Notes_Norton

Hot cocoa sounds like it will be in order. The tail end of that big northeastern blizzard will make it down here and Sunday is supposed to be the coldest night of the year. It normally goes into the upper 60s or 70s here at night, but Sunday night they are predicting 50s or 40s and then a warming back to normal. I know that doesn't sound cold to people who live in the north, but it's 80 right now, and that's a big dip in temperature. I've seen a number of full lunar eclipses, and I never get tired of them. So if I don't return, send out the Saint Bernard dogs with a full keg of brandy !!! Notes

A cold front (for Florida) is coming, so at least the mosquitoes will be dormant. Notes

Some of what I do are covers, as close to a famous recording as I am able. Some of my tracks are similar to a recording, but with my own twist on them. Others are completely rearranged, like Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" as a cool school jazz (swing) tune, Jimmy Buffet's "Son Of A Sailor" as a Reggae tune, Dolly Parton's "Joline" as a slow, torch song, and so on. We play once a week at a marina on a lagoon in Florida (in our 11th year) and tropical songs are welcome. Jimmy Buffet is a big hit here too. I had a woman who is now a regular customer ask for Jimmy Buffet's "A Pirate Looks At 40". I warned her that I didn't do it like the record (I do it as a calypso steel-drum band song with something close to a rhumba rhythm). She says she likes it better than Jimmy's ballad version and requests it often. We often play at yacht or country clubs (good $$ for the hours) and the need a 'dinner set'. Playing old pop songs as instrumental bossa-novas works well. I put the lead on the wind synthesizer instead of the sax, turn the PA down until we are at 65dba and get my gentle chops out. After dinner we get to crank it up to about 100db and play moderately high to high energy dance music. It depends on what I think my audience would like. I'm not always correct in my guesses, but all in all I have a good track record. I actually like playing different genres and different energy levels of music. Each genre puts me in a different emotional state, and I have the challenge of trying to sound authentic in many genres. We don't do originals, because I learned people want memories, but we do some parodies. We do a version of "Winter Wonderland" that has no up-north references and lots of Florida ones, like "Plastic pink flamingos in the lawn." Especially at the marina, fun songs go over well. All and all, in order to make a living doing music and nothing but music, you need to be versatile and mold your 'act' to the needs of the audience. That sometimes means compromise, but a bad day playing music is better than a good day at any other job I can think of. Insights and incites by Notes

The thing I've noticed about lunar eclipses, is that for me, the moon usually looks like a disk, but during a full eclipse it looks more like a globe. And a good pair of binoculars enhances the experience. Insights and incites by Notes

There is definitely more than one right way to do this. For me, all the work is done at home. I try to keep things as simple as possible on stage. Since I cue the songs, sing and/or play either sax, guitar, flute or wind synth on each song. By having mp3s pre-recorded at home on a laptop, I can start a song by highlighting it in Windows File Explorer and hitting Enter. It plays on Windows Media Player. While it's playing, Alt+Tab puts the focus back on File Explorer. Since the laptop keyboard is always available, type two or 3 letters and the next song is cued up. Hit enter and it plays. That was I can go from song to song seamlessly, and even change my mind in the last few seconds of the song we are playing and still go seamlessly. I don't do set lists, but prefer to do my best to read the crowd and play what they need when they want it. Since my market is the over 40 audience, if they are fast dancing and there is 2 seconds between songs, they will head back to their seats and the next song won't bring them back. So I've learned when I need to go to the next song seamlessly. But back on topic. By doing my own backing tracks, I have complete control over the music. If I want to eliminate the rubato intro I can because the intro might not be danceable (is danceable a word?). I can even record two versions in case it's a listening and not dancing crowd I can do the intro. I can also start with the hook and then go into the first verse. Often people recognize songs by the hook, and the quicker they recognize it, the faster they will respond. I can put the key in the best key for us so we can sing it at its best. I can lengthen slow songs because for my market 2.5 minutes isn't long enough. 4 to5 is optimal. I can speed it up a few BPM because for live performance, it adds energy. This is something I've learned from all the live bands (no backing tracks) I've ever played with. And by mixing in mono and having the bass and drums on a second channel, but tweaking the midrange pot, I can pump up or down the snare, or using the gain pot bring up or down the core rhythm section. This all works for me, and it is my current way of doing things. It has evolved through the years as I find ways that solve problems I had and work better for me. It might not be the way for anybody else, and I might change it again at any time. Insights and incites by Notes

A blonde and a lawyer are seated next to each other on a flight from LA to NY. The lawyer asks if she would like to play a fun game? The blonde, tired, just wants to take a nap, politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun. He explains, I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5.00, and vise versa. Again, she declines and tries to get some sleep. The lawyer, now agitated, says, "Okay, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5.00, and, if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500.00." This catches the blonde's attention and, figuring there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, agrees to the game. The lawyer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?" The blonde doesn't say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a $5.00 bill and hands it to the lawyer. Okay says the lawyer, your turn. She asks the lawyer, "What goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?" The lawyer, puzzled, takes out his laptop computer and searches all his references, no answer. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the net and the library of congress, no answer. Frustrated, he sends e-mails to all his friends and coworkers, to no avail. After an hour, he wakes the blonde, and hands her $500.00. The blonde says, "Thank you," and turns back to get some more sleep. The lawyer, who is more than a little miffed, wakes the blonde and asks, "Well, what's the answer? "Without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

Hoping for clear weather. Thanks for the alert!

Thanks Msmcleod. Starise, I haven't done any CbB tracks yet. I'm still using Master Tracks Pro. The gigging season got really, really busy here in S. Florida (that's a good thing) so I haven't had enough time to get good at CbB yet. I had to learn some songs for special requests at gigs, and since I already know where everything is in MTPro, I'm using it simply because I'm quick with it. When I have the time to learn where everything is and what it's called in CbB, I'll probably ditch MTPro as it has been orphaned since Windows XP. But MIDI is MIDI, whether I program it with CbB or MTPro it should sound the same. All my sound modules are external, so the voices won't change. Insights and incites by Notes

I don't know what CbB is so I don't know if it's my work. I write aftermarket styles for Band-in-a-Box but they are intentionally generic so they can be used for more than one song. I had a customer of mine ask for a "Don't Be Cruel" style (Elvis P) so I made one. But with the song specific guitar figure, it is only good for one song. Try it in a different song and it shouts "Don't Be Cruel". And getting it to work with the limitations of BiaB was more work than writing the sequence out track by track in real time. BiaB does have it's quirks. I've done contract work for some other software and hardware auto-accompaniment products but with a non-disclosure agreement. Nothing really recent but when I hear my work on things I'm not allowed to brag about, it still makes me smile. For my own duo's tracks, I mix in stereo but pan both channels center so it comes out mono. Here's the advantage as I see it. I put the bass and drums on one channel (L) and the comp parts on the other (R). That way I can kick up the bass and drums if need be or turn them down. We played for dinner and then dancing in a yacht club for about 10 years, and dinner sets had to be about 65dba max. I'd turn the L channel down a notch to make them even more background during the dinner set. After dinner we cranked it up to about 90db right in front of the stage and I'd return the L channel to it's home position. I was slightly adjusting a mono mix that way. But since I have some people sitting under the left speaker and others the right, the only way to get them to hear everything is to run everything panned center or mono. I remember sitting in an Italian restaurant in a strip center once, sitting under the ceiling speaker that played only one channel. The songs were familiar and parts panned on the other side of the store were not heard by me, just a little reverb of the instruments at times. I have an old Samson MPL1204 mixer. Actually I have a half dozen because I use them in my stage rack as well. I'm a "the show must go on" kind of a guy so I have duplicates of everything important. Since the 1204 is discontinued, I bought more. I don't see any 12 channel mixers that fit in a road rack. The ones advertised have one or two stereo channels that they count as two. I don't mix that way so it's not 12 for me. I'd jump on a newer model if I could find one with a manufacturer that isn't going out of business soon (I almost bought a Carvin mixer but they went belly-up). I mix my MIDI instruments in the 1204, run the output and record them into a second computer to make a WAV file. Since I started doing this in 2002 and storage was 2G max for Windows, I make 192kbps mp3 files using an old CDex app. I read that newer CDex apps have had spyware introduced, so version 5 or earlier is recommended. I guess that's the price of open source software when the parent company loses interest. (Before 2002 I did live sequences pushing floppy disks into a hardware sequencer.) I mix at home and I first listen on external computer speakers. I always listen in mono, everything panned center. Then I lug in a Carvin 2way with a 15" woofer. They are old PA speakers now doing double duty as stereo set speakers in the living room. I use EVs on stage now that sound better than the Carvins (and are much more expensive). If I can hear everything on both the small computer speakers and the Carvin, I'll be able to hear everything on stage. On stage I run two vocal mics, 4 synth modules, 2 guitars (via fx/amp-sim pedals), and my backing tracks all panned center. There are two spare channels. If I'm doing a party a cheap mic on a long cable goes in one if the host or anyone else wants to speak. We prefer that they don't use our singing mics because if they are catching a cold and don't know it yet, we could get it and a future gig would suffer. I also mix the speaking mic with no FX, and EQ it for speech. Then what I think is a very important piece of gear. A BBE Sonic Maximizer. I always shop at a mom and pop store if I can. Years ago, the owner loaned me this BBE. He said try it on the gig. No down payment, no credit card, just my word to either bring it back if I don't like it or some money if I did. We were a house band at the time, and when we cranked up the first set three separate customers wanted to know what we did because we sounded even better than usual. In my basic understanding it works this way. Coils, like the ones in your speakers, don't like current to reverse directions, so there is some minuscule delay. The higher the frequency the more the delay. So for the typical loudspeaker the low notes reach your ears slightly before the high ones. The Sonic Maximizer delays the low notes to compensate so that the lows and the highs reach your ears in phase. If you use one, de-EQ your system first and then re-EQ with the BBE in. You'll find you need much less EQ. The BBE goes between the mixer/preamp and the power amp, which in my case is in each speaker cabinet. There are times when I get the mix wrong at home, so I'll make tweaks to the sequence and try again for the next gig. Usually the main tweak is simply volume sometimes a bit of mix. I might have ripped the mp3 a little too hot or low at home. Until the volume is up and it's on the gigging speakers, it's sometimes hard to tell. Most of the time I get it right the first time, sometimes it takes 2 or 3 and the most stubborn one to date took 5 tries. If people offer to let me use the house system, I politely refuse. I tell them that I know my system, my music is equalized to compensate for the audio signature of my system, it took a while to learn how my system reacts, and if I used yours, I'd have to learn yours. Since we usually play small to medium size rooms, that has always worked. Of course it means schlepping two 15" speaker cabs, one 12 space rack, one sax, two guitars, two synth controllers, tow wind synths, 3 computers, a bunch of stands and cables and a couple of mics. It takes about an hour to set up, we leave an hour and a half (it's always the cable, and it knows when you are short of time), and another hour to tear down. But it's worth it to always sound our best. Insights and incites by Notes

For most in the audience, that's true. But I know the difference when I'm playing and my tracks are more fun to play along with than a purchased karaoke track. They are my arrangement, in our optimal key, I can extend the solo section or take multiple solos, and I have that self-pride thing (wrong or right, that's just me). We have been working steadily since we formed the duo in the 1980s, I have to turn down gigs to take a yearly vacation, and we make more money per night than most if not all of the other duos in the area. Part of that is the backing tracks, part of that is the job we do on top of the tracks (my partner is a phenomenal singer, I'm only an adequate singer and guitarist but an excellent sax and wind synth player), and part is that we are professional and hard working. We read the crowd, call songs when we perceive the crowd needs them, and act appropriately for each gig. We view this as competition with our musician friends. Our goal is to do it better than the rest in every way we can, and to the best of our abilities. If the tracks are a little better, the crowd pacing a little better, the vocals a little better, the arrangements a little better, the stage presence a little better, and the solos a little better, it all adds up to a lot. If any of these things are not a little better than the competition, at least we know we've done our very best. Insights and incites by Notes

