36 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
36 lines
2.0 KiB
Plaintext
A Plea to Musicians
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By the Silver Ghost
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Now, I know you're busy. You don't have much time, in between your lunch
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dates and your frenzied composing, to read silly little messages by some
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common little keyboard player from Michigan. But having a thirteen-year-old
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teenybopper sister has expanded my musical taste, and I feel that I can
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accurately diagnose what some of your musical problems are.
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If you're the average Top 40 musician, you have just bought a Mirage, or a
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DX-7, or some other neat synthesizer, and you're not quite sure how to use it,
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but it makes neat sounds. In fact, it makes a LOT of neat sounds. That little
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portable DX-7 has over a hundred really neat sounds, not just "Treble Trumpet"
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and "Church Organ" but things like "Herd of Trumpeting Elephants" and "The
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Seven Alarms of a Seven-Alarm Fire." So when you put out your albums, you feel
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that you just HAVE to include all these sounds.
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But you can't really USE them in songs. It's not like you can just
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substitute "Vibrato Bullhorn Feedback" for what used to be your lead guitar.
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So you have to start off the track with a lot of sounds, right? The result is
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that you have four or five songs that start off with a complex mixture of
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wind whistling through the trees, electric rubber bands, and drum beats played
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backwards. Please notice something for me.
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None of these songs ever make it to the Top 40.
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In fact, which songs do well? "Papa Don't Preach" starts with a string
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section. "Every Breath You Take" has nothing fancy. "Twist And Shout" has
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just a lead vocal, three guitars, a drum set, and backup vocals. If you DO
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use a keyboard, use it as enhancement, not as the focal point (example: "I
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Didn't Mean To Turn You On").
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Paul McCartney won the Grammy for "Eleanor Rigby." "Eleanor Rigby" features
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Paul's voice, and a string section--that's all, nothing else. "Revolution No.
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9" never hit the charts.
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Think about it.
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That's all. You can go to lunch now.
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-:-
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