Hi Donna, just to get off the Hijack of John's thread I've moved this here...

[Prometheus]

-

Prometheus thank goodness for baritones is what I say to that. It is hard to detach from vocals - why is that so? I'm convinced that if the courage to work on the voice can be mustered, it will improve. We begin learning other things easier, like a guitar.

I like your singing on "Night"; did you double the lead? And, is there a lyric page? Is your speaking voice on "Night" the range it is on the recording, or did you change that, too? Sorry if badgering - I'm interested in stuff like that. Both my siblings and children mess around a lot with their voices!

Re: "Night" the pattern of full band, breakdown interests me, some ppl are able to do that. Did you write it like that, envision that from the beginning?

Oh - wanted to add this (wonder what Finn would think?): sometimes if I can't/don't feel like practicing singing, I will talk. Had a vocal teacher long ago and he had me try to - not sing through the nose, but sort of. Had me imagine and also go thru motions of biting an apple, to overemphasize a quality I cannot explain and have not really talked about in my life (til I get here). Anyway, I sometimes monitor speaking voice and go for that apple-biting sound, or I lift it when tired. I think it helps and doesn't freak people out like singing all the time can.

(sorry John B. for hijack)

Hi Donna, Happy New Year. I never saw this post last time I was online...

The speaking voice on Night is mine, and is basically as is, although I made it sound more whispered and breathy than normal, but the formants of my voice are all there. It sounds a little strange to me because I went to great lengths to try to conceal my Scotland West Coast accent, which sounds utterly abominable, full of glottal stops and mispronounced words, and bearing little resemblance to the queen's english at all...

The only effect I added to it was a delay and the inevitable compression that goes with mixes as busy as that one (I used about thirty tracks) has to have to make it sound reasonably flat and acceptable as CD listening level. On the Chorus I didn't double track the vocals as such apart from the harmony, which is simply an octave if I remember correctly... The song is in the key of A flat on the chorus and the verse is composed entirely of diminished (flattened fifth) chords, which makes the arrangement sound a little bit unusual. The verse is all very unresolved sounding whereas the chorus goes into a more major theme, resolving in the tonal note. This part also has a guitar ostinato consisting only of E flat and G notes repeated.

I didn't write the lyrics, it was a songwriting partner called Jennifer May Leith that wrote them, but I thought it was interesting having the chorus resolving musically on the lyric, "I don't know if I can." so the music is illustrating the paradoxical resolution / lack of therein of the last line of chorus lyrics...

What I did on the middle 8, which is composed entirely of bass guitar, is a double track part played on the high frets with a sweeping phaser on it with another track containing the root notes played on the low strings to create some unusual harmonies...

The other thing I did on that song that was interesting was on the guitar break on the last chorus, I couldn't get the lead to sound as busy and chaotic as I wanted, so I took the lead break, copied it onto another track and reversed the tape so they were playing over each other at the same time... So when you solo the backwards track and listen to it on its own, you get a lot of ssSSHHJJJOOOP! noises as the attack and release are reversed, but mixed in with the driven guitar of the rhythm section and the forwards lead track, it sounds kind of interesting...

Now, I'm gonna try and download your song again...

Edited January 3, 2006 by Prometheus

[Prometheus]

is there a lyric page?

Sweat From Your Back

Burns my palms

Eyes rubbed raw

I try to wake

There wasn't enough time

Caught between to states

Leave my fears they're mine

God, don't make me love you

I don't know if I can

Your breath scars my skin

Ragged and torn, I'm on my own

Shut my eyes

To hear your voice

Speak in Riddles

I don't understand

I struggle, you tied my hands

God, don't make me love you

I don't know if I can

Lips drawn back

Teeth tear my skin

Hands pressed against my mouth

salt, sweat and smoke, it's sour

I'd free myself

And cure your want

If I only had the strength

The power

God don't make me love you

I don't know if I can

God don't make me love you

I don't know if I can

God don't make me love you

I don't know if I can

© Copyright, 2001 Jennifer May Leith...

