Re: ... And They're All On These Boards!! (Half a Million Nerds)
Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 3:24 pm
Hooray! Balance is restored!ElaineDiMasi wrote:Rabid Garfunkel - Worst entry of the fight.
Novum Stercore Non Vetus
https://songfight.net/forums/
Hooray! Balance is restored!ElaineDiMasi wrote:Rabid Garfunkel - Worst entry of the fight.
Oh, I'm totally all about balance!Rabid Garfunkel wrote:Hooray! Balance is restored!ElaineDiMasi wrote:Rabid Garfunkel - Worst entry of the fight.
Too bad. Maybe next time.ElaineDiMasi wrote:
Steve Durand - Sounds like you knew what you wanted and executed it fine, but it's not charming me.
You make arranging sound easy, and I know that it's not. I wanted just a snippet of horn sound for City in Fog that would say "big band", I had the horn sounds ready, then realized I had no idea what chords to use to make it sound like I'm not a keyboard player. I played in school bands forever too (oboe etc), so it was a real downer to feel so clueless! I was in Boston a couple weeks ago and walked out of the Berklee bookstore with a book on jazz arranging in hand. Maybe get a chance to page through it and do some of the exercises next week on vacation ... see if I can recognize the techniques you're using when they're all spelled out for me! (What? Well it's the nerd fight, I'm allowed to talk about studying...)Steve Durand wrote:Too bad. Maybe next time.ElaineDiMasi wrote: Steve Durand - Sounds like you knew what you wanted and executed it fine, but it's not charming me.
There's a lot of things going on in that song to hate but this is just a non sequitur that doesn't really have any relevance anywhere. There might be very little variation going on but that complaint doesn't hold water because it might not be getting delivered to you in your usual beautifully wrapped package with a pretty, intricately tied bow and instead its getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro, I'm here, deal with it and if you don't answer the door, its just gonna chill on your porch until you recognize whats going on because its not really going a lot of places if you hadn't noticed and if you never do acknowledge its existence, it'll probably get distracted by something else eventually and head off in some other direction through your bushes, but it was there, regardless, and if you didn't like it, you didn't like it, who likes cars driving up on their porches anyway, I don't know, but honk honk, come out from behind the sofa and tell the car its not pretty enough for your garage and you never want to sit in it in the daylight without coming up with excuses that aren't applicable because if you wait too long your bushes will get ruined and who wants ruined bushes? I mean, really.coder_lyte() wrote:I’m not a fan of music without cord progressions or harmony.
You remind me of someone I know.... *scratches chin* Nah, who am I kiddin. You do it much better.Chadderandom wrote:There's a lot of things going on in that song to hate but this is just a non sequitur that doesn't really have any relevance anywhere. There might be very little variation going on but that complaint doesn't hold water because it might not be getting delivered to you in your usual beautifully wrapped package with a pretty, intricately tied bow and instead its getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro, I'm here, deal with it and if you don't answer the door, its just gonna chill on your porch until you recognize whats going on because its not really going a lot of places if you hadn't noticed and if you never do acknowledge its existence, it'll probably get distracted by something else eventually and head off in some other direction through your bushes, but it was there, regardless, and if you didn't like it, you didn't like it, who likes cars driving up on their porches anyway, I don't know, but honk honk, come out from behind the sofa and tell the car its not pretty enough for your garage and you never want to sit in it in the daylight without coming up with excuses that aren't applicable because if you wait too long your bushes will get ruined and who wants ruined bushes? I mean, really.coder_lyte() wrote:I’m not a fan of music without cord progressions or harmony.
Nawmsayin?
I'm really becoming a fan of Chadderandom's posts. I adore the image of the junker chillin on my porch! But I don't mind being too, er, not present to get it without some kind of ribbon on top ... please, a beat that carries me along ... or a compelling vocal that I want to understand ... meanwhile, you're reminding me of this:Rone Rivendale wrote:You remind me of someone I know.... *scratches chin* Nah, who am I kiddin. You do it much better.Chadderandom wrote:... getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro, I'm here, deal with it and if you don't answer the door, its just gonna chill on your porchcoder_lyte() wrote:I’m not a fan of music without cord progressions or harmony.
