Hooper

Hi Songwriters, My name is Ken but I started using the handle Hooper once the Internet and forums came along. Actually, it is a nickname that I always wanted but never had as a kid growing up with Hardy Boys books. My first instrument was ukulele at 11 years old and first song was Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue. Then the Beatles showed up on Sullivan and later a guitar showed up for Christmas. Then followed a steady stream of Beatles, Byrds, Dylan and later Moody Blues, Grateful Dead, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, more Beatles- especially Lennon. And my teen years were spent in an urban environment where garage bands were as common as pimples on a mugshot. My only formal music training was a music theory course in high school where I was at least introduced to analyzing and building chords and harmony. The other best music lesson I ever had was watching George Martins three part documentary The Rhythm of Life. Nowadays I guess Im a jack-of-all-trades, master of none- playing guitars, bass, some keys, some electronic drums, some singing- all plugged into a PC based home studio. In fact, sometimes I just think of the whole pile of stuff as one big funny-looking instrument. I keep working on growing as a songwriter, collecting snippets of words and music but havent really finished that many songs. One of those songs is Reaching Out which appeared on the Faces of Friendship project. Actually, that song came together pretty easy. The seed came from an evening news broadcast, about two days after the tsunami. The announcer said And now for our next story were taking you to: The saddest place in the world tonight. So, Im always watching out for seeds that a new song might grow out of. Since I live out in the sticks I enjoy on-line collaborations and it seems like Im always challenged into learning something new in the process. Ill see ya around! Hooper

It's okay, I just downloaded it. It doesn't work to left-click on it but does work to right-click and Save Target As. I've just had one quick listen and sounds cool! Gotta run now but will get back later...

Hey Tedster. I like this demo a lot and am impressed with the complexity of the structure, yet it comes off lite and breezy. Maybe thats why the scat parts are my favorite too! BTW Im envious of the sound of the signal chain on the vox and guitars. I can also sense the Stevie Wonder Sunshine vibe but a funny thing happened: I listened to this the first time and then went out to mow and as I was riding along with this tune in my head it morphed into (Shes Come) Undone by Guess Who! But the song really isnt ripped from either of them. I think the lyrical content is fine, theres a continuity of theme and no convoluted sentences, but I also agree that it gets a bit jumbled-up during the versus. Thats an awful lot of words! The delay effect may be contributing to the overcrowding. Wonder if it would help to double the speed of the delay? Of course, the more difficult fix would be to take a word-comb-filter and try to re-write the phrases with fewer syllables. I dont think it would be a matter of trying to turn a bad song into a good song but rather to turn a good song into a really good song! Hoop