New song: "Dare To Dream The Impossible"

Hi all,

Here's a song that I've just this minute decided that it's time to finish tweaking it and to get it posted.

...link to song on Vimeo (better quality video)

Also, if anyone is interested, I notated the song and a pdf version of the leadsheet can be found at the following link.

... link to leadsheet (right-click and "save as")

The leadsheet was created using MuseScore and, in case someone finds it useful, on the MuseScore website I've created a synchronized link between the Youtube video and the leadsheet.

...link to leadsheet synchronized with Youtube video

This is the first time I've used MuseScore for any substantial notating and I have to say it's brilliant! It's very intuitive and easy to understand once you start working with it. It's hard to believe that it's open-source and completely free.

My work flow for this song was: (a) write it in BIAB; (b) investigate lots of different tracks in RB; (c) mix it in Reaper. The Hammond organs solo at the end of the first chorus was generated by a BIAB midi Soloist and a B3 sound from Dimension Pro was used. Lastly, I fine tuned the lead vocal in Reaper, saved it and sent it to Realband where I used TC Helicon to create 1-up and 1-down harmony. I then loaded the harmony tracks into Reaper for the final mixing.

Please feel free to comment on any aspect of the song in any way whatsoever. I value the additional insight.

Regards,
Noel

SONG INFORMATION

Lyrics
© 2013 Noel Adams. Words and Music. All rights reserved.

In fourteen ninety two
Captain Christopher Columbus
Had a dream about unrav'ling the ocean's mysteries
There were people who said he was crazy
But he had a hunger
And he sailed the Atlantic becoming an icon of history
Be who you gotta be
Go where you gotta go
Follow your dreams

The road through life has bound'ries
The cradle and grave
And a day is only twenty four hours long
Dreams are a Diesel engine
They power the way
And they push pioneers up mountains and make them strong
Be who you gotta be
Go where you gotta go
Follow your dreams

[CHORUS]
Computers, clocks, cars
Aren't they dreams come true?
Once a man called Armstrong
Even walked across the moon

[CHORUS]
Realtracks

521: Bass, Electric, Pop Syncopated
1596: Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Pop16ths Ev16 (half-time)
869: Guitar, Electric, Rhythm ModernRnBRockWarmA-B (half-time)
1599: Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Pop16thsA-B Ev16 (half-time)
686: Organ, B3, Background Pop Ev

Drums

RealDrums PopCalypso^1-ClsdHat,Ride

Very nice, Noel. Love that B3.

Regards,

Bob

Hi Bob.

I agree. It's hard not to like that Hammond sound. The old B3 sure is a classic instrument.

Below is one of my favorite B3 clips - Ethel Smith in the 1940s. She was a very skilful woman!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXrnuwZreHg

Thanks for listening,
Noel

For me, the B3 sound was only half the equation. Gotta have a Leslie! I saw a guy using one for lead guitar once, and it was incredible.

Regards,

Bob

Yep, that's true. The sound was definitely a partnership in technology.

Interesting song, in my humble opinion I feel the drums intrude and distract from an otherwise excellent song.

I had a Hammond, not B3 I forget the model number, and a Leslie in my house for a year as I was looking after it as the owner was hiding stuff in his divorce!!! I played "Whiter shade of Pale" to death on it. I can still hear the hum

Lovely sound.

Enjoyed the song thanks for sharing

Alyn

Hi Alyn,

Thanks for having a listen. I appreciate it. I also appreciate your feedback about the drums. I'll go back and have another listen from a more critical perspective. I find that my ears become 'numb' to sound after a while. That's why I appreciate the insight that others can give. Thanks for that.

White Shade Of Pale is a perfect fit for organ. One of the best! It's a great song.

Regards,
Noel

"White Shade Of Pale is a perfect fit for organ. One of the best! It's a great song."

Good one to sing as well. We've been doing it for years. I remember seeing PH live way back when. Gary Brooker was amazing.

Noel, sounds great. Song and video. Enjoyed it a lot.

Hi Noel,

nice uplifting song.
Like the punchy drums. Don't change them.
Interesting video.
I wonder how clear your leadsheet is.
When I use MuseScore I get a lot of ties
although the Midi file is quantized. I must edit
manually.

Guenter

Hi Noel,

What an uplifting and inspiring song/video. I like the drums.

Always love a B3 sound and yeah adding the Leslie in just the right spots raises the goosebumps.

Hi Charlie,

Glad you liked it! Now all I need to do is to learn to make videos as good as yours. You work is top notch! I totally agree with everything Pat Marr wrote in your thread.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Guenter,

Thank you for having a watch and a listen. I appreciate your comments.

In relation to MuseScore ...

Since I'd written my song (complete with notation) in BIAB, I simply opened the MGU file directly into MuseScore. (MuseScore did not read the lyrics, though.) This compatibility with BIAB files is one of the strengths of MuseScore. It is only developmental yet, though. Once loaded, about 95% of the score was correct.

As shown by the image below, some bars were read with timing problems (#1) and bass notes of some slash chords were enharmonically incorrect given the key signature of A major (#2).

Fixing the slash chords was easy; just a matter of typing in C# in place of Db. Fixing the timing was a little harder. I played around with trying to adjust the notes in the bar but MuseScore seemed to be stubborn and I was inexperienced. It was far easier to simply insert a bar, enter correctly timed notes and then delete the faulty bar. Once I'd done that, copy and paste made it easy to correct similar bars by overwriting.

Originally I printed my score using BIAB's notation editor. The reason I moved into MuseScore was because I didn't like the inconsistency in the way that BIAB notated slash chords. Some chords were normal and some had the bass note written in superscript style. For my own general purposes, this inconsistency doesn't bother me but because I wanted to make the music available on the web for this song, I wanted consistency.

