Week 8

Hi there guys this week on my silver arts award i started by showing my tutor how id worked hard in practicing the chords for my piece "house of the rising sun" by the Animals i felt very proud of the practice i had done as this always helps me to acheve my musical goals we also looked at the lyrics. me and my tutor had also discussed how far i have come since i started the course.

I also did some practicing on 'House of the rising sun' with my tutor and played around with some Solos after looking at the animals on youtube. I felt that the Solos were a little to experienced for me and decided to stick with the solos that I have already created. I've learnt that if you make things too fancy to begin with it wont work, you need to know the foundations first. Chords come first fancy stuff after.

We also had a little practice in the studio and discussed homework around looking at 60's recording techniques.

freddy practicing

Gary Numan - My Arts hero

My music through the age’s project hero is Gary Numan

Bio about gary numan

His real name is not gary numan his real name is Gary Anthony James Webb or most artists knew him Gazza.

Gary Numan was born, Gary Anthony James Webb in Hammersmith, London on 8th of March 1958. His first job was working as a dispatch boy with a courier company at Heathrow where his father worked as a bus driver. His first band was Mean Street who only used him because he had a lot of music gear. He later joined The Lasers where he met Paul Gardiner who he later formed Tubeway Army with. The first album (Tubeway Army) was recorded with Gary, Paul and Gary's uncle (Jess Lidyard) on drums. It was while recording this album that Gary discovered a synthesizer in a recording studio which was being used by his recording company - Beggars Banquet. It was this discovery which prompted Gary to start making music using synths.. His first hit - Are 'friends' electric was released in 1979 and reached no. 1 in the British charts. This was followed by Cars which also reached no. 1. Today, 30 years after his first record release, Gary Numan is still recording studio albums and performing live. Has performed with Chris Slade. Lead singer with Tube way Army.

Gary numan also preformed with one other than my favourite modern syth pop artists little boots as picture shows them both together.

The reason why i like Gary numan is because of his music style techniques this is very similar to the same sort of stuff that i do at the music studio i use to create most of my tracks.

I enjoyed and was mostly inspired by his music and it wasn’t too long before i got into the eighties and liked other such syth pop artists such as kajagoogoo and human league and many others.

The eighties has inspired me too see the old style art of performing and compare what techniqes and eqipment they would have used in the modern era. I'm interested in comparing what limitations they had then. 

I read that Gary Numan first discovered a synthesizer when working in a studio with Tubeway Army. He said that this opened his mind to a new way of working with music and went on to release Cars.

Even though gary Numan Had Asperger Syndrome it just goes to shown anyone with disablitys can still make some cracking cool tunes which is one of the reasons why i admire him. It gives me a positive attitude outlook on music. My favorite songs of his are 'Cars' and 'Are friends electric' because he has used synths in inspirational way and he was one of the first to do it. 

he is also an atheist and doesn't believe in religion.

week 7

This week at the studio i was practicing the chords for my sixty’s piece "house of the rising sun" by The Animals on the piano and the organ they have at the studio.  My tutor wasn’t in this week so he had somebody to hold the fort while he was away touring like u do when ur a musician. I felt that i had learnt a lot with this guy who was filling in for my tutor. My tutor had introduced me before to him during the earlier sessions and i knew he would be a useful asset to my training to help me finish my practicing for the song however once we started writing down the actual lyrics and understanding the song we played it over and over again in till i eventually managed to nail the piece of music however there is still more practice to be done with remembering the notes for the track when we record our music takes and this is what i shall do at home with my midi keyboard and amp.    




the original piece of lyrics that we first posted wernt correct however me and the other lad filling in took a listen to the lyrics and found out that some of the words were not correct so we looked at the fist piece of lyrics and changed them. Below are the correct lyrics  

HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN (LYRICS)

Am          C           D     F

There is a house in New Orleans

Am              C        E7

They call the Rising Sun

Am                    C         D                 F

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

Am           E            Am          E7

And God I know I'm one

My mother was a tailor

She sewed my new bluejeans

My father was a gamblin' man

Down in New Orleans

Now the only thing a gambler needs

Is a suitcase and trunk

And the only time he's satisfied

Is when he's drunk

------ SOLO ------  (ROLLED NOTES)

Oh mother tell your children

Not to do what I have done

Spend your lives in sin and misery

In the House of the Rising Sun

Well, I got one foot on the platform

The other foot on the train

I'm goin' back to New Orleans

To wear that ball and chain

Well, there is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God I know I'm one

------ OUTRO ------

Week 6 Choosing a 60s song

"we had a discussion about what song we wanted to do in the 60's. I had some ideas about a band called budgie who did a song called bread fan but I found out it was recorded in 1971 - I liked it because there was lots of effects and effects and panning in the speaker which was cool sometimes. We started looking at youtube at some possibilities. We looked at  the Kinks, The Beach boys. I learnt that the beach boys had been very influenced in their studio work by the beatles (Sargent peppers). I didn't want to do those tracks though because theyt weren't enough of a challenge and didn't really interest mre that much. I suggested the Animals and we looked at 'House of the rising sun' ot grabbed me because there was lots of organ playing. I  found that 60s stuff is more relaxed and passive than the 50s stuff weve been doing. It'll certainly be a different ride"

here are the chords and words and a clip of me playing it for the first time

freddy practicing

House of the rising sun

Am    C        D          F
There is a house in New Orleans,
Am        C      E7
They call the "Rising Sun",
Am       C       D           F
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl, (boys?)
Am     E        Am    E7
And God, I know, I'm one.

