An-other year means an-other post detailing how well (or how poorly) I did on my musical goals from last year and what my goals for the present year are.
2019 Projects/Goals
Scales
I'm going to continue in my cycle of scales. I stick with one scale for five days, practicing it on piano, bass, guitar in open D tuning, mandolin, and guitar in standard tuning. I follow the order of the scales in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and every time I complete a cycle, I move up a fret on the stringed instruments (save for mandolin).
Somewhere along the way, I jettisoned moving up a fret. In early/mid October, I shuffled the premise a bit: instead of having the schedule dictated by instruments, it's now dictated by the scale. Every week, I move on to the next scale and play it on whatever instrument I happen to pick up. This saves me from having to catch up four or five days at a time.
I'm going to continue with the schedule I've been doing for two years: a recording of a hymn tune on Sunday (I've been going through The Lutheran Hymnal, although I occasionally skip a tune, and recently, I started doing all four voices [played on two mandolins, guitar, and bass] rather than just three), a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn on Wednesday, and a post about a musicological feature (usually just a small point) on Friday.
I did this, although in June I took a hiatus from recording hymn tunes because I travelled to two weddings. In July, I also started re-posting commentary on Handel's Messiah that I originally wrote on this blog.
Cover Projects
For the record, here are links to the blogs and what band(s) they cover:
For all of these, I'm going to continue learning parts for the songs, and I'll probably end up writing some posts about various musicological features I notice. I also have a few specific plans for some projects:
For Beatle Audit, I'm going to listen to one of the Live at the BBC albums every month, alternating between Live at the BBC and On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 and listening to disc one on the 10th and disc two on the 20th. Since 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road, I'm going to make a concentrated effort to learn parts from that album.
Since I started House of Four Doors only in March, I haven't done as much work on that project as on the others. In order to "catch up," I'm going to listen to a Moody Blues album every Tuesday (because the year started on a Tuesday and ends on a Tuesday and because one of the most well-known Moody Blues songs is "Tuesday Afternoon"). I don't yet have all of the Moody Blues albums, but I'm going to cycle through what albums I have:
The Magnificent Moodies
Days of Future Passed
In Search of the Lost Chord
On the Threshold of a Dream
To Our Children's Children's Children
A Question of Balance
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
Caught Live + 5
Long Distance Voyager
Sur la Mer
Keys of the Kingdom
In the event that I acquire more Moody Blues albums during the year, I'll include those in the cycle.
This isn't so much of a concrete plan, but I'd also like to listen to the Zombies' Into the Afterlife with some regularity since most of the songs on that compilation were recorded in 1968 and 1969.
Aside from listening to Into the Afterlife regularly (I listened to it four times in January and twice in October, and I think most if not all of these markt 50th anniversaries of releases of certain tracks that appear on the album), I did all of these. I learned parts for Abbey Road and now know at least a little bit of each track (although, admittedly, what I know of "Her Majesty" probably isn't very accurate).
I'm going to attempt both of these again. I'd had the notion to use only piano and flute for FAWM in an attempt to get better at those instruments, but I think I'll have a better chance at completing the projects if I don't put any restrictions on them.
I completed FAWM (although only five songs turned out very well), but 50/90 was something of a disaster. I ran out of ideas and motivation at the end of July and wrote only eight songs, only two of which (maybe three and possibly four) are any good.
Classical Music Queue
I'm starting up the Classical Music Queue again. Whenever I hear a classical piece mentioned, I add it to a list, and then I listen to the pieces one a day. I still have three years' worth of pieces to listen to, so there's no chance I'll get caught up during the year, but I'll make some progress, at least.
I did this from January to February. I gave up in March, but then, feeling inadequate and thinking that familiarity with classical music would help (?), I started it again in July and kept to it until the end of the year, so this was mostly a success.
Bach Cantatas
Since March (specifically since Bach's birthday on the 21st), I've been listening to a Bach cantata every Saturday, going in order by BWV number. I'm going to continue that throughout the year, going from BWV 43 to BWV 95 (some cantatas aren't included in that range; I have a box set of the sacred cantatas only). Occasionally, I print out the scores (from IMSLP) and write notes about the music or Biblical references with plans to write about the cantatas on Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals at some point in the distant future.
I kept to this schedule, and I did write some notes. Sometimes, when a Bach cantata was a CMQ piece, I followed along in the notation (if I had it printed out) and made a few notes then too.
Nord Electro 5D
This is probably my most boring goal, but it's also the most essential: I want to have earned enough money by the end of the year to be able to pay off my keyboard. I'm still technically unemployed, but I make some money by transcribing receipts over the internet. Lately, the availability of work has been more capricious than ever, and the work itself is becoming a drag, so I want to be rid of it as soon as possible.
In the event that I do have enough to pay off my keyboard, I'm going to start saving for a clarinet, which I'd like to get before February 2021. I'm constantly thinking of more instruments I want to get, but clarinet is at the top of my list, followed by a Moog synthesizer and then a violin.
I achieved this by June, and since then I've been saving for a clarinet. In early July, I got an alto recorder and a glockenspiel (but I bought them by redeeming gift cards, not spending money). My "job" of receipt transcription abruptly ended in August when the receipts to be transcribed suddenly vanished, so since then I've been scraping together funds by doing online surveys and other such menial tasks.
Piano Practice
Every time I see something about piano, I'm going to practice for eight minutes (8 minutes because 88 keys). I'm putting some restrictions on this, though: I'm not going to practice at nighttime, and I'm not going to count online posts from piano companies and that sort of thing.
I did this in January, but I took a break in February, reasoning that I'd be practicing enough as I write and record parts for FAWM. I think I did it a couple times in March, but I guess after that I wasn't really paying attention. I'm not that concerned about it though, because I've practiced daily since the end of October.
1,000 Parts
This might be a bit too ambitious, but I want to try to figure out 1,000 parts this year (it averages to less than three a day!). Maybe "bits of parts" is a more accurate wording of my goal. In 2017, I figured out a part (or a bit of a part) every day, with a total of around 860. In 2018, I purposely didn't figure out a part every day (I didn't want the pressure of trying to continue my streak), but I still figured out around 720.
Part of this goal includes learning a bit of any song I happened to run across a reference to, provided I have it in my collection. Already, I've had to venture into the dustier corners of my music library and learn some parts to songs that were mentioned in clues on Jeopardy! I'm still not exactly sure what I'm doing to do in the event that I run across a reference to a song for which I already know a part. That's happened twice already; for one song, I learned a bit of a second part, but I don't intend to do that for the second song. I'm also exempting the Beatles songs I read about in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (which I aim to finish reading by the end of the month); I'm already trying to figure out parts for all of those, and I don't need the extra pressure from this project.
I actually did this. I learned 1,020 parts (or bits of parts), but I sort of cheated on three. I figured out the chords for the Yardbirds' "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl" in August, but when I finally got around to writing them down a month or two later, I discovered that I'd already figured them out in December 2017. I figured out the guitar phrase at the beginning of Les Paul & Mary Ford's "Mockin' Bird Hill" on 18 July, but by the time I finally went to write it down, I'd forgotten it, so I re-learned it on 22 August. I learned half of the bass part for the Monkees' "The Day We Fall in Love" on 30 September, and then I learned the rest of it on 16 November. It's only one part, but because I learned it in halves on two different days, it's counted twice. As it stands now, there are fourteen parts I learned that I haven't either written down or filmed, so I may have forgotten some of those too.
I did fairly well with figuring out parts to songs I heard mentioned; there are only nine that I didn't get around to. I failed to note this in my original post, but I also wanted to figure out parts to the albums I listened to, as a sort of toll. I didn't always do that, but I usually did. (I was pretty lax on the live albums.)
Other Things from 2019 to Mention
I added ten albums to the list of albums for which I know at least a little bit of every song:
The Monkees - More of the Monkees
Sam Cooke - The Best of Sam Cooke [not counting bonus tracks]
The Moody Blues - Days of Future Passed
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Electric Light Orchestra - On the Third Day
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - Hi, We're the Miracles
The Mamas & the Papas - If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears
The Drifters - All-Time Greatest Hits
The Drifters - An Introduction to the Drifters
The Moody Blues - Caught Live + 5 (albeit only the + 5 part)
I didn't know any parts for Hi, We're the Miracles when the year started.
