Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Here's To You

Mrs. Robinson
Plastic Umbrella Girl 
Ok; these are my babies.
Mrs. Robinson
  • Rhythm Guitar.
  • Vocal
  • Backup Vocal
  • Second Rhythm Guitar which takes a solo, becoming lead guitar for a spell, before reverting back to rhythm.
...and that is the simple ensemble for the version of Mrs. Robinson which I did last night, intending to eventually include in the "Top 20 Tip Earning Songs" sidebar.
The other song, one might not think would be a good busking song, lest one was on his second thinking...
"Plastic Umbrella Girl," would, I would have to surmise; do pretty well on Bourbon Street.*
*People are polarized on just about every issue, when you think about it; and; one of them is: A: Do you love a guy who writes his own stuff and puts it out on the street, for all to hear, and would you throw such a guy a five spot or more?
Or B: do you hate original music because, "If it's so good then, why isn't it on the radio?" {Very soon, my newer readers will say "what's a radio?"}
Well, my point is: Plastic Umbrella Girl is *definitely* an original; it screams, "Hey, I wrote this..." kind of like
You don't even have to say "This is one of mine" -the song will do it for you...
So, the song would actually do alright; in my professional opinion; and hopefully it's better live. It would get the dollar of the person who thinks 
@Alex in California: The Plastic Umbrella song came from the same batch as that other song, which you critiqued as having whiny, nasal sounding vocals.
I'm afraid this one is going to join Jungle Sailing on the "Daniel; the Whiny, Nasal Sessions" double disc, coming out soon. It's definitely "another one of those songs," I strongly predict you hating it.
I hope you find my take on Mrs. Robinson interesting. I'm just a few pieces of software away from being able to orchestrate the darned thing!
 but the upside is, er, there is no upside to a crappy song...oh yeah, I've learned more studio techniques and, well, doesn't the suckiness just flow out of the speakers in living color? -that's something...

On Mrs. Robinson, I got an idea and basically ran with it.
I didn't feel like imitating the guys, like doing an impersonation, and.
There are glitches and mistakes; these are "the bathwater."
Do you see where I am going...I didn't want to delete the whole songs because of the glitches, that would be throwing my babies out with the bath water.
Howard Gone
Howard is not here.
 

3 comments:

  1. I am just not going to say a thing.

    And you know what? I really can't say a thing unless I get a geetar, learn the tune, and sing it also and record it and put it online for random people to take potshots at ME.

    I am tired of the isolation and chores here, the Apocalypse isn't coming and there's no need to live like a bum. So I am making plans to make tracks. This is why I've sold the cornet, and as sad as I am to say it, selling the digi piano too. I may actually acquire a geetar, I don't have to play like George Harrison, playing like John Lennon is enuf if a guy can sing.

    The plan right now is to move to a house in Campbell and sleep on the couch, where I think my rent and utilities will amount to about $100 a month, and the stuff I'm not selling off will get stored in a building that a friend is renting. I'll keep up my buying and selling of hi-tech stuff, and it seems I'll be able to set up a work space to do lab test work I've been learning, and pays well.

    But, I'm going to try to have things stay cheep enough at first at least, that I could actually support myself like you do, with a geetar and a harmonica. I'm tired of all the chores and work that "has" to be done very inefficiently around here, and the isolation. I'd frankly rather be a bum. I was even considering moving to Santa Cruz and just going full-on bum, selling my car, etc. That, going full-on bum, seems to be about the only way to get a lot of time in on an instrument. Think about it, college students are kinda full-on bums, all they do is bum around going to classes and studying. That's considered cool but if I guy just does nothing but play geetar all he can, lives real cheap, he's considered a bum.

    At this place, there are too many chores and responsibilities for me to do anything for "myself". Plus I have to do all this stuff AND then work besides to make my living and pay for stuff. The end result is, I get to go busking maybe once a year. And forget about college classes. In fact lately even my own income-earning stuff has been pinched down. I hate it.

    So I'm trimming a LOT of stuff down and getting out of here.

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  2. Haha OK I'm going to mention a song I like, it's by Harry Chapin and it's the one that goes "Mr Tanner was a tailer in a town in the midwest, and of all the tailor's shops around, he ran his the best. He also was a baritone, who sang while folding clothes" etc. Well, it's fun to sing, sounding like Mr Tanner, nice and full, but there's a part where the lyrics soar a bit and go "He sang from his heart, and he sang from his soul" well I like to sing it, "He sang from his heart, and he sang through his nose" 'cos I'm silly that way.

    When I got the digi piano, I was GOING to actually set up a sort of a music studio out there in my office trailer. I was going to set up an old Mac Cube we have around here, with a $20 garage sale digi camera that actually will take video and has an amazingly good mic. Then I was going to shoot myself playing piano and singing. I guess my studio will have to come later. Gravimetrics testing is great for getting practice in, because during much of it I have to babysit samples I'm drying down, My ideal gravimetrics lab would have a piano or guitar in there (not so sure about the harmonica, there's a deep-seated taboo against things that go into the mouth in chem labs).

    God, I bag on geetars but I probably should have gotten one, rather than the digi piano. All Johnny Cash used was "his little ol' thumb there" and it was plenty good enough to be a good background for singing. I like how he held it like a machine gun, hilarious. What a sound the guy had, though. He was a Morse intercept guy in the military, a ditty-bop. They test you for the special kind of brain-wiring you need to do that, and if you have it, you go to ditty-bop training. Some even pass. I didn't get tested for that, but apparently me and another guy tripped some flag for language talent. The special test for that is weird - you learn a "synthetic" language, one that doesn't exist in the real world. We came out talking in the synthetic language LOL!! But I guess they have enough folks who spoke languages they wanted natively, so that ended that.

    TL:DR - Johnny Cash, a God, but also a ditty-bop for extra awesomeness.

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  3. So happy to support your organization.

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