Karaoke Forums

It seems that often a thing that distinguishes one pop song from another is some kind of musical hook phrase.  Writing a new hook is something that makes tons of money. I once talked to Marv Ross (a Portland area guy, who wrote Quarterflash's "Harden My Heart") about this.  It's a very calculated song writing trick but it's true, sad that that's all it takes, but true!  

"I have no idea what people will have to endure in music in 2020, but if the  trend continues, "subpar" musicians and vocalists will be more at home on the cover of a fashion mag. than on stage doing live performances.  I cringe at the thought of working with some of these guys in a studio!"

Oh man, that sure is true Mike!  LOL  Very well put!

Morning Steven and Odie,
Steven, I agree with you 100%. I  believe perfect pitch is something a person is born with.  I dont claim to have perfect pitch, I can however tell if some instrument or voice is not on pitch.  I think my ear has become accustomed to listening for pitch problems over the years.  I have spent my life involved with music in one capacity or another and I think, yes, a person can develop a keen sense of hearing where pitch problems are easily detected.  When a person can hear pitch it will make them cringe when they hear an instrument out of tune or a voice that is not quite reaching a note. My daughter is an all region french horn player and I have spent countless hours working with her and trying to help her improve her ear to hear pitch.  When you are having to rely on your ear to lip up or down, or pull or push a slide, to reach notes on pitch, things can get touchy.  She has begun to hear her mistakes really well and I think she is well on her way to being able to achieve some greater measure of success as a musician.  lol Not sure she will ever acquire the techniques of circular breathing, which by the way, is becoming a new wave in the music industry.  I attended the TMA (Texas Music Association) convention in San Antonio last July and they were having workshops for band directors on circular breathing.  The idea is to help young musicians be able to gain enough air to be able to play 8 measures without breathing. (something many young musicians struggle with, especially on a marching field).   Back to pitch, even though I can hear pitch in musicians whether it be band, orchestra, or individual performers, I have never had the problem of cringing when the clock strikes because it pitch is off of A-440! I can't imagine living with that horror! It does drive me crazy if my guitar is slightly out of tune!  Even the slightest departure from perfect, drives me crazy until I fix the problem.  Fortunately for me, my Les Paul stays in tune really well.  

Don,  barring total abstraction, Where there's melodic flow within any structured compositional framework, chords are already implied. Music styles most of us in western cultures are familiar with follows set progressions,  predictable movement, resolution, and cadence.. where there's a foundation, structure exists in most cases, meaning chords often imply melodic improvisational content and vice versa. Point being in certain styles there are very limited choices regarding underlying chords..  Little creativity is involved in solving this type construction puzzle..

I agree with you again Steven. In our culture, if one can learn the framework of chord structures, a person can pretty well play with anyone at anytime.  The melodic flow, chord progressions, resolution and cadence, for the most part, to me, puts a box around the musician.  This is good and bad. For the jazz musician, improvisation becomes easier because you know to just play within the framework and you are going to be ok. That  is why we had it pounded into our heads to know our scales! The other side of the coin involves the creativity to step outside of the norm and produce something unusual and excitingly, creatively, original. I dont know about you, but I feel constently compelled to work within the framework I had pounded into me.  Never forget the I- IV - V progressions.  Somehow, I don't think a composition would be accepted in our society if it did not follow our traditional melodic format. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems anything that steps outside of the norm, is rejected by the powers that be, the gods of the music world dont smile on it, and the composer would be criticized as less than knowledgable of both theory and practice.  What happens to me, is lyrics will come to me and I will begin singing the lyrics to a tune that seems to build within me. Suddenly I am singing my lyrics to the tune of some other country song! That just frustrates the heck out of me! I wad up my piece of paper and toss the whole thing in the trash and just go back to doing covers! --Mike

WOW,  French horn (single or double F) are the TOUGHEST horns I've ever tried to get a sound out've.. Very small mouthpiece and those are TOUGH horns to blow !!! Kudo's to your daughter for taking up such a challenge....  Beautiful sounding horns, but I never was able to play one.

