Saturday, February 1, 2014

Whoops, That's Not F minor

"Is It Cool Enough for Cat" is the only thing I've been playing lately and I'll add a few more chords to see how things go ... and maybe throw them back out again.  The trouble with doing that kind of stuff is that it can set the tune in cement.  The trouble with not doing that stuff is that you'll never play anything but blues.

(Ed:  Brother Bob Marley advises that everything is blues, mon)

Yah, yah but it doesn't have to be the same damn three chords all the time.

So there was a mistake yesterday as the tune doesn't start out in F minor but rather F sus.  If you want some agonizing reading on what a suspended chord means, here's the WIKI.  (It won't help but don't get discouraged as all you really need is how to spell the chord.)

Since I can't play at the moment, I try to determine the key and I know what it says for four flats but that means the song is in A flat major.  However, the F sus chord goes to an F chord and the A note in the F chord is not in the A flat major scale so I guess the only way to deal with it is as an accidental (i.e. it's not in this key but the composer knows it and is doing it deliberately).  There's a musical pachinko machine in my head and right now those little balls are bouncing around all over the place as this A flat major business settles.  That's not a problem as, even if nothing else, it's fun to watch them bounce.

I'm diggin' the title, tho:  "Is it Cool Enough for Cat in A Flat Major" or, Dr Seuss version, "A Cat in A Flat"

For titles, this one beats out "On the Road with a Mouse and a Chicken," I'm thinkin'.

I may suck at songwriting but I do come up with some good titles ...

because ...

I Love Rats (links to the remix by Michi Renoir).


I will be playing at Dirty Dancing Warehouse on Sunday.  Armand has decided that maybe trying for Wednesday is not such a good idea so this will be the third try but on a different day.  No point in saying anything else as I don't want to jinx it.

(Ed:  What about the Super Bowl?)

What about it?  (laughs)

There is surprising interest in American football in England but that won't matter much for the show.  For most of Europe, a football is round.  I'm looking forward to it and I'm thinking it will be a pretty good party as it's on Euro Time which is their evening but is afternoon in Yankee Time.


Fingersatz Barbor plays today at the MusikCircus and that will be at 3pm SLT (it's in the calendar).  He is classically-trained and is now an instructor but he's played all over Europe.  He lives in Germany and 'fingersatz' means somewhere between 'fingering' and 'finger set' in German.  So, one day there is jazz and one day there is classical.  This keeps everything nicely stirred.

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