Well, the vocals on my verses share some common problems with your Rattlesnake entry at least, since I kept fucking up on the rhythm and added the jaw harp, despite not planning on having any jaw harp in the song, after saying fuck it since I couldn't get what I wanted down after what seemed like half a million takes, I decided to make it more no wavey, so my vocals wouldn't seem so out of place. So I'd take no issue with anyone commenting on not liking that part of mess.Rone Rivendale wrote:You remind me of someone I know....
Man, I'll go cruising with you in your clunker. As long as it doesn't have a radio.Chadderandom wrote: instead its getting driven to you in a clunky, old beat up car thats seemingly making random noises and you want to hide in your house and pretend its not getting delivered but its driving straight up to your door and saying sup, bro
As Elaine already figured out, I was talking about your posting style in regards to accepting crits. But thanks for the pot shot anyway lol.Chadderandom wrote:Well, the vocals on my verses share some common problems with your Rattlesnake entry at least, since I kept fucking up on the rhythm and added the jaw harp, despite not planning on having any jaw harp in the song, after saying fuck it since I couldn't get what I wanted down after what seemed like half a million takes, I decided to make it more no wavey, so my vocals wouldn't seem so out of place. So I'd take no issue with anyone commenting on not liking that part of mess.Rone Rivendale wrote:You remind me of someone I know....
That is *exactly* what people say salvia divinorum is like!ElaineDiMasi wrote:Like a white snail the toilet slides into the livingroom, demanding to be loved.
It is impossible, and we tender our sincerest regrets.
In the book of the heart there is no mention made of plumbing.
And though we have spent our intimacy many times with you,
you belong to an unfortunate reference, which we would rather not embrace...
The toilet slides out of the livingroom like a white snail, flushing with grief.
- Russell Edson
Or how about this?
THE TAXI
—Russell Edson
One night in the dark I phone for a taxi. Immediately a taxi crashes through the wall; never mind that my room is on the third floor, or that the yellow driver is really a cluster of canaries arranged in the shape of a driver, who flutters apart, streaming from the windows of the taxi in yellow fountains...
Realizing that I am in the midst of something splendid I reach for the phone and cancel the taxi: All the canaries flow back into the taxi and assemble themselves into a cluster shaped like a man. The taxi backs through the wall, and the wall repairs...
But I cannot stop what is happening, I am already reaching for the phone to call a taxi, which is already beginning to crash through the wall with its yellow driver already beginning to flutter apart...
What? Well, it's the nerds thread. I'm allowed to jam poetry.
I love that! I really need to expand my brain beyond Family Guy. That Russell dude writes like I do here at the mighty SF when I've had too much coffee and/or LSD. Awesome!ElaineDiMasi wrote: THE TAXI
—Russell Edson
One night in the dark I phone for a taxi. Immediately a taxi crashes through the wall; never mind that my room is on the third floor, or that the yellow driver is really a cluster of canaries arranged in the shape of a driver, who flutters apart, streaming from the windows of the taxi in yellow fountains...
Realizing that I am in the midst of something splendid I reach for the phone and cancel the taxi: All the canaries flow back into the taxi and assemble themselves into a cluster shaped like a man. The taxi backs through the wall, and the wall repairs...
But I cannot stop what is happening, I am already reaching for the phone to call a taxi, which is already beginning to crash through the wall with its yellow driver already beginning to flutter apart...
I actually think that if you use keys for something that's actually supposed to sound like another instrument, in the end it will always feel like keys. If it's not the real instrument I can't really get into playing it the way it should be played on the real deal. When arranging, I go almost entirely by feeling (I don't really write the harmonies, either; I evolve them half in my head when writing the lyrics and half in the recording/mixing step), but that feeling is pretty much destroyed if I use keys. My guitar riffs, for example, develop spontaneously. I could never create an authentic guitar riff without a guitar.ElaineDiMasi wrote:I wanted just a snippet of horn sound for City in Fog that would say "big band", I had the horn sounds ready, then realized I had no idea what chords to use to make it sound like I'm not a keyboard player.
