More "Nothing"....

            If I haven't written anything interesting lately, it's because I'm involved in a lot of that "drudge" work of music that I occasionally have mentioned. Don't get me wrong, for the most part I actually enjoy this work, especially when an occasional creative idea pops up that will improve the end result.
           Mostly what I'm doing has been re-inputing all the arrangements (charts) that I lost when this computer crashed last fall. (They have a habit of crashing the week before I plan to do a major back-up.) Fortunately, I had printed out all of them in almost up to date versions...still a heck of a lot of work.
            I was beginning to break these up and put them into parts. This is necessary since you cannot play off of a score, because there are so few bars on a page that you'd be turning pages constantly instead of playing.
       It was then that a small idea in the back of my mind came to the forefront so I dropped everything to pursue it. I had written a tune that was in my backlog of "forgotten" home recordings. When I compiled these for storage, I had separated out the tracks for this tune, polished/updated a couple, remixed it and put it on the shelf, where it sat......What happened was that I suddenly realized, that it fit the tone and direction of the next album perfectly.
             It's a tune called "Against the Tide". Only a few folks have ever heard it but to favorable feedback. So I began to do a "record-copy" of the tune back into the computer to update the chart, since the organ part was the only one that existed, and it was nearly unreadable.

           This is my news, such as it is...but also I wanted to give a glimpse into the world of the songwriter/musician, because most folks don't have a clue what can be involved. They see a band get up onstage. They start playing and three minutes later they've done a great tune....and people think "Great way to make a living. Music is easy."....and when they record an album, they figure the musicians just get up, play that 3-minute tune (maybe a couple of times to get a good one) and stick it on the album...I'm here to tell you this happens only in fantasyland! Or else it's a very poor album!!


           As many hours as I put in finishing tunes, writing and polishing charts and transferring them to parts, that is only the beginning of the long arduous process of recording, mixing & mastering. This becomes even more difficult when one is not only the musician playing all the parts, but the recording engineer as well.
                  Often trying to get a good take, in tune & well-recorded is like trying to get the stars to align in the heavens.
             I write this to foster the attitude that even though you may not like the music of a particular independent musician, they deserve respect for the monumental achievement the making of a musical album represents.