In the Key of K

Mood Swings
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New release of an old song!!! And a video here!

This is the original unedited track from my first solo album. It’s been re-mastered for streaming and officially re-released (February 2025) as a piece by “In the Key of K” rather than as the original “Lewd Blue.” This is the first time it has been available digitally.

This track was recorded on a Tascam 4 track recorder sometime in 1997 and was track 2 on side 2 of the original cassette tape. It was the only piece from that time where I used all four tracks with no vocals. The other instrumental pieces at this time were one or two guitar tracks. This one uses drums, bass, and two guitars. I remember wanting to add vocals but I wanted the two guitars more (lyrics were never written) and I didn’t trust mixing and panning three tracks onto one track to free-up space. Plus, it let me ping pong some of the guitar work so I didn’t have to record each guitar track in one take (however the drums and bass are continual one-take tracks).

In those days I always recorded the drums first. I would chart a map of the song on paper and keep at it until I had a take I liked. I rarely did more than three or four takes. In those days, if you couldn’t nail the part yet you needed to practice it more before you hit record. I didn’t always follow that idea with the guitar work on those albums from the 90s–some had ideas that I simply wasn’t proficient enough at the time to execute. It usually required a re-write.

If K in the 90s had access to unlimited tracks I wonder what I would’ve done. Not to mention the common way of recording today where you punch in each part separately and take the best parts of dozens of takes. The choruses of many songs sound exactly the same because they literally are–they are cut and paste from the same take and layered and edited. I’m not being critical of this method, I’m sure I will use it from time to time but I prefer the organicness and elasticity of music when things are just a little different maybe a bit fuzzy here or there–a missed note or two makes things human. It makes it sound more real to me when the song is played from beginning to end instead of piece by piece. That being said I will unapologetically use all the methods and technology available to me today. I have no problem with using a bit of pitch correction here and there. 😱

The name of this piece, Mood Swings, means nothing. I arbitrarily named it that–maybe it was because it goes from distorted to clean and that there are time changes and polymeter perhaps evoking different moods. I don’t really remember.

The opening riff is in 3/4 with the eighth measure moving to 4/4 in some flavor of D mixolydian. Once that plays four times we switch from a distorted riff to a clean riff.

The guitar and bass remain in 3/4 but the drums move to 7/8–the whole idea here was to repeat the riff so that the instruments find the downbeat together again. It isn’t terribly successful and I haven’t counted it out recently to see if my math was right but that was the original idea. The key here is probably still D mixolydian but could also be some flavor of A.

The next part is in 5/8 for three measures and then a count of 2 plus 4. The drum count is /12 /123/ 12/123/ 12/123/12/1234. The guitar plays a touch harmonic riff at the 4th and 5th frets (if I remember correctly). This ends with a drum break and has guitar joining in (the D section described below). This might be some form of G major, E minor, C major or A minor.

Then we are back in a 3 count in E minor. It could be a faster 3/4 or a 6/8–I think I originally thought of it as 6/8. After this there are repeats of the other sections until we arrive at the coda. The end of the piece is roughly in some form of E minor.

The coda begins with a moderate driving 4/4 riff and drums. The second guitar comes in mimicking the first. There are occasional squealing pinch harmonics that I really didn’t understand how to do back then–I kind of new what to do but not where–I missed the nodes as often as I hit them and if I hit them as often as I tried it would have been squealing nearly the whole time.

Finally, the beat goes to double time for a guitar solo, still in 4/4, and reverts back to the slow driving riff to end. For the solo: at this point in my playing I knew scales but in the heat of the moment of improvisation I would 100% of the time abandon the scale and just play notes that sounded good to me in the moment. No preparation or practicing over the changes for this one. I wasn’t thinking about what key it was in. I don’t think I played more than one or two takes.

Chords/Tab? I’m going to chart a few things below to outline things. Maybe I will add detailed tabs later if someone ever wants to see that.

A section:
D5**/A5**/G5 A5 B5/C5**/
D5**/A5**/G5 A5 B5/E5***/

B section:
A5**/A5**/

C section:
Bass plays — A*/A**/A*/A**/A*/A**/A**/A**D*/

D section:
drums with
—3-2-0———-
———–3—0–
——————
——————
——————
——————

E section:
E5**/G5**/A5**/B5**/A5 B5 C#5/A5 B5 G5/

F section (rough tab from memory this should be enough information to play it):
—————-
—————-
—————-
—————-
–2-2-2–4–6–
–2-2-2——–
–0-0-0——–

Section G:
E minor power chords. Don’t remember and don’t have time to sit down to figure it out.

The Solo:
Some solos are meant to be replayed. This isn’t one of them. Play it YOUR way!

The form of the piece is: A B C D E D A B C F G F

I still like this recording. Even though I have evolved and gone through many transformations as a player and musician, it still sounds like me. It still breathes music like I do today.