I wanted to share a song from our new album. It includes an amplified harp solo that I play and I would like to have some comments on it. The solo isn't planned in any way, it is just following my feelings without any conscious attempt to catch a melody line etc. It was recorded as a one-shot at the studio.
The theme of the lyrics is based on a song by Finnish song-writer, Reino Helismaa, who was very famous in the 50's. The story is about a Hobo and a cat who follows him. In the original song the hobo found some abandoned house where he thought was some firebrand left in the fireplace - but in reality it was the eyes of the cat that were shining. So the cat represented really the Death. In my song the cat is easily confused as a symbol of a woman, but it really is a symbol for the death also.
I don't know if you are able to sense something of this from the music itself even though the lyrics are in Finnish. I would be interested to hear your comments...
(If the button above won't work, try www.myspace.com/hoodoosauna)
Btw, the second guitar solo (as well as the call-answer guitar) is played by Pepe Ahlqvist, who is perhaps the most famous blues artist in Finland.
---------- Hoodoo Sauna
Last Edited by on Nov 13, 2011 3:26 AM
Consider me interested, apskarp. I like the song and vocals, Finnish is so off blues-wise with the rolling r:s and hard k:s it's becomes super-cool instead of being laid-back, imho. Kind of like Japanese. Real groovy harp-solo that fitted the song like a glove. No imposing over-harping either. Do you do any song in Swedish too?
I don't do songs in Swedish - it's really a whole different language and sounds more like English (except the pronunciation of course). There are some debates in Finland around the blues lovers whether the Finnish language is suitable for blues - as it is so different to the standard language of English. However, I think that it suits well, it's just different!!!
I can't remember exactly my thoughts while doing that recording, but I remember that I was trying to serve the song more than showing off the harp playing. So I guess in that sense I was little bit holding back.
Nice playing, good tone. Love the sound of a small amp and a bullet. I think your vocals have improved too from some earlier tracks I've heard.
If I was to be critical of the solo, to my taste if you're playing a traditional grinding Jimmy Reed-type shuffle, then it's good to syncopate against the relentless groove - play offbeats for example, or accentuate a triplet feel. To keep on this critical viewpoint, it also sounds like you're avoiding the 3 draw a little and the great selection of notes and tonality you get from it. Most of the playing I heard on the I was 4 hole down to the tonic, most of the IV chord sounded like 2 draw and the 2 draw bend. Then when you went to the V it was the 4 draw again - maybe going to the the 6 draw would have been a more dramatic statement.
All of this is just my subjective viewpoint of course - you certainly played to serve the song, just to my taste I like a solo that colours outside the lines a bit more.
Ok so I think that you want an opinion on the standard that you guys are now professionals in the music business. That being the case I'll try to keep in that way rather than nice job pat on the back.
First off good recording played well in general. I don't know the market there but for me there must be at least a 1000 tunes just like this with one exception not in Finnish, thats make it different.
The harp playing would for most people be fine even great. Not played poorly but remember your now a pro and that is the standard you may judged by. In my ears it has good logic and basic outlining of the progression as good as most rock players would do. Not up to the standard of a pro harp player. Remember your peers are now Jason, Adam, Brandon, Steve Guyger etc.
The thing I would say is to work on tone. For me electronics did not help your sound it felt like it was trying to make for something.
This is not personal I took the time to listen to the cut at least 5 times so I could give a thoughtful review.
---------- Emile "Diggs" D'Amico a Legend In His Own Mind How you doin'
My feelings, blues number in another language, different but if i were in Finland i would expect finnish rock bands to sound like this, i liked the harp solo and it fitted in well. To be truthful the whole song was ok, but i have no idea what you sang, lol!!!!!!
@GH Thank's for the comments. To be honest I have really worked more with the vocals than the harp lately - as the truth is that the average listener focuses on vocals more to than the harp.
You are right about the solo being very simplistic in melody. I didn't really plan anything for it and it was ad hoc - I guess that a better harpist could have made more interesting ad hoc solo, but I also thought it served the song quite well. The rhythmic playing is definitely something I should work on - the different beats, offbeats etc. It would also improve the singing.
@Diggs: I can't really think of myself as a pro player as I don't really get money from the playing - I consider myself lucky if I even get my invested money back from the record. But I understand your point, the standard is higher if you are actually making records for the public.
I appreciate your feedback, I also though this solo is something you could hear in a rock song. It's more about feeling than melodies or story-lines. Of course there is no comparison to the guys like Jason, Guyger etc.
Even in Finland there aren't many blues bands that do the songs in Finnish - I think there must be less than 10 of them making albums, less than five that people really know about. But of course the language isn't enough for a band to be interesting - the lyrics is where I try to make some difference. And in some songs we try to incorporate some Finnish/lappish elements (but not in this one).
The tone is a hard thing, obviously you have some tone in your mind that you can compare this sound, but it is really hard to describe accurately. GH liked the tone and I also think that it was pretty good, but I think you mean something different - perhaps something fuller, more resonating, more accurate, darker, thinner or more clear...?
I think that the sound/tone is something one will have to work with to the very end, but it is also pretty hard thing to work with. I guess some of it is that your ears will develop during the years and that also affects to the tone.
It won't stop buffering and actually start playing for me.
Well, I can comment on your post, at least. There is a famous exchange of letters between Robert Frost and a literary critic concerning one of Frost's poem, 'Stopping By The Woods'. The critic had commented in a review that the poem had strong death motifs running through it. Frost responded that, no, it didn't, to which the critic replied, yes, yes there is.
Ah, reader response criticism. There is a whole literary theory built on the idea that it's not what you meant when you wrote something, or what you thought it meant when you perform something, but what the reader or listener think when they hear it. I'm more of a deconstructionist/Marxist reader (you don't have to be a Communist to do Marxist readings, just believe that everything is related to how classes interact.) But that said, maybe it is a woman. :)
Good point Nate. Actually this song was first a blues with lots of elements from the song "Rock me baby" and it was sang by our guitarist, not me. During the mixing we realized it didn't really suit to our CD anymore, so what I did was that I took the "vocals-muted" version on the song and listened it dozen times during one day and tried to figure out what it says to me. Then I made the melody-line and and the lyrics based on what feelings the music itself raised in me. The result was "The hobo and a cat" with a theme from that old Finnish song...
So, pretty good job Nate just by reading the post I wrote without even listening the song. You should be able to listen to that song also from MySpace if it works better for you...
That worked better. Nice track. I like your sound. It's always interesting to hear music in different languages. It makes me concentrate on the music instead of the lyric. I didn't do very well in foreign languages in school, but I'm always fascinated when I read about how language changes culture and I feel like I lost out on something.
It's interesting to see how different bands deal with language. One of my favorite bands right now is from your neighbors over in Sweden. They seem to have chosen to do everything in English. I wonder if, as China's wealth grows, maybe English speaking musicians will learn to sing in Chinese to break out, or if at least less music will be translated into English. Maybe by then audio translating software will be better and it won't matter.
Anyway, nice job. :)
edit: I checked the title in Google to see what it would offer as a translation. It's auto-detect thought it was Maltese, but didn't have any idea how to translate it. Once I chose Finnish it came up with a pretty accurate 'Tramp and the Cat'.
---------- Nate Facebook Thread Organizer (A list of all sorts of useful threads)
Last Edited by on Nov 13, 2011 12:20 AM