In September, I started a project/blog dedicated to the Hohner Pianet. In some ways, it's a reason for me to maintain and develop my keyboard skills. My main goal with the project is simply to record pieces with the Hohner Pianet sample on my Nord Electro 5, sort of as an extension of the first side of the Pianet demonstration record. Including a Telemann minuet I recorded back in March (before I even started the project), I've done seven (one is yet to be posted).
2020 Projects/Goals
Many of these are just repeats from last year.
Scales
Carrying on from October, I have a designated scale each week (it's Bb major this week) that I play on whatever instrument I start playing (provided I can play the instrument well enough to be able to play scales).
Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals
I'm going to stick to the schedule I have going now - a recording of a hymn tune on Sunday, a re-post of old comments on sacred classical music on Monday (I should finish Handel's Messiah this year, and then I'll move on to Saint-Säens' Christmas Oratorio), a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn on Wednesday, and a post commenting on a (usually small) point in a hymn on Friday.
Cover Projects
Here's the updated list and what band(s) the projects cover:
Ecco Mann - Manfred Mann, Manfred Mann's Earth Band
I have a few old notes I need to get around to writing about (some as old as 2018), but my only quantifiable goal is to learn a part (or a bit of a part) to every song on Manfred Mann's As Is. I got the album in late October and immediately loved it (which I suppose is part of the reason I started the Manfred Mann cover project). There are twelve songs, so it works out to one song a month. I already figured out a few bits in "Trouble and Tea," including the alto recorder part (so getting an alto recorder in July was worth it).
Because it's 2020, I'm going to listen to the Beach Boys' 20/20 on the 20th day of the month, but only from January to June and excepting February. I'm hoping that this will give me more time and motivation to work on FAWM (in February) and 50/90 (from July to September). I do NaNoWriMo in November, and December is usually busy with holiday things, so it doesn't seem worth it to pick it up again for those months (or October).
When I set goals about using specific instruments for these projects, they usually don't end up going very well, but I would like to use trombone more, especially in FAWM. I have a cousin who's in a band that uses brass instruments, and they're releasing a single on 31 January, so I'm sure that at least at the beginning of FAWM, I'll feel something along the lines of "he's in a band with brass, so I should be able to use my trombone again!"
As a general comment: I've noticed that since I got my Nord Electro 5, I haven't been as particular as I used to be about using sampled sounds. I always felt that that was cheating a bit, but the mellotron sounds especially have changed my thinking.
Bach Cantatas
I'm going to continue listening to a Bach cantata every Saturday and occasionally print out the notation and take notes. This year, it'll be BWV 96 to BWV 150, but the box set I have doesn't include BWV 118, 141, or 142.
Clarinet
I've been saving up for a clarinet since June, and according to my spreadsheet, I'm about 78% of the way there. As I mentioned a year ago, I want to have one by February 2021, but because I'm wary of shipping in the wintertime, my goal is to have it by October.
The other instrument I'd like to get this year is the Hammond XPK-130G - a bass pedal unit to use with my keyboard. The music store that I got my Nord Electro 5 from also offers a financing deal on the XPK, and - after I get a clarinet - my plan is to save half of my money for the bass pedals and half of my money for a college education.
I never liked the university I graduated from, and over the past few years, that dislike has swelled to disgust and loathing. I transferred universities in a moment of desperation so I wouldn't have to live in a dorm anymore, but this turned out to be the worst mistake of my life. Among other failings, the university I graduated from was two steps backwards academically, and part of me feels that had I stayed where I was, I would be much better off now (at least I would have a quality education, and I wouldn't be embarrassed and ashamed by the university I graduated from). I've been unemployed since I graduated almost six years ago, and I've been rejected for every job I've applied for. Now, I desperately want to go back to university to overwrite my stupid and useless degree, but I don't know if I'll have the courage, mental capacity, or the finances to be able to do it within a year.
At the end of 2018, I applied to and was accepted by a different university from the same university system as the one I originally attended, but I had to decline because I couldn't even afford the tuition deposit. One of my goals is to have at least that amount by the end of the year, whether I apply or not. I'm going to get a good college education or die trying. In the meantime - because no one wants to hire me - I do these music projects.
As I noted above, I started a project/blog dedicated to the Hohner Pianet in September. So far, it's mostly been recordings I made with the Pianet sample on my Nord Electro 5. In August, I got a book of excerpts from Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena, and in practicing and learning those, I've become a better keyboard player (although I'm still not as good as I want to be). I'd like to continue learning and recording those, along with some other pieces (I've done a couple from James Bastien's The Older Beginner Piano Course Level 2, and I'm currently working on a Gavotte by Handel).
I'd like to work more on the other aspects I mentioned in my introduction: "showcas[ing] Pianet parts from other songs, like the Lovin' Spoonful's 'Summer in the City,' the Buckinghams' 'Hey Baby (They're Playing Our Song),' and the Beatles' 'Tell Me What You See'" and "transcrib[ing] and translat[ing] the text from the demonstration record." I have a start, at least: I made a video on "Tell Me What You See" that I plan on posting this week, and I have one section of the text from the demonstration record transcribed and (mostly) translated.
Haydn
Partially because there's an excerpt from his F major sonata (Hob. XVI:23) on the Hohner Pianet demonstration record, I listened to a fair bit of Haydn last year. I have a CD of three keyboard concerti (Nos. 3, 4, and 11) that I'm quite fond of (as far as I know, it's the only recording in my collection that uses pianoforte), and for Easter, I got a 5-CD set of his London symphonies (which I'll admit I didn't listen to until December). I want to listen to at least one Haydn piece every Thursday (Thursday because it's the only day of the week that has an H).
Summer Breeze
In 2015, in my introduction to Beatle Audit, I wrote, "I started wondering what would happen if I tried regularly listening to an album while also trying to learn all of the parts to it." I did this for a while with A Hard Day's Night and Beatles for Sale before giving up on that aspect of Beatle Audit, but when I wrote that, I was actually thinking about Seals & Crofts' Summer Breeze. This year, I'm going to do it. The original idea was to listen to it every week, but I'm changing that. My goal now is to listen to it on the 10th of every month, but - as with the Beach Boys' 20/20 - only from January to June and excepting February.
Parts
I'm going to continue figuring out parts but not with the fervor of last year. For the last few years, I've figured out a part for one of my cover projects every time I see an old high school classmate post about his or her creative endeavors, and I'll be continuing that. I also aim to learn a part to any song I hear mentioned.
First, here's how I did on my 2018 musical projects (indented).
Scales - I quite like practicing a scale every day, even if it's sometimes a bit tedious, so I'm going to continue doing that.
As I did last year, I occasionally fell behind a couple days, but I did continue in my cycle of scale practicing. Near the end of the year, I abandoned doing it for a two-minute period though.
Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals - I'm going to continue with the schedule I've established: a recording of a hymn tune on Sunday, a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn on Wednesday, and a musicological post about a hymn on Friday. I have a back-log of musicological posts to write, but I recently started prioritizing posts about hymns for the current season of the church year.
I maintained this schedule. "Behind the scenes," as it were, I've also been working on transcribing hymn texts and Biblical passages for future posts.
Like I mentioned above, I'm discontinuing my Cover Project Listening Schedule for this year. In some ways, that determined which project I workt on during the week. I'm sure I'll still do some work on the projects, but I don't expect it'll be as much as I did last year.
This was kind of a failure; in March, I started an-other cover project for the Moody Blues, and I don't think I did any less work on these than in the previous year (in fact, I might have done more work in some). Of course, as I expected, I was more active in some projects than others. Over the course of the year, I got to the point where I now know at least a little bit for every song on:
The Alan Parsons Project - Pyramid
The Alan Parsons Project - Eve
Electric Light Orchestra - Balance of Power
The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds
Electric Light Orchestra - No Answer
The Alan Parsons Project - The Turn of a Friendly Card
The Monkees - The Monkees
Jeff Lynne's ELO - Alone in the Universe
Colin Blunstone - Ennismore
The Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky
I did much less recording for these projects than I have in previous years, so in that regard at least, I did step back a bit.
Instrument Practice - I don't have a set schedule (I probably should), but I'd like to practice piano and flute with at least some regularity this year. I'm never as good at piano as I'd like to be, and since I just started learning flute last year, I'm not very good at it yet.
