A Repost From One Year Ago - It’s NOT This Week's Regular Friday Post

This is a repost (with commentary) from October 2023 - It's a THANK YOU to all of my subscribers and supporters, but also a "how we got here and where we're going" sorta dealio

Oct 08, 2024

Ed. There will still be a Regular Friday Post this week, I just wanted to take a look back.

This post from October 2023 marked a change for the Michael Acoustic Substack - I felt posting two articles on subsequent days was not doing justice to either and I wanted to solidify a more consistent approach to whatever it is I want to accomplish here. That caused me to consider my “first principles” and to try to follow those principles consistently. So I sorted my first principles (I did wash and dry them first, tho…) and decided I want to:

Speak to my readers as musicians speak. I know many of my readers are greatly interested in music, but not necessarily from a musician’s point of view. Fair enough, but I wanted to start from a differently established point of view - that of a musician - in my writing.

I love reading my fellow “music stack” Substack writers who discuss albums and bands and concerts; radio play, and who helped who, and who didn’t, and how those things formed the interface for most people’s musical experience. Each of them speak in the language of their interests - crate searching for the perfect vintage album, the backstories of how artists in the biz formed and reformed bands, loved or hated each other, screwed over someone or got screwed over, and I love how much effort they put into writing about their interests for the rest of us.

I’m a musician. I write songs, I arrange, sing and record and accompany my songs on acoustic (mostly) guitars. Sometimes I do that with other musicians - some pros, some not - as well as producers, audio engineers and friends. The experience is at once fantastically exhilarating and can be extraordinarily frustrating at the same time. And really, truly fun, always.

I also wanted to speak to my musical friends and readers in the “language” of music, which entails some knowledge of music theory. I knew I would lose folk’s attention quickly if I didn’t explain how music “works” in as much of the language and jargon of musicians as I thought I could get away with, but without overwhelming y’all with technical jargon. It’s an inescapable fact that the foundational concepts of music are rooted in mathematical relationships and principles of the conduction of sound waves through the air, and that musicians use those principles with their minds and bodies to produce tones that are regarded as pleasing (mostly) to a listening audience. Which is a overly complex way of describing what seems to be a fairly simple experience. But there really is much in the way of complex layers of effort that must occur before the experience of “music” can exist. Fortunately as a species, we’re pretty used to achieving that existence and teaching those who wish to be musicians how to do it.

While searching for an example I chose this post from just about a year ago to see how far we’ve come. Definitely we aren’t all the way “there” yet (and probably won’t ever be), but I’m happy how just about a year ago we began to solidify the approach so things seem a bit more consistent and coherent. Along the way I ignored the advice some of you gave me in the poll (below) and changed the format to just one longer and more thematic post per week. Still a work in progress and I’m not a fan of consistency solely for consistency’s sake, but it doesn’t feel like I’m just making shit up on the fly every week either.

So, thanks for sticking with me - the cat stays, but I’ll try to stay attuned to what y’all are wanting out of this experience and adjust as necessary, while staying true to the idea of speaking through my writing with a musician’s voice. But I won’t know any of that unless you tell me in the comments….just sayin’…

With that - here’s the post from a year ago. As Matchbox Twenty might say, “Let’s see how far we’ve come!”

The lyric, "I got to move on I got to travel Walk away my blues" is from the song “You Were On My Mind” a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Sylvia Fricker and recorded by Fricker and Ian Tyson in 1963 and released in 1964 . The song is most well known for its 1965 cover by the group We Five, with other artists covering it as well. Credit: Wikipedia Link: You Were On My Mind

Yes - Two songs, subsequently covered by different artists, each cover ending up on top 100 charts, were the A-side (You Were On My Mind), and B-side (Someday Soon - featured in this space last Friday) of a single by Ian & Sylvia. “Someday Soon” was written by Ian Tyson, “You Were On My Mind” was written by Sylvia Fricker, the married duo performing both songs on the single and later as part of the album “Northern Journey”.

