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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 10:08:14 GMT -5
So lately I've had some free time (kids are out of the house and the dog's dead as the old joke goes) and I've decided to try my hand at starting a band. I've been a musician now for pretty close to half a century, but always as a backing musician and never as leader of anything. So I figured, what the heck?
Ultimately, I decided on a fusion/smooth instrumental jazz trio Larry Carlton cover band background music thing. And to get the whole thing off the ground, I decided it was easier to demonstrate than to actually explain.
I actually have a Facebook page for “Pieces of Malarkey” that’s still out there that’s been unused in about 5 years so the ultimate plan is to work up videos of repertoire tunes and put them out on that Facebook page.
I’ve now completed the prototype video and posted it to the page, in the process working out the technical and musical bugs that go along with having a pedal as a substitute for bodies and limited technical resources for videos. In addition, the pedal gives me the choice of expanding the songs with multiple choruses and “jamming” in my basement to my heart’s content without pissing off either my neighbors or my wife.
The next steps are to move on to more songs (12 to a memory card) and do the same thing until I get enough to go down on the walking mall here and busk, hopefully when summer comes around.
As to the name of the band, back about 20 years ago when my son was 8 or 9, he really got into the movie “Small Soldiers” which featured animatronic toys (bad soldier guys and good Gorgonites) gone haywire and fighting to take over the world. The evil leader of the bad guys was named Sergeant Malarkey who died along with all the rest of the soldiers when the power grid failed emitting a massive EMP pulse (yes, I know that’s redundant). Some time later we were all in the car going somewhere when my boy started riffing on pieces of Malarkey being everywhere. That and my favorite comic when I was 12, which is what I’m hoping to get back in touch with with this whole thing, had a character named Simple J. Malarkey who was a bit of a backwoods redneck swamp dweller (and yes again, I know from whence the referent came).
So without further ado, this is the prototype video for Pieces of Malarkey. As usual, all comments and criticisms are welcome.
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Post by fauxmaha on Oct 30, 2020 10:13:45 GMT -5
Smooth.
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Post by majorminor on Oct 30, 2020 10:16:36 GMT -5
Sounded pretty good to me. The sound of that guitar and amp is definitely "right" for that style. I'd say pan back a bit on the video so we can see more of your hands and the guitar(and less of your ugly mug ). I'm assuming you are using your Trio pedal here and that's not canned backing tracks etc? If so may want to explain that a little more on a Facebook page etc. You might get some eyeballs/traffic just from people interested in real world use of that pedal.
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Post by brucemacneill on Oct 30, 2020 10:19:56 GMT -5
Cool, as it should be.
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Post by coachdoc on Oct 30, 2020 10:29:40 GMT -5
You and I find a lot of places to disagree, but we can both agree this is mighty fine. I’d love to hear your take on a standard like Autumn Leaves.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 10:43:16 GMT -5
Sounded pretty good to me. The sound of that guitar and amp is definitely "right" for that style. I'd say pan back a bit on the video so we can see more of your hands and the guitar(and less of your ugly mug ). I'm assuming you are using your Trio pedal here and that's not canned backing tracks etc? If so may want to explain that a little more on a Facebook page etc. You might get some eyeballs/traffic just from people interested in real world use of that pedal. Yes sir on both counts. The technical problem I have with panning back is that the start/stop button needs to be within arms reach. Otherwise you get an extended shot of my butt as I take my seat. Haven't conquered the editing thing yet so maybe that can change, but right now the investment cost is $0 making the ROI infinite. That's just awesome business sense. And it is the Trio pedal. Kind of proud of that. If you listen carefully you'll hear the bass following pedal tones, particularly in the bridge section. The whole thing is full of goofy jazz chords and I played it well enough to get an inanimate box to follow along quite nicely. Wasn't really trying real hard to stay spot on the original record backing tracks, but surprisingly it seemed to work. And that's guys like Jeff Porcaro, etc. If anyone's really interested in the pedal, maybe I can scare up a video for that. And thank you.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 10:50:59 GMT -5
You and I find a lot of places to disagree, but we can both agree this is mighty fine. I’d love to hear your take on a standard like Autumn Leaves. Really glad you liked it. As for Autumn Leaves, that may be a consideration going forward but right now I'm trying to avoid pre-1965 stuff since that's kind of a well covered commodity around here. Trying to stay in the Jeff Beck to George Benson track because, well, nobody I know plays that stuff. And thank you to you, too.
