Turbulator

I went to Zappanale #30 in 2019. I'm trying to remember the detail, in the Wednesday night concert in Hamburg, of a piano cluster that was hammered out by four or five people. Can anyone please remember exactly what that was about?

Demonstrating the uselessness of Google. This does not describe this piece in the slightest. The only thing that can be said for it, is it might draw in some unwary listeners. I would prefer an accurate description or no description at all like on my other track on Bandcamp.

Just checking in to say everything's fine. I know I haven't posted a demo since February, but nothing's wrong. If you read my last post about this and add the clarification to the problem I outlined there, that I'm applying more focus on the playing skills to ultimately relieve the pressure on the recording and production side of things.

I'm just now working on finishing a track that was nearly finished some time ago, for which I finally rewrote a section that didn't end well, with a new sax lick, so I need to practice that to finish it off. Then there's a newer piece that now has the drums, bass and guitar but I only just wrote the sax part a week ago, the practice of which is keeping me pretty busy. Plus I'm also working on arrangements and parts practice for two more Zappa covers.

All in good time.

A quick note to say that Facebook has completely changed their page management recently. My apologies if you've received a redundant invitation to my Turbulator page, but they started me from scratch and I had no easy way to work out who had already received them. It used to grey out friends you'd already sent them to in the invitations block, but not anymore.

I haven't posted anything for a while. My original five year plan ended in April this year and so I've been doing some serious reflection. I am mostly happy with my progress and still committed to this music thing, more so than ever. The hardest part of it is doing it on my own. I'm loving my instruments, guitar, piano, sax and drums and continue to push myself with those and my composing is better than it's ever been.

I've never been this consistent with anything else before in my life, so it's very clear to me that I'm on the right track. But, it's exhausting doing everything myself. Hopefully, as my playing skills continue to develop this will get easier. There has certainly been a gradually increasing facility with all this so far.

My next five year plan involves finally getting my first album finished and moving to the UK by 2025 and finding my way around in the music scene over there. If I can't get a band together there, maybe I can at least work out some music skill sharing arrangements with similar minded musicians.

So, who knows where this will go, but one thing I'm sure of is that I have to keep on doing it, whatever the future brings. Ay up!!

I've just uploaded a band demo of Guilty Bystander on Youtube.

https://youtu.be/oPYseHMb4ls

Guilty Bystander Turbulator on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7u2DMX3nC0xiHoWqBF5p1VPlease like and subscribe, otherwise I remain in the dark.Geoff Pointer plays le...

I've just uploaded my cover of Duodenum by Frank Zappa on YouTube.

https://youtu.be/G3LHofQXNnA

Duodenum by Frank Zappa played by Turbulator Turbulator on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7u2DMX3nC0xiHoWqBF5p1VPlease like and subscribe, otherwise I remain in the dark.Geoff Pointer plays ba...

I've just uploaded a band demo of Granite Planet on YouTube. Please let me know what you think.

https://youtu.be/CraRQWmkAOQ

Granite Planet ©Geoff Pointer Turbulator on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7u2DMX3nC0xiHoWqBF5p1VAnother Turbulator demo, Guilty Granite Planet was composed, performed and produ...

After five weeks abroad, I'm gradually getting back into Turbulator mode. I had taken my guitar, alto sax and drum pad with me and managed a bare minimum of practice but I did have a great time, especially at Zappanale, but it's good to be back at work in Back Shed Studios.

As usual I have many projects on the go. There are six band demos of a similar quality to those I've already posted on YouTube throughout the last four years, but I've held them back, mainly because there are significant details that I aim to rework. Also, as time passes, my production skills develop and they all need, at the very least, complete remixing from scratch. That's not to say that I think the ones on YouTube are ready for an album release, I've already remixed several of those at the very least.

I've picked one to work on right away, a piece called Granite Planet (a version from twelve years ago is on my music web site), and I'm very happy with how much better it sounds already, with just a remix. I'm now in the process of rerecording all the vocals, which were terrible - it's a very challenging voice part. Through regular swimming and sax practice my breathing and pitch control have much improved since October 2019, when I last attempted the voice parts and produced a band demo, and I've applied these to my singing practice in the mean time. There are some other parts that need rerecording and after many listens, the drum part needs to be rewritten and I've also had some ideas about some important tweaks to the arrangement.

Composition is the continuous thread running through the core of everything I do. I'm nearing completion on a trio arrangement of one of my more recent compositions for guitar, drums and bass. I just need to finish writing the bass part and put some polish on my performance of the guitar and drum parts.

I've also bought a couple of books about recording, mixing and mastering which I'm working through.

Thanks as always for your interest.

I'm rehearsing a whole bunch of Zappa material ... for some reason ...

