Backstreet Love - An Audio Transcription

Wherein I take a close up look at a recording to see if I can learn more about what makes it compelling. Here's my final take on the song - I can't post a Soundcloud version of the original recording due to copyright restrictions, but you can search "Back Street Love Trapeze" on youtube to hear it. You'd want the version from the "Hotwire" (studio) album, not the live version.

I miss playing in rock bands. Not all of it you understand...just the good parts. I miss the energy of the performance, the aggressive excitement of the music, and when you and your friends pull off a well crafted arrangement or set and the audience responds there’s a great feeling of satisfaction. There are parts I don’t miss as well. We won’t talk about that right now but suffice it to say for any number of reasons chances are good that I’ll never play in a rock band again. But still, I miss it sometimes.

One of the fun parts of having a home recording setup is that I can explore music and styles without the need of a band. So when I’m feeling the urge to swing, bossa nova, funk out or rock like a champion I give it a go in the studio. It’s probably the closest I’ll come to playing in bands again.  

Feeling Sentimental 

I recently started using the music streaming service Spotify and finding bunches of older music there was putting me in a sentimental mood of when I first started playing guitar and forming bands. I was never much on popular music in the 70’s but I really liked the rock scene - more of an underground sort of movement where bands may not have ever broken big, but wrote and played music that spoke to me. One of those groups was a band called Trapeze. The band changed personnel a few times but through it all was a guitarist named Mel Galley. Mr. Galley’s style spoke to me. It was simple, it was rockin’, but most importantly it had a tremendous feel. How did I learn about Trapeze? Not from the radio. Back in olden times there were these things called “record stores”. My home town was blessed to have one run by a real honest-to-goodness music lover. More on that some other time... 

Hotwire 

There is a Trapeze album called “Hotwire”. It was released after a personnel change in the group where they went from power trio to a quartet. They had to replace a really strong bassist/vocalist original member (Glenn Hughes) and they did it with an additional guitarist and a new bassist that played with a funk feel like Hughes, but in a different way. Galley took over the vocal chores. I loved this album. I memorized every nuance of each element. I never got to play any of those songs in a band, but I really would have loved to. The album makes an opening statement with “Back Street Love” about a likeable prostitute from the wrong side of the tracks and segues right into “Take It On Down The Road”. The two songs are melded together with consistent rhythmic theme. When you’re listening to it, it almost sounds like they started playing and were having such a great time they didn’t want to stop, and just rocked their way into the next track. Now bear in mind these songs probably don’t have the quality most in the pop world would call good lyric writing. I just like them that’s all - can’t really explain it, they're just fun to listen to. Lyrically, it’s a real challenge to understand what Mel Galley is saying much less put together a summation of the meaning of the song. Yes, it’s just that bad. Unintelligible vocals. No matter. My quest is to learn more about what makes these songs "tick".

To the Studio!

Mix in one part missing playing in rock bands, add a tinge of sentimental feelings from listening to Trapeze songs I’ve never performed in a band before and a studio project was born. The project? An audio transcription of “Back Street Love”. The idea is to copy all the parts from the track, drums, guitars, bass, and vocals and reassemble. Maybe I could find out more about what made this so compelling for me. I would have loved to continue right into “Take It On Down The Road” just like on the album but I wasn’t ready for that kind of time commitment. I figured I’d start with “Back Street Love” and see what happens from there.

Finding What’s What

The first step was to analyze the song, naming each musical theme as it appears. Transcribing the lyrics is necessary of course and relegating each bit as verse or chorus, bridge, etc. then noting which parts and lyrics were doubled and where they were in the stereo spectrum.

Finding Tempo(s)

The next task was to get the original recording onto a track and use it as a template, then to transcribe the drums into my drum program (EZ Drummer). Well the first thing I discovered was that this was not the steady rockin’ track I had always thought it was! These guys were all over the tempo map. No click track for these blokes. It seemed apparent that they all got together in a room and just let it rip like they were on stage. It had all of the tempo “sins” one might expect plus more I didn’t expect. We might typically expect the tempo to start out at one spot and they gradually pick up as it goes along, plus we would also expect the drummer to pick up speed during fills (the part drummers play to set up the next change in song form - verse to chorus, etc.).

