Hi Willem,
It's not quite a song yet, but I think there is a song in me about going to music camps. Here is some context.
Probably like a lot of others, I have hundreds of charts and tabs from Neil (and other sources) that I struggle to organize. I have several binders. And I did once attend a music camp with a suitcase (small overhead bin size) full of songs that I don't know how to play.
The food at IGC was excellent. I thought every meal was great. Todd, the cook, was fantastic. (He did make a comment that we had drunk a record amount of coffee.) On the other hand, I have been to music camps and family camps and youth camps where the food is at best bland, and usually pretty bad with soggy oatmeal, make your own sandwiches for lunch, and poorly cooked pasta, etc. Sometimes, these camps are in rural areas and the cooks and caretakers seem to be recovering addicts.
At most music camps, the instructors have CDs and books to sell. But, I have been to music camps where some of the students are aspiring musicians and have products for sale, also.
If students are flying into these camps, they sometimes bring an old guitar. But if they drive, they sometimes bring very expensive fancy guitars and often have better instruments than some of the instructors. Al Stewart just has one guitar. Some of the students at camp had been on the Santa Cruz factory tour. And all of us heard from Richard hoover of Santa Cruz guitars about the advantages of getting a custom built guitar that cost more than what I paid for my first car.
So, anyway, the lyrics in the song in the video were something like:
" I am Jim from Cupertino and I have been to music camps,
I have eaten soggy oatmeal breakfasts cooked by recovering meth-heads,
Now I go to IGC and drink record amounts of coffee.
And I bring a custom made guitar, that is better than Al Stewart's,
And I have a suitcase full of charts that I don't know how to play,
I hope you like my song, a little confection.
You can get it on CD in the student product section,
and a verse I didn't sing:
I can tell you the difference between dorian and mixolydian,
but my playing is worse than a nixonian pterodactyl."
some context for the last verse: I really appreciated the time with Al Stewart. He talked extensively about songwriting. His approach to songwriting is to use language that people normally don't use or expect.
He said, in every song, you should use the word pterodactyl. He also sang a country song with lots of curse words, but substituted "nixon" wherever a curse word appears.
I was definitely inspired by Al Stewart!
Thanks for your interest and questions,
We missed you at the camp! Neil needs to do one in Europe.
willem wrote:
Thanks Jim,,seen it now,,its a long way to the Dutch I guess,,,can you put up the lyrics from your song....
:cheer: B)
Willem
:cheer: