pretty late in the day, having spent a good part of the middle of this hot summer day recording with a musician friend in his home studio.

And this is how it began.

I knew i knew this tune, especially the vocal. especially the melody. i could hear chet's voice even before i started.

turns out i was wrong.

i decided to lay a piano track first. i looked at the chart. it looked pretty simple. mostly ii V I in the key of Eb major. Easy capeasy.

So i practiced a few times through, set the tempo at 170mm and off i went.

jeez, it really didn't go that well.

First of all, the tempo proved to be WAY-too ambitious. Even after a half dozen times through, i was still making lots of mistakes.

I managed to get three or four choruses down on tape though.

So i moved on to laying a drum track. that went pretty well and taking what i had learned previously about keeping the track passes as long as possible. so that was the good news.

The not-so-good news?

After listening to the two tracks i laid, i noticed something: it didn't sound right. the chords. something wasn't gelling.

It dawned on my when i began singing the vocal. Something was pretty wrong with the way the melody was laying inside the changes. the harmony bed was off.

So i looked a little bit deeper. I played--slowly now-- through the changes, playing attention to how the melody fit with the harmony i'd laid down.

Shit. there it was. it didn't take very long. it was pretty immediate. the melody was clashing so violently with a certain segment of the form that i completely lost the line. i didn't know the melody anymore

I didn't know the melody anymore. This tune I had heard and sang in my head countless times, even going so far as to transcribe Chet's vocal solo on it, had flown right out of my head.

holy shit.
My stunned disbelief slowly receded and melded with a plan of action. a distasteful plan, but a plan.

i had to redo the whole harmony bed.

that was an easy conclusion to reach. a much harder task to carry out. i mean before i could fix it i had to figure out what to fix it with...the correct chords. this was much harder than you'd think, given my history with this tune. oh well.

surprises sometimes are fun. this one was not. i was disappointed with myself. i was pissed off too.

but persevere i did. at first i thought i could just listen to the harmony and fit the melody that i had know so well (before today that is) right in where it needed to go.
shit

not so easy. surprisingly not so easy. surprisingly frustratingly difficult.

the first thing i did was burn what i had laid down previously. gone. flushed down the fucking drain.

so next, i had to see about recording a new keys track, this time with the right changes; those that fit properly with the melody.
first thing: slow the tempo down. give myself a fighting chance eh?

that helped immediately. i set about figuring out the correct changes and laying them down. ok. right.

well, an hour later i was still flailing about looking for the correct chords for the turnaround in the B section. Not easy.

Dealing with the negativity foisted upon me by this void of melodic memory i worked my way slowly through the process of trying to get the tune down.

I couldn't yet hear the changes. so i decided what i should do is listen to the tune. i mean how sad is this? i actually have to listen to the song again to hear the changes and melody? my god, what a travesty. surprise.

so that's what i did. i dialed it up on itunes and listened. i wish i could say that this is what brought it all home for me. alas. another surprise.

The 1958 recording of "Do it the Hard Way" as it appeared on Chet's album It Could Happen to You turned out not to be what the doctor ordered to hear the chords that Kenny Drew was laying down. i just couldn't make them out as clearly as i had hoped. so the search continued.

i wish i could say that it went lots faster after that but it really didn't.

To make a long story short, i still have to record the melody line. I did figure out the changes though. I'm not at all convinced that they are the same chords that Russ Freeman plays on the recording. This is upsetting to me.

But i will go at it again. TOmorrow i hope but i'm not sure. tomorrow we leave on a fabulous road trip up through the Texas panhandle, across that little sliver of land called--oddly enough--the panhandle (this time in Oklahoma) and up toward the Colorado mountains.

So..........more later.

Remind me if i forget. I need to blog about comping. Russ Freeman has it down man. Where my comping seems hard, clumpy, sloppy and angular and less than accurate not to mention eloquent, Freeman's is all of this and more. I find it a little daunting but i am going to do it. I am going to do it. I am going to do it. Goddamn it.

"Dancing on the Ceiling" con't

So having 'nailed' in the intro after only, what, a half an hour dicking around with it, trying to make it sound like it WASN'T played by a 12-year-old Suzuki Piano student (no offense), i proceeded to lay a drum track.

But before i could do that, Reaper pulled some of its delightful snafu for no reason bullshit. today's flavor was Reaper saying

'you know what, let's screw with this poor bastard. it's late at night, he's tired, he won't know what the fuck to do. c'mon waddya say...let's fuck with him.'

Yeah, and fuck with me it did.

The problem was it didn't 'see' any MIDI inputs. Now for the uninitiated, this might not sound like anything you'd need to care about. but you'd be wrong. you see, if Reaper doesn't recognize that there is something coming in, nothing will come out.

