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Growing a Tune: The Seed

Here is my latest tune.
 
latest tune
 
I know it doesn’t look like much, but it is how most of my tunes start out. A fleeting idea enters my head as I’m driving to work. I reach into the console to find something, anything, to write on. I fervidly scratch the lines of the staff onto paper as I’m taking a corner (hey, at least I’m not on my cell phone). I pencil in a few dots to make up the first couple measures. Those first few dots are seeds. Sometimes nothing happens with them and they don’t grow. I have hundreds of scraps of paper lying around with seeds that never bloom into anything. My wife loves the mess. Other times the idea does grow. Sometimes into a weed and other times into something a little more enjoyable. I add more dots. Maybe even enough dots to make a tune.

At this point, I generally let that tune sit for a few days. This is part of my vetting process. If I can remember that tune a few days later without looking at the music, it might be worth playing for someone else.

Yesterday I played this tune for Unstachio, what I could remember of it anyhow. I haven’t wasted time trying to figure out a name quite yet. No sense in finding a perfectly good name for a perfectly crappy tune. Gotta save names for the good tunes. This might be one. Seems better than a weed.

So, here is the plan. Unstachio and I are going to continue watering this one and see how it grows. First I need to really learn it. Then I am going to do a rough recording of it send it to him so he can learn it. If we think it has merit, we’ll spend some more time caring for it…and we will see what grows.

I’ll post about the progress as we go.

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The Sudbury Colonial Fair & Muster of Fyfes &…

The Sudbury Colonial Fair & Muster of Fyfes & Drums is coming up and will be held on Saturday, September 27th this year. It is a great family event and I urge you to attend. Also, here is the line of march for those interested.

Here is a picture of me at the Sudbury Fair.
me
 
I would place this photo around 1979. If you look closely in the dark shadows of my vest, just next to my elbow you will see an oval. That oval was actually a medal. Back in the 70’s, along with muster buttons, the muster committee made these lovely little commemorative medals. The artist of the medals and the buttons was a man named Les Longworth, a fifer from Sudbury who, ironically, celebrated his birthday on April 19th.
75
I was able to dig up my collection of these little works of art. Here are the medals that I still have, starting with 1975:
75

76
79
I believe this is 1981.
81
And, here are the buttons starting with 1976:
76
77
78
79
I don’t know where 1980 is. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
81
82
83
84
I believe ’85 was the year that there was a hurricane and the Fair was canceled. Fifers and drummers still made their way to Sudbury and camped for the weekend.
85
’86 is the year I started fifing and my first time playing at the muster.
86
87
88
89
90
Unfortunately, the quality of design dropped dramatically in 1991 and I ultimately stopped buying the buttons. However, I should add, that the 1991 button did have a cult following. There are those that applauded its minimalist approach.
91

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Meet Michael Rode…

Michael Rode
 
Michael is a run-away. He claims he was not getting the attention he craved at home. So, he hit the street. I welcomed Michael (all the kids call him Mikey) into my home where he has found love and attention.

Michael’s father tells me that he regrets that he neglected Michael and wishes him well. In fact, he sees how happy he now is and has asked that I adopt Mikey and give him a proper home and the attention he needs. I truly believe, however, that one morning the sun will rise and Michael’s father, seeing the error of his ways, will wish for Michael’s safe return home.

So, it is with some regret that I must inform Michael’s parents that I do not feel that it is right or honorable to adopt Michael. However, I will welcome him into my home and I will do my best to serve as a proper foster parent until such time that you desire his return. Until then I will take good care of him.

new music

Follow Me Up to Carlow / Kid on the…

Here is another track from the Amadán CD that we recorded back in 1999.
 
amadan large
 
The track is made up of two parts. The first is a song that our guitar player, Kevin, sang. I did not really have much to do with this song and, in fact, was not really that familiar with the melody. Kevin, however, wanted me to lay down a penny whistle track for the instrumental break. I put the phones on, asked the engineer to playback Kevin’s track so that I could give it a practice run. As soon as I was done with my practice run the engineer informed me he had recorded it without me knowing. That was the first and only time I ever played Follow Me Up to Carlow.

