229. The Art Film Cello Trio (trial #2)

DAY TWO-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE

Emily Hope Price in St. Louis, MO – photo credit: Allan Crain

It’s funny how events in your life lead you to people who introduce you to people who introduce you to other people and so on.  I met a man through a girl I performed at Puppet Playlist with in New York who creates web documentaries who was looking for music to add to his films.  She put me in contact with him, and he recently contacted me to do some work for him creating instrumental pieces.  He doesn’t really ever need anything longer than 1.5-2 minutes, so it’s really nice, but also challenging to fit what he needs in that space of time.  He’ll send a request saying: (This isn’t an actual request, but they kind of sound something like this), “This is going to go into a short documentary about an art collector from the Sao Paulo, Brazil.  There will be voice overs, so something minimal but moody and moving forward and building to a climax at the end.”  I really like him.  He’s patient, enthusiastic but honest and straightforward.  He’ll tell me straight away if it’s not working.  It’s great working with him.

This piece was created from his request that I either compose or improvise something over a drum track he sent me (which you can hear a solo section of in the beginning).  He gave me specific direction on mood and what he was looking for, but not so specific that it was limiting.  I ended up creating 4 different trial tracks for him to use.  This being the second one, it wasn’t until he sent me an actual clip of the scene I was writing for that I understood what needed to happen.  This version was much too busy and chaotic especially considering there was to be quite a bit of voice over.  I need to finesse the end as well.  He ended up liking the 4th, much more Philip Glass-inspired, composition I sent him.  Ever heard of Philip Glass?  I highly recommend him – look him up and have a listen.

I’ll be honest and tell you that this is largely an improvisation – responding to each of the three cello voices as they were added on top of each other.  For those of you who have followed the 365, you know this is my preferred M.O. a lot of the time, but I enjoy traditional scoring as well.  In this case, where I was sent a drum track that ebbed and flowed within itself, it was easier to feel it out improvisationally rather than a formal score.

CONSTRUCTION/RECORDING:

1. Original drum track sent to me

2. 3 cello tracks

I moved to Brooklyn last year into a very small apartment, and I’m still trying to find the sweet recording spots hidden within it.  This recording was done a little hastily as I was leaving for tour and wanted to get something out as soon as possible.  Someone should publish a book on how to build a quickly collapsible recording space into the tiniest apartment  - because you still have to walk around, cook dinner, and play with your dog while tripping over all of your recording equipment in the corner of the room.

Here you go:  Hope you’re doing very well.  Thanks for listening, reading and sharing.

The Art Film Cello Trio (trial #2)

124. Subterranean Radio (WRLR 98.3 Station ID)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOUR

Jonny Greenwood. You are sick. Sick and gross and wonderful.

Oh geez… here we go.  I was given the chance to record a radio station ID for Pearl and the Beard (I am borrowing PatB’s recording equipment and have it all with me on tour) for the radio station WRLR 98.3.  We have only done two other spots like this in our life-time as a band, I think.  These people must get a million of these things, and I felt like it was the perfect opportunity for a 365.  I worked on it all afternoon, trying to figure out exactly how to put it together.

Writing: I didn’t have a perfect plan, though I know the music had to house the speaking (I thought about singing the whole thing, but just couldn’t bring myself to do it…)  I had in my mind a plan for some kind of harmony first.  I did the back ground vocals first, then midi bass (like a previous entry sometime last week).  I then added the “main vocal”- the “Subterranean”.  After adding all these parts, I basically took a listen to it to fill in where harmonic holes were… where did it need a sound, a fill?  Did it need a higher register?  A lower register?  Which is when I decided on adding the bells.  I put a lot of work into getting the tin-y sound of the bells out (removing treble, adding echo and reverb).  I added snare and floor tom somewhere in the middle of all that, and since I’m no percussionist, this took the longest.

I knew that regular station IDs are very short.  They play these things in between songs and people want to hear music, not musician’s voices saying a bunch of call numbers… so I felt pressure to keep it really short, but it didn’t stop me from letting the whole thing play out.  I was careful and sent two versions: one plain one and one for the 365.

I realise, after listening to it a few hours later, I sound quite sad in the station ID… there really is something about smiling while you’re talking, even if you’re alone in a room with a mic… radio people have perfected this art.  It really is an art, man.

I sent it to Subterranean Radio when I finished it this afternoon.  This is our correspondence:

Hello, Pearl and the Beard.

