Making
Sweet Music
Way back in 1968, when
I was in my second year of high school and only 13, I had a panic
attack. I’d written my very first song and forgotten it in my
woodworking class. So I ran back frantically, hoping that no-one would
find it and read it because it would’ve been very embarrassing
for me. And my panic attack became worse when I got there and it was
gone. My teacher asked me what I was looking for, so I told him I’d
forgotten ‘something I’d written’.
“Is this what you’re
looking for?” he said with a sly grin.
My face dropped when I
realized that he’d already read it, but I was grateful to have
my song back, because I didn’t know if I’d ever be able
to write such a great song again.
But since then I’ve
written over 100 songs and poems which I’m happy to say are
so much better than my first one.
And even though that was
a silly little love song called ‘How Does De Do’ (which
I’ve purposely kept it off my web site because it was so ‘embarrassing’),
and even though I remember the lyrics and the tune so vividly, I’ve
always promised myself that one day when I was old and grey I’d
write the music to all my songs.
You see, my composing only
went as far as writing the lyrics and humming a tune in my head. I’d
only had very basic training in reading music, so writing music was
really impossible.
Well, last week, when I
found myself with a free week, I had the pleasure of writing the music
to one of my songs. Using the miracle of music software, and some
expert guidance, I wrote the music to ‘She’s A Gorilla’
which now looks professional and sounds just like I wrote it 2 years
ago.
It’s got 4 rows (staffs)
of music; one for the singer, one for the piano, one for the piano
chords and one for hand-clapping (cute, huh). And all 5 verses are
there so any singer can sing it confidently straight away.
I then went to
my personal web site www.JamesTaris.com
, looked through the songs listed on the Poems web page and found
38 songs which I could write the music for. I opened up a file for
each song and copied the lyrics across to each one. So now, whenever
I get some free time, instead of playing Solitaire or Minefields (yes,
I do dabble with these) I can start entering the musical notes for
my songs … just like I always said I would.
Here's the music
sheet and tune for "She's a Gorilla" ...
1) Music
Sheet
2) Musical
Sound Track
This
article is taken from the ebook,
400-Day LETS Odyssey
About
the book
|
James
Taris web sites
JamesTaris.com
LETS-Linkup.com
Rich-Bastards.com
Honey-BeeBooks.com
TheGloryOfAthens.com
TravelWithoutMoney.com
ChineseArt-ChineseArt.com
ShanghaiPhotoGuide.com
ShockProofMaterial.com
2pups.com