There is a lot of wisdom in that quote BayouBill. When you can do it so well that you don't have to think about it anymore, you can turn the so-called left brain off and your subconscious will allow your emotions to be expressed through the music. In a simpler way, an old teacher of mine used to say, "Practice it until you can play it without thinking. The best music comes out when you don't have to think about it." I have friends who tell me to buy karaoke tracks or commercial MIDI sequences for my tracks. They tell me I'm working too hard. Working too hard? Since when is music working? We PLAY music. Sure, practice can take time, and it's often repetitious, but it's still play. Doing my own backing tracks to the best of my ability takes time. It depends on the song. Sometimes part of a day, other times days with edit after edit once I hear them on stage. But when they are done they are absolutely as good as I can make them, and I'm proud of my accomplishment. If I'm lucky, I'll get to sing and/or play sax, wind synth, or guitar over that track thousands of times on stage with a full dance floor or a concert crowd enjoying the music I'm making. On stage playing music with an appreciative audience feeding the energy back to me is the most fun I can have with my clothes on. Insights and incites by Notes

I make my own backing tracks for my duo saving the most fun parts to be played live over the tracks. Downsizing to a duo was a compromise, but a way to keep making a living doing music and nothing but music in the days after people stopped paying bands enough money to live on. I make most of them 100% MIDI because (a) I don't have a pristine recording environment and (b) too much audio sounds like karaoke to me. I don't know if the audience cares about karaoke tracks, but I have enough self-pride to care. I make the majority of them from scratch, playing the parts live with MIDI controllers, starting with the drums first, then the bass, and after that whatever the song needs. I play drums, bass, sax, wind synth, guitar, flute, keyboard synth and vocals so it's something I can do. Doing the entire backing track myself lets me know exactly what is going on in the song, the chords, the substitutions used, and everything I need to play a good improvised solo. Doing the backing tracks myself also allows me to change and/or extend the song I'm covering so I can have a space for a nice solo. I can put it in our best key, and change the tempo too without artifacts. If there is an appropriate style I'll use Band-in-a-Box for the 'mule work' (comp parts that don't require song specific licks or rhythms). I have a page on how to: http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html Another mule work time saver. I can enter the chords in BiaB, and if playing horn, string or other ensemble parts, I can record the high part and let BiaB write the lower harmony parts. BiaB has many different options and follows the rules I learned in the Berklee correspondence course when I was young. I'm a live performer, if I were to do an album I'd still record the parts the same way, drums first, bass next and so on. So would it be a backing track or not? (Who cares?) I've done 'sax for hire' studio work often to a rhythm section already recorded and with a temp vocal track on it. When done the singer overdubs the final track. So is that a backing track to the vocalist? (Another rhetorical question.) I also write aftermarket styles for Band-in-a-Box so I know what the app can do and cannot do, it's strong points to use and it's weaknesses to avoid. At the start of this post, I said the duo was a compromise, and it is... All the background parts are 'me'. -- there is nobody to surprise me with a part I didn't think of already -- there is interaction on stage only between my partner and myself, but not with the 'band' .. we can react to it, but it doesn't react back to us -- the arrangements are set in stone and although I can make different arrangements of the same song for different situations, once I start it's what it is -- it's a lot more 'not playing music work' on stage -- when those rare but inevitable mistakes are made, the rest of the 'band' won't help you cover them up. But here is what drove me to duo-land: I was in a 5 piece band with the woman who is now my wife (we first met while in different bands and joined first a jazz trio and then this pop band together). We were working steadily and the bass player had to quit. Two months out of work auditioning and braking in a replacement. As a musician I know to keep two months living money in the bank for these circumstances but I don't like having to replenish it. A few months later we lost the drummer. Auditioned a few and hired one who had a small kit, kept a solid beat, played tastefully, and could sing background vocals. She caught on quickly and we got back to work in about a month. First gig, a wedding at a local country club. The crowd was huge so the opened the accordion pleat wall between the lounge and the dining room and set us in the lounge. The drummer said, "God won't forgive me if I play in a bar." I said, "God will have to forgive me for homicide tonight if you don't play in the bar." She then figured if we didn't drink for this one time it would be OK. The next week I bought a keyboard with an on-board sequencer and never looked back. And the bonus was that we were taking home more money. The duo made only about $100 less per night than the 5 piece was making. And we split it with two people who were living together at the time (and eventually married). After the keyboard came an Atari Computer, a Mac, and now I make the tracks on a Windows PC. The technology has grown nicely since I started doing the duo thing in 1985, and we've been working steady every since. In fact, we have to turn down work to take a yearly vacation. The duo works for us, and making my own backing tracks works for us too. Insights and incites by Notes

