JBCMusic Weblog

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Free sheet music on Scribd.com

Ya just missed “Cry Unto Me.”

I’ve had the score for “Cry Unto Me” available FREE for awhile on Scribd.com.  Sorry, though, I intended it to be temporary since it’s normally for sale on this website, so I’ve taken in down now.  I also intended to replace it with another free sample, only to find that Scribd won’t accept password-encrypted PDF’s, which all my sheet music is (set to view, print, etc, but they can’t be changed), except “Cry Unto Me” seemed to have slipped through unprotected.  So I have to get on another computer that has Acrobat on it and unprotect anything I want to upload to Scribd.  Since that would be a Windows computer and I don’t feel like leaving my Mac to deal with the frustration of Windows tonight, that probably ain’t gonna happen for a few nights.  So, yes, I do intend to post more on Scribd occasionally - look for it…“real soon now” - but not tonight.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Free sheet music -“Cry Unto Me”

Based on Hosea 2:21-23

I’ve made the sheet music for “Cry Unto Me” temporarily available FREE on Scribd.com.  This is the seminal work of my song-writing - the first thing I ever formally copyrighted, and still one of best and one of my favorites.  Let me know what you think.  If you like it, you can come back here and help me out by buying off this website.  The CCLI number is 4443971 if you use it in a church subscribed to CCLI.

Update - See the May 3rd post - Like I said, temporarily available free; I left it up there longer than I intended, and at least 15 people took the chance to at least look at it. Check out the SHEET MUSIC PAGE of this website to see what’s available for sale (and some free samples).

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Shoestring piano repairs

Some shoestring and tacky glue, and my piano’s back in play.

As much as I love my Yamaha electric keyboards, there’s still no substitute for sitting down at a nice acoustic piano when that’s what you’re in the mood for.  My living room acoustic’s been out of commission for a couple of weeks.  This is the piano I wrote about in My Piano Savior - still plays, still sounds great. Until something breaks.  Rose Hale fixed a lot of the problems some twenty years ago by replacing the little plastic knees that had grown brittle over time, but now other things inside are well past their prime. 

The D below middle C broke first - the action has these cloth ribbons connectors that let the lower part act as a counter-weight for the upper hammer part.  With the strips intact, the hammer rebounds sharply off the strings; with them broken, the hammer goes clunk! against the strings and sticks.  After 50? 60? years, not sure how old this piano is, the cloth is brittle and breaks pretty easily.  So I was poking around underneath the D key and broke the E-flat next to it.  This has happened before - I’ve fixed 5 or 6 keys broken like this before, I just couldn’t remember how I had done it.  Rose replaced a few of them, and I seem to remember actually sewing the cloth strips together on a couple of them, but I don’t see how I ever got my big hands in there to do that.  Then I saw a bit of string tied on one of the keys - aha!  Once I saw how I fixed that one, these two were a piece of cake.  Just took two pieces of shoestring, some clever close-quarters knot-tying, a bit of tacky glue to hold the knots in place, and voila!  The acoustic’s back in business. 

Friday, December 02, 2011

Split personality

I’ve split myself up on Reverb Nation

I’ve split myself up on ReverbNation.  My bluesy, folk-pop, countryish singer/songwriter secular side is now at J.B. Clifton.  My Christian contemporary/praise and worship side is still at Brent Clifton.  Both sides still hang out together at my website and Bandizmo.com.

I think the split was a good choice - I’ve already got 6 new fans on the J.B. Clifton page in the first 4 days .  I’m further convinced that Reverbnation’s song counts are off, though - how would I pick up 6 fans from only 3 song plays?  Wouldn’t most people listen to a song or two before hitting the “become a fan” button?

Other stuff -
Heard Sheila Marshall live at Winestyles (The Vintage) right down the road from home.  Great music, and very nice, low-key venue.  May try to get myself playing there.

Got close to having new audio of “About You Blue” ready to post, but having a few technical difficulties with the home-studio setup (as in, remembering what settings work and don’t sound like I’m singing in the bottom of a well).  Pretty much a “live” take (okay, the 5th or 6th live take); sounds great through the monitors from Garage Band, but the mp3 comes out muddy.  I may be able to fix what I have or will just record it again - it’s a pretty easy song to get through without mistakes (at least the 5th or 6th time).  Hope to have some new recordings posted on both the secular and Christian sides “sometime” this winter, though.  Real soon now. Uh-huh.  I mean it.  Promise.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Song statistics at 2+ years

Bandizmo skunks ReverbNation (still) X 10!