Guitar Solos/Tempo Surprise

As a surprise I noted a big jump in tempo right at the first guitar solo (there are two eight bar solos with Mel Galley and his new guitar cohort Robbie Kendricks taking turns) and then a corrective slow down afterwards. These rhythm section was cranked to get to the guitar solo! Both guitarists cut strong, melodic, well crafted statements that really built. Each had a different accompanying part. The first is unique in the song - it doesn’t borrow from any other song elements and it really leans to the funk side of things with a bass line that’s on the off beats. This is probably what the rhythm section was anticipating so heavily as to get worked up into a tempo increase. The second solo background borrows the the form from a chorus. Very nice arranging. The entire solo section is a quick sixteen bars (eight and eight) made of two different themes to keep interest and two different soloists to go with them.

Tracking

Here’s how it went down.

Drums: I transcribed the drum parts into EZ Drummer, marking tempo changes for every couple of bars or so, and extra beats. Every now and again musicians throw in an extra bar of two instead four, not necessarily on purpose, but just because it feels right, and Trapeze was no exception.

Vocals: I knew the next biggest challenge for me would be the vocals. Besides the fact that I’ve never been a gifted singer, add to the fact that I haven’t done any “real singing” in about fifteen years or more and you can imagine the challenge. I transcribed the lyrics as best I could (impossible to understand some of these and they were not to be found on web) and got after matching the original track as best as possible. I sucked. Let me just apologize right up front here for the singing.

Guitars:  Yes! Something I can do! I learned the rhythm parts, mic’d up an amp and recording a direct injection line from the guitar too, to use amp models later on in the mix. This went pretty quickly and learning the brief, melodic guitar solos was kind of a snap as well. Hurray! Something went well!

Bass: Oh brother - what the heck is going on there? Trying to hear what Pete Wright was doing here was a struggle so I did my best guesstimate and hoped it would work.

Fixing In The Mix

Yes, here is where we fix everything we tracked (widely known as “fixing it in the mix”). This is generally something we all want to avoid but in the case of poor performances, there’s no getting it around it so the first thing on the list was to fix my shitty timing with the bass playing. Going in there and getting bass parts to line up right with the kick drum can be pretty tedious but the payoff is big, big, big. I’ve got a real tendency to anticipate the beat so this was a very necessary job. Rhythm guitars were a little better, but there were a lot of tracks (I did five rhythm guitar tracks) so it took some time. The singing was a total catastrophe. I really had to go back and tune almost every note, a task made easier with a program called Melodyne, but nonetheless, once you do this, your oh so meticulously recorded vocal takes take on new, not so wonderful sound but at least it’s closer to being in tune. This is also the time to replace any artefacts or other anomalies that may have been introduced when recording along with extra clicks and slides you might hear in the guitar playing and breaths in the singing, etc.

I mixed and mixed and mixed, and when I felt like it was starting to come together I compared it with the original. Nope, not even close on the guitar sounds or the bass sound. I might could have done a better job of copping the sound if I’d paid more attention during recording but, really, there was only so much time I wanted to devote to this. I made some adjustments and mixed some more. After about 6 final mixes and a couple of different mastering techniques, I was about burned out. At some point you’ve just got to let something like this go and move on before it totally consumes you. The result? Pretty good mix if not identical sounding to the original. The original guitars have a real narrow honking midrangey sound to them that I didn’t realize was so prominent. I could actually go back and fix this if I wanted to take the time. Other than that I think I nailed the parts except the last note on the second solo should have been a “double stop” or two notes played simultaneously, and I missed that. The bass playing doesn’t really have a semblance of the original as far as the sound goes. The playing has the general feel I believe but is not an accurate transcription. The singing...well, not that great but I got that parts and doubles and they’re for the most part in tune thanks to Melodyne.

What I Learned

What I thought would be a rock solid tempo turned out to have many twists and turns which is definitely something I’ll have to consider on future original projects. Attempts at artfully produced tempo changes may be in my future.