I did some practice, but because I didn't have a schedule, it wasn't very organized. I made some progress in my piano book; a month or two ago, I learned a Telemann minuet, and - even though it's almost certainly a simplified version - I love playing it.
Around August, I started following the daily pieces posted on flutetunes.com. Most of the pieces markt "easy" are still well beyond my current flute abilities, but I've been playing many of the pieces on mandolin. Since a fair number are originally Irish fiddle tunes, playing them on mandolin is actually less of a stretch than playing them on flute.
FAWM and 50/90 - I do these every year. Lately, it seems that FAWM goes fairly well, but I give up on 50/90 after about a month.
I completed FAWM, and - for the first time ever - I actually completed 50/90 too. Of course, a lot of the songs I wrote ended up being not all that great, but some turned out nicely.
Alone in the Universe - As part of my 10538 Orchestra project, I want to figure out at least one part to every song on Jeff Lynne's ELO's Alone in the Universe. I have the deluxe edition, which is twelve tracks, so I'm going to focus on one track every month.
and
The Village Green Preservation Society - It'd been on my wishlist for years, and last August, I finally got a copy of the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society. I got the three-disc deluxe edition, and I plan on listening to the first disc on the 10th of every month, the second disc on the 20th, and the third on the 30th (since February doesn't have thirty days, I'll listen to the third disc on 1 March). I want to figure out parts for each of the songs too.
I accomplished this, although for some tracks, I did just the bare minimum of learning a bit of a part. For instance, for Jeff Lynne's ELO's "I'm Leaving You," all I learned was a single guitar phrase and for the Kinks' "Johnny Thunder," all I learned was a backing vocal phrase.
I don't think I really had a plan in mind for this, but I even learned some parts to some of the extra songs on the deluxe edition of Village Green Preservation Society. In November, I made a video about how to play the mellotron part in "Mr. Songbird."
I stuck to my listening schedule for Village Green Preservation Society, although I substituted 22 November for 20 November because 22 November 1968 is the day the album was released. I wanted to listen to it on the 50th anniversary.
As a far-off eventuality, I commented at the beginning of the year that I wanted to "continue slowly earning money so I can eventually buy a Nord Electro 5D." This happened much sooner than I expected (15 February). The Electo 6 was announced, but the specific sound I wanted (the Hohner Pianet) isn't compatible with the Electro 6. This put something of a rush on my getting an Electro 5 before they all disappeared in favor of the newer model. Haply, the music store I bought mine from also had a special financing plan that was available for only a week. I paid a down payment and have three years to pay off the remaining balance. I spent a good deal of time last year trying to scrap together funds to pay my monthly keyboard bill, and I currently have a little over a year's worth of payments saved up. By the end of the year, I want to have enough to pay it off.
I hadn't planned on doing this, but between the middle of March and the middle of April, I figured out the chords to every Buck Owens song (a total of 40) on the two-disc compilation album I have.
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2019 Projects
Scales - I'm going to continue in my cycle of scales. I stick with one scale for five days, practicing it on piano, bass, guitar in open D tuning, mandolin, and guitar in standard tuning. I follow the order of the scales in Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, and every time I complete a cycle, I move up a fret on the stringed instruments (save for mandolin).
Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals - I'm going to continue with the schedule I've been doing for two years: a recording of a hymn tune on Sunday (I've been going through The Lutheran Hymnal, although I occasionally skip a tune, and recently, I started doing all four voices [played on two mandolins, guitar, and bass] rather than just three), a post tracing the Biblical sources of a hymn on Wednesday, and a post about a musicological feature (usually just a small point) on Friday.
Cover Projects - For the record, here are links to the blogs and what band(s) they cover:
For all of these, I'm going to continue learning parts for the songs, and I'll probably end up writing some posts about various musicological features I notice. I also have a few specific plans for some projects:
For Beatle Audit, I'm going to listen to one of the Live at the BBC albums every month, alternating between Live at the BBC and On Air - Live at the BBC, Volume 2 and listening to disc one on the 10th and disc two on the 20th. Since 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road, I'm going to make a concentrated effort to learn parts from that album.
Since I started House of Four Doors only in March, I haven't done as much work on that project as on the others. In order to "catch up," I'm going to listen to a Moody Blues album every Tuesday (because the year started on a Tuesday and ends on a Tuesday and because one of the most well-known Moody Blues songs is "Tuesday Afternoon"). I don't yet have all of the Moody Blues albums, but I'm going to cycle through what albums I have:
The Magnificent Moodies
Days of Future Passed
In Search of the Lost Chord
On the Threshold of a Dream
To Our Children's Children's Children
A Question of Balance
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970
Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
Caught Live + 5
Long Distance Voyager
Sur la Mer
Keys of the Kingdom
In the event that I acquire more Moody Blues albums during the year, I'll include those in the cycle.
This isn't so much of a concrete plan, but I'd also like to listen to the Zombies' Into the Afterlife with some regularity since most of the songs on that compilation were recorded in 1968 and 1969.
FAWM and 50/90 - I'm going to attempt both of these again. I'd had the notion to use only piano and flute for FAWM in an attempt to get better at those instruments, but I think I'll have a better chance at completing the projects if I don't put any restrictions on them.
Classical Music Queue - I'm starting up the Classical Music Queue again. Whenever I hear a classical piece mentioned, I add it to a list, and then I listen to the pieces one a day. I still have three years' worth of pieces to listen to, so there's no chance I'll get caught up during the year, but I'll make some progress, at least.
Bach Cantatas - Since March (specifically since Bach's birthday on the 21st), I've been listening to a Bach cantata every Saturday, going in order by BWV number. I'm going to continue that throughout the year, going from BWV 43 to BWV 95 (some cantatas aren't included in that range; I have a box set of the sacred cantatas only). Occasionally, I print out the scores (from IMSLP) and write notes about the music or Biblical references with plans to write about the cantatas on Lyres, Harps, and Cymbals at some point in the distant future.
Nord Electro 5D - This is probably my most boring goal, but it's also the most essential: I want to have earned enough money by the end of the year to be able to pay off my keyboard. I'm still technically unemployed, but I make some money by transcribing receipts over the internet. Lately, the availability of work has been more capricious than ever, and the work itself is becoming a drag, so I want to be rid of it as soon as possible.
In the event that I do have enough to pay off my keyboard, I'm going to start saving for a clarinet, which I'd like to get before February 2021. I'm constantly thinking of more instruments I want to get, but clarinet is at the top of my list, followed by a Moog synthesizer and then a violin.
Piano Practice - Every time I see something about piano, I'm going to practice for eight minutes (8 minutes because 88 keys). I'm putting some restrictions on this, though: I'm not going to practice at nighttime, and I'm not going to count online posts from piano companies and that sort of thing.
1,000 Parts - This might be a bit too ambitious, but I want to try to figure out 1,000 parts this year (it averages to less than three a day!). Maybe "bits of parts" is a more accurate wording of my goal. In 2017, I figured out a part (or a bit of a part) every day, with a total of around 860. In 2018, I purposely didn't figure out a part every day (I didn't want the pressure of trying to continue my streak), but I still figured out around 720.
Part of this goal includes learning a bit of any song I happened to run across a reference to, provided I have it in my collection. Already, I've had to venture into the dustier corners of my music library and learn some parts to songs that were mentioned in clues on Jeopardy! I'm still not exactly sure what I'm doing to do in the event that I run across a reference to a song for which I already know a part. That's happened twice already; for one song, I learned a bit of a second part, but I don't intend to do that for the second song. I'm also exempting the Beatles songs I read about in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (which I aim to finish reading by the end of the month); I'm already trying to figure out parts for all of those, and I don't need the extra pressure from this project.
This year, for the first time ever, I actually wrote fifty songs for 50/90. The last few years, I ran out of ideas and motivation before hitting even twenty. Here's a screen clipping with my little trophy:
I even finished a few days early (on 20 September).
Below are the individual demos, along with the "liner notes" (as the 50/90 website calls them) that I wrote when I finished the songs. Comments in brackets are from later. The titles followed by asterisks are the ones I now consider worth keeping, although they might need some changes or improvements.
1. "Een geluid van foto's" (*)
I've been listening to the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society on a regular basis, and I think that informed this chord progression. It's in G major, but includes F major chords, which is also a feature of "People Take Pictures of Each Other" (provided I figured out those chords correctly) and maybe some other songs on the album. It's also in "When I See That Girl of Mine" on The Kink Kontroversy.
