Song: Saturday Night

Greg Whitehead - Saturday Night by GWGumby

Sometimes when I write a song, I get a musical idea and then try to marry it to a lyrical idea. Sometimes it's the other way around. Then sometimes they come at the same time, as with this song. The main line "Don't Go To Bed on a Saturday Night" along with the melody came at once. Then it sat and percolated in my brain for a long time. I liked the line, I liked the melody, but I had no idea why someone wouldn't go to bed on a Saturday night and why I should be telling them not to. So I tried to find other lyrics, but by then the line was so embedded with the melody, I couldn't make anything else work. So I went with it, and here's the result. Basically, it's a song about going out to have fun once in a while. Not very deep, but there you go.

As usual, "Saturday Night" was written, performed, sung and recorded by me.  This one is a bit less synthy than most of my other songs. I used my Roland digital piano for the main piano accompaniment and the electric bass sound as well. The organ sound was from a patch on my classic keyboard expansion card in the JV-1080. The slightly natural sounding drum was from a virtual plug-in instrument on my recording software. That just leaves a few flourishes and synth solo from the Korg R3. I added a bunch of post-effects to the solo which makes it nearly sound like a guitar, but it's all synth.

Here's a YouTube Video with the typical static image:

Song: Video Life

Greg Whitehead - Video Life by GWGumby
Yeah, I know. It's been a while. I haven't given up, I've just had other things to focus on this past year. I took a break after the last song I finished and then found myself hyper-concentrating on a quest to get myself into shape. I've lost 50 pounds so far this year, which has forced me to put some other hobbies on the back burner for a little bit. I just recently re-set up all my equipment in another room and finally sat down to try working on some ideas and somehow this song erupted out in less than 4 days. My hope is to finish a few more before the end of the year with the various holiday breaks coming up.

"Video Life" was sparked by my browsing through the back log of Netflix's "Watch Instantly" section. Once you get past the first few pages of semi-recognizable movies, you eventually start finding some really weird stuff. One title that stood out to me was a horror movie called "The Video Dead."  My mind kind of started riffing on the idea of video coming to life like what's being presented here or in the movie "The Ring."  However, not wanting to dwell on the horror aspect, I switched "Dead" to its natural opposite "Life."  Somehow "Video Life" had a great ring to it.  It brought me back to the 80s with the start of MTV and video shows like "Friday Night Video," and songs like "Video Killed the Radio Star" and "Living On Video."  So now with bands like The Buggles and Devo in mind (with their similar in rhythm song "It's a Beautiful World") I started sketching out the loose concept of someone from the 80s who has made a video that's going to premiere on a show called "Video Life," and how the whole world is now moving to video.  There's also some shades of today's world with reality TV and YouTube and how easy it is to capture and share your life through video.

Like the rest of my songs, "Video Life" was written, performed, sung, and recorded all by me using my usual equipment, the Korg R3 and Roland JV-1080.  (As much as I talked up the iPhone in my last post 11 months ago, it was not used on this particular track.)

The YouTube video is just a still photo. I am fully aware of the irony of writing a song all about video and then posting a static image with it instead. I hope you can all forgive me.

My new instrument: The iPhone

Last November I got an early Christmas present, my new iPhone.

When the iPhone first came out, I wasn't entirely impressed. Sure you could call people and check your e-mail. But it wasn't until they started pushing the "apps" that I started to take an interest. Suddenly the iPhone's functionality was nearly limitless. And then I started to hear about people making music on their iPhone.

One of the earliest, and most amazing things I saw that finally made me want an iPhone was this:

This video showed someone using the iPhone as a breath-controller to play music. At 8:30 he plays an amazing concerto with three other versions of himself.

I realized that the iPhone's microphone, touch, and accelerometer inputs could all be added together to create brand new ways to create music. I now have a whole collection of music apps. From synthesizers and instruments, to drum machines and other percussion, to multi-track recorders, to general purpose music utilities.

The first app I purchased upon getting my iPhone was the Ocarina app for my son.


The next purchase was another app that made me yearn for an iPhone when I first saw it. "Ellatron" is a Mellotron emulator for the iPhone. Mellotrons were used by a lot of prog bands in the 60s-70s like Genesis, Yes, and Moody Blues.


As a keyboard player, I have tried several times, but have never been able to figure out how to play a guitar. So my next purchase was an app called "iShred" which is a pretty amazing electric guitar emulator with the ability to strum the strings via the touch screen. This has way more functionality than I know what to do with, but I've already started recording "guitar parts" on some of my own songs using this app and it sounds pretty good.


Here are just a few of the other apps I've purchased or downloaded:

• megaSynth: an fairly deep analog synthesizer
• GigDaddy: a multi-track recorder
• I Am T-Pain: an app that autotunes your voice
• Metronome: yes, a metronome
• Wickifon: an synth with a very unique style button input
• Magic Stave: an app that tells you what note you are singing or playing

I have a bunch of others that I've collected and still figuring out if I will ever have a practical use for them, and there are others I want to purchase when the time is right. All-in-all, I think the iPhone is really going to make for a great addition to my other instruments, both real and virtual.

My next few songs will probably end up featuring the iPhone in some form or other.

Song: Don't Want A Love Song

Greg Whitehead - Don't Want A Love Song by GWGumby

"Don't Want A Love Song" is my eighth song I recorded in 2009. I originally wrote this song in 1993 while in college. At that time I created a complete backing track for the song, but never had the ability to record the vocals. I used to perform this song acoustically in the mid-90's while I was in the band Piper Down. It was just me and my piano usually about mid-way through our set while the rest of the band took a break. I recorded a semi-live piano/vocal version of the song two years ago at the same time I recorded a bunch of other piano songs, but I've always yearned to go back and do it the way I originally imagined the song back in '93 with the full backing accompaniment plus harmonies.

The story behind this song is simple. I am not a big fan of sappy love songs. So I wrote a sappy love song called "Don't Want A Love Song." See, it's a sappy love song while simultaneously being about someone who doesn't want a love song. Confusing? Maybe. I thought it was clever.

The piano and harpsichord sounds from this song are recorded on my Roland digital piano. Most all other noises, except for maybe the bass and percussion, are done on my Korg R3.

I made my first animated video to go along with the music. Well, okay, it's four frames of animation repeated until the end, but that's all the amount of effort I want to go through for just a background delivery method for the song. I posted this on YouTube last week, and somehow it has been viewed more than any other video of mine already. Somehow the "Love Song" in the title has brought people to it.