My mother was a tailor,
She sewed those new blue jeans,
my husbend he's a gambling man,
(drinks) down in New Orleans.

My husbend in a gambler,
He goes from town to town,
The only time, he's satisfied, is when
He drinks his liquor down.

Oh, mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done -
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of Rising Sun

One foot on the platform,
The other's on the train,
I'm going back to New Orleans,
to wear that ball and chain.

Going back to New Orleans,
My race is almost run,
I'm going to spend the rest of my life,
Beneath that "Rising Sun".

Week 5-recording the vocals

This week me and my tutor recorded down the vocals which were fairly easy as i knew the lyrics off by heart but it took several takes before we got down a fantastic take afterwards we played around with and added some affects that being we used compressions reverbs and EQs however still we were limited down to 2 tracks as in the 50s.  Finally after mixing everything down together it was time to get our record by any means necessary. Unfortunately we didn't have a record scratcher but who would? So we saved it to a memory stick to try and burn it on a cd however i got home and tried but it wouldn't let me so on my next session i will see if i can get my record scratched to a cd. The session went really well and i thurally enjoyed singing "hound dog" it was a privilege to sing one of the kings greatest rock en roll hits it was nice basic and so simple to sing. So if you happen to do the fifties as any music project id recommend some Elvis?  Also as well as patting myself on the back for working hard towards the project I'd like to thank my tutor and the studio owner for putting their input in the song and i would be honoured to play with them again for our future hits so thanks guys. I believe that ive learnt an awful lot of history of music from this project and i can't wait in till we start our next project THE 60S!         

Week 4 - tidying up backing track

last week on the 50s track for  which we did a cover version of elvis hound dog we saved the track we recorded onto the computer. This wasn't what would happen in the 50's but we did it for a couple of reasons. Being firstly we'd needed to be able to put it on a CD or tape and we'd needed to be able to take it to other places to edit or mix - this is because there are problems with travel and I might not be able to make it to the studio so we might have to move. We played around with EQ's that means that we can effect different frequencies. You can alter sound to make it more clear to listen to and balanced. I started to use the original 50s method using a mixing desk but it was difficult to understand EQ this way so we used a computer because you could see visually how you effected the track.  After we Eq'd we had to balance the instruments on different tracks so they sounded good together. This was because we could only use two to three tracks (because thats what they had in the 50's) so we had to edit or record those three tracks down to one track (mix them together) so we could have a track free to put the vocals on.

I  enjoyed starting to understand how EQ's worked but I still struggle to get it completely - we need to work on it more. I was getting to a point where I could understand it but it then slipped away from me. I wanted to do it but couldn't understand it. When I thought I was close it turned out I wasn't. It was a little frustrating.

The whole day went really well - it got the track mixed down ready for the vocals.

3rd week - recording 50's track

This week on my silver arts award my next task was to record myself playing the organ in a band doing a cover of Elvis hound dog.  they would have usually scratched their music to records in the 50s however we were limited to what equipment we had so we used tape this was not easy as we had to arrange the studio and mic's to certain positions to get the right levels eventually we managed to get the levels done which took at least 40 min's to get the right sound quality yet again technology strikes  as we were only able to use at least two or three mic's  a 50s studio didn't have a lot of mics that were available for usage so we did the best of what we had.  learning from this experience helped me to clearly understand what the 50s were really like. it was a fun and enjoyable and i would a recommend trying the 50s if your practicing music it was a laugh! And i don't think i could have done it with out the good old help from my mentor who played the drums and the studio owner who played the bass so thumbs up to yer both! we eventually managed over the course of two hours to complete the piece of music however one thing still remains the vocals im hoping they'll go well also im thinking of maybe doing some backing vocals as well as some clicks and claps. i think things went according to plan i had had expected that me and the rest of the team would have to do some sort studio arrangement with the mics and other things such as studio sound barriers and stands, amps anything a 50s sound studio would have needed.  the day was very busy the the vibe was great there was ideas going around left right and center but we focused on the main target ahead the completion of the music for the song. it took at least three takes because some of us weren't ether ready or we got out of time or just played some wrong notes but we decided on a take and eventually we completed it.