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Post by joshilynhoisington on Jan 5, 2022 21:19:52 GMT
Hello Folks! By way of a brief introduction for those of you that don't know me, since I'm new to this board, I'm Joshilyn, and have been known as Aeijtzsche on other Beach Boys boards over the years. Back in the mid-aughties, as it were, I worked with Alan Boyd as a bit of a sub-contractor for the Beach Boys, helping him manage the archives out in LA. I have not worked for the group in an official capacity for some time now, but in the last few years I have felt "called" to endeavor to be an evangelist for the actual music of the group. When I say "the actual music" what I mean is that I feel that, while the music itself does draw people to the band, a lot of the discussion of the group ends up being about anything but the music; band member personalities, lyrics, Brian's mental health, products, archival releases, etc -- all these topics overshadow the simple and pure enjoyment of music qua music. And when discussion does turn to the music, I am continually frustrated by the sort of baffled, dismissively worshipful nature of it. Take Don Was in the recent Long Promised Road documentary. He listens to the God Only Knows track, mis-identifies all the instruments that are playing, and then kind of shrugs and says "I don't know how you do that!" as if he's just watched Jesus turn the water into wine. This kind of shallow consideration of the music does it a great disservice; I think that Brian's music is great because it is a tangible, understandable body of work that was lovingly assembled by a human being in a comprehensible way. The way that it was put together is nevertheless very special, it took a special talent and a special context to put it all together, and studying it and cherishing the method and the building blocks is a much better way of recognizing Brian's genius than shrugging and saying he's a genius. Anyway! I have started to try to focus serious attention on the building blocks of Brian's music by starting a youTube channel, which many of you may have seen: www.youtube.com/channel/UCMbSQq3vY5JayyOMotj5k0g/videosI started mostly by trying to deconstruct some of the orchestrations on the Today album, and recently have been taking little bitesize looks at various points of songwriting interest on the Feel Flows box. But I have a much bigger vision for the future, and here's where you come in. Because I am so single-mindedly into the Beach Boys, I have trouble discerning what the interests of the wider community are and what it the best way to present this stuff to the world. So I would really appreciate ideas and opinions--thoughts on what I could do (or more accurately how best to present what I do) to make the most impact and how to draw the biggest audience in; to attract people to what should be the star of the show: The music of the Beach Boys. I will put my general ideas in an immediately subsequent post -- I appreciate any input at all.
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 5, 2022 21:32:32 GMT
First, a brief humorous note: I misread that you worked with Alan Boyd in the mid-eighties and was absolutely gobsmacked! I thought, "no, I remember when she worked with them, and I'd swear it was a good 20 years later than that."
Now, to the topic, some things I would find interesting include videos about:
- "Brianisms," for lack of a better word. Some of the musical tools Brian incorporated into music across much or all of his career, be they certain chord progressions, a certain style of playing, styles of melody, instruments that appear in atypical ways.
- Highlighting some of the identifiable instrumental contributions of other Beach Boys over the years, and discussing how they impacted or changed the music of the band. E.g., people always say, in effect, "Blondie brought the rawk!" But demonstrations of literally what he did differently than, say, Carl or Al: using a Les Paul with humbuckers, maybe using power chords, or whatever. Or how a Dennis-drummed song differs from a Blaine- or Fataar- or Figueroa-drummed song, and so on.
- Unique musical moments. Almost the opposite of the first thought above, musical ideas that seem very unusual for the Beach Boys. What's different about them, where might they have come from (if it's discernible), etc.
I'll try to think of some more.
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Jan 5, 2022 21:36:23 GMT
Idea/Concept 1: Orchestration breakdowns
Brian's arrangements during the "golden" 65-67 period were truly unique. Unlike his contemporaries, he built his orchestrations in an oddly intuitive way. Somebody like Nelson Riddle or Perry Botkin had a full background in arrangement, and would write out full scores for full orchestras - they were working in a relatively well defined idiom. Other, younger arrangers might not have the formal arranging chops, and maybe were working in a more rock 'n' roll context, and maybe would think they "should" use a string section. But a lot of these things end up "borrowing the idiom" rather than having it be a natural outgrowth of the medium they are already working in.