There's a D augmented at the end of the A section, which I stuck in because I recently discovered that the Dave Clark Five's "'Til the Right One Comes Along" has a G augmented (so I was thinking about augmented chords).
The B section has mellotron flute and mellotron violin as a nod to some sections of the Zombies' "Hung up on a Dream." Some of the chords there are somewhat similar in that one chord shares two notes with the next chord. I have E minor | C major | A minor; "Hung up on a Dream" uses G major | E minor | C major. I wasn't thinking of that when I wrote the chord progression, but the mellotron flute part is meant to be similar.
2. "Ebenso..."
I've been listening to Handel's organ concerti again and, for my mandolin part, took the rhythm (and maybe a bit of melody and - by accident [I was going for F major] - the key) from the first movement of the Organ Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, HWV 294. It went downhill from there, although there are a few nice bits.
Usually, I write songs by coming up with a chord progression and then filling in the melody; this time I had the melody first and had to write around it.
3. "Et rose og en sang" (*)
The night before 50/90 started, I wrote the introduction part of this (save for the mellotron flute part). I was playing around with celeste because I somewhat recently figured out a celeste part in the Moody Blues' "Emily's Song." This is even in the same key and (in the main section) starts with the same falling fifth. I think I took a bit from Carl Wilson's "Tune X" from the Beach Boys' The SMiLE Sessions box set, but since I don't know any of those parts, I can't be very specific about that. I certainly took a bass lick from the bridge of the Monkees' "Salesman."
Like my first 50/90 song from this year, this is in G major but with F major chords. I'd intended that song to go with this introduction, but it was too different and stood well enough on its own.
The fuzz guitar part has some similarity with a guitar part I used for 50/90 in (I think) 2013, which I wrote after listening to Les Paul for the first time. This is less jazzy though.
The introduction is way too slow (which made it difficult to edit it and the body together), and the fuzz guitar part seems off somehow. I should have cut the mellotron brass part earlier too.
4. "Trąbka"
I don't know if I'm going to make this A THING, but I had this idea to keep track of what instruments are mentioned in the books I'm reading and then use a handful of them to write a song. I've been reading day-by-day books about the Beatles' recording sessions and about the Monkees, and in what I've read since 50/90 started, those books have mentioned just trumpet, fuzz guitar, and tambourine. So those are what I used. I don't yet have (and can't yet play) trumpet, so I used the mellotron brass sound. I'd intended to use actual fuzz guitar, but I recorded the brass parts at such a fast tempo that I was having trouble keeping up, so I used the mellotron guitar sound instead.
It's a bit short and a bit repetitive, but it's an-other 50/90 song.
5. "Den solrike åndene"
I like some of the melodies I came up with for this, but I'm not sure the arrangement is all that great. The first part seemed too sparse, so I added that descending electric piano phrase (to foreshadow the same part on celeste, which I'd already recorded), but I'm not sure that really works. I hadn't intended the piece to be this long either, but the structure kind of demanded it.
My referent for the two trills in the electric piano part was the Zombies' "Butcher's Tale," although mine are quite a bit faster. The second is between A and G, which is the trill that famously starts BWV 565.
I filmed the organ part (which is the first thing I recorded) because I think it's likely I'll forget what I played and not be able to figure it out later. For the record, I used the Vox organ voice, with 16' 8' 4' 2' and III all at 8, and the wave differentiation at 2.
6. "En vakre negl" (*)
All I had of this song at the beginning of to-day was half of the chord progression. Initially, it was four beats per chord, but I thought that was boring, so I used a feature from a lot of Buck Owens songs where one chord sort of bleeds into the next measure. Instead of four beats of each, it's six beats of one and then two beats of the next. That influence also suggested the instrumentation: mandolin and slide guitar (to try to imitate pedal steel guitar). (Although now I'm not sure that there's mandolin in any of the Buck Owens songs I know.) I also tried my best to get a saloon-type piano part. The way my first phrase starts is meant to be a bit like a phrase from Floyd Cramer's "Fancy Pants," although I haven't listened to him that much (I have a two-disc compilation album that I've listened to three times). I also put in a few trills, which seem to be a bit of leftover influence from my last 50/90 song, although maybe they're a bit saloon-y.
I missed a note in the bass part during the glissandi, but I didn't want to go back to re-do it. The first mandolin part overlaps the piano part a bit too much, but since I recorded that first, I couldn't do anything short of re-recording the part.
I filmed the piano part so I would have a visual record, partially because I wanted to know what notes I played and partially because I was so surprised I could actually play the part I wrote that I wanted proof I did it. I tried three times to sync the video with the audio I recorded, but it still seems off. Maybe it's just me.
7. "Hestene sier nei"
For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I don't really like this one. Near the end I didn't even spend much time on it (I just repeated the mellotron brass part instead of trying to write something new for that section). I think it's salvageable, but I don't have time to spend on it now because I still have forty-three 50/90 songs to write.
I recorded an organ introduction part, but it doesn't really go with this (the only real link was the key), so I'm keeping that to use for something better.
8. "Monstre!"
Half of this was my attempt to write something vaguely evocative of The Munsters; the other half is something of a F minor étude.
All of the instruments are "fake," to put it bluntly. Clavinet, vibraphone, and clarinet. There's one note in the clavinet part that I either missed completely or didn't hit as loud as the rest, and I'm not sure the vibraphone and clarinet parts always fit together very well, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with this one, even though it's rather short.
9. Study in A melodic minor
In the piano book I'm working through, I've been practicing the A melodic minor scale, where F and G are sharp when ascending and natural when descending. This was an attempt to write a melody incorporating that, although I cheated a little because I used both F# and G# in descents.
It's rather short.
Mostly for my own reference: I used the pipe organ model on my Nord Electro, with 8' at 8 and 4' at 4. The accompaniment part is just I IV V, but only the root and fifth because using the third would have been too complicated.
10. "Arvum Australis" (*)
Probably the most bluegrass-type thing I've ever done....
It translated really well to guitar, but I actually wrote the first half of the melody for the A section on keyboard (I couldn't play it on keyboard in tempo). This is in C major, but it was in G major originally, which makes me think now that I might have taken a bit from the Minuet in G featured so prominently in The Music Man, which I watched right before 50/90 started. The chord progression is pretty standard (I IV V for the A section and going to vi to start the B section), so I stuck in a II to make things more interesting.
I listened to the Guess Who's Wheatfield Soul this morning (I hadn't listened to it for about two years) and was surprised by how much Hohner Pianet is on the album, so (because I love the Hohner Pianet), I put a bit of it in this. Just rolled chords and some doubling of the bass part.
The mandolin part isn't that great in some places. I like to write a lot of glissandi in my string parts, but I always forget that I can't do glissandi very well on mandolin (or maybe they just don't record well). I rarely play chords on it, and I had to do more mixing than usual to get the levels where I wanted them. I eventually just cut out the chord parts, moved them to an-other track, and mixed the whole track lower. One of the mandolin phrases resembles a piano phrase from the Searchers' "Sea of Heartbreak," but I don't know if the intervals match or anything. I decided to use it anyway.
11. "Gibt es en Haken?"
This isn't the greatest thing I've ever written (and it's a bit short), but I wanted to keep up my streak of finishing a 50/90 song every day.
I missed a note while practicing the F minor scale on guitar, and that was the beginning of this (F Db C). I wrote the guitar part on the electric guitar I keep in open D tuning, and I actually used it to record this. I don't use it much anymore because the connection isn't very good, and it seems that the slightest move can result in a loud, unpleasant buzz. The melody for the second section is better than that for the first. I wasn't paying attention to what notes I was playing though; I just went for what sounded good. That's usually what happens when I play in open D.
The phrase in the bottom of the electric piano part is used a lot in the bass parts of Zombies songs, notably "Tell Her No," "Whenever You're Ready," and "Time of the Season." As a note to myself: I used parallel ascending fourths for one bit.
I guess I don't like F minor that much because in this and the last 50/90 song I wrote in F minor, there are a slew of accidentals. This one resolves to F major, even.
12. "Gli animali"
A strong meh.
I recently got an expression pedal for my keyboard, and this was the first time I've really done anything with it. The introduction is actually celeste, but I used the pedal to bring the volume down when I hit the keys and then bring it up to hear the chime bars after they've been struck. That's probably the best part of the whole song.
Last 50/90, I re-wrote a song from the previous 50/90, and that's what I tried to do with this one too. I used this chord progression (which I actually wrote way back in 2012) for a FAWM song earlier this year, but I didn't particularly like how it came out. I liked the chord progression though, so I changed the time signature and the key and tried again. I like the electric piano melody, but that's about it.
The guitar part in the middle is pretty close to the bass part in a FAWM song I wrote in 2017. It just sort of happened, but since I was already unimpressed by what I had, I just went with it. I changed the rhythm a bit.
I've been meaning to comment on this as a general observation: most of my 50/90 songs this year have an A B A' B A structure.
13. "Anfang und Erfüllung"
I wrote this chord progression in May and saved it for 50/90. I used twelve-string electric guitar, and - along with recording it through an amp - I put a microphone near the pickups to record it acoustically. When I wrote the chord progression, I recorded it on my phone, just so I wouldn't forget it, but I didn't plug my guitar into an amp. I wanted this to sound a bit like that. I was also going for something like the guitar sound on Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue," which sounds like an electric guitar recorded both acoustically and through an amp (it might not be though).
It took me a long time to get decent parts (especially because I hadn't played it for about a year), but I used real trombone on this. There are two different parts, and I double-tracked both.
I didn't know what to do for the middle A section, so I just used a Bach melody I really like (from BWV 1: III), altered a bit to fit my chord progression (sort of). It doesn't really work that well, but that was the last section I had to fill in and I wanted to be done with this, so I went with it.
I recorded the electric piano part before the clavinet part (before I wrote the clavinet part, even); otherwise, I would have doubled (or maybe even harmonized) the clavinet at the very end with electric piano, like I did for the section B section.
Originally, I was going to end this after the second B section, but while I was recording the chord progression, I thought that this would be too short, so I repeated half of the A section, once again writing a 50/90 song with an A B A' B A structure.
I'm relatively happy with this, but it seems a bit sparse in some places.
14. "Orso d'oro"
I was trying to avoid the A B A B A structure, so I ended this after what I thought was a B section (even if that made it a bit short). But since I'd also stuck a bit of that B section at the beginning, I ended up with a B A B A B structure, which is the same as A B A B A....
I came up with the basic guitar part for one section in June and saved it for 50/90. Last night, when I started thinking about it again, I had the intention to use mandolin, but after I recorded the first guitar part, I was playing around on guitar again and wrote parts with nice glissandi, so I just used those. I'm not sure some of the notes in the second acoustic guitar part really work though. I don't know if they double what I played in the first acoustic guitar track or form dissonances with it. I suppose I could figure it out, but I don't want to take the time to do that now.
15. "Le requin"
I like the tune I wrote, but I'm not sure this is the best arrangement.
I recorded the mellotron brass and electric piano part on the same track, just switching between the two voices on my keyboard for whichever I needed in a particular section. I thought this would facilitate the recording process, but it actually make it harder because the two sounds are at different levels. I turned down the brass and turned up the electric piano, but I still don't think it's a great balance.
I wanted to use my keyboard's marimba voice on something, so I used it here to double the chord progression in various ways and add some variety, but I'm not sure it really fits.
16. "Å strømme"
This is OK, but there's a lot of room for improvement.
I took some of the chords and bass notes from Bach's Prelude in C major, BWV 846. Because of that, I wanted to use oboe (the oboe voice on my keyboard, at least); it seems like there are a lot of good Bach oboe parts. And because I'd doubled the bass register of the piano part on electric bass, like I did in an earlier 50/90 song that featured celeste, I wanted to use celeste. I workt out close harmony parts between the celeste and the oboe (something like the trumpets in Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," which I figured out to-day), but after I recorded the parts, I discovered that they don't go together that well (in terms of timbre).
Usually, I record everything to a click track, but I couldn't do that with this because of the tempo change in the B section (for which my referent was actually the beginning of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends"). That also make it difficult to record anything on top of those sections, so there's a lot of empty space there (and at the end of the A section, where I once again nicked the chords from Jeff Lynne's ELO's "When I Was a Boy," although I changed the key this time). Filling in those spots and picking instruments that harmonize well would make this a lot better.
[I later realized that my referent for the structure of this (celeste on its own, oboe on its own, celeste and oboe harmonized) was the Roulettes' "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow," which does the same thing with electric piano and electric guitar.]
17. "Ein Tanz"
I was trying to write something that sounds like an off-kilter carnival tune.
I came up with the basic organ part for this about a week ago. Mostly for my own reference: I used the pipe organ voice on my keyboard, with a split between the bass register (16' at 8 and 5 1/3' at 2) and the upper register (8' and 4' at 8 and 2 2/3' at 4). Both are with the rotary speaker effect (on slow), and the upper register has a wah effect (both effects set at around 1.3, I think). The organ on top of that is the Farfisa model on my keyboard, with presets I came up with a while ago so that it sounds a bit like a clavioline. I put that through the rotary effect too (slow speed for the first section; fast speed for the second), so it sounds a bit different from my preset.
I recorded the basic organ track first and then wrote a melody for it, so it's not that great structurally. I'd reorganize the order of some of the melodic segments.
I wanted to use xylophone on something (partially because I hadn't used the xylophone voice on my keyboard yet and partially because I was recently reminded of the "Fossils" melody in Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals, which was the referent [chiefly rhythmic] for my part). I'm not sure it works very well though. I should have done it just under the long notes in the organ part, but I recorded the xylophone part before that second organ part.
18. "Une voix parle"
I came up with almost all of this organ part on the second day of 50/90. The only thing I added to-day was the cadence before the end, which actually turned out pretty well. I used the Vox organ voice (on which my title is a pun) with my usual settings (16', 8', 4', 2', and III at 8), although the wave differentiation is at 1 instead of 2 (where I usually have it). I must have bumped the drawbar.
I recorded the organ part first and left spots to fill in with an-other instrument (I went with the Hohner electric piano for something of a Decca-era Zombies sound). I could have done without repeating some of the sections, and I still think this needs something (it's a bit sparse), but I'm relatively happy with it. I'm not sure the organ part is always in time with the click track I used though, which might have thrown off the electric piano part.
I took the rhythm and something of the melody for one section of the electric piano part from the pizzicati strings in the Kinks' "Village Green."
19. "Essayez couleur"
This recording didn't turn out all that great (particularly the tempo in the last section, which wavers considerably), so I can't really comment on the quality of the song itself.
I wanted to try something with clavinet again. This is the "clavinet B" setting on my keyboard. I recently discovered that - after much practice - I can now play different rhythms in left and right hands (or at least quarter notes in the right hand and a dotted rhythm in the left). This was an exercise in that. My referents were the beginning of the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" and the beginning of ELO's "Waterfall" (which are the two things I've been practicing). I wrote the clavinet part first, and while I thought it was in A major, it turned out to be E major. I took the arpeggiated section from the beginning (I used the damper pedal there, but I'm not sure if clavinets have damper pedals, so I don't know if that's technically accurate) and transposed it so that it also fit at the end.
Rather than go for the mellotron flute setting, I used actual flute, even though I'm not very good at playing it or recording it (I double-tracked it, but I don't know if that helpt very much). Eventually, I doubled it with melodica, which might have cheapened it a bit (I'm not sure I have the same articulation, either). I didn't have a flute part for the end, so that's solely melodica, and (for the first time, I think) I wrote a melodica part with a change in dynamics (crescendo). I'd intended the melodica part at the very end to be the same as the flute part at the beginning, just transposed, but somehow it turned out different.
I double-tracked the acoustic guitar, mostly to increase the volume. The bass part is supposed to double the bass register of the clavinet, but I don't know if it matches exactly (I recorded the clavinet and flutes yester-day and everything else to-day).
This was something of an experiment in mixing tonal colors, especially the very last note, which is a fifth on the clavinet (E and B), with the E note doubled on acoustic guitar. That's the best part, I think. I like the chromatic, descending triplet in the bass part too.
20. "A Parliamentary Hoot"
Uncharacteristically, I have a title in English! I came up with "A Parliamentary Hoot" as a title right before 50/90 started, and the tone of my tenor recorder reminded me of owls, so I used it.