This edition of rando lyrics came to be because the lyrics to “Someday Soon” got stuck in my head and I decided to make it the rando lyric selection for last week. While researching the origins of “Someday Soon”, I discovered this song, “You Were On My Mind” was not only performed by Ian And Sylvia, and both became top 100 hits covered by other artists (the We Five cover of “You Were On My Mind” charted higher at the time, but “Someday Soon”, especially the Judy Collins cover, is likely the more enduring and well known of the two), and both were on the same single. Pretty amazing, and I decided it was a bit of lesser known musical history (at least it was to me…) and needed to be highlighted. So.

Trivialities - Regarding last week’s rant, I note Apple put out an iOS update, not sure if its solved the problems yet, so I remain annoyed for now. (Present day Ed. - I guess some stuff stays the same no matter what…)

Please Respond To This Poll:

So, I’m pretty happy with the way things are going here, but I want to make sure I’m meeting readers’ needs. Please take a moment to make a choice in the poll below. Let me explain my reasoning. Right now I post on Thursdays with the subject matter more or less being songwriting, recording, production and commercial release. Then on Fridays I also post - that post is geared more toward playing guitar and music theory. Engagement goes back and forth between the two days without a readily discernible pattern, and at roughly the same percentage of subscribers engaging with either day. Substack is doing a really good job of providing authors with more data analysis tools, and even at that the best I can come up with is some people like the Thursday posts, and some people like the Friday posts, and there is some overlap, but how much is difficult to determine. So I’ve been considering different approaches, and decided a reasonably simple poll might be helpful. No matter what, Mika, the Cat will still welcome new subscribers! We’ll still have most of the topical subdivisions, at least until I can figure out which ones are most valuable to you all, and which aren’t. This is my first hack at a poll, so I’ll explain what I mean by the questions:

Option 1 is just status quo, I don’t change anything.

Option 2 means I reduce to one post a week, probably Fridays, but each post covers a range of topics, including but not limited to the ones we cover now over both days: Songwriting, recording, production, and commercial release, playing guitar, and music theory. The probable result is a more diversified (some might see it as “cluttered”) post covering a wider range of topics.

Option 3 means I reduce to one post a week, probably Friday, and keep the list of subjects I have now for both days, but focus on just one topic each week. Topics: Songwriting, recording, production, and commercial release, playing guitar, and music theory. Probably a “cleaner” look at a single topic, but maybe not the topic you’re interested in reading that week.

I’m open to suggestions and comments!

I asked these questions in yesterday’s post as well, I’ll let you know how it’s going next week.

Welcome to the Regular Friday Post!

Friday posts are about playing and music theory.

Today, I’m going to move the “A Song To Play” section up a bit because the song, which you’ve likely heard at some point, is very accessible to most guitarists, especially if you use a capo on the first fret, or just use the resulting chord shapes without the capo. I may have to devote some time to a reminder of how capos work again for my readers who may be somewhat confused by that. I have to admit, finally getting what it is a capo does, and how it works and why, was for me, both a revelation and a milestone in playing and in the theory behind the fretboard. Look for that soon…

I also moved it up here because I wanted to take some time talking about those aspects and not feel like it was going to get lost at the bottom of the page. There’s good stuff towards the bottom, though, including Mika, the Cat, so stick with me!

A Song To Play - I’ve gotta admit the last few weeks of this section have been very cathartic for me - not just because I've been wanting to play many of the songs I’ve featured, though there are several, including this one that have been “practice” songs for me over the years, just ones that are fairly easy to play and I can work on timing or a technique rather than worrying about too many things at once. BUT - they also sometimes end up stuck in my head for a bit after I’ve revisited them. If I use them in the “song to play” section, there’s usually a replacement earworm for me in a day or so (I always seem to have some song playing in my head). Your mileage may vary…..

Yeah, I know you’ve probably heard it and maybe didn’t think it was somewhat unusual musically, but bear with me for a bit - it has some unique and interesting lyrical and songwriting aspects to it that sort of fit with that theme.