Overall, MuseScore impressed me a great deal - especially so since it's completely free. That being said, though, I'm still a huge fan of BIAB's notation editor. It's by far the easiest and fastest way of mouse-driven notating that I've come across.

Once again, thank you for listening!
Noel

Hi Josie,

Thank you for your time and your thoughts. I always appreciate hearing from you. That is so true about "Leslie" and "goosebumps"! That's exactly how it works for me.

By the way, it must nearly be time for your (or your and Rob's) next song to appear *hint hint*

I always look forward to hearing where your songwriting takes you.

All the best,
Noel

Quote:

For me, the B3 sound was only half the equation. Gotta have a Leslie! I saw a guy using one for lead guitar once, and it was incredible.

Regards,

Bob

Kuddos to that, that is as long as you don't have to carry it.

Later,

Excellent lyrics and the production music and video is outstanding, thanks for sharing!

Hi Robert.

Thank you for giving up a bit of time and having a listen. I appreciate the positive feedback.

All the best,
Noel

Noel,

For some reason this song feels (sounds) to me like it would me great in a musical, perfect opening number....

I liked it a lot, and I loved the chorus!

I wouldn't change a thing.

Greg

Hi Greg,

I kind of grew up on musicals and I guess that nowadays when I right a song, the influence sometimes shows!!!! Thanks for listening and thanks, too, for the thumbs up! Appreciate it.

All the best with your own work!
Noel

Noel,

Another very cool song. I love the overall feel and movement of this one. Great production and video as well.

Bob

To quote Janice "Great lyrics and reminds me of early Beatles." We just streamed it from phone to our living room sound system. Great sound all the way around. Will watch the video when we gravitate to the computer room, i.e., after more coffee. Another good one for sure!!

Hi Bob,

Thank you for listening and commenting. I appreciate the smile you've just given me

Regards,
Noel

Hi Bud and Janice.

Thank you! I have to say that Janice's quote has started my Tuesday brilliantly. Much appreciated, Janice

Quite honestly, though, I can only write songs because of the power of BIAB. Peter Gannon and his team are the ones who deserve the real credit.

I'm glad you got to hear this on a different sound system and that nothing stood out as out of place. Every time I mix a song, I reflect on the philosophy that has sometimes appeared in Bud's signature about mixing. It is so true. The process of mixing never really ends, it just reaches a point where you say, "OK. That's it! I'm leaving it there." That's when I cross my fingers and hope that the overall sounds works for others.

Once again, thank you.

All the best.
Noel

Noel,

Greg is right - this sounds like (another!) Broadway show tune. Fess up - are you writing a musical??? You know, sooner or later, you're going to have to write SOMETHING that is not quite so positive... your show needs some pacing...

LOVE the chorus! (had to not watch the video, though.. the flowing words were distracting from the song lyrics).

(I STILL hear "... wait and see..." in my head all the time).

Keep it going (but don't forget about that pacing...)

floyd

Howdy, watched the vid this morning. Excellent and having done several I can really appreciate the amount of editing it took to put that together. This time I got a bit of a Badfinger vibe while listening. Nice.

Howdy Floyd,

Thanks for once again dropping by, listening, and writing some comments. I always like reading what you have to say.

It's interesting that you and Greg hear the song as being sweetened with 'musical' flavours. I wonder if it's the I6/4-V7-I cadence (using figured bass terminology) that does that? That's a much-used classical treatment of the perfect (also called 'authentic') cadence. In this song, the cadence translates as A/E-E7-A. I always like this particular cadence because of the complete sense of finality that it brings to a section. It's common in musical theatre works, too.

For what it's worth, I've just written a song with Brenda that sounds very much like it's from a musical to my ears. I must get that one up to see what you think!

Once again, thank you!

All the best,
Noel

Hi again, Bud.

Thanks for coming back and having a look at the video. It took a while to get it up and running. I used an opensource, multitrack Linux program in Ubuntu called "Open Shot Video". It's an excellent little program but the more I asked it to do, the more likely it was to crash. Towards the end, that slowed me down a bit because I needed to restart the software a number of times. Thank goodness for CTRL+S

I have never read "Badfinger" in a post aimed at me before! That's a first. And thanks for the smile it gave me.

All the best to you and Janice,
Noel

awesome noel great production all the way love it thanks for sharing eric

Hi Eric,

Good to see you again

Thanks for having a listen and passing on such positive feedback! Appreciate it.

All the best,
Noel

Hi,
Great song. The production, too, is nice and tight. The vocals sit really well in the mix.

Very impressed also by the video.

Hi Phil,

Thanks for listening and for the words of encouragement. Much appreciated.

Regards,
Noel

Noel,

Very good job, my friend. +1 to the organ. As usual, good job with the lyrics, and a very uplifting song!

Steve

Hi Steve,

It's good to see you again. Thank you for your comments and adding some sunshine to my day! Appreciate it.

I'm just heading off to listen to your new one now!

All the best,
Noel

Hi Noel

I really enjoyed both the music and video. That video took some time I imagine. Quite nicely done.

The only thing in all of it that I got even slightly hung up on was the line 'computers, clocks, cars'. I didn't understand it till I read it. I like the alliteration, but it kinda comes across as a mouthful? I'm wondering if there's a way to phrase those 3 words so that there's a slight bit more space between the words?

Very nice to with a great message!

Peace,

Ian

Hi Ian,

Thank you for taking time to listen and to comment, I appreciate the feedback. I also appreciate the point about "computer, clocks, cars".

All the best with your music!
Noel

Hi Noel

Great song and production. I found it very inspirational.

Hi Josie,

I appreciate your taking time out to have a listen. Thank you for the positive feedback.

Hope you enjoyed the Pat Pattison course. He's a pretty clever guy!

All the best,
Noel