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That's because he's dead.

Dang it Mike,
Just because Ole Hank is BEYOUND THE SUNSET doesn't mean he can't send me a good song. Hey, Hey, Good lookin! Whatya Got cookin?

Hey, he's got fifty or sixty kids, grandkids, and great grandkids, all singing away. Get it to them.

MAB

Marc,
50 or sixty kids? I think we are talking about a different Ole Hank.

Well, if you are talking about Hank Williams Sr.

There is Hank Jr., Hank the third, two of Hank Jr. daughters, Jett williams, and four or five of cousins and siblings that claim direct heritage to Hank Sr., not to mention the other kids who's mother's make some kind of claim to liniage I think that is a pretty good start. Then you could go through the people who pattern themselves after Hank which are pretty much everywhere you look.

MAB

Hey Mike,

Thanks for sharing the way you do stuff. Composition and arrangement, to me, is the basis of the song. You say....



For me, it's the other way around. There's a "picture" which creates the mood. Kind of like watching the tele with the sound off, then I fill in the sound to the mental picture.

I listend to your track, and yep, it sounds Ok. I gotta ask though, where's the 3rd element ? I pick 2, but the 3rd element is not there....idle observation.

Real nice sound on the backing. I'm strange when it comes to synth sounds. I was "there" in the 80's when these sounds were around, and I thought they were pretty cool. The sounds ( patches ) lapsed, but have now been picked up by the younger muso's as "cool". Strange world, it's all cyclical.

Good thing aboout MIDI, you can just change the patch, and totally alter the mood of a piece.

I notice most folks here are into writng "songs" which is Ok, but I'd estimate about 20% of the commercial broadcast market relies on instrumental pieces. Little stings and snippits, cast off pieces of melodies which just provide ambience. I'm told the royalty checks are not so bad, and especiially on a popular programme.

Another avenue to think about.

Thanks Mike, always like to hear your views.

cheers, niteshift

Great thread MAB,

The more you put down, the more it seems like practices in Nashville are no different than anywhere else. After viewing your video, I might even think it is pretty relaxed and easygoing in Nashville, when you have made some friends around, that is.

Myths are something we want to believe in, to have meaningful guiding stars for our endaveurs, I think. Without them, all the effort would be in vain. And Nashville certainly is mythological. I mean that in a good way, because the myths provide us with motivation, interest, engagement and dreams.

So, the more you write MAB, the more it seems like Nashville are no different than anywhere else. "Everywhere I lay my hat, that's my home" - sort of applies :-)

Thanks for your wonderful insights, and you play a pretty darn good guitar too! (to indulge myself in some Tennesee lingua..)

Magne,

Glad you like it. Denmark huh? My girlfriend's Mother is from Sweden. Not that that has anything to do with anything.

The things I am talking about relate to every business, every activity, every form of human endevor. But there are similarities and differences and they go like this:

Similarities:
We are all developing, producing, promoting a product. We are doing our best to get that product into the hands (ears) of as many customers as humanly possible.

Differences:
In the music business, everybody, publishers, other writers, pluggers, producers, record industry people, stores, venues, Internet sites, everybody is your direct competition.

If you think of songwriters as little bedouins. We are all out in the middle of the sahara desert. Millions of us. And we are carrying buckets of sand. We are trying to get our sand into places ahead of everybody else's sand. And we are trying to get to the publishers, pluggers, record people, who have dump trunks full of sand. They take the big sand to the people who use sand. People who use concrete, building supplies, glass, medicine, bridges, construction, walls, roofs, etc.
There are different types of sand. Dark sand, light sand, fine, course, colors, textures, lumpy, smooth.etc. But we all have sand. We have to make our sand as appealing as we can make it and get a lot of other people involved in helping us get it from us to others.
The dump trucks get it to the most listeners and consumers.

That is my view.

MAB