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TBZC / Martha​’​s Alternate Reality

from Sans Lyrics Vol. 3 by John Tabacco

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Music © 2011 by John Tabacco
Published by It Iz What It Iz Music (SESAC)

I tend to write a piano piece of some kind every year. This year was no exception. Here we have a piece where the first section was improvised. On a good day when I’m focused and calm I can actual put my fingers on the keyboards, push record and come up with something that sounds like I know what I am doing. I don’t have the real gift that Meryl Mathews has where it doesn’t matter what she plays, it always sounds great. Same holds true for singing. Susan DeVita just opens her mouth and it’s always in tune and never awkward sounding. I have no such talent. I have to practice before I commit to the record button. I’m good at just taking things that are broken and fixing them up at my own pace. This piece is no exception. In the first part I fine tuned a chord here and there, pushed or pulled a rhythm, repeated a chord etc...until I was happy with the results. Then I heard the next section coming in and that’s Martha’s Alternate Reality. Unlike the first section, this was a piece I worked out in my sister’s basement in 2006. It was a simplified parody of Paul McCartney’s classic piano part in his song Martha My Dear. So no, you’re not crazy if you hear some similarities. I then tried to tie the two sections together by improvising a variation on part one with little motifs of what proceeded it thrown in. Fixed it. I sat with this mix for a few months fairly pleased. When I came back to it with fresh ears I thought about that long pause between section one and two. It then occurred to me I had done something like this before with a real time piano recording I did of Cilla-Sigh-Been-Root back in 1998. I was gonna use that piece for this CD but since I already had a clarinet version of “Root” I thought it might be a bit redundant. The voices between the two sections were recorded at Sonic Underground Studios when Gian DiMauro and I were doing background vocals for a Gearhead Freaks tune. I would usually leave a piece of paper on a music stand in the vocal booth with some weird phrases written on paper, (this one slightly attributed to something Nigey Lennon and Eric Weaver use to say to their cat Nico). And to make vocal settings I would have who ever was in the booth read this stuff. It always cracked me up and put the vocalist in a relaxed mood. Cheap thrills.

lyrics

Tuna breath zip cat meow yow yow
Tuna breath zip cat chow chow chow...

credits

from Sans Lyrics Vol. 3, released October 19, 2014
JT : Programming
Cute voices: Marci Geller and Deborah Jones
Voices recorded at Sonic Underground Studios, Stony Brook, NY
Basic track: recorded at Suburban Hermit Studio II, Stony Brook, NY

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John Tabacco Stony Brook, New York

John Tabacco is a composer, singer-songwriter, producer, recording engineer, and visual artist.

Like an unfolding musical diary / puzzle, Tabacco’s music and art are constantly being re-worked, juxtaposed and intertwined.

For more info : www.johntabacco.net
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