I started with the bass part of this, roughly working from the chords of the Moody Blues' "Thank You Baby," which I figured out the day I started writing this (the 21st). I wrote it on my keyboard and intended to transfer it to electric bass, but the range goes lower than standard tuning on electric bass, so I kept it on keyboard. I wrote some chords over it, although I ended up playing only thirds and fourths. Since I used harpsichord, I decided to write a melody on recorder, to give this something of a baroque feel. Originally, I was going to use soprano recorder, but the melody felt too high, so I played it on tenor recorder, although now parts of it feel too low.
There's one note at the end of the second recorder part that I held for an absurdly long time (eight measures), even going a measure longer than I'd intended because I got a bit lost.
21. "Eine vierfältige Furcht" (*)
This was something of an-other exercise in playing different rhythms in left and right hands on electric piano. I'm not sure the bass register is very prominent though, and the constant quarter notes in the right hand are a bit too much. I came up with the first section, and I thought this would be in D minor or F major, but I ended up resolving to C major, so...? I used an-other augmented chord, and I think the Dave Clark Five's "Because" (and its G augmented) was the referent there. In writing this, I played some chords that sounded familiar, and it took me a while before I realized that I'd already used that chord progression for an earlier 50/90 song. But since that one didn't turn out very well and this is in a different key, I just used it again.
Initially, I was just going to play a couple notes as a transition to repeat from the beginning, but then I realized that "Westminster Quarters" fit, so I played that. In the middle, I meant to play two of the phrases that skip notes, but I accidentally played the one with the straight descent. I suppose I could have re-done it, but whatever. The "Westminster Quarters" quote got me thinking about foreign words for "quarter" and "four" and whatnot, which is how I came up with the title. I might have tried too hard to come up with a pun; it seems convoluted to the point that it doesn't make any sense.
For some reason, the electric piano part reminded me of the Searchers' "He's Got No Love" (I don't know if there's any resemblance though), so I used twelve-string guitar for this. I used finger cymbals and harmonica mostly because those are the only two instruments I have that I haven't used for 50/90 yet this year (although the finger cymbals might connect to "Westminster Quarters" as a clock chime or something). I wanted the harmonicas to be sort of off in the distance, but I'm not sure I really achieved that.
I used my new-ish expression pedal for the organ part: for one section, I decreased the volume and played just bass notes (which aren't really distinguishable) and for the last measure or two, I increased the volume.
[After I'd finished 50/90, I remixed this and took out the harmonica tracks. It's much better without them.]
22. "Fremdeles" (*)
None of the parts I recorded is a very good performance. There's a dynamic dip in the piano at one point, and while I double-tracked the mandolin to strengthen it, the two parts aren't quite in sync all the time. There's one incidental phrase that snuck up on me the second time, so it's in only one of the mandolin tracks.
I tried to vary the rhythm and structure a bit so this wasn't so repetitive, but I don't know if it really works. Still, this turned out better than I thought it would.
23. "Einsam"
I wanted to try to write something with the instrumentation of a Beirut song (or at least as much of the instrumentation as I could copy). I was planning on using piano, bass, trombone, mandolin, and melodica (in place of accordion). I got all but trombone, and I stuck in a little electric piano. This is in G minor (with some accidentals) because that's the scale I'm currently practicing in my cycle of scales.
I wrote the bass part (and a few of the chords) for the A section first, but I wrote it on keyboard, and the range was uncomfortably large for electric bass. This is at least the third time that's happened this 50/90, so I changed it a bit so it fit better. Then I elaborated on it a little. Yester-day, I figured out the bass part for the first verse of the Beatles' "With a Little Help from My Friends" (it's only eight measures), and I put in a phrase somewhat like a phrase from that.
The B section sounded a bit empty with just melodica and bass, so I doubled the melodica part with electric piano (the Wurlitzer voice on my keyboard). Mostly it just seems to show how off my melodica playing is.
Just for my own reference: I used the "Black Upright" piano voice on my keyboard.
24. "Des cierges"
The starting point for this was actually a section of the chord progression of the Electric Light Orchestra's "Endless Lies." I learned some of the chords at the end of last year, and yester-day I finally got the rest. I was also thinking about the Prélude of Saint-Saëns' Christmas Oratorio, but I don't know if any of that really made it into this.
I wrote an eight-measure melody, but I didn't think I could really expand it, so I just repeated it and tried to add some variation in the arrangement. Mostly for my own reference: the pipe organ starts with 8'; the second verse adds 4'; and the third adds 16'.
I feel like a lot of my musical writing has antecedents and consequents that are 1) really obvious and 2) of the same musical length, so I tried to smooth the third and fourth phrases together. I'm not sure how successful I was though.
The mandolin part was the most difficult thing to record so far this 50/90. I just kept messing up. But, of course, when I doubled-tracked it, I got it on the first take.
I'm not sure the mix of this is all that great.
25. "Kaj brilu" (*)
I kind of fell into this one. About half of the melody for the A section came into my head, so I elaborated on it and figured out some chords to put under it. I sort of reversed the chords (I to IV instead of IV to I) to get a B section, contrived a transition to get back to the beginning in order to repeat everything, and there you go. I added some electric piano (mostly just rolled fifths and triads with the Wurlitzer voice on my keyboard) and came up with some mellotron flute parts to fill in the gaps.
This took me only about an hour.
My last two 50/90 songs were in minor keys and didn't have any guitar, and I think this was something of a reaction to that: it's mostly guitar and in G major.
26. "Nelle montagne"
I started Ab major in my cycle of scales yester-day, and this was mostly just playing around on organ in that key. Usually, I avoid flat keys as much as possible. My 50/90 songs are getting a bit predictable in that I usually have just an A section and a B section and go back and forth between them, so I tried to make a third section for this. It ended up being only four measures though, and the transition back to the beginning of the A section is a bit rough. It seems that I like to start songs with a rest followed by a pair of eighth notes too....
I didn't play on overdubbing anything, so I didn't set a click track to record this to, but now I sort of wish I had. Doubling the melody on piano or something for one section would have varied the texture, and my tempo is a bit too fast and fluctuates. I didn't want to take the time to re-do it though.
Mostly for my own reference: I used the pipe organ sound on my keyboard, with 8' at 6, 4' at 8, and 2' at 2.
27. "Un oiseau dans une foule" (*)
A few months ago, my cousin used a Fender Rhodes for a recording session. Usually, I stay away from the Rhodes (the Hohner Pianet is my electric piano of choice, followed by the Wurlitzer), but I decided to try one of the Fender Rhodes sounds on my keyboard (this one's called "EPiano 1 Mk 1"). I took a bit of inspiration (the alternating notes in the bass register) from the piano in the Beatles' "When I'm Sixty-Four." I put some triplets in the bass register too, but they're a bit muddled (I think it's partially my playing and partially just the Rhodes sound). It seems like a lot of my keyboard parts have chords played in quarter notes in the right hand, so I switched to whole and half notes for one section. I didn't know how to get from the end of the B section to the beginning of the A section, so I came up with this idea of multiple guitar glissandi. I'm not sure it turned out all that well though.
During FAWM this year, I used electric piano with vibes and thought it sounded pretty good, so I tried that again. I sort of ran out of melodic ideas for the last section though. There are some pairs of notes at the very end that I took straight from the end of a celeste part in the Moody Blues' "Emily's Song."
Of my 50/90 songs so far, this took the longest to record. I did bits and pieces over the course of three days. Listening to it now, I think it feels a bit disjointed, but that's probably just because of that temporal spread.
28. "Ârretez"
I was playing with the harpsichord with lute stop on my keyboard and wrote this 16-bar thing. I thought it was kind of short but decided to try to make something of it. After playing it on harpsichord with lute stop ("Italian harpsichord D" on my keyboard), I played it twice through (with a few minor embellishments) on regular harpsichord ("Italian harpsichord A") and added tenor recorder, which I double-tracked. I was going to add soprano recorder too (just doubling the melody), but it seemed a bit too high, so I didn't do that. Some of my rolled chords aren't that even, and the harpsichord with lute stop is pretty unforgiving about it.
It's not that great, but it's an-other 50/90 song.
I came up with the title only after I'd recorded everything. If I had that first, I would have used French harpsichord.
29. "Altså" (*)
The bass part in one section of this sounds really similar to part of Beirut's "Elephant Gun," but I just went with it. I'd intended to use real trombone, but I ended up using the mellotron brass sound because it was a lot faster and easier.
