Gene Vincent's "Wear My Ring"

Over the past two days, I listened to two discs of a compilation album of Gene Vincent.  It's his first two albums with some bonus tracks.  In any case, some of the backing vocals during "Wear My Ring" sounded pretty familiar, so I checked some things and discovered that the backing vocals in the Beatles' "In Spite of All the Danger" are comprised of the same four notes.

In "Wear My Ring," after the line "To remember when December comes in May," the backing vocals go from B to E to D# to D.  The backing vocals in "In Spite of All the Danger" use those same four notes.  There's a slight difference in that the note values in "Wear My Ring" are all the same, where "In Spite of All the Danger" stays on the E a bit longer.

The chronology and influence match up too.  According to the liner notes of Anthology 1, the pre-Beatle Quarry Men recorded "In Spite of All the Danger" in the spring or summer of 1958.  Gene Vincent's "Wear My Ring" was recorded in 1957.  Anthology 1 also contains the Beatles' version of "Ain't She Sweet," and the liner notes mention that "the Beatles usually performed this in the more mellow style of Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps' influential 1956 version."  So the Beatles held Gene Vincent in some regard, and it's chronologically possible that they based the backing vocals in "In Spite of All the Danger" on those in Vincent's "Wear My Ring."  (As a sidenote: the song was written by Bobby Darin and Don Kirshner, but that phrase doesn't appear in the backing vocals in Darin's version, which was actually released after Vincent's version, in 1958.)

I've read that "In Spite of All the Danger" bears some resemblance to Elvis' "Trying to Get to You," so this resemblance to a Gene Vincent song has some precedent.  It's like "In Spite of All the Danger" is an amalgam of the Beatles' early influences.

Simon & Garfunkel's "A Simple Desultory Philippic"

I'm listening to Simon & Garfunkel's Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme, and I'm pretty sure that there are two bass parts in "A Simple Desultory Philippic."  There's one panned left, and other panned right with fuzz-tone.  I'm not completely sure that the right-panned one is bass, but in any case it matches the bass part pretty closely.

I haven't listened to it for awhile, but apparently "Think for Yourself" from the Beatles' Rubber Soul has two bass parts too - one regular and one with fuzz tone.  And since "A Simple Desultory Philippic" contains a reference to the Beatles ("I’ve been Rolling Stone-d and Beatle-d ‘til I’m blind"), I think the similarity is intentional.  The Bob Dylan pastiche is clearly intentional, so why not the Beatle one?

"Sue Me" from Guys & Dolls

For inexplicable reasons, I was thinking about "Sue Me" from Guys & Dolls last night.  (A book I was reading mentioned Sinatra's "My Way," which may have had something to do with it.)  This afternoon, I transcribed the lyrics, and what I'd suspected turns out to be true - the pacing of the song is connected to the lyrics (or the lyrics are connected to the pacing).

In the first three lines of the first two of Adelaide's verses, the words are both repetitive and fast-paced:

You promised me this
You promised me that
You promised me everything under the sun

And

But you gamble at here
You gamble at there
You gamble on everything, all except me

Both of which emphasize Nathan's flaky behavior.  Like Adelaide's repetitive diction suggests, there have been many times where Nathan has stood her up.  And the fast tempo at which the words are sung seems to indicate that there are so many of these instances that Adelaide has to sing quickly in order to fit them all into the song.

In the line after those parts ("When I think of the time gone by") "time" is long and drawn-out, as is "way" in the line after that ("And I think of the way I try").  The elongation of both of those words helps to illustrate that Adelaide has lengthily waited and earnestly tried for Nathan.

There's also the contrast between these two parts:  there's the fast-paced part when she's listing off Nathan's flaws, and then there's the drawn-out part where she explains her own suffering.  Together, they demonstrate at least her agitation and possibly even her conflict between staying with Nathan or leaving him.

Nathan's parts in the song are very even in tempo and syllable distribution, as if he's trying to placate and mollify her not only with his words but also with the manner in which he says (or sings) them.  His part also includes some repetition, but it's immediate ("sue me, sue me" and "hate me, hate me"), which - together with the steady pace - lends a sense of predictability and maybe even security.  In Adelaide's part, the repetition is in each successive line and is coupled with the fast-paced lyrics, which makes each repetition like an attack.

I liked the song well enough before, but now that I can see how the pacing fits in with the lyrics, I like it even more.

Classical Music Queue

A few days ago, I had an idea, which I'd forgotten about, but I really like it, so I'm going to write it down here in the hopes that I remember it when I can actually do it.

