Heart Be Still ... Love Song Piano/Voice

[Zenda]

Hi :)


I did this version before I did Motherless child. Around November '08.

Heart Be Still (http://www.glynmuir.co.uk/music/heart_be_still.mp3)

It's a gospel-style love song. I first heard [fanboy squeal] my hero [/fanboy squeal] Peter Straker sing it around 1977, I loved it and it went straight into my live repertoire. My Texas Honey and I hunted around and the earliest version was Luraine Ellison's ... Blues/Gospel.

My interpretation of Motherless Child, I tried to move from Eric Gale's original 'cool' [album = Multiplication] version to the smokier side of jazz trios. My Heart Be Still ... well, it turned into what it is in collaboration with audiences and now I do want to 'preserve/archive' a recorded version.

If my health improves, then I reckon I am six months away from doing a take which begins to satisfy me, but I've got to share this one because I had this feeling that unless I put it on the table, here, now, with my mates, it will end up just another noodle in the chow mein that got thrown away, unopened, next morning.


All the best
Glyn

[Animus]

Sounds great Zenda. THere's something to be said about just a voice and a piano.

What piano are you playing? And what's the recording chain for the vocals?


Reminds me a bit of Antony and the Johnsons.

[Sam]

you make good noodle! Dont forget to tell us when the honey chicken is ready my man ;)

I dig the mellow ambient piano vibe.....too many tracks now use very shiny closeup sampled pianos and I lose the vibe oh so quick...

nice

ps - did you train classically as a singer?? The way you do your vowels/tone variations sounds very deliberate and beautiful with the pitch not moving an inch! nice! I know only a few guys who do this nice and they all trained classically at some point...i am just curious

[Andrew J]

Takes me to another place - perhaps somewhere between Nat King Cole and Antony :)

Thanks for sharing.

[Zenda]

Hi Stacy, Sam and Andrew


Thanks for having a listen.


Stacy The piano is the Pianoteq sampled piano ....

http://www.pianoteq.com/

here is a ramble-rant I wrote to someone else about it:


My main experience of samples pianos before this were Sampletank pianos and some dedicated upright sampleset for Kontact. Sharing a sample between two or three tones ... or resampling it NEVER sounded seamless to my ears ... the character difference going from the lowest speed of a higher pitch sample to the highest speed fo a lower pitch sample was Obvioud and irritating to me. I COULD actually live with it. Playing crap pianos is something I have had to do often. so .. ok .. a difficulty but not a problem. But velocity layering 'killed me' ... though I did not know it at the time. It was only when I got onto the Sampleteq that I realised what I had been missing. If layering was not particularly blended, then I was in the midst of an analog experience but being supported by large chunk digital distinctions .... Like a publisher trying to make a travel brochure with a rendering engine which gave jagged pixelated output. Even when layering was well blended, there is a massive set of OTHER distinctions which are progressive in their changes through velocity which only make sense in terms of the context of THAT moment. Distinctions like 'pedal up or down' or 'other notes being held down at same time' were just a tiny subset.

Even if Pianoteq sounded like a REAL Crap piano ... or even a RATHER UNREAL but multi-dimensionally responsive piano, then I far prefer what Sampleteq is giving me. As it is, I think they get it to sound 'pretty jolly good'. On the Sampleteq forum, there are some users who mix in the bass from other products, because they feel there is a slight jangle factor. I listened to some comparative demos and think I can hear what they mean.

But for the first time in my life, I can sit at that ancient controller keyboard ... Roland MKB 1000 ... and just WANT to stay there ... sitting ... playing like I did as a child and into my early forties.


Sam ... The Signal chain was Me sitting at Roland MKB1000 Midi keyboard, head four feet away from matt painted plaster wall .... room carpeted and soft furnishings with heavy curtain but otherwise untreated.

Through Charter Oak Pop Filter into RODE NTK Valve mike. Boom standed to be 8 inches away from my mouth and about three inches above. [keeping it away from keyclacks and also, need to see what I am doing as I look at the keyboard]

Into Focusrite Platinum Penta preamp with moderate compression given that there's quite a difference between my loud and soft.

That's converted to digital though my MAudio Delta and into Cubase where a bit more compression and eq is applied. From there into Waves Impulse Reverb on tweaked Plate setting and that's it.


My singing background: My mother was an opera singer and from an early age I got dragged (willingly) into productions because it was cheaper than hiring a baby sitter. As I got older [16] I was asked to take more active part in them, because my own work on blues piano/singing was developing my power and 'attitude'. I kept classical solo/choral stuff hand in hand with my rock blues stuff. As far as I was concerned they fed each other.

Karen Greenhead of the Dalcroze Institute gave me my only 'formal' classical training as I got qualification as a teacher of Eurhythmics. I mention her because she was one of the hottest women ... hottest .... PEOPLE on the planet and I'd explode with guilt and shame if I did not mention her ... you know there's some teacher who you know Dang Well without 'em, the gap WOULD have improved the work. For me .. she Was that teacher. I had generally avoided consistent courses with teachers. She was the exception and I’m glad of it. My control of vowel sounds throughout the note ... now that was partly my own work ... I've always felt tht a NOTE is something to 'ride' with full awareness throughout its duration and partly the ONE WEEKEND Workshop around 1990 by a teacher of Overtone Chanting called Jill Purse:

http://www.jillpurce.com/

Before that weekend, I did not know what they were and could not hear them. After that weekend ... I realised EVERYTHING I could hear had them lll like Partials in a roland D110. Frances, my ex-wife and I were travelling back home and like .. we were tripping without acid. Jill had also given us the basic building blocks of how to actually Generate them and since then I have always focussed on them as being of equal importance to singing in tune.


Andrew Thanks for your words .... 'Another Place' is something I kind of practise as much as the notes. It's like a feeling of where I am sitting/standing ... Coming From. EG ... when I'm doing Highway to Hell by AC/DC then I am in a Place .. but definitely a Different 'other place'.


Thanks again
Beast wishes
Glyn

[Sam]

man I am going to have to check out that Sampleteq - it sounds pretty great and mellow and nicely ambient....i would have a lot of use for that sound....

Keep em coming Glyn!

[Zenda]

Hi Sam

Tell you what .... that piano was 'with' my voice. I'll record some solo piano noodling in different styles ... a kind of demo and post it here. I am in hospital in the weekend, but by tuesday next week OK?

Mind you .. there are also a lot of good mp3 userdemos on their website too ... thos thouse can be good to be going on with.


The version three .. just released .. has modelled variable mike positioning!

All the best
Glyn.