In other other other words, you can't record something from nothing. So because Reaper refused to allow for the reality that yes, there is a MIDI instrument connected to the computer thru the USB port that is running through a USB MIDI interface (that would be my Edirol UA 25-EX for those keeping tabs on such things, it wouldn't allow any recording to take place.

Which of course meant that i was up the creek without a paddle (pronounced crick, me being from a land east of the Mississippi and all).

So wah wah wah, piss and moan and throw myself down feet and arms flailing about like some goddamn hooked fish

Finally i just shut the damn thing down and rebooted. that did the trick.

But THIS IS A TEST now: what did i do just before i killed Reaper? C'mon now, you should know this.

Again., what did i do just before shutting down my recording program, (my music editor as charlie insists i call it).

Yes. the little guy in the back. good for you. someone's been paying attention.
Yes. i went to FILE and chose Save Project.

And (this is for you charlie) i saved it in a place where i know i can find it...just where it belongs: in the folder i made called 'Chet's practice tunes' right there in plain sight on my beautiful (uncluttered) desktop.

all right then.

So when Reaper reincarnated and got all populated with the correct tracks and files etc., i made a few passes at a drum track for reference. it's not what i would call stellar but it is serviceable, in a 'this is only for my ears, not for anybody whose opinion i remotely hold in any kind of esteem' sort of way.

But before i moved on, i decided to copy and paste the short drum phrase i just recorded. this was a mistake.

It was a mistake because i ended up dicking around with it for way too long. it proved too much for me i guess, to try to get all the areas lined up and accounted for and smoothly transitioned. sheesh what a hassle.

I used this experience to inform my next efforts: to wit: (whatever the hell that means) i recorded the entire drum track across the anticipated length of the tune. but more about this later as that too changed.

The changes i put down in a new track took a few times to get right; i had to punch in a spot but only one, which is actually pretty impressive given the length of the form. i ran a few dry verses and choruses (passes through the form without recording them) before going live.

Then i laid a bass track using the same technique; making a few empty passes then recording it and going back to punch in for the few spots that i fucked up.

one thing i realized during this segment of the project.

When playing a bass line on piano (instead of a bass) it's a little easier to make it through without screwing up if you leave your hand in one position, say in 'first position.'

First position i think is where your pinky finger is on the root of the tonic while the thumb is on the fifth.

Ok, so for those whom i just left in the musical dust, what i mean is:
Your thumb stays on the tonic, the first scalar step in the key you're playing in.
for example:

Say the tune you're playing is in Cmajor. The first scalar step would be.....C...right.
The next step would.....D....very good.
The next step....E
The next...F
The next...G.

Notice the names of the scalar steps: have you seen these somewhere before...in precisely that order?

Yes, the good ole alphabet. uh huh. i always feel bad for those folks in places like Egypt and Mongolia when i think of this coincidental arrangement between music theory and literacy.

anyway.

I discovered that you can use this arrangement: this root (the first step) through the fifth to your advantage when playing a bass line on piano. I mean it's not a cure-all for making mistakes; for one thing, as soon as the changes (the chords, remember?) diverge away from I-V and chords in between, you're pretty much screwed.

Oh, one thing before i get too far afield from laying the rhythm tracks for this tune "Dancing on the Ceiling."

The introduction of the tune i designed to be played without bass or drums but i added a little snare and kick snap just before the first verse. it made it sound much less stilted and more live. gotta remember that for future recordings.

On to "Deep in a Dream"

'Dancing on the Ceiling"

Dancing on the Ceiling.mp3

Another tune from that ridiculously cool 1958 album It Could Happen to You.

Chet Baker (tp, vo) Kenny Drew (p) Sam Jones (b) Philly Joe Jones (d)

NYC, August, 1958

Hope you aren't getting bored with this. I'll be covering every tune on this definitive record.

Dancing on the ceiling is of course the name of another tune (a totally totally totally different song made popular by none other than Lionel Ritchie sometime in the mid-80s); two pieces of music that couldn't possibly be farther apart. Impossible.

I recently told my daughter (herself a gifted musician with an incredible ear for language in addition to music) about this blog. She, nor anyone else for that matter, has read it. I haven't shared it. On purpose.

Even though she hasn't read any of this blog, i do tell her which tunes i am working on. the other day i told her that i had just recorded 'Dancing on the Ceiling.' She immediately quoted the entire lyric.

Turns out i had given her Chet's music (an amalgamation of tunes called Chet Baker Sings) for her birthday. She was in middle school at the time and was used to listening to Bobby Brown (before his unfortunate slide into his own rendition of too rich, too famous too libidinous too soon).

