The Loaner - Teaser

The blues instrumental which I have been so uncharacteristically preoccupied with - and which has been keeping me from recording Caprice 24 - is almost recorded and done. By almost, I mean that I've recorded four takes, but that I need to record about ten more before I find one version I'm sufficiently happy with. One problem here is that I decided upon recording the entire piece in one take, which means four minutes per take. Normally, I would record sequences of anything between 2 and 12 bars, and mix them together after everythign is said and done, which saves a LOT of time compared to recording the entire thing. Depending on what music and what quality I'm after, I'll record anywhere between one and 50 takes per layer of guitar. I've got the option of copying layers for overdub purposes, but I'm way too hung up on being able to double the tracks exactly to accept that option, so I usually end up logging hours with the metronome instead. Good for technique, not so good for productivity. Seeing as how this is blues, or rather bluesy (right, Anders?), I'm thinking that I'll let some glitches slip right by.

One of the reasons I decided to record the entire thing in one take is that I wanted to play it in "free time". This decision came about after tinkering with multiple time signatures and listening to the results. First of all, I didn't feel that I managed to get one coherent mood or flow throughout the song by stop-starting the recording as I would inevitably do by recording, say, 12 bars at a time. Second, I struggled with making the piece sound the way I wanted to when adhering to typical blues time signatures like 12/8 or 6/8. Before you ask - yes; I do realize that these time signatures give quite different results, but I experimented with this a whole bunch. It just didn't sound right when I completely tracked the metronome. Maybe it's because I'm unfamiliar with blues time signatures or because no blues ever was recorded on time anyways - what do I know.

I wondered for a long time whether I was gonna have a backing track, but after several attempts, I just thought it sounded better as a solo piece. Who knows - maybe I'll modify it and add several voicings to it with time, but for now, it's one guitar, one take, one layer and one track.

Choosing the guitar was on the other hand very simple. From the first time I came up with the main theme, I gravitated towards my Ibanez S270, and I can't really conceive of using any of my other guitars for this. That mahogany tone is just what I'm after in this case. I'm still playing around with amp settings and overall guitar tone, but odds are I'm gonna use a very Satriani-esque tone based off of a Mesa Boogie setting on the Line6 amp. Right now, I'm recording each take using different tones in the hope that I'll end up with a tone I'm really happy with by iteration. As soon as I record one take where I'm really happy with tone AND satisfied with technique and performance, I'll just let go. I'm also debating whether or not to use a volume pedal off of my Line6 Floorpod for the outro, as that would definitely bring back some of the Gary Moore vibes that have gradually receded into the background out since the inception. Some Parisienne Walkways-like volume swells would perhaps make it a little bit Moore like Gary, if ya know what I mean.

Still not sure what to call it - The Loaner is a good start, seeing as how I came up with the first, Gary Moore-like phrases while noodling around and suddenly playing what turned out to be a variation on the second theme of "The Loner" from GM's Wild Frontiers album. Other musical references that I can think of are the aforementioned "Parisienne Walkways" and "Nothing's The Same" - both Moore compositions. If one were cynical, one might argue that all of these Gary Moore songs plus "Still Got The Blues" are minuscule variations on the same theme, but since Moore is a true guitar icon, I'd never do that... Influences outside the realms of Gary Moore can be listed as "Blue" by Yngwie Malmsteen (bluesy instrumental off of his Alchemy album. In addition to my overall adherence to everything Yngwie - including his "More is More" adage - I really love the tone and phrasing here), "The Forgotten part II" by Joe Satriani (from Flying In A Blue Dream - as always the tone is awesome, but more importantly the overall mood here is very much what I was going for) and "Blue Monday" by Vito Bratta of White Lion (from their Mane Attraction album - it's actually a tribute to the recently departed Stevie Ray Vaughan). I really feel that I restricted the technical aspect - no technique for the sake of playing fast. We'll see how that plays out.....

It'll be done soon.....