Voting - Composition Challenge #19 - The Day The Music Died!

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Hi Everyone,

This is the combined Voting and Discussion thread.

Thanks to all that entered the competition.

Please use this thread to cast your votes for your favourite entries to Fretboard Challenge #19.
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Voting System - voters can pick their top 3 favourite entries.

First choice gets 5 points - Second choice gets 3 points - Third choice gets 1 point

Entry with the most points wins.

Simply post in this thread your top three choices for winner in order, 1st choice first etc etc. 

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(Note for Entrants of the competition: Self Voting is NOT Allowed)


The winner will be announced just before midnight on the 30th November, voting will close at 11.30pm on that day.

(you can edit your vote up to the time voting closes)

A reminder of the competition Guidelines:

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The Day The Music Died!

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So we all know which famous song those lyrics come from, and we know their context, but this challenge is about those days we all have when we just don't feel the musical love anymore  So using the bad times as inspiration lets try and make some positive thought provoking music which reflects how we feel when it seems like the music has died!  But we all know that the music never really dies.

https://soundcloud.com/thefretboard/sets/fretboard-challenge-19
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Comments

  • @Antique_Guitars I thought @Danji said he'd sent an entry. I can't see it in the playlist.
    It's not a competition.
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  • hmm it wasn't sent to the fretboard challenge email account?
    Old Is Gold
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  • DanjiDanji Frets: 225
    @Antique_Guitars and @stratman3142 I did to the composition account on 06/09 but to be fair, it was so shit when I listened the next day, I re-recorded it. 

    Basically, I’m saying it’s a win win situation. I’m don’t have to be embarrassed about how bad it was, (first take/improvised melody), and the fretboard doesn’t have to listen to it. 

    I’ll post it in the board’s users recording section, but I’m more happy not for this to be included in the competition. 

    I’ll have a listen to the others later when my four year old isn’t doing comedy dances while I’m trying to type.
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    I recorded a track and forgot to send it in ... I'm a numpty. In fairness I haven't logged in for weeks then thought I'd better check .... back off to my exile.



    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • @Antique_Guitars  ; @stratman3142 ;

    I'm happy for @Fretwired ; 's entry to be allowed in. I've not heard any of the tracks yet and it would be nice to have three to choose between when I vote
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  • ^ The more the merrier as they say.
    It's not a competition.
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  • steamabacussteamabacus Frets: 1258
    edited November 2017
    Recording notes ...

    Fortleben (‘Afterlife’) - A Krautrock Rebirth

    " ... this challenge is about those days we all have when we just don't feel the musical love anymore. So, using the bad times as inspiration, lets try and make some positive thought provoking music which reflects how we feel when it seems like the music has died! But we all know that the music never really dies."

    This challenge has really tapped into where I'm at musically recently - I have very little inclination to pick up a guitar these days (even a bit of aversion) and my playing is rusty, my callouses have gone soft. I spent the first two months of this challenge avoiding even thinking about it and half the last month thinking I really should make a start. The track was recorded in the last couple of weeks.

    Although I've been creatively moribund in recent months, I have been active on the technical side - overseeing setting up a multitrack recording setup for a drummer friend. As is the way in the world I inhabit, it's been a mixture of cheap or freebie obsolete technology (WinXP, CubaseSX and hardware multitrack recorder and analogue desk) and a lot of creative thinking. I thought I'd try and use (and test) this new recording resource with this challenge. Well ..... that was the plan, at least.

    I still had no idea what I was actually going to come up with until I was sat around another friend's house. He used to make lots of computer-based music but since he upgraded his elderly computer (to a hooky Win7) most of his software no longer worked and he had also come to a creative halt. But, wired and a little the worse for wear after a weekend working on his anarcho-punk soundsystem's latest all-nighter, he had created a 'Krautrock-style' piece in Cool Edit (or Audition is it now called?). He played it to me and then said, "Of course, it'll never get finished!" That's when I had the idea. "Give it to me. I'll do something with it."

    It was a droney, guitar/echo and synth based piece that I thought I'd record a live drum and bass groove over and then .... turn it into some sort of tune? First of all I had to clean up the recording of 'Krauty Mark' I took away from my mate's on my usb stick - it was in mono and had some quite severe digital clipping (as I said, he was a bit the worse for wear when he recorded it). I ended up doubling up the mono track and putting it through Amplitube (the free version) with a different amp right and left. And a lot of compression. And eq! I managed to polish it into some kind of a state that I could take round to my drummer mate's studio and use as a backing track for him and a bass playing friend to improvise over.

    Well, that was the plan. 

    We did the bass and drums recording session and everything went well technically. However, what I thought would be a fairly straightforward thing to improvise over proved a little more challenging for the rhythm section. The backing track had some rhythmical echoey elements that, while they didn't necessitate playing absoluetely in sync,  did  need some kind of sympathetic ear from the rhythm section playing along. When I got the recordings back home and listened to them, there were just too many elements that (to my ear) were clashing too much and would need some serious attention. With time ticking down (I had about two weeks go get it finished by now) I made the decision to ditch the rhythm section recording for this challenge (although I'll make something else out ot that - minus the 'Krauty' backing loop - at a later date.)