She now tells me that she listened to that tape (yes this would have during the Middle Ages--a time when the state-of-the-art in music delivery was a narrow (stretchy) ribbon of used-to-be-oil-in-the-ground-most-likely-somewhere-on-foreign-soil) for hours and hours. Hence, she knows all the lyrics and all the solos.

In fact she and I transcribed many of Chet's solos from that album together. That's why i know she has such an accurate ear--that and the fact that she can speak three languages with complete linguistic and phonological accuracy.

more about the tunes we transcribed and how we did it later on.

The first thing i did on my Reaper recording of "Dancing on the Ceiling" (not Ritchie's but Chet's) was to see if i could make a template of my track setup for future use. i'll be revisiting this part of the project (setting up and assigning tracks) like 50 times so i thought it would be a real boon to see about doing it once and then dialing it up to use on each successive tune.

well, it was a good idea. in fact i think, i think, i actually succeeded in making a template; now if i could only find it.

turns out my friend charlie was right when he told me years ago that the first and perhaps most important rule when it comes to doing anything on a computer is:

'save the damn file and make sure you know where the fuck you put it'

yeah now i know that he was right. but do i do it each and every time? naw.
should.
but don't.

anyway, after i spent a little while setting up my now fugitive recording template, which i can visualize running around like Richard Jantzen--you remember him right?, the protagonist in the 1960's TV series The Fugitive...the star of which was this sandy-haired white guy, very laconic, capable and clever....definitely NOT guilty of the crime for which he was convicted--that of killing his wife. It was a compelling drama told in weekly installments about this doctor whose wife was brutally murdered by...i forget what brand of devil the producers hung this horrible crime on, maybe organized crime, maybe adultery, maybe greed.

Each episode told a little story about his running away from justice, the police dogs and the mob (or the adulterer or the loan sharks). He was in fact and in deed:
THE FUGITIVE
And so is my poor Track Template. Is the Richard Jantzen of Reaper. Yes. That's what it is.

How interesting, this diversion must have been for you, the reader. how simply fascinating. all right then...

This tune is a lively one. I chose it specifically because of this. I felt i needed to give myself a different experience, a more upbeat vibe so to speak.

So how'd it go?
Differently.

It was different from the other tunes thus far. and it wasn't just because it was an "up" tune (translation: 'up tempo', faster tempo than....uh....a slower tempo song).

For one thing, i began work on it pretty late Monday night (that would be the last night in August for those of you who care about such things).

So that represented a departure from the norm. beginning to work on a tune at the end of the day, when i've had a dinner and a few beers and the experience of the day up to that time, is quite a different thing from beginning a tune first thing, right out of the shoot, fresh and well-rested.

And how did it go?
--echo--echo--

I had a helluva time getting the intro down. only 8 bars but what a bugger to record. the tempo (the speed of the beat, remember?) was pretty brisk...around 150bpm. that might not sound ambitious but given that the introduction that i had in mind involved 16th-notes over lots of chords, it was, shall we say, a bit challenging.

at 150 mm (metronome marking..mm...do you find it useful or annoying when i define a term with which you may or may not be familiar?...be sure to write me and let me know...k?) things fly by pretty fast. and it's not so much the first couple of beats mind you...it's the ones that come after the first couple of beats, measures, bars etc...that put you behind real quick.

And indeed this is what happened: each time i got ready to record the intro, punched the red record button waited the two bars the metronome gives me for free, and begin playing, i get bowled right over...

It's like a train, chugging inexorably toward the station...it's coming. it's coming steadily and predictably and it's not at all stopping. so you're either prepared and take it as it comes or you get snowed under.

And it wasn't as if it would happen right away, this overwhelm-ation i'm describing; sometimes it would be going all right, i was keeping up with the changes pretty well for awhile until i reached a certain spot in the music, which wasn't always about that particular spot, more like a combination, a result, an accumulation of the scores of notes that came before.

In any event, at this point, the point of saturation when my legs wouldn't carry me any faster and i was about to get run over, i would suck my teeth, turn from the keyboard and punch the space bar of the Mac, stopping the locomotive.

Then i would regroup as best i could and begin again, making several passes like this, i was able to finally obtain a semi-workable intro for the tune.

mind you, it wasn't very long: only 8 bars. neither was it a complicated chord progression: I VI/ ii V/iii VI/ ii V/ I leading directly into the first verse, which starts with the lyrics:

She dances overhead
On the ceiling near my bed
In my sight
through the night

Nice image huh? I love these tunes.

More about 'Dancing on the Ceiling' in the next post.