I started uploading songs to Bandizmo, then ReverbNation a little over 2 years ago.  As reported on this blog in the past, even though ReverbNation is the slicker website, either their song-play statistics are just plain wrong, or Bandizmo just totally trounces, skunks, whips, rolls over ReverbNation when it comes to song plays, at least for non-commercial, non-famous artists like me.  My Bandizmo plays passed ReverbX10 a couple of months ago; I now have 5 of 12 songs on Bandizmo that individually have more song plays than all 11 songs posted on ReverbNation, and the others are not far behind.  Plus my ReverbNation count was absolutely flat for the last half of 2010, so I’m pretty sure their song count was broken for a while - there’s usually at least a small increment.  The songs were all basically uploaded the same time, except I put “Start it Out Here in Bethlehem” on Bandizmo and not on Reverb.  Here’s some details-

Bandizmo - Total 1844 song plays, most popular- “Little Man”, followed by “Freeway Song”, “A Child of Yours” very close behind.  Fastest recent climber - “In the Presence of God”, but “Start it Out Here in Bethlehem” has been the fastest climber since it was uploaded (surprising me, since it’s not that great a recording).

ReverbNation - Total 164 song plays, most popular- “Clap Your Hands and Sing (Jehovah Rises)”, then “Little Man”, third is a secular country-ish song, “Empty Air” (which I think is my best home-studio work so far).  Fastest recent climber - “Little Man”, but “Empty Air” has been the fastest climber since it was uploaded.

Bottom line - I like how you can add shows (and look for local shows) on ReverbNation, and RN’s tracking of who’s listening to and liking your songs and communication with those people is much better, but if you just simply want your songs listened to, between these two, it’s BANDIZMO!

Update - Dec. 13 - Over 2000 songplays on Bandizmo, 6 songs with more plays individually than all the ReverbNation tracks.  ReverbNation still stuck on 168, but I started a new ReverbNation page that’s collected a few more fans and songplays (6 fans from only 3 songplays convinces me further RN’s counts are just wrong!).

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Musical doldrums

Between being sick (“just” a cold, but the worst one I’ve ever had), 2 doctor visits, being tired from working while still half-sick, and working on restoring the Blackwatch sailboat when I can, not much happening in regards to music for awhile.  I have been contacted, however, by a group that puts on shows around Houston and various other places, which “may” translate into an occasional gig.  Most of the places they’re putting on shows, though, are fairly large clubs that seem more focused on hard rock, grunge rock, punk rock, hip-hop…basically everything I don’t play (even though I find it hard sometimes to put myself in a general category, I’m not any of those).  So we’ll see - if they can come up with more coffee-house, wine-bar, cafe or small cocktail-bar type places to play, I may get a chance at a show or two.  Or if they start connecting with churches or ministries that have small concerts occasionally, I’m definitely in.  Anyway, if anything comes of it, I’ll offer more info and promote them a bit here on the blog.  Meanwhile, I need to get back in the swing of practicing - for my own sanity more than anything, whether I’m playing shows or not.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Blackwatch progress (#1)

Woodwork & rigging

Spending most of my spare time restoring the Blackwatch sailboat, not much going on with music right now.  The HOA complained about it being in our driveway after 2 weeks, so the boat’s parked in a nearby storage lot for now, except I’ll drag it home weekends to work on.  I weatherstripped all the hatches and sealed any open screw holes before we took it to storage, so hopefully it’s staying dry inside.  I’ve stripped off all the wood toerails and sanded the ones I can reuse, plus the new pieces for the toerails that have to be replaced and the bowsprit.  We made a trip to Boater’s Resale Shop in Kemah and I found a fitting that will work on the end of the bowsprit and other hardware.  Waiting on some screws and hardware on order to put the bowsprit together.  I’ve gotten the relatively small amount of fiberglass repairs needed probably 70% done.

Very many thanks to fellow Blackwatch owner Mal Patton, who kindly donated a staysail boom and the little pedestal it attaches to (bronze, and I’ve only found one place offering one for $$ale).  Otherwise, I’ve stripped most of the hardware off the 2 masts that previous owner Joe sent with the boat - one’s the bent original, and the replacement’s a bit larger, but I checked the specs online, and it should only weigh about 5 pounds more when it’s cut to length.  I can live with that.  I’ve got to figure out what shrouds need replacing and the missing backstay and bobstay(s) - I plan on putting on the normal bobstay to the bow eye and horizontal ones each side up near the sheer.  Looking at available pictures, the later boats were either built that way or people have added the horizontal ones.  Can’t hurt to strengthen the end of the bowsprit way out there.  I ended up with an extra traveller track and car from the San Juan 24 restoration, so decided I’ll use that across the stern instead of the original main sheet setup.

