Song Talk with Morry Campbell

A tribute to Keith Olbermann--and a musical tidbit

I don't know about you, but I'm saddened by the loss of Keith Olbermann from the airwaves. Whatever your political leanings, you must admit that Keith was a force to be reckoned with, an important counter voice to the behemoth that is the Right Wing Media machine. We had Keith, they have Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck - basically anything on Fox "News." So yes, Keith was sometimes "over the top," but I think he probably felt he had to be to counter all the "over-the-topness"  happening on the other side. And I notice none of the Right's most over-the-toppers have been let go by Fox. They seem to like that kind of rhetoric over there.

Anyway, I've been working on some vocoder stuff (a kind of synthesizer that uses a vocal to color the sound), and I decided I would use something Keith said in his last show to use in a vocoder song. The phrase that jumped out at me was this: "Get your dirty government hands off my government-issued Medicare."  Keith started a segment with these words, to point out the cognitive dissonance between what the Tea Partiers were saying about the healthcare bill (government-run healthcare is bad), with what they were saying about the government-run healthcare program we know as "Medicare." (Keep your dirty government hands off my Medicare!)

So I lifted that phrase from the show and ran it through the vocoder, added a beat, wrote a little verse, and voila! A little mini-dance hit. And my songwriting comrades liked it so much, I'll be developing it into a full-length dance song. I hope you enjoy it too.

This is in honor of Keith Olbermann. Keith, we will miss you terribly. You were an outspoken ally in a world that has gone slightly mad. Keep the faith, thanks for the vocal, and I hope to see you back on the air somewhere soon.

Click here to listen to the Tea Party Rumble.

Click here for a great article comparing Keith with Fox News commentators.

New way in for songwriting

I'm working my way through the amazing Steve H.'s Logic Tips and Tricks from the MacProVideo website. Designed a very cool pad, and now, I'm trying to write a song around that sound. I'll post the results. But it seems like a valuable new way to write a song. I'll see if it pans out...

James Taylor: Songwriting God

I was in the gym yesterday, and James Taylor's Greatest Hits came up. I had just put it on the iPod, and I hadn't listened to it for years. I'd forgotten just how good those songs are. I loved them when I was younger too, but now it seems that I've kind of grown into those songs and that music. James Taylor is one of the true masters of the American song, a musical and American icon.

Songwriting seminar with Robin Frederick

My good friend John Raymond Pollard brought this video to my attention. Though it's partly an infomercial for the Taxi music service, it's also got some great information for songwriters.  It's about an hour long, so set aside some time and take a listen.

Report from the field: New Logic Pro Studio

On Tuesday, I attended the "Pro Studio World Tour" event that Apple is sponsoring to promote their pro video and audio applications, Final Cut Studio Pro and Logic Studio Pro. Amazing stuff. Well worth checking out. One of the most impressive new features of both applications were the time manipulation tools. The time manipulation tool in FCP (Command + J) has been expanded, with a lot more control on how it behaves in the timeline. And in Logic, you can now quantize audio regions in much the same way you quantize MIDI regions, and the "flextime" feature has to be seen to be believed.

I'm going to keep this short, because I know not everyone who reads this blog does this kind of work, but this round of upgrades is a dramatic step up. Avid/Digidesign have cause to worry.

Interesting writing experiment

I was in an Alexander Technique workshop recently that asked me to write down ten things I want using my right hand, then again using my left hand. I was terrible at writing with my left hand. But it intrigued me. If indeed the right hand is wired to the left side of the brain, and the left is wired to the right side (an oversimplification, but stay with me here), wouldn't it make sense that using the left hand to write with, using both hands to write with at the same time, would be a great way to integrate the two hemispheres of the brain? I've been trying it. I write in my journal with my right hand, then answer with the left. I have little conversations back and forth with myself. I suppose that's a little schizophrenic, but it's an interesting ongoing experiment.

Try it. I got a great song verse out of my left hand. Perhaps my right hand would have thought of it too, but it didn't.

I'm off for a few days to visit some family in Minnesota. Will see you all when I get back. Have a great week/weekend.

xo,

M

Inspiration

Just because it's Friday, here's a picture (taken by celebrated photographer Teresa Campbell) of a sunset.  Have a great weekend everyone.

I need a bridge

Presented my new song, Good, last week at my songwriter's event, and got a lot of feedback. I've taken much of that feedback and rewritten the song, and I have a bridge. Well, it has no words, but it has a chord progression and a melody. And now I'm stuck. In the muck. Send a truck. 'Cause I'm out of luck. I don't even know what the bridge is about. Send your creative impulses to:

Morry's Brain
Wherever It's Wandered Off To
Earth
Solar System
Milky Way Galaxy
The Universe  1MT11-476H5--42

Don't forget that zip code.

