Lazz

My word, you are welcome. Thank you for posting and giving pleasure to my ears . .

Top-line pro work from everyone involved (except maybe the video guy) Great sounds. Poor Subject? It's sure a tough subject. Only country could carry the sentimentalism involved. Trying to picture a fitting image of its niche made me grimace. I mean, picturing a woman serving a long way from home and family, and listening to music on a snatch of free time. I wondered if it was something she might not want to hear. And would families who lost their women dig it? Well.... It is just conceived and performed and produced so damn well to my ears - that I'm thinking maybe they would. What do I know? I don't even like country. But this sounds great. And the country music culture soaks up heavy family sentiment, don't they? American Idol? A winner? I like it. . How do you go about getting it played and broadcast and heard?

Well. At least, from that vid, I now understand what you meant by “Am chord progression” and have a much better purchase on where you’re at. I’m still going to leave everything I have posted up here just in case it has value for someone else, but it looks like you are happening right now pretty much close to starting-out level – even though your mind and curiosity is rushing ahead to pursue answers to core musical questions already – and that the stuff I have been describing is not going to be relevant to you for a little while yet. There are NO books or webpages in my experience able to serve your needs. Certainly none which I would confidently recommend. You are wasting a lot of highly valuable spirit-fuel just spinning your wheels without a proper teacher. But if you are so willing to invest time and sweat, I can tell you what Pat Metheny did with those very same magic ingredients. He brought home an album by Wes Montgomery and sat down with his guitar and the first track, listening and copying, working and sweating, until eventually he learned how to play what Wes was playing note-for-note. When he finished with track one, he went on to track two and did the same thing. And when he had made his way through the entire album, he went out and brought home another one and did the same thing with that one. Gradually, his progress became quicker. Many players learned from records, from copying. Do enough of it and you just kind of soak up an internal understanding which will eventually give you an entire vocabulary to apply in your own way with your own accent and individuality. The same way that we all learned language. Listening. The process goes like this 1. Emulation – 2. Assimilation – 3. Innovation And all it takes is time and sweat – of which you have plenty. Go for it.

These are the relevant three paragraphs from what I posted above: They are all about a standard progression known as the II-V-I. The II-V relationship is what to look out for – these are the tell-tale signs. Dm7 to G7 is a II-V in the key of C Remember that basic idea we have all repeated ad nauseam – and all to do with chord-generation – where we get chords from: the II chord is built upon the second note of a Major scale using only notes from that Major scale. the III chord is built upon the third note of a Major scale using only notes from that Major scale. the IV chord is built upon the fourth note of a Major scale using only notes from that Major scale. the V chord is built upon the fifth note of a Major scale using only notes from that Major scale. the VI chord is built upon the sixth note of a Major scale using only notes from that Major scale. the VII chord is built upon the seventh note of a Major scale using only notes from that Major scale. Thus – every one of these chords is manufactured from the notes of the same scale. So – every time we see one of those chords, we know that the notes from that Major scale will be ‘safe’. *(Don’t forget that we aren’t at all limited to using just the notes from that Major scale – as you yourself noticed watching other players – and as you discussed with Tom in another thread – it’s simply that the notes from that Major scale will be the ones which present themselves most obviously and come pretty much with a guarantee that they are going to sound decent) *(Don’t forget also – as I have been at pains to suggest in the above post – that we need to be careful not to be deceived into thinking that the III minor or the VI minor is working as a II chord just because of its minor quality.) Q. How do we tell that a minor chord is happening as a II chord ? A. When it is followed by the V chord. So first we look to spot II-V progressions: Dm7 to G7 is a II-V in the key of C Ebm7 to Ab7 is a II-V in the key of Db Em7 to A7 is a II-V in the key of D Fm7 to Bb7 is a II-V in the key of Eb F#m7 to B7 is a II-V in the key of E etc.…………. (you can work out the rest yourself) And there – in the 2nd and 3rd bar of our example – we have just such a II-V in the Bbmin7 to Eb7. Plus – just to nail the point home in case of any uncertainty – it all resolves to the I Major chord in bar 4. Voila! It’s a II-V-I In the 1st bar there’s an Fmin7. This chord, contextually, sits quite happily as the VI chord of Ab Major. (The VI chord is a regular standard normal add-on for the regular standard II-V – so, once you get used to it, the VI-II-V-I is a basic standard ‘vamp’-like progression to keep your eye out for just as much as the II-V-I) So, in the first 4 bar phrase, we have a VI-II-V-I in the key of Ab Major. Take a step back, briefly, to check out that root movement. Fm7 – down a perfect 5th – Bbm7 – then up a perfect 4th to - Eb7 – then down a perfect 5th to Ab Major. (Movements of a 5th and 4th are also indicators – in functional harmony they seem the most natural root movements and fall happiest in our ears while that other inner voice-leading is happening at a more gentle and closer step-wise pace.) Now – up a perfect 4th from Ab Maj – and we get to the Db Maj in bar 5 – the IV chord of Ab Major. All that stuff tells us that those first 5 bars are all happening in the key of Ab Major. Now look at what’s happening in bar 5 and the start of bar 6, together – DbMaj7 to Dmin7. Forget about the 5th notes of chords – they’re almost totally irrelevant for us – and remember that the defining tones are the third note and the seventh note. From bar 5 to bar 6 it’s only the root note which changes by slipping upwards a half-step. The third and seventh are exactly the same. Voice-leading without doing anything! The entirety of bar 6 contains our old friend, the II-V : Dm7 to G7 Bars 7 and 8 are CMaj7. So altogether we have Dm7 to G7 to CMaj7. II-V-I in the key of C Major. I don’t think I can break it down any simpler. Hope it makes sense for you. RIDER This theoretical stuff is good only for thinking, for analyzing, for practicing, for preparing, for finding answers to questions. When you are really doing, when you’re playing for real – the game changes. When you’re on the job the goal is to be able to hear your way through the changes, to be able to sing coherent melodies through those changes in your imagination: when you’re on the job the goal is to be able to express the melodies in your head immediately on your instrument without any intervening thinking processes. Doesn’t happen overnight – but that’s what we aim for – hear something: play it. There are practice games to help you get there.

As I understand it, there are two co-existent theories of light. In some circumstances the wave-theory is perfectly adequate in explaining and understanding while, in others, it’s the particle theory which does the job. So, both of them work. It’s the appropriateness of their focus which differentiates between them. Similarly for music theory: simplistic triadic thinking is totally inadequate for understanding how chord progressions work and for making appropriate choices of scales to use in improvising solos over them. For basic folk and rock guitar strumming, it works just fine. But for making any further useful sense of what’s going on, it’s just too restrictive to bother with. It’s a blind-alley. It has absolutely no heuristic value. Instead, what you need is to be hip to the process of chord-generation so that you are aware of the appropriate upper extensions beyond each simple triad – even if you are not voicing those notes in your chosen chord. I can explain chord-generation in more detail in another post if you wish. It is also valuable and useful, in terms of making sense of how chord progressions flow effectively, to recognise that the defining tones of a chord are the third and the seventh. The importance of this lies in the fact that a chord progression works through what is known as voice-leading – i.e. the gentle step-wise neatness of the way in which internal notes of chord-voicings move from one to another. Look at this basic example from what is known as standard functional harmony. It’s called ‘functional’ because it assumes that each chord has a ‘function’ – i.e. a direction in which it naturally wants to move. Our example is known as the II-V-I, and is significant because the V chord is ‘unstable’ and feels as if it should naturally resolve to the I chord, while the II chord is naturally nudging it’s way towards that V chord. Thinking in terms of the defining tones of the third and the seventh, this is how it works so sweetly as a progression in, for example, the key of C Major: With the II chord being Dm7: the third is F and the seventh is C With the V chord being G7: the third is B (just a half-step away from C) and the seventh is F (the same as the third of Dm7) With the I chord being CMaj7: the third is E (just a half-step from F) and the seventh is B (the same as the third of G7) The movement of those inner defining tones is quite minimal – do you see? – that’s what makes it smooth and effective. Notice how the seventh of one chord flows to the third of the next and vice versa – that is what’s known as voice-leading – nice and easy. Notice how all notes are derived from the scale of C Major – that means anytime you see Dm7 followed by G7, you can improvise using the scale of C Major. If you can spare the time to wade through the disagreements and misunderstandings, you can find the most recent occasion when we attempted to grapple with chord progressions here – I don’t know how edifying you might find it – but I need to re-iterate that you should be aware of suspect information – however well-intentioned. For instance, while both Andrew and Tom seem agreed on certain aspects of triadic thinking which obviously work quite happily for them, I want to take a little time to illustrate what’s wrong with it in terms of theory and its potential impact in terms of improvising your solo. “the I chord will always be major” Nothing wrong with that – you can safely use the scale tones from that major scale. “the II chord will always be minor” Nothing wrong with that, either – again, you can safely use the notes of the I Major scale from which it is derived. “the III chord will always be minor” This doesn’t quite give the whole picture – what we don’t want is to see a B minor in this function for example, and mistakenly presume it’s functioning as a II chord and hence conclude we can safely use the notes from A Major. There must be a better way of letting us know that it’s really a III chord. (And there is.) “the IV chord always be major” Again, this is not the whole picture – in the key of C Major, for example, this IV chord would be F Major – and, again, what we don’t want is to think we can safely use notes from the scale of F Major or we could run into some ugliness problems with that extraneous Bb. Again, there has to be a better way, and there is. Some people will choose to spell this chord as 'Lydian', so we know explicitly that it has a raised fourth. “the V chord will always be major” Look Out !! Maybe this could be the clearest example of my issues with triadic thinking. Once more in the key of C Major, it is more advisable to call the triadic V chord just a G triad or just G because, just like with the IV chord above, what we don’t want is to think we can depend on notes from the G Major scale. The G Major scale requires an F#. But the Major scale from which this V chord is derived is C Major – in which there is no F#. So we have another potential problem for soloing. The V chord is NOT a Major chord – it is a dominant chord – G7. “the VI chord will always be minor” Only in triadic thinking will this be true. The danger for the improvising soloist, once more in the key of C Major, is again to think that the Amin is functioning as a II chord, hence leading us to choose notes from the scale of G Major. Again, we could run into trouble with the mistaken seventh of that scale. Somehow, we need to be forewarned that the appropriate key is C Major. “the VII chord will always be diminished” Wrong. The VII chord is what we call half-diminished – meaning that there are seven notes to its scale rather than the eight notes of the fully-diminished scale from which it is being distinguished. I hope that helps demonstrate the limits of triadic thinking for understanding chord progressions and for providing useful working signposts for someone attempting to build a coherent solo. As an example of how those ideas work in practice, let’s take the first 8 bars of Jerome Kern’s “All The Things You Are” – I know it’s not a rock’n’roll tune, but it’s part of the standard repertoire where I come from specifically because it contains within it all these little lessons and illustrations which are so fundamental to getting a basic understanding what’s going on in terms of progressions and the guidance they can offer to an improvising soloist. I Fmi7 / / / I Bbmi7 / / / I Eb7 / / / I AbMaj7 / / / I I DbMaj7 / / / I Dmi7 / G7 / I CMaj7 / / / I CMaj7 / / / I The trick for an improviser is being able to spot from this that the first 5 bars are using VI-II-V-I-IV in Ab Major, and the last 3 bars use a II-V-I in C Major. So you can make a decent solo playing from those two different Major scales in their appropriate places. It gets easier, the more you dive in and swim around. You need a proper teacher. This internet is dangerous. .