Progress, still much to do.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Blues Mix - coming

Home studio blues mix mp3 just about finished, as soon as my voice sounds better.

The BLUES MIX, the first of several (I hope), is just about done.  I plan to add a portion of “80 MPH Blues” on the end, then I’ll probably go back and record all the vocals again - my voice just hasn’t been up to snuff the last couple of weeks. I’ll never claim to be a great vocalist, but I can sound better than the tracks in the mix right now. 

Instead of trying to get whole songs recorded, the direction I’m heading now is to put together several songwriter mixes, each 4 to 5 minutes of song bits that go together.  The recordings are pretty much “live” in the home studio, intended to showcase the variety of songwriting I do, and my performance for what it’s worth, on places like ReverbNation.  First one’s the blues just ‘cause I’m enjoying playing them right now, then I’m planning a country mix, jazzy mix, pop-folk-light rock mix, humorous mix, and probably 3 or more contemporary Christian/P&W mixes.  That’s a lot of recordings, but right now, it’s easier to get little bits done and strung together than getting a whole song done like I want it.  Encouragement, prayer, and LISTENING as I get them posted will be greatly appreciated.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Old Kermit Cowboys - New mp3!

For my father, 1925-2002.

Posted a new mp3 of “Old Kermit Cowboys”.  The recording is simple voice and piano, more-or-less recorded live in Garage Band (I only had to go back and correct a couple of measures). I may add some counter-melody with strings later, but I like it as it is.  The lyrics and chord sheet have been posted for awhile; now you can have a listen.

Kermit is a treeless town in West Texas where my grandfather ran a grocery store for a few years during my father’s teenage years. My mom still has the old 8mm films of a freckle-faced kid doing amazing tricks on the back of a paint pony. John and Gene Haley are the progeny of author J. Evetts Haley, who ran a ranch outside of town.  I’m not sure if the family still has ranch land around Kermit or not.  Gene started a gun museum and exotic animal display off I-10 for a while in the late 60’s.  The stories on the front porch are some vague memories I have of visits with John, who remained my father’s steadfast friend throughout life.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Start it Out Here in Bethlehem.

Merry Christmas!  I’ve dug out the old audio of my one and only Christmas song I wrote in December 2005, “Start it Out Here in Bethlehem” (5’55”, 4.1 mB) and re-uploaded it.  It’s not only about Christ’s birth, but His whole life and relationship with us.  Not a great recording - I’d consider it only a preliminary rough sketch of the song.  Lyrics are here and I’ve got a chord sheet posted.  Let me know what you think, if you think it needs to go a different direction musically, or just be refined and polished.

Tuesday, December 07, 2010

Statistics -Song Plays

550 song plays on Bandizmo!

I’ve now hit 550 song plays on Bandizmo.com.  Most popular - “Little Man”, over 100 plays alone.  Just in the time since I added some stat counters to the site around October 21st of this year, the mp3’s linked to on the main page - “Speak Forgiveness,” “As We Bow Down,” “Empty Air,” and “Bullfrog, You Don’t Know” have garnered over a dozen plays each, directly from the website.

So I’m not quite convinced that the counters are working correctly on Reverb Nation.  They had me stuck at 87 plays for a long time, then it started creeping up again, at 91 the last I checked - the same songs, each uploaded at the same time as on Bandizmo.  Granted, Reverb Nation has a lot more widely-known, commercially recorded bands and singers and a fewer percentage of home-studio recordings, but still, it doesn’t seem quite right that I’m actually getting six times the airplay on a site with a lot fewer features and not near the slickness.  Either the count’s not working correctly or the song search methodology on Reverb Nation is just wrong for increasing the number of song plays.  As I’ve sent to the gurus of Reverb Nation (without an answer), I think it’s because RN only assigns categories or song types to the ARTIST, instead of letting you assign a category and sub-catergory to each SONG like Bandizmo does.  Somebody looking for “blues” or “country” probably isn’t going to find “Bullfrog You Don’t Know” or “Empty Air” on Reverb Nation since I’m listed as a “Christian contemporary/gospel” artist; but if I put myself down as a “blues” or “folk” artist, they may never look me up for a contemporary worship song.  If you’re looking for the SONG category, on the other hand, you’re a lot more likely to stumble upon my songs on Bandizmo. 550 vs. 91 song plays. Proof.