YMMV but I disagree with you. For a sound that's part of a background texture, I'm happy playing horn lines on a keyboard. It's the chords that give it away as a "keyboard" arrangement, if I would have played keyboard chords instead of the lines that make up a more realistic horn section. The point is that had I three horn players in the room, I wouldn't have been sure how to score their chords. And I am a woodwind player, but not a jazz player, so I could've wiped off the dust off my 20 yr old alto sax, and played a "real" sax solo with sucky tone and pitch and also not written the right lines. May as well use a keyboard if that's the alternative!jast wrote:I actually think that if you use keys for something that's actually supposed to sound like another instrument, in the end it will always feel like keys. ... My guitar riffs, for example, develop spontaneously. I could never create an authentic guitar riff without a guitar. So, in general, whenever possible I'd go for the real instrument (or something very close to it) as first choice, followed by programming the individual notes in software (currently in Reaper's MIDI editor), and finally playing it on an entirely different kind of instrument. On second thought, I guess I would simply not do that at all, unless I explicitly wanted to get the feeling of keys combined with the sound of whatever.ElaineDiMasi wrote:I wanted just a snippet of horn sound for City in Fog that would say "big band", I had the horn sounds ready, then realized I had no idea what chords to use to make it sound like I'm not a keyboard player.
That's the thing, I don't write scores. I make everything up as I go along, and that works best for instruments that I play myself because then I can easily experiment with what works and what doesn't (plus I have experience with how that instrument works). As for the style of music, I typically don't do songs in a genre that I'm not into much. If I have little listening experience with, say, Jazz, I won't get any Jazz songs. A slightly jazzy song, perhaps, but that's it.ElaineDiMasi wrote:For a sound that's part of a background texture, I'm happy playing horn lines on a keyboard. It's the chords that give it away as a "keyboard" arrangement, if I would have played keyboard chords instead of the lines that make up a more realistic horn section. The point is that had I three horn players in the room, I wouldn't have been sure how to score their chords.
There was a bari sax, upright bass, and drums. Everything else you heard was...Chadderandom wrote:Rabid Garfunkel - I enjoy the funky grooves. Whats the cat? I don't know if anything in there sounded like an actual cat and I've heard some pretty odd cat sounds... But seriously, what was the cat?
Next project! Sing the lyric sheets as-shredded.Rabid Garfunkel wrote:...who shredded some lyric sheets later that evening in retaliation.
Fixed that for you.Chadderandom wrote:Paco del Stinko - This song might have multiple personality disorder or bipolar disorder or what ever mental disorder is currently popular.
The song is a mix of genuine and made up nerdiness from my past. The ET T-shirt is one element I'm actually not sure about. I think I had one, but it would have been when I was 5 or 6, and my memory of that time isn't reliable. Hell, I also have what feels like an honest to God memory from that time of hearing Santa Claus land his sleigh on my roof and come down the chimney, and that can't be right. It's pretty plausible that I did have an ET T-shirt because I was waaay into ET at the time. I had a plush ET that I slept with, which my mom had to throw away because I got really sick and threw up all over it and it wouldn't come clean . Anyway, real or not it's poetic license as used in the song. I don't think it counts as nerdy for a kindergartner to wear an ET shirt. I'm not even sure a 5 year old CAN be nerdy.Chadderandom wrote: Trick Soup - Did you really have an ET shirt? I had an Alf shirt.
Man, you're sooo right. I can hear it now.The only thing wrong with this song is that there should've been a grand finale type thing at the end, after the last robot voice, with a stab of whatever sound you wanted to punctuate the end with and a "Nerds!" to end the number.
All that noise came out of THAT little thing? I was picturing some big mangy tom with one eye, matted fur, and a shaved patch on its side. For what it's worth I really dug the track. It gave me fond memories of Mademoiselle Nobs.Rabid Garfunkel wrote:There was a bari sax, upright bass, and drums. Everything else you heard was...Chadderandom wrote:Rabid Garfunkel - I enjoy the funky grooves. Whats the cat? I don't know if anything in there sounded like an actual cat and I've heard some pretty odd cat sounds... But seriously, what was the cat?
...who shredded some lyric sheets later that evening in retaliation.