My singing still sucks (no surprise there) and I have a real tendency to anticipate the beat in my guitar and bass playing, only occasionally actually playing rhythmically accurate. I could have taken a little more care in developing the guitar sound and micing the amp up differently with the final mix in mind. I don’t know if I even have the right instrument to get the bass sound Pete Wright did on the original.

Anyway - that’s the way it was. Now on to something completely different...

Communications Breakdown

Communications Breakdown

Not long ago I became facebook friends with one of my jazz guitar idols. I’ve heard before that sometimes it’s not such a great idea to meet your heroes as it can be a real let-down. While the FB friend experience hasn’t been been a total disaster, it has been a reminder that while someone may be great at one thing (totally killin’ jazz guitar playing in this instance) there could be serious deficiencies in other areas.

Here’s how it went. For several months JGH (I’ll just use the initials for Jazz Guitar Hero to avoid using a real name) remained relatively quiet on FB. Then, unexpectedly JGH let out a torrent of criticism for the state of jazz marketing in his hometown. The reason? Because JGH is an awesome (although not so famous, even in the jazz world) guitarist who has done a lot of professional performing and recording, he was hoping that the jazz movers and shakers in his hometown would bow down to him and more or less cater to his desire to play concerts there. Wrong. Things are just not like that.

Business is Business, Business is People, and Business is Selling Stuff to People

I don’t think it matters if you’re selling pencils, or great works of art, business is all about knowing the right people and interacting favorably. You can be the maker of the coolest pencil the world has ever seen, but if you don’t make the right connections, you’ll always be a poor pencil maker. There’s often truth to the label “starving artist”. Artists are commonly not so great at business but instead, excel at their chosen artistic discipline.

What Went Wrong?

When JGH originally posted his complaint on FB I commented that “maybe you’re not kissing enough a**”. (I sometimes make these kinds of off-hand, half-serious, half-joking comments on FB to my detriment. For whatever reason, I can only take the FB thing so seriously. I mean come on! It’s Facebook! Why would you post your deepest concerns there for the world to read? Shouldn’t we save those for our most intimate friends? Perhaps I’m wrong.) In any case, there were more comments by JGH later to the affect that he would NEVER do any a**kissing of any kind whatsoever, and those people in his home town should be doing every thing in their power to bring him into concert performances. Did I mention although JGH is truly a great musician, he’s not what most people would call a big draw. I mean...I’d go to see him, but how many others would?

Come To Terms

The key here is to communicate and make friends on some level with the people you need to deal with. And rule number one for doing that? Speak to people in terms they can understand. Just that simple. Not everyone is like you and not everyone speaks your “language” or shares your point of view. You’ve got to get on board the other person’s train to some degree. That’s not kissing ass, that’s just plain common sense. The world isn’t all about you and what you think it should be. People like to feel others are interested in them, and their own welfare.

If you’re going to China to sell your super duper pencils, it’s going to be a good idea to learn at least a little Chinese.

Dealing with promoters, agents, or other powers that be doesn’t have to be so bad. You don’t have to become best friends, and you don’t have get married. Showing a little interest in the other person’s game can take you a long way toward meeting your own agenda.

Good luck JGH! I predict if you start showing a little interest in the local promoters’ welfare, they’ll work with you to build a following in your old home town.

Maybe I can learn to keep my smart-ass comments to myself on facebook. Hmm...how likely is that?

Music, Children, and Humanity

I’m often performing for family friendly occasions. Besides a weekly Sunday brunch I sometimes play at outdoor civic events. I’m pretty much convinced that after years of doing this, locals have come to kind of like hearing some jazz while they have their lunch or shop for vegetables, flowers, knick knacks, and what have you. It’s not quite the same as playing at night, where the restaurants take on a more club kind of atmosphere, spirits are being served, and the music goes through more of a freedom and darker sort of a transition. That’s okay - I like both daytime and night time playing. But I digress.

Amongst the listeners at these daytime events, there are always those who are unfamiliar with jazz and not quite sure what they’re listening to, and among them there are the curious. Our music is usually pretty friendly sounding, and there’s nothing intimidating (I don’t think) about me or my musician friends. There’s no barrier to separate us from anyone who cares to walk up and strike up a conversation, and folks often do.

