"It was a fifth!"
March 12, 2008
Phrase:
"It was a fifth!"
Description:
Can be used to describe or explain an unintended foul-up while implying that no other explanation is necessary.
Example:
Person A: "Did you just spill mayonnaise on your pants?"
Person B: "It was a fifth!"
Person A: "Why didn't you come to your son's football game today?"
Person B: "It was a fifth!"
The Story:
Before recording our individual tracks for a completed song, we all play together and just record with one microphone so we can hear the general flow and see if we need to make any changes. We call this rough take a "Scratch Track". Scratch Tracks are cool because for the first time we get a chance to just listen to everyone else instead of focusing on the parts we are playing individually. Still - Scratch Tracks can be a pain because everyone has to play perfectly for the entire song because we're only using one microphone and we can't retake a mess-up. Usually it isn't a problem because small mess-ups get hidden by one of the other 4 musicians in the band (there tends to be a lot going on at any one minute).
Which leads us to the phrase "It was a fifth!" ... We had been trying to lay the scratch track for a new song "Frequency Fence" for a few hours and screwing it up every single time. I think we were all tired and during every single take we attempted one of us would screw it up. By about the sixteenth time, we get through the whole song to about ten seconds from the end when we arrive at a break where the drums cut out, the guitars go into the background, and the bass hits a single droning note. On any normal day, I would hit that note flawlessly ... but not this day.
This day I straight-forgot which string I was supposed to pluck and played something that resembled a duck farting on a cello. Instantly receiving death-stares from the rest of the band, and half-mad as a result of our inability to track this song, I then shouted: "It was a fifth!".
Because my exclamation nailed the coffin shut on that take, we all burst into laughter and I was made fun of ... profusely.
(The note I actually hit was five harmonic intervals up from the note I should have hit which works sometimes but not in this song)
"It was a fifth!"
Description:
Can be used to describe or explain an unintended foul-up while implying that no other explanation is necessary.
Example:
Person A: "Did you just spill mayonnaise on your pants?"
Person B: "It was a fifth!"
Person A: "Why didn't you come to your son's football game today?"
Person B: "It was a fifth!"
The Story:
Before recording our individual tracks for a completed song, we all play together and just record with one microphone so we can hear the general flow and see if we need to make any changes. We call this rough take a "Scratch Track". Scratch Tracks are cool because for the first time we get a chance to just listen to everyone else instead of focusing on the parts we are playing individually. Still - Scratch Tracks can be a pain because everyone has to play perfectly for the entire song because we're only using one microphone and we can't retake a mess-up. Usually it isn't a problem because small mess-ups get hidden by one of the other 4 musicians in the band (there tends to be a lot going on at any one minute).
Which leads us to the phrase "It was a fifth!" ... We had been trying to lay the scratch track for a new song "Frequency Fence" for a few hours and screwing it up every single time. I think we were all tired and during every single take we attempted one of us would screw it up. By about the sixteenth time, we get through the whole song to about ten seconds from the end when we arrive at a break where the drums cut out, the guitars go into the background, and the bass hits a single droning note. On any normal day, I would hit that note flawlessly ... but not this day.
This day I straight-forgot which string I was supposed to pluck and played something that resembled a duck farting on a cello. Instantly receiving death-stares from the rest of the band, and half-mad as a result of our inability to track this song, I then shouted: "It was a fifth!".
Because my exclamation nailed the coffin shut on that take, we all burst into laughter and I was made fun of ... profusely.
(The note I actually hit was five harmonic intervals up from the note I should have hit which works sometimes but not in this song)
posted by ray at
2:18 PM
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