This is @Peatles video of my song Some People do funny things, it has a cat and a dog in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG_500K6rmI

Cheers

Richard     

Jandle wrote:

Wow 10 weeks on one song, (Where have all the flowers gone) yikes!  I am guessing the "shudder" is because you're not fond of the song after spending that length of time on it?

Yep, my version of "beginner" was "know a few chords, can roughly play a tune", whilst the class version of "beginner" was "how many strings does a guitar have? (complete with blank stares)" .... hahaha, it was a fun class (and I seem to recall I had to borrow my brother nylon-string guitar, as all mine were steel stringed) ...

Cheers

Richard     

103

(10 replies, posted in Songwriting)

Phill Williams wrote:

My first thought on reading the title? If you wanna rock go to Blackpool!

Ooooh, I love that stuff, but haven't seen it for many years ...

Cheers

Richard     

Jandle wrote:

Ok 3 very rushed entries from me this month's FSOTM as we only had 2 entries.  They are 3 songs I haven't really played much before and one I haven`t played before at all, so please excuse the very basic singing and strumming in them as no time to practice them and we are already into March. 

https://soundcloud.com/ukulelejan/cover … ete-seeger
https://soundcloud.com/ukulelejan/cover-the-rose
https://soundcloud.com/ukulelejan/apple-jack

Hi Jandle,

Someone once told me you don't need to rush your entries as the topic remains open in case someone else would like to enter at a later date, but you entries didn't sound rushed. I think I've mentioned before I did a TAFE class for guitar once, and I went in the beginner class, but they were more at learning notes, and I was a few stages beyond that. We spent the whole term (10 weeks) learning that song, "Where have all the flowers gone" .. I think you've done a better job of this song that any of my colleagues from that class, although I do still get shudders when I hear the song smile

Likewise "The Rose" is done nicely - it's a great song to build up with, and it sounds like your voice is getting there.

I hadn't heard the "Apple Jack" song before - it sounds like it's one of your favourites as you sing quite well, I can hear the smile in your voice.

Cheers

Richard     

105

(4 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

That was pretty good - I could totally see myself doing that. Was there any follow up on how the "Tea" song faired??

Cheers

Richard

106

(13 replies, posted in My local band and me)

Got a mention on the West Australian Music site: https://wam.org.au/2024/01/30/richard-m … xxl-world/

Cheers

Richard     

Peatle Jville wrote:

Cheers Richard thanks for your feedback on my song. I was trying to use my voice to make separate characters I'm not sure if I got the old man frailty right in my voice. Then I was also trying to make my voice sound younger in the other parts of the song. It's more of a mix of my guitar a monologue and a song. It's good to hear you putting something up as well. The tide around here seems to be dragging people away from chordie at the moment.  I hope some others give FSOTM a go.

Yep, it's hard thing to do with one voice; to make two characters (and my broken tech certainly didn't help!

I also hope more participate in the FSOTM, I always find it interesting when people add their own take on a song!

Jandle wrote:

neophytte, great setting the Vinyl Cafe to perform in.  Well done on your original song, nicely performed.  Only other comment I would make is, it was very hard to hear in parts what they words were that you were singing, not sure if it was because of the recording or the background public noise or the guitar louder than your vocals.

Thanks - the problem I have (I think) is that I just set my phone up on a tripod, so any ambient sound that is closer to the microphone (phone) is picked up better than the sound at the front of the room. I do have a little directional mic that can plug in, so maybe I need to explore that option a bit more.

Like this one:

https://www.videocraft.com.au/images/products/rode-videomic-me-l-directional-microphone-for-ios-devices-smart-devices-with-lightening-connector_03.jpg 

Cheers

Richard     

Money by Pink Floyd

The Bare Necessities from the Jungle Book

Six months in a leaky boat by Split Enz

Cheers

Richard     

109

(13 replies, posted in My local band and me)

Jandle wrote:

Way to go Richard!  Awesome for you to get out there and do a live to air performance, how cool is that!  Great the Chordie mention as well, Per will be happy with that.   How did this all come about that you got to go on live air?

Thanks for the feedback - there was a post on FB which I replied to, the guy said they had filled their spots ... I subsequently forgot about it, and he got in touch a month later and we arranged it, there was only a few days between when he messaged me and the actual gig.

