Category: Music

Here is a rough mix of the third song for my forthcoming album Spellbound.  Unlike the others so far, this one was mainly written by Martin, and the original version of this song was just him singing and accompanying himself on a single electric guitar with no other instruments.  I didn’t sing or play anything, but I still get a songwriting co-credit because that’s what we agreed on for all the songs in the project.  So for this version, my main task was to learn the song and guitar part.  It’s not a particularly hard song, in fact it was probably the first song Martin ever wrote and the chords are very basic.  But there’s alot of nuance that I wanted to be sure to capture.

The vocal was pretty straightforward.  Martin and I have a similar vocal range and sense of phrasing, and this song was neither very high nor very low in my range.  The guitar on the other hand, well let’s just say I’m learning alot about how to record electric guitars.  Martin’s original take was just a six-string Ibanez thru whatever amp he had at the time.   I don’t believe there were any effects on it other than the tone of the amp.  So my first pass was using my PRS six string and my Roland Jazz Chorus amp, and it produced a warm and satisfying sound, definitely in the zone.  Being such a sparse arrangement I wanted the gutiar sound to really shine. But it was a little muddy and the low end was uneven, so I got in there with some EQ and compression, and even added an amp modeler as a sidechain effect.  Oh the joys of digital production and the endless tweaking it affords.

I added a second guitar track to give it some more depth.  (I often double track my keyboard parts.)  This one was a 12-string.  Martin switched mainly to twelve string sometime in the nineties, and the guitar I used was one that used to be one of his.  This time, however, I went direct inject and mixed it into the same sidechain amp effect.  All in all it sounds pretty good but I’ll probably continue to tweak it.  I might even try again using the 12-string as the main guitar.

But for the time being, here’s the song.  Enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/TheSlientHour08c.mp3

Here’s a rough mix of Sandcastle Kingdoms, the second song for my forthcoming album Spellbound. I don’t really remember too much about writing this one.  It’s mainly one of “mine” with me sings lead vocals and having a keyboard part as the spine of the track.  I guess I was feeling restless and forlorn at the time, and tapping into that for the lyric. 

Musically, it’s pretty much a power ballad, with a repeated 8-bar verse and a bridge.  I was aiming for some level of terraced dynamics, building up layers of parts throughout the song.  And there’s alot of parts.  In addition to the piano bass and drum, there’s a string/brass synthesizer and the guitar. Of course the piano is double-tracked with a Fender Rhodes and the Juno’s Polysynth 1 patch.  The drums are midi and samples for now, but I’ll put down real drums later one.

The lead vocals are drenched in effects, although I’ll probably dial that back later.  This song was really high in my range and has some really long sustained high notes.  It took me a few takes to really nail it.  If I were writing this song now I’d probably shift it down to an easier key.  But once I found my voice up there it sounded really good, so I kept it.

The synth part is a blend of four patches, two each of synth strings and synth brass, and one of each of those being an onboard sound of my protools rig and the other one from the outboard Juno, being the sounds used on the original recording.  I was going for something nice and rich and fat.  I still need to go in and add some fader moves to make the brass predominate in the louder sections and the strings in the more delicate parts.

This is the first song where I tried to replicate Martin’s guitar part.  Martin didn’t sing on this track and the guitar seemed to be his only contribution. Martin’s sound – the phrasing and the tone – always had a certain magic to it, even from these early recordings.  I’ve been listening really close and trying to capture that, but ultimately found it’s elusive and I’m having to make it my own.  I’m using a whole different setup, different guitar, amp and effects that sounds like me.  But I’m learning alot about how use effects to get different kinds of guitar sounds.

In any event, I copped his solo fairly faithfully because it fit so perfectly in the song.  I also paraphrased his riffs in the intro and outro.  I even added some new riffs on the the bridge.  All this is on a lead guitar track.  On the original track Martin also did a bit of noodling around in the verse, but I didn’t duplicate that.  Instead I added a second guitar track, low and overdriven with alot of sustain, deep in the background to give the track some fullness and weight.  This is the kind of thing Martin used to call “guitariness”.  Getting the right sound for this was a learning experiment too, and I’m not finished yet.

So here you go, enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/Sandcastles27.mp3

Here’s a rough mix of Strange to My Mind, the first song for my forthcoming album Spellbound.  As previously mentioned, Spellbound is based on a project Martin and I did together in January 1990 when were on winter break from school, using a borrowed 4-track cassette recorder.

Strange to My Mind was the first rock song I wrote to completion.  At that time I had a jazz fusion group Event Horizon, and was mainly focused on instrumental music that combined composed sections with opportunities for free improvisation.  I had some sketches of ideas for lyrics but had never seen thru to the end the process of fitting a lyric to a melody and working it up to sing and perform it.  I learned alot about what worked for me and what didn’t and it gave me a foothold into a whole new realm to explore.

As far as it goes, the ambition wasn’t super high.  The lyric and chord progression are pretty simple and the form is straightforward, with an intro riff, verse, chorus, repeat, bridge, solo, and recapitulation of the verse and chorus.  Still, that’s enough for a satisfactory three-minute pop song.

