A question was raised from the last entry on the timeless classic, "I Will Always Love You" (see The Producer's Crutch, Sept 18th, 2006):

"Was the modulation in the Whitney Houston cover found in the original song written and performed by Dolly Parton in 1974?"

Answer: NO.

It appears the dreaded gear change is found only in Whitney Houston's cover, which points squarely at the person responsible: David Foster. He produced Whitney's version.

Evidence: Dolly's live television performance of "I Will Always Love You" on the show "Hee Haw" from 1974 (courtesy of YouTube.com):



Link to YouTube



We the jury hereby find the defendant, David Foster, guilty of the crime of the Producer's Crutch - The Modulation (aka The Truck Driver's Gear Change).


"I Will Always Love You," Whitney Houston, 50 sec. sample of the modulation:



Court adjourned.

Every once in a while, along comes the need to highlight fundamentals of good songwriting. This time around, it is the basic rule of how best to avoid a major songwriting catastrophe when composing and producing a rock/pop song - the MODULATION. Read More...

BlackBerry 8700r

Finally got the phone out of the shop. So now I have no excuses, since it's an all-in-one phone, email, text, calendar, contacts, memos, web browser for the Inter-Web‚Ñ¢, alarm clock and general consolidated noise nuisance -- in that anytime anyone, anywhere, in anyway wants to get a hold of me, the thing goes off. I think I might get a doctorate in geekdom.


Jeff Booth, PhD., Illustrious Technorati

"Hotel Downtown"
Photo by Jeff

Why is it, exactly, why downtown Toronto bathrooms need to be 1 or 2 flights of stairs down into the basement? What is going on with that? Is there some sort of sewer disposal issue the city is concerned about? Is there a deep-seated issue about going elsewhere, y'all need to know about? What up?!

I cannot stand this ongoing advertising trend where a company's tag line is comprised of three one word sentences:

(i.e. "Rip. Mix. Burn." or, "Acquire. Manage. Archive.")

Take notice. You'll feel sick once you start seeing this. Everybody's doing it, and I'm sick of it.

Innovate. Advertise. Profit.

It's disgusting.

Jeff

"Renewable Energy - Wind"
Photo by Larry

Here's a thought: Harness energy right out of the air, by letting wind push wind turbine blades around and around. A non-invasive way to produce electrical energy -- and renewable -- this energy can be used with an existing grid system and can power a hyrdogen generation station for energy storage (i.e. draw power from the store when the wind stops blowing). Consumed hyrdogen energy deposits water. Sounds good!

Learn more about wind resources here.

The picture above is a wind farm near Palm Springs, California.

California in winter. It's tough!

Jeff

"An artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's "at" somewhere. You always have to realize that you're constantly in the state of becoming, you know? And, as long as you can stay in that realm, you'll sort of be all right. I can't self-analyze my own work, and wasn't going to cater to the crowd because I knew certain people would like it, and certain people didn't like it. I had gotten in the door when no one was looking. I was in there now, and there was nothing anybody from then on, could ever do about it."

- Bob Dylan, No Direction Home

BUY A LIMBLIFTER AND A KINSKI RECORD... BOTH WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!

(and a PIONEER 10 record, too!) ...

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Now back to our regular programming... check this out: Guitar pedals, anyone?!



GIT 'YER ROCK ON!

Ever try and tune a guitar? It's almost impossible. Here's some links to folks talking about it:

Jack Endino - Jack even went as far to build his own guitar that has the correct fret spacings!

Precision Strobe Tuners

Just Intonation Explained



Actually, I should apologize in advance -- You might want to sit down for those ones. It's quite a read, and you won't listen to your guitar the same way ever again (if you play).



On another note: I've been working on a film soundtrack with a friend of mine and realized just exactly how odd the experience has been, after reading the CD-R label late one night:

1. Porno
2. Nein
3. Escalator


Need more rock. Maybe tomorrow night!

Why include a camera in a phone only to make it incredibly difficult to send the picture to an email address? I can't stand the fact that I actually used the camera part of the phone. My BlackBerry's still in the shop. GPRS? GSM? Email? SMS? MMS? What the hell.