Dreck the Halls (Free Shapiro Music Download!)
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Back in 1992, I had finally saved up enough (after paying for tuition, books, rent, and food) to buy a Tascam four-track cassette recorder. Even back then, it was pretty basic stuff and of course, compared to whats available to the home studio musician today, its downright primitive. Nonetheless, I had this strange idea of recording an entire tongue-in-cheek holiday album that would mix both Christmas and Chanukah music. The first song I recorded was a hard rock/disco/funk version of Deck the Halls. Keep in mind this is before the days of looping and sampling (at least for the mere mortal with a limited budget), so every drum beat, bass line, etc. was fully worked out and performed pretty much all the way through (well I might have done a tiny amount of copy and pasting on the MIDI-based tracks), layering one track on top of another. I also overdubbed two electric guitars for good measure. And for you musicians out there, I even went so far as to truncate phrase endings to create 3/4 measures in an otherwise 4/4 song (just something I did to amuse myself).
So after almost 15 years in the archives, that little tape recording (drop-outs and all) has finally entered the digital realm and I have made it available as a download for anyone that might enjoy a little holiday cheer. Yes, its loud and silly and the technology I used is pretty archaic, but here it is!
For most web browsers, you can simply click on the above link and the song will play directly in your browser. Otherwise, to download the file to your computer, right-click (Windows) or control-click (Mac) on the link and select the option to save/download the file. Enjoy!
2 Comments:
Well...That was enjoyable...
As a musician, I enjoyed the truncated 3/4 time phrase endings...after the standard 4/4 time phrases :)
It is amazing how far recording technology has come! I can't wait until you take some of your old recordings and get to plug them into new software! And even play new music on new software! :)
It is fun!
Bradley
The Egel Nest
PS Your CD is well on its way to you!
By
The Egel Nest, at 12/15/2006 6:16 PM
Very entertaining! I just happened to be typing up some notes from an interview with a composer in the computer research in music department at Stanford. Perhaps he would approve! :)
Happy Chanukah!
Becky
By
Rebecca, at 12/22/2006 10:22 AM
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