Everyone Has One

Don't stare...

Last week’s Bonus Round: “If It's the Beaches” by the Avett Brothers:

“"If It's the Beaches" is a song by The Avett Brothers that was released on the 2006 EP The Gleam with a playtime of 3:57.

The song features Scott Avett on guitar and lead vocals, Seth Avett on guitar and piano, and Scott's wife Sarah Avett on violin and the answering machine voice.” Credit: Avett Brothers Wiki (Note this descriptive excerpt refers to the album version, not the live version, as below.)

Last week’s regular Friday post was about listening widely, and the Avett Brothers’ song “If It’s The Beaches” is an example of a sweet, poignant song that maybe did or didn’t get a lot of radio play or maybe even notice outside their concerts (I don’t know one way or the other, just musing). Anyway, here’s a live version from a performance at Red Rocks. None of the non-concert videos were labeled as the official video, so I went with this, and I’m kinda glad I did, because I noticed a couple of things. First, the guitarists are capoed pretty high on the fretboard - looks like 5th fret to me, which makes a lot of sense, as we’ll see. Checking Chordify, I note the song is written in the key of FMaj, 4/4 (common) time, and the tempo is, as expected, a slower ballad timing of 88 BPM. My guess, and it’s only ever that, is FMaj is the key that best fits the lead singer’s voice, but it’s also less easy to play in (I personally hate it with a passion, and will ALWAYS capo out or transpose it to something else), so using a capo on 5 gives us the familiar shapes of the CMaj key while still playing musically in FMaj (if that makes no sense at all, please see my posts on music theory and how capos “work” from last year). Also it looks like the lead singing brother (I don’t know which is which….) is finger picking with at least a thumb pick on, while the other harmonizing brother is strumming/flatpicking gorgeous arpeggios over the interludes. Anyway, it’s a beautiful song along the lines of those we’ve been talking about lately: love and potential loss, maybe the end of a relationship, maybe salvaging a foundering love. Dunno, you’ll hear what you want because it may resemble a personal experience of yours, not particularly the Avett Brother’s experiences. That’s what great, moving songs do, and something to strive for in our own songwriting. Enjoy:

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To continue a bit on our theme of “listening widely” from the last couple of regular Friday posts, it occurred to me that I have an “era”. Probably most of us have an “era” of music that appeals to us, whether we play the music from that time or not (as in instrumentally “play”, not what we click on in the Spotify or Apple or Amazon or whatever apps). Tastes change over the years, and I’m (quite obviously) much more involved with acoustic guitar music now, though that wasn’t always the case. I have friends whose era is the late 60s and 70s, and I often feature music from then that held my attention in those days. For some reason though, the music that holds the most attraction for me now is the that of the 90s and early 00s. It was a good time for rock, pop, country and changing musical styles, and holds a lot of memories of all sorts for me. This is probably a good indicator of individual choices of eras of the music we love: the things that were or are happening in our lives, good and bad, but all memorable. I have friends who can’t stand music from “my” era, and I get that as well. Our choices are personal and probably tied intimately to the way the songwriters of a particular time period made us feel, which was probably not how they were feeling at that moment (or maybe they were, it’s not like I know).

Listening widely, especially after learning (willingly or not) a little about music theory and the myriad elements of playing, writing, recording, production, marketing and all the other stuff, can be difficult. Listening to the music that may or may not contribute to simply enjoying music, can also be (or not) a personally enriching experience, but I think it’s valuable to get out of our comfort “genre” and not just listen, but explore. I personally could not have imagined enjoying all of the diverse music I use in the weekly Bonus Round, but I’ve found that I do. There is always something I find interesting, and I’ll often hit Chordify or Ultimate Guitar or other websites just to find out what the artist or songwriter was doing there that caught my attention. Then, my personal challenge is to try to replicate that (even just sorta) on the guitar or my more infrequent visits to my keyboard.

So today’s post is maybe a little shorter due to the cold front moving into the Upper Left Corner this week, and the toll it’s taking on my sinuses (no vocal track today, probably!) but I’m more than making up for it (your mileage may vary) with a long playlist from Spotify. Yes - it’s my era - the 90s, and it ‘s “acoustic” (sorta, more or less) and I didn’t even choose (or “curate” it, as they say while extending their pinkie from the glass) it. It’s long, but it takes me back, and I’ll probably listen to the whole thing again.

If you hate it, sorry, and I’m ok with that, and next week its the “00”s, and if that’s not your thing I understand. I’ll make you an offer, though - reply in the comments, and I will certainly listen to and post (with your permission) a playlist (Spotify playlists seem easiest to post) from any of my readers that highlights their “era” - and I’d love to hear why it’s your era, though that’s not required at all. Have fun!

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Bonus Round: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it…”

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Cheers and keep playing!

Michael Acoustic