For Michael: Ever listen?

[silentseason]

Michael,

A simple question: Do you ever listen to Da Capo or Forever Changes at any time since they were recorded?

[MichaelStuart-Ware]

Actually, I think I've listened to a cut here or there over the years, to refresh my memory about something that somebody asked me about, but that's it.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm really happy and grateful that other people enjoy those two albums and I'm proud as I can possibly be to have participated in their making, but I just don't like to listen to them at all.

Without becoming too analytical about it, I guess I have to compare it to like I guess maybe actors... they probably don't sit down and watch themselves act in their own movies. I saw Paul Newman one time on Larry King and Larry asked him about, "Cool Hand Luke," and Paul just made a face and shook his head, so Larry said, "What...you don't like yourself in 'Cool Hand Luke'? That's one of my favorite movies!." Paul just smiled and said, "I see a guy trying awfully hard."

Same deal.

[silentseason]

I understand. I was cleaning out my closet once and found some old stuff I wrote for college papers and was just put off by what at the time I thought was good.

To follow up, generically speaking is there anything different that you would change in your sound if you could get in a time machine and re-record your parts for the albums?

[MichaelStuart-Ware]

Oh yeah, I think I heard a Cher song about that subject (If I could Turn Back Time). Regret is a terrible thing. It's all about wishing you could change the past. John Greenleaf Whittier wrote it,... "For of all the sad words of tongue or of pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been." He could have added, "...or of manuscript..." as well, because what I wouldn't give to go back in time and say, "I think timpani would be appropriate on this album."

Arthur would have enthusiastically embraced the concept, I'm certain. It's all that's missing from the arrangements, and I was then, as I am now, an accomplished timpanist, so why didn't I suggest it at the time? If I thought of it at all, it was only in passing. Subconsciously, I guess I was thinking in terms of not complicating the issue. So, much to my regret, there are no timpani on Forever Changes.

Is it too late for an overdub?

[jim4371]

You could certainly record the parts and then have us overdub them on the album

[MichaelStuart-Ware]

I'll be moving back down to L.A. in a month. Now if I could only lay my hands on some timpani...

[jim4371]

I'll be moving back down to L.A. in a month. Now if I could only lay my hands on some timpani...

not outside of the realm of possibility then..

[silentseason]

That is a concept I had never considered, but certainly makes sense given the orchestral concept of FC.

I can hear where they might fit in on 'House is not a Motel' and 'Red Telephone'.

What songs would you hear them on, and would you have recorded them with the rest of the band or when the string and horn sections were brought in after you all had laid down the basic tracks?

[MichaelStuart-Ware]

The rule of thumb that I made up is, "Wherever there are strings, there can be timpani," because timpani are an integral part of every symphony orchestra and are usually written in to add dramatic power between phrases and punctuation during the body of the piece.

In a work as groundbreaking as Forever Changes, however, timpani could have been used in ways not typical to the traditional and would have been bound only by the limits of our imagination.

I probably would have played those parts along with the horns and strings.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda. Or, if it ain't broke, don't fix it?