Mothers, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up To Be Buskers

I woke up the next morning, after having ended the evening putting the final "touches" on this video, feeling depressed, I recall.

I knew what was waiting for me when I hit play.

The images of the park are nice -a nice place to perform a dirge.

And, why don't I say that I was going for a Wizard of Oz thing, with the black and white intro bursting into color. Sure.

I should have made this a multi-day project, not proceeding past step one until I could play and sing the whole song through. But, in my haste to slap some effects on it, add a shaker (a plastic harmonica case with popcorn kernels inside -yeah, it separated about half way through the song and I had to finish with a less-corn-inside shaker sound) and be done with it.

To pass it like a hard stool. LOL!

I realize that I could be damaging my "brand" by releasing this under my real name, now that my smartphone is connecting my stuff to anyone who Googles the right terms on theirs.

But, I am hoping someone is going to say: "Wow, you really got video making down to a science!" about a year or two from now...

The whole message of the song, which happens to be a verse that I forgot to sing, has the lines:

"And so, help them with your youth,
That they can see the truth, before they can die"

And, underneath that line and in counterpoint to it are the nice Mrs. Nash and Crosby singing:

"We can live in peace..."

That is, of course the "truth" that the Woodstock-tested youth, in between lugging out trash and mowing lawns for, are called upon to teach their war-mongering parents:
"We can live in peace."
Or at least make sure our wars are actually stopping something evil.

I think the harmonica and guitar sections came out well. Those were played live in the park, and were trying to sound like a bayou swamp.

I am thinking that I have learned enough through the experience to be able to make my next video a lot better.

For one thing: It is very hard to watch your lips on a video screen and then try to sing right along with them.
Not unless you keep time very rigidly in your singing.

I remember seeing a video of Simon and Garfunkle singing "Mrs. Robinson" in Central Park, New York, and noticing how their notes fell so exactly on the beat; it was just short of sounding choppy, or like they were rapping.

I'm sure this is because Simon and Garfunkle were probably just re-acquainting themselves with each other, after having each agreed to do the Central Park concert, and each probably flown in a couple weeks in advance of it so they could see each other for the first time in 7 years, run through their material and do sound checks, etc.

It was most likely concluded that, if they sang all the syllables, machine-gun style, right on the beat then they would be able to stay together a lot easier than if, say, Paul Simon had a wild hare and wanted to substitute Gary Jeter for Joe DiMaggio for crowd response.

Then Garfunkle would have to be consulted before they went on stage and brought up to date, so that he wouldn't be holding a "Joe" under the "Gary" being sung by Simon. That would result in raggedness (see "Teach Your Children" video above for a more elaborate example of raggedness).

So, you're darned tootin' that on my next attempt of making a video, I am going to make sure that the original track is sung in a more robotic, bordering on choppy, and as if rapping over a beat, style.

And, the music should be recorded first.

I would be better off sitting in the park, with invisible earbuds playing the music that is going to be on the video; and shooting a video of myself strumming and singing along, not caring what I sound like, just staying in time, instead of shooting the video first.

That way, as long as my lips are in time with that music, they will be able to be matched up later.
And, then I could do mobile shots, using my cellphone and always singing to the soundtrack, coming through an earbud. Yup, instant interesting video.

Now I understand why a lot of stuff on MTV avoids showing the actual production of the tracks you are hearing. Unless it is a live concert.

Otherwise, it is easy to take a shot of a guy sitting up in his bed and gazing out a window, while the lyrics underscore it "Every morning, I wake up and look out my window..." type of thing, LOL.

And that doesn't have to be synchronized with the music much at all. Who cares if the shot goes from his grief-stricken face with the reflection of the window in his eyes to the shot of the girl holding an umbrella in the rain at exactly such a time.

Or the, guy can just sit up in slow motion so he doesn't really have to follow the beat either. I'm just figuring out the little tricks.

I can only vouch for the harmonica/guitar parts in the above posted video. That was just barely enough to prevent me from sending it to trash.