30. "Eine nackte Nacht"
The instrumentation for this comes from a sort of sub-project I've been doing all 50/90: when specific instruments are mentioned in the musical books I'm reading, I make a note of them and (sometimes) try to use combinations of them in the order I read about them. Here, I used harmonium (or an attempt at a harmonium-like sound using the pipe organ voice on my keyboard [with these stops: 16' at 6, 5 1/3' at 4, 8' and 4' at 8]), bass, and French horn (the fake French horn voice on my keyboard). These come from a page of Mark Lewisohn's The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions: the bass and harmonium from "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" and the French horn from an unrelated picture of John Lennon trying to play one. I thought this combination would make an interesting song. I'm not sure if it really ended up all that great though.
While I used harmonium because it's on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" the referent for my part was actually the Zombies' "Butcher's Tale," mostly just the rhythm. The single bass note at the beginning is something I took from "Got to Get You into My Life." I played a G on the fifth fret of the D string and with the open G string.
Rather than have the French horn play throughout, I decided to put the bass forward for one section. Because I played that part mostly on the highest string though, it sounds a bit weak.
I purposely staggered the instruments' ending, but now I'm not so sure I like it.
31. "Genethliacon" (*)
I came up with the two sections of this chord progression a couple days ago and thought that I'd use them for different things. The chord progression for the A section plays around with closely related chords (G major & E minor and C major & A minor). I wrote the chord progression for the B section on electric piano but ended up not using any keyboard for this one. While recording the chord progression, I got a bit lost and repeated the A section once more than I'd intended, so I tried to vary the rhythm of the mandolin part for it.
I went through all the trouble to double-track the melodies, but then I ended up using only one track for each. I recorded the guitar melody before I even wrote the mandolin melody, so I'm not sure those two go together that well.
32. "Ward 28"
Usually for me, this started with a melodic idea, specifically the section where the bass jumps octaves. Last night, I wrote a pretty standard chord progression around it (I IV V for one section) and a bass part, and to-day I filled in the melodies. I wrote the fuzz guitar parts first, and I think I may have taken something from Duke Ellington's "Caravan." I've been listening to Ellington a lot lately. I doubled a couple sections an octave lower, and I don't think my guitar is very much in tune, but because of the fuzz tone, it still sort of works. I tried to take something of the rhythm and general shape of that melody and use it for the clavinet parts at the beginning. And I contrasted the fuzz guitar with the mellotron flute voice, although the mellotron part seems a bit uneven to me. Some spots have three notes at once, and some spots have only a single note. I'd prefer it to be a bit more balanced.
33. "Des chapeaux verts"
I'm not sure the clavinet and electric piano go together that well (musically) at the end of the first B section. I'm not sure everything goes together that well temporally either. I used a click track, but it still seems like the tracks aren't always in sync.
The clavinet sound is a bit thinner and brighter than I'd like. I used the "Clavinet D" voice on my keyboard, but I probably should have gone with "Clavinet A."
Mostly for my own reference: I used the Vox organ voice with my usual settings, except for the wave differentiation, which is at 4.
34. "A Sketch"
This is just a short thing. Somewhere I read that Thelonious Monk sometimes played a different chord in each hand, so I tried doing something like that with D major in my left hand and A major in my right. That was the start of this, but I simplified things a bit to seventh chords. For the record: D major 7th, B minor 7, A major 7th, and then just E B E' of an E major.
I wanted a slow tempo, but I still think this is a bit fast. My rolled chords aren't always that great either.
I used the "Queen Upright" piano voice (a Bösendorfer) on my keyboard. I'd been practicing the first piece in Schumann's Album für die Jugend, and I thought that was a good piano tone for it. When I went to record this, that voice was still loaded, so I just used it.
35. "Et olim et olim"
I wrote eight measures and then didn't really know what to do with it, so I tried something different and kept repeating it while transposing it higher and higher (with a few differences). The chords for the first two sections are just I IV V, but for the third, I went to the minor and added a 7th chord (i iv V7). While playing the fourth, I accidentally played a minor instead of a major, but I liked how it sounded, so I kept that. It didn't work for every phrase though, so sometimes it's a major and sometimes it's a minor (it's a bit obscured though).
Once again, I used the mellotron brass sound instead of getting out my trombone because it's faster and easier.
Mostly for my own reference, here are the specific voices I used on my keyboard: Hohner Pianet, 2 brass (mellotron), French harpsichord C, Queen Upright piano (Bösendorfer), Hammond organ (16', 8', 4', and 2' at 8).
36. "Farfisa festa" (*)
I hadn't really played around with the Farfisa voice on my keyboard, so that's basically what I did with this. I wrote the two Farfisa parts first, but when I recorded it, I added a guitar track because I couldn't really figure out the rhythm from just a click track. I could easily play along to the guitar track though.
For both Farfisa parts, I set all of the drawbars at 1, except for 1 3/5' and 1 1/3'. For the lead part, I also used the "light/slow" vibrato.
This is pretty short, but I like how it turned out.
This throws off my numbering; it's the 36th 50/90 song I've finished, but it's the 38th I started recording.
37. "Morbus Februari"
I don't think this electric piano part is all that great; I wrote and recorded it (and a Farfisa part) late at night when I probably wasn't fully awake. I felt I had to complete it though, so I wrote some guitar parts and an organ part for it to-day.
I don't remember the specific Farfisa drawbar settings I used, but I think the bottom four were all at 8. The Hammond organ part is 16', 8', 4', and 2' at 8 and 5 1/3' at 4. Not that that really matters because I probably won't revisit this one.
38. "Errant"
The main idea I had for this was to double a chord progression on mandolin and on guitar with a capo. To add some variety, I changed the rhythms a bit and put in a section of single notes. I found it difficult to come up with a melody for the A section, and by the time I did (five days after I recorded the chord progression), I had sort of lost interest in the whole thing, so I just played the same melody for every section, adding an organ stop every other time (starting with 16' and 8' and going all way the up to 1'). The last section is a bit different, but that's because I messed up when I was recording it and didn't want to go back and fix it.
39. "Heddiw"
Originally, I was going to do this with slide guitar, but when I started recording this properly, it didn't sound very good, so I just used regular guitar. To try to vary the sections, I used acoustic guitar (with a mandolin harmony) for one section and electric guitar (with an electric piano harmony) for an-other. I didn't check the two parts to see if they really go together though. Same for the bass: there might be some notes that don't quite fit with the chords I played.
I think this would be a bit better if I hadn't used so many glissandi. The guitar parts would fit better with the mandolin/electric piano parts then.
40. "På veien"
I wrote the A section for this way back on 8 July, but I thought it was too short on its own and didn't know what else to do with it. Recently, I wrote part of a chord progression using the same picking pattern, and it was easy enough to stick the two together. I wanted to (try to) use flute again, so I wrote a part that I could play with my limited ability. It turned out better than I thought it would, although this still isn't that great.
41. "Vis zeep"
A couple times during FAWM, I tried starting the B section with v, rather than the more conventional IV or vi. I tried that again here, and I think it turned out better than any of my attempts during FAWM. The rest of this is sort of mediocre though.
I might have unintentionally taken a bit of the melody from the Beach Boys' "A Day in the Life of a Tree," which I listened to recently.
42. "I går, i tåke" (*)
I wrote the organ part at the end first, and then I had to reverse engineer a song from it.
I used the Queen Upright piano voice on my keyboard. That's the Bösendorfer, which I thought would give a good, sort of dark tone for this. I also used the Hammond organ voice: 16', 8', 4', and 2' at 8 for the first section, and then drawing 1' to 8 for the second half. I had the percussion on too (soft/fast, third).
[On 5 September, I realized something (moderately) interesting about one section of this, specifically:
(I did this notation based on my memory of what I played, so there might be some differences. Also, I played it an octave lower than this.)
The rhythm in the treble clef in measures 1, 3, and 5 (three eighth notes, one quarter note, three eighth notes) is something that Rod Argent uses in a lot of the bass parts in his songs (including "Indication," "Is This the Dream," and "She Does Everything for Me"). (It's also in "It's Alright," which the Zombies did live, but I don't know how much of that is faithful cover and how much is the Zombies themselves.)
