Blog
Secret songs
Tuesday 17 October 2006
I can’t post the latest Song-a-day pieces, because (1) the sound quality on one of them is terrible, not to mention the playing, (2) the second one’s not done, and (3) they’re part of secret Hallowe’en show plans. Not that it’s that big a secret, I suppose. Regardless, I’m quite proud of them both.
We don’t have time to pull it off for this year, but the secret plan is this: for Hallowe’en - or perhaps some other show, just for the heck of it - we come on dressed as a completely different band, and play our own material in a different style. Of course, knowing the two of us, New Wave seems the most logical and fun choice. I’ve spent the past half hour trying to sing like Neil Tennant.
I mentioned the premise to a friend, who had a related idea: musical improv. Not just improvised music, not just an improvised musical, but improvised drama featuring the players in a band. The audience could throw out suggestions for what style they should perform and the soap opera dynamics that are going on between all the musicians. It’d take a good deal of skill and chutzpah, and no small amount of preparations. But it could be really cool.
On another related tangent, I’ve been tossing around ideas for a while about doing a story-with-songs - not quite a musical, but a narrated story with songs performed by a band, or more than one band (they could change during the story breaks). My chief inspiration was Harry Nilsson’s The Point, which is fun, but it’s by someone else, and it’s not really his best work.
As I type all this, Tarquin is on my lap, pawing at it in a way that’s frankly rude. He’s been really pushy lately about wanting to own my lap and/or chair, and if not, to climb up on my desk. I may have to employ him in my music making (inspired also by this YouTube video, which was passed along to me by Ms Urnash; warning, contains adorable kitten).
I guess you’d call that ailurotoric composition?
Comments
Well, since you are ANNOUNCING your SECRET plans, I think it only fair to share the secret songs as well!
Posted by Sean Howard on 17 October 2006 at 11:58 AM
Haven’t seen the movie, but I grew up with the album. Given that the story reputedly came to him during a drug trip (witness the bit about Oblio noticing how “all the leaves on all the trees had points”), I’m not surprised it’s, uh, transcendental…
Oh, and the Secret Plan for this year’s Hallowe’en show is that we’re doing a song or two from another Nilsson movie - Son of Dracula.
Posted by Eli McIlveen on 17 October 2006 at 1:22 PM
The vampire’s out of the bag now! I’ve never seen “Son of Dracula,” isn’t it the film he made with Ringo Starr? And was the theme song “Daylight?”
I found “The Point” a bit tedious, maybe in the way that hearing other people talk about their drug experiences is tedious.
Posted by Muffy St. Bernard on 21 October 2006 at 12:56 PM
Yep, that’s right - and that’s the song we’re doing, except we’re crossing it with something else…
Posted by Eli McIlveen on 21 October 2006 at 3:37 PM
Aha, and THAT’S the secret! :)
Posted by Muffy St. Bernard on 24 October 2006 at 8:37 AM
Oh, agreed, “The Point” isn’t Nilsson’s peak (and the movie itself gets a little too transcendental for my taste)...but you have to hear Adrian Belew’s “Me and My Arrow!” It’s on the “Everybody Sings Nilsson” CD, along with a ridiculously charming cover by Victoria Williams.
Give me “Aerial Ballet” and “Pandemonium Shadow Show” anyday.
It’s so sad that animals don’t seem to have any concept of music or rhythm (beyond just howling or mimicking). Watching that video, I wondered if the kitten was even aware of the relationship between its feet and the sounds from the keyboard…didn’t seem like it.
The only time an animal has done any editing for me was when my rat (Bernadette) chewed the tape in a cassette master, her way of saying “enough with the noise already!”
Posted by Muffy St. Bernard on 17 October 2006 at 9:06 AM