Part 2 of my dabble session with Jill is up at ClassyMcGraceful.  (Part 1 here.)

Rather than rambling about it here, why not just go read it?  Jill and Sandy to a great job with these posts, and it was fun to hang out, snack snacks, be interviewed, and sketch.

Still can’t parse the bangs, though.  -h

mr|ten has inspired some of you to go back and check out the original versions of the songs we covered for our 10th birthday.  In this series I’ll put the originals and covers side-by-side with commentary.  (Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4)

Am I Getting Through To You

To kick us off, here’s White Air’s “Am I Getting Through To You” from White Air:

• I love the drum programming, and the weird, off-beat way it launches the song
• This tune has a lot of background vocal layers, and semi-improvised guitar parts.  These posed a challenge for a solo acoustic version
• The arrangement is basically variations over the main bass line; it’s pretty static, harmonically.  This was a second major challenge for the cover

Here’s my cover, as Sally M/S Ride:

• After learning the bass line and some of the guitar hooks, I tried to come up with several different options for the same main part, with different levels of intensity, to give the arrangement some ebb and flow
• Without the crazy backing vocals to weird it up, I aimed to just play and sing with a lot of energy, kind of on the edge, to try and get some of that slightly un-hinged vibe
• I recorded this track with a reference pitch of A=424, which turned out to be awesome for my voice.  This was the first vocal take!  (Though it’s only one guitar and one vocal track, I recorded them in separate passes)

Break This Dollar

Mars Lights’ original:

• Tim actually wrote the original vocals to this track!  He’s featured on backing vocals in the recording, too
• I couldn’t understand all of his lyrics on his demo, so the lyrics here are a combination of his originals (including “Break this dollar!”), my mondegreens of what I thought I heard him singing, and me writing some stuff around the edges, a line here or there, to fill it out
• Matt and Drew brought some awesome edge-of-chaos punk energy to the recording.  I kind of anchor it

Timothy Scahill’s cover:

• This was the first track I got back from an artist participating in mr|ten, and it really amped me up
• Tim recorded all of this on an iPad!  Incredible.  I love the nutso drum programming
• Tim captures the rushing-forward feeling of the original, while actually changing quite a bit and adding things – guitar parts, vocal hooks, arrangement details, the whole coda – of his own.  Very cool

Clockblocking

Robot, Creep Closer! from Real Awful, Real Quick:

• The band holds the loud rock-out bit off until the end; this was unusual for R,CC!
• This tune is really built on the rhythm section; bass riff and off-beat kick against the 1-2-3-4 snare on the verses, then the interesting drum part and guitar wacka-wackas on the chorus.

D-Rockets cover:

• Derek nails this; he took a song that I’d never expect to hear an acoustic version of, and makes it his own, and makes it beautiful
• Cool details; the slightly flamenco guitar riff, the chorus vocal harmony, the shaker throughout
• Somehow, the verses become even creepier and sadder than the original (to my ears, at least)
• Because it’s layered and doubled subtly, it doesn’t draw attention, but by the end I think there are at least three guitar tracks, four vocal tracks, and the percussion track happening at once

Those are my thoughts.  What jumps out at you between these originals and their covers?

Last Saturday I hosted Jill for one of her Share-With-Me Saturday sessions.

I know so many gifted professionals (in Kansas City, back at home in South Dakota, just all over this crazy country) that I thought it’d be fun to get outside of my own head and go into their heads for awhile … I’ve created a 10-item survey (that’s all I could get free on Survey Monkey) and have asked over 50 artists/business owners/lovely people to complete it. Within the survey, I ask them questions about life, the work they do, and if I can come “dabble” with them sometime. If they say yes, I’ll go spend some time in their element, whatever it looks like, and I hope they’ll spend a little time sketching and feeling feelings with me.

Part 1 of her blogging about the auspicious event is up today.  I had forgotten how real those survey questions got.

Just a couple of the photos, all by the wonderful Sandy Woodson.

A proposition, for discussion and reflection:

An artist’s purpose is to create the things only they can create.

On one hand, it’s absurd to propose a normative purpose for art.  Art is many things to many people, to the point that it’s very hard to define what is and isn’t art.  (Perhaps the question “What is art?” is a mysterious question, to be dissolved into questions like “Who made this”, “What were they trying to say,” “How to audiences tend to perceive this,” and so on.)  On the other, perhaps the proposition is a way to make more concrete the nebulous idea of originality in art.

Originality is always a matter of degree; something that was literally entirely original, making no connection or reference to anything in our experience, would be incomprehensible.  Art always mixes originality – something unique which could only have been created by the specific, individual artist who made it – and tradition.

Artists chase originality, but “be original” or “do something new” are such abstract maxims that they are impossible to follow.  “Be original” makes me think of standing in front of my amplifier, dumbfounded, trying to play a note that no one has played before.  I’d be standing there a long time, without writing any songs.

“Say something only you can say,” though, seems to give me some direction.  It spurs me to look around for something in the world or in others that only I’ve noticed, or that I have a perspective on that’s never been offered before.  It pushes me to not only express my emotions but think about them, searching for what makes them mine and not anyone else’s.  Raw feelings are universal, but the conditions that provoke them and the choices we make as a result of them are specific to each of us.

Looking for inspiration?  What chords would only you think to put together?  What fresh metaphor blew through your thoughts in the shower yesterday?  What unusual spices do you want to try in a classic dish?  What underlying colors do you see in the world that others miss?  What story are you in a unique position to tell?

It’s all been done before… until you give us your take on it.  Forget convention for a minute; why not make something only you would think to make?

Our friend Tim’s new solo joint, Overthrown, is up for streaming on SoundCloud!  Check it out below.

I think this is a new high-water mark for Tim, and I’m really digging this.

I’ve tried a bunch of new things over the past couple weeks, all of which are worth playing with if you’re interested.

• Harmonica – With the help of some great YouTube videos, I’m finally learning to bend notes on the harp in preparation for a specific overdub I want to do on Cory’s solo record.  As one of the videos said, it’s kind of like mimicking Darth Vader’s breathing, but with a harmonic in your mouth.
• Funkbox – A really fun vintage drum machine emulator and then some for iPad/iPhone.  I’m trying it before dropping semi-serious money on a VolcaBeats for a back-burner project with Drew.
• Slide guitar – If by “slide,” you can imagine “a Sharpie held awkwardly in my left hand.”  It’s gone well enough that I probably need a real slide, though.  This is also in anticipation of some overdubs on Cory’s album, in concert with…
• Open G tuning, also known as “how Keith Richards plays.”  All those brilliant Stones riffs that are nigh-impossible in standard tuning?  No problem in open G.  Differing slightly from Keef, I’m using the top 5 strings for open G, and tuning my low string down to D so I can still play two-note power chords on the two lowest strings.
• Tilt/Slant EQ – This simple but underused approach to EQ takes a center frequency and boosts treble / cuts bass (or vice versa) with a very even response, just like it sounds (more details here; the link is about a specific product, but does a good job of elaborating on tilt EQ generally).  It’s best used at lower levels, up to +/- 6 db or so, to brighten or darken sounds very naturally and transparently.  I’ve been testing it on an overly dark bass track to lighten it up a bit, with good results, and I think I’ll be using it a lot on future mixes.  Dedicated Tilt/Slant EQ hardware or plugins can be hard to find (there are some VSTs out there that I haven’t tested), but you can make your own by combining high and low shelf EQs with the same cutoff frequency and lower Qs.  Center frequencies typically range from 600 – 1000 Hz.

Have you tried anything cool lately?