ron2
Posted : 9/21/2008 8:25:27 AM
Thanks.
The problem is the little camera. It's a digital camera and takes good pics and halfway decent video. But it's little condenser mic is easily overpowered. It can make me sound like Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins. I have a 4-track recording machine but no way to convert to digital and my computer won't record sound. So, the only way is to record it on the camera and treat it like a video.
As for my playing, I'm afraid that's a bit old school, too. I have long fingers so I tend to play solos with the first three and only use the pinkie for chord forms. And when I want to used two hands on the fretboard, I have developed a magician's sneak wherein I tuck the pick into my curled right pinkie and ring fingers and then am able to thumb it out of there when I want to go back to the pick.
In October of 1974, a few weeks before moving from California to Texas, I picked up my grandparents' classical guitar. It had only 3 strings. I just messed with it and stumbled upon the arpeggio to Credence Clearwater Revival's "Who'll Stop the Rain." And I was hooked. A few weeks later, we moved to Texas, specifically Richardson, a suburb city of Dallas. My mom had a folk guitar she never really played. So, she gaive it to me and bought me a set of strings and Mel Bay's Book of Chords. It was all she could afford. And I started teaching myself. I later taught myself soloing or lead guitar. Using tab form, I found a way to teach myself classical guitar or at least play some classical pieces.
It wasn't unitl 1987 that I really started working on my voice. Up until then, I thought I was baritone with a bit of falsetto. But working the exercises I found in a book opened up the upper register and I found out I was a tenor. A tenor who could sometimes scratch the castrati range. Some of the songs I have the easiest time singing are from Scorpions and Judas Priest. And, for a while, I thought I sounded like Klaus Meine (singer, Scorpions). Similar voice timbres and ranges ("Rock you like a Hurricane" is pretty easy for me) and the styling of Rob Halford (Judas Priest) after the first album suits me. He started out singing everything at high C or higher. By the time they got to "British Steel" he had matured and used the high bits for accent, which allowed him greater expression and range.
Songs that are hard for me to do because of where they fall on my range are from AC/DC. A lot of their stuff is in the transition from middle to upper register, for me. I think that's because Bon Scott had a really high voice. His speaking voice was at least a full octave above mine where as my speaking voice is more like baritone. My FIL thought I sounded like Luka Bloom, an irish tenor who does folk and contemporary with a range and timbre slightly like Bono from U2. In fact, the song in which we most sound alike is "Ciara" (pronounced Keer-ah) on a cd of celtic Christmas music that we have. And that's cool, as it's the other part of my heritage. German, english, irish, scottish. Take your pic. We had given FIL a tape of that cd. Another time, I was playing "Dust in the Wind" at his house and so he thought that was me singing "Ciara" on the tape.
I have fun with it, no matter who I sound like.
As for guitar playing, I desire most to emulate Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics. He is the consumate player. He could play lightning fast all the time, like Yngwie Malmsteen or Joe Satriani, but he doesn't. He only plays what is required for the song and only when it is needed. That is, he tailors his playing for the song, not the other way around. Watching him interact with Annie Lennox and the Revenge Band is like watching an orchestrated piece, which is exactly what they were. So, I may not show off a lot of "guitar god" qualities but a lightning rip of 1/64th notes is just off stage, waiting for a need for a stratospheric blaze, if necessary.
The nice thing about "Blue Eyes" is actually more than one thing. Pete Townshend was so far ahead of his time. In chord structure, preferring open aug 5ths and 4ths, a style that would later be expounded upon by Edge from U2, having that ringing wall of sound not unlike celtic music. The thing about "Blue Eyes" is that the stanzas are sung high and the break is sung low, the opposite of most pop song formulas. And the lyrics are a blinding look at one's own soul, apart from all the boy meets girl lyrics. In an interview, Townsend said that of all the people in the world, Roger Daltrey was the only one who could capture the intent of what his lyrics meant. And I believe it. Especially after the opera "Tommy" which helped Daltrey find his focus as a stage performer.