Look, a Song! A Kazooka!

Here is my song “Symbolic Dog Blues,” first verse, featuring … the Kazooka!

The Kazooka is a hard-rock electrified kazoo that I’ve been dreaming of for years, and this song’s only purpose was to experiment with it. That, and to give me a chance to learn some audio engineering skills. So, I kept the music simple. Ultra-simple.

Well, something there is about a kazoo—the song got really silly really fast, and pretty soon I was having ’way too much fun doing character voices. Maybe it’s because my heroes include Weird Al Yankovic and Frank Zappa.

Listen for the solo halfway through. I hummed the whole thing in one take!

By the way, the only reason I made a video is so I could use YouTube for blogging.

Total recording time: eight to ten hours.
Total engineering time afterward: three months!!

Three months??

Folks, I’ve had a lot of training on this audio gear, on designing the circuits and the algorithms. But using the gear to get the sounds you want is another story. Think of building a guitar vs. playing it. As a studio mix-master, I think I am now smarter than a fifth grader, barely!

Next …

The second verse is underway. We lose the acoustic guitar and blues vocalist, and we pick up a heavy electric guitar and bass, while Brit sings. Jimbob gets annoyed with the guitar, because it keeps cutting him off, so that’s fun. In the third verse, Brit will grab the guitar and rock out, much to Jimbob’s amazement. Goodbye, ultra-simple!

Hopefully, the next verse will not take three months!

Update: 2nd verse and solo posted. No three months this time!!