Phill Williams wrote:

Richard, after years of paying and being chaced by the tax man who seems determined to put me in the poor house (reference to the travelling wilburries) I think the few shilling made by selling a CD is not high on my bucket list. But I do hope when I slip off this mortal coil that someone will listen to my life's work and say...oh well!

Yes, I understand what you mean - I printed the minimum number of copies I could, as I know selling CD's is hard in this day and age, with the thought that I could potentially make profit from it, but was happy to concede a "break even" point. I was planning this over a year period, and so far I'm about 30% of the way to the the BE - but it's always mapped looking like a decaying scale, so the peak is at the beginning (new CD, etc) and the trail is the hard sell ....

Peatle Jville wrote:

Richard that was a good interview and the recording of you singing and playing The sound engineer had everything balanced perfectly.

Thanks - there were actually two guys there; the one I spoke to on the radio and another guy who was silently twiddling the knobs. He only brielfly spoke to me saying that one mic was for guitar and one was for voice. The interview was not pre-planned, so was flying by the seat of my pants. But that's sometimes how these things go. My youngest son also came into the studio and took the photos.

Cheers

Richard     

Peatle Jville wrote:

This is my entry for February it is called "The Old Man Likes In Tune".  The concept is an old man talking about himself and other people talking about him.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9OeShp5SpM

I did listen to this at home, but one of my speakers on my laptop is broken, so listened again on the headphones. I could also get the subtle call/response part of the song - which I'd missed before I heard it on headphones. It's a nice little song, I quite liked it, and I also like when my guitar is in tune!! smile

This song, Beautiful Dreamer has the line: Life seems so easy, through rose coloured glass at 1m25s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klNErTOJfOE

Enjoy!

Richard

111

(13 replies, posted in My local band and me)

Phill Williams wrote:

Hi Richard.  Lately I've been writing a new song every week or two and record them to CD immediately.  Once I fill a CD, usually 19 songs I'll play them in the car where I can have peace to listen. I'm not usually impressed with the results! I unfortunately don't have your talent. I enjoyed " prelude to solitude" you should be proud great job. Hope your CD sells well, I wouldn't have the guts to try selling my songs.

Hi Phil,

Sorry I missed your comment ... hmmm, don't be harsh on yourself - sometimes songs take time to grab your attention. Thanks for the well wishes, I'm selling enough to keep it going, but wouldn't complain if I sold more ...  but you do need to sell yourself as a product ...

Cheers

Richard     

112

(13 replies, posted in My local band and me)

Hi,

Did a "live to air" gig last weekend, and mentioned the Chordie's FSOTM section, here is the audio.

Cheers

Richard     

Jandle wrote:

Nicely done Richard.

Thanks!

Jandle wrote:

lol thanks Richard, was using my 6 stringed Kala ukulele on this one.  It actually is an eight string ukulele but I took 2 of the strings off as I prefer it with 6 strings.

hah, I also did that with my 12 string guitar; take off 3 strings to make it a 9 string ...

Cheers

Richard     

Peatle Jville wrote:

Richard, good to see you on chordie doing some gigs with your own songs. Was that gig inside a garage?

Hi Peatle,

Thanks - this was for a house party for the Merriwa club, I was playing with a chap from England, Steve Turner (we even got a mention in his past gigs list! - 21st Jan 2024). That room is a bit weird, it looks like a garage, but it's kind of a games room, although I think you could comfortably fit 3 or maybe 4 cars in there! I also did a couple of songs there a while ago, where you can see more of the interior.

Cheers

Richard     

Jandle wrote:

Any more suggestions, nearly into February smile

I'm waiting for a cover of dueling banjo's smile     

They weren't as rough as I was expecting, and the addition of the bass/snare was quite good!

Wow, just noticed it's almost the end of the month, better get something prepared for next month ... already!

Cheers

Richard     

Jandle wrote:

Nice one neo.   I don't know that particular song I have to admit.  But without knowing the original, you performed it well from just listening to you.

Thank you, this is an original which has the line:

I'm feeling something completely new

https://youtu.be/TsWe96u0dS8

Cheers

Richard     

TIGLJK wrote:

Great story Richard -   Nice guitars.
When you put out your new album maybeinclude a pic of thaqt first guitar ?
Thanksfor sharing.
Jim

Hi Jim,

Nah, that Torch had a neck like a plank; I soon upgraded to a 2nd hand session guitar:
http://web.archive.org/web/20140412074911/neophytte.mine.nu/photo/2011-10-06-Session/images/Session-006.jpg
which was my "most used" guitar. But not my first!