I've been watching some music lectures form Gresham College recently, and some of the works mentioned in those lectures (like Bach's Goldberg Variations or Purcell's Dido & Aeneas) are works that I have recordings of but am not too familiar with.  I think I've listened to both of those works only once each (I've heard Bach's Goldberg Variations twice, but they were two different recordings, so...).

In any case, I'd like to be more familiar with those works, so I'm going to start doing something similar to how I decide which book I'm going to read next, except simplified because it doesn't take as long to listen to a piece of music as it does to read a book.

The way my books thing works is that every time I run across a reference to or a mention of a particular book that I have and haven't read yet, it gets a point, so the more talked-about books get higher on the list, and when a book hits 50 points (sometimes more because I'm already reading some from the list and raise the requirement), I start reading it.  (More about that, including how I don't follow this very strictly, here.)

I'm going to start doing that for these classical pieces of music.  Except it'll be more like a queue rather than a list with points.  So, if I run across a mention of Schumann's Symphony No. 3, I'm going to listen to Symphony No. 3, either that day or the next day (depending on what time of day I run across the reference).  If I run into references for more than one piece during a day, the second piece will wait until the next day, and so on.  I'll listen to only one piece from the queue per day.

I would start this right now, but I'm still in the midst of my Collection Audit project, and - as part of that - I'm trying to get through all of my music before going back to listen to something a second time.  To some degree, Collection Audit helps with my familiarity of these pieces too, but it ensures only that I listen to a particular piece at least once every two years, and I don't think that's often enough for a piece to really stick in my memory.  So, once I finish with Collection Audit, I'm going to start this Classical Music Queue.  Of course, when it's time to do Collection Audit again in 2016, I'll postpone the Classical Music Queue.

Geographical Music

About a week ago, I started reading a book about George Gershwin (Howard Pollack's George Gershwin: His Life and Work).  In Chapter Four (The Popular Pianist), Pollack briefly talks about the geographical distance between different musical types: "The emergence of Harlem stride piano during World War I ran parallel - geographically as well as temporally - to the rise of jazz.  Whereas jazz emerged largely along the Mississippi from New Orleans to Chicago, Harlem stride traveled a similar course along the eastern seaboard, from the coastal Southeast to New York."  This got me thinking about the geographical nature of music, and I realized that music isn't tied to geography for me, either as a musician or as a listener.

As Pollack later illustrates in that chapter, there were more musical differences among various locations in Gershwin's time.  In a word, things were more insular.  As far as my own experience, I don't think that insularity is really the case anymore (at least not in some senses).  Partially because the internet has made communication among distant locations virtually instantaneous and therefore has made obscure styles easier to find (by circumventing geographical borders), but mostly because I'm not a part of a local music culture.  I have a long-standing disdain for where I live, so I wouldn't want to be a part of whatever local culture there is anyway.  In any case, the musical styles that I'm interested in as far as being a musician aren't limited by what I hear around me.  Because of recorded music, I can listen to music that's varied by time period in addition to music that's varied by geography.

Pollack's mentioning the geography of music also made me realize that I'm not part of a geographical musical sphere even as a listener.  For a year and a half, I've been keeping track of what I listen to, and in all of that time, I've gone to only one live performance.  I think that in my whole life I've gone to only two concerts that weren't high school band concerts.  For me, music doesn't really exist as a live medium; recordings take precedence for me, which - interestingly - is exactly the opposite of how things were about a hundred years ago.  Back then, recordings were a rarity; music was a live medium only (radio broadcasts may have started to creep in, but they were still live performances).

To be clear, my avoidance of live music isn't for the sake of avoiding live music; it's all of the things that have become associated with that live music that I dislike: I don't like having to stand for two hours while at a concert; I don't like having to be among people who talk through the concert and smoke cigarettes and drink beer; I don't like being distracted by people's coughing and whatever other noises they produce (I hate the sound of clapping).  For me, those things get in the way of the music too much to make live events worth attending.  I'd much rather just put on headphones and listen to a recording.  Then almost nothing can get between my ears and the actual music.

The Association's "Requiem for the Masses"

I was thinking about the Association's "Requiem for the Masses" this morning, specifically the lines:

Red was the color of his blood flowing thin
Pallid white was the color of his lifeless skin
Blue was the color of the morning sky
He saw looking up from the ground where he died
It was the last thing ever seen by him

And I realized how appropriate the passive voice in the last line is - "it was seen by him" rather than "he saw it."  It's an interesting use of passive voice because it illustrates that the "he" referenced is no longer capable of action.  Because he's dead, he can no longer be active and the verb has to change voices accordingly.

