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Wind Synth and Saxophone Clips

Here are some mp3 clips of me playing sax, wind synthesizer and/or other instruments. Most are my improvisations over the chord progressions to copyrighted songs. Since you cannot copyright a chord progression, and since the improvised melody is my own creation, I am not violating anybody else's copyrights. If there is a small fragment of the original song as the lead-in or exit of the solo, it is short enough to be considered OK under the fair use laws. The improvised solos that appear in these clips are copyrighted © by Bob "Notes" Norton, all rights reserved.


July, 2004 - WX5/VL70-m(TURBO) Wind Synth Clip

Here's an excerpt from a field recording I made on July 31, 2004 on my Archos Gmini Juke Box recorder/player. We were playing a birthday party at a private residence in Port St Lucie, Florda. The song is our own "jazzy" rendition of Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life". The "sax" solo is my tweak of the MBrecker patch (sax) on the VL70-m/TURBO.

You Are The Sunshine Of My Life Excerpt - encoded at 56k, so you should probably be able to stream it with a good dial-up connection.

July, 2004 - WX5/VL70-m(TURBO) Wind Synth Clip

Here's an excerpt from a field recording I made on July 17, 2004 on my Archos Gmini Juke Box recorder/player. We were playing a 50th wedding anniversary party at an oceanfront apartment house in Ft Pierce. The song is "Old Cape Cod", a 1950s Patty Page Song. I used my tweak of the MBrecker patch (sax) on the VL70-m/TURBO.

Old Cape Cod Excerpt - encoded at 56k, so you should probably be able to stream it with a good dial-up connection.

November 2008 - WX5/VL70-m(TURBO) Wind Synth Clip

Here's an excerpt from a field recording I made on November 8, 2008 on my Archos Gmini Juke Box recorder/player. We were playing for the U.S.Marine Corps League's Birthday Party. The song is "Old Time Rock and Roll", the Bob Seger thing. I used my tweak of the GuitarHero patch (Fuzz Guitar) on the VL70-m/TURBO.

Old Time Rock and Roll Excerpt - encoded at 56k, so you should probably be able to stream it with a good dial-up connection.

June, 2004 - WX5/VL70-m(TURBO) Wind Synth Clip

I was called to play some parts on a CD on June 10, 2004. I did some sax and wind synth work on a few different tracks. The songwriter was kind enough to let me post this excerpt from the song "Personal Choice" © 2004 by John Carlile. This is the "guitar" solo using Dist.Gtr (Internal Patch #42 on my free TURBO tweaks download). It's a rough mix as it was taken right after I recorded the guitar part.

Personal Choice Excerpt -- Encoded at 160k so if you don't have a fast Internet connection, you should download instead of streaming it.

"Cabaret" by Shannon Tedder
featuring Bob "Notes" Norton on saxophone

Ok, a few people have been wondering what I sound like so I am posting an mp3 here.

Back in the mid-1990's, the owner of a local recording studio called me in to do three cuts for a guy named Shannon Tedder for his self-produced CD, Breezy Dreams. This cut, Cabaret is one of them -- © copyright by Shannon Tedder - all rights reserved - used with permission.

This session had the following challenges:

  • The background track was pre-recorded (guitars, bass and drums) and the other musicians were not there for me to communicate with
  • I was handed a chord sheet in concert key, with no bar lines or any other clues as to when the chords will change
  • No theme or other guidelines were given, Shannon only asked that it sound "bluesy"
  • I had to improvise the entire melody on the spur of the moment

I figured the melody should have enough common threads to hold it together without being too repetitious so it was important to remember what I played. I also had to keep in mind what the customer voiced (keep it bluesy) and since I found out from the engineer/owner of the recording studio that the money was thin, so I figured I should try to do it in a minimum of takes.

Listening to the track while putting my sax together I thought the rhythm track sounded a little like a Pink Floyd cut, so I figured I'd approach it that way.

So I got in the booth, we found some recording levels, the engineer rolled the "tape" and the result is Cabaret. This was the first and only take.

I've ripped it in 64khz stereo, because I have DSL Lite (not much faster than a dial up) and I wanted the upload and download time to be reasonable. Use that as a guide as to whether you want to stream it or download it.

I probably would have developed the solo differently if I had more time, and perhaps wrote a "head" for it and returned to the "head" at the end of the song, but I don't know if would have turned out any better or not. I also would have rather recorded this at the same time as the other musicians, as the visual and verbal communications between jamming musicians can make for a better listening experience. But that isn't how it went, and for a first take on a song I was unfamiliar with, I'm happy with the result, and the client was happy with the result (and that is what is most important).

A "Thank you" goes out to Shannon Tedder for allowing me to post it here.

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