#Frail Autumn,, #GarageBand,, #music, #songwriting

Songs and their progressions. Day or Night.

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I uploaded a small guitar experiment the other day. May well have been yesterday. Who knows! Short term memory loss is a conundrum.

Having said this, I try to keep tabs on little melody ideas. A La, La, La or Na, Na, Na doodly doo too can be used. So if it needs to be instantly done, the iPad is ideal. I hum tunes into the internal microphone set up and capture on an app called MOTIV. It is the Shure app for using their microphone range, but works happily with the generic Apple iPad mic too.

Anyways. This morning I thought the Day or Night/Day and Night blog upload guitar tune, with the experiment of using a new M-Audio interface to record cleaner guitar sounds, would maybe make, in real terms, a nice melodic song.

DAY OR NIGHT. ALL INSTRUMENTS PLAYED BY GRAY SUMMERS. THAT’LL BE ME THEN. NOT THE DRUMS THOUGH. THEY ARE FROM GARAGEBAND LIBRARY OF CHOICES AND TWEAKED A BIT. AND YES THERE ARE BUM GUITAR NOTES. BUT HEY! IT’S AN EXPERIMENT. 😊
🎧ARE BEST TO LISTEN THROUGH.

I woke up this morning with a melody dawdling around my brain synapses that I had kind of played with a few times over the last few months. Guitar skills of mine are of a limited chord library. So I can often fit melody ideas into other chord progressions I have written. I love simplicity. It gives grace to one’s soul when it is inherent in one’s mind. And life. Simplicity and its ownership is a lovely way of life.

EARLY MORNING WHISPERY HUMMING TO CAPTURE A MELODY FOR THE GUITAR ‘DAY OR NIGHT’ TUNE ABOVE. A CHORUS IS NEEDED, SO ADDED A ‘G’ CHORD IN THERE TOO. A CAPO IS HOUSED ON THE FIFTH ‘A’ FRET. WHAT LYRICS TO WRITE THOUGH!

I say this because, as a technophobe, complication is now an ever present in my new life with the amount of learning curves to climb. I have just bought a mixer, the TASCAM Model 12 – Mixer | Interface |  Recorder | Controller – Integrated Production Suite, and am taking on more learning yet again. But in for a penny in for a pound they say. Angie, my wife, said ‘Just get it…..life’s too short’. She is wonderful. In six months the 69th year of me on this planet arrives. So next year the logic of math tells me I’ll be 70 years old. Logic also tells me that time waits for no-one. And technology isn’t an easy process for my brain to command. So take life ‘bit by bit’ as myself and a fellow blogger shortly mentioned the other day.

From the Amazon site. Bought yesterday. Arriving tomorrow.

16 thoughts on “Songs and their progressions. Day or Night.”

    1. You’re entropic right Shep. In this case, it’s hidden within wiring, capacitors, circuit boards and soldering. A little silver Apple box and all its ‘linked up with wire’ mates that know no boundaries. Like the infinity symbol multiplied tenfold. Hope you are controlling your own issues. Like that Theremin weird invention. I saw a guy playing one really badly on Britain’s Got Talent a few weeks back. Painful to watch. Also, waving my hands around in the air would bring back my Sign Language career and give me chills. Standing in front of students in lecture halls waving my hands and arms around translating high end ‘art’ speak about analysing how a painting is born and what it says to us. And doing the signing bit really badly.

      Just come in from the garden. It’s one of those freezing cold grey overcast, but dry days. Tolerating Frankie yowling at the door and window to get out there and ignoring the noise? Or tolerating a couple of hours outside in the cold? The latter with about five clothing layers on, a woolly hat, a cup of coffee and a reading book. As I type he’s now back in the house and he continues to still yowl to get out there again. I despair! Cheers Shep.

      Cheers Shep.

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  2. listening to your second recording, I feel the quiet beauty in simplicity you spoke of—a grace that touches the soul and brings peace to the heart. the love you share with Angie is woven with such grace.

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    1. Those are very wonderful words cookie. Thank you. I do wonder how you yourself are getting on with new ideas. Writing your poetical lyrics and tunes as the hours to days roll by. As you say, we are both blessed with something tangible that allows us to express in song form. A simple guitar and a few tunes to accompany it is like gold. I met Angie at 18 years old, so have been together for 50 years. Her Wholefood shop is such a fantastic success. She, and her business partner Jon, employ 10 people and the whole local community vibe keeps the spirit of the day to day enjoyment alive.

