Composer, author, lecturer, guitar teacher

Latest

Pre-Beatles, post-Amy

Tomorrow I shall start my course for Oxford University’s Oxford Experience summer school on the Beatles, Popular Music, and 1960s Britain. It will be good to experience the uplifting energy of their music, which I haven’t listened to much probably since the last time I did the course in 2010. I have a soft spot for their early original songs (1963-65) in particular. It was a memorably spine-tingling moment a number of years back seeing the Bootleg Beatles do an immaculate version of ‘This Boy’ live. Looking back at early live footage, such as the US tour of early 1964, I’m struck always by two things: first, the overwhelming impression of some collective landslide of feeling which seems far more than what is generated at a typical successful rock gig … something beyond entertainment; second, the touching vision of the emotional bonds between the Fab Four as they sailed the good ship Beatledom through the force 10 gale of the zeitgeist. Despite all that has happened since, and despite the digital revolutions, I feel we have not yet escaped the ‘event horizon’ of the 1960s (I don’t mean that metaphor negatively).

I read recently that The Who plan a 5.1 release of Quadrophenia – that’s great news (see my earlier posts about SACD and 5.1).

Since I last wrote, the music world has lost Amy Winehouse. I was never particularly aware of her, but I will confess that ‘Love Is A Losing Game’ seems a brilliant re-creation of a 1960s torch-ballad, full of dark-blue-lit syncopations and tearful pauses, as though some lost Burt Bacharach song had turned up.

Meanwhile the BBC Proms have provided some great music as ever (including an interesting performance of Sibelius 7) and I am excited about having finally got a foothold on Valentin Silvestrov’s 5th Symphony. When I first tried this single 45-minute piece a year or so ago I couldn’t relate to what it was doing, but a few more undistracted listens on headphones (eyes shut!) have revealed some wonderful melodic sequences aside from the angrier dissonant outbreaks. Maybe they are in post-modern quotation marks … but who cares? One passage is reminiscent of John Barry … and that’s always fine by me.

Posted by  |  July 30, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Not drowning but teaching

Sorry not to have posted recently. Since June I’ve been preparing for my annual teaching stint on The Oxford Experience, a five-week programme run by the International Section of Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. Last week was the first teaching week and I have five different courses to deliver. One has a musical theme: The Beatles and 1960s Britain. This week it’s Shakespeare’s Late Romances, and one of the extras I like to put in is some examples of musical settings of the songs which occur in those plays, as well as directing my students to larger works such as the two suites which Sibelius wrote for The Tempest.

On the composition front I managed in late May-mid June to write an 11-minute piece for string orchestra called ‘The High Oaks (Threnody)’.

I’ve been giving some thought to starting work on a new book at the end of the summer.

Otherwise, I’ve been revisiting some of the songs of Marc Bolan (1968-71). Some of the articles I’ve written about his songwriting and guitar-playing have been pasted up online by others. I may put revised versions on this site eventually. This was in part set off by the fact that a week or so ago it was 40 years since T.Rex’s ‘Get It On’ was a UK no.1 and Marc Bolan appeared on TOTP with a black Les Paul Custom. Earlier in the year Gibson finally produced a signature Marc Bolan Les Paul in what they termed a ‘Bolan Chablis’ (orange-amber wood) finish. I can remember suggesting such a guitar to the head of Gibson in London about ten years ago. At the time he was sceptical that there would be enough interest – but it has happened. Sadly, the guitar Gibson issued is a bit of a hybrid – based on the fact that in the spring of 1971 in the U.S. in a fit of frustration Bolan threw the Les Paul and snapped its neck off. For some reason a black Les Paul neck was then fitted to the guitar, so that looked at from the back you have a cherry-red body and a black neck. So the Gibson guitar doesn’t match the one with which Bolan is pictured on the cover of the 1970 T.Rex album.

More on Bolan anon …

Posted by  |  July 17, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

The English Music Festival 2011

The last weekend of MAy saw the fifth English Music Festival held over four days at Dorchester on Thames. The purpose of the Festival is to celebrate English and British composers – mostly tonal and mostly from the first half of the C20th – whose music has been forgotten, was never performed or recorded, or is generally unknown. This year’s Festival featured music by Parry, Capel Bond, Lambert, Rawsthorne, Sullivan, Bainton, Stanford, Bowen, Howells, as well as more famous names such as Elgar, Holst, Delius and Vaughan Williams.

The closing concert was of particular interest to me because it featured a world premiere of a choral work by Vaughan Williams, a setting of Swinburne’s famous poem ‘The Garden of Proserpine’. I wrote an article on this piece for the Vaughan Williams Society Journal and an extract from it featured on the CD sleeve for its release on albion records. You can read the sleeve note if you go to www.albionrecords.org and look for the album sleeve. The English Music Festival also has a website.

