April 4th - Boonville

April 3rd - Carthage, MO

April 2nd - Little Rock

Easter In Shreveport

Mississippi, South Of Jackson: Easter Morning

Spring Tour: Saturday

First day of Spring Tour and I set out in Rita at 8 am with an eye towards camping midway to Shreveport where I'll be staying with John and Karen Keane. This will be my third time to Herndon Magnet School where John is the music teacher; I've enjoyed presenting a musical program with him for the kids and I'm looking forward to Monday's schedule. Knowing that it's April Fool's Day, I'm fully expecting there to be some mischief.

The 12 hour trip was uneventful, cruising at 55 mph in the slow lane is very relaxing and easy on Rita. I ended up in Hattiesburg, MS where I'm camped at a Walmart Resort. Hopefully will get a chance to visit with Jeff Hames in Jackson before continuing north. I'll be checking in periodically!

Sho na bish,

Bing
http://BingFutch.com

Fan Footage From Sarasota Folk and Acoustic Music Festival

Thank to Bill LaPietra for getting this on video!

Dulcimerica 214 - "Flowers On The Wall"

Dulcimerica 213 - "From Texas To Nowhere"

Dulcimerica 212 - "Come On With Me"

Dulcimerica 211 - "Preamble To Cajun"

Dulcimerica 210 - "Two Baritone Tunes"

Dulcimerica 209 - "Sweet River"

Dulcimerica 208 - "One Hot Trio: Memphis"

Dulcimerica 207 - "Playing In Memphis"

Deconstructing "River Song"

As a child, I remember sitting in a darkened movie theater in Hollywood, California watching the opening titles of "Tom Sawyer" and thinking to myself "that's the most amazing piece of music I've ever heard."  For years, the tune haunted me and I hunted it down all over the place until, finally, I found the soundtrack online.  Nominated for a 1973 Golden Globe for Best Score and later nominated for Best Music, Best Scoring and Best Original Song Score or Adapation Oscars to honor songwriters Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman alongside composer John Williams.  The opening and closing tune, "River Song" was sung by country great Charley Pride and that's the tune that stuck with me for years.

It's filled with that simple Sherman Brothers magic and Williams' arrangement in the extended clip above is him at his color-weaving best.  I've been of a mood lately to deconstruct pieces of music to see what makes them have the emotional punch that they possess, so it's no wonder that I'm now looking at the works of the Sherman Brothers.  Those guys really knew how to tug on your heartstrings.

I got so into this deconstruction that I actually reconstructed it and made a little demo to see if some of the very basic chord changes would retain that familiar Sherman brothers "lift."  But I'm getting a little ahead of myself here.  Let's start with the key(s) of the tune.

It didn't take much to suss out that our piece begins in C proper with the ensemble choir before modulating to Ab when Charley begins singing.  Then, it modulates again to the key of A.  Since I'm working on this tune to include in my performances, I decided to round it off starting where Pride does - in the key of Ab (which is actually my optimal key for singing.  Nice.)

Real quick - here are the words:

River runs warm in the summer sun
river runs cold when the summer's done
but a boy's just a dreamer by the riverside
cause the water's too fast and the water's too wide

then the world turns around and the boy grows tall
he hears the song of the river call
the river song sings "travel on, travel on"
you blink away a tear and the boy is gone

CHORUS

oh a river's gonna flow cross the land, cross the land
oh a river's gonna flow to the sea
and a boy is gonna grow to a man, to a man
only once in his life is he free
only one golden time in his life is he free

(Beautiful stuff, isn't it?  Robert sure know how to turn a phrase.  Richard was the tune guy.)

Here's the chord rundown:

Ab - Bb - C - Db - Eb - F - G
 I    -  ii  - iii - IV  - V  - vi - vii°

Which would naturally give us

Ab - Bbm - Cm - Db - Eb - Fm - Gdim

I sat down at the piano and knew this wasn't going to be an easy case of following the passing tones, because I've never been able to easily figure out any Sherman Brothers tune.  I was determined, however, to dig in and really get to the root of the two big changes that have the most punch.  So, I began to listen to the track (extracted into a MP3 which I then introduced into Transcribe! so I could slow it down, isolate sections, analyze data and so forth.)  The first verse is pretty easy:

Ab - Fm

Ab - Fm - Bbm - Eb

Ab - Fm

Db - Ab - Bbm - Eb - Ab

So far, so good - it follows the pattern of major and minor chords to a "t".  But then comes the key change to A - and the chord that connects the two keys is:

E7

(I once met Richard M. Sherman and told him, half-jokingly, that he and his brother had "taught me that seventh chords" were "the center of the universe."  He got a kick out of that.)