Most can tell right off that I’m playing a guitar, even though it may not be one they’re really familiar with, they get the idea. The drums are never mistaken for something else. But the bass...that upright bass...it can really throw people for a loop. You might be surprised at the number of people who ask “what IS that?”. The fellow that frequently plays bass with me is soft spoken and good natured and always answers them patiently. Does kinda’ make me wonder though...really? You really have never seen a bass? The other day someone asked if it was a sell-o.

Nothing, however, beats the wonder and amazement of children. Toddlers especially always get this glazed look over their eyes and just stare totally enthralled. Their parents, eager to introduce them the wonders the world, often bring them right up to watch us, usually encouraging them to dance. Sometimes the child does manage some kind of hop/dance. This seems kind of cruel to me, I’d like to see what would happen if one of those parents were made to dance to the music I play. Lots of parents just let their children experience the live music. Then they start naming off the instruments, “and that’s a cello...” um, no, that’s really a bass I want to say but I let it go.

That children are so taken with music speaks volumes to us. Clearly, seeing actual real live performers making music is something a little unusual and it also indicates a uniqueness of mankind. It’s part of being human and it’s attractive on many levels, and not just to children. The taking time to learn a degree of mastery of instruments, coordinating the event, the presentation, all tell us that there are worlds out there that are not our own. Foreign territory for the uninitiated. Big worlds full of complexity. Music and the arts are part of being human. Without them, we’d be a less so. Life without the arts I think wouldn’t be worth living. It’s important. It makes us human.

4 Fingers Or 3?

Someone at rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz brought up switching to a 3 fingered left hand approach from a 4 fingered approach. Below are my thoughts:

I've spent most of my guitar playing time using the four finger approach but when I developed an interest in Django and then Wes I wanted to investigate the differences.

I've also used the Garrison Fewell books and agree with others in that I believe they are superb. They have helped me a great deal.

In studying the Django approach, I've also used books from Mike Horowitz (djangobooks.com) and his cohorts. They are the most helpful in understanding that style than others' books I've studied.

Some conclusions I've come to:

The 4 finger CAGED and Leavitt approach is a more mastering music on your instrument sort of approach. More of an approach where that is more open to possibilities musically. It's not so much about jazz as it is about having a good way to master playing the guitar in a variety of styles.

The 3 finger approach is something I think more of as a guitar styles approach as opposed to the "all music" approach. I don't think it's based as much as playing scales in positions. Trying to adapt in that direction from the 4 finger approach is almost fruitless. The 3 finger approach is typically more about phrases and arpeggios than scales - which may be one reason why people might consider it to be more musical.

On reflection - I did a lot of scale learning starting from the lowest note in a position, playing to the top of that position and then descending again. This is pretty contrary to what most of us would call good music. When I experimented with keeping my soloing to the top 4 strings I felt things came into focus a little better. Especially in respect to what some of the great guitar stylists do. (I still have a strong tendency to "over scale" in my improvising when I don't really have a good musical thought - i.e. most of the time).

Another big part is how you hold the instrument (or posture). There are several variables in this, but take note of how Django and Wes held their guitars - pretty much with the neck almost parallel to the floor. It's nearly impossible (if not impractical) to work through the Leavitt system like this. Of course there are exceptions (Tal Farlow comes to mind - I understand he had really big hands). The neck down approach is naturally more limiting and hence could lead to more of a guitar style. It also involves having to use a tilted left (fingering) hand technique. The neck up postion - more like a classical posture - is more suited to a variety of fingerings all over the neck. Also the left hand can use more of a perpendicular or right angle approach, as well as a tilted left hand if so desired.

The lowered neck approach has a similar affect has tilting the neck up but holding the body of the instrument lower instead of up closer to the chest.

In summary:
3 finger approach and posture - stylistically limiting but perhaps more musically compelling.
4 finger approach and posture - probably more adaptable to more music.

One more thing in closing - It's pretty difficult if not impossible to get far with a new approach, technique, style, whatever, without giving yourself over to it totally, as in leaving the old approach behind. The times I've had some success in learning a new style, I've done it by restricting myself to only that. If you're currently working steadily then trying to add a playing style that requires different techniques and fingerings, will likely be pretty frustrating.

When I Was A Kid...

...things were a lot simpler.

