How does "mojo" come and go? And how do you manage that?

Bob-Dubery · 2010-06-14T12:12:48+00:00

So round about Friday arvey last week I decided that I was going to put in an entry for the current GFSA competition. I'd been humming this little waltz time thing to myself and thought that though simple it had some charms - and if I got the melody done on slide guitar then that might add a touch of charming eccentricity. So I get a click track generated - this takes about 2 seconds. THen I lay down some guide bars of rhythm to get myself in the groove (including on subsequent overdubs) and then lay down 40 bars of actual rhythm guitar - in good old "oom pah pah" waltz style. THis is not the entire song, there is still a bridge section to come and then a return to the main theme. But my idea is to switch things over in the bridge so that the slide takes the rhythm role and the finger style takes over the melody, also I am using regular tuning for the first slide part but want to use open-D on the bridge section. So I decided to do it in multiple takes, starting with the first section, which will be the bulk of the finished recording. So I lay down my 40 bars and then I start on the slide part. I end up doing this with the Morgan and playing it lap steel style. What fun! And then I listen to it and think "hey that's OK. The playing is OK and the sound is pretty good." Then over the weekend I start building up the track - or trying to. One problem I ran into was that it was going to be way too long for the GFSA competition. So I have to cut some bars out. This means re-recording some of what's already been laid down (in some ways I think this improved the composition). The second problem is that suddenly everything sounds like crap. I don't have any EQ. I'm not using any problems. Just a line in to my PC and recording is done with Audacity. I'm using the same guitars, same tuner, same slide same everything and I can't get anything to sound like it did on Friday arvey. Now at this point one does have to be honest with oneself and admit that the strings will not have deteriorated that much, the slide is still the same as it was (give or take a molecule or two), the Morgan is still sitka spruce and rosewood and the computer is just a dumb machine bereft of moods and beside it is being used solely to record what is being played. IOW whatever changed is something to do with me. Somehow I can't reproduce my part of generating the tone that I got the day before (I can't blame it on amps, the valves in the amps, relocating from Madison Square Gardens to Carnegie Hall, roadies taking too much cocaine etc etc). So this interests me. How do you get this kind of consistency (he wrote, knowing full well that some smart arse will answer "practice"), how does one manage these little fluctuations in one's own form? I suspect that even the best players have good and bad days, just that their "bad" is still pretty good and their "good" makes jaws hit the ground. I got the track finished after a fashion, but the loss of "mojo" rattled me and caused me to waste a lot of time checking out leads, tuners etc etc .

evolucian

Arjun Menon wrote Completely agree with Evo. I liken mojo to a state of mind.
I'm still trying to find out how i get to the place where i am one with the universe.

Oooohhhhhmmmm......zzzzz

?

that would be samadhi... or at least the beginning... the level or two following that would possibly be "conversations with God".. heck if I know... aint no swami here or schwarma there

arjunmenon

Ha ha ? Evo, i'm impressed. At least you're open-minded.

Why does mojo always have to be the "Original Louisiana" kind?

evolucian

Arjun Menon wrote Ha ha ? Evo, i'm impressed. At least you're open-minded.

Why does mojo always have to be the "Original Louisiana" kind?

Perhaps we could one day share philosophies or thoughts with music too... combined... accessing the divine thru playing... etc etc

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