A Seasonista Wrote This...stuff

Thoughts on Feedback

I too am slowly working my way through listening to and commenting on all of your awesome songs. This week is filled with wonderful back-to-back musical things, starting with a uke jam Wednesday, big jam last night (Thursday), Bucky Pizzarelli and Grover Kemble show tonight, big music party and/or FiL's big gig tomorrow, and ending with another uke jam at my new home (which still needs unpacking!) on Sunday. So it may be a few days. :(

Re feedback, clearly it needs to be up to the individual. Some of us are eager for feedback, some just want positive acknowledgment of what we've done well, and, I think, many of us may have mixed feelings. I for sure want to get better at this, so I want feedback that helps me do that. And ... like many of us, I'm also sensitive, and have to learn to deal with my own emotions and reactions better in order to be able to take it in. I suspect most of us fall somewhere in that middle ground.

I wonder if maybe we could use some kind of notification system when we post here, something like:

1) Feedback ... Bring It On!
2) Please help me improve ... and be gentle about it
3) Positive feedback only, please

Or maybe letters, like US movie ratings. Or something. Just a thought to get the discussion rolling.
 
Last edited:
Request for FEEDBACK

I have now played my new song live a bunch of times (plus had the great pleasure of listening to my mom watch the video last night over the phone). It has been working great! People generally react in the best way I could hope for in pretty much every spot where I'd hoped they would.

The one thing I could really use some help with is this: There's a talking break in the middle ... and live audiences always think the song is over at that point, and they start to applaud or turn away. I think I need to do some kind of vamping there ... keep playing some chords, or something ... at least at first. You'll see in the video, I think, that I partly "talk" through that part with my hands ... so it would be great if I could let go of the uke once people know it's not over, and just do my thing.

Anyway, I am open to all feedback on anything you think could use improving. On my scale above, I'm about a 1.4 ... bring it on ... don't hold back on substance ... but do say it nicely, okay?

AND ... I would especially like some help with how to flow into the talking break so people know it's not over ... do I keep playing chords just over the first sentence I say? And if so, what chords? Just stay on the G .... or use the chorus chords, or the intro / interlude chords .... or .... ? Or something else? I expect I will have many more opportunities to try it out with new audiences tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday ... so I'd love some help with this as soon as possible.

By the way, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ... please watch the whole video before you read other people's answers.
Based on what others have said, I think you will be happy if you do, and disappointed if you don't.


[People answering me might also want to put "SPOILER" in your post. :( Or if you can manage it, find a way to answer without spoilers.]



PS, forgive the total mess-up of the ending in the video. I can play it cleanly now! Might make a new improved video soon.

Speaking of which, there's another thing that could probably work better. [POSSIBLE PARTIAL SPOILER - please go watch the video before you read on!] I sing the final line 5 times at the end. About the third time, live audiences almost always start singing along. Which is exactly when I change the words. The new words usually get a great reaction, so I want to keep those somewhere, but of course, people are wanting to sing the other words there. So the ending sequence may need to be rearranged a bit based on how people are interacting with it. And I'm not sure how just yet. Or not? Maybe half the fun is surprising them when they think they've "got it"?

So I'd love some help with that ending sequence. If you can tell what it's supposed to be from the screw-up on the video! Here's what happened on the video ... I sang the line once, then messed up the chords, and said something about it. Then I restarted the entire ending sequence (the five repetitions that should be there) from that point. I still kept messing up the chords, but the five repetitions start at that point ... after I talk about messing up. So there should be five repetitions, not six. Ignore that first one before the restart. (Okay, clearly I need to re-record this!)
 
Last edited:
I am flattered that Alan considered naming this Berni's hideaway :eek:

My first contribution to this thread is the song I consider the most passionate I have written since joining the Seasons. It was written in response to that terrible attack by fanatics on a shopping mall in Kenya. The creators of wise old sayings got it wrong: Money is the root of all greed, it's organised religion that is the root of all evil.

I understand the passion

yes the standard cliche of 'fanatics' applies
but not the claim that the perpetrators are mentally ill.
And then condemning them to the deepest hell - some real irony there. My religious concept vs your religious concept.

They think, they plan they BELIEVE. They are not crazy.
And I don't like them either.