Now, the part of the track that I really enjoy the most is the second half. After Kevin’s singing, we launched into a well known slip jig called Kid on the Mountain. The ultimate and most famous version of Kid on the Mountain was recorded in 1976 by The Bothy Band on an album called Old Hag You Have Killed Me.
 
Old Hag You Have Killed Me
 
It is a mighty tune in five parts, teetering back an forth between e minor and G Major. If you’ve ever heard the Bothy’s version you’d know it kicks ass…and there is really no reason anyone else needs to record it. It’s kind of like trying to improve on Let it Be…it can’t be done.

Well, we were young and impetuous. We recorded it anyway. I’m happy we did.

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The Screwtape MP3

I got what you need.

I woke up and smelled Bacon on the wind. Long pork. Sus scrofa musicalis.

Hunched at my desk as the late afternoon sun was slanting through the back windows, a medium-small fellow happened into my office-cave. He was just below average height, fit and had a youthful glint in his eyes. I put my work away and smiled at him, raising my eyebrows to signal my readiness for talk.

He had laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and hair that seemed to have too much grey for his age. I had met him on the day I had interviewed for the job and over a mediocre turkey wrap we had shared our love of writing and playing music. His name was was Greg Bacon.

“I wanted to ask you a question,” he said, politely standing outside the door without actually coming in.

I waited, eyebrows aloft and quivering like two caterpillars squaring off for a duel. He took a step inside.

“You had said you did a lot of your music on the computer…I was wondering what you used.” He seemed uncertain, but it was obvious he had something in mind.

I told him of my rig and “modest” home studio and we chatted about the minutia of recording at home. He expressed his desire to do “some simple recording” and that he just wanted to “maybe record a tune or something.” He had done it before numerous times, renting studio time or working with friends.

Did I smell something on the wind? A faint porcine breeze?

“Oh really? What have you been looking at?” I said, and a plan germinated within my balding pate.

I should explain, once I was Greg Bacon of sorts. I had been wooed by the lure of music technology and found in myself a lust for the microprocessor. I had spent, and bought, and spent some more, never having enough gear, never having enough software. Always looking to the horizon, gathering, packing in more audio cruft like some insane pika storing grass for winter. I barely made music any more. I just acquired tools. And tragically with those tools came the intense need to infect others…a curse I had lived with for what seems like aeons.

Remember when Dylan went electric? That was my doing. Mid-80’s synth-centric Rush? I was whispering in Geddy Lee’s ear. Van Halen’s 5150? It was yours truly who persuaded that dumb Dutchman to all but drop the guitar that made him famous…oh those were good days! Hairspray and Cocaine and MIDI, oh my!

And here was my next victim, practically asking me to walk him to the digital crossroads for a meeting with Old Scratch.

So it started simply enough. My gear is my curse, but also my barb and the first tastes have always been free.

“I can certainly let you borrow a digital interface for your laptop.” I crooned. “Do you have any mics? You’ll probably need a preamp. No please, borrow mine.”

And so it went, Greg taking the instruments of his doom from my hands and thanking me for them. As I slept during those early days I had dreams of his eventual downfall, reduced to a frozen collector of digital tin-toys. What music could possibly be grown within the black loam that would result from his virtue’s decay?

I watched and waited, providing bile for his newly acquired digital bowel in the form of articles, magazines, internet tips and website. It was just the recipe for musical constipation! Until…

He posted a song. I was unpleased, but didn’t expect too much more.

Then another, and another.

This had to stop! I was frenzied inside as I calmly instructed Greg on mixing, getting a soundstage that he liked, processing, notching, multiband compression. I gave him instructional manuals. I showed him local classes he could take on recording. We talked about monitors and headphones, room treatments and acoustic foam tiling, but he..kept…on…making…music!