Posted by  |  June 6, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Mouldy masters and the (lost) joy of SACD

In Richie Unterberger’s book Won’t Get Fooled Again: The Who from Lifehouse to Quadrophenia there is a terrible story relating to the loss of the original multi-track tapes of some of The Who’s finest music. For many decades there seems to have been an assumption in the recording industry that once a band had mixed an album from the 8-,12-,16, or 24-track  to the stereo mix from which master pressings would be made there was no need to keep the multi-track. These seems to often have been left at the recording studios. With the passing of years those studios closed or were sold on and often entire tape libraries were simply chucked into a skip. This appears to have happened at Olympic in London in the early 1980s. According to Unterberger some of the multi-tracks for Who’s Next were lost in this way. As a consequence, Who’s Next cannot be released in hi-definition formats such as DVD-audio or SACD 5.1 because the source material is incomplete. What a tragedy.

A related story I stumbled across concerns tape restoration. If stored in humid conditions tape can deteriorate and go mouldy. This apparently happened to a tranche of Bob Marley recordings. You can read the horror story at fxgroup.net/tape+baking. The tapes were only 25 years old. They could only save 12 out of 27. If this happens with such a famous (and therefore money-generating) artist such as Bob Marley, what hope for the smaller groups and the one-hit wonders, etc?

Posted by  |  June 6, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Stairway To Heaven

The first part of my 10,000 article about Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ is now available in the Zep magazine Tight But Loose. Editor and writer Dave Lewis continues to do sterling work in chronicling the band’s history and the careers of its individual members. Here’s a link: http://www.tightbutloose.co.uk

Posted by  |  May 24, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Songwriting technique (Isley Brothers)

Every now and then on this blog I’ll post some comments on a song which will be almost like a footnote to one of my songwriting books. Here’s something which came to me recently when I chanced to hear a track on the radio called ‘Put Yourself In My Place’ by Motown act the Isley Brothers (from the mid-60s). The song has an unusual intro and a striking first melodic phrase and it’s clear that something odd is going on in the harmony to create such an arresting start and a curiously unsettling first phrase. I identified the reason for this.

The song is in the key of C major. The intro chords are E-A-C-Bb-G. Momentarily we think we’re in E or A but the C cancels those out. It’s the presence of the E and A which are unexpected. The verse progression is C-D-E-Am-Dm-G7-C-Bb-G. The Bb-G-(C) progression (bVII-V-I) is a classic 1960s change which is not much heard these days (there’s an interesting essay to be written about why certain chord changes are more popular and more used at some times than at others). But it’s the first three chords of the verse which are important. It is unusual to have two ‘reverse polarity’ chords one after the other, especially moving up the sequence of chords I-II-III. C-D-E is I-II^-III^, to use the symbol I chose in How to Write Songs on Guitar. It’s these two chords next to each other, coupled with the melody and the lyric’s title phrase, that gives the opening of the verse such a different flavour.

Reverse polarity chords are ones which have changed from being minor to major, or minor to major, against what they shouild be in a major key. In C major D, E and A (II,III and VI) should be minor chords; II^, III^ and VI^ (D, E, A) have turned into majors.

Try turning the progression C-D-E as I-II-III in C major into C-D7-E7. This gives a common note c to the chords C and D, and then a common note of d to D and E, making the progression smoother. Follow the Am with a Dm7 and you have a common note of c to link those chords, and then Dm7-G7 shares the notes d and f.

Classic Motown of the 1960s is a good quarry for songwriters looking for new ideas in chord progressions. Away from the famous hits you can find some real gems in terms of songwriting technique.

Posted by  |  May 24, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | 4 Comments

Welcome

You’ve reached Rikky’s web site, where you can read about my music, books on songwriting and guitar technique, the courses I teach, and more.

Posted by  |  May 20, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Comments Off on Welcome

Recent listening

I’ve been enjoying the new Fleet Foxes album ‘Helplessness Blues’ and pleased they did not seek to overhaul their sound too much. This one sits well as a follow-up to the debut album of a few years ago, with more confidence in the arrangements and the recording. Quite apart from the musical trademarks of the songs, it is interesting how reverb plays an important role in their sound, lending ethereality to the signature vocal harmonies. This is noteworthy because for some years many popular recordings have gone for a very dry and airless production. I’ve always preferred something that suggested depth and distance.

I’ve also been listening to some early Elton John. Connecting with my previous post about SACD, I’ve now heard Elton’s Honky Chateau album on SACD and again the sound is a revelation. It’s available on amazon for very little at all. (There is also a Nick Drake SACD compilation that’s unexpectedly good considering that his mixes tend to have relatively few instruments in them, so you would think that they wouldn’t lend themselves to multi-channel.)

