A new instrumentation/recording of one of my oldest songs, originally written in my teens decades ago (hence the dated style choice) when I used to make music primarily to rid the "feels" out of my system, as it were.
So obviously this one is quite the personal creation and not about reinventing the wheel, or compositional innovations, or anything like that*. Case in point: It's fundamentally got only three chords throughout(!), nothing above anyone's payload - which, incidentally, is why I added a faint touch of "chord shading" via a midi-based Bossa Electric Piano (as well as have BBox come up with a bookend intro/outro for good measure) for this official outing of the song, just to make its inherent simplicity seem a little less ...uh... simplistic!

A BIT OF BLUE

From the Memo:

****** Song Summary ******
Title: A bit of blue
File: A bit of blue.MGU
Key=Bbm, Tempo 118, Length (m:s)=3:15
Style is =DIRE_MD.STY
Song MIDI Instruments** are: Electric Piano (05), Flute (74)
RealTracks in song: 683:Bass, Electric, PopHalfNotesPush Ev 120
RealTracks in style: 509:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm Dire Ev 120
RealTracks in song: 1842:Synth Pad, PopModernGrooveA-B Ev16 075
RealDrums in song: PopRock16ths-04, BossaBrushesPerc^1 [Multi]
Other instruments: 692:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming AcRockBright Ev 120 (A:sync), 512:Guitar, Electric, Soloist Dire Ev 140 (Bluesy)

Enjoy!

*Well, there is maybe one instance of "That was odd", but I'm not sure if anyone picks up on it.
**Converted from keyboard input to audio "Performance" tracks for easy export purposes.

Excellent tune Eddie. Lovely melody. BIAB does a great job with midi. Well done

First to the scene you are as so often before, some day I'll figure out how you do it!

As for your observation regarding midi - I do not sing so I need sounds of varied selections to tackle the melodic parts of my songs, and since I'm primarily a keyboard player, midi comes quite essential for that. As for my choice of a midi piano in the band as well in this case, that came from my desire to utilise a sound directly from my new keyboard (which is also where the flute sound comes from) instead of the soft-synths I've used in the past, as well as the unexpected discovery that the midi style instruments can sometimes actually do the job better than Realtracks (or at least it did in this particular case for the "chord shading" purpose required)... and is easier to manipulate in the parts where it falls short.

Hi Eddie ...

Music might have a literal time stamp on it, but its appeal ius timeless. Good music will always be good music. And yeah ... this is good! I'm delighted you posted it. It reminds me of a "pop-0like_ version of a song Dire Staits might have done. I truly enjoyed my listen.

Take care. Good to see you on the forum again!!!

Alan

That's good to hear. I had my mind set on that Dire RT guitar right from the start, and of course quickly realised that it's very hard to use it without evoking that strong Mark Knopfler vibe... so then I just decided that rather than try obscure that, I'd do better to just embrace it full-on.

Thanks for the kind sentiment, and I do hope/intend to be more frequently in here again, but you know... baby steps.

A kind of downbeat, wintry emotion blows through this bittersweet flute-led melody. It has a lonely sound that seems amplified by mostly minor key chord choices. The drums groove adds a sense of quietly driving, endless rhythmic motion that makes them sound as though they would continue on and on long after the melody faded away. Quite moody and atmospheric.

That's quite the elaborate picture you painted there, Bluage, thank you for the listen
... I think your sig quote actually hits the mark the best for this particular song, or at least that concept was precisely my intent this time around.

Icelander,
I enjoyed the flow of this- the simple structure allows the listener to drift away on that very nice melody. The midi flute sounds good.

Robert

Thanks...and yes, I fell for that sound pretty hard, so people might expect to hear it again

Eddie,
delightful tune. Fun progression and instrumentation. Nice flute, but I think I would scale it back a little and maybe more reverb to shave some of midiness. Overall, it was a very pleasant listen. Thank you for sharing.

Misha.

P.S. May I ask what you used for flute? A built in BIAB soundset or something else?

Something else, a keyboard (Roland) via Line-in/out. My first attempt at using it for audio recording, as it happens, so your pointers are noted, thanks.
p.s. Strange though about the reverb, it sounded quite excessive on my end...

Hi, Eddie.

I think you mean to write "paygrade" instead of "payload".

The flute sounds good here, and the Knopfler-esque guitar is an interesting pairing.

I enjoyed the song.

Oh, close enuff Mr. Picky-Picky!
Odd thing is, I'm pretty sure I've made that same error on here before... and you correcting me on it