The Song as a Canvas...

I've been doing a lot of reading on songwriting lately. When I embarked on the journey of songwriting as a teenager in 1977, I didn't have google, MSN, blogs or any number of the current ways to connect with fellow poets and songwriters beyond the high school / college writing club. Thanks to Lynn Harrison for her kind response to my email. Yes, Lynn, I'm reading and I eagerly await your next communication.

It's funny how deciding to blog regularly starts to focus your thoughts. You frame your ideas in terms of the evening's narrative. Today I had an overriding insight punch through my psyche. I'm not a Performer/Songwriter. I'm a Songwriter/Composer. I treat a new song far more like a painting or photograph. I do preliminary studies. I lay it down in layers - I THINK in layers. It's all composition (theme), under paint (rhythm) and details/highlights (counterpoint/fills).

I haven't started recording yet, yet I hit the dilemma head on today. Tech like Celemony's Melodyne could extend my vocal range a half octave in either direction effortlessly (and undetectably). If I need a low E, or a high B to make the phrase work, it is now within reach. I could never sing it on stage. Now more than ever I am confronted with a final parting. The writing of material I can produce but not perform.

I tend toward making the song versus the performance great. I paint cadmium pigment and get a color. I photograph pixels and reproduce a soul. I write and produce a mood, not a performance. The song must go on beyond and ahead of me. A painting is a projection of my eye and few expect it to be reproduced "live." I choose this course. Some silly middle ground is a coward's dithering.

In other news, I spent the day listening through "The Beauty of the Rain" by Dar Williams. That tune has so much potential, methinks it might be my first cover. It helps she's an alto, and I'm a baritone. So many ideas. ;-)

Updated Christmas List

I made a run to Steve's to pick brains and figure out pedal trigger inputs into the Alesis Controlpad. Kick drum triggers, it turns out, are usually pads engineered to be hit by a normal kick pedal. Many are reasonably large, but we did find a slimline version. High-hat controllers, it would appear, consist of two inputs - the surface that is struck by the sticks and the pedal that indicates how "open" the high hat is. It seems likely that if I plug a hi-hat pedal into the control pad and map one of the pads onto the hi-hat, I should be in business.

The upshot of the conversation is that I've added to my Christmas gift list the following:

1) Roland KD-7 Kick Drum Trigger. It's low profile, and won't dislodge too many of the piles on the floor in my office.

2) Pearl P-120P Power Shifter bass drum pedal.

3) Roland FD-8 Hi-Hat Pedal Trigger. I tried it. Smooth.

It's nice to know what you want. À la prochaine!