Just a quick look at the rundown for the key of A:

A - B - C# - D - E - F# - G#
 I -  ii  - iii  - IV  V - vi - vii°

Which gives us:

A - Bm - C#m - D - E - F#m - G#dim

Then, we move on with "then the world turns around...":

A - F#m

A - Bm - E7

And now, I began to prep myself for the first major deconstruction - that wonderful Sherman Brothers lift at the end of the line "the river song sings 'travel on, travel ONNNNN'"

My first thought was another magical seventh chord with a different bass root, maybe a third or something like that.  But my fumblings with it proved that that was not the case.  And why?  Because when I played the melody, it clashed with my chords.  Something was amiss and I just wasn't hearing it.  Knocking about with some more chord and root combos, I finally stumbled upon it:

A - D - F#m6/D# - A/E - Bm - E - A - G/A

Wow!  That's so delicious!  The key ingredient of that yumminess is the minor sixth chord, which already includes the raised fourth note that is doubled by the bass root.  The second, third and fourth chords in that progression allow for a chromatic lift: D - D# - E and it was this particular kind of chord voicing that made The Sherman Brothers such an amazing songwriting team.  It was all about the motion with these guys and not a note was wasted.  By using first and second inversions, you can pay attention to ascending and descending lines in the melody, harmony and bass, attaining conflict and resolution with breathless skill.  Quick review:

Normal 1-3-5 chord structure for a C chord:  C - E - G

First inversion takes the third and puts it on the bottom: E - C - G

Second inversion takes the fifth and puts it on the bottom: G - C - E

Now, for the chorus:

D - A - Bm - E - A - G/A

Okay, here comes the next heart-stopping moment - "and a boy is gonna grow..."

D - A - C# - F#m - Dm6/F - A

Hello!  I think my heart skipped a beat.  Just listen to that movement; soaring, inspiring and ultimately bittersweet.  The formula has been repeated in dozens of Sherman Brothers songs and by looking at the chords, I'm thinking I understand what's going on.  They have returned to a minor sixth chord but this one has an even more heartbreaking flavor than the last; why is that?  Well, first off - the root chord is not part of the scale like the F#m6.  We should be looking at a D Major instead of a D minor (if we were following the rules, but playing by the rules does not yield goodness like this.)  Underneath the D minor sixth, we've got an E root,  part of our scale harmonization and, in this case, acting as a first inversion, placing the third on the bottom of the chord.  Following the progression of F#m - Dm6/F - A can you hear the now-descending chromatic note leading?  It's F# - F - E.   Pure emotional stringing along, man - brilliant!  Notes have emotional as well as physical properties; runs leading up sound buoyant and happy/hopeful - runs going down sound depressing, wistful, sad.  Not all the time, depends on the notes, but in this case, along with the choices of chords, The Shermans have lifted us up and then taken us down a peg with a simple example of voice leading.  Wrapping it up with some tasty stuff here:

A - Bm - C#m - D - Dm6/F - A/E - A+/F - D/F# - Esus4 - E - A

Ach!  I'm spent.  These guys...

So, what have we got for the finale?  Those first four chords are just walking up the A scale harmonizations leading us to another wonderfully heartbreaking Dm6/F which then resolves into
ANOTHER climb with a chromatic lead-through (E - F - F#) that connects a lovely A augmented chord and a D first inversion before slapping a nice ending by way of conflicted and resolving E chord and finally, back home, absolutely loving the journey.

I had such fun digging around in this AND discovered the secret of so many of my favorite tunes.  Transcribe! is a great program for doing this kind of dissection.  I also used Band In A Box to assemble the chord progressions and put them together in a quick arrangement to see how it would do without all of the extras that Mr. Williams is using to really sell the changes.  In fact, here is the MP3 file so you can hear how it works out with the above chords.  Since Charley Pride is one of the greatest country singers ever, I decided that I'd update the style of the song with a bit of Nashville flavor, though I'm using very simple instruments to play the melody.  Listen to how that melody winds in and around the changes - it's the main emotional tie that binds it all.

