What Came Knocking
By Paisleyfrog on October 13, 2024 7:09 pm
This song has always been a little cursed. Fitting for a ghost story. A 45 degree turn from last week - still country music, but as Devieus said last week, this time that country is Ireland 
I have NEVER been able to get this song to behave in front of a microphone. I thought week 41 was a good opportunity to try and bring this one to heel with what I've learned this year, and also because of spooky season. Even still, this song fought - smart tempo in Logic works great, so long as you give it 4/4. Give it some 6/8 tempo, and suddenly it will decide that the song is going as 180bpm like a toddler with a basket of Pixie Sticks. I had to take Logic by the hand (much like the aforementioned toddler) and mark the downbeat for the song so the tempo would work. As it was, smart tempo wasn't THAT essential here - nice to have a steady click, but everything is recorded live (except for the bass, ran out of time to record that. Sorry ol' #12). Smart tempo should have been useful for quantizing my bodhran, but it just made it a stuttering mess.
There's a long tradition in celtic music of spooky season stories. Jealousy, murder, ghostly lovers returning for one more night, musical instruments made from body parts. The lyrics in this one came from a dream my wife had - definite elements of the paranormal here, but exactly what is left as an exercise for the listener.
I used two different whistles for the song - standard D for most of it, and an F whistle for the high parts - it let me get around having to use a lot of half-hole fingerings when the melody goes minor. Also, air is just getting dry enough that I had to wet down the bodhran before playing so it didn't go PANG PANG PANG.
› Lyrics
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