I first started getting serious about playing the guitar when I was about 17 around 1974. It seemed resources for learning guitar - especially popular music were pretty slim. Not to mention growing up in a small town didn’t really help matters on that account either. Other than buying sheet music arrangements for popular tunes, there wasn’t much in the way of tutorials around. If you wanted to learn popular or rock music accurately, by gosh you had to do it the old fashioned way - by ear.

My first instrument wasn’t guitar - it was cello and I had been indoctrinated into a formal way of learning classical instruments - even the Suzuki method was not popular yet - so there was very little “ear” playing experience for me. Consequently, all of my guitar playing peers and buddies were far ahead of me in the playing by ear department.

I remember the first time I saw a Guitar Player magazine. Holy cow, a magazine just for guitar players? I couldn’t believe it! A drummer friend of mine who also played guitar gave it to me. There was a lesson in there by Joe Pass. I memorized that little lesson and still use it to this day.

I also remember when to my knowledge the first accurate transcription of rock guitar soloing was published - the Led Zeppelin “Complete” songbook had solos by Jimmy Page actually written out. I seem to recall a general feeling at the time that blues and rock guitar soloing couldn’t really be notated. Yet magically someone had pulled it off.

Curiously, it seemed to me that most of my local guitar playing buddies had an attitude that if someone learned a piece of music by reading it instead of by ear they were somehow cheating. Just seemed like a means to an end to me. How else was I going to learn “Mood For A Day” by Yes’ Steve Howe? Heck I was just starting on guitar. And, there was no guitar arrangement available. I ended up learning it off of a combination of reading a piano reduction on sheet music and listening to the recording. Piano reductions with little guitar chord grids above the legit notation was the popular way of publishing at that time. Leave it to music publishers to take a solo guitar piece and publish it as a piano reduction. Ah, 1974.

With the proper tutelage I came to better understand how music composition worked and what to listen for and gradually after much practice got pretty good at learning songs by ear. Definitely something every guitarist should do. It’s turned out to be handy to have as many tactics for learning as I could get together.

I guess what I’m getting to is that now, there is a virtual flood of guitar information available. How in the world is any 17 year old supposed to wade through all that’s available and figure out what’s worth spending time on on their own? It was easy for me, there practically wasn’t any. Problem solved!

I brought in some recent issues of Guitar Player magazine to my teaching studio recently and had one of my students pick one for himself. It’s been weeks now - he hasn’t even looked at it. I wonder if when he does, will he find a timeless treasure that he uses for a lifetime like I did when I was his age, or will it be one more piece of information overload he doesn’t select to absorb?

Self Taught

What does it mean when people claim to be “self taught”? I’ve heard this from and about musicians of all calibers throughout the years. I think non-musicians may have a different view of what it means than musicians do.

A lot of the world’s greatest musicians have claims of being self taught. It applies all the way from world class musicians from the past. I’ve heard that such classical music luminaries as guitarist Andres Segovia and cellist Pablo Casals were self taught as well as Eric Clapton, your “uncle who can play anything” and that kid that lives on your street who’s starting a garage band. Yet what do we find when we look deeper?

Eric Clapton reported to Guitar Player Magazine in 1970 that “The way I learned to play was, I picked up the guitar and pieced together a chord out of the sounds without knowing they were chords that had names like E and A. I was inventing those things when I first started to play.” It’s not something that seems that unusual to me. I think a lot of musicians, guitarists in particular, do a lot of experimentation. Maybe it’s the nature of the instrument.

Both Segovia and Casals had some formal study if only for a short while and sometimes on different instruments than than the ones they were famous for. One of the key elements of these outstanding musicians, as true now as then, is originality. They both made major original breakthroughs in music by assessing the current state of their respective instruments and finding new and better ways to do things.

In the case of Segovia, among other breakthroughs, he introduced they idea of using the right hand fingernails to get a bigger tone. No classical guitarist today would even consider playing without nails but yet until he saw the need and addressed it, it was uncommon. He also asked for bigger guitars and better strings. Seems pretty obvious now, but he had enough influence, insight, and originality to ask for those things and get them.

