Old Songs Verses New Songs

What I find I have found to be interesting in listening to one of my older pieces, "Celestial Adventures" to be exact. Is that if I were writing it today rather than in 2003, it would definitely sound different. The chord structure would be the same, but there would be more "space" in the music. The way I wrote it was an interesting process, it incorporated drum pads playing keyboard notes, as well as me playing the keyboard parts. It was also written in odd signatures because I was trying to see if I could program a sequencer in an odd signature. The result was this 5/8 thing. The begining started with me playing some drum pads that I had programed random notes into, They were random from the same key though, the result was what you here at the beginning. I didn't realize until I went to lay a real drum track over it, that it was in 11/8 . Many years ago I was playing a pipe organ while we were tuning it, and I came up with the 9/8 organ part that creates a segue to the 5/8, it also returns at the end after a rehash of the 11/8 from the beginning. I also wrote a small organ bit about the same time that appears in "Spectacle of Pride" in the middle with the keyboard solo over it. Anyway, my more recent songs like "That Sunday Morning", have more "space" in them. my writing style has changed over the years to where I don't feel I have to fill up every gap with something. It makes me wonder what "Celestial Adventures" would sound like if I wrote it today. I'm all done arranging and rearranging though, and people seem to like it the way it is, so I don't figure to make changes to it now.

Thanks for stopping by
God Bless

Jack

Collaboration Part 2

What I am finding to be so much fun during this project, is that I am letting people I have never met, make up their parts without a lot of input from me. In almost every case, the artist has come through brilliantly. I let the guitar players play whatever they want, I record every thing they do, then mold it all together. The most recent example of this is a song I have called "That Sunday Morning". The guitar solo at the end is made up of several takes, some of the parts are cut in where they didn't actually happen but they sound like that is where ther belong. I do wish the project could move along a little quicker, but it will be done one day.

Jack

Collaboration

I recently had the opportunity to have some acoustic guitar parts put on one of my songs. It was done by a friend in the U.K. His name is Richard Jackson. He actually played the parts on his keyboard, but the samples sounded so good, I was compelled to ask for his help. He certainly did not disappoint. He created some rhythm patterns that brought a lot of enhancement to the song Streets of Gold, There will still be a sax part to be played on it, but Richard added a lot. It is amazing what we can do over the internet. As musicians, we have access to people from all over the world. The Demo of the song will be up in a few days on the player.

Jack

ATrip to the Studio

This last weekend, I went in to my favorite studio (Subcat, link at the bottom) to record a drum track for Andreas. It went well, although I found one of the microphone placements was a little distracting, but since I was only tracking one song I decided to leave it, rather than spend time having the engineer move it. Mic placement is everything when recording drums, and when you find the place that gives the best response, you go with it. I sent the tracks to Andreas and he is integrating them in to his song, it should be available at his link in a week or so. I had the studio to myself this time, which doesn't always happen, usually there are other artist's rapping up or getting ready, this always makes me nervous. I don't know why, but I figure these guy's will be far better than myself, and they are out there listening with a critical ear. Anyway, time to draw this one to a close.

Jack

A productive year.....2007

2007 was a crucial year for my project, I was able to find a guitar player who really understood what I was trying to do as well as a supporting keyboard player to do the more intricate things like the keyboard lead in Spectacle of Pride. I will be posting the links to the supporting artists and the studio where I have recorded. I recorded and rerecorded much of the project during 2007 using a Yamaha Motif that I borrowed from a friend. ( I currently have no keyboard of my own). What you will hear on the demo's is the results. I will post updates as the project moves forward.

Thanks for visiting and God bless

Jack Potter