At the time I was mainly writing on piano.  I had a Fender Rhodes I’d bought for something like $175, and a Roland Alpha-Juno synthesizer.  I didn’t have access to a real piano and in those days synthesizers did not have very good piano sounds, so this rig became the basis of my sound.  Meanwhile Martin was playing a cheap Ibanez electric guitar with a a couple of Boss pedals for chorus and distortion.  We didn’t have a bass for the project; I did all the bass parts with my left hand along with the keyboards in the right, like Ray Manzerek of The Doors.  The drums were added at the end, played by my friend Mark along to the tracks and recorded using a single mic.

For this version of the recording I brought it more into line with my standard way of doing things nowadays, while trying to capture the spirit of the original.  I used an electric piano as the spine of the tune.  It was fun figuring out the part I made up long ago.  It had a fairly busy left hand, since that was the bass part.  Also it has a pretty cool hook with the chord progression going from G to Bb to D, with a little jazzy modulation in there.

To this I added an electric bass guitar and a midi drum track.  For this project, the big new thing is to use real drums, but I haven’t gotten that far yet, and that journey is a whole ‘nuther story.

At the time I was leaning heavily into a sound on my synth called Polysynth 1 for the general comping and rhythm playing.  I deemed this essential to the song, so I fired up my old Juno synth and was delighted to find it still works after all these years.  I doubled the piano part on the the synth and blended it in. 

Oh, and of course the sax solo.  I played it on alto at the time, but on the new version I use a tenor.  I’m wondering, though, if I should have stuck with the alto.  Even though my tenor sound is big, with a Dukoff mouthpiece and all, it’s maybe still a bit dark and smoky compared to the searing high register of the alto. 

Listening closely, it appeared that there was no guitar part on the original version and Martin’s sole contribution to the completed track was some harmony vocals.  Nevertheless, I added a rhythm guitar part for some more depth to the sound, and overdubbed his vocal parts a second track after my own lead vocals.

Anyway here it is.  Enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/StrangeToMyMind17c.mp3

This is the first song of the Spellbound project that was mainly written by Martin. In fact when we recorded it, it was just him singing and strumming along on guitar with no other instruments. My new version follows that arrangement. The feel is a sad and beautiful folk ballad, although played on an electric guitar. Very stark. The subject is about how winter is a kind of death of the world, maybe even a gateway to another realm, told from the point of view of a guiding spirit offering a choice of returning. This was probably the first song Martin wrote to completion and worked up to perform. His writing was full of deep and surprising imagery from the beginning.

…

The Silent Hour

Hello, I’m glad you made it here tonight
With your creased and folded paper body
And eyes still shining bright
Relax, you’re one of us now
Join us in this inner circle embrace the silent hour

And you see how the wind can blow at night
Opens your eyes to the dreaming silver starry sight
And now you know why the winter comes our way
Giving freedom to the souls too tired from the day

Away, you’re time is rushing by
Like freezing water thru your fingers
Or softness from the sky
I know, the child has gone away
But if your heart can’t bear to follow I will let you stay

And now you know that pain can make you cry
Smiling eyes and sadness in you for all of us must die
And now you see what makes the winter cold
All those payin’ must leave the fold
A goal to make them old

Arise, the leaving time is near
To take it from this fading world
The wish that brought you here
Goodbye, the story now is told
Lay your head upon the snow and let your body fold

And now you see the pains you used to fear
Closes your eyes to the dreaming leaving with the year
And you know you’re one us now
Listen to the world sleeping listen and embrace
Listen to the world sleeping listen and embrace the silent hour

— Martin Szinger, 1990

Here’s the lyric for the next song on the forthcoming record Spellbound.  This is another one of “my” songs, with the lyric and arrangement mainly by me, as well as the singing on the original track.  This one is basically a power ballad, which is a style I don’t really write in anymore.  I don’t remember much about writing it, other than not being totally satisfied with either the lyric or the chord progression at the time.  Listening back now, I think both hold up quite well.  Thematically, it’s about longing and yearning for the future, like alot of the songs on the record.  Musically I seem to recall trying to work in some jazz chords but never really finding a place for them. There’s a pretty cool lift from G major to E7 in the middle that made the final cut.

…

Sandcastle Kingdom

Passing time
But somehow I don’t seem to mind
As if I had some time to spare
Never a day left to share
With you but why then don’t I care I’m getting left behind?

Once long ago
Although now you’d never know
I held the flame that burned so bright
It lit the sky up in the night
But then somehow I lost the light I wonder where’d it go?

[guitar solo]

Loose your dreams
It’s not as painful as it seems
Imagination all dried up
Fought the fight and gave it up
Waiting for a change of luck to open some new streams

Well they might have been castles I built inside my head
Seemed real enough when I lay dreaming in their bed
But as a change of the tide will wash old sands away
The time to build new ones comes with a new day

Gone a year
But now I feel the time is here
Don’t wanna put my faith in fate
You know there’s not much more I’ll wait
Because tonight is growing late tomorrow’s drawing near

— John Szinger 1990