Edited January 3, 2006 by Prometheus

[Donna]

How have I missed these two threads? Happened to you, too I guess.

OK, I want to dicscuss these things (and that lyric) but now it's too late and I cannot comment specifically - I mean to hear it with all the liner notes in mind which I like to do. Ha ha, shoulda stayed silent. But I wish to hear the track again - 30 tracks! Wow! I Like the explanation of the middle eight - while I only have the acoustic, I plan to from now on play the bass lines (if I can) on IT.

"Utterly abominable - glottal stops" - that's too fun! Your Auntie's must be more colorful than mine even, the language you use. Ya won't like this, but I thought the accent may have been enhanced purposely (speaking part). Good we're just writing here - I'd be lost in a pub with ALL y'all (save John .

Now WHY do people with accents [from my American view ] SING in American but speak w/ their native accent? Also, I wonder about American singers who seem to have no accent whatsoever speaking, sound sometimes like they're southern or something when they sing.

But that first question, I've wondered about that for a long time. Finn and john and you and Hari Ossa et al sound American English when singing.

[Prometheus]

How have I missed these two threads? Happened to you, too I guess.

OK, I want to dicscuss these things (and that lyric) but now it's too late and I cannot comment specifically - I mean to hear it with all the liner notes in mind which I like to do. Ha ha, shoulda stayed silent. But I wish to hear the track again - 30 tracks! Wow! I Like the explanation of the middle eight - while I only have the acoustic, I plan to from now on play the bass lines (if I can) on IT.

"Utterly abominable - glottal stops" - that's too fun! Your Auntie's must be more colorful than mine even, the language you use. Ya won't like this, but I thought the accent may have been enhanced purposely (speaking part). Good we're just writing here - I'd be lost in a pub with ALL y'all (save John .

Now WHY do people with accents [from my American view ] SING in American but speak w/ their native accent? Also, I wonder about American singers who seem to have no accent whatsoever speaking, sound sometimes like they're southern or something when they sing.

But that first question, I've wondered about that for a long time. Finn and john and you and Hari Ossa et al sound American English when singing.

ah well, I always try to sing in my best American accent... I think maybe because Americans tend to speak more clearly and ennunciate syllables more than us... I was listening to some footage of the Apollo astronauts descending to the Moon in the LEM, a great American achievement by the way, and I was wondering if it was two Scottish men doing the same job if they might have trouble hearing what they were saying at mission control...

There were a couple of things I found it very hard to make out... Like on Apollo 17, The Lunar Module pilot says "AGS Data's good" like so "Aygs Dahda's Good" where a Scottish man from where I live (Ayrshire) would say "Ahgs Day'uh's Good", the apostrophe representing the glottal stop, but apart from the fact that you lot proncounce everything backwards over the pond I think you generally speak much more well than we do...

Edited January 8, 2006 by Prometheus

[Donna]

...and the song ends with the middle eight. That's a nice part, btw. And needed, it's a heavy deal - still chuckling re: yours and john's comments in the Chritmas song thread about this one:

]john: I was listening carefully for something to do with Christmas. i was thinking "Shit! Thats the heaviest, most depressing Christmas song ever!"

Prometheus: Yes, I don't think that Jennifer May, the lyric writer, is exactly brimming with joi de vivre...

If you go to the site http://www.geocities.com/thetrueprometheus/ you should get a link to the song (Night) on there...

I'm listening to it as I write, and went over the lyric, etc; Ya know, I can hear the harmony on the choruses, esp. the one right before the bass-bridge. Sounds good to me, will you be singing on any stuff in the future? Hey, it is such a good description you gave that I have no questions at all, except how and why were 30 tracks done.

The lyric sounds like a TERRIBLE experience. Probably in the wiriter's head? Maybe like that Laura Nyro song: It's not love I'm a running from/Just the heartbreak I know will come/ Cause I know you're no good for me/ But you've become a part of me .