Where would our current crop of rock guitarists be without Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, etc.? Listening to these past guitar heroes now, the uninitiated may wonder, what’s so special about those cats? The thing is, the styles they brought to the table were original at the time, and so well liked, that now there influence is ubiquitous and taken for granted.

Everyone has influences and early on, musicians tend to mimic their heroes. I used to joke that I learned to play from Billy Gibbons of Z.Z. Top. Never having had the honor of meeting the man however, I made do with learning from his recordings. Wes Montgomery studied and memorized the solos of Charlie Christian - yet later on he managed to develop his own style. When Chet Atkins was getting started in the record business he was told he sounded too jazzy - his early influences included the original gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt - yet Atkins turned things around for himself devoting himself to creating and developing a new style of playing (based on a different artist - Merle Travis).

Wes and Chet, Hendrix, Page, Clapton and probably Billy Gibbons too, were undoubtedly all self taught (as were their main influences Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt) yet they had to learn from somewhere, if only by observation. Clapton recounts “I did a lot of listening—particularly to blues. I never took lessons, but I always wanted to jam a lot.” Jamming can be thought of as a trial and error means of learning and something that goes on a lot in music that is traditionally improvised to some degree like blues and jazz. A form of discovery and self-teaching.

We listen, we observe, we get together and trade licks and information with our friends, and read and apply articles from guitar magazines, from the web, etc. If we have the benefit of formal lessons from competent instructors then all the better. In a way all of my students over the years have all been self taught. Some learned a lot and still others learned little. I’ve just given them information and tried to open their eyes to possibilities. Led the horse to water if you will. If anything was actually learned they’ve done it all themselves. Plus they’re the ones who got the ball rolling with guitar lessons.

Is anyone self taught? In a way both everyone is and no one is. No one is because no man is an island, we all work from our influences to some degree, but in the end, everyone is because it’s all up to the individual.

Unexpected Influences

They come from all over. Sometimes it’s a performance. Sometimes you know right away. Sometimes it takes some looking back.

Once when I was probably somewhere between the ages of 17 or 18 (around 1974-75) the local university (NSU of Louisiana) sponsored a concert featuring the Buddy Rich Big Band. Everyone had heard of the famous Buddy Rich and I was anticipating the concert with great excitement. It was really a good experience for me - I had never seen anything like that before. The way he worked his playing into the arrangements was so exciting! And the way he connected the tunes to each other setting up segues so that the music didn’t stop. The tunes just flowed right into each other. Around that time I was starting to get passionate about guitar playing and being unfamiliar with big band jazz I was anxious to see if they had a guitarist and what his role might be.

There was a little guy with a big guitar and when his turn came to solo - wow! The notes came out of the guitar like it was on fire. Long phrases of incendiary lines but with none of the rock sounds I was used to hearing. Who was this guy? No one I knew had any idea. What I did know was that I had never seen or heard anything like that before and it introduced me to a whole different way to think about guitar and music.

I can imagine the band rolling from town to town playing hundreds of these little gigs on campuses everywhere never giving a thought to much else besides making it through this gig and heading for the next. What they probably never imagined is the impact they may have on one person and what a difference it can make, even at a university or a whole community.

To my delight when I graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 1980 who was on stage to shake my hand and give me my diploma? Along with composer John Williams, it was Buddy Rich! Yes!

Years later in my forties, I discovered the music of a guitarist Jimmy Bruno. As I learned more about him, I found out he had played with The Buddy Rich Big Band. It was him! He was the guy tearing it up in the Buddy Rich band when I was a kid! When Jimmy Bruno started his Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute (JBGI) a few years ago, an online approach to guitar study, I was eager to see what I could learn from him. In that first round of study, I stayed with it for only about 3 months, but in that time I learned critical information that I now incorporate into my playing all the time, and also share with my own students. My students at the university. Where the Buddy Rich Big Band played. So long ago. When I was seventeen.

I guess one of the morals of this story is when you’re performing, whether you’re touring the country or just playing locally, your never know who you’ll influence or what that will lead to. So try to be your best whenever you perform.

I’ve had a whole host of influences, and there are many people I need to say thank you to. In this case - thank you Jimmy Bruno. Your dedication has personally affected me and those I influence as well.