Busking Decemberists

Hydroman52
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Thu May 12, 2011 1:30 pm

Hey everyone,

Thanks for responding.

Marc, Jerry will be pleased to hear your comment on the slides. He works hard on that stuff. We’re still working on the ahhhhhh whoooooooooos and, for some reason (duh!), my dog gets all agitated when I try it at home. The headphones are mostly to get the drum beat in my ears. Otherwise, I lose it in everything else that’s going on. The guitar that I normally use (an older, road-worn Charles Hoffman Dreadnaught) is more of a bluegrass guitar designed to be loud and cut through other instruments. A lot of the time, it covers up the drums for me. Putting on the headphones keeps me hearing the drums in the front. Then Jerry mixes the guitar down to the correct volume through the PA.

Craig, Glad you like The Decemberists. This is the album that put them on my regular play list.

Andy, Thanks for the “Willie/Dead” comment. I’m not sure if this is Jerry’s goal, but it’s really good feedback.

Suzi, The opening riff . . . . . . . so simple and so easy to do. Why can’t I do it well? It’s easy to figure out, but for some reason, I can’t play it clean. And the baseball grip is intentional. If you watch closely, you will see that I am muting bass strings with my thumb. To my ears, it sounds better when two adjacent strings are picked instead of just single notes/strings. When I play this song, I get a bit over excited due to the energy that comes out of it, and my pick starts flying around a little too much (sloppy?). No matter how much I try to tighten it up and be more accurate, when the energy builds, the pick begins misbehavin’ and beats up on other strings. I’ve just accepted the fact that it happens and rest the thumb there to keep them quiet as best I can. It’s a work in progress. Thanks for the other nice comments.

Daryl, Daryl? Is that really you? Face looks the same, but different stage name? Are the cops after you for something? HA! I always like playing in a band. Many more possibilities. Takes the pressure off, too. Thanks for listening.

MarkM, On the drums . . . . . I did spend a lot of time on this track. Most of it was learning about the program and learning about the drums. To answer your question, I built everything from scratch and there is no looping. I wanted to get as close to the actual performance as possible, and that meant that every verse, chorus, and transition had something unique about it. I wanted my robot drummer to sound less like a robot, and, to do that, I felt the time was well spent to keep all that stuff in there. That being said, there are lots of things that can be done to expedite the process. First off, I started to build it one note/beat/hit (whatever you want to call it) at a time until I had some basic patterns constructed. Once I had built a basic pattern for the verse or chorus, I was able to copy and paste it in the place of its subsequent occurrences. Then all I would have to do was tweak those verses to make them unique . . . . very similar to spicing up your guitar playing from verse to verse on the fly or as you might edit in GuitarPro. Since I am not a drummer, it took me a while to figure out how to get the patterns that I was creating to sound like (or close enough to) the actual sounds that I was hearing. Another thing that helped was to scribble out a quick storyboard as a guide. This helped me to visualize and quickly locate the patterns in the song. As I gain more experience, I will probably need this less. Here are examples:

Drum storyboard example

Drum storyboard example - detail

This song is also where I learned how to change things quickly. Last night, we were practicing a song, and the drum track wasn’t right. As I recall, we agreed that the changes went something like:
1. Slow the tempo by 6 Bpm
2. Lower the volume on the ride cymbal
3. Add punch to the bass drum in the chorus
4. Change snare drum pattern on all transitions
5. Add crash cymbal to every other transition
We were able to do the changes and reload the finished product into the JamMan for playback right in the middle of our practice session. Like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get at it.

Hope I answered all questions. All your feedback is valuable to us. Thanks again, everyone.

Hydroman52


Hydroman52
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Wed Oct 16, 2013 10:59 pm

Okay, this is a cover of a Decemberists song, Down By The Water, that our group performed for the first time in public at a party at a local winery. We were playing in a large tent outside after dark, and there wasn'’t enough light with our meager equipment to shoot decent video. But I did have my digital audio recorder running and got this. I typed in some of the things I was thinking while editing it so there’s more than a blank screen to watch. I did leave the banter with the audience in, because I consider it part of the entertainment, too. We have learned that you need to be able to keep the crowd engaged when things go wrong between songs.

At our break between sets, The Decemberists songs were the ones that received the most comments as I mingled with the crowd. All comments were good. They’'ll probably sell another million copies of their album, The King Is Dead, because of all this.

Oh, and I also wanted to say that the lesson on this song at the TotallyGuitars.com site accelerated my ability to take this from a “"Hey, there's a song I’'d like to play" to a full blown, full band performance song in a short period of time. I don’'t care too much for advertising, but do believe in giving credit where credit is due.

Hope you'’re able to get something out of it.

Hydroman52



PLEASE NOTE: If video was recently uploaded it will not work yet. YouTube will need a little more time to get the video ready. Please check back again soon.


michelew
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Location: Sydney, Australia
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Thu Oct 17, 2013 3:34 am

Well I REALLY enjoyed that Hydro. You've got a great sound, all three of you, that really suits Decemberist songs. The feeling was just perfect, made up lyrics and all :)

Bassman Jerry's harp is awesome!

You absolutely cracked me up with the commentary too. :) it's a good thing I wasn't drinking a cuppa or I'd have showered my keyboard.

Brilliant! Thanks for posting.

Shel

Hey did you know there's a ambient electronic funk instrumental hip hop band from Manchester called Phat Acrobat too? (I'm putting the key words together here (went to type keywords, typed keyboards???))


thereshopeyet
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Thu Oct 17, 2013 9:32 am

Hey Hydro

Good job..... say..... talk about FOTW thoughts.....you think a lot :dry: ?
It's amazing you've got time to play !!!

Dermot

:laugh: :laugh:


dekotaj
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Thu Oct 17, 2013 9:41 am

Bravo Hydro!!

Sounds like you folks are getting the hang of playing for others. SURE wish we could have had a little Video ( bad lighting what a bummer ). Maybe next time??

Thanks for sharing.
Kev


BobR
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Thu Oct 17, 2013 11:31 am

Hydro,

Very nicely done. Too bad about no video but I must say your commentary was so funny it didn't matter :laugh:

Thanks for posting this non-video :P

Bob


RicksPick
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Thu Oct 17, 2013 1:43 pm

I enjoyed that , thanks
Comments were priceless :laugh:

I still listen to your upload of Don't Carry It All, well the audio.

RicksPick


lueders
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Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:17 pm

Hey there...Rick...alias Hydro-man...alias Phat Acrobat front man...that was sounding
tight!! The fact that there was no video just be may tune all the more to just HOW tight a three piece you fellas are/are becoming. (well, except when I wasn't laughing at your Pop-up Video style musings and miscellaneous factoids!! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: )

GREAT JOB!!!!! Glad you escaped the child from the corn or "Leave it to Cleaver" or whoever he was...lol ;) :silly:


cosmicmechanic
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Mon Oct 21, 2013 1:20 am

Hello Hydro,

I love this song, and since looking at the lyrics, I'm surprised to discover that it's all about plumbing issues of a seaside town. :blink:

Not knocking that ... gotta fill your cup. Even by the old main drag B)

Top notch post !!

Pierre


willem
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Joined: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:53 am
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Mon Oct 21, 2013 8:15 am

Very cool Rick...has the band a name!!!

W.


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