The Regular Friday Post
Rando lyrics: It leads you here, despite your destination
Last week’s rando lyrics: The lyric, “Day and night, Earth and sky, Somehow I just don't believe it” is from the song “The World I Know", a song by American band Collective Soul, originally released on their 1995 eponymous album. and as a single in October 1995.
“Written by lead singer and guitarist Ed Roland, "The World I Know" peaked at number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart when released as a single and spent four weeks at the number-one spot on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart. In Canada, the song reached number one on the week of March 11, 1996, becoming the band's highest-charting single there.
In a December 2017 interview with Songfacts, lead singer Ed Roland explained the inspiration behind "The World I Know":
I wrote that when we had a day off in New York City. This was 25 years ago, when we were in Times Square, which is not what Times Square is now, which is like Disneyland. There was still some grit and dirt to New York City - especially around Times Square and Union Square back then. I literally walked out of the room, took a two-hour walk around New York, and just absorbed and observed from the highs and lows of what society was offering in the greatest city in the world.[1]
During an interview on The Professor of Rock YouTube channel with Adam Reader that was posted on October 10, 2022, Ed corrected Adam on the official authorship credits for this song. When Adam mentioned, "Co-written with Ross Childress...", Ed stopped him and stated, "No, not co-written. And, I'm going to say it right now, he didn't write a damn thing. He didn't even play on the song. He gets credit, 'cause he wanted credit. And, at the early time of a band, you want to make sure everybody's clear and cool. He didn't write a damn thing."[2]
Credit Wikipedia Link: The World I Know
(Ed. I link to Wikipedia articles a lot on here. Wikipedia has a bit of a reputation in other areas, but I’ve always found their entries regarding music and bands credible, if not always indisputable. They’re running a promo for contributions and I gave them some $$ because I do use their articles frequently on here. That’s all, no pitch, just sayin…..)
Welcome to The Regular Friday post!
For Today:
Last week we spent some time talking about production and producers and what all of that might mean. A lot of musicians self-produce if they have the experience and ability, some musicians produce for other artists, having gained the experience and abilities; and audio engineers may take on the role of producer post-recording. All good stuff, and if you missed it, check it out here: October 20 2023 Regular Friday Post
Today I wanted to spend some time on a subject I’ve had a couple of conversations about with others lately - timing. And by that, at least in the context for today, I basically mean keeping the beat. Probably most importantly for guitarists is the 1 beat and keeping track of where you’re at in relation to the 1 beat as you go along. Everyone has their favorite toe or heel tap, head bob, or other mechanism to keep time, but it takes practice and experience to stay consistent until you just “feel” that beat. One thing that’s disconcerting for me until I think it through when playing to recorded music for practice is that the drum beat on the one is often the kick, which may be a bit harder to distinguish. The 2 and 4 are likely going to be snare hits for the drummer and often “penetrate” the mix a bit more than the kick on one. Easy to get off by a beat until you get used to listening for the snare on the two.
For me, playing with a “click” is difficult, though I recognize for most folks it’s a favorite method. Somehow, I’m always “losing” the tone in my earpiece, even if the 1 beat is polyphonic (different click sound from the 2, 3, and 4 beats - assuming 4/4 time). I have an electronic metronome that clicks the beat with a polyphonic note on 1, but also has a display of lighting with the 1 beat a different color. When I’m recording I use the “Giant Beats Display” in Logic Pro that counts the beats for me. I tape my chord chart on the lower edge of the track monitor where I can refer to the beats display quickly. It’s easy for me to get click or display “hypnosis” though and lose my place - especially when I’m coming up on a tricky chord progression or section change (chorus to bridge and back, for example).
For practice, I often need something other than my own music to play and just to get my head into different sounds. I use Chordify for that - the beats track back and forth across and down the “page” with each beat highlighted as it plays and measures divided into beat “squares” - so I can always see where I’m at. Once or twice through the song and I practice not looking at the screen at all for anything other than upcoming chord changes. When those start to get fast, say two beats or less between chord changes (this is overall tempo dependent as well) it can be challenging, but great practice to stay on the beat. Note - Chordify is a subscription service.
I will caveat one concept - playing on the beat, and changing notes/chords on the beat is an important skill - it’s one of the things that distinguishes actual playing from just screwing around. However, too much precision can begin to sound a bit unnatural as well. Close is pretty good and if the metronome or beat display gets you as close as a live drummer can (yep, sometimes they get a bit nutty as well…..just sayin…) then that’s good enough. A little bit of flex (fine line there) can add emotion and a human presence to a performance that may be missing from a canned beat. Your mileage may vary.
Musician quote:
“Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”
- Pablo Casals
Other Voices
Just in time for All Hallows Eve, a playlist about spiders! Steve Goldberg, author of “Earworms and Song Loops” is a favorite around here for intriguing playlists featuring hidden gems. This week’s pre-Halloween post is great and I discovered some bands I either paid little attention to (Slipknot - just “knot” my thing), or hadn’t heard before. Definitely check out “The Mommyheads” and “Elf Power” selections….
Some Links for today:
From Blues Guitar Unleashed:
End Scales On Beat 1? Here's Why I get what Mr. Hamlin is saying, but the title might be a bit confusing. Worth the read if you’re playing licks that are primarily from a scale, what I got from the article is more about resolving a passage to the one beat, if that fits what you’re playing.