I see no understanding here of the cause and effect that has resulted in what the world is experiencing.
But yes the rage is with me too at times as to what is happening.

But we really need to try and understand why it is happening.

I don't hear many songs here about drones destroying homes containing whole families.
 
SPOILER about WENDY's SONG







Thanks for letting us know what you're looking for here.
I'm probably not a good judge because I remember hearing the basis for this many, many times in the past and I'm usually only good for one chuckle per lifetime for any particular, joke/story...

If I have something that MIGHT be useful here in terms of getting a bang for the buck for folks who haven't heard the payoff line before it would be to sing the song with out editorial expression. I'd go slow and steady like an english folk ballad and let the big line sell itself without any 'nudge, nudge, wink wink..."

Consider the equally well known "I don't know where ye've been Laddie, but it seems ye've won first prize" payoff about the Scotsman/Kilt. With a nice steady (not too long) setup and a standard ballad structure, I find that easy to listen to over and over but I might not if it were sprinting to the finish line with a big smile on it's face as if to say, "Just wait, this is going to be HiLARious!!!!!"

I don't know how I'd go about this so you may just want to ignore me but I might suggest listening to the great tune Geoff wrote for this season when he didn't have a tune for the "Fisherman Hung the Monkey" as a good example of the type of setup I'd fall for.

I'd totally stick with this whatever you do. Especially live with more than a dozen listeners where you're sure to have a few folks who haven't heard the joke, I think you'd be a big hit (even as it is and ignoring my 'sage' advice otherwise). David Lee Roth used to say that, when a big crowd huddles together the temperature goes up and the IQ goes down about 10 points each. Note that I consider him to be a trusted source for information on low IQs.

I have now played my new song live a bunch of times (plus had the great pleasure of listening to my mom watch the video last night over the phone). It has been working great! People generally react in the best way I could hope for in pretty much every spot where I'd hoped they would.

The one thing I could really use some help with is this: There's a talking break in the middle ... and live audiences always think the song is over at that point, and they start to applaud or turn away. I think I need to do some kind of vamping there ... keep playing some chords, or something ... at least at first. You'll see in the video, I think, that I partly "talk" through that part with my hands ... so it would be great if I could let go of the uke once people know it's not over, and just do my thing.

PS I wouldn't say anything about, 'I really messed up in here' prior to having people listen to the video even if you did. A- They'll figure it out if it's a big goof an let it pass as they listen to the rest and 2- when you tell people there's a mistake coming that's all some of us can listen for.

Anyway, I am open to all feedback on anything you think could use improving. On my scale above, I'm about a 1.4 ... bring it on ... don't hold back on substance ... but do say it nicely, okay?

AND ... I would especially like some help with how to flow into the talking break so people know it's not over ... do I keep playing chords just over the first sentence I say? And if so, what chords? Just stay on the G .... or use the chorus chords, or the intro / interlude chords .... or .... ? Or something else? I expect I will have many more opportunities to try it out with new audiences tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday ... so I'd love some help with this as soon as possible.

By the way, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ... please watch the whole video before you read other people's answers.
Based on what others have said, I think you will be happy if you do, and disappointed if you don't.


[People answering me might also want to put "SPOILER" in your post. :( Or if you can manage it, find a way to answer without spoilers.]

PS, forgive the total mess-up of the ending in the video. I can play it cleanly now! Might make a new improved video soon.

Speaking of which, there's another thing that could probably work better. [POSSIBLE PARTIAL SPOILER - please go watch the video before you read on!] I sing the final line 5 times at the end. About the third time, live audiences almost always start singing along. Which is exactly when I change the words. The new words usually get a great reaction, so I want to keep those somewhere, but of course, people are wanting to sing the other words there. So the ending sequence may need to be rearranged a bit based on how people are interacting with it. And I'm not sure how just yet. Or not? Maybe half the fun is surprising them when they think they've "got it"?

So I'd love some help with that ending sequence. If you can tell what it's supposed to be from the screw-up on the video! Here's what happened on the video ... I sang the line once, then messed up the chords, and said something about it. Then I restarted the entire ending sequence (the five repetitions that should be there) from that point. I still kept messing up the chords, but the five repetitions start at that point ... after I talk about messing up. So there should be five repetitions, not six. Ignore that first one before the restart. (Okay, clearly I need to re-record this!)
 
