Blog
Saxes and arranging
Tuesday 2 May 2006
There’s nothing like being awakened at 5:30 in the morning by a cat throwing up on you.
I’ve realized that I don’t really care for sax solos on rock songs… but I love rhythm parts, especially with bass/baritone sax. I’m thinking of “Good Morning” by the Beatles, and the neat arrangement on “This Song” by Ron Sexsmith with a pair of (tenor?) saxes, the lower of them doubled by an electric guitar.
Hmm. Might have to try doubling violin and piano, or violin and guitar.
Other voicings I’d like to try sometime:
- Two male voices singing an octave apart. The Fembots have some octave-doubled voices on their latest. Also, Julian’s got me listening to some early Tears For Fears, and “The Hurting” in particular does this. It’s very ‘80s, come to think of it - Depeche Mode used it all over the place; also Bowie’s “Ashes To Ashes” (and “Space Oddity”), and Talking Heads on “Mind”, the Police on “Bring On The Night” and “Spirits In The Material World”... a quick survey of an ‘80s compilation turns up A Flock Of Seagulls, INXS and Squeeze.
- Heck, just two voices in unison. I instinctively go for harmonies, but unison can be powerful too.
- And speaking of octaves, piano octaves. I just did a disco-ish track for a short film, and played the melody on a piano that way. Punchy! Ooh, and how about 12-string guitar?
I’ve finally gone and wiped my studio machine and reinstalled Windows. It’s so much perkier now - years of forgotten software layers and busted registry bits swept away… ahh, that’s better.
Unfortunately, I can’t find my Cubase install CD - gah! But I did bring home my Mbox and installed Pro Tools 7, which will be very nice to have. Next step: good monitors.
Fun rehearsal last night, in preparation for our next gig (our last one with Clark for a while - details on the Flickershow site.