A Little Octave Magic - Some interesting theory and insights into your fretboard…
A Muddy Waters Classic with some riff insight
Last week I linked to Mr. Brad Kyle’s Substack about covers that were far more well known than the original song , and often within a very short time of the original release. This link has details of some of the history of covers that quickly followed (and sometimes beat) the release of the original:
Covers Released Shortly After Originals
In a shameless bit of self promotion, here’s a look back to 2022 for a Special Edition of Michael Acoustic highlighting a collaboration with Mr. Kyle regarding the song “Second Avenue”, written and released by Mr Tim Moore, but covered almost immediately, and with much greater reach, by Mr. Art Garfunkel.
From Acoustic Guitar Magazine - alternate tunings are a topic and technique I’ve always been interested in, but also frightened of… that probably sounds odd, but remembering the chords I already know is enough of a challenge, learning the chords required in alternate tunings is a bit too far out of my comfort zone - your mileage may vary…:
From Carvin Audio:
Pretty cool (and very smart!) how a company that sells amplifiers and microphones and other electronic equipment has a blog where they cover a wide range of subjects that only tangentially relate to their product line. This one is pretty interesting. I agree wholeheartedly with this thought: “First things first: there aren’t actually any rules in songwriting, only guidelines, formulas you can follow, and tried-and-true techniques that often work.”
That’s 100% true - despite scales and keys having a formula that if followed we call “diatonic”, and if we step outside the formula it’s called “non-diatonic” - it’s important to recognize those as sort of common language guidelines - and it ain’t like we don’t break the rules of speech and writing all the time… just sayin’….
The rest of the article is interesting, and I found myself nodding at some of the suggestions, but with absolutely no intention at all of following them because that would mean changing the way I do things. If you’re less curmudgeonly than I am (which shouldn’t be hard, I’m an advanced level curmudgeon….) you may find some useful insights….
Some links from Songtown:
Melody For Lyrics - This is a podcast and I’m not a big fan of podcasts and freely admit I haven’t listened to this. For podcast fans this could go nicely with the Carvin Audio link above since it’s about crafting a melody for lyrics. Have fun….
Darius Rucker's Song “I Got Nothing” I’m a huge Darius Rucker fan so this pretty much had me at the title. Interesting article about a song written for Darius Rucker.
Pitching Sync Music - We’ve talked on here before about “sync” music - music written for movies or television, but also songs that weren’t specifically for sync licensing but ended up catching the ear of a music supervisor or someone else on the production team and might get placed. Either way, some good advice (it’s a YouTube video, not an article), and actually one of the more informative video explanations of the subject that I’ve seen. Mr. Foster seems very knowledgeable and has a great manner of conveying his knowledge. Prime takeaway: Get a lawyer.
From American Songwriter:
Tips From Bob Dylan - Yeah, I’m listening (reading) if Mr. Dylan has something to say about songwriting…
Songwriters Block - If it hasn’t happened to you yet….it will….
From Disc Makers
Natural Harmonics - I’ve seen this technique a number of times and am absolutely unable to reproduce it - I assume I’m just not capable of the “light touch” required. Your mileage may vary….
Backing Tracks For Live Performances - definitely something to think about, but beware the potential for disasters with this as well…..
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
Thank you, new Subscribers!!!!!! Mika, the Cat, welcomes you!!
This Week’s Conversation With Mika:
Me: “It’s peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat. You don’t like any of those things….”
Mika: “That’s true. I’m just going to stare at it while you eat, though.”
Shameless Self Promotion Section:
My song is out! Link: “Long Road Back” (click on link for streaming options)
What I’m Listening2: There’s a reason 4/4 time is called “Common Time” - it’s pretty common….
But that doesn’t mean it’s the “only” time signature just because it is by far the most common - some songs are written in other time signatures. Among those may be 3/4 time or 6/8 time - I think Chordify’s algorithm calls it 3/4 time either way - at least that’s what’s in the time signature on Chordify for each of the songs in today’s playlist. Pretty sure a few of these are 6/8 time, though - but when you’re playing there’s not a whole lot of difference, mostly just whether you emphasize the one beat or the one and four beats.
3/4 time is “waltz time” - it has that 3 beat cadence that we associate with the dance. It is said to have 3 strong beats (each beat = strong, but I think they just mean equal) - strong may not work with all songs and you kind of always end up a bit more emphatic on the 1 beat no matter what…while 6/8 might be said to have 2 “strong beats” - the one beat and the 4 beat being emphasized more. That tracks with my experience playing some 6/8 songs, but see if you hear a difference in the songs on today’s WIL2:
Cheers and keep playing!!
Michael Acoustic
“It’s never really final - you just run out of things you can bear to change…”
Excellent piece, Michael! And thanks for linking to my Spider playlist! I didn't know that Collective Soul song, which is kind of crazy knowing how big it was. I would say mid-90s is when I didn't listen to much current music for a couple years (was traveling and living on a farm). Great video though.
As a percussionist, who has played a bunch of West African music, I had to really flip my brain to adjust to rhythms that do not repeat or even start on the 1. I have always been a "feel" player, especially as I don't read music, and found myself re-adjusting the patterns to fit my ingrained sense of looping on the 1. A lot of the rhythms we played, the 1 was actually a ghost note or not played at all and so that was quite challenging. But when I got it, when I didn't simply change my idea of the 1 (which always bit me on the ass when we would have breaks or solos and had to all come back in together), it was euphoric.
Have you listened to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and their microtonal scaled albums?
Thanks for all this as always! I always found Collective Soul interesting. They had a bunch of different hits in the 90s, and none of them really sounded the same. They didn't really have a recognizable sound, which I guess speaks to the fact that the cat could just write catchy songs!