Export as MIDI type 1 Try setting Continuous Controller 7 (track volume) to zero. Sometimes CC7 is used during the song for transient volume changes instead of CC11 which is supposed to be for that function, so that could be a problem. If so look to see if CC11 is used anywhere, if not, set that to zero at the beginning of the track. I think that would be what I'd try first. If it works and you really need MIDI type 0, go ahead and save as MIDI 0 and the changes should stick. Insights and incites by Notes

Sorry to have strayed off topic, I didn't mean to hijack the thread. I do have some of my Band-in-a-Box customers who tell me they use BiaB with various DAW apps, including Cakewalk to play church music (there - I'm back on topic). I used Master Tracks Pro as a MIDI sequencer since the days when Atari computers had MIDI ports and Macs where using Motorola CPUs. I didn't switch to IBM (now PC) until they got rid of DOS and went to Windows 3.1. I guess I'm showing me age (oops! I mean great wisdom, maturity and experience <wink--grin>) . For Audio I used PG Music's Power Tracks Pro Audio and Audacity because it supplied all my minimal audio needs. I've always liked doing my MIDI work on an app that didn't integrate audio too. With MTPro everything I needed was available with one click of the menu. Without the addition of audio, there are no sub-menus and sub-sub menu choices. Without the extra baggage I could get my MIDI work done much quicker. A lot of my projects are 100% MIDI. If needed I would import the MIDI into Power Tracks Pro Audio and add any audio parts. But I'm basically a live performer who makes his own backing tracks and too much audio makes it sound like karaoke. MTPro has been orphaned since about 2005 and isn't at it's best under Windows 10, so I asked my friends in the Band-in-a-Box for recommendations. Cakewalk came up more than the others. I had tried Cubase when it was still pretty now and didn't like it. About 10 years ago a Cubase LE disk came with a guitar pedal I bought. Still didn't like it. I'm gigging too much to get very far into Cakewalk. The tourist season ends after Easter so I'll be able to put more time into it then. It looks like Cakewalk might be my DAW of choice, and I suspect I'll be asking some questions here and hopefully getting some helpful advice. It seems like a nice forum with a lot of nice people. Insights and incites by Notes

There are many ways to play music badly ;) I grew up hearing church music (Roman Catholic) in small-town Florida and the church choirs were always very amateur, omitting the rests at the end of the phrase to rush the next one, having voices that don't blend, and terrible intonation. But they tried real hard and did their best. A couple of years ago I found myself in Montreal Quebec Canada. I don't go to church anymore but I heard they have a great pipe organ there. They do. A great organist as well. And the choir is magnificent, a real treasure. They are on a par with the likes of the Robert Shaw Choral and other top-notch recording groups. I hope the people of Montreal know what a gem then have in their city. If I stayed another week I would have gone to mass again just to hear them. Insights and incites by Notes