Musical Crosses

From February through April, I was reading John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven.  In Chapter 5: The Mechanics of Faith, Gardiner briefly mentions how Bach inserted crosses via the shape of the notes in his music.

From Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven

In church to-day, I realized that these musical crosses are also in some of the music in the Divine Service, Setting Three (from the Lutheran Service Book).  They may be in some of the other settings and liturgies too, but these are the two I noticed:

In the Sanctus

In the Nunc Dimittis

This might just be a coincidence, but I still think it's really interesting.  Especially considering that I've probably sung these pieces dozens if not hundreds of times, and it was only now, after reading Gardiner's book, that I found the sign of the cross in them.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

Cycles

A few months ago, I wrote a post about how I felt about guitar, which at the time was not very good.  But reading what I wrote, now I feel kind of embarrassed by it.  Especially the part when I said, "I'm starting to feel that while I may not know how to employ every technique perfectly, I at least know about them all."  I tried to avoid sounding arrogant by saying that I'm not a perfect player, but even with that admission, it still seems arrogant to me.

So I guess part of the reason for this post is to apologize for how pompous I sound in that other one.  Some of what I said I do still stand by though.  Like how I'm still bothered by what I perceive the public perception of guitarists to be.  But what I've realized is that it's my own problem that I'm bothered by that.  I suppose I just over-think my role as a guitarist and ponder the larger issue of image when I should just be focusing on what I play and how well I play it.

But mostly I'm writing this post to say that I've actually been having fun playing guitar again lately.  For my FAWM album, I started to get into chord voicings.  I had first gotten into chord inversions during 50/90 last year, but back then, I was just finger-picking everything.  For FAWM, I was strumming inverted chords, which made a huge difference, not only in overall sound but also in what types of chords I can play.  During FAWM, I learned how to play minor elevenths, and just yester-day, I figured out how to play minor ninths.  Also significant is that I started using a pick and my other fingers simultaneously.  A few years ago, I saw Greg Lake doing this in a video of "The Sage" from ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition.  I think I tried it, but it was really difficult at the time, and I thought I would never be able to do it.  And now I'm doing it, and it's loads of fun.

That other post is just one that I wrote when I was sort of stagnating in pushing my musical horizons (that sounds like a cliché).  I even acknowledged this cycle in that post, but I was too arrogant or pompous or something to realize that, by combining things I already knew, there was still more that I could learn.  I am still sort of frustrated that I'm so much better at guitar than I am at keyboard instruments, but I suppose I just have to practise.  I've been playing guitar over five years now, and keyboard instruments only two or three and I've not been practising them as much as I've been practising guitar.  I just have to put the time in.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

Pink Moon

I spent a majority of last year reading John Keats' complete poetry.  (Incidentally, I also have a blog where I talk about literary things.)  In September, I read "The Castle Builder" and noticed that two consecutive lines end with "pink" and "moon."

To-night I'll have my friar - let me think
About my room, - I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor 

- John Keats - "The Castle Builder" (lines 24-30)

Because I'd heard he had liked the Romantic poets, I was suspicious that this is where Nick Drake got the phrase "pink moon" that he used for both a song and an album, but I didn't really have a way to prove that.  But yester-day, I looked up the lyrics for "Pink Moon."

Saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get ye all
And it's a pink moon

The "saw it written" gave me reason to say that I'm rather confident that Nick Drake did indeed take the phrase "pink moon" from the line-ending words of Keats' poem.  Later in the poem, Keats writes, "In letters raven-sombre, you may trace / Old 'Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.'" (lines 53-55)  These are the words that are written on the wall in Daniel 5 that - once interpreted by Daniel - tell Belshazzar that his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians.  They're also words that inspired the phrase "the writing on the wall."  Drake's "saw it written" has the same idea as "the writing on the wall."  Also, the definitive declaration that Belshazzar's kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians bears some resemblance to Drake's "Pink moon gonna get ye all."  Neither of these are things that can be avoided.

I think it's too much of a coincidence that both the phrase "pink moon" and the idea of writing on the wall would appear in both Keats' poem and Drake's song, so I'm pretty sure that "Pink Moon" comes from "The Castle Builder."

