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    Our own compositions

    .

    ... or discuss your own compositions and recordings.
    Thus spaketh the brief for this section.

    So, what is your proudest moment as a composer?

    I won't say it's my proudest as such, but I once submitted an entry for the Portuguese Eurovision song, which was to be sung by one Rita Guerra. We had to send in a tape and/or sheet music to State TV channel RTP. I recorded mine in the bathroom (to get the echo).

    It was in Portuguese, but it started something like:

    Your eyes are like oceans
    Where I want to sail
    Where I want to lose myself

    (ect, ect, ad embarrassing nauseum)

    I was quite proud of the effort at the time (totally oblivious as I was to the fact that it was utter bilge). I didn't win, natch ... but I always had a sneaking, paranoid suspicion that someone would steal it and make millions ... bilge often proving quite marketable, as we know.

    So if anyone's heard a song which begins with the idea of sailing around someone's eyes, please let me know.

    Oh, and I think Rita Guerra came as near as dammit last. Serves them right!

    .

    #2
    Our own compositions

    I started a thread ages ago called "Embarrassing Lyrics Amnesty" where I invited people to post the excrutiatingly angst-ridden songs and poems they'd written and/or recorded in their tormented, misunderstood youth. Disappointingly no-one had the courage to submit their professions of adolescent misery and distress, despite the fact that I promised to match every torturous effort with one exhumed form my own teenage poetry folder.

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      #3
      Our own compositions

      If the offer's still open, I'll make some shit up.

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        #4
        Our own compositions

        My band were on stellar local channel Channel M, back in the days when only about 4 people received it.

        I wasn't allowed to be in the interview because I made the interviewer look like a short-arsed cunt (he was), the guy made up terrible nicknames for my band-mates off the top of his head (like a cunt), and walked around acting the big man.

        So there you go, about 4 people have seen me on the telly, playing the songs I wrote.

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          #5
          Our own compositions

          Channel M was fucking superb when it had the FC United highlights and Frank Sidebottom's show.

          Now it isn't fucking superb any more.

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            #6
            Our own compositions

            EIM wrote:
            If the offer's still open, I'll make some shit up.
            Yeah, me too.

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              #7
              Our own compositions

              A few weeks ago I was at a barbecue (as you lot call it), when the electricity went off. Our host got out two guitars, and a great (and probably terrible) singalong was had.

              At one point, my friend started playing some blues chords, to which I started riffing some stereotyped crap. "I got the blues; whoa, the motherfuckin' blues." I thought that was he end of hat, but my friend told me to keep going, so I made up some lyrics on the spot, mining the repertoire of country clichés. So my baby left me, my doggie gone died and there were crops in the field awaitng the harvest.

              Somebody recorded it on video, and having watched it, two things emerge:

              1) I don't have a blues voice, despite my valiant attempts at emoting

              2) Should I choose to become a lyricist, more thought will have to go into my compositions than some spontaneously made up crap.

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                #8
                Our own compositions

                I've posted this link before, but it bears repeating, I think.

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                  #9
                  Our own compositions

                  Here's one of mine:
                  Code:
                  X: 1
                  T:The London Schottische
                  M:2/4
                  L:1/8
                  Q:260
                  C:Andy C
                  R:Schottische
                  
                  H:Written while watching "Rugby Special" on BBC2 one Sunday - hence the
                  H:title
                  Z:
                  K:BMin
                  |:"G"BGBd|"A"c2de|"D"f2a2|"A"e4|"D"fedc|"G"BcdB|"A"cdcA|"Fm"F4|!
                  "G"BGBd|"A"c2de|"D"f2a2|"A"e4|"D"fedc|"G"Bd "A"cA|1"Bm" B4-|B4:|
                  2"Bm"BdcA|B4|!
                  |:"Bm"Bcda|"D"f4|"A"ecac|B2A2|"G"GABG|"A"ABcA|"D"defg|"A"a4|!
                  "G"GABG|"A"ABcA|"D"defd|"A"c2A2|"Em"Gd2G|"F#m"c2BA|"Bm"B4-|B4:|
                  It's written in abc notation, which allows you to write tunes as small text files and hence distribute them easily over the net. Not only that, it's a great shorthand for jotting down musical ideas. It's brilliant.

                  To see the dots, go somewhere like this and do a bit of cut-and-pastingness.

                  To actually hear abc tunes beeped out by your 'puter, use something like this.

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                    #10
                    Our own compositions

                    Blimey. I don't know where the colours have come from - perhaps the "code" function assumes it's Java or something.