That one was new to me. I agree, it was well done. In a related note, I remember jazz in the Verve and CTI label days where the record companies would pair up two jazz giants (live in the studio) and release albums. Stan Getz with Slide Hampton, or Bill Evans, or Chet Baker, or Kenny Barron, or Astrud Gilberto, or Dave Brubeck, or Gerry Mulligan and so on. Some of the pairings were brilliant and others just didn't work for me. The Stan Getz with Charlie Byrd and the Getz with Louis Bonfa disks are classics. They did this for Stan, Joe Pass, Zoot Sims, Cal Tjader, Ben Webster, and tons of other stars. So I suppose the old/new splicing are just an outgrowth and a twist on that. I've done some recording and I prefer to do it with the band and the vocalist all playing at the same time. Do multiple takes and choose the best one. Add additional parts on for sweetening if needed but I like the core band and lead singer (or solo instrumentalist) to be playing together so they can react to each other in real time. Perhaps I favor that because I've been on stage since I was in high school and I like interacting with others. I've done some session work to a temp vocal track, reacted to the vocalist, and when the final vocal track was laid down she/he sang it differently and my reaction still worked, but not nearly as well. The vocal inflection I complemented or contrasted with was no longer there, the vocalist sang it differently that day. When work calls, I'll do it either way, but I prefer it 'organic'. There is no bad way to play music. But I've heard some great recordings done piece at a time, track at a time, pick the best part out of dozens, that to this day blow me away. Again, more than one right way to do this. And for the backing tracks in my duo, I record the drums, bass, and comp parts myself in multiple passes leaving out the "most fun" parts for Leilani and I to play live on stage. I play the parts live into the DAW one at a time. I'm usually 100% MIDI in the DAW. Since I don't have a pristine studio to work with it works well for me with no studio expense. Plus it's available 24/7, all MIDI with background vocal parts done on synth voices doesn't shout "karaoke", and I can change keys, arrangement, and do other edits, either great or small whenever I want. Plus I'm not the world's best keyboard player by any stretch of the imagination. I practice a part I need to record just enough to get comfortable with the feel and if I hit a clunker I can keep going and fix it with a double-click. I'm still using Master Tracks Pro, but as soon as the winter season work slows down I plan to put some time in with Cakewalk and if it can do the things that I need to abandon MTPro. It has been orphaned since the 1980s, still works, but not as well on Windows 10 as it does on my old XP or Win7 computers. I have friends/competitors who buy karaoke tracks. They say it's a lot less work. But that doesn't work for me. I want to extend the arrangements, leave room for a sax, wind synth, flute, and/or guitar solo, and change the key without any artifacts. It might take me a day or two to work up a new song, but if I'm lucky, I'll get to play it hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. Besides, when I do the work myself, I know every chord, every substitution, and thus how to play a better solo over the top. One of my biggest joys in life is to improvise a solo. I have the day off today (working on some re-mixing backing tracks) and I can't wait to go to work tomorrow. Insights and incites by Notes

One of the greats indeed. Thanks for posting.

Since I write aftermarket style 'disks' and fake 'disks' for Band-in-a-Box, I frequent the PG Music/Band-in-a-Box forum daily http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?lang=english Although I play 7 instruments (8 if you count voice) sax is my primary instrument so Ialso go to Sax On The Web a lot https://forum.saxontheweb.net/forum.php Wind Synthesizer is a spin-off from sax so I go here a few times a week http://www.patchmanmusic.com/forum Harmony Central is another stop for me https://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/ Since I bought my Parker guitars, I hardly play my Gibson or Epiphone anymore, but after years of frequenting the Gibson forum, I have a lot of on-line friends there so I still go, mostly to post in the 'lounge' area http://forum.gibson.com/ Parker guitars went out of business and the forum isn't very active, but I still stop by once or twice a week http://forums.parkerguitars.com/index.php?action=login I used to go to a few Facebook pages, but I don't like the way they do business so I quit and deleted my data. If I need help on Carvin, Yamaha, Roland, MOTU, Ketron, or any other gear I own, I'll go to their forums until my problem is solved, but I don't frequent them. That about does it for me. Notes