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Post by majorminor on Oct 30, 2020 10:54:15 GMT -5
What are you recording your video/audio with? Cell phone I assume?
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Post by coachdoc on Oct 30, 2020 10:54:52 GMT -5
You and I find a lot of places to disagree, but we can both agree this is mighty fine. I’d love to hear your take on a standard like Autumn Leaves. Really glad you liked it. As for Autumn Leaves, that may be a consideration going forward but right now I'm trying to avoid pre-1965 stuff since that's kind of a well covered commodity around here. Trying to stay in the Jeff Beck to George Benson track because, well, nobody I know plays that stuff. And thank you to you, too. George B would be awesome. Love to hear that you are also considering busking. I used to do that a lot in Boulder.
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Post by TKennedy on Oct 30, 2020 11:02:30 GMT -5
When playing live do you have to lay down a groove each time for the pedal to learn or can you store pre-recorded songs?
How do you do intros, bridges, and endings live?
I watched a couple of Sweetwater videos on that pedal and got the impression it could be a great practice tool but perhaps a bit clumsy to use live. Am I wrong on that?
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 11:06:10 GMT -5
What are you recording your video/audio with? Cell phone I assume? It's a small Olympus video camera that I've had for a few years. There's a little stick thing that screws in the bottom and then fits down in a mic stand clip. Not even sure Olympus still exists but maybe there's a remote control for it. I thought about over thinking the audio thing and running that through a separate mixer but then laziness saved the day.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 12:13:27 GMT -5
Really glad you liked it. As for Autumn Leaves, that may be a consideration going forward but right now I'm trying to avoid pre-1965 stuff since that's kind of a well covered commodity around here. Trying to stay in the Jeff Beck to George Benson track because, well, nobody I know plays that stuff. And thank you to you, too. George B would be awesome. Love to hear that you are also considering busking. I used to do that a lot in Boulder. Both Affirmation and Breezing are on the short list for consideration. And both our little town and Winchester to the north have spaces for playing that include open electricity for amps or sound systems. So part of the whole thing is working up a gig pack that can be wheeled in, plugged in, and go.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 12:51:10 GMT -5
When playing live do you have to lay down a groove each time for the pedal to learn or can you store pre-recorded songs? How do you do intros, bridges, and endings live? I watched a couple of Sweetwater videos on that pedal and got the impression it could be a great practice tool but perhaps a bit clumsy to use live. Am I wrong on that? I'll be honest with you, it's the coolest damn pedal I've ever seen. Basically you "teach" the pedal what you want it to play by playing the changes and rhythm into it. Now that can be surprisingly tricky as I've learned here. Fundamentally drummers and bass players don't necessarily follow what the guitar player is playing so you have to adapt your playing style to accommodate those instruments (strip it down to raw rhythm, single note bass runs without the rest of the chord, moving bass lines within the chords, etc.). You arm the pedal and then play the sequence and stop it when you're done. And it really helps to be able to keep really steady time because the pedal is making calculations against the entire length of what you play. Once you've got it down you can turn knobs to try out different styles to see what works best for you. Screw it up- start over. No editing. Once you have the base rhythm parts you can use the looper to record additional parts over the top of that. Once you have a complete segment (however that may be defined), you can then go on and record another. There's a button sequence that will set the tempo of the new segment to the tempo of the last one. A song will accommodate up to 6 different segments. When you have all of the segments you want you can sequence them to play in any order you'd like. The song I played here is 4 segments- one with the little harmonized part I play over the top, one with 8 bars of the basic Steely Dan changes, one with the chorus, and the last one with the bridge. Then they're sequenced- 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 and done. The number of the segments and the order that can be programmed is literally infinite. Turn off the sequence and you can run any segment until you throw up. Then turn it back on again and play the song. You can also note the little time change trick at the end of segment 3- a couple bars of 3 and another of 2 before going back to 4. Yeah, you've got to really concentrate through that. Take Autumn Leaves for example. You could just play the core changes into one segment and run it until you want to quit. Or you could do 2 segments, one with a turnaround and one that resolves. Or you could add a clever intro or outro bit- maybe 3 segments. Or you could run 3 choruses with a turnaround and different tempos and styles- samba, blues, and thrash metal- and an intro. Or you could put 6 different songs in and sequence your whole set without a break. The possibilities are insane. The pedal takes 12 songs per memory card which is easy to swap out. Press a button and rotate the dial to whichever one you want. It's a little odd to get used to, but once you get it it opens up a massive creative world.