Again, he posted a song. Weeks passed and more songs came out, then a flash-player for his website. What’s this?!? Bacon RADIO? Then a sad or maybe wonderful thing happened:

I listened to his music, and I cried. It was so beautiful, like birdsong.

It was at that point that I gave up. I couldn’t hold him down under layers of technology. I didn’t poison his muse, nor even make her belch. He grew. He amplified. He transcended the trappings, my trappings, my trap.

But there’s more to the story.

Last week I wrote a song. My first completed in a while.
And I played it for my family.
And I cried, happily.

Keep the gear. My gift to you. I don’t need it any more.

Thank you Greg.

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Colorful Guests

Colorful Guest
 
I thought it would be nice to mix things up a bit and invite some colorful guest bloggers to post at baconworks.com. I plan to include people that have been influential to me in a variety of ways. You will be able to tell they are a guest blogger by the colorful banner at the top of their posts. It will look something like this:
 
Guest Blogger
 
Stay tuned (no pun intended)!!!

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Fun with Twitter

All sorts of fun tonight. I just connected baconworks.com to twitter.
 
twitter
 
So, now every time I post to baconworks.com a tweet will automatically be sent to twitter. Incidentally my twitter account is http://twitter.com/baconworks. Lastly, if you have no idea what I’m talking about then you might want to check out this useful newbie guide to twitter. Suffice it to say, you can now be notified on you mobile phone when I post a new article.

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facebook page

I created a new facebook page today called baconworks which can be found here.
 
facebook page
 
Apparently a page in facebook terminology is different than your standard-run-o-the-mill facebook account. Check it out. You’ll notice that somehow I became a fan of myself. Oddly enough, I can’t seem to figure out how to become an un-fan in the event that I decide that I really don’t like myself anymore.

…and, just moments before I posted this, I noticed that Sally has also become a fan. Thanks Sally. Now I don’t feel so lonely.

new music

Busted!

My recording gear busted last week. Ughh!
 
busted
 
You know what that means, don’t you? It means that the only way I can post new music is by dusting off all the old crud laying around that wasn’t good enough to post the first time.

Here is a recording that I found settled in the dust. It is of an old American song called Shenandoah. I don’t even recall recording it, which can only mean that at the time I thought it stunk. Well, apparently time not only heals all wounds, if you believe that, but it also seems to wash away imperfections. That is not to imply that this recording is perfect. Far from it. But somehow I now find some redeeming qualities to it.

Having said that, I would consider this a learning track. In recording they say there are three things that make a good track; a good performance, a good arrangement and a good recording of the performance. When I listen to this track I hear a lot of “growth potential” in the vocal performance. For now I’ll refrain from any additional self deprecation on the topic of vocals except to say that listening to ones voice on tape can be about as much fun as gargling bumble bees.

I will say that I’m fond of the simple arrangement. Though, I think the melody may need something to break up the monotony, but I’m not sure what.

The actual recording was a challenge because both the vocal track and the guitar track were recorded at the same time. The downside to this approach is that I don’t have as much control over the tracks as I would like due to the guitar bleeding into the vocal track and vice versa. For example, I like to add a little delay to the vocal track. But if you listen closely to the guitar, milliseconds after a strum you can hear a ghost strum, which is the delay. So, I can’t add delay to the vocal track without adding delay to the guitar because of the bleed. Consequently, the guitar track is not as clean as it could be.

You might say to yourself, ‘why doesn’t he just record the guitar track first and overdub the vocals later’? Well that is sort of like eating one piece of bread with peanut butter on it and then following that up with another slab of bread with jelly. Even though it is all the same ingredients, it is just not as tasty as eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Anyhow, I digress…

With any luck, and some new gear, I may revisit this track again down the road. But for now, it is all I’ve got.