Doby Coyote

I just posted my latest, Doby Coyote, a running eight-bar bass line built on a B-flat seventh chord with drums and various instruments providing the melody. The bass line doesn't change throughout, a habit I've tried to move away from, but somehow this one has a compelling, rolling quality that resisted my efforts to add variation. (I may perhaps be reaching the limits of my current skills.) When the back-beat kicks in, the song's a head bobber. It just seems to want to keep going.

The genesis of the song began with an idea that I had to write a series of stories using animals as characters. The stories would be written sort of like Zen koans or parables, and they'd have commentary like traditional texts. The main character I imagined to be a young coyote named Doby and the parables would chronicle his adventures. The stories, I figured, would be accompanied by music. This song is Doby Coyote's theme. As a theme to return to at various points, I'm quite happy with it. I'm not sure how strong it is as a stand-alone song. But those who have heard it really seem to like it, so I posted it. I hope I kept it interesting my mixing up the instrumentation and moving from acoustic in the first part to electric in the second.

In case anybody's interested, here's a draft of the story I wrote that inspired the song:

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Doby Coyote trotted through and open meadow with tall grass warming under the summer sun. A jackrabbit popped his head up, looking sideways at Doby.

Yum, Doby thought.

"I see you," the jackrabbit said.

"I know."

"So don't bother."

"I won't."

Doby stopped, sat down, scratched his ear.

"Nice meadow," Doby said.

"The grass is delicious here," Jackrabbit replied.

Doby plucked and chewed a green blade.

"Good for the digestion but, frankly, I don't see why folks like you relish it so."

"How could you? You're a coyote," Jackrabbit said.

"I try to be broad minded."

"That's a laugh."

Doby stood up, doing a long stretch of his hind legs and then the front.

"You know what," Doby said.

"What."

"I changed my mind."

With that Doby Coyote darted toward Jackrabbit who, with a spring of his back legs, bolted into the woods, Doby hot on his heels. Jackrabbit bounded and dashed around the trees and over the brambles. Doby deftly jumped deadwood and dodged trunks in pursuit. But Jackrabbit was faster and soon would reach the open field where Doby would have no chance to catch him.

Snap! An old steel trap grabbed Jackrabbit's leg, stopping him with a jerk.

"Aiy!" He shrieked.

Doby rushed up and, seeing Jackrabbit's plight, stopped a few feet away.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was only chasing you for fun and to scare you a little. I'm not even that hungry right now."

"I know," said Jackrabbit as he winced in pain. "I was glad you did. I wanted to show off."

"Maybe I can get you out of the trap somehow," Doby said.

"It won't do any good. My back leg is broken. I cannot survive," Jackrabbit said. "You're a coyote. Do what you do and make it quick."

"Are you sure?" Doby asked.

"Yes. Please hurry."

Doby clamped his jaws on Jackrabbit's neck and shook him with all his might until Jackrabbit was dead. Then he pulled the corpse from the trap and took it to the meadow to eat what he could under the warm sun.

Commentary:

Buzzard: Nature's way. I hope Doby left some for the buzzards.

Tortoise: Doby was rash. It was an unnecessary killing made necessary by folly. Doby needed discipline.

Buzzard: Creatures need to test their capabilities and learn their limits. Predators and prey, mates and rivals all contrive situations to do that. It's dangerous and sometimes tragic. But not learning is more dangerous and nearly always tragic.

Buddhism Gone Bad

My next most popular tune, and one that's generated the most positive feedback, has been Bad Buddhist. It also was featured as a BSWC One-a-Day and played on the associated radio show. It has the distinction of being the only song I've written to date with lyrics.

I've long cultivated an interest in Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism (along with Taoism), although I don't think I can claim to be a Buddhist as such. In any case, I occasionally talk about it with friends and coworkers. The idea for the song emerged at some point when I made a sarcastic remark about someone and my cube-mate at work says to me, "I thought you were a Buddhist, aren't Buddhists supposed to show universal compassion?" I replied, "That's true but I'm a bad Buddhist." The lyrics of the song quickly took shape. Basically, I poke fun at some common Buddhist notions (and the Dalai Lama) in the guise of a grizzled cowboy character.

This song also represents my transition from GarageBand to Logic, and it's the first recorded appearance of my new drum set (ddrum's Dominion Pocket Maple series). The basic instrumentation I worked out in GarageBand and then ported it over to Logic when I upgraded. The looped bass line is a Russian Balalaika guitar played on the low end. I muscled it up a bit with a software amplifier. The drums are me playing live straight through, no loops. It's rough in a couple of spots and I miss a fill or two but it was the best take of maybe two dozen that I attempted. It's a quick beat and a challenge for me to sustain accurately for nearly six minutes (yes, I'm an amateur).

To introduce the song, and end it, I use Tibetan singing bowls, which I thought was fitting. The background throughout is a kind of eerie, desolate sounding synthesizer patch that came loaded with Logic. The vocals are me using my best western drawl (I'm originally from Nebraska so it's kind of ingrained). I didn't tamper with the voice much other than to add a little reverb and a low end filter to take out some of the "puffs." I used a naked condenser microphone. I've since picked up a puff guard for it.

But what makes the song, I think, is the guitar. It's probably my best modification of a software instrument. It's a Chinese ruan moon guitar which has a thin, fretty sound. Again, I muscled it up with a software amplifier. Then I pump it through a plugin called Bit Crusher which, along with adding distortion, amplifies the frettiness. This gives it a gnarly, grinding steel sound that's particularly noticeable on the decay of the notes. The guitar solo may also represent my best effort at playing a software instrument with a keyboard. I don't know where the performance came from but I couldn't repeat it again if I wanted to.

Enjoy. Oh, and if you're a Buddhist, please don't be offended. I'm just joking around.