Working Up My Chops

Planning my April writing trip to Nashville. Driving down after church on Easter.

This trip will be great. I’m looking forward to writing with some of my Nashville friends, and this time I’m getting a little help setting up some appointments, as well. I’m excited to work with some new folks, and I’m scurrying to get my ideas organized and quivered up.

My mantra when going into a new cowrite is to always have more to offer than is needed, and one of the most sought after resources in a cowrite, especially a new one, is ideas. WIthout a good idea, all the craft in the world can not render something worth the time. I’ve been storing up my thoughts and ideas and hooks for the past few months, and adding them to the ones I’ve had for awhile. Its always a fun time to go back and revisit some that have fallen out of my memory.

I’m looking forward to getting with some of the writers from the Write About Jesus conference in St. Louis. I don’t know who will be in town the week I’m down, but I’m sure it will be a blessing, no matter who they are.

Another new thing, this time, is that I may play out a bit. I’m not too used to playing out, I prefer to let someone else do that, but a writer’s round is a great place to test songs, and I’ve found that at writer’s rounds you find a lot of... writers..

Pulling some songs out of the sawdust, though, and trying to remember how some of them go. Wow. Its tougher than I thought it would be.

All in all, though, it feels good. I’m looking forward to floating them out there. No better way to get a feel for whether they work or not. No better way to improve the chops than by swinging the axe. (I’m a keyboard player, but I love using the analogy, anyways!)

Performance Royalty Act Still In Jeopardy

Dion Warwick appeared on capital hill on Tuesday to urge legislators to support the Performance Royalty Act.

"I'm sure you all thought that I walked on by with my little check in hand," Warwick said in a reference to her popular tune "Walk on By." "I wish I had, but all I did was walk on by."

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=9989979

Senator Conyers had a good take on the measure supporting peforming musicians, who currently get paid nothing for performing their music on broadcast radio:

"They work and they don't get paid," Conyers said after the event. "That's involuntary servitude. They don't even get any choice of whether they want to work or not — they just take their work product."

The event was sponsored by the Music First coalition. Please check out their website, here.

For a better perspective on this issue, view this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5WWzD8Jycg

Incidently, you will not hear this view or perspective on a broadcast radio station.

T

Using Logic Mainstage

Had a busy weekend this week. On Saturday, met up at Kensington with the 4th week band and started rehearsal at 12:30. Saturday night service started at 5:30PM, and call time the next morning was 7:30 AM for the other three services.

We’re in the middle of a series on marriage and the theme for the weekend is Search Me Oh God. We had a great drama that starts out in divorce court, then flashes back to the the beginning of the end, and then again to the beginning of the marriage, revealing that the faults that each saw in each other at the end were there in the beginning.. in ourselves. Its the things in our lives that need to be purified, not the things in our spouses.

Music for the day: We opened with a song by the Plain White T’s called “1,2,3,4”, a schmarmy love song, complete with a melotron intro (That was fun). We played transitions for the drama with the song “Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop”, by Landon Pigg (the guitarist for Sixpence None The Richer.. he wrote Kiss Me). Coming out of the message we did a Danny Cox original (with Danny singing) called Search Me, Oh God.

To lighten up the whole “look in the mirror” idea of marriage we closed out with the Weezer tune. “I Want You To”. Renee Mulinicks and Chuck Jones did it as a duet. Sara Bareilles sang it as a duet with Weezer in this Jimmy Kimmel video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCmqtyAh8IM

What a blast!

I showed up with my M-Audio Ozonic and midi’d in the church’s Yamaha Motif. For sound bank, I used my MacBook Pro using Logic Studio’s Mainstage with Reason Rewired in. The Ozonic acts as my audio interface and midi controller, meaning I simply wire my stereo outs from the Ozonic to the board through a DI. The ozonic has to stereo’s out and Mainstage can send each instrument or patch to any output, so the routing can either be mixed by me or the board, depending on preference. The secondary output can be used to disperse a click track to the band, should I want to have a click or some other presentation running for video. Imagination is the limit...

On 1,2,3,4, for the Mellotron sound, I used the Reason Abbey Road Plugin mellotron flutes, with a tremolo affect to get the calliope feel, layered with a legato cello section so I could do the whole thing with 10 fingers or less.

For Falling In Love in a Coffee Shop, I used the Logic Mainstage Yamaha Studio Grand patch with the Blue Carpet pad layered underneath. To get the full affect to match the song, I added a tremolo to the Blue Carpet and took the volume down. To ensure that it didn’t get muddy under the piano, I mapped the low key just above middle C.

On the Weezer tune, I mainly clapped the song, except for the chorus where I used the mellotron patch from the first tune and played the melody up a third to create a common feel to the front and back end of the service.

I’m really liking Logic Mainstage as my instrument. For one thing, if the church or venue has a main midi keyboard its an easy load in, as the ozonic sets into place with one hand and a small zip-up keyboard case. The ozonic sits easily on most keyboards. On the motif, there’s room for the laptop, too.

Here’s a screen shot of Mainstage, showing the second song of the set:



Each time I play, I create a set for the date, (see February 28) program and title each song, and when the service starts I simply hit my up and down arrows on the keyboard, or a programmed button on my midi keyboard to move from one song (or multiple selections for complex songs) to the next.

You can see my song list on the left and note the sounds layered on the large keyboard. You can see the Blue Carpet is layered on the top section of the keyboard.

I’m even able to map layers with intensity, triggering layers of sound based upon how hard I hit the keys.

Anyways, after the the 4th service, I packed up the ozonic and my laptop and headed down to Grand River and Southfield to the Jerusalem Temple. Pastor Cal runs a church ministry for the mentally disabled, and our small group has gotten into the habit of bringing dinner for the congregation every few months. What a blessing it is to serve this congregation.

The church members participate in worship and the program, and it is really a treat to see so many members of this congregation participate in the service.

I’m always amazed at the need, but more so, the blessing every child of God gives to another. We had way too much food, but had plenty of take out boxes to pack and send home with each member of the congregation. We’ll be doing that again soon.

On the way back home, we stopped at the Oxford Inn in Royal Oak to see Jeff Scott’s CD release party. Turns out, it was sold out, but we were fortunate that a few people didn’t show up.. we sat with GW and Claudia of the Black Crystal Cafe in Ann Arbor. Bill Edwards opened up with some his great original songs. He played “What’d I do?” and “Leave It There”, two of my favorites. Duane Harlick’s band backed Jeff Scott for the rest of the evening. Duane’s amazing as his band. Jeff Scott’s a great writer. You’ll need to get your hands on his CD.

It was a great night, but if you’re counting, I hadn’t been home in 17 hours by the time it was over. I slept really good last night.