River Song - Exercise.mp3

Thanks for checking this out! I know I bounce back and forth between beginner stuff and then stuff like this - but I know the audience is out there for all of it.  And it's never too soon to start thinking about the  magic of music theory.  Until next time.....

Deconstructing "Liberian Girl"

While jogging this morning in the stiff breeze preceding the impending arrival of Hurricane Isaac, I suddenly found myself pondering the chord progression to Michael Jackson's song "Liberian Girl."



 

Jackson always knew how to wring the most out of a progression and the type of chord movement in this song is typical of his most famous hits.

I came home, sat down at the piano, and began trying to figure out the key of the tune which turned out to be G# minor.

How'd I come to that conclusion?

I listened to the first chord (G#m) and asked myself what the relative Major key would be.  There are a couple way of doing this (besides having it memorized, which I didn't):  one, you play the G# natural minor scale - G# - A# - B - C# - D# - E - F# - and then either go backwards six notes, including G#, or forward two notes to determine the first note of the associated Major scale.  Or you use the circle of fifths to travel "20 minutes" clockwise around (including the starting note) to find your relative minor.  You'll come up with Ab, but since we're working in a key full of sharps, just adjust the spelling to G#.  Using scale degrees, you can chart out the chord possibilities thusly:


B  -  C#  - D#  - E  - F# - G#  - A#
I  -    ii   - iii   -  IV - V  - vi    - vii°

Now, remember that we're in the relative minor key of G#, so we want to count that note as first in its scale.  Our scale degrees and chords remain the same for each particular note; they just happen in a different order.


G# - A# - B - C# - D# - E - F#

 i  -   ii° -  iii  - iv  - v  -  VI - VII


This gives us the template from which to begin sussing out the chord progressions of the tune.  Now,  what drew me to this song was some of the luscious harmonic action taking place towards the end of the chorus and I knew there would be some substitutions looming and that's mainly what this bit of discovery is all about.  Still, Jackson plays it by the book for the most part, so figuring out those elements of the tune were quite easy. Here is the verse progression:

i - iv - v
i - iv - v

Simple as that.  Now, I write it out with scale degrees so that if I want to transpose it, I can do so.  Match the above progression with our G# minor scale and you'll come up with these chords:

G#m - C#m - D#m
G#m - C#m - D#m

Now, onto the chorus, and I'm excited doing this because I want to crack the Jackson code and discover some of the secrets of why his music was so tasty.  Here's what I come up with:

VI - i - iv6 - Vsus4

Whoa!  More than just formula going on here, but let's have a closer look.  We've got a modulation from the VI to the i which is part of the minor scale degree situation; so chorus begins E to G#m.  Then, Jackson pops a chord substitution, which is any chord that's not part of the associated harmonic chord structure.  Instead of simply playing the iv chord, he makes it a minor 6th chord, which is just fraught with delicious drama.  If that's not enough, he bounces that up against an even more dramatic chord substitution in the form of a V chord as opposed to a v chord.  Often times in music, changing one of your established chords from Major to minor or minor to Major is enough to really shake up your arrangements.  Here, he not only does that with the V chord, but he also makes it a sus4 that resolves at just the last beat before kicking back into the verse.  Slurpy!

E - G#m - C#m6 - D#sus4 - D#

One more thing.  To wring the maximum effect out of that minor 6th chord, he places the bass note (in this case A#) on the bottom, thus making it a "slash chord."

E - G#m - C#m6/A# - D#sus4 - D#

Finally, the song repeats a three-song progression as Jackson sings variations on the lyric "I love you Liberian girl":

G#m - C#m - D#sus4

So, there you have it!  This is the kind of stuff that I hear in my head and then feel compelled to go chase down the formulas in order to better understand and utilize music theory.  I'll be doing this quite a bit over the next few months as I continue to dig deep in the studio while writing and producing.  Thanks for reading!

It's Not Global Warming - It's 2 HOT Florida Winter Events!

Che hun ta mo!