Brian seems to have intuitively grasped the way he wanted to use instruments, rather than snatching them from another context. His use of horns extended out of early rock 'n' roll saxophone, for example; he always used saxes, so it was a progression from Mike, to Steve Douglas, to Steve, Plas Johnson, and Jay Migliori. Then, it was just another very small step to ask those guys to play Clarinets instead of saxes.
That's all a long way of saying that Brian's arrangements and orchestrations deserve examination. And that is what I intend to do; examine them in great detail.
What I have done is I've started to completely recreate Summer Days and Summer Nights tracks, instrument by instrument. Some other people have done things like this for the Beach Boys before, but I'm different in that I am not only playing the real instruments for everything, but I'm also able to transcribe the parts much more accurately than anybody else I've encountered.
What this gives me is a sort of fantasy multi-track.
So the first question for the board is this -- what do you think is the most effective way to present this?
My thought has been to do a series of increasingly focused videos at various levels of autistic nerditry - the basic video would just be my "cover" of the original track, showing me playing all the parts in a "virtual band" style format. Then, I could do more specific videos -- here's just the horn section; let's hear what the percussion sounds like by itself, etc. Then for the hardcore people, I could make a separate video for every instrument and explain what its role is in making the finished product. Auxiliary videos could cover production techniques.
In effect, this could mean that for one song, for example, Help me Rhonda (which incidentally is the first song that will receive whatever treatment I end up giving it...) could have 10 videos for it. Is that too much?
Another question - would a podcast, audio only version of these be interesting to anybody?
And finally, there are a few very successful channels that do meticulous recreation/covers of the Beatles -- do you think the Beatles simply by virtue of being the Beatles will automatically be much more interesting to people (by great orders of magnitude) than the same thing of the Beach Boys?
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Jan 5, 2022 21:43:07 GMT
I'll also add:
I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do regardless -- I'm aware it's overkill, but I don't care! But I do want people to watch/listen/enjoy other than me!
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Post by Kapitan on Jan 5, 2022 21:49:02 GMT
Heaven. I'd watch them all. However, I do expect even many serious fans would find, say, 10 videos on one song too many to watch them all, assuming of course that you'd be doing this for numerous songs. So it is probably a matter of whether you'd be able to put in that kind of work and have a lot of the videos be generally overlooked, as opposed to fewer that get more attention (but maybe aren't as complete as you--or I!--would like).
As a way to scale that idea back a little, perhaps instead of literally going through each instrument separately on video, you could append the sectional presentation to include a few individualized highlights. "These saxes are mostly doing a pretty standard thing, as you see, but notice how this alto actually repeats the melody from earlier."
EDIT - while I was writing this, you posted that you're going to do what you're going to do regardless. So that makes me think my note above about you being disappointed about a lot of work going unappreciated may be irrelevant. Feel free to ignore my comments. (Which of course you can and should feel free to do regardless.)
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Post by jk on Jan 5, 2022 22:34:30 GMT
I'll also add: I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do regardless -- I'm aware it's overkill, but I don't care! But I do want people to watch/listen/enjoy other than me! This. Make as many videos of individual songs as you see fit. It's not overkill -- Brian deserves it. And rest assured, JH, there are plenty of people out there who will watch/listen/enjoy other than you! Your projects are a much-needed breath of fresh air in Beach Boy Land as it is today.
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Post by joshilynhoisington on Jan 5, 2022 22:58:46 GMT
Heaven. I'd watch them all. However, I do expect even many serious fans would find, say, 10 videos on one song too many to watch them all, assuming of course that you'd be doing this for numerous songs. So it is probably a matter of whether you'd be able to put in that kind of work and have a lot of the videos be generally overlooked, as opposed to fewer that get more attention (but maybe aren't as complete as you--or I!--would like).
