The Wagtunes Corner (Featuring My Best Yet)

[wagtunes]

8th track from my upcoming CD "Killer Kovers"

Pulled up another from 1983 and decided to go in another direction. TV theme songs. This one, the theme from Cheers, has two versions. The one for the show and the single. Each had its pluses and minuses so I kind of combined them PLUS I did my own arrangement. The song itself is just Piano, Bass, Drums and vocals. My version is 24 tracks so I really did this one up big time.

Hope you like it.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... rom-cheers

[Halonmusic]

The Union Of Souls

Bagpipes! You dont hear those a lot anymore anyway i really enjoyed this one aswell. Great work!

[vurt]

wild wild life!


well lm singing along, so you must have done something right

very good work indeed my good man!

i love david byrne btw. one of my hero peeps.

[vurt]

cheers

norm!

again, singing along

[Halonmusic]

[wagtunes]

The Union Of Souls

Bagpipes! You dont hear those a lot anymore anyway i really enjoyed this one aswell. Great work!

The bagpipes are from EWQL from one of their ethnic instruments collections. Forget which one. It's either Ra or Silk.

Enjoying doing this one. The 5/4 section right after the bagpipes was really tricky.

Thanks for the listen and the feedback.

[wagtunes]

wild wild life!


well lm singing along, so you must have done something right

very good work indeed my good man!

i love david byrne btw. one of my hero peeps.

Thanks for the listen and feedback Vurt. David Byrne is so freaking talented and I think underrated. I tried to capture the flavor of his many voices on this one. Very difficult song to do for too many reasons to list but had a blast doing it.

I am learning so much from doing these songs including discipline and attention to detail. I think my original songs to come are going to be an improvement still over what's preceded them. The key, ultimately, is going to be how good the writing is because no attention to detail with all the arranging and mixing and whatever can hide a poorly written song. And the songs on this CD, with all my hard work, were great songs to start.

Yeah, this project has been a real eye opener for me.

[wagtunes]

cheers

norm!

again, singing along

In a million years I never expected to do this song. Harder than you think. But you see, talent makes everything sound easy.

Thanks again for the listen.

[vurt]

i was thinking about that the other day, with tgat track you sang more essily.
you said it was easy to sing. why?
what is it about the way the original is, makes you feel that?
maybe try that, then you might not have so many strained notes or need for melodyne correction (nowt wrong with either really)

im guessing its about writing within your range.
no need for vocal gymnastics.
this is rock n roll

[wagtunes]

One last thing. If you listen to the first 8 songs, listen to the vocals. Being able to fairly adeptly adapt my voice to the original lead vocalist helps a lot. This was the one thing I was good at as a kid, impersonations. Have lost a bit of the ability over the years (your vocal chords become less flexible) but can still do it to some degree. Again, listen to the 8 songs. Those are 8 different voices, for better or worse. I always sounded better singing with other people's voices than my own, which is why I rarely use my own. It's really flat. So I always try to emulate somebody, even when doing an original.

Now it's time to go back to the horse race to see what year I'm tackling next.

[vurt]

looking forward to it!

[wagtunes]

i was thinking about that the other day, with tgat track you sang more essily.
you said it was easy to sing. why?
what is it about the way the original is, makes you feel that?
maybe try that, then you might not have so many strained notes or need for melodyne correction (nowt wrong with either really)

im guessing its about writing within your range.
no need for vocal gymnastics.
this is rock n roll

I'm not sure which track you're referring to so I can't answer your question. I will say this about Cheers. The phrase "Everybody knows your name" in the chorus, "bod" goes up to an F# which, while I can hit it on a good day, is difficult. So when I sang the song, I held it on the E and then after recording the vocals I went into vari-audio and moved the E to an F#. It sounds natural because it's only a third.

So far, on this CD...

"Allentown" the vocal run at the end of each verse was very difficult to do. Billy Joel is a bitch to sing because his melodies go so high. These were probably my worst vocals on the CD.

"I Don't Mind At All" was fairly easy. A couple of notes I had to fix but for the most part, pretty much in my range.

"Video Killed The Radio Star" was pretty easy because I didn't have much to sing to begin with. Also, there's not much range there. It's like a few notes.

"Today" was easy until the last note which I had to pitch shift from the note I sang. So again, pretty much in my range. The hard part was trying to sound like Nick Garvey. He has a very rough voice.

"Love And Loneliness" was harder than Today and I had to do a lot of pitch shifting. That was just a brutal song to sing. And again, the Nick Garvey vocals.

"Wild Wild Life" was like taking tweezers to a pile of hay. I couldn't even count the number of notes out of my range. I had to do 6 vocal takes and piece the best parts of each one together in order to get a decent vocal. Without a doubt, vocally, the hardest song of the bunch.

"Can't Get It Out Of My Head" was a cake walk. Not one note out of my range and I know the song inside and out.

"Theme From Cheers" as I said, just the F# but the rest of the song was very easy to sing.

Ultimately, my "easy" range is E above middle C. After that, things start getting a little dicey. F I can hit most days. F# on a good day and G on a great day, which I have very few of these days. How I hit an A in one song a while back is beyond me. I didn't even have to pitch shift it.

Singing has always been my biggest obstacle, which is why I resorted to Vocaloid. But honestly, listening to those songs now, as much as I hate to admit it, my voice, as good or bad as it may be, sounds better than Vocaloid unless it's some kind of electronic thing where Vocaloid works, like "Radio Star" where they fit really well.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough.

Now I gotta go find another Aaron Aardvark thread so he can listen to Love And Loneliness. LOL.

[vurt]

was "i dont mind it at all"

viewtopic.php?p=7862325#p7862325

my comment and your reply, to give context to what i said

[wagtunes]

was "i dont mind it at all"

viewtopic.php?p=7862325#p7862325

my comment and your reply, to give context to what i said

Yeah, figuring out the background harmony was a little tough because it's hard to separate it from the main vocal on the record. I mean it's there, you can tell it's there, but it just doesn't stand out. Those little details in general are so hard to figure out.

[vurt]

but they are the kind of thing you might notice, working on your own pieces longer, or putting them away for a day or two then returning fresh.
you notice more details missing, and you add a little here n there to fill out the basic song.

youve got the writing part sorted, you can do that in your sleep. but just taking a little extra time with each production, as youve noticed here, will give you less songs, but better songs for sure.