I sold the Torch years ago, still have that Session guitar!

Cheers

Richard     

TIGLJK wrote:

New did a sing recently about the day of getting that 1st guitar.

That guitar in the video was my first acoustic guitar - but my first guitar was actually an electric.

I remember the day, but not the date, I think I was about 20 when I was working for a company where I drove around and fixed up computer terminals in service stations - I fixed them too efficiently and my boss used to tell me to drive about for 1 or 2 hours to build up the km's on the car (company tax reasons) and I'd often go to music stores. There was a particular store in Booragoon that I used to like - the shop owner was a disheveled guy who didn't use his antiquated til, and one day he'd charge you one price for something, then another time he'd quote you something different. He had wanted over $au200 for the new ones, and I got him on a good day (or maybe I bugged him too much?) and he charged my $au175 for a brand new black "Torch". Similar to this one:

https://www.tdpri.com/attachments/11b84504-65c8-4aed-8689-49c610be70ae-jpeg.930434/ 

Mine was all black, and sat mostly unused for about a year - I then moved into a new share flat and my housemate commented about the guitar and said a friend of his played, who visited sometime thereafter. We nutted out songs and sounded terrible, but we were making (kinda) music. Later my housemate left and I didn't think I'd see his friend again, but he came over a couple of weeks later, and we had others join us, which became the "Wednesday night jams" - my gf at the time had art classes on that day, and it ended up being a bit of a booze-up excuse. I think it was about a year after that, the same friend mentioned he knew another guy with a band, so we went to jam with them - and they asked me to join and do their first gig - a party on the next weekend. Their skill levels were on par with mine, and we got booed and had food thrown at us; but we persisted and got other gigs. That lead to me getting my first acoustic (I think it was to play Stairway to heaven) which is the one in the video.

I recently (2021!) caught up with that old band and we have some videos of that in the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXnUekJ … iuVdTHxkhT - although the singer didn't turn up ...

Cheers

Richard     

Hi everyone, I've been a bit busy of late with promoting CD and ... life ...

Peatle Jville wrote:

This is my entry for this month called "Grandad Guitar". I hope this entry of mine is not flogging a dead horse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-0I1GwUH1A

I saw this one pop up in my YouTube feed before I saw it on here, and I had a listen back then, I was curious, did you ever have a gramophone? Our oldest record player (that I remember) was one of those "all in one" units, which was pretty much a piece of furniture owned by my step-dad. It's similar to the one below, and hade a radio frequency dial with every imaginable channel you could imagine (I think it used to pick up about 3 shortwave bands, AM, FM and others I can't remember), and the player itself had the ability to have a few records 'stacked' and they dropped one by one onto the turntable. I was in awe of some of the stuff it could do for what was 60's technology.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0f/29/83/0f298345aa843efb8f0c4427c06af85c.jpg

Anyway I did enjoy the track, and the artwork display was pretty good as well!!

mojo01 wrote:

sorry i haven't been around much lately. any way here is one for January 
https://soundcloud.com/mojo01/coming-ba … al_sharing

I'm pretty sure I've heard this one before (may have been the earlier version) but it's got a good strum and a good feel to it.

Cheers

Richard     

I'm going to drag up an old one I did - Rock and Roll (I gave you the best years of my life):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nh7cJEoiGk

I believe it was originally by the Kevin Johnson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Johnson_(singer)

Cheers

Richard     

neophytte wrote:

Winter, fruit, guitar ...

Cheers

Richard

Oh, wait, we have guitar in the Jan FSOTM, let's change that to banjo!!

Cheers

Richard     

123

(6 replies, posted in Chordie's Chat Corner)

Happy new year all, I've been pretty busy promoting my new album, playing a few gigs.

Hope everyone is well!

Cheers

Richard     

Winter, fruit, guitar ...

Cheers

Richard     

125

(4 replies, posted in About Chordie)

TIGLJK wrote:

Neo - what is the app you utilize ?

I use OnSong in the iPad - https://onsongapp.com/ - if you can find it, OnSong 2020 is still a purchasable product, the new product (OnSong 2023) is subscription only.

Cheers

Richard