"Honky Few Lie Kit"
Written by Edward Jerlin
Title renamed by Jeff James
© 1987 & 2009 Everlasting Arms Records & Publishing - All Rights Reserved
Work on "On Broken Wings" is progressing nicely.
I think we can see a finish line in the distance...
In the meantime, we took a break from "OBW" for one
evening this month to re-record a nifty old number...
Back in 1987, I was just out of college & had bought my first synthesizer (an Ensoniq ESQ-1 which I still have). It came with a "sequencer", which is kind of like a tape recorder, except that the machine "records" your notes & has the synth play them back to you, rather than recording audio. One of the useful features of a sequencer is that you can record something at a very slow pace & then play it back at a faster speed. This month's track represents the only time I've ever taken advantage of that technology... to great effect, I believe... ;-)
Since I have much better-sounding technology now than I did 20+ years ago, I decided to re-do the piece. The sequence remains, but it's playing a better-sounding piano (& electric piano in the middle as a change-of-pace.) I then added real drums, bass & Hammond organ to it, which is a vast improvement over the old drum machine & synth bass sounds I used to use.
When I recorded the organ part, there was a bit in the middle where I thought it might sound cool to play along with the piano, rather than just accompany with chords, as I had in the original. So I had to learn the piano part & hopefully play it at the insane speed. I managed to pull it off. Below is a video of me recording that section. Took about 4-5 takes to get it right once I'd figured out what was in the original. ;-)
Interestingly (to me anyway), sequencers have the ability to "quantize", meaning that it will round the timing of each note to the nearest 1/4, 1/8, 1/16th of a beat. What ensues is a "machine gun" kind of effect, where the playing is too "perfect" to be real. Back in the day, I decided to quantize only half of the song... So half of it sounds super-mechanical, & the other half sounds like an almost plausible hyper-super piano player.
Another trick I used for a couple of measures is to copy a short section of it to another sequencer track & transpose it up an octave. Thus, you briefly hear a monstrous two-handed descending then ascending octave riff that's just too perfect to be true. ;-)
I stopped using sequencers shortly after this after I got an 8-track recorder, because to my ears, sequencers don't quite play back what I play into them due to subtle timing issues. Other monthly offerings that have made use of the sequencer are "When You're In Love", & "Wasted Time", which have a mixture of sequenced & audio tracks, & the intro to "It's Scott & Todd". ( "The Rebellion" made use of an arpeggiator for a couple of parts.)
I'd never been happy with title I had, "Honky Tonky". I thought of calling it, "Everyone Get Out Of The Piano Player's Way", but that seemed a little long & cumbersome. "Out Of My Way" seemed a little obnoxious. A friend of mine Jeff James suggested, "Honky Few Lie Kit". Say it fast. ;-)
Many thanks, Jeff!!
Anyone else got a better idea? :-)
I got a lot of fun out of re-visiting this nifty little number. Enjoy!
Comments & feedback are always welcome at our guestbook.
Thank you & God bless!
To download the music, RIGHT CLICK and choose "Save Target As":
"Honky Few Lie Kit" MUSIC 2:10