Once I wondered if she really meant God: God, don't make me love YOU - even with the imagery about a flesh-person. Maybe it's about both...Great line: I'd free myself and cure your want.

On an older note about losing innosense in even listening to music: It reminds me of, one day I was studying a face closely. Well, the eyes had bags under them; and there was stuff imperfect on each part of the face - but taken together, when I stopped intensly analyzing/focusing on little parts, the face was beautiful. Really beautiful! The whole was also reality - the little parts such as eyes, were not the whole, not reality if you know what I mean. I would've missed REALITY if I hadn't stopped looking at the specks. Some of us may appear incapable of seeing the whole. But I think ppl can be re-trained.

Er - a disjointed post tonight, all over the map mea culpa.

Edited January 14, 2006 by Donna

[Donna]

ah well, I always try to sing in my best American accent... I think maybe because Americans tend to speak more clearly and ennunciate syllables more than us... I was listening to some footage of the Apollo astronauts descending to the Moon in the LEM, a great American achievement by the way, and I was wondering if it was two Scottish men doing the same job if they might have trouble hearing what they were saying at mission control...

There were a couple of things I found it very hard to make out... Like on Apollo 17, The Lunar Module pilot says "AGS Data's good" like so "Aygs Dahda's Good" where a Scottish man from where I live (Ayrshire) would say "Ahgs Day'uh's Good", the apostrophe representing the glottal stop, but apart from the fact that you lot proncounce everything backwards over the pond I think you generally speak much more well than we do...

But wouldn't the Scot sound more like "DIE uh's"? It's not quite right that, either. The children and I (even the cynical teen) actually sit around sometimes and analyze the...dipthong I think it's called: is the Celt saying "ai" or "au" or what! Better than playing cribbage.

On this subject have you seen the movie My Fair Lady?

It's funny, that Apollo stuff - them talking, I think it's a part of everyone's subconscious. Interesting you like the moon landing so much you used it in a recording and wrote quite a bit about that on your page.

[Prometheus]

But wouldn't the Scot sound more like "DIE uh's"? It's not quite right that, either. The children and I (even the cynical teen) actually sit around sometimes and analyze the...dipthong I think it's called: is the Celt saying "ai" or "au" or what! Better than playing cribbage.

On this subject have you seen the movie My Fair Lady?

It's funny, that Apollo stuff - them talking, I think it's a part of everyone's subconscious. Interesting you like the moon landing so much you used it in a recording and wrote quite a bit about that on your page.

I've got a seven minute long mix I've done here that has samples of the whole journey from before liftoff to Splashdown... I've also got a simulator that let's me do landings in the Lunar Module and rendevous and docking manuevers with the command module... My walls a recovered in Lunar Pictures as well...

I acutally recorded a load of stuff from My Fairlady at the Coupar Institute in Glasgow, but I haven't seen the film for years...

[john]

I live about 5 minutes walk from the Coupar Institute... small world!

I have to say it depends where you live in Scotland. Personally I like our accents, but not so much that I can listen to The Proclaimers.

[Donna]

Hey - I remember that Apollo thing you're talking about! It was exciting, yes I remember. It's like cowboys for a child only it's spacemen.

[Prometheus]

I live about 5 minutes walk from the Coupar Institute... small world!

I have to say it depends where you live in Scotland. Personally I like our accents, but not so much that I can listen to The Proclaimers.

Well, I agree that Scottish people should speak clearly, but at the end ay the day, amurnay whit amurnay, amurr whit amurr...

You live in Cathcart? That's a nice bit up there... I enjpoyed working in the Coup[ar institute, although the acoustics were abominable.... Was fun doing these black bow tie nights...

[Nightwolf]

So, you're all Lunatics then?

[hariossa]

Finn and john and you and Hari Ossa et al sound American English when singing.

yes, my case is because most of my english comes from listening to Frank Zappa, I still remember the day I went to my english teacher (a nice lady) and ask her about the meaning of "blowjob"...

[john]

I sound American? No one has said that before.

[Donna]

Yeah, meant you too, Mon Cap.