“Broken" is a song by American alternative band Lifehouse. It is the third single released from their fourth studio album, Who We Are (2007). Lead singer Jason Wade was inspired to write the song after he visited a friend in Nashville who needed a kidney transplant.” Credit: Wikipedia Link: Broken

So not a Christian song as some have opined, nor a heartbreak song, rather a deeply felt song that conveys an emotional response, but without telling the specifics of the story behind the lyrics. Yesterday’s post had a link to an article from Songtown about a song’s “Big Idea” that kinda fits really well here. Listening to “Broken” without the backstory regarding a friend in the hospital for surgery doesn’t reveal the specifics of the inspiration for the song, but the lyrics still resonate with us, on an emotional but not specifically stated level. Maybe in a religious manner - that’s not an unreasonable interpretation, nor is a lost love, or broken heart interpretation. That was the point of the Songtown article from yesterday - tell the story in a personal way that elicits an emotional response, without making the story so specific that the listener can’t relate the emotions to their own experiences.

Capo on 1 for an easy to play Key of CMaj version of this song, or just leave the capo off and do it in C - 4/4 time, the chart says 125 BPM but it doesn’t need to play that fast in my experience - a good song to practice fingerpicking at a slower tempo to build up speed, and work on an alternating bass line with your picking thumb through the easy chord changes.

Also some unusual features from a more technical songwriting viewpoint. I’ve posted the lyrics below - maybe take a minute to look through them and then come back here. I’ll wait…..

Note the unusual “post-chorus” structure - the chorus and post-chorus are different enough in meter and rhyme structure that it kinda makes sense to caption it that way. Note how the the post chorus doesn’t rhyme in a familiar way, but relies on repetitive phrase “holding on”, and then doesn’t bother rhyming at all. Unusual and kinda cool, actually. Also, take a look at each of the choruses - two are the same lyrically, one changes the lyrics slightly, but effectively. The rhyme scheme in the verses is all over the place, which again is great - the song obviously “works”, and wanders away from the usual “rules” - which I think is fabulous - maybe hard to pull off across a catalog of songs, but creative rule-breaking when you can get away with it is really good songwriting, IMHO. Last oddity - look for both a bridge and a “middle eight” in the latter part of the song. The middle eight is often used by British songwriters as a transition structure, and is less common in the US. Lots of Beatles songs used a middle eight structure. A bridge serves the same purpose, but isn’t necessarily constrained by the number of measures (bars) - in the case of a middle eight, it’s well, eight. This is a very cool song in many respects.

[Verse 1]
The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time
I am here still waiting though I still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out

[Chorus]
I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain, there is healing
In your name I find meaning

[Post-Chorus]
So I'm holding on, I'm holding on, I'm holding on
I'm barely holding on to you

[Verse 2]
The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead
I still see your reflection inside of my eyes
That are looking for a purpose, they're still looking for life

[Chorus]
I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain, is there healing?
In your name I find meaning

[Post-Chorus]
So I'm holding on, I'm holding on, I'm holding on
I'm barely holding on to you

[Bridge]
I'm hanging on another day
Just to see what you throw my way
And I'm hanging on to the words you say
You said that I will be okay

[Middle 8]
The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone
I may have lost my way now, haven't forgotten my way home

[Chorus]
I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain, there is healing
In your name I find meaning

[Post-Chorus]
So I'm holding on, I'm holding on, I'm holding on
I'm barely holding on to you

Some Links for today:

From Mr. Griff Hamlin at Blues Guitar Unleashed, with some of that sweet, sweet blues goodness we all need a bit of….

Shuffle Strum Pattern

I just discovered this and haven’t had a chance to review it, but it’s by the fabulous Sean Daniel and he’s pretty much my favorite video instructor, so I’m thinkin’ it’s gonna be good…

Make Songs Bluesy

This Substack is free, I receive no compensation of any kind from companies or products I mention. Some linked or quoted material may be copyrighted by others, and I credit them. I rely on the “Fair Use” doctrine for educational purposes (Link: Fair Use). I do not use AI, things I link to might though. -Michael Acoustic

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This Week’s Conversation With Mika:

Me: No! You’re not going in and out all day! How many times have you been in and out on the deck already this morning?

Mika: How many fingers am I holding up?

Me: It’s been more than one time, and you don’t even have a middle finger….

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Shameless Self Promotion Section:

My song is out! Link: “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)

What I’m Listening2: Not my playlist, but this is a good one - I play a lot of the songs on here, some on Acapella with friends - good stuff:

Cheers and keep playing!!

Michael Acoustic

“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”