Outside the lines

Nick Granato writes really good songs. And he's a great singer. And his most recent release is actually called Outside the Lines. And actually, beyond giving a shout-out to Nick, he's only peripherally involved in this post. I'm thinking about Outside the Lines because I'm reading Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones, as if you've been following this blog, you know. And in the chapter called Writing as a Practice, she says, 

In my notebooks I don't bother with the side margin or the one at the top: I fill the whole page. I am writing for myself first and I don't have to stay within my limits, not even margins.

Being uninspired

Nothing's coming today. Zip. I've sat down and started 3 different blogs, and none of them would cooperate and write themselves for me this morning. The well has gone a little dry.

So how do you make the  blogs, or songs or any writing project happen, when the dust has settled on your creative muse? What's the cure for that? I sometimes just sit down and write anyway, and see if anything will come out if I "keep the pen moving." Sometimes that's successful, sometimes it's not. Other times I go off and do something, anything, to get my mind off of the creative process altogether. And I find then when I come back, that has helped. Sometimes I watch a movie, or listen to some music; enjoy something  someone else has already created for me. Sometimes I take a walk in the park.

I don't have one "go-to" strategy to get over the humps. I do get over them, however. And I guess that's the important thing.

March SongTalk challenge: write some bones

As promised, this writing assignment involves working with a chapter in the book we're talking about, Writing Down the Bones. If you don't have it yet, you can still click on the link within this posting, or click on the picture link on the page in the left-hand column, and buy it from Amazon.

So here's the challenge for March, based on the chapter First Thoughts from the book: Get a notepad of some kind, and write in it for a pre-determined amount of time every day for a week. If you already keep a journal, then you're set. If you don't, start one, at least for the next week.  Write every day, and write for the same amount of time.  If it's five minutes, let it be five minutes.  If it's ten, make it ten. Twenty minutes, thirty--whatever is doable for you. Keep in mind the following rules:

1. Keep your hand moving
2. Don't cross out
3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar.
4. Lose control
5. Don't think.  Don't get logical.
6. Go for the jugular

Ms. Goldberg goes into much more detail in the book, so read on for further advice on how to make that work for you.

Anyway, back to the assignment. After you've journaled in this way for seven days, on the eighth day, go back and read what you have written. Look for something, anything, that sparks your imagination, and write a song around it.

Have fun, and we'll see you on Monday, March 9. And, if you're not a current member of the group, feel free to post a link to your results, or leave a comment about your experience.

ASCAP New York Sessions

Every year ASCAP has this big I Create Music seminar out in LA, and us New Yorkers have to either miss out and look longingly to the west where all the fun is happening without us, or put out major buckage to fly out to sunny California to attend. But not anymore, baby! There's an (albeit) smaller group of sessions happening right here in New York City!

For one day only (but better than no days at all, n'est-ce pas?) the New York ASCAP folks are hosting New York Sessions, a one-day intensive for songwriters and other music types, that promises to make up for all the neglect us poor New Yorkers have been suffering at the hands of the LA Music Expo for all these years. You can look at the day's schedule of events here.

But Wednesday, March 4, is looming ahead.  That's the day that the price of attending the day's events jumps from the pretty reasonable $55 for ASCAP members, $75 for non-members, to the less affordable $75 for members, $95 for non-members. So think fast. You can register here.

Introducing "Songtalk Recommends"

From time to time, I'll recommend a book, or a CD, or something else, and it will appear right up there on the lefthand side of the screen.

In my writing group, we're going to start working with a book called  Writing Down the Bones. I've taken a few playwriting classes, and even more songwriting classes, and in every one of them, this book has come up. So we decided we might profit from reading it as a group. In fact, March's songwriting challenge, to be posted on Friday, will have something to do with the book.

So if you don't have it, click the link above, under Songtalk Recommends and get it now from Amazon. And if you click from this page, Songtalk makes a little cash. So thanks.

Criticism versus Critique

Vikki Flawith has an interesting take on criticism on her blog, The Shy Singer-Songwriter.  In her article, entitled the 'honesty" movement is laziness (referencing this article at Esquire) she says:

There is a huge difference between criticism (this sucks) and critique (okay, here's a place to start, there's some good elements in what you've done here, I'm going to zero in on a couple of things I think would really help).