By the way, they’ve blocked all “social networking” and music-streaming sites at work, which is mostly where I was listening to either Bandizmo or ReverbNation before.  I’m usually working on my own music if I’m in front of the computer at home.  So it doesn’t mean I chose to abandon you as a fan, but I’m personally not adding much to anyone’s song plays on either site.  Would if I could.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

I’m still here

New server, blog back together

Yeah, I’m still here.  Just have been very busy at work, busy on weekends, TIRED in the evenings.  When I’ve done anything with music, it’s just playing, trying to keep somewhat in practice.  Then I got the site moved over to a new server and the blog had some problems with different PHP versions and lost templates and style sheets and that kind of stuff.  I think I’ve got the blog back together now.  Let me know if you see something messed up on the blog or the site overall.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

As We Bow Down, revisited

New score & audio(?) coming!

Look for it “real soon now” - New score and (maybe?) some audio for As We Bow Down. I copyrighted the song back in 2002, and it’s one of the songs I’ve actually gotten a small amount of royalties from through CCLI.  I started out just to record it into Garage Band, then started modifying the piano part to play less of the melody.  In coming up with some counter-melodies, I realized the major chords should have set the key signatures instead of the minor keys I used in the score (The song alternates back and forth between a minor chord and the major chord one step below, and changes key up a whole step 3 times).  So I re-wrote the score with the corrected key signatures, and found a couple more minor mistakes, probably from transposing it from old PC software to Allegro, then to Finale on the Mac.  I’ll get it posted to the web site after I find out what the procedure is to submit a revision to the copyright office, then to CCLI.

I started out just translating the midi file from Finale into GarageBand - but I’m sorry, midi files always seem to sound like midi files no matter what you do to them.  I know you can do a huge amount of work making sure every note is the velocity, duration, etc. that you want to make it sound more “human,” but - well, that’s a huge amount of work.  So I recorded the new, hopefully improved piano part (not written into the score, not sure it ever will be - pretty much ad-lib at this point) onto a “real instrument” audio track, recorded some OK-sounding vocals over it, and added the flute part I had written for Debbie (when I wrote the song, she was thinking of taking up the flute again).  It’s sounding OK, except I made a few mistakes I went back and corrected, and the transitions to the cut-ins aren’t always the smoothest.  The vocal track also came out all on the left channel - I got it panned over near center, but I’ve still got to smooth out the volume settings where I cut-in different segments.  The first verse also sounds a bit rushed (I found out you “can” change the tempo of an audio track in GarageBand - it just makes the piano sound like it’s underwater when you do).  So I may re-record the whole thing instead of patching up what I’ve got.  I’m encouraged, though - after not working with Garage Band all that much, I think I can actually get something decent out of it, given a long afternoon’s work.  It’s definitely a lot of work though, especially since I don’t use it enough to remember all the settings and I’m fighting hardware as much as getting music done.

Bottom line - a new score and audio for “As We Bow Down” should be coming “REAL SOON NOW!”

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Americana, that’s me!

Reply to an ad for “Americana” music

I answered an ad on Craigslist for “Americana” songwriters (at least I tried to - that’s the week my email was screwed up due to hackers, and I don’t think it actually went out).  I looked through my songs and came up with a list something like this (the original email wasn’t saved), saying “Yeah - I do Americana!”

• -Near-blues, like Tracy Chapman- About You Blue
• -Country love song- All My Hungry Moods
• -Christian techno-rock- Armageddon (What is Wrong With Man?)
• -Worship- As We Bow Down
• -Americana banana humor- Banana Boat
• -How to build a boat- Beulah Lynn
• -Springsteenish pathos- Big Old Long Buick
• -A real sign on Windfern Road- Boogers from a Five-Year Old
• -Blues swamp boogie- Bullfrog, You Don't Know
• -Lightly jazzy love song- Circles and Lines
• -80’s Integrity-style praise- Clap Your Hands & Sing (Jehovah Rises)
• -If you’ve read Fred Gipson’s “Hound Dog Man”- Dog Go Howl
• -Redneck humor- Don't Buy Momma a Truck!
• -Piano-driven runaway bride- Eighty MPH Blues
• -Country breakup- Empty Air
• -Contempo Christian/crossover- Every River
• -Christian rock- Going Too Far/A Whisper Came Medley
• -Country heartbreak w/drinking- Hey, Bartender, Should I Drink Out Loud?
• -I always wanted to use that line- Lonely Songs
• -Before Rita and Ike, remember Frances and Allison?- Lord, Don't Float My House Away
• -Jazzy old girlfriend song- My Shoes
• -For my Father, west Texas- Old Kermit Cowboys
• -What else to do with a Texas shrimp boat- Port City Blues
• -Gilbert Allen piano classic, my way (arrgmt)- Praise Lament
• -The thing you gotta do- Sing Out the Blues
• -Ev’rybody knows the scene- Singin' on the Street in New Orleans
• -Send him down the river- Sonny Boy (I Don't Want You)
• -Beautiful Dreamer meets Jimmy Buffet- Tropical Breezes
• -The subtitle says it all- Walkin' the Dog (Alligator song)
• -Floating the river, and the taxman - that’s Americana!- We'll Take the Boat to the Riverside (Let the Time Just Slip Away)
• -Christian pop-rock- We Were on the Mountain (The Voice)
• -While we still can, America!- Won't You Come Drive With Me?