                    However, it seems that paragraph breaks don't work after a code block.

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                      #11
                      Our own compositions

                      You should have castled much earlier there, Andy. Schoolboy error.

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                        #12
                        Our own compositions

                        We all know about schoolboy errors in that particular game, don't we?

                        Actually, it's the only composition of mine that's ever earned royalties. I got a fiver when another band's version of it was played on the BBC.

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                          #13
                          Our own compositions

                          Ulster all over the World (Fogerty arr. Gardner)

                          We're Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland, here we go
                          We've been to Sweden, Spain and Mexico
                          Here we go, Ulster all over the World
                          We're off to San Marino and Slovenia too
                          Look out Mitteleurop, we are coming for you
                          Here we go, Ulster all over the World

                          We are Ulster, we're Ulster, we're Ulster, we're Ulster
                          And we la-la-like it
                          Here we go, Ulster all over the World

                          We're heading off along the Danube next
                          Bring on the Slovaks, the Poles and the Czechs
                          Here we go, Ulster all over the World
                          Fermanagh, Tyrone and Derry, Antrim, Down, Armagh
                          We are the Ulster, off to Zuid Afrika
                          Here we go, Ulster all over the World

                          We are Ulster, we're Ulster, we're Ulster, we're Ulster
                          And we la-la-like it
                          Here we go, Ulster all over the World

                          Well giddy up, and get away and don't be there late
                          There's one team in Ireland, and it ain't the free state
                          Here we go, Ulster all over the World

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                            #14
                            Our own compositions

                            A Norwegian band covered a song of my old band's. I was pleased

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                              #15
                              Our own compositions

                              Actually, fuck being so humble, having songs on John Peel sessions was pretty cool.

                              Funnily enough, having my son remember my songs now and hearing him singing them away to himself is cool as well

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                                #16
                                Our own compositions

                                My band's had a track played on the World Service. I'm probably big in Borneo.

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                                  #17
                                  Our own compositions

                                  I've had a few songs broadcast on Radio Stoke.

                                  I suppose, technically, they must owe me 50p or something by now.

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                                    #18
                                    Our own compositions

                                    BOTD, who was your band?

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                                      #19
                                      Our own compositions

                                      I don't know who he was in that had Peel Sessions but he's said before he was in this lot ;

                                      http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu...oID=1443320522

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Our own compositions

                                        Andy, I can't read that at all. The variation of ABC that is used in Irish music is a letter for each note from d (on the d string) with a ' after notes above that, and ,for notes below D.

                                        I've written four tunes, two reels, one which is dead catchy, one which isn't, and two jigs, which I'm very happy with. the most nervewracking thing is playing them for the first time in front of other musicians who you think are good, and wonderinging what their feedback will be, because as bands like Kila ably demonstrate, it is very easy to write a mediocre piece of music, it's very hard to write a good one.

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                                          #21
                                          Our own compositions

                                          That's the abc standard I'm following above. The thing you might not be familiar with are the chords, which are enclosed in double quotes.

                                          I'll strip out the chords, see if you can understand it then.

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                                            #22
                                            Our own compositions

                                            Actually, I've realised that it's transposed an octave down from the pitch I play it at. Still:

                                            Code:
                                            K:BMin 
                                            |:BGBd|c2de|f2a2|e4|fedc|BcdB|cdcA|F4|! 
                                            BGBd|c2de|f2a2|e4|fedc|Bd cA|1 B4-|B4:| 
                                            2 BdcA|B4|! 
                                            |:Bcda|f4|ecac|B2A2|GABG|ABcA|defg|a4|! 
                                            GABG|ABcA|defd|c2A2|Gd2G|c2BA|B4-|B4:|

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                                              #23
                                              Our own compositions

                                              Actually, re-reading Aiatl's post, there are differences between the conventions follwed by him and me. In mine

                                              Middle C is capital C
                                              Notes above that are D E F G A B c d e f g a b c' d' and so on
                                              Notes below are B, A, G, and so on.

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                                                #24
                                                Our own compositions

                                                When I was 13, my work had two main themes: 1) girls I fancied, and 2) hospital closures.

                                                It all got chucked out along with any other evidence of my existence the second I left home, but I like to think somewhere there's a surviving exercise book containing the line, "the smell of the dying corpses looms", only with "dying" crossed out and replaced with (the slightly more metal) "rotting" after I realised that corpses are already dead.

                                                The verses were in D Minor, probably the saddest of all keys.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Our own compositions

                                                  That one was about hospital closures, not girls I fancied, by the way.

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