As a way to scale that idea back a little, perhaps instead of literally going through each instrument separately on video, you could append the sectional presentation to include a few individualized highlights. "These saxes are mostly doing a pretty standard thing, as you see, but notice how this alto actually repeats the melody from earlier."
EDIT - while I was writing this, you posted that you're going to do what you're going to do regardless. So that makes me think my note above about you being disappointed about a lot of work going unappreciated may be irrelevant. Feel free to ignore my comments. (Which of course you can and should feel free to do regardless.)
I appreciate all your comments! While I am going to do what I'm going to do, how I present what I'm going to do is very much up in the air, so I do really appreciate the input. I'm used to lots of work being largely unappreciated at this point! (Which is why I am profoundly grateful to the people that do appreciate it.) Just hoping to close the gap a little bit between the work and the appreciation.
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sockit
The Surfer Moon
Posts: 234
Likes: 181
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Post by sockit on Jan 6, 2022 0:51:33 GMT
Heaven. I'd watch them all. While I am going to do what I'm going to do, how I present what I'm going to do is very much up in the air, so I do really appreciate the input. I'm used to lots of work being largely unappreciated at this point! Hi Joshilyn! First of all....what Kapitan said. I'll watch whatever bits of knowledge you put out there. In my book, in music there is no such thing as "too much of a good thing". I never get burned out on music discussion. In fact I'm quite chatty when it comes to music discussion. Last weekend I talked with an old ex-bandmate on the phone for nearly three hours about a demo we worked on together back in 2009! But back to the matter at hand. My thoughts are to not overthink the method of presentation. Your videos so far have been presented very well, and I cannot think of any way that I would change anything....other than making the 5 minute "Feel Flows" explanations much longer! Oh, and don't get me started on the "unappreciated" thing. We're talking about the music world here!
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Post by lonelysummer on Jan 6, 2022 5:13:18 GMT
I eagerly await more videos on the "Feel Flows" songs. Just take it one step at a time.
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Post by jk on Jan 6, 2022 9:52:36 GMT
My thought has been to do a series of increasingly focused videos at various levels of autistic nerditry - the basic video would just be my "cover" of the original track, showing me playing all the parts in a "virtual band" style format. Then, I could do more specific videos -- here's just the horn section; let's hear what the percussion sounds like by itself, etc. Then for the hardcore people, I could make a separate video for every instrument and explain what its role is in making the finished product. Auxiliary videos could cover production techniques. In effect, this could mean that for one song, for example, Help me Rhonda (which incidentally is the first song that will receive whatever treatment I end up giving it...) could have 10 videos for it. Is that too much? Another question - would a podcast, audio only version of these be interesting to anybody? And finally, there are a few very successful channels that do meticulous recreation/covers of the Beatles -- do you think the Beatles simply by virtue of being the Beatles will automatically be much more interesting to people (by great orders of magnitude) than the same thing of the Beach Boys? To answer your questions: - If "Rhonda" takes ten videos to say what you want to say about it, let there be ten videos. Or more. I'm looking at the thread title as I write this! It's important that you say all you want to say about a particular song, whatever it takes. And I know it will always be factual -- no rags of ectoplasm floating about. - An audio version would lose so much of the content. I'm sure even the non-musicians among us love to see you actually playing the parts you're talking about, to say nothing of your exploits at the mixing board. It would also lose a lot in terms of intimacy. It's beginning to sound like the record's stuck, but I see no reason for you to change a jot of the presentation. It's you, being yourself as opposed to putting on a show -- what more could anyone ask for? As for your last question, what you're doing couldn't be further removed from those cosmetic recreations/covers, so I wouldn't even consider the difference between the two, on any level. It's chalk and cheese -- and guess who's the chalk?
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