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Post by TKennedy on Oct 30, 2020 14:02:24 GMT -5
That is very cool. So you can pre-record a song complete with intro, as many choruses as needed, and an ending and store up to 12 on a card? That is about right for a set. Do you record with a metronome?
Is your gigging plan to have several memory cards and change between sets?
Thanks for the info! Hope sometime in the future you can record a complete song the way you would do it live and share it with us. What you did on this video sounds nice.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 14:48:24 GMT -5
That is very cool. So you can pre-record a song complete with intro, as many choruses as needed, and an ending and store up to 12 on a card? That is about right for a set. Do you record with a metronome? Is your gigging plan to have several memory cards and change between sets? Thanks for the info! Hope sometime in the future you can record a complete song the way you would do it live and share it with us. What you did on this video sounds nice. Basically, yes to all of it. The pedal doesn't really have an internal metronome. I'm working with this from some Trufire lesson things. This chart gives the tempo at 116 so I used my metronome to hit that. I could (and have) just winged it but the tendency is to not really play as slow as you think you might be. There's some tempo adjustment available with a knob but I prefer to get it right to start with since down the road the tempo adjust can play wonky with the looper. Once you get the first segment down, you can set up a click leading into recording subsequent loops but that click stops once you start to record and then you're on your own. So yeah, it's handy to have a metronome. A 45 minute set (standard in my world) is roughly 9 songs, at least when I have my wife's gift of gab to occupy dead air time. Part of the process of learning to lead a band is learning to be more extraverted so we'll see. I plan on having a small stack of cards with different stuff on them to allow me to change up things when I feel like it. I think there's a little utility for a computer that allows you to manage stuff like that. To change the card you unplug the wall wart from the pedal, change the card, then plug it back in and boot the pedal again. Haven't gotten that far to know all the details, but that's what I'm thinking. A complete song is another learning process. My stuff has always been backing stuff. Solos of maybe 8-16 bars max that can be burped out without blowing your whole repertoire. Being a true lead instrument is a whole other game. Literally trying to hold some attention for 4 or 5 minutes. So I'm also working with some of Larry's Trufire lessons to try to bolster that end of my playing, too. The goal is Larry Carlton's Estival concert in Lugano Switzerland in 2011. You can find it on Youtube. He's playing with a trio with his kid on bass and another kid on drums. And for me it's mesmerizing. I'm on to the next song now- a blues over Db7#9. Only. A perfectly symmetrical chord that opens up limitless possibilities. Maybe the next video will show that.
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Post by epaul on Oct 30, 2020 15:03:20 GMT -5
Very cool. I liked it a lot. Charlene walked by and said, "That doesn't sound like typical Forum music". I said, "Hey, we got's us a hell of an interesting and diverse forum. Can you believe this guy worked for the Warren campaign?"
(ok, so maybe I made up that very last part, but I did say we have very interesting and diverse forum. Yep, we's all about diversity!)
((and I apologize to our many members who may not be able to read this size print.))
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Post by TKennedy on Oct 30, 2020 15:13:53 GMT -5
Thanks! Good luck.
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Post by Marshall on Oct 30, 2020 16:24:54 GMT -5
Very nice. You need to have a little more head bobbing, though.
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Post by aquaduct on Oct 30, 2020 16:45:13 GMT -5
Very nice. You need to have a little more head bobbing, though. I'm thinking about majorminors suggestion and lowering the camera to focus on the guitar. And my open fly. What do you think?
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Post by Marshall on Oct 30, 2020 16:49:04 GMT -5
Let your wife play the guitar then.
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