Thanks CJ and Wendy.
I'm thinking of changing to "all kinds" rather than "3 kinds" because of the list of three items in the line. it just makes more sense (not that that is my ONLY goal) to say "all kinds of sweet tea, fried chicken and gravy" because in the Southeastern US there's only one kind of Sweet Tea, most often called "ice tea" or, for the more formal/literate "iced tea". It's actually a bitch to get unsweetened iced tea here for those of us that don't add sugar to their drinks. About 1 in 10 times either your original or your refill will be sugary enough to cause a spoon to stand up by itself.

P.S. mine's a cub o' PG Tips with actual sugar and half and half when I do drink the orange stuff hot.

Hey Alan ..."three kinds of sweet tea" ...actually is rather clever.....it could mean three kinds of "sweet" slightly , bitter , saccharine ,pleasantly and then tea.

As opposed to just sweet tea - three possible varieties: jasmine, lapsang or Earl (which is a title ...not a first name !)...which is also possible...

or sweetness varieties of the beverage lemon, sugar or honeyed or combos of .....etc etc etc (as the King of Siam famously uttered)

What have you started?......cool.

CJ

Hmmm ...need to put the kettle on now ...proper tea though ....orange coloured wi' a splash o' milk and strong enough ter stand spoon up in..
 
Thanks! Freeda gets the credit for that. I'm enjoying working with her on some songs albeit long distance. She's just set something of mine to music that I couldn't find a decent tune for myself, too. I hope to post it here next week when she's recorded a version that incorporates some changes she (wisely) suggested that I made.

Me like :) Really, a song that makes you think about living in the moment. You can't have too many of those kinds of songs. Great!
 
Last edited:
Alan D wrote:

" P.S. mine's a cub o' PG Tips with actual sugar and half and half when I do drink the orange stuff hot. "

I thought ,Ha ha ....how appropriate for Season 112 Primates etc....

try this....




...and now back to the compositioning of really Worthy Originals........
 
I understand the passion
yes the standard cliche of 'fanatics' applies
but not the claim that the perpetrators are mentally ill.
And then condemning them to the deepest hell - some real irony there. My religious concept vs your religious concept.

They think, they plan they BELIEVE. They are not crazy.
And I don't like them either.

I see no understanding here of the cause and effect that has resulted in what the world is experiencing.
But yes the rage is with me too at times as to what is happening.

But we really need to try and understand why it is happening.

I don't hear many songs here about drones destroying homes containing whole families.

The song takes them at their own word. I personally don't believe there is a God waiting to judge us after we die, but they do. But from what I have read of their Holy Books (and comparative religion was something of a hobby of mine once) - their God would be furious with them. In the song it is not me condemning them to the deepest hell - it is their own God. They cannot justify their actions by referring to the Koran (or the Bible) because both books specifically forbids this kind of action.

BTW I do indeed believe that when people have the complete lack of empathy needed to launch this kind of terrorist attack (or a drone strike on a wedding party) then being able to carry out those acts are clinical signs of mental illness.
 
I reckon this qualifies here even though I didn't write the words (which are by Christina Rossetti). I did write the tune plus harmony and bass parts, though. I wanted to have a go adding extra parts to this song when I did it for season 109 but the terms of the season wouldn't allow it.

So, here it is with me singing, playing uke, tenor and bass recorders (The bass recorder carries the harmony line). The bass line is courtesy of midi as I am not yet good enough with the U-bass to play the bass line on that (I don't practice enough, if the truth be told :music:)

Oh, and I forgot. The video is lip synched.



Wendy, I'll try and get round to listening to your song tomorrow.
 
They cannot justify their actions by referring to the Koran (or the Bible) because both books specifically forbids this kind of action.

Must not have read much old testament Berni. God was big on wiping out his enemies.

King Saul -
Early in his career he made a fatal mistake. He disobeyed God by failing to completely destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions, as God had commanded.
He lost his reign because he didn't kill every living creature - that's men, women, children and all their animals.

When God got angry with David he took it out on the whole of Israel.

