For this week’s Music Monday, a rock original with Latin rhythms. For the background graphics of the North American desert, I borrowed a few clips from Dark Sun. Please check them out!
Category Archives: Music
I was first introduced to this immensely sad sea shanty while playing Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. The in-game version by was performed by Nils Brown, Sean Dagher, and Clayton Kennedy. I also like the John Krauss rendition.
I was moved by the immediacy with which this particular sea shanty expressed the loneliness of men’s life at sea, and the romantic superstitions that haunted those men. The final verse, the narrator being called backed to duty after such a tragic vision, drives home the lonely sacrifice of those men, which people in the 21st century can barely fathom.
I hope you enjoy this modern adaptation of a classic sea shanty.
I think a lot about cover tunes, particularly when the musical genre is transposed. Prince was a master of genre-bending, and when he died I immediately started thinking about cool covers I would love to hear by well-known artists. Here is what I came up with, titled in tribute of Prince’s album as TAFKAP.
Note: The sound I envision for the final track is the reggae sound Willie Nelson cultivated on his remarkable Countryman album.
This week’s Music Monday is a noir tale of murder and sexuality called Come to Bed, drawing on blues, reggae, and hip-hop.
Now that we (in the northern hemisphere) are finally saying goodbye to winter, I thought it would be a good time to share a winter-themed mash-up.
You probably know most artists in this mash-up: Vivaldi, Maxi Priest, Neil Young, and Journey. Vivaldi provides the “Winter,” while the other three provide songs with “world” somewhere in the title. I was originally inspired by how the chord progression in “Winter,” “A Wild World,” and “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” matched up.
I was listening to Vivaldi in the car and singing Maxi Priest and Journey over it; the mash-up just grew from there.
But, the core riff (and a few other bits and pieces) are from a song called “Stereo” by one of the most under-rated bands out there, 4th Avenue Jones. I bought their CD HipRockSoul because I had also written a song called “Stereo” and wanted to see what this other song was all about. It was one of the best musical discoveries of my life.
After you check out the mash-up below, go check out 4th Avenue Jones. Continue reading
I want to restart my Music Monday series with a cover tune I took on as a challenge. I’m not a stellar guitarist, and I felt the chord structure of this Elton John tune would be a good test of my meager talents. If you’re a musician or an astute music fan, you’ll notice the flub in the second refrain that I powered through as best as I could.
I also find the storytelling of Bernie Taupin’s lyrics compelling: someone of humble beginnings who rejects being used as a social circle showpiece.
This was recorded about a half decade ago, when I was going through a particularly shaggy phase. Continue reading
The other night I was at a P!nk concert. Through the buzz of the audience, guitars and synthesized strings began a slow, tender chord progression. There was something intriguingly familiar about the way the electric guitar was sliding around the chords as the bass covered the transitions. Then, P!nk leaned into the mike, parted her lips, and sadly crooned:
“It’s been a mystery, but still we try to see why something good can hurt so bad.”
It was a remake of Journey’s Who’s Crying Now, and the crowd immediately broke into a roar. I distinctly remember the entire song: the original piano reworked for a gently distorted guitar, the percussion rolling through the verses after the intro (unlike in the original where they drop in and out), P!nk’s gorgeously gravelly voice hitting every emotional punch of the lyrics and even the way it accidentally cut out during the bridge as she sang, “Your looo–oove … will never die.”
It was a complete multi-layered vision, and I’m able to remember it as I type this as vividly as if it had been a real, waking experience.
Oh, didn’t I mention? This was all a dream.
I know most of my fan-base are literature fans, but there are plenty of lit fans who are also fans of Hollywood (when films are done right) and pop music.
There are some great stories in music that, I believe, deserve unrolling onto the silver screen. In that spirit, here are five songs that should be made into films. Sure, some of these songs have back-stories of their own, but they also stand as great jumping-off points for movies.
You might have heard that different types of creative writing require different approaches: what makes a good novel isn’t the same as what makes a good short story, a good poem, or a good film.
While this is certainly true, I think the distinctions between different forms of creative writing are over-emphasized. Despite differences in presentation, length, and form there is a lot in common among different forms of art, particularly in terms of process, and a lot that can be learned across boundaries.
In this context, let’s discuss what fiction writers can learn from music and movies in regard to revision suggestions from first readers, agents, and editors.