The Regular Friday Post
Rando lyrics: “All the words that I've been reading Have now started the act of bleeding Into one”
Last week’s rando lyrics: "You know the reason I can't hurt I got a heart of stone” from the song, “Heart Of Stone”, The Raveonettes, on the album “In And Out Of Control”, October 2009
Raveonettes - In And Out Of Control
Steampunk animation!! Pretty cool…
Welcome to the Regular Friday Post!
Friday posts are about playing and music theory so I’ve got a few things to think about along those lines today. I have some links up front with some commentary and we’ll talk a bit about those today first, and some (okay, one…) of the more technical ones for below, in the links section you can peruse at your leisure, or as you dare - whichever one you have more of, I suppose.
A Blues Project This is from Mr. Griff Hamlin at Blues Guitar Unleashed and the “project” aspect doesn’t really apply if you’ve been playing, especially with others, for awhile. But if you’re playing mostly at home, by yourself and maybe only weekly or occasionally with an instructor, this may be helpful, or at least a bit of a refresher. Mostly it fits for guitarists with the other things I want to talk about today because it emphasizes the role of counting and who should be doing it. Answer: well, everybody. But lots of stuff can get in the way of keeping a steady beat, and who should we look to if we’re off a bit on the count, or we lose the “feel” of the tempo. Usually, the bassist or the drummer are who we look to, and hope to hell they’re paying attention to each other…..
Actually, I know some bassists and drummers and they are universally great people and musicians. Of course, your mileage may vary, and usually drummers make me laugh a bit more, but in general…. well, you get it.
So, opinions vary (not surprisingly this often depends on whether it’s the drummer or bassist opining..). These links are worth the read:
Locking In: Bass and Drums Money quote: “For the drums and bass to effectively act as a solid rhythmic foundation for the group, each player needs to be individually responsible for his or her own timing, intonation, syncopation, and overall knowledge of the tune. At the same time, each member isn’t on an island; the bassist and drummer need to understand how their parts fit in with whatever else is going on in the band.”
Yeah. That’s pretty much true. But if you’re the rhythm guitarist and you’re trying to catch exactly where the vocalist or lead guitar may have wandered off to (or wherever YOU wandered off to…) and get everyone back on track, you’re probably looking to the drummer first, catch that one beat (often the kick) and then make sure the bassist is on the same groove. Nothing beats good rehearsal time to avoid this, but things don’t always go as well as they could when it’s game day.
Why Drummers Count. Or Do They? Yeah, this reminded me of a documentary on one of the streaming services, “The Mind Of A Cat”… With all due respect to my drummer friends, I dunno. I just hope they do. Like all musicians, everybody has a story about when they wandered off the beat, or played a different key or song or something than everyone else. Drummers get the same mulligans as everyone else, of course. Interesting article though. It’s good to know a bit about the mind of a drummer…
Drum And Bass Relationship “There is one musician that every drummer should respect and get along with to be successful. That is the bass player. There needs to be a strong drums and bass relationship. A good bass player can make a drummer’s life so much easier – while a bad bass player can make for a long and painful gig. And my advice to bass players is that the one musician they should respect and get along with is the drummer. It is a Symbiotic Relationship like no other in music.”
So, that may have been written by a bass player…. When things are going really well, the bassist and drummer are just cruising along, feeling the the same vibe. If you’re playing rhythm you can just sort of feel it… everybody’s head is bobbing the same way or foot is keeping time the same way, the vocalist is in the groove, life is good. Other times, maybe not so much - that’s usually when everyone in the band starts kind of looking around at each other…
Still this is pretty much true in my experience, but the rest of us are hoping it’s a happy relationship. Again, lots of rehearsal with everyone’s head in the game helps a great deal….
Space Saving Disclaimer!: This Substack, (not just the first one!) is free, always will be, none of the people or companies or products I link to or write about pay me a damn thing. Neither do you unless you buy my song(s) (See what I did there?). Some stuff may be copyrighted by somebody else…whatever. “Fair Use” doctrine for “educational purposes” (Link: Fair Use) applies, suckers! No stinkin’ AI here unless it’s in something I link to. So.
Michael Acoustic
Thanks new Subscribers!!!!!! Mika, the Cat, welcomes you!!
This Week’s Conversation With Mika:
Mika: “Why am I being held as a prisoner here, human?”
Me: “You know there are hawks, eagles, coyotes and other creatures that live or patrol within a few dozens of yards of us, right? And cars?”
Mika: “I tire of your imaginary fairy tales, human…”
Links: - Actually, most of them are up above, but this one was thematically different enough to put down here….
Major and minor Pentatonic Scales
Other Voices: Two of my favorite Substack writers nested like Matryoshka dolls:
Shameless self promotion section
My song is out! “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)
Yesterday I offered to answer questions on why and how the song came about, both lyrically and musically or anything else you want to ask (within reason)…
Questions about what it “means”? - I can answer that one right now - it’s about a road… but we can talk about that…
Questions about recording, overdubbing with other artists, studio work, mixing and mastering?
About releasing the song? - I can answer that one right now too - all indie, no label, professionally mastered locally, distributor and publishing admin, signed up with PRO, MLC, and SoundExchange. If you’d like to hear about the specifics of any of that, ask away!
Same deal today!! Ask me in the comments section below to expand on any of these questions or others, I’ll answer!!!
What I’m Listening2:
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
I enjoyed the focus on the rhythm section, Michael! No other two players in a band NEED to be in such synchronicity. In fact, as a singer, I've always enjoyed (and enjoyed watching others--looking at you, Ole Blue Eyes) playing with singing off the beat, a little ahead, a little behind...whatever. Part of what, I reckon, is meant when talking about phrasing, a big Sinatra trademark. I watch for that, too, on vids of artists/bands playing on TV shows:
Everything else being equal, if a singer wants viewers to know they're playing live (and, they indeed are), one way to do that is to lag behind or sing just before the beat. He/she can afford to do that for any desired effect. Bass and drums? Sorry, lads'n'gals, you're cemented to the floor to maintain that
beat!
Really cool Raveonettes track. I saw them at a local Austin record store, just after the turn of the century (this one)....Waterloo Records, downtown. They did a little in-store concert, and then lined up at a table for signatures (mostly on their new single/EP...I can't remember any title). Mika is in fine, fuzzy form today!