One year ago today: June 27, 2017, leave it vacant.
Five years ago today: June 27, 2013, slumming at the Lanai Kai.
Nine years ago today: June 27, 2009, in the cockpit, you say.
Random years ago today: June 27, 2012, Tennessee is quaint.
That hackneyed expression “a whirlwind day” would apply to this one. I got myself a serious proposal by a gal that you’d think I’d never get, but I’m not telling because it was most serious. It’s a familiar circumstance, however, that I’ll chat about. The woman half my age who knows I’m a contender but keeps holding out for a younger, prettier example. Pretty as hell, she’s used to every hustle on the planet and presumes that’s me. Yet over time, she learns that I’m for real. She hears the gossip, hears me play, watches me read, write, type, and most of all, watches me mind my own business. Now, this is not how things work at my end. I don’t normally have anything to do with women who take a year to get over the age difference. But, I have to leave that topic, that’s all you get.
A lot did happen today, but it was not all Thrillsville. Who remembers that expression? Totally 1960s, it was a Hippie favorite. For all I know, they still use it on TV, and TV is Nothingsville. So there I was over in the Wal*Mart buying engine oil by the bucket. The scooter still neither leaks or burns oil, but uses it. (Actually, my mechanic says it does burn the oil but you just can’t see it.) This Latino man around 60 is lost in the aisles. Finally, he approaches me and I figure it out. The guy not only can’t speak a word of English, he has that almost indecipherable Yamanni Indian accent. It took me a few minutes to realize I’d heard it before. (In Caracas, a lot of the street kids talk like that.)
This was a real challenge, but in a bit I realized he was looking for radiator fluid. I had passed the stand and motioned him to follow me. When we got to the display, it was another baffle: the guy could not read or write. I could make out a word he said similar to ‘grado’, then it hit me. He wants the 50/50 type, but he didn’t know the expression ‘cinquenta-cinquenta’. What to do? Aha, aha, I get it, I took a guess and said, “media-media”. Simple as that. He understood. The event is bloggable because it is so utterly unique. Well, I mean, unless you got something to report.
Secret passage lock.
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Damn, the lens on my center brake light is broken. When did this happen? Broken cleanly away, this is around a $95 repair unless I can second-hand it. There’s a yard over in Auburndale. I didn’t notice the damage until this morning since I rarely drive in the dark. Shown here, I removed the bulbs so the damage is less obvious. None of the pieces or chips of lens were lying around. I’ve never seen a break like this, the only time the car was out of my sight long enough was at the shop getting the hitch installed.
Time for some good news. Twood is alive and well, and get this. While he was invalided for two weeks, he used the time to memorize the guitar riffs I’d showed him. He said it himself, he knows when he’s on to something. I’m over-optimistic when I run into anybody with initiative, you know that. But the fact is, he’s gotten further than the rest. He’s outright learned eleven of the songs. All we did today is step through them to tighten up the weak spots. He is sold on the technique of playing ta drum beat on the guitar, while I play a rhythm pattern on the bass. It’s the sound I want, though his interpretation of the drumming isn’t always the same as what I get.
I’ve described this effect before, calling it “voicings”. There are four things going on, not including the vocals. Try to imagine the result, if you will. He’s strumming a drum beat, I’m filling in the rhythm but on the bass. So you hear the drums, the guitar, the bass, and the rhythm. The sound is very clean, uncomplicated. Where it shines is not from trying to achieve the full band sound. I say it’s an amateur mistake to go for that. Keep it simple. This is where my arrangement experience pays off. From just the two instruments, you would instantly recognize the song we are playing. This is the opposite of the dreaded “comping” sound.
I’ve heard other bands get this and I’m not claiming I invented it. But I don’t know of any other instance where it is so deliberately planned out and executed. It takes years to find a guitarist who even grasps the concept. Twood is still fighting with that brain-hand disjoint that is the major hurdle with this method, but he’s close and he knows it. He still has the standard guitar-player tendency to over-play, but he catches himself at it now. In addition to the eleven songs rehearsed, I ran over another batch to show the drum beats expected, you know, so he’d listen to them the same way I do.
I’d rate the rehearsal as highly successful. Then, on the way home I turned in to Cowgirls, the pub. It was open, full of factory types from the neighborhood, two pool tables, tiny dance floor, the usual. One good looking gal in the whole place, wearing shorty-shorts. The person to see about playing there wasn’t in, but I made a joke about wanting to meet the gal who posed for the silhouette on the wall. No joke, they all looked at me and said it was the owner. This, I gotta see.
ADDENDUM
His progress is better than expected. And he is in full agreement that the tunes we’ve picked are not the same old. For that matter, he’s amenable to material I play but had never thought of incorporating. That being the case, I gave him homework: figure out a beat he can play to “Last Train to Clarkesville” and learn the chops to “Venus”. That calls for clarification. There is no way to duplicate the studio overdubbing of the first tune, so his task is to find a single pattern that captures the effect.
The other tune already has a unique guitar strum. Whenever that is the case, learn that. Listen carefully to the “lead break”. Note how it follows the drum beat, meaning it is an ideal candidate for being translated onto the bass. These two situations, then, represent the extremes of arrangement technique. At one end, the guitar part is entirely contrived, at the opposite end, the guitar strum is played verbatim.
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