Actually I think the song was kind of cute. I would never cover that song though, it reminds me too much of political attack ads. Don't tell me what the other does wrong, tell me what you do right, but not in words, in your music. BTW, I didn't care for the Kenny/Satchmo cut at all, but neither did I the Nat/Natalie hit. Those songs were for other people's ears. But I think Natalie Cole was a very good singer for standards, and OK for pop. (my personal opinion). I dislike Pat's riff on Kenny every bit as much as the Kenny songs. Pat Metheny has a right to his opinion, but I think negative opinions are better not broadcasted to the world at large. If a horn player Pat liked, perhaps Michael Brecker cut a spliced tribute with Louis, would he have liked it, or still went into a minor rant? I don't know and since Brecker is in the great gig in the sky now, we'll never get that chance (not that I think it would happen if he was still alive). I think other saxophonists who I think play better than Kenny aren't getting as much popular acclaim, but then my all-time favorite jazz singer, Mark Murphy isn't a household name while dozens of lesser singers are. Perhaps I don't know what it takes. I've never purchased a Kenny G recording, but I can't dis him for making a living playing music. His music is just not my proverbial cup of tea. I played a Kenny G song, "Songbird" when it was a hit, Kenny's head, my improvisations, and my own background arrangement that was not all that close to the original. I've been playing the over 55 market since I was in my late 30s. More freedom, fewer days per week, more money, more variety of genres I get to play, and more appreciation. I don't have to do them 'like the record' but I can if I choose to. I used to know a killer pianist, he could send me into a trance and chose only to play once in a while when a good jazz gig came around. He couldn't support himself on that, so he toiled away 9 to 5 -- 5 days a week for some faceless corporation. Which is the worse sell out? Commercial music or a 9 to 5??? I'm not sure. I've known quite a few good musicians who support themselves with a day-gig so they can play 'art music' one night a week for drinks and tips or a mere pittance. Some of them are wonderful to listen to and I'm glad they made what I consider that sacrifice. Kenny G has very good tone on the soprano, but what he does on his commercial records is not what I like to hear. It's for someone else's ears. I'm more of a Stan Getz, Stanley Turrentine, Houston Person, Lester Young, Zoot Sims kind of guy. I'm not even fond of John Coltrane although I can appreciate his genius - the way he says it just doesn't speak to me. And although I am in a duo doing cover songs, we don't cover many 'like the record' because I play for a mature audience and that's not necessary. I can put a synth trumpet solo in a Beatles song and if I do a good job, they will love it. Some of the songs are direct covers, most are not although they are in the proverbial "ball park", and many are complete reinterpretations. But I get to make a living doing music and nothing but music and I am not a wage slave for some faceless corporate magnate. That works for me, but isn't the right path for everybody. I have a great time on the gig, it's almost like getting paid to goof off and have fun. Sure I read and pace the audience, give them what they want when they want it and sneak in a few for myself as well. I know I work for the house or the entertainment purchaser but I like playing music and love the audience feedback. I hated working the two day gigs I've had in my life. In MIDI I have about 30 different electric guitar sounds, some of which do pretty good emulations of teles, strats, 335s and to a lesser degree les paul, plus a number of others. Plus there are parameters I can tweak in each synth patch to make them sound different from the way they did from the factory. And two people can play that same grand piano and you can tell which one was Leon Russell and which one was Billy Preston. Same for the same synthesizer emulation sounds. Two good but different players on the same controller and synth will sound different. That seems to be the point I was making when responding to yours about synths voices sounding the same. It's also my personal opinion that tone is secondary to expression. I know as musicians we all endlessly chase tone, and that's proper, but that's not what sells to the public. Why else would singers like Dr. John, Stevie Nicks, Bob Dylan, Blossom Dearie, John Lennon and a host of others make zillions of dollars and become idols in their genres? I'm a live player, and get feedback from the audience. It's not a lecture or a monologue, it's a dialog. I feed them and they feed be back in return. So IMO as long as the tone is appropriate for the genre of music and the song you are playing, your expression, your choice of notes, your choice of ornaments, your individual phrasing, your pitch manipulations, and all the other things that turn empty notes into music are what makes the difference. And that's for me. YMMV. As I said before, there is more than one right way to make music.

Thanks.