For songwriters the thing that strikes me most listening to Elton John again is the vital role that inversions play in his songs. He makes far more use of them than most guitarist songwriters (they’re easier to play on a piano). They occur more frequently in his songs and in a greater number of types. It is surprising how much emotional charge they carry in songs like ‘Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters’, ‘Your Song’, ‘Into The Old Man’s Shoes’, and ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight.’ There’s also a feeling with the songs that they have a lot of music in them –  by which I mean they don’t have any of the aura of laziness which I hear in a lot of post-2000 songwriting, where one  short idea is deemed enough to carry most of the song and if you’re lucky you might get an 8-bar bridge.

Also on SACD I can recommend the new Stravinsky SACD of the Rite of Spring and Petrouchka on BIS by the Bergen Philharmonic. Incredible sound that lets you experience the genius of Stravinsky’s orchestrations.

Posted by  |  May 9, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

A bouquet for Kensington

… or to be precise, the Kensington Orchestra who, a couple of weeks ago, gave a terrific concert in London. What drew me was two of my favourite pieces of music unusually linked on the same bill: Stravinsky’s ‘Symphony in Three Movements’ and Vaughan Williams’ third symphony (‘Pastoral’), along with a short third piece I hadn’t heard before, Martinu’s ‘Memorial to Lidice’. The Martinu made an immediate impression – a colourful and humane work on a terrible historical subject (the Nazi eradication of the town of Lidice). Martinu’s star has been rising of recent years, and his sixth symphony is a firm favourite of mine. The Stravinsky piece may have a questionable grasp on what a purist would consider true symphonic form but what drive, colour, melody and invention! It is another example of how, despite his reputation as a dissonant and shocking modernist, Stravinsky’s music is full of intriguing melody. It was great to hear the Vaughan Williams live again – his pastoral symphony is one of the great works in any medium inspired by the First World War. Evidence again that his symphonic cycle is so remarkable – 9 symphonies that sound unmistakably his and yet each forges its own world. And you can pick them up in a box-set for about £20 these days. I should mention that a couple of Vaughan Williams previously unrecorded pieces are being released this year, including his choral setting of Swinburne’s poem ‘The Garden of Proserpine’ (published in 1866). I wrote something about it on the CD sleeve and also in the current issue of the RVW Society Journal.

I’ve noted also first reports of the new Fleet Foxes album. Their debut made a big impression and I’m looking forward to hearing the new music.

On the home front, I’ve completed a piano quartet of about 15 minutes, and unexpectedly sketched a violin sonata whilst working on something else entirely. Sometimes you just have to follow wherever the ideas lead.

It looks like the long article on ‘Stairway To Heaven’ is going to appear in two parts in the next two issues of the magazine Tight But Loose. See the tbl website for details of subscriptions, etc.

Greetings to everyone who has recently registered for this blog.

Posted by  |  March 24, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Joy of SACD

Recently I’ve been listening for the first time to 5.1 surround sound mixes as featured on SACD. As has been said, the effect is more immersive than stereo. On classical SACD recordings the two rear speakers are used to add subtle ambient sound, so if you’re sitting roughly in the central position it feels as though the sound from the front three speakers is being pulled behind you. It’s three-dimensional. On the couple of rock SACDs I’ve heard individual instruments are positioned in those rear speakers, allowing more access to the texture of the music.

It is a tragedy that SACD never became a mass-market success when it was launched about 12 years ago. It offers much better sound quality than standard CDs, let alone mp3 files (I’ve read one account which said that mp3 files contain only 10% (!) of the information contained on the equivalent CD track.) There are some blu-ray players that will also play SACDs, so that’s hopeful, and classical labels are still issuing them. Other high-resolution formats such as so-called ‘studio master’ downloads also promise better quality music reproduction.

The essay on ‘Stairway To Heaven’ I mentioned in the previous blog is now done. It turned into something of an epic. I had anticipated writing 3-4,000 words, and it is over 10,000. I’ll post details of where it will be published when I have them. For many years I thought I would write a book on Led Zeppelin but the time for that has gone now. So I’m pleased at least to share some thoughts on what makes this legendary song exert its particular magic. This year would be a fitting moment to see Led Zeppelin’s fourth album released as an SACD.

I shall end with a brief note for readers who play guitar, which is to recommend the solo guitar works of the Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos, which I’ve re-visited over the past six months. They can be found on a single Naxos label CD (among others). His Preludes and Etudes are recognized cornerstones of the classical guitar repertoire. They are a delightful mix of rhythm, lyricism and dissonance.

Posted by  |  March 2, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment