week 7

This week at the studio i was practicing the chords for my sixty’s piece "house of the rising sun" by The Animals on the piano and the organ they have at the studio.  My tutor wasn’t in this week so he had somebody to hold the fort while he was away touring like u do when ur a musician. I felt that i had learnt a lot with this guy who was filling in for my tutor. My tutor had introduced me before to him during the earlier sessions and i knew he would be a useful asset to my training to help me finish my practicing for the song however once we started writing down the actual lyrics and understanding the song we played it over and over again in till i eventually managed to nail the piece of music however there is still more practice to be done with remembering the notes for the track when we record our music takes and this is what i shall do at home with my midi keyboard and amp.    




the original piece of lyrics that we first posted wernt correct however me and the other lad filling in took a listen to the lyrics and found out that some of the words were not correct so we looked at the fist piece of lyrics and changed them. Below are the correct lyrics  

HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN (LYRICS)

Am          C           D     F

There is a house in New Orleans

Am              C        E7

They call the Rising Sun

Am                    C         D                 F

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

Am           E            Am          E7

And God I know I'm one

My mother was a tailor

She sewed my new bluejeans

My father was a gamblin' man

Down in New Orleans

Now the only thing a gambler needs

Is a suitcase and trunk

And the only time he's satisfied

Is when he's drunk

------ SOLO ------  (ROLLED NOTES)

Oh mother tell your children

Not to do what I have done

Spend your lives in sin and misery

In the House of the Rising Sun

Well, I got one foot on the platform

The other foot on the train

I'm goin' back to New Orleans

To wear that ball and chain

Well, there is a house in New Orleans

They call the Rising Sun

And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy

And God I know I'm one

------ OUTRO ------

Week 6 Choosing a 60s song

"we had a discussion about what song we wanted to do in the 60's. I had some ideas about a band called budgie who did a song called bread fan but I found out it was recorded in 1971 - I liked it because there was lots of effects and effects and panning in the speaker which was cool sometimes. We started looking at youtube at some possibilities. We looked at  the Kinks, The Beach boys. I learnt that the beach boys had been very influenced in their studio work by the beatles (Sargent peppers). I didn't want to do those tracks though because theyt weren't enough of a challenge and didn't really interest mre that much. I suggested the Animals and we looked at 'House of the rising sun' ot grabbed me because there was lots of organ playing. I  found that 60s stuff is more relaxed and passive than the 50s stuff weve been doing. It'll certainly be a different ride"

here are the chords and words

House of the rising sun

      Am    C        D          F
There is a house in New Orleans,
      Am        C      E7
They call the "Rising Sun",
      Am       C       D           F
It's been the ruin of many a poor girl, (boys?)
     Am     E        Am    E7
And God, I know, I'm one.

My mother was a tailor,
She sewed those new blue jeans,
my husbend he's a gambling man,
(drinks) down in New Orleans.

My husbend in a gambler,
He goes from town to town,
The only time, he's satisfied, is when
He drinks his liquor down.

Oh, mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done -
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of Rising Sun

One foot on the platform,
The other's on the train,
I'm going back to New Orleans,
to wear that ball and chain.

Going back to New Orleans,
My race is almost run,
I'm going to spend the rest of my life,
Beneath that "Rising Sun".

Week 5-recording the vocals

This week me and my tutor recorded down the vocals which were fairly easy as i knew the lyrics off by heart but it took several takes before we got down a fantastic take afterwards we played around with and added some affects that being we used compressions reverbs and EQs however still we were limited down to 2 tracks as in the 50s.  Finally after mixing everything down together it was time to get our record by any means necessary. Unfortunately we didn't have a record scratcher but who would? So we saved it to a memory stick to try and burn it on a cd however i got home and tried but it wouldn't let me so on my next session i will see if i can get my record scratched to a cd. The session went really well and i thurally enjoyed singing "hound dog" it was a privilege to sing one of the kings greatest rock en roll hits it was nice basic and so simple to sing. So if you happen to do the fifties as any music project id recommend some Elvis?  Also as well as patting myself on the back for working hard towards the project I'd like to thank my tutor and the studio owner for putting their input in the song and i would be honoured to play with them again for our future hits so thanks guys. I believe that ive learnt an awful lot of history of music from this project and i can't wait in till we start our next project THE 60S!         

Click HERE the to hear the tune!

Week 4 - tidying up backing track

last week on the 50s track for  which we did a cover version of elvis hound dog we saved the track we recorded onto the computer. This wasn't what would happen in the 50's but we did it for a couple of reasons. Being firstly we'd needed to be able to put it on a CD or tape and we'd needed to be able to take it to other places to edit or mix - this is because there are problems with travel and I might not be able to make it to the studio so we might have to move. We played around with EQ's that means that we can effect different frequencies. You can alter sound to make it more clear to listen to and balanced. I started to use the original 50s method using a mixing desk but it was difficult to understand EQ this way so we used a computer because you could see visually how you effected the track.  After we Eq'd we had to balance the instruments on different tracks so they sounded good together. This was because we could only use two to three tracks (because thats what they had in the 50's) so we had to edit or record those three tracks down to one track (mix them together) so we could have a track free to put the vocals on.

I  enjoyed starting to understand how EQ's worked but I still struggle to get it completely - we need to work on it more. I was getting to a point where I could understand it but it then slipped away from me. I wanted to do it but couldn't understand it. When I thought I was close it turned out I wasn't. It was a little frustrating.

The whole day went really well - it got the track mixed down ready for the vocals.