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Saturday, June 06, 2009

Music - Live and Raw

Here's some more live music from our jam session this morning.

As with previous sessions, Brian picks the chords on the guitar, and I improvise on the WX5 playing whatever music seems to fit.

The end result has plenty of mistakes. We could have tidied it up post-mix, but the aim of the exercise is to create something fresh, and real, rather than make something tidy and manufactured.

Life, Friends and Music mean more when they're real - when you can see the flaws, but you know that what you see is what you get, and you like it anyway.

I hope you like them

1. Happy Day (Floboe and Guitar)
We just started warming up with this song at the start and didn't intend to record it, but we were having fun with it, so we decided to record it. Every Saturday is a happy day for me - it's a lot of fun to sit down for an hour and make music.




2. Almost Knockin' (Floboe & Guitar)
This one was an exercise on a known chord progression. The chords on this song are the same as "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" except we've thrown a bridge in the middle. The hard thing is NOT to play the tune you're used to hearing, but to create something new.




3. Little Boy Blues (Clarinet & Guitar).
I love what Brian does on the guitar on this one. It's a delight to learn with such a talented musician. I don't know how he can do so much on one instrument.
This one's cheeky. I think the blues teach you not to take yourself, or life too seriously. Kids teach you this too, so perhaps Kids and the Blues are related some way?




4. Minor Tears (Air Sax & Guitar)
The Air Sax has a haunting quality about it. It's ideal for slow minor blues. You might notice it "squeaks" a bit in the high register. That's not through bad fingering. The tone generator is programmed to "break" when it goes up high. I suppose whoever created that voice thought that something so sad should have a few cracks in it.





5. Evensong (Trumpet & Guitar)
When I close my eyes playing this, I'm sitting on a hillside, playing a smooth trumpet, watching the sun go down.

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