Looking at this now, I discovered that I also used a rather Argentian three-note chromatic phrase in the bass register (measures 3 to 5).
I just thought it interesting that - apparently - I've immersed myself in the Zombies so much that I'm now subconsciously using specific musical features from Rod Argent's songs.
Yester-day morning I also realized that the melodies for the A and B sections are rather similar in that they start with an ascent (roughly diatonic) from E to B and then a descent with just a slightly larger span. I hadn't planned this and wasn't even conscious of it, but I like how there's a similarity there.]
43. "Celui"
I wanted to do an acoustic-type song with two mandolins. This started off OK, but the mandolin melody I wrote (the first phrase of which bears some resemblance to the Offertory "What shall I render to the Lord...") ended up being so conjunct that writing a harmony part for it proved too frustrating, so I gave up on it. I'd recorded the guitar chords first, and because there's just the one mandolin part, the structure is too repetitive. I was going to have the second mandolin part enter in the second A section and maybe vary it a bit for the other sections. In lieu of that, I tried to vary the rhythm of the bass part a bit, but there wasn't much I could do with it.
As usual, I wrote the chord progression first. I pickt G major because it's a good key for mandolin, but to make things a bit more interesting, I stuck in a C minor. That's probably the only noteworthy feature.
This isn't what I was going for, but it might be decent after some revision.
44. "Omsorg"
I was playing around with chords that share two notes (E minor to C major to A minor) like part of the chord progression of the Zombies' "Hung up on a Dream," and that was the start of this, although I ended up using only single notes in the bass register because the chords sounded too heavy. After I wrote the melody for one section, I inverted it (in a loose sense of "invert") to get the melody for a second section. The melody in the bass register at the end of each section is something like a bass register melody in "E'en So, Lord Jesus, Quickly Come."
I recently figured out the organ part in the verses of the Beatles' "The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill," and I used the same keyboard settings I came up with to emulate that sound. It's the Hammond organ voice with just the 8' stop at 8 and without the Leslie speaker effect. For the last section, I also pulled out the 4' stop to 8.
This is a little repetitive, and the arrangement is a bit stark, but I like the melodies I wrote.
45. "Cerise"
I recently listened to a compilation album of Ben E. King, and this was my attempt at writing a song that uses some of the musical features and instrumentation of the songs on that album (although, obviously, it turned out quite differently). I tried to stay within a I IV V vi chord progression (although I added a V7), and most of the rhythm of the bass part is two dotted quarter notes and one regular quarter note/two eighth notes per measure. For instrumentation, I used acoustic guitar, bass (electric in place of upright because I don't have an upright bass), the mellotron violin sound (in place of actual violins), fake vibes and marimba, and real flute. I double-tracked the flute part and got the first track on the first try but had problems with the second track, which is the opposite of what usually happens.
I'm not sure the vibes and marimba parts go together that well, but I'd already recorded the marimba part by the time I decided to use vibes for the melody there. Likewise with the mellotron violin and vibes, but I thought it sounded too empty with just the mellotron violin, which basically just arpeggiates the chords.
Although my intent was to use musical features from songs by Ben E. King and the Drifters, I couldn't resist starting with the E-to-A falling fifth in the bass from the Zombies' "She's Not There."
46. "Un bateau et des nuages"
I wrote this chord progression after practicing the B minor scale on guitar in open D tuning, although I used guitar in standard tuning when I recorded it. Initially, I was trying to write a song in 5/4, but I couldn't figure out a strumming rhythm. What I came up with is actually in 6/4 (I think). Still, I don't think I've written a song in 6/4 either.
I recorded the chords and then started writing a melody over it. Aside from one phrase, the finished B section is what I improvised in my rough demo. I'm not very good at improvisation, so coming up with something I liked while improvising was exciting for me.
I wanted to have a second guitar part, but I couldn't really come up with a good harmony part, so I mostly just played a constituent note of the chord for each measure.
47. "Gern geschehen" (*)
This is something of a musical response to a single my cousin recently released. I took some of his musical elements and tried to make them more interesting for myself. I used the same key (G minor), the same chords (including the D major with the F# accidental, plus some more I added), and most of the same instruments (I don't have a way of doing drums; I added vibes and organ; and I substituted trombone for saxophone and whatever other horns he used).
I recently listened to a couple albums of German swing music, which is where I got the idea to do two melodies that almost overlap (from Willy Berking's "Rhythmus" specifically). My referent for the title was mostly Fud Candrix's "Was geschah in dieser Nacht?" with a little nod to the Beach Boys' "You're Welcome."
I recently added the Bösendorfer Grand Imperial piano voice to my keyboard, and this is the first thing I've used it for. I used the Hammond organ voice with 16', 5 1/3', 8', and 4' at 8 and 2' and 1' at 4. The weird sound at the end is a pair of Bb notes played with my keyboard's vibes voice with the rotary speaker effect turned on and the overdrive cranked up to 10. I had to fade out the last fuzz guitar notes, otherwise this would have gone on ten seconds longer. And I didn't want to cut corners, so I used real trombone (double-tracked).
Mixing this gave me some troubles, and I sort of wish the piano were a bit louder. I varied the dynamics in a couple sections and played just bass notes in an-other, but it's not that obvious because the piano's sort of buried in the mix. I considered adding guitar strumming too, but I knew that that would make mixing even harder. When I was playing around with guitar strumming, one chord just didn't sound right on guitar anyway, even though I played the same chord in the piano track.
48. "Für und für"
I started listening to Buxtehude's harpsichord pieces again, and I got almost half of the chord progression for the A section just by following the order of the keys of the pieces on the third disc: Aria in C major, Suite in E minor, Aria in A minor, and so on (BuxWV 246, 235, 249, 239, 226, 168). From there, I had to add some of my own.
I played the chord progression on piano (the Bösendorfer Grand Imperial voice again), but because I came up with those chords via harpsichord pieces, I felt I had to use harpsichord, so I played the melody on it (the French harpsichord A on my keyboard).
Aside from my errors (I think I accidentally hit a couple of extra notes and/or missed some notes in the bass register of the piano, and I missed my cue for one section of harpsichord and had to squeeze some notes together, which probably improved that section, actually), I think this could be better, but I don't know how. Maybe more instruments or a faster tempo. It's a bit too long and plain.
49. "Hollow" (*)
I came up with the chord progression for the B section way back in May and decided to save it for 50/90. About two weeks ago, I came up with an-other, somewhat similar chord progression, and I stuck the two together. It's in B minor (with some accidentals), and originally every section ended with a modulation to the major, but I had to change that in order to string the sections together. I kept it at the very end though.
In one of my other 50/90 songs, I recorded my electric twelve-string both acoustically and through my amplifier. As a whole, that song didn't turn out that well, but that dual recording of my twelve-string was something I liked, so I tried to replicate it here. I think it turned out pretty well. To add a bit of a warmer timbre, I added acoustic guitar too.
I wrote the guitar parts on twelve-string and intended to play them on regular six-string, but they didn't sound right, so I ended up playing them on twelve-string. One phrase sounds a bit weird because it's in a higher register where the strings play the same note, not doubled at the octave.
50. "Ovce"
I played the root notes for a section of a chord progression from an earlier 50/90 song ("Farfisa Fiesta"), and that developed into this melody. I tried to arrange it like a hymn tune (with four parts), but I was having enough trouble just writing a harmony part for my melody that I sort of gave up on that goal (plus, I just wanted to be done with 50/90). I did include an "Amen" type cadence at the end.
I think part of the reason I was having trouble writing a harmony part is that harmony parts in hymns are below the melody, which is opposite to the way I usually write. I think without exception, my harmony parts are always above the melody.
---&---
Now that I've actually completed 50/90 for once, I don't know if I want to do it again. It took up a lot of time that I probably could have better spent catching up on all of the things I was already behind on (and am now even further behind on). On the other hand, I really like some of the songs I wrote, and I'm sure that I developed some more keyboard skills in the process.
I know for sure that - if I do it again - I'm not going to post my demos publicly. For the last few years, I kept them private on the 50/90 site (I didn't like getting comments on them because it seemed that people commented just to comment, which I found useless and annoying), but I posted them publicly on my YouTube channel and embedded them elsewhere. It's a bit embarrassing to have the not-so-good ones floating around out there though, and it's discouraging to see that (combined) the fifty songs I wrote have a paltry fifteen views.
