Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamer:
Hi Scott,
I am listening right now to your songs and here a few observations:
- Tequila: I love your phrasing with the brass sounds (you once said that you played in a brass section and it clearly shows here), but I think that the overall tempo is too fast, unless you want to make a rendition in the style of Gil Evans. If you think to perform this song in public, I am afraid that few are going to dance and on the other hand it's also too "loud" to be just background music.

- Dock of the bay: I love this one and Chuck does a terrific impersonation of Otis Redding; your guitar licks are excellent, but something does not sound good with the harmony: after about 18 seconds (on "Watching the tide roll away") you apparently alternate between E and Em, while to me it would be better to alternate between G and E; true, Em and G are closely related chords, but still there is something wrong to my ears)
- Europa: I LOVE this one! Your guitar phrasing is terrific and I love also the style choosen (cuban bolero maybe?)
- Stand by me: all well, but this song is to me a clear example of the lack of punch of the Tyros drums, because it would require a snare with a lot more beef. Your rendition however (both vocal and instrumental) is as good as it can get. Once again, kudos for your guitar licks.
- Under the boardwalk: kudos to Chuck for his voice and to your for the guitar work. Once again, I think that the drums are too "bland", but this is not your fault.
- Unchained melody: your work is first class, but maybe Chuck is just tired to sing this song...

Scott, I am really impressed with what you have done and hope that you will continue to share your music with us.


Time to play a little catch up and respond to those who posted.

Thanx for your compliments, critiques and ideas. Yes, I have enjoyed playing in many big bands on trumpet. I see you are from Italy? In the US, ladies night out is not background music, they want to live it up and shake their a$$ as my wife put's it. On Tequila, I was trying to play something really different with a lot of energy almost to the point of being outrageous. Along the lines of Maynard Ferguson's big band comes to mind.

The place was packed and you should have seen some of that dancing going on, it was enough to make a guy forget where he was in the music.hahaha

The owner said we sounded fantastic and we are now the official ladies night out band along with regular weekend work. Also, an owner form another club down the road heard us and asked us to play regularly at their establishment at the gig where this was recorded.

I'm not saying any of this to brag, this is just to point out what I was trying to accomplish and what came out of that night's gig.

I think a lot is lost in just listening to an audio recording. If a person where able to be in the energy of that room with that crowd I think it would seem feasible to play Tequila the way I decided to try it.

On Dock of the Bay, I will have to try your suggestion, and listen to recordings, but in the music I used to get the chords, the chord goes, in this case from D to Dm back to D. It seems a little different, but it seems to work for us.

On Europa, thanx again, I believe the style was bolero lento, one of my favorites.

On Stand by me, I actually am in the process of looking for a better beat period. That beat is not as driving as I would like it, but it's what I picked when the singer gave me his song list and was trying to come close to a beat that might work.

On Under the boardwalk, thanx again. Again, I am always searching for a better more representitive beat, not necessarily the way the original sounded but a beat that has energy and makes it ours. So for me, it's more of finding a better beat. I generally like the Yamaha drums. I know this is very subjective, but it seems to be fine live. As far as the recording, I didn't do anything with eq's etc. However , I am continually wanting to try other keyboards for comparison to see how I could improve my/our particular musical personality.

On Unchained melody, it's actually the first song we ever played together and it was live. We just met, shook hands, I started to open the set as an instrumental, and Chuck said he knew that song and jumped in. The other thing is he does have more of a delicate sensitive voice than the original I would say. Dock of the Bay, Stand by me, and Boardwalk were all from our first gig together. We've been fine tuning ever since, only problem is pretty much all other recordings were not a good mix and unusable, except for one we just did last week.

Thanx again for all comments.

Scott