      I have come to the conclusion that this re-introduction into playing music again, with sincerity since October 2023, is mainly going to be a solo exercise. So have to reign in my ambitions a bit and recognise the limits to my instrumental skills. But it’s great having something to really cherish and keep the mind active in retirement. Angie can’t be the only one of us to have all the activities of living fun. 😊 Cheers cookie. And all the best. 💫

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      2. It’s good to know you have the easy hours cookie. And a therapist is so vital in times like these. Even speaking in simple everyday conversational exchanges, about the stress of life and work in general, they just say the right things. A nurse colleague I knew trained for the role. Working alongside her when she was a nurse in our everyday ward work, her enlightening persona and views on life were always above the norm. You ended the shift with a more settled heart somehow. She works in the community now. So, it’s good to know you are involved in such positivity in exchange and tipping the scales in favour of the easy hours becoming the more evident.

        Good to know songs are developing in your life. That amazing smoky voice of yours singing your catchy melodies is something to look forward to. Wish I could sing like that! Maybe I should have a few Jack Daniels before I record the next vocals. Loosen the vocal cords and also lose the frightful ‘push the red recording button and……..sing’ angst. 😊 Cheers cookie. 💫

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    1. That’ll be the Day Friedrich. 😊 Thank you. Funnily enough though, when we were young we did have a few dozen followers to gigs etc. It became almost ‘family’. Sitting chatting and their support for our dreams. Nowadays it has been great to find music again. And with such a free approach to not worrying about perfection, etc. I watch Jonny Mozza (Joshua) uploads on YouTube often and he speaks extremely well about life and reality in aims/emotions/etc. In a very straightforward chilled out layman’s view. I suppose I ‘go with the flow’ so to speak. Fans? I like ‘Friendships’ more. Once again, thank you Friedrich for your kindness. All the best. 🙏🏽

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      2. I can totally empathise with this. I was watching a YouTube video of well known footballers talking of what they would do if meeting their idol. Interesting replies. Normality in chatting with ease to tongue tied responses. Coming over naive and silly when speaking.

        I have met a few members of bands that I absolutely loved and respected back in the day. Mainly because we toured and did gigs ourselves. So other musicians turned up. Especially in the Punk and New Wave days. I suppose I was a fan as you say. Some can be so wonderful as good down to earth people and others not so much. Strangely, even though the latter happens, it doesn’t stop my enjoyment of their music. Separating the negative creative person from what they positively create is something I can do with ease. Art for Art’s sake could be an apt phrase. I haven’t been to a large concert/gig for a while. Saw The Hollywood Vampires in Manchester, UK a few years ago with approximately 25,000 people attending. Utter crowd chaos outside before and after the gig. Little intimate gigs are far nicer. And sitting and playing guitar and singing old time classic songs when a nurse to the Day Hospital discharged patients group was so uplifting. Dementia and their life’s favourite music and songs are at one with each other. They do not forget the songs. They sang their hearts out. Cheers and all the best Friedrich.

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    1. You yourself know when melodies go swimming around your brain it is nice for them to finally get outside and have some musical instrumental peg to lay their hat on. The clarity guitar experiment? I can hear lots of melody within it. It is just a case of re-recording properly and then, with written lyrics, watch the words take on their own little unique journeys. La, La, La land against singing words/lyrics possibilities is a whole different ball game. The tunes gain a different ambience and resonance somehow with words attached. Go into other musical notes areas. And yes….write the lyrics down bit by bit. Avoid chaotic over-kill. Cheers Sheila.

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      1. You know it, Gray.

        As you, we think live music is best enjoyed at/in “Little intimate gigs” and “sitting and playing guitar and singing old time classic songs.” I can imagine how much your singing and playing was enjoyed when you worked as a nurse at the Day Hospital.

        And yes, Dementia patients can have great recall of their favourite music. My mom didn’t forget the songs we used to sing in church, when I sang them to her the last time I visited before she passed away. I will always remember that last visit.

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      2. I believe those small ‘pub’ gigs were my favourite. We were lucky to play really large gigs when supporting well known bands. But the little rooms with a bar and the proximity of an eager crowd were fabulous experiences.

        The Day Hospital nurse always asked me two or three times a year if I could go in to her discharged patient groups and do a singalong session. She did post discharge social activities. 8 week runs of a day a week so she could check on their recovery and rehab targets. I used to stay the whole day and check blood pressures, vital signs, etc. It was always fun at Christmas time with those songs.

        Took me off the ward duties. So win win all around. It was a nice room, open to bright vocal resonance too, which was a really great acoustic vibe. No carpets. Modern wooden floors. No amp required for either guitar or vocals.

        So glad your mom got to hear her songs. Especially from you. Priceless.

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      3. Yes, to each and all of your points, Gray. Yay about pub gigs. Yay for the Day Hospital nurse for having you perform for patients (and in such an amazing acoustic setting too! And yay, that I had that last profound visit with my mom, not knowing it would be our last (until the visitation vision I had from her many months after she passed, which I have written about). Indeed, priceless experiences.

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