Other Phil McWalter
A Prayer For America

This one takes its time to build and has lags and tense dissonances and 5/4 et al, the strings step up on a nine beat cycle; maybe one has to try harder with prayers too... so crank it up very loud, close your eyes, relax and have a thoughtful meditate... we are living in interesting times and things are pretty serious now... particularly with @Rick-4-1 adding the percussion on this...

The track was meant to reflect the growing tension in civilised, capitalist, democratic, inclusive, integrated societies. (Delete as necessary to find a solution).

Rick said: "I had been to a couple of drum master classes last week. Benny Greb and Russell Gilbrook who is the drummer with Uriah Heep. Greb is the tradesman while Gilbrook is the fitter. However, Gilbrooks way of playing odd timings is to play a straight 4 over the odd time until it resolves itself. In this case 20 beats or 5 bars. That is the way I approached this then just throw accents in on the odd time. Works a treat. This also makes an odd timing easier to dance to and to follow, you loose the jerk you would get if I had played say a straight 5 or a 3 then 2. Tim Bragg who is also a drummer commented on Facebook that he would have played it 2 bars of 4 and a bar of 2 which would sound similar. I also would start a fill on the 3rd beat of 5 and go across the bar and drop back in with one of the accents. Didn't count this, just felt it. Also, the Greeb approach he uses is a mixture of triplets and say crochets in a fill. This appears to make the fills sound like it has slowed and sped up. Adds tension..."
"Well yes it does Rick" quoth I, thinking: I'll stick to guitar and just writing the stuff; it seems easier!! ;-)))

Original version: soundcloud.com/phil-mcwalter/a...yer-for-america

© Phil McWalter Nov 2016