The Wagtunes Corner

[wagtunes]

Love that theatrical rock opera sound.

I can be quite the ham. LOL

[eassae]

Love that theatrical rock opera sound.

I can be quite the ham. LOL

Ha! I truly dig this kind of stuff. Keep it coming.

[aaron aardvark]

wagtunes,
Now reviewing "Duck Soup" (a Marx Brothers, a funny movie, reference?): my wife said she's seen Sparks ~13 times in concert, and has an album cover autographed by the whole group. I like a number of their songs. Your song has a theatrical vibe (good). My favorite part is the piano: nice sound and riffs. Bass and drums are good. Vocal melody is good. A pleasant song, some of the lyrics are humorous. . Hey, have you tried Toontrack EZBass yet (I did, but don't own it)? The slap bass (if you're into that sort of thing) in EZBass is a lot better than Modo Bass (I own that) in my opinion. I was pretty stoked last month when I got some positive comments from a musician that used to play in Snarky Puppy (a jazz fusion group that got a Grammy this year). That's good if you are getting paid. So many ripoffs in the music world. A friend of mine played guitar on a couple of songs for a teen heart throb TV star/musician's CD and never got a penny. He went on tour with the guy and got paid $32/day to play in front of hundreds/thousands of screaming girls.

[wagtunes]

wagtunes,
Now reviewing "Duck Soup" (a Marx Brothers, a funny movie, reference?): my wife said she's seen Sparks ~13 times in concert, and has an album cover autographed by the whole group. I like a number of their songs. Your song has a theatrical vibe (good). My favorite part is the piano: nice sound and riffs. Bass and drums are good. Vocal melody is good. A pleasant song, some of the lyrics are humorous. . Hey, have you tried Toontrack EZBass yet (I did, but don't own it)? The slap bass (if you're into that sort of thing) in EZBass is a lot better than Modo Bass (I own that) in my opinion. I was pretty stoked last month when I got some positive comments from a musician that used to play in Snarky Puppy (a jazz fusion group that got a Grammy this year). That's good if you are getting paid. So many ripoffs in the music world. A friend of mine played guitar on a couple of songs for a teen heart throb TV star/musician's CD and never got a penny. He went on tour with the guy and got paid $32/day to play in front of hundreds/thousands of screaming girls.

Hey Aaron, thanks for the feedback. I see you have new tunes. Can't wait to check them out. No, haven't tried EZ-Bass. Will check it out.

[frank1985]

Not too keen on the Jlo song even though I do think she's a washed up ho. I liked Not My Jazz, and while I have an inherent fear of women with robotic voices I thought it worked well here. I thought maybe this would have had more impact if the vocals came back in during the second sax solo at the end (if this is a cover, scrap that). Might be some clashing but it could work for more impact.

Please do Communication Breakdown by Zeppelin. I imagine your style would work well for that.

[wagtunes]

Not too keen on the Jlo song even though I do think she's a washed up ho. I liked Not My Jazz, and while I have an inherent fear of women with robotic voices I thought it worked well here. I thought maybe this would have had more impact if the vocals came back in during the second sax solo at the end (if this is a cover, scrap that). Might be some clashing but it could work for more impact.

Please do Communication Breakdown by Zeppelin. I imagine your style would work well for that.

Thanks for the listen and the feedback. Communication Breakdown? I don't even know that one. LOL

[aaron aardvark]

wagtunes,
I had to dig somewhat far back (you might as well ramp up production again if that works better for you) to find a song that I don't think I have reviewed before: "It's Up to We": an interesting song title. I see the lyrics as a positive thing. All of the melodies are good. I think these are some of your better vocals (good). I see this song as part rock/part theatrical. Nice song!

[wagtunes]

wagtunes,
I had to dig somewhat far back (you might as well ramp up production again if that works better for you) to find a song that I don't think I have reviewed before: "It's Up to We": an interesting song title. I see the lyrics as a positive thing. All of the melodies are good. I think these are some of your better vocals (good). I see this song as part rock/part theatrical. Nice song!

Hey Aaron, thanks for the listen. The lyrics were written by Jonina Sims. It was for my CD "The Facebook Chronicles Vol 1" where all the lyrics were written by Facebook members. "It's Up To We" was one of the better tracks.

As far as ramping up production, that's probably not going to happen. I've decided to finally take my time doing my songs. My current CD "Gas II A Rock Opera" I starred on 2/23/2021 and 3 months later, I'm a little more than half way done. I'm posting the whole playlist when I'm done. But honestly, there isn't much to listen to on this one.

[Bansaw]

I checked in to see what was new and was pleasantly surprised to see the royalty check. Congratulations!

Thanks Frantz. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Wow, well done. Must be a good feeling to be getting something for all the time you put in.
Congrats.

[wagtunes]

I checked in to see what was new and was pleasantly surprised to see the royalty check. Congratulations!

Thanks Frantz. Hopefully, this is just the beginning.

Wow, well done. Must be a good feeling to be getting something for all the time you put in.
Congrats.

Yeah, it's nice. It would have meant more to me 44 years ago as a young wide-eyed hopeful 20 year old but it's still nice to be able to call myself a professional. No one can take that away from me.

[vurt]

all this action, i thought there was a new tune!

hope you're keeping well, and enjoying the songwriter status

[wagtunes]

all this action, i thought there was a new tune!

hope you're keeping well, and enjoying the songwriter status

This new "take my time" mindset is something very new for me. I'm not used to it and it will probably take some time to adjust to. But the last song I did was actually very good and fresh, meaning it wasn't a rehash of something. Plus, the time to reflect made me think of another song that I'll be doing for another project.

Maybe in the long run this will actually make me a better writer even if the current results are subpar. Well, at least I think they're subpar. I can only guess what others will think.

I'll post a link to the entire CD when it's completed and folks can listen to what they want or not want. I'm estimating sometime in July or August.

[vurt]

But the last song I did was actually very good and fresh,

i like that! one of the first times ive heard you be totally positive!
considering how you've felt in the past about some of your songs which have been pretty damn good (seriously, some of them are great!) it's really nice to see you this way about a piece
and, more important, now has me looking forward to the release

[wagtunes]

I've been going through some of my old stuff and this one I really like, song wise. The mix isn't horrible but obviously has issues. You might want to turn it down a few db as I didn't use any compression or limiting back then. It was just straight into the recorder. This one is from 2010 when I still had my analog studio.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... e-go-again

[vurt]

a lost elo demo tape?

actually sounds really good to me, it's those little mix "issues" as you call them, that make it more alive!

good stuff indeed, and nice to see you sharing again, even if it's an oldie to you, it's new to us