And you have a very good point. For some this would be the best approach and I do enjoy many instantly recognizable artists. But there is more than one way to make good music. Piano players are recognizable even when playing the same studio piano. Most people can't hear the difference between one Steinway Concert Grand and another, yet when you hear a song "The Wrecking Crew" did the session on, you can usually tell when Leon Russell was on the session. It's not his tone, it's his playing. And even among piano players, there are times when many reach for a Rhodes or a Digital piano, not for what they do like that Steinway, but for their differences. I am a long time sax player, although I play more than a half dozen instruments sax is my 'home' instrument. And on the gig I play wind synth sax too. Why would a sax player with a real one use a synth sax? For the things the synth sax will do that my acoustic sax will not. I play the synth sax for the differences. Now there are also other instruments I emulate on the gig. I do my absolute best to sound like the instrument I'm emulating. For Example: If the song calls for a trumpet solo, I want it to sound as much like a trumpet as my skills and the limitations of my gear allows. In that situation I think it is the right thing to do. And people do remember my duo. We started gigging in 1985 and for the first 3 years I worked very hard at self-promotion and tapered off as work came to me. Since 1990 I haven't done a single sales call. And in order to take a yearly vacation I actually have to block out the time in advance and turn work down. We gigged at a yacht club that we play at perhaps 5 or 6 times per year. People coming in before the downbeat greeted us with big smiles and comments like, "We're glad you are here, you're our favorite band." and so on (I'm sure other bands are other people's favorites but dozens came up to us and remembered us). Now if I was a solo artist trying to make records, I'd probably have a different approach. The approach you mentioned. As a sax player I'm glad Stan Getz sounds like Getz, Stanley Turrentine sounds like Turrentine, Richie Cole sounds like Cole, and so on. And if I were a session musician I'd try to be a musical chameleon and be unrecognizable by my tone and approach each song the way the people running the session thought fit. And I'm glad session sax player Plas Johnson has many different voices on his sax. In my duo, we are musical chameleons. When we play a rock song you would think we are a rock band, when we play reggae we sound like a reggae band, when we do country we sound like a Nashville band, when we do standards we sound like a swing jazz band, when we do funk we sound like a funk band, and so on. We do all this to the best of ability. This keeps us working. For over 30 years we work more than any other duo around, and we get more money than others too. I haven't done a sales call in decades because we thrive on repeat business and word of mouth. Pat Metheny is a great player, and I like listening to him play. However at time I think he is too negative and critical of others. I heard him do a big tirade against Kenny G. Now I don't particularly care for Kenny G commercial output, and I've heard Kenny play much better sax when he was with Jeff Lorber's Fusion, but Mr. G found something that his audience loved and made him a lot of money. That's much better than being the poor starving artist. And although I was in a band that almost made it famous once, the majority of my life was spend playing commercial music, so how can I dis Kenny G for playing commercial music? Not everybody is as fortunate as Mr. Methany, to be able to play whatever he wants and have make a good living at it. I had a long talk with Tom Scott many years ago. He said something like this (and I paraphrase) ... There is a sax player somewhere playing in a Holiday Inn in a place like Valparaiso Indiana that can put me in his back pocket, but I was in the right place at the right time, I had the right connections, I showed up straight, and I played what was required of me at the time, so I got the gig. In a different set of circumstances, Pat Metheny could have been doing cover songs in a Holiday Inn. But he had the talent, had the connections, was in the right place at the right time, and covered the gig well. I tend to strive to stay into the positive territory (although I do fail at that sometimes) and remember that there is more than one right way to make music. What is right for me might not be right for the next person, but as long as the musician is communicating with an audience, it's obviously one of the right ways. So whether you are playing emulative, original, interpretive, or whatever, if the music speaks to me personally, it's good music. If it doesn't then it is music made for the ears of someone else. Insights and incites by Notes

Hi, I'm new to this forum. When following a thread in many other forums, there is a "First unread post" link that sends me to exact spot I left off on the the thread last time. I don't see one here. Am I missing it? Or is there just not one I'm not complaining, but if there is a link I'd like to know how to find it. Thanks, Notes

And he has a point, but perhaps because he never played MIDI. Also we all have a tendency to look at other performers through musician's eyes, and forget about how our audience looks at us. As a sax player who doesn't play trumpet, trombone, harmonica, concertina, clarinet, flugelhorn, and a dozen other instruments, I enjoy playing different sounds on the wind synth and it gives our duo tonal colors and variety that they wouldn't get if I only played sax and guitar on stage. Speaking of guitar, it's my 7th instrument (8th if you count vocals) and I can still do some thing solo-wise on the wind synth that I'm not able to do on the guitar yet. Also, there is an art to emulating other instruments with MIDI. If you play that sax patch like a piano, no matter how good the tone is, you won't convince anyone that it's a sax. You have to recreate the nuances of sax playing, which are partially governed by the advantages and limitations of that instrument. If you play a piano patch like a sax, it won't fool anyone either. Not to say that these are wrong things to do. If you want a piano to have sax-like qualities in your song, go for it. It just might work fantastically. Learning to emulate other instruments with MIDI, including my own primary instrument, the sax, also taught me a lot about coaxing expression out of 'pure synth' patches that don't emulate anything specific. For those of us who make their living playing music live, we must remember we are in show business and we must also remember to see ourselves through they eyes of whatever audience we find in front of us at the moment. If I thought making my guitar do a nice kazoo solo and it would please the audience, I'd do just that. And once you have the audience on your side, they won't mind at all if you occasionally throw in something that is exclusively for yourself, as long as it doesn't stray too far away and/or is at the right moment. Insights and incites by Notes