Enrico’s Band’s Rough Mix

@hscalfo 6916 wrote:

Here are some links to some rough mixes of the songs we have been working on.
There is still much to do and clean up but its will give the general feel.
These are intended to be great / fun summertime party songs. Think New Jersey beaches in the summer time……or whatever works for you. 😀

Our singer / songwriter Craig, has a great knack for lyrics and songwriting. Thus, he’s a songwriter.

Deafened By Our Children’s Cry: http://files.me.com/hscalfo/ol7943.mp3
This is a straight ahead simple pop rock tune that we hope the masses will grove to.
Emphasis on “simple”

What Could Make Those Eyes So Blue: http://files.me.com/hscalfo/vhm9wn.mp3
Craig wrote this for his wife. My guitar mix is way hot at this point….much to do…

Younger Mans Eyes: http://files.me.com/hscalfo/wdiyod.mp3
If you have children and you’re mid life, this will resonate with you. Again, great songwriting by Craig.

Constructive feedback is always welcome.

Hey Enrico, 🙂

Sounds REALLY good bro! I here lots of potential. As an objective listener, allow me to just share a few constructive points with you, just to give you some ideas to consider. After all, sometimes when you’re really close to an original song, you can lose your objectivity and sometimes overlook or discard an idea that might be for the betterment of the song as a whole. Anyways, here are a few things I heard:

1.) “Deafened By Our Children’s Cry” – Very “catchy/hooky” as you said! Definitely envokes that NJ-summer/beach-vibe that you alluded to also! Since this was the first song I heard from you guys, the first thing I noticed from your singer was that although it seemed like he had an EXCELLENT voice, (which he does BTW!) he seemed to be a bit low in his “comfort-zone/range” in this song (particularly the verses. Now, I know that it’s generally good to “set-up” the verses lower in range so that the choruses can “explode” more. However, it just seemed that if this song was a whole step higher, then your singer would REALLY shine on these feel-good vocal parts! Here’s an idea to consider perhaps. (So bear with me here, OK!!! – LOL!) You guys tune down half-step, and then you play this song as a combination of D-Major (Ionian in the verses & choruses) and D-Mixolydian for the pre-choruses/refrains. So my idea goes like this: Keep your acoustic parts identically voiced (IE: ||D__G___|A__G___:||) for the verse & chorus and (||:Cadd9__|G____:||) but CAPO’d in 2nd-Pos. (thus transposed up a whole-step.) But then play the electric voicings NON-CAPO (|E__A___|B__A___|) for the verse & chorus and then do (||D____ |A_____:||) for the pre-chorus/refrain. Then those voicings would actually “fatten-up” the overall sound by creating a “quasi-contrary-motion” between the acoustic voicings descending and the electric-voicings ascending. See what I mean? These are just ideas, so if your band is so far entrenched in this process so as to NOT consider a whole-step transposition at this point, then so be it. I’m just giving you my “two-cents!” Again, the idea was NOT to capitalize on the cool guitar by-product! This idea was PRIMARILY to cater to getting the vocal up to a range where he can really shine (without being too high or whiny! Sure enough, when I got to the 2nd and 3rd songs, my thoughts about your singer’s (excellent) voice were spot-on. He does have a higher voice than the verses in “D.B.O.C.C.” showed.
What do you think about that idea Enrico? Too drastic? 😉

2.) “What Could Make Those Eyes So Blue?” – Very nice. I love the harmonic “release” provided by the parallel modal-interchange (between “A-Ionian” in the verse and “A-Mixolydian” in the B-section.) That seemed to “toughen” that part up just right! BTW, I LOVED that pulloff-lick you did later in the song where you played somewhat “symmetrical” licks a whole-step apart but they were against chords that were a 4th apart. Very cool! Like the higher lick implied the Amaj7 sound of the chord underneath and the lick down two-frets made the Dmaj chord have sort-of a Dsus4/Dmaj sound by superimposing the B-minor lick against that (relative) D-major. Loved it! 😎

3.)”Younger Man’s Eyes” – The ballad. Very beautiful! Your singer sounds AWESOME in this song! This is what I meant about him having a “higher” sweet-spot when I suggested a higher transpostion for the first song (“D.B.O.C.C.”) You can probably even arrange-in a more drastic dynamic-range (quieter soft-parts, setting up louder rock-parts much later) but all-in-all, I think you had that in mind here and achieved your objective. 😎

So Enrico, I guess the most drastic idea I had was the whole-step transposition up on “D.B.O.C.C.” Remember, with pop/rock (as I’m sure you’re aware) the vocal is the most important instrument, so cater to it’s needs! 😎 That being said, you did an excellent job playing rhythmic, catchy, and appropriate guitar-parts. Kudos!

Hope that helps. All-in-all, I really like how you guys sound and what you guys are doing (material-wise.) It’s all very “pro-potential.” 😉

Let me know if you have any questions about what I tried to explain. I guess some of it could’ve been a bit confusing (hopefully NOT though!) 😮

~Bill Meehan~ 😀