Mike,  unfortuneatey I've accepted that my pitch matching skills are starting to decline.  Now while I too am a stickler for properly tuned guitars.. Lately getting my telecaster (on the bridge PU) to sound in tune has become an arduous task.... No other guitar I find as tough to tune as the tele on bridge pickup...  btw, you were discussing Rick's before.. they are amazing guitars, I wasn't aware just how versatile the 330 and 360 six string thinlines were until I played and heard an old bandmates.They aren't just the "twangy" Roger McGuinn sounding guitars by any means..These guitars possess the full spectrum of sounds and can kick up some real bottom too !!!... Gorgeous guitars.  I've played and loved the 4001 and 4003 Rickenbacker bass guitars.  I called to buy a rick 6 string in fact 3 years back but something scared me.. Ricks as of the past 5 years or-so have hade a "no return" policy  (for any reason)..  I never could figure out why this would be.  Do you have any idea why most rick catalogs have been stating "No returns on Rickenbacker guitars for any reason" ?  I DID in fact want to add one to my collection but I do like to have the option of returning an instrument if something is wrong with it assuming I mail order it.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Steven, I am not sure where you have been looking for the Rickenbackers.  Musiciansfriend and SamAsh both carry them and they have a return policy for them.  The Rickenbacker warranty says their guitars cover everything except the finish for 5 years and the finish is covered for 1 year.  The same goes for the actual Rickenbacker site.  I do know that Guitar Center is no longer carrying Rickenbacker, according to Rickenbacker, because Guitar Center is more involved or geared to the sell of mass produced instruments.  Rickenbacker states that since their instruments are still hand made and take a lot more time to produce than other guitars, they are more suited to the small type of music store.  They did say that they were going to continue to do business with Musiciansfriend because of a long standing relationship that works for their company.  I am sure you could order from Musicians friend, Sam Ash, or go directly to Rickenbacker and find what you are looking for.  Sam Ash says anyone ordering a Rickenbacker needs to understand they are ordering a special order that will take time to produce and ship.  Apparently they are not into mass production of models for showroom use or display in stores. I can tell you the Rickenbacker I played on was one of the best feeling guitars I have ever touched. I loved the neck on that Ric.  

Yeah, my daughter has been playing french horn now for seven years and has become quite good at it. Her uncle, my youngest brother is her band director.  I agree, the french horn is very difficult to play for all the reasons you listed. She plays the single not the double, still it is not an easy instrument to play.  

If I allow myself to be around a lot of ambient noise for one reason or another, I find that pitch is hard for me to distinguish.  I do much better when I have desensitized myself to sound and then I can once again hear what I want to hear. I also have found that I am much more able to hear things at lower volumes than I used to at loud volumes! I think I am finally getting old!  Something happend when I turned 51 that began to slow me down a bit! --Mike

Thanks Mike,   I probably have a few of the older mail order catalogs around someplace.. I'll see if I can dig them up and reference what it was I saw, or perhaps even misunderstood regarding Rickenbackers. I'm going to start looking again because the necks are amazing, and they are nice guitars as mentioned..

I'm learning slowly to accept that with aging, certain limitations exist.  Not much I can do about my hearing sensitivity beginning to leave, and arthritis so I don't throw tantrums about such things. I no longer compare pitch matching scores with the 20 year olds, to do-so would be masochistic  LMAO .  Steve Vai admitted that in his 30's his dexterity was no longer what it was when he was younger, so who am I to complain (at my age) that my "Alvin Lee" chops are now gone..hehe

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Hi Steven! It has been a busy morning. We are finishing up the 3rd six weeks, ending the first semester and trying to get all of the bookwork, grades, etc. taken care of before our deadline ends.  Most of  the schools in our area do not have school on Monday, so we are getting a 3 day weekend.  I, for one, am certainly looking forward to it!

I agree, the necks on the rickenbackers are the best feeling neck I think I have ever found on a guitar, and that is saying a lot since I love my Les Paul like I do.  You can actually order from the rickenbacker site: www.rickenbacker.com.  Rickenbacker is now boasting of being the only hand made guitars being built in the U.S. so it does take longer to get one if you make a purchase.  I think the wait is worth it though.

I find that I am not so much having trouble with loss of hearing so much as I am dealing, as you are, with some arthritis in the fingers.  I was talking to my wife over lunch today about this. I told her that I have this fear of waking some morning to find that I cannot play my guitar anymore.  This would totally devastate me.  I find a lot of peace and comfort and I can soothe my rough edges with a guitar in my hands.  I don't know what I would do if I could not play anymore.  I have noticed I don't have the speed I once had and my index finger on the left hand most always has some pain when moved certain directions.  Thank God for extra light strings, finger ease, and Les Paul! Hey, a guy has to do what he has to do once he gets a little older! I will turn 52 in July.  I told my wife not to try to put candles on the cake because she might set the house on fire! Certainly the icing will melt off the cake with that much heat going on!  The arthritis seems to be my greatest enemy of the stage at the present.  It amazes me when I listen to Bill, my fiddle player. The guy is 80 and still has very acute hearing.  I would put his playing up against any one. The guy may be old, but he has, I think, in the last few years, evolved into one of the great fiddle players of all time.  He certainly has a lifetime of pro experience behind him.  Usually, and I have noticed it in other men who take the stage, once they reach 60 or 70, they do seem to have noticeable hearing loss. Pitch seems to go right out the door. They struggle to hear rhythms and to play in tune.  Bill just does not seem to show any signs of slowing down. He is really amazing to me. I hope my hearing will last as long has his has. --Mike