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Put y’self in a boat!

Yo, Ho, put y’self in a boat, and you’ll have a story by-n-by.

I wrote a line in a song awhile back (Jan. 07) - “Yo, Ho, put y’self in a boat, and you’ll have a story by-n-by.”  We did some motor swapping back in the fall, got a working 15-HP Yamaha on the fishing boat, then finally got the boat to the lake in April.  We got launched at our marina, and I got the motor started and motioned to Deb to step in. She looked down from the dock and replied, “Uh-uh.  I’m not getting in with all that water coming in the back!”  WHAT?  YES, I had put the plug in!  But then it seems that while starting the motor, I had stepped on the live-well pump, and the nipple for the hose connection was old, brittle plastic, and had snapped right off.  So we got the boat back on the trailer with some effort, and I was able to replace the pump that evening, but the wind was howling and the lake white-capping the next day, so no boating that weekend.

Due to some travel, the registration expiring, and some delay getting the boat and motor re-registered in Deb’s name from her brother’s, it was Father’s day before we could attempt to take the fishing boat out again.  Jeff and I decided to try the north end of Lake Conroe instead of Lake Livingston this time, so we launched at the National Forest Service ramp off Farm Road 1097.  It’s a difficult ramp to launch on - there are no-wake buoys about fifty yards out from the ramp; at 52 yards from the ramp, boats are going by full speed, still causing waves at the ramp, with no dock to tie up to, just high wooden bulkheads.  At any rate, we got launched, tied to the bulkhead, to find - YES, I HAD forgotten to put the plug in!  But we finally did get started around 4:30 that afternoon, with a fair amount of water sloshing around beneath the floorboards.  I’ve got to install a bilge pump in that boat.  Or a brain in my head.

After boating in a small boat one afternoon on Lake Conroe, I’ve got to tell you - I LOVE LAKE LIVINGSTON!  Conroe seems to be full of those very wide, very deep, 20-25’ ski boats created mainly to make huge wakes, full of bronzed beauties (those are the guys - and some girls in bikinis, too),  blasting very loud music I don’t listen to (Jeff thought it was Lady Gaga).  But there’s a pretty narrow channel they have to stick to in that area due to stumps - after crossing a couple of wakes, we picked our way across the stump-filled middle part and got to the other shore.  We tried fishing a couple of coves and were going along shore to the next one with Jeff watching the fish finder when he noticed what seemed to be a ridge with fish around it, so I decided it would be good to drift back over the ridge.  I was planning on the wind to carry us parallel to shore over the ridge, but instead it pushed us into the shore a lot quicker than I had hoped for.  As I was getting the motor re-started, Jeff was watching the depths again, saying it was getting shallow pretty fast, in fact, he could see a big rock right - a small wave lifted the boat, there was a soft thump, and we stuck.  Backing up didn’t help; backing down with Jeff moved to the back of the boat didn’t help.  Finally, I turned the motor all the way to starboard and gunned it in reverse, then the same to port, hoping that the prop wouldn’t hit another rock if we did pop free.  After pivoting around a bit, we did finally slide off the rock and I steered away to deeper water, luckily with no bashing of the prop against the bottom.  Whew!  The fish didn’t seem to be biting anyway, so we headed back to the ramp, and got the boat back on the trailer before sundown.  Looking at the bottom of the aluminum boat, there’s one slightly flattened shiny spot, wouldn’t really call it a dent, no real damage.  But it’s inevitable - put y’self in a boat, and you’ll have a story by-n-by.