Here is another charmer from God's chosen people

The Battle of Gibeah is an episode in the Book of Judges. The battle was triggered by an incident in which a concubine belonging to a man from the Tribe of Levi was raped to death by members of the Tribe of Benjamin. The Levite had offered his concubine to the mob in place of himself (whom the mob originally sought to "be intimate with"), saying "bring out the man that came into your house, so that we may be intimate with him"[1] and then locked the door for the night. In the morning the Levite found his dead concubine at the door, butchered her into twelve pieces, and sent the pieces throughout all the territory of Israel and Judah.

The outraged tribes of Israel sought justice, and asked for the miscreants to be delivered for judgement. The Benjamites refused, so the tribes then sought vengeance, and in the subsequent war, the members of Tribe of Benjamin were systematically killed, including women and children; when Benjamin was nearly 'extinguished', it was decided that the tribe should be allowed to survive, and all the men from another town, Jabesh Gilead, that had refused to take part in the punishment of the Tribe of Benjamin, were killed, so that their daughters could be wed to the surviving men of Benjamin.[2] The first king of Israel, Saul, descended from these men. Due to this war, the Tribe of Benjamin was subsequently referred to as "the smallest of all the tribes.

And the flood - now there is some astonishing treatment from a loving God.
Sodom and Gomorra ?
God furious for killing infidels and heathens - not the one from the Old Testament.
 
Must not have read much old testament Berni. God was big on wiping out his enemies.
Yes, but I am not so concerned with the Old Testament because the fanatics in the West are more likely to claim themselves to be Christians. But if they are they should remember that Jesus stresses in the New Testament that he had come to fulfill the prophecies of the old and to introduce some basic amendments to clear things up about how the creator really wants us to act. So, the "God of Love" idea comes onto the world stage.

I read the Koran from cover to cover last year, as part of my research for a character I was writing in one of my (unpublished) novels and the references to fighting for Islam are very specific. There is no way that the kind of terrorist attacks we have witnessed over the years could ever be justified within the pages of the Koran. The God of the Koran is a harsh father, rather than a loving one, but he is a father who is compassionate and merciful - as the beginning of every chapter constantly reminds us.

Anyway, the whole point of the song is that these madmen (see my definition above) might be in for a shock if their religion turned out to be correct, because they have broken more commandments than honoured them.
 
Last edited:
If people are asking for comments on their work, may I suggest that they add the lyrics to the songs either here or in the description section on youtube. I always find it easier to follow a new song with the lyrics in front of me.... and easier to comment on if I can copy and paste to quote.
 
Unboxing a Korala poly-carbonate Uke (and a song for Easter)

Bought a cheap as chips Korala (concert) plastic ukulele from Omega music in the UK.
I am happy with the build quality and it spanks the pants off the Outdoor ukulele in
my opinion. Great all weather Uke.

 
Last edited:
Bought a cheap as chips Korala (concert) plastic ukulele from Omega music in the UK.
I am happy with the build quality and it spanks the pants off the Outdoor ukulele in
my opinion. Great all weather Uke.

http://youtu.be/R_qUlRtEik4

Nice review, Rob. They look good value for money. Pretty good tone too. I was never convinced about outdoor uke. The concept was good but they're way overpriced.

I have a Korala concert uke with a spruce top. It's a nice instrument, well made and nicely finished with good tone. It was good value for money. I got talking to a luthier in a session just after I had bought it and he reckoned it was a good buy. Cost me £100
 
Nice review, Rob. They look good value for money. Pretty good tone too. I was never convinced about outdoor uke. The concept was good but they're way overpriced.

I have a Korala concert uke with a spruce top. It's a nice instrument, well made and nicely finished with good tone. It was good value for money. I got talking to a luthier in a session just after I had bought it and he reckoned it was a good buy. Cost me £100

I have been playing it for a few days now, and I am liking it more and more.
The Outdoor has that square neck and the Korala has a more traditional rounded
neck which makes for easier action. They say the Outdoor has intonation problems
when you press down really hard on the frets as all the notes are sharpened.

The Korala is a snip at 30 quid. I see Omega music also do the iUke that Dave has been playing.
 
The Korala is a snip at 30 quid. I see Omega music also do the iUke that Dave has been playing.

I saw the iUke at a uke festival last October. I nearly bought one but got a tenor instead.

£30 seems about right for an all plastic uke. Looks like the Makala Dolphin could have some serious competition.
 
Top Bottom