No. No. And no again. A chord-scale is simply a scale which can be played with a chord. The Roman numerals simply indicate the degree of a scale upon which the given chord is built. Nothing whatsoever to do with the order in which they are played. You have previously complained of the confusion of contradictions out there on the weird-wild-web. This is due to two things, I reckon: 1. the inadequacies of the medium 2. the plethora of folk who don't really know what they're talking about but are gonna tell you anyway The only real working solution is to get yourself a teacher - someone with whom you can clarify ambiguities as they arise, who is able to give you a solid but gradual cumulative understanding relevant to the direction of your struggles, and who is able to steer you away from the avoidable damage of well-intentioned mis-information. Yes and no maybe. I am getting the definite impression we have different meanings and understandings for the same terms. A chord progression is a series of chords which happen to work well together in their sequence. If every single one of those chords has been derived from one single scale, then the notes from that scale will work throughout that chord progression. I have no idea what you mean here. I have no idea what you mean here, either. The pentatonic scale? Which pentatonic scale are you talking about? If the chord is B Maj, what is the fret information supposed to signify? (Whatever fret you’re at, if you play B Maj, it’s still B Maj, right?) What does the “etcetera” bit tell me? Sorry about that – but it illustrates the language issues and problems with ambiguity we get on the net. You are obviously very keen and asking the right questions – all that enthusiasm really needs to be focused and encouraged in the right direction to avoid frustration. Underlines your need for a good teacher. .