I host a weekly three-hour underground rock show called Subterranean, and I love your album God Bless Your Weary Soul, Amanda Richardson. Two songs from the album (“Oh, Death!” and “Slow Motion Machine Gun”) placed in our year-end countdown of the top 75 underground songs of the year (#52 and #38 respectively). I was wondering if I could get any of you to record a short message saying, “Hello, this is ______ from Pearl & the Beard, and you’re listening to Subterranean with Mick Cullen and Carl Cutler on WRLR, 98.3 FM.” I would use it as an occasional intro to playing your songs in the future. If you have the time to do it, great! If not, don’t worry about it…I will continue playing your songs in the future anyway!
Take care and enjoy your spring!

–
Mick Cullen, Host/Musical Director
Subterranean

_________________________________________

To whom will read this email:

This is Emily Hope Price from Pearl and the Beard (cello!).  I have been given the task of recording the station ID you requested because I have all the recording equipment with me on my solo tour.  I am sending you two versions: the plain old regular station ID, and a version I did for you for one reason:

I am doing a 365 Project: 365 Songs. 365 Days.  It started on Jan. 4 and your station ID is day 124.  It will be up on my blog tomorrow.  I hope you don’t mind, but I found your station ID request to be a proper excuse to do a quick song for today.  You can use it or not, and I know how radio time goes: station IDs are supposed to be short, which is why I am including both versions. Either way, I hope you have a good time listening, as station IDs can be, well… station IDs.

Hope you are well!  Thank you very much for playing our music!

Emily Hope Price

____________________________________________

Emily–

We are honored and thrilled to be part of your epic project! I’m going to have to go listen to the first 123 songs. Quite a project!!
I love the IDs. I will definitely use the embellished one. You’re so right. Station IDs get old…I always hope when I ask an artist to record one that he/she/they will add something unique, some personal flair. You’ve done that in spades!
Thank you so much. Of course we don’t mind you posting this on your blog. If you can post our show’s website (http://subterraneanradio.podbean.com) or a link to it, just in case anyone is wondering why you’d be recording such an odd song, we’d also be mighty appreciative.
Again, thank you.

Mick Cullen
Host/Musical Director
Subterranean on WRLR, 98.3 FM

Anna Vogelzang, Guy Capecelatro III and I have a show tonight (May 7) at Hog Farm Annex in Biddeford, Maine!  I’m so excited as Gil and Coco, the owners, are some of the best people out there… hope you can come if you’re in the area!

Subterranean Radio (WRLR 98.3 Station ID – no speaking)

(With speaking – ha!)

61. In A Storm I Lost My Love (Song-Study)

DAY SIXTY-ONE

DAMN THE ENTER KEY!  I pushed it and it posted an unfinished entry too early!  Don’t be thrown off: it’s just my fickle fingers flying!

Good evening or good morning.

Writing/Recording: This mainly started out as an improvisational piece, and I guess it still is, in a way.  This is hard to explain: I love rhythm.  It’s just one of the coolest aspects of music and life.  Though I love it, I’m no drummer: I feel like I have a good sense of natural rhythm, it’s just when I start involving other elements like singing or intonation, I get lackadaisical about it.  So, I thought I might do a piece that involved mainly percussion or beats that I would play myself to challenge myself.  I got out an older/new notebook and found the words on the first few pages.  I’m not sure what I had done that day to write lyrics like this, but here they are.  I started doing each vocal line separately, but I realized it would take me all day, so some of these lines are live, but most are using the pitch in garageband.

The original lyrics for the “chorus” were:  “In a marvelous, decadent storm.”  Too much!  So I changed it.

From www.etymonline.com:

“marvel (n.)

c.1300, “miracle,” also “wonderful story or legend,” from O.Fr. merveille “a wonder,” from V.L. *miribilia, alt. from L. mirabilia “wonderful things,” from neut. pl. of mirabilis “strange or wonderful,” from mirari “to wonder at,” from mirus “wonderful” (see smile). A neut. pl. treated in V.L. as a fem. sing. The verb is attested from c.1300. Related: Marveled; marveling; marvels.”

My other Song-Study aspect was less commonly used  intervals: perfect 5ths, perfect 4ths, etc.  Though there are intervals in use here, they don’t generally fit within each other perfectly, which I find interesting.  I like that there is really no central key to focus on, but also that this is kind of weird…I like that it’s not totally acoustic either, or natural.  I like that so much of it is artificial and wandering and imperfect.