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

Collection Audit Update

Every other year since 2008, I've listened to all of the music in my collection.  When I did this in 2012, I had a few thoughts and wrote a few short posts about it, so I figured that I would put more effort into that aspect of the project this year and started an-other tumblr where I could catalogue the thoughts I had.  I'm not very far into the project yet (I'm going alphabetically by album [with some exception], and I'm about a fifth of the way through the Bs), but I've written more posts than I thought I would.  I went back and looked at some of the posts I wrote two years ago, and I was surprised by how simple they are.  I wrote a post about instrumentation in some of the Carpenters' songs and an-other one on how I was listening to Christmas music out-of-season.  Neither of which are very complex (and not even that interesting).

This year, I've already talked about record primacy, structural paradigms, allusions, musical impressionism, and studio effects.  While I am still noticing a lot of instruments that I had failed to notice previously, I'm also thinking about stuff that's way more complex than just instrumentation.

The thing is... I'm not sure what I should attribute this to.  Last year, I gave myself a lot of musical prescriptions in which I would listen to particular albums or pieces daily, weekly, or monthly.  That certainly made me more familiar with particular works, which would allow me not only to think about those pieces more deeply but also to compare elements of those particular pieces to other works.  The post I recently wrote about Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 is an example of this.  I noticed that it uses the same sort of parallel opening and ending as does the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed (except, of course, that Beethoven used it earlier).  Because I listened to Days of Future Passed every week last year, I noticed what the Moody Blues had done, so it was easier to see that once I encountered it somewhere else.  I was already cognizant of that sort of paradigm.

Aside from all of that, I've been thinking about musical structures and studio effects and such without any referent because I've been putting more effort into making my own music.  Because I've been thinking about how I should structure my songs and what sort of instrumentation I want to use and what sort of effect I want to have (both in the sense of what I want the listener to experience and what sort of studio techniques I want to use in order to achieve that), I've been paying more attention to how other musicians have done it so that I have something on which I can base my own ideas.  I wrote a post about the stereo effects in Jefferson Airplane's After Bathing at Baxter's around the same time that I was thinking about how I could use stereo in different ways.  I was predisposed to notice stereo effects because I'd been thinking about them before listening to that album.

Regardless of why I'm having more thoughts (and more in-depth thoughts) about music, I'm glad that I am.  Not only is it an-other reason to love the music I already love, but it also has me thinking about music a lot more, which will hopefully make me a better musician.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

Fifth Anniversary

To-day marks five years of playing guitar.  I won't say too much about that because everything I would say is in the post I wrote last year.  Really, the only thing that's changed is that I've learned more about guitar chord inversions.

In order to mark this anniversary, I recorded the first song that I learned to play - Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'."  When I learned how to play it, I actually had not heard Dylan's original version; I was going off Peter, Paul, and Mary's version, so my version follows their arrangement.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

FAWM 2014 Goals

I had thought I'd written a post like this for FAWM last year, but I hadn't even started this blog yet when FAWM 2013 started.

First things first:  February Album Writing Month is the challenge to write fourteen songs in the twenty-eight days of February.  I've been doing this since 2010.  Technically, I've won every year, but for the first two years, that winning included my writing some terrible lyrics without music and some not-very-interesting instrumentals.  So I feel I deserve credit only for 2012 and 2013.

For FAWM 2013, I gave myself the additional challenge to not use any string instruments.  This forced me into using other instruments and getting better at them.  I became more familiar with keyboard instruments, and I started using harmonica in my songs.  I considered doing something similar for FAWM this year and not use guitar, but I don't think I'm up for that challenge yet.  And since I'm already constricting myself from electric instruments until 1 July, I wouldn't be left with too many instruments to use.

I do have some instrumental aspirations though.  I've been relearning trombone for awhile, and I'd like to use that in some more of my songs.  I used it in one song for FAWM last year, but I replaced it with melodica when I re-recorded it.  I'd like to use it a lot more and have it remain a significant feature.  I'd also like to use more melodica.  I'm sure there will be things I want to do on trombone that my limited skills won't allow me to do, but I could probably play them on melodica.  While I'm not prohibiting myself from guitar, I'd like to keep it in the background and not emphasize it.  At the most, I'm going to use it only for chordal accompaniment.  If the other parts stand up by themselves, I may even remove that.

I've also been playing with the idea of writings songs that aren't so dependent upon repetition.  In fact, I think there was previously a challenge for this in either FAWM or 50/90 where you write a song without any repeats.  I sort of doubt I'll be able to do that for every single song, but I'd like to step out of easily-predictable formulae for at least a few songs.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

Resolution Revision

A few years ago, I had the idea to revisit my New Year's Resolutions a month after I made them.  That way, I could see which ones were working and either revise them or just cut my losses.  Because musical projects are what have replaced my New Year's Resolutions, those are what I'm looking at now.

