https:\/\/zingman.com\/music\/mp3\/bziv\/AutumnEyes30.mp3<\/a><\/audio>
\n<\/p>\nI wrote Autumn Eyes for my former jazz group Haven Street in the winter of 2019. Lots of moody, modulating jazz chords and a strong, undulating melody. I originally called it Winter Wolf Whisper. I had the image in my mind of wolf cubs frolicking in freshly fallen, powdery snow, in gentle slow motion. Once I brought the song to the band the sound changed. I had envisioned it as a swinging mid-tempo number like Maiden Voyage, but as we developed it, the song pretty much became a ballad.<\/p>\n
Of course doing it on the computer required changing the feel too. One big change was the drums. The main drum part is sequenced, and the playing is pretty minimal. I had the idea to augment it with a live drum part, mainly to get the sound of brushes, which I can’t to do with samples.<\/p>\n
The spine of the tune is the piano part. The beginning has the sax and piano playing the melody in unison for eight bars. This was always a challenge to get tight playing live; maybe we should’ve changed the arrangement. But I wanted to use it in the studio version. For the sound, I blended a grand piano with a Fender Rhodes, to give it a bit more smoothness, fullness and shine. I did the bass part on the electric bass but adjusted tone to be jazzier. When we did this song live Jay played upright; the electric changes the character of the piece. I wrote the song with soprano sax in mind. I recorded a version on the tenor, but ultimately went with the soprano. It all hangs together nicely and gives a convincing illusion of spontaneity among a group of players. I tried to approach each solo differently in terms of melody, rhythm and pacing.<\/p>\n
I added in some synth strings and bells, just some subtle backing. Last thing was I recorded a live drum part to blend in with the electronics. It’s mainly brushes on the snare drum and a few tom fills and cymbal hits too. I used the Jimmy Page\/Gyln Johns method of mic\u2019ing a kit with two mics. One is overheard focused on the snare. The other is well out in the room in front of the kit focused on the kick drum. As a sound check I played some grooves and fills and hits, just to get a sense if how this might work for other songs. It came out quite well. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first of three songs I’ve been working on is pretty much done. All that remains is the final mixdown and mastering. You can listen to it at: https:\/\/zingman.com\/music\/mp3\/bziv\/AutumnEyes30.mp3 https:\/\/zingman.com\/music\/mp3\/bziv\/AutumnEyes30.mp3 I wrote Autumn Eyes for my former jazz group Haven Street in the winter of 2019. Lots of moody, modulating jazz chords and a strong, … Continue reading “New Song: Autumn Eyes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-4867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-computer-jazz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zingman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}