    So I was almost back to square one and still feeling bereft of inspiration. With no other ideas, I stuck with the 'Krauty' backing track and decided to record my own rhythm track over it. I got out my old hand drum, mic'd it up front and back and played a repetitive shamanic pulse rhythm for ten minutes! Then I layered up five different tracks of shakers (you can see the various percussion instruments used in the picture). This was all done very rough-and-ready and in one take (which pretty much continued in that vein for the rest of the instruments).

    I added a kick drum at the end - a sample played by hand (or, rather, the handle of a drum beater) from my old Zoom Sampletrak sample player - and then recorded a simple bass line and added some cymbal samples from an old Computer Music disc, placed by hand on the audio track (none of this recording was sequenced in any way).

    I was thinking in terms of a shamanic ritual or, as I had the image by this time, a weird Victorian seance. I added the 'thunder drum' for effect and then layered up three tracks of improvised chanted 'vocalisations' - I suppose I was thinking in terms of native American 'ghost dance' but I can't claim any authenticity here. I was just winging it.

    To bring out the spooky seance vibe I found an old minidisc of another old musical friend whispering some lyrics from an old recording project fron ten years ago or more. These got edited, mangled and manipulated - again, in a very rough and ready (and hurried) fashion and inserted into the recording.

    Which got me to the point where I had to record some guitars - and I wasn't looking forward to it. I suppose I can be as self-critical about my playing as anyone but I didn't even have any 'technique' to fall back on as I'm playing so rarely at the moment. I'm really rusty and without my callouses even fretting the strings for any amount of time leaves my fingers sore.

    I recorded two tracks of an arpegiated echoey drone track to be bedded into the recording for texture and then two tracks of simple rhythm guitar. Finally I added an improvised e-bow track throughout the piece to add some dynamics and developement and, last of all, a 'solo' guitar track at the end. Most of this was intended to be more background texture than foreground 'guitar parts' but, when I came to mixing it, they slowly found themselves creeping forward in the mix - a sonic rather than an artistic decision.

    I got the mix together fairly quickly (all done on cans as I can't make much noise at the moment - I haven't heard the track through speakers), gave it a light 'mastering' in T-Racks and sent it in with a feeling of 'good riddance'.

    Here's a photo of the instrumentation I used for this track.



    This challenge has been an exercise in 'pushing through' creative apathy for me - which is kind of the reason I commit to these challenges when I don't really feel like doing them. I think there's a benefit in the creative act, of making artistic 'things', whether or not the process of creating them is actually enjoyable. In the end, it's been more 'catharsis' than 'fun'.

    The title, 'Fortleben', is a German translation of 'afterlife' in homage to the initial Krautrock inspiration of my friend Mark's recording. Now I have to take it round and play him what I've done with 'his' track. 

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  • Yeah, I'm good with Fretwired entering, wish there were more.

    “Theory is something that is written down after the music has been made so we can explain it to others”– Levi Clay


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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    Thanks for the support guys .. just see what @Antique_Guitars says. I don't want to rock the boat - it was my mistake.

    @steamabacus - that's a cool looking Ibanez guitar ...

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    Thanks for the support guys .. just see what @Antique_Guitars says. I don't want to rock the boat - it was my mistake.

    @steamabacus - that's a cool looking Ibanez guitar ...

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • @Fretwired @Danji or anyone else feel free to submit to fretboardchallenge@gmail.com

    @danji its possible yours went into the spam folder and as  haven't logged in to that account in a while it might have got deleted so feel free to send it again
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  • DanjiDanji Frets: 225
    @Fretwired @Danji or anyone else feel free to submit to fretboardchallenge@gmail.com

    @danji its possible yours went into the spam folder and as  haven't logged in to that account in a while it might have got deleted so feel free to send it again
    Thanks, I don’t want to cause you any extra work so don’t count this one in the competition, and I’ll probably submit another the next time.

    Its here if anyone wants a listen https://soundcloud.com/user-488789185/jims-hall
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    Thanks to @Antique_Guitars for letting me submit late.

    I decided to create a sad ambient piece that might reflect the mood of someone who is sad at the passing of one of their favourite musicians. We have lost a lot over the last few years including David Bowie which was a shock to me - I'd been listening to his music since the early 70s.

    It is a re-recording of something I did about 6 years ago and which got some decent comments on Soundcloud and people actually downloaded it. I got requests to make a higher quality version but since I'd lost the original files I had to start from scratch so it is different from the original.



    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • Fretwired said:


    @steamabacus - that's a cool looking Ibanez guitar ...
    It's an Artcore they didn't make for long, just a few years. Goes by the wonderfully evocative Ibanez moniker of AGS-83B. It's centre-blocked like a 335. It's become my 'go to' guitar as it's so comfortable to play sitting down - it just sits right.
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  • extra entries now added for your voting pleasure
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  • I'll be listening later tonight.
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  • 5 Points - @stratman3142 ; - Ominous theatrical entry that fit the theme.

    3 Points - @steamabacus ; - Also Ominous, the  North American  Indian/Eskimo chanting fit the mood, a bit long but mesmerizing.

    1 Point - @Fretwired ; - Noisy start with some cool volume pedal work.  A little light on mood but good.

    I'd like to give an honorable mention to @Danji ; , nice jazz tune, great playing but it didn't really have the right feel to me for this theme. 

    “Theory is something that is written down after the music has been made so we can explain it to others”– Levi Clay


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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    Thanks @DulcetJones ; .. I was going for a sombre mood ... :-)

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • I've had a listen to them all now - all very good. It's going to be a difficult choice.
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