Winter in Florida is going to be sizzling in 2013 as we present two radically different events in the Sunshine State:

The first will be our fourth annual Key West shindig, now known as the Key West Dulcimer Gathering. January 24th - 27th, 2013 in Key West, Florida. Butch Ross and I will be presenting mountain dulcimer and ukulele workshops, private lessons and a concert at Casa Cabanas, which was the site of our outing earlier this year with Robert Force and Scott Snyder. No registration fee! The workshops and lessons are pay as you go and we'll once again be sightseeing and enjoying an authentic Cuban cookout at the casa. It'll be laid-back as it can get, for that's the tropical island style! For more information, visit our website at http://keywestdulcimergathering.blogspot.com and our Facebook event page at http://www.facebook.com/events/357482027659353/

Then, the following weekend, January 31st - February 3rd, 2013, I'll be joined by Guy and Sharrie George for the first annual Florida Gulf Coast Dulcimer Retreat in Homosassa Springs, Florida, presented by Folkcraft Instruments. $99 registration includes all 26 workshops and Saturday night concert with the focus on mountain dulcimer, hammered dulcimer, Native American flute, penny whistle, ukulele, steel drum and guitar. The site for all of this will be the Homosassa Riverside Resort where we have a discounted block of rooms. This will showcase the old Florida river style, with plenty of opportunity for boating, fishing, scalloping and swimming with manatees. For more information, visit http://floridagulfcoastdulcimerretreat.blogspot.com/ and our Facebook event page at http://www.facebook.com/events/143776002427014/

On February 4th, Guy, Sharrie and I will be leading a RV caravan to the Ft. Wilderness Resort at Walt Disney World for yet MORE musical fun as we camp out on the shores of Bay Lake, jam, hang-out and enjoy all of the fun that a stay at The Magic Kingdom has to offer.

It promises to be a wonderful three weeks of fun in the sun and I hope you'll be able to join us!

Sho na bish,

Bing

Bing Futch on the "Pickin' Porch" June 23, 2012

Long Time, Lots See

Che Hun Ta Mo!

The blog has been rather unattended of late and I blame that squarely on the busy nature of my schedule. So, I've got a bit of a break in the action here at Patapsco State Park in Ellicott, Maryland to catch up readers of this blog with the latest.

First off, summer tour has been amazing in every way. Each show has been a revealing gem with lots of music, great visits and moments that I'll always treasure. Once upon a time, I dreamed of being a celebrity superstar; making the money, the headlines and doing whatever I felt like doing. But somewhere along the line, my true calling manifested itself and it's been a pure joy to not only perform across the country and see fans from all around the globe appreciate my music, but also to teach, and to learn from, people who are discovering their own musical voices. To be in touch and not removed from people is my reality and it gives me great purpose.

I've been on the road for three weeks now, living in Rita, doing laundry at the coin-op, cooking meals (and eating lots of Mexican food), playing shows and exploring both familiar and new parts of this country. I won't paint a completely pretty picture - reality is that we're fighting tough times, much like our predecessors did in the 1920's on the North American continent. One of the things that the folks of the United States won't give up is their music, and it's been a delight to help people explore, engage and enjoy the passion of melody, harmony and rhythm.

When I get back home from the Indiana Dulcimer Festival next week, I'll be starting a low-key period where I'll dig down deep into production and finally knock out so much of what has been caterwauling in my head, heart and soul for so long. Though I'll hit the road again briefly in October for an East Texas tour, I am planning to drop from the radar for a bit while I do some very important recording, writing, practicing and planning.

I'd like to thank every one of you who comes to this blog for believing in me and for all of your encouragement and support. In the interest of always looking for better ways to do what I do, I'm always in flux, or that may just be the ADHD talking. In any case - the past four or five years has been absolutely tremendous and I'm truly blessed to live this life. As summer tour draws to a close, I want to thank you all for your participation in this thing I call my life. It has enriched me and brought me to a higher plane. So much of that comes from meeting you folks on the road and at home. Even those who were unaware of that particular dulcimer festival or pub or cafe show still came up to share some of your life experiences with me and, you know what? I'm a better man for it.

Thanks again, everybody - for your texts, e-mails, phone calls, cards and posts. Thank you for trusting me with your questions; thank you for believing my answers. But above all, thanks for keeping it real. If there's one thing that I believe in with all of the craziness going on in the U.S. right now, it's that the beautiful, the skillful and the upwardly/inwardly seeking people are alive and well. To quote Doc Brown (and, parenthetically, Andrew Hagen) "remember, the future is what you make of it - so make it a good one!"

Sho na bish,

Bing

From iPhone with love.