I think you mean 'pint'. .

I'm not sure I really understand what you mean. Please try again. These are not silly questions at all. But it helps to understand where you're at first. .

Because it is a huge challenge to constantly and consistently spell 'consistency' correctly. .

"just like the jitterbug - so simple, it evaded me" Lord Buckley I think you get it, Dee - it ain't too hard - and it is perfectly natural in the melody of our speech - so I know you've got it - it's sometimes just a mysterious word which shakes our confidence in being sure. The important thing however, is that the same pattern of stresses and syllabic length must be repeated in each of your verses. That's the bit I stumbled over. You can fix it. I dare you. .

There is in my book. Doesn't seem to worry a lot of others though. Generally, in terms of stylistic interpretation, singers (and instrumentalists) are allowed to bugger about with ornamentations and melismatics and so on in interpretive performance, and that'a all pretty cool and accepted - but, when it comes to a song being written out in basic musical formats, the one-note to one-syllable convention is usually quite strictly adhered to by us fussy little buggers and deviations are somewhat frowned upon - otherwise work tends to be regarded as amateurish by those composers we might wish to be impressing with our lyrical skills - so it's well worth striving for, I think, and not so hard to achieve. Jam's opinion and expectations could quite easily be widely different, however. We'll have to see and find out. Certainly, as I said, there are a lot of people who don't recognise the convention as having much importance. The melody is fine to my ears - except that it lacks a resolution. After 'I will make it happen', the notes are hanging there begging for something else to make it complete. Scansion needs a bit of looking at in your verses. Good going. Keep at it. . .

Oh, good! Another grumpy old git in the making. .

My opinion is that if you can't remember who you're pitching to then there has to be something awry with the way you're working. I mean, do you really pitch material so randomly that you lose track? If you're pitching, are you not writing for targets? Are you not carefully cultivating those targets? If so, how can you forget 'em so easily? .

This paragraph is not as clear as I would wish in intent or meaning. We have a great many lyricists here. I am even most primarily myself a lyricist. Being hipper to, more aware of, the musical nature of song and its parts is something which offers us enormous insight and advantage. Often even what seem basic concepts like 'verse', 'chorus', and 'bridge', can mean one thing to someone working on the purely lyrical side of the equation while suggesting something slightly different to a musician. And generally if a lyricist has a deeper understanding of how a song is structured musically it seems possible, in my experience, for them to be enabled to pull off a better job. Lyricists have to be able to work with regular musicians in order to survive. So it's a huge benefit to study and learn as much as we can about musical structure and motive in order to inform and improve our working vocabulary of ways to carve words into appropriate shapes. None of that 'pre-chorus' baloney. That's the point I was trying to make. But a lot of people aren't at all interested in stuff like this. They like doing things their own way - and fair enough, good luck to 'em. Some even protest a quite strenuous dismissal of any style of self-education or development. How many times do we hear, for example, a tyro musician's proud boast that their theoretical understanding is "not enough to hurt my playing, man"? Blissful in obstinate ignorance - those are some of the 'amateur barbarians'. .

