The Regular Friday Post
Rando Lyrics: Is it honey? Is it cold? You know the way, it throws about
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “I think you better turn your ticket in And get your money back at the door“ is from the song “Omaha“ by Counting Crows. It’s Track 2 on the album “August And Everything After”, released in (Ed. fittingly…) September, 1993. The song was written by Adam Duritz, produced by (wait for it…) T. Bone Burnett. Credits: Wikipedia Links: August And Everything After, T Bone Burnett
“Behind The Song Lyrics: “Omaha,” Counting Crows “ Link: American Songwriter (Disappoints Again)
Ed. I’ll save you the trouble of reading this: For Adam Duritz, “Omaha” may be “trancontinental”, whatever that means. We’ll never know, because that’s all you’re going to get from this article (besides a copy of the lyrics and some stuff that has nothing to do with “Omaha”) by Jacob Uitti published 2 years ago in American Songwriter magazine. I link to stuff on AS a lot, and most of it’s pretty good, when you can find it. Unfortunately “the good stuff” is all too often sandwiched in between mostly useless puff piece drivel like this - I’m also pretty sure this isn’t Mr. Duritz’ fault, and maybe not even Mr. Uitti’s. Maybe an overzealous cub editor, dunno. Kind of a noticeable issue with AS at times, though. IMHO - your mileage may vary, and thus endeth the rant…. (see link to an intelligible AS article in the links below…they get it right more than not, but still….)
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
For Today:
Correction: (Pay attention, American Songwriter Magazine - this is how you do it when you screw up….):
Last week I posted this chart twice, when I only meant to post it once, accompanied by a second chart entitled Primary Chords - Major Chords.
So this is the chart (Major Keys) I actually intended to post first in sequence with the Minor Keys chart:
The intent, which clearly got lost by double posting the exact same chart, was not particularly to show the I-IV-V chords (though that’s handy too - really all you have to do is mix a couple of minors in there, like the ii-, iii- or vi-, and you’ve got a fairly common chord progression for a lot of songs). The intent was to visually demonstrate that the difference between a Major and minor chord is the flatted 3rd in minor chords. The 3rd is the “middle” note of triad chords. Actually, between the two charts and the fretboard note chart, you can see how almost any of the shapes of the basic minor and Major chords are formed, and that’s what this chart was for:
So that whole thing was illustrative, and a bit advanced in music theory, especially if you’re just starting out on guitar. Your best source without a doubt is your local guitar instructor, but you can also check at the JGuitar website between lessons: Link: Jguitar - you’ll find a space to input any of the 12 notes and you’ll get a drop down menu for the triad and nearly any variation on the triad that you can imagine. Clicking on any of the items in the drop down delivers a chord diagram for every place on the fretboard a chord shape exists. Try it!!
Okay, so that’s it for the mea culpa for this week, and I’ll do better.
Moving on, then: over the last couple of weeks we’ve been highlighting (and revisiting) music theory themes, and somewhat surprisingly, gaining a respectable number of new subscribers (Ed. Thank you!!). I’m generally a bit wary of putting in too much theory oriented content, I kind of sense a “Sigh, not this again…!” mood from some of my long time subscribers, but that may not be accurate, maybe I’m misreading that. So, I’m going to do a thing here, and I can’t recall if I’ve done one of these before or not, so please let me know what you think, and “I don’t care” is perfectly acceptable as a response:
Feel free to comment below if you have strong feelings about the topic.
A Song To Play
No “Song To Play” this week! Back next week when everything (hopefully) isn’t frozen!
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Other Voices:
Are Small Independent Artists Being Erased? This link is to an op-ed by Mr. Jeff Price, writing on a site called Medium, which I gather is sort of like Substack, but different or something. Mr. Price is a strong advocate for independent and DIY musicians and is highly critical of Spotify and the usual suspects behind the robbery (in my opinion) of small independent artists by Spotify’s co-conspirators (read that as labels who own significant portions of Spotify who are wrongfully depriving indie artists of earned royalties). I’m done talking about this, but I’m not done linking to others who are in a better position to comment.
Next (excerpted below) is a portion of the New Year’s Message from Mr. Paul Williams, President and Chairman of ASCAP:
I’m a member of ASCAP, and I include this because the sale of BMI, means the other “big” in the game is now in private hands (as is SESAC, the invite-only, sorta big), so only ASCAP is now managed in significant part by writers, artists and publishers. Is that a big deal? I think so, but your mileage may vary - choose wisely if you’re in (or plan to be in) any of those categories.
Some Links for today:
Ed. Substack keeps track of whether and how many of these links are opened - the rate is pretty low, so if you have an opinion one way or the other, let me know in the comments if you find these links valuable, and please, if you don’t and usually skip this section as uninteresting, let me know that too, so I can either shorten it to the “must know” things, or delete the section altogether. Thanks!!
From Disc Makers:
Musicians who died in 2023 - I’m not a big fan of lists like this, but I did click on the link and I was surprised to see how many of these I was unaware or had forgotten about. RIP…
The Power Of A Stage Name - Ed. Declan McManus was on to something here…
Guitar Intonation Issues - This is a good “how-to” fix some stuff, but it also brings a strong “why” game - definitely worth the read even if your guitar is fine right now.
From American Songwriter:
Robert Plant, Alison Krauss - yeah, I know I was dragging on American Songwriter Magazine in the opening section, but when they do it right, as in this article, they’re great…
From Blues Guitar Unleashed:
Ya Need More Than One Riff, says Griff - couldn’t resist, but this is good advice…
Blues Shuffle Rhythms - the title is pretty much the idea - if you want to learn them, this is a good place to start….
Thanks, New Subscribers!! This Week’s Conversation With Mika, the Cat:
Mika: “I want to go out on the deck!”
Me: “It’s really cold out there!”
One minute later….
Mika: “Let me in!! Let me in!! Let me in RIGHT NOW!!”
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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Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)…
What I’m Listening2:
LINK»> WIL2 - Couldn't Stand The Weather - just click the underlined link, it’s on Amazon
Ed. - pretty eclectic playlist when Stevie Ray Vaughan, the song “It’s Raining Men”, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, John Denver, and Sarah McLachlan are all on there….
Cheers!….. and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
To follow it, you must be clean, with mistakes that you do mean.
It cuts you up....
I'll see your eclectic and raise you Harry Partch, Hawkwind, Dead Can Dance, and Tangerine Dream. :-) On a more serious note loved the bit about Allison Krauss and Robert Plant, Raising Sand is one of the best albums of the millennium, IMO.