Saturday, April 5, 2014

"There's Something About Marigolds" - Silas Scarborough (audio)

There has been a huge discussion in my head on to echo or not to echo.  I could repeat that discussion and bore you along with whatever demons in my head were having this infernal discussion.  The answer is obvious:  turn the bitch off and see what it sounds like.  So, a revisit to "There's Something About Marigolds" but no echo on the lead line.

There's one part that makes me cringe as I start going higher but as I'm hearing it I'm thinking, don't push it, Cap'n, she's going to blow.  I didn't listen.  She blew.  It's not a horrible blowage but I hear it and think, well, could have done that better.

I listen to it over and over which has got to drive my friends here crazy but they say, it's ok, don't worry about that.  They say it is no bother but your friends will say that and it's cool that they do.  I'm really quite surprised no-one has murdered me for how annoying I have been with my guitar in my life.  Cops come around (not here) every so often to suggest that perhaps I played too loud but how could they know.  They weren't there, right.  However, they do have guns and this is an important consideration in volume control.

The sustain and general cleanliness of the guitar I like a lot although the high end needs to be attenuated and in the effects unit not in processing after recording.  It's not clean enough but the echo is definitely fired as it was adding more murk than mysticism.  It will be back in some other form but that's for later.

As to what it says, that's up to you.  Telling you what a song means to me is not usually all that helpful to you in the travel.  What I want to do is play notes that are so damn beautiful that they bring tears to my eyes and sometimes they do.  What they say is something else altogether and that's very much the business of the Necromancer as it's not a false pose on believing music is the channel of the spirit world and a musician is the vehicle for it.  The more accurate in bringing the music through without shellacking it, the closer the Supreme Beauty.

You are not powerless as it's not my purpose to say you must play whatever comes and your only task is to wiggle your fingers.  All human emotions will modulate the 'channel' and the righteousness of the emotion will determine whether the music is pure or is just someone putting a pitch-shifter on a barking dog.  The notes aren't handed to you, as you must think and feel what they must be based on what comes.  The Supreme Beauty is a possibly mythical melody so beautiful that on hearing it you cannot ever go away from it.  It's the search for that melody that drives every musician, I believe.  It's not about a lost chord but a lost melody.

So, yah, here's the song, "There's Something About Marigolds" on the Ride the Dragon podcast.

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