I still like all of the projects I'm doing; I just need to revise a few things about them.

In regards to my project of listening to all of the music in my collection:  I think I'm going to make a new rule for this year (although I may not follow it after this year) - after I listen to something once, I can't go back to listen to it.  The idea behind this is that if I can't go back to listen to things I've already listened to, I'll get through everything faster.  Also, once I get through everything, I'll have to listen to all of the CDs that I haven't added to my collection yet.  I might not follow this very strictly though because sometimes I just really want to listen to something and sometimes I listen to albums to write posts about them.

In regards to using only acoustic instruments for the first half of the year:  I already made exceptions for covers and the Verulam Cover Project, but I think I need to make an exception for new recordings of songs I've already written.  I have an idea for an album that I'd like to release sometime in May or June, and I have some of the songs written already.  The thing is that some of them have parts I played on instruments that would be exempted if I strictly hold to the only-acoustic-instruments rule, and I'm not satisfied with what versions I have now.  So I can't re-record those if I hold fast to using only acoustic instruments.

Initially, I had looked at this project as a total ban - aside from the exceptions that I made - but I think I do need to allow myself time to practise electric instruments even if I don't use them for new songs that I write.  Otherwise, I'll go for months without playing bass or whatever, and then - once I do start playing again - I'll have to make up for a lot of lost time.  So I need to practise in order to maintain my abilities.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}

2014 Musical Projects

Last year, I effectively made the transition from making New Years Resolutions to making musical goals, which is a trend I'll be continuing this year and probably for all of the years to come.

So here are my musical goals for this year.  Most of them are in the form of musical projects:

• Doing February Album Writing Month and 50/90 again.  I've done them every year since 2010, and I can't imagine not doing them.  Currently, I don't have any specific plans for either, but that may change as they get closer.  I've been playing around with the idea of not using guitar for FAWM like I did last year, but I haven't been able to fully convince myself to do it yet.
• Continue Hymnal Habitation.  I started this project at the end of 2012 in an effort to re-familiarize myself with musical notation.  Every week, I record a hymn.  I chose hymns because I'm fairly familiar with most of the melodies (which makes reading the notation easier), and I have a few hymnals (which makes acquiring notation easy).  I've gotten better at reading notation, but I'm still not as good as I'd like to be, so I'm going to continue the project.  And even aside from the goal of familiarizing myself with musical notation, the project gives me a reason to actually employ that skill and a reason to consistently use my mandolin.
• I'll also be continuing the Verulam Cover Project - my foolhardy attempt to learn all of the songs by the Zombies and the other groups that the members formed after their break-up (so far, I've expanded this to include only Argent and Colin Blunstone's solo albums).
• Because this year is an even year, I'll be listening to all of the music in my collection again.  I've done this every other year since 2008.  This year, however, I finally have a name for it:  Collection Audit.  I'll probably write a few posts about this throughout the year.  In many cases, I end up discovering new things about music I haven't heard for a long time or about music that I'm not very familiar with yet.  Currently, I have 1240 albums, so - in order to get through them all - I have to listen to about four albums everyday.  Last time, I think it was only three albums a day, and I finished in August, so I shouldn't have any problem with this.
• My big project for 2014 is limiting myself to only acoustic instruments for half of the year.  I'll do this until 1 July, when I'll add only my electric twelve-string guitar.  Fifty years ago, it was 1964, and when the Beatles came to America, they started a trend in electrifying folk music.  I'd like to temporarily remove that influence and stick to acoustic instruments for a year.  I've made a concession for my electric twelve-string though.  Partially because I haven't used it very much and would like to rectify that and partially because of the influence of Roger McGuinn (and to some degree Paul Atkinson - my twelve-string matches the one he had).  I'm interested to see how the Collection Audit affects this project.  I've been imagining my hearing something done with electrified instruments and then trying to copy it only with acoustic ones, but I'm not sure if that will actually happen.  I should also note that the acoustic limitation does not apply to the Verulam Cover Project or any covers that I do (usually when I do covers, I try to stay faithful to the original instrumentation); it applies only to what I write.

I'd like to release some more music too.  Currently, I have ideas for two albums that I'd like to release before the year is over, but I'm not going to make any promises.

In any case, I'll keep working on music and continually endeavor to get better at it.  I get more excited about music and all its various facets than I do anything else.

---&---

{YouTube}{Twitter}{Tumblr}{Bandcamp}