Mike,

  Have that exact same problem,  in fact I shamefully had to drop to my own custom gauge which is

.008- .010- .013- .024- .032- .042

on the Gibsons (since the neck is shorter than Fender teles and strats) I can still work with my wide finger vibrato technique using .009's however on longer scale necks wide finger vibrato rock technique gets tougher due to greater tension on the strings..  I also block tremolo feature in all guitars.. I don't want that.. Just finger vibrato.. But the lighter strings despite statements such as "How to you get any tone out've extra slinky gauge strings" ? (from other guitarists on the internet) are a MUST.  My response is usually "you should hear my tone when I have 010's"
(What should be a chord is often dampening the strings instead)

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

As you know,  especially as a teacher who deals with kids, in life there are certain facts that WE DO not ruminate about because to do-so only becomes a source of masochism.. "What if I can no longer play my instrument" falls into such a category !  We do NOT allow our minds to go there !!!

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Hey, musicians. At what age do you think is too old to do anything vocally?

Sing because you want to.  Sing because you need to.  If you need think you need permission, don't bother.

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Okay, who took my pants?

Hey kameragurl, I think the age that is too old to sing is when you are dead!  My fiddle player is in his 80's and still has an incredible ear for pitch, tempo, and adds so much to my shows.  I don't want to think about him not being on stage with me.  I know he is not singing and your question related to singing, but,  a person can still be very talented late in life.--Mike

Thank you, Mike. I recorded 2 albums worth of songs I bought a while back; not my original songs but they were original songs by Independent record labels. They were never turned into full albums due to incompetant record label folks that took my money and never gave me a finished product. I was one of the best singers they had. They finished albums for some really bad singers, but not for me. Now those songs are so old that I won't do them any more. I recorded them in 2001. Now I don't have the funds to do it like I had then. I like country mostly.

I was a back-up singer for a guy that lives in the Beaumont,Texas are on an album but, that was it.

Ooops I meant Beaumont,Texas area.

Mike,

   Have you dabbled in any of the Guitaroke backings ?  I'd be curious as to what is out there..

   Also, Don, Mike, or anyone (for that matter),  ever tried one of the Epiphone EBO bass models ?  I'm curious as to how close it comes to the older classic Gibson EBO basses, yet don't have access to try one.

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Charmin,

   Any guitar news ??

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

Hi Steven, I had a few minutes to pop in this afternoon and saw your post.  I have not listened to  any of the guitaroke tracks.  I am aware that they exist, I have even seen a few on the shelves in stores, but I have not had any dealings with them at all.  Once I thought I might buy one just to see what they were like, but for some reason, and I can't remember what that was, I just did not buy one.  I have heard that some people like them, and some don't.  Those who dont like them said that the tracks deviate to far from the original versions to be enjoyable. I have also heard that the quality of the tracks is not very good.  This is all hear say though. I just have not listened to them for myself.  I also have not had any dealings with the Epiphone EBO bases.  Seems like I am not much help today! --Mike

I found this interesting.  MF picked up Mars ?



I liked Mars,  did some ordering with them


How does this work,  GUitar center is the parent company ? and MF just a mail order branch set up as a separate business ?  Because GC also has their own flyers and catalogs..

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

A situation something similar happened to a couple of companies here in my area. A friend of mine's dad along with 2 other associates opened a music company several years ago.  They ultimately became the largest company to do business with owning music stores all across Texas.  After my friend's dad had a heartattack, he decided to retire and my friend took over his dad's part of the company.  Interesting enough, the other 2 business partners decided to retire and give their sons their respective shares.  The business continued to grow and prosper.  One day, the three decided to sell out to a major music company out of, I believe Dallas, and then work for the new company running their prospective stores for the new owners.  Needless to say, the big business of music stores in my area deals with band and orchestra's and the school systems.  The new company did not provided the quality of service the school band directors were accustomed to and went to my friend and asked him to open another store and once again provide the service they once did.  My friend, by now, was somewhat upset at the way the new company had turned all he and his father as well as business associates had built.  It did not take much for him to make a decision to open a new store.  My brother was a big help to him because of the thousands of dollars he spends with him each year.  My brother as a high school director basically was able to help get our  friend started in the new  business.  It was not long until all the local band and orchestra directors refused to do business with the original company and started doing business with my friend's new business. My friend, with 2 stores, literally drove a major music company out of West Texas and into bankrupcy.  My friend actually went back to the guys who had bought his business from him and bought his old stock and buildings etc back.  This would have been easier to tell if I felt good about naming company names but I hope this makes some kind of sense.  What I am getting at is sometimes, service after a sell will determine the longlivity of a business, especially a music store or company. --Mike