Great stuff Jordan. Although sincere, I was having a good laugh at myself as I wrote - which I was confident you would recognise - as well as sharpening my pencil and polishing phrases ready for a pithy and pointed letter to my ex-employer. No - I did not get the impression you resent folk forms at all - I obviously communicated poorly. It is my good and unblemished self who views and hears most contemporary pop as folk forms - that's the perception I was attempting to express. Folk forms are simple and basic and user-friendly. And I like and enjoy and study a great deal of folkloric musics from all around the world. Like you, I bear absolutely no resentment towards them. And I similarly bear no resentment towards the fact that they become readily useful and serviceable for anyone with a basic human desire to make music and have a good time. The most important thing, after all, is that people are 'doing' and creating and expressing, and enjoying without harm. When we are talking about songwriting per se, though, as an art form which has been accumulated and developed over many years by some mighty fine artists and composers, those folk-forms begin to occupy a much lesser part of the overall picture. And I had made the mistake, as John suggested, of presuming the big picture was what we were talking about rather than just the minor tributary of contemporary pop where, because still consisting of mere folk-forms (however honourable and honest those forms may be), the discovery of innovation seems unlikely and rare. Pop thrives and survives, I suggest, on the effective commodification of comfort and reassurance rather than the unexpected. (And in doing so, I hasten to add, it can certainly achieve its own measures of perfection.) But my inner-grumpy-old-man, I hope you understand, while usually grumbling only inwardly and silently (silently, like the 'c' in 'rap' or the 'p' in swimming), was unfortunately provoked into misplaced vocal outburst by your apparent implication that these contemporary pop folk-forms could somehow be elevated into some exemplar of sophisticated structural excellence ranked greater than their merits. Silly old bugger. You mention Raphael, Michelangelo, and Da Vinci in your post. Old 'grumps' finds this interesting also. He has long complained that whereas in all other areas of creative endeavour - theatre, cinema, literature, dramaturgy, painting, science, the plastic arts.... - students and practitioners hold constant and sincere affection and appreciation for the long rivers of tradition that have stretched before, and which inform their practice like regular pygmies clambering atop the shoulders of giants, in the current popularity of songwriting as a pursuit this deeper respect and recognition is commonly abandoned in favour of claims to be 'new' and 'revolutionary' and 'cutting-edge' almost completely without regard or understanding of what has long preceded them. As the old dead gnomic reprobate Salvador Dali ("Salvage", to his mates) was overheard to say: "Anything not grown from tradition, is plagiarism". (Old 'grumps' can be boringly predictable to live with - but often he has a point.) So - my suggestion (of which I gratefully and graciously note you have already taken some heed) is that, if the desire is to find ways of escaping the current limitations of form (and formulae) there is no better source guidance than exploring the work of past masters. And please don't worry about 'cannon' - old 'grumps' was only having his fun - we all make spelling mistakes. Very funny and ridiculous, for example, is the way that pesky automatic 'spell-check' insists that 'formulae' is the wrong spelling. Ha! What do they know? No wonder that there is illiteracy abroad. The dumb automatic grammar-checker is blind also to subordinate clauses. Microsoft has only limited respect for language. Bah! Sorry - old 'grumps' doing his thing again. He doesn't get at all tired of responding to this sort of topic, though. Seldom gets such a welcome opportunity. And the old codger likes your attitude. .

Hi Jordan. I guess it all depends upon what you mean by ‘classic’ song structure. In my experience, most aspiring tyro song-writers wouldn’t recognise ‘classic’ structure if it rushed at them quickly, leapt up to clamp its jaws around their eyebrows, and spent a week swinging in front of their faces. They are largely blind to the riches and value of traditions outside last month’s pop charts or YouTube sensation. And, quite clearly, I am a jaundiced and desperately cynical old git who deserves to be beaten and then ignored,…. but at least I know how to spell ‘canon’. Contemporary songwriting is cursed and hobbled by its dependence on folk-forms – which may certainly pre-date our great-grandparents but could hardly be graced with the exemplary status of a level of achievement deserving the epithet ‘classic’. Part of the issue, as I see it, is that not only is ‘song’ an essentially musical event, but also the elements you mention of ‘verse’, ‘bridge’, and ‘chorus’, are essentially musical events – and yet currently each term appears to have been kidnapped by amateur barbarians and applied to purely lyrical forms without reference to, nor understanding of, underlying musical architecture. The central importance of this architecture, the need for structure, suggests to me the ‘abstraction’ which you hypothesise is highly unlikely. Certainly it occurs in other media as well as other modern music forms but, in popular songwriting, our ears respond preferentially to shape and form and recognizable pattern repetition. Yet evidently I can neither agree to your core assumption that there is currently “a place for the traditional methods”. Currently I see a huge ignorance and denial of songwriting tradition and instead a conviction that the randomness and accidents of un-tutored stumbling constitutes ‘innovation’, that we can write entire novels without understanding syntax or being able to form a coherent sentence, and that it is in effect possible to run like the wind before we learn how to walk. There! I feel much better now. There are two people to whom I would draw your attention for their successes in innovating and developing structure (and all within the ‘classic’ structure, too!). Burt Bacharach is one. Take an analytical look at “Say A Little Prayer”, for example. Nothing particularly significant or special about that song, we may think when we hear it. Taking it apart, though, we notice it is built with mixed time signatures, cut-bars, and odd phrase-lengths. But, when we listen to it, and simply enjoy it as a classic pop-song, these ‘deviations’ are absolutely imperceptible. No sticking out like a sore thumb at all. The mark of a true craftsman. Hoagie Carmichael is another. Just take a close look at “Stardust” and “I Get Along Without You Very Well”. Both of these pieces illustrate unexpectedly unusual liberties being taken with normal ‘classic’ song form – but in such a supremely apparently effortless way, like Bacharach, that the ‘deviations’ are completely un-noticeable – unless you are paying close attention like a proper student song-writer should. But then, these are exemplars of the ‘classic’ traditions of song-writing form and practice which are currently largely ignored and overlooked. (I'll bet you wished you had never asked.) (But I couldn't resist an answer.) .