*I understand how this song may sound a bit like the vocoder, Imogen Heap thing… this wasn’t point and, honestly, didn’t even occur to me these might be related until I was nearly done.

There are a million things I considered doing with this- one of them was start totally over from scratch because the performances on all tracks seem too off (drums), but that would have taken forever.  It was an interesting learning experience.  I have this feeling this isn’t quite done- mixing and a few more additions to drum parts to accentuate vocal changes.  I was less picky about its perfection than most others I’ve done because it was a study.  Even studies start out as one thing and end up deviating.  It’s funny: though this is about rhythm, the rhythmic aspects of this  song are some of the weakest!  Oh well!

So, here you go: I’m falling asleep as I’m typing… blah… goodnight!

In a Storm I Lost My Love

In a storm I lost my love

It was marvelous, marvelous

In a storm I lost my love

On a perch did I sit and I watched

From on high did I wish, and I mourned

In a storm I lost my love

That he, as an oak, would not swim

And drown in the sea as I hoped

In a storm I lost my love

It was marvelous

For my love was a ghost

A haunted reminder for me

In a storm I lost my love

It was marvelous, marvelous

“My soul,” did I say,

And I said it again,

“May you drown in the arms of the sea.”

In a storm I lost my love

It was marvelous, marvelous

35. Two Out of Three Dinosaur Feathers (A 5 Minute Group Effort)

DAY THIRTY-FIVE

Weird.  I totally posted this last night before I went to bed, and I wake up at 7 to find that it is still a draft, waiting to be posted.  Oh, well.   Here you go!

Two Out of Three Dinosaur Feathers Agree: Watermelons are Best for a 5 minute song.

Thanks to Jocelyn for the lyrics!  yesss!

“Two Out of Three Dinosaur Feathers Agree: Watermelons are Best for a 5 minute song.”

1 2 3 4.

Verse 1
Oh, I got a watermelon and I’m walking from the store.
I got some little brussel sprouts and baby, I got veggies galore.
I got veggies galore!
I got a small banana and I got some Pikachu.
I got some big old noodles and I’m giving them to you,
Oh baby, I got vegetables for you!

Chous
Oh!

Unintentional Bridge
The Deliberation over how long to make the Chorus

1 2 3 4.

Verse 3
Got a watermelon and I’m walking from the store.
I got a bag of peaches and I’ve got veggies galore,
Oh baby, you know I got em galore!
I got a bag of noodles and I’ve got some pizza pie.
I got a little croissant, I got it in my eye,
Oh, got that croissant in my eye!

Chorus
Oh,
OH!

1 2 3 4.

Intentional Bridge
Watermelon Noises

1 2 3 4.

Verse 3
I got a little sister and she really is my friend.
She is a really great person, I’ll love her til the end.
Oh no, I got veggies for her!
I got a crazy diet when I eat my vegetables.
I got a crazy friend in me, and you know that I love you the most.
Oh, I love you the most!

Chorus
Oh,
OH
OH!
AAH!

Fin: “Okay, that was perfectly serviceable.”

This is what happens when two out of three members in Dinosaur Feathers and Pearl and the Beard have a show and write a song in 5 minutes in a tiny basement venue in Brooklyn.

Jocelyn Mackenzie: uke

EHP: Omnichord

Greg: Drums

Ryan: Electric Bass

Tonight we all had a show at a cool place in Brooklyn called Sycamore.  It was intimate, small, and sweaty.  Pearl and the Beard played almost all new songs, but specifically, we wrote this song in about 5 minutes: the fastest collaboration of the 365 yet.  Thanks to Jocelyn for her totally improvisational lyric skills, Greg and Ryan (the really loud one- sorry about that) for their magnificent drumming (a talent which I was clueless he had, in fact!) and bass talents (respectively).

This is a good learning experience for a number of reasons: I’m getting better at the omnichord and realizing I’m a horrible lyrical improviser.  I suppose the only way to improve is to just do it, but until then I’ll just let Jocelyn handle it…

I looked at Jocelyn, pointed at her and said, “Say the first thing that comes to your mind.”  After some hesitation (amazingly), she shouted out: Watermelon!  So, I suppose this is an ode, of sorts, to a watermelon.  The style chosen was: POLKA. The weird noises you hear us making are the sounds a watermelon might make… if it could make sounds…hmm.

Now that it is 2 am, I’m sleeping!

See you tomorrow!

EHP