Eb Alt will use tones from E melodic minor. .

A few ideas - but no context. They cannot be made sense of in isolation from the rest of the song. ,

Can You Play "off Notes" Around A Current Scale? Even beyond the concept of 'passing tones', it is not uncommon in the music I listen to (don't know so much about rock 'n' roll) where the practice is known as getting "out" or "outside" (of the changes) and the challenge is recognised, as ever, as being able to make it happen in a coherent fashion. The working theories behind the practice generally employ notions of consonance and dissonance to generate tension and release. The ideas with which I am most familiar, for example, use patterns of pentatonics rooted on those regular scale tones with the intent that some of them get further "out" than others, while other root choices will gradually bring their notes more and more back inside. The goal of taking it "out" is to bring it all back "in" neatly and happily - tension and release. Generally, it is based on the idea that whatever phrases are played, it is the manner of their ultimate resolution which define the strategy's most pleasing successes. If anyone gets around to analysing the work of jazz innovators like Joe Henderson or McCoy Tyner, these patterns of consonant/dissonant pentatonics become a useful way of theoretically making sense of what they're doing in practice. Players generally start exploring this area once they've got their orthodox theory together. A lot of contemporary guitarists who have gone through bits of formal music education have naturally incorporated all those ideas into their vocabulary, but it is not a level of sophistication usually applicable or appropriate to everyday pop music - yet I can hear the occasional "progressive" rock 'n' roller getting away with it effectively on occasion. It all depends on what the ear will accommodate. .

Perhaps for me then it is just naked envy. 99.9% hard work at this end. You lucky people. Dougie had some great quotes. But he also did deadlines. .

Damnation - I missed it - sounds like it might have been fun. Always very impressed by a person who owns up to mistakes, Quad. But please don't apologise for what you believe. Just be prepared to have it argued with in a reasonable and cogent manner. I, for example, happen to disagree completely and unequivocally with your assertion that 'inspiration trumps all else'. If it works for you on a personal level, that's perfectly fine and dandy, but from a practical point of view it seems rather foolish and inadequate as a guideline for a way to work in any field of creative endeavour. If you can't (or don't wish to) write to deadlines, that is also perfectly fine and dandy, it's no big deal. But why knock that ability desire and determination in others to aim for professional standards ? .

Good luck with that. .

I don't believe genre has anything to do with it. But I would not personally be using the term "lead performer" in this context. Doesn't matter who the "lead performer" may be at any point - it's always the band-leader who is boss - otherwise the other players very quickly have no gig - like a drummer who thinks he's in charge, for example. The article to me suggests that its writing was driven by a good deal of frustration from somewhere (maybe her vocal students). They aren't my golden rules, though. .

You may well find it absurd, but that does little to change its fundamental truth. A truth, moreover, with which all great artists and writers with substantive bodies of work throughout history and right up to the present are in full and well-documented agreement. Why wait around for inspiration? You may have time to waste, but they didn't: neither do I. I am struggling to decode sense from that statement/question. A writer's intention may be to entertain, to inform, to challenge, or just to add a little beauty to life - I have no idea. Aside from that, a work simply exists in and of itself, and may last in terms of its significance for others. And what can possibly be wrong with a writer's purpose being to write more (and better)? I am a songwriter: my unabashed purpose is to write yet another song. What on earth can be at issue with that? .

Boingo-boingo-boink!!! p.s. I hate the ferkin Owe-lympics. Lot of disruption and deeper in debt. But boosterism to beat the band.