I've made significant progress on piano since I posted Moonlight mingle on YouTube a while ago. I've just posted a one take recording of the very first thing I played on the piano this morning without a warm up. I'm still not ready for public performance, but hopefully this shows it's not far off.
https://youtu.be/XoxW09zXAHA

Squeeze But Don't Sneeze - Piano Version - Turbulator Find Turbulator on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7u2DMX3nC0xiHoWqBF5p1VThis is me, playing the piano version of my composition called Squeeze But ...

Would You Like A Snack, the Cordelia Records album curated by Andrew Greenaway, is now on Spotify. My track is Magic Fingers and I've attached a link below.

https://open.spotify.com/track/2dYZeKpgt2uLhRPGf4L9eU?si=a1344d31de204c9f

Magic Fingers Turbulator · Song · 2021

I’ve been a bit busy with the garden and home maintenance, etc, so not practicing as much as I should, but I’m still composing new stuff. I’ve got three more finished ensemble tracks I’ve been holding back, that need some editing and remixing, plus at least three piano pieces almost ready to record, so watch this space

I've just posted a demo of my arrangement of Holiday In Berlin on YouTube. Please read the description there for some of the background.

https://youtu.be/DnzbH_awpB4

Holiday In Berlin by Frank Zappa, arranged, performed and produced by Geoff Pointer Find Turbulator on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7u2DMX3nC0xiHoWqBF5p1VThis is a demo of my arrangement of Holiday In Berlin by Frank Zappa. Creat...

Apologies to anyone who just received an invitation to like this page, having already received one in the past. I don’t want to pester anyone, but this page interface doesn’t make it easy.

Cheers, Geoff

After deleting my beginner sax videos from YouTube, I have finally got around to posting a recent video of me practicing the bari sax section from my composition Antelope Tweeds.

https://youtu.be/eOZceNY4m9Y

Antelope Tweeds - Bari Sax Section - Turbulator Find Turbulator on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/7u2DMX3nC0xiHoWqBF5p1VThis is me, practicing the bari sax section of my composition called Antelop...

Would You Like A Snack, the latest Frank Zappa homage curated by Andrew Greenaway and published by Cordelia Records is now out!! My contribution this time is the track Magic Fingers. More information is on Andrew's IBS web site, linked below. That page has a link to the store where you can buy a copy.

http://www.idiotbastard.com/200Motels.htm

WOULD YOU LIKE A SNACK? To celebrate the 50th anniversary of 200 Motels later this year, IBS asked many of those scheduled to appear at the cancelled 2021 edition of Festival MOO-AH – plus several chums, old and new – to record a selection of choice cuts from FZ’s opus for a new album on Cordelia Records.

I was reading something the other day about the visibility of pages, like this one. They were implying that Facebook purposely limits visibility and restricts the number of notifications they make in order to encourage page owners to buy visibility boosts. So, I’m asking, if you’ve been made aware of this post, please like it for me, so I can get an idea of what Facebook does.

Of course, if I cared about more widespread coverage - and I haven’t reached that stage yet - I might consider paid advertising, but that’s another story, at this point, I’m interested in seeing who, out of those who have already shown some interest, which I appreciate greatly, actually get notified.

Trying to enlarge the band.

I spoke too soon about the Foreveranda Café track. I had to delete the version I uploaded yesterday, because I discovered a pretty bad glitch that occurred somewhere between finishing the demo mix and converting it to a sound track appropriate for a YouTube post, so apologies to those with dead links. Here's the new link.

I hope you won't mind indulging me in listening to the new version
https://youtu.be/QpC0prziOEs

Foreveranda Café, composed, performed and produced by Geoff Pointer. Another Turbulator project. I'm playing piano; lead, rhythm and bass guitars; alto and bari saxes; drums. There's one synthesiser track playing bass guitar. ...

I did say I've been busy. I've just posted a new demo on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/Z8ME7etEoko

Look Around, composed, performed and produced by Geoff Pointer This the first cut of another Tubulator project called Look Around, this time with lyrics. Here I'm playing lead and rhythm guitars; bari sax; drums and sing...

It's now easier to watch Turbulator's video.

Last week, I arrived at a significant watershed. I had reached an earlier watershed in December last year after a long period of being very hard on myself about my progress. I had hoped to be nearing completion on my first album by the end of 2020 and although the theme and an almost final list of compositions with draft versions is ready, it was becoming clear that it was still a long way off being ready for release.

In December, I carried out a major review of all the work I'd done since the start of this thing in April 2018 and it became clear that, through non coloured glasses, I had made significant, quantifiable progress. It's so easy for rising optimism to lead to unrealistic expectations, which in turn, when ending up unrealised, lead to pessimism and impotence.

Finally, by the end of the year I had refocused on my initial plan, which was a five year plan, given the sheer volume of skills and development required by my goals. That's when I published the previous post. And note that, in that post, while I was recommitting to my five year plan, the rising optimism thing was already creeping back in, with the comment about my first album being finished by the end of 2021.

This latest watershed followed another deep review I was doing a week or so ago, of my work completed during the three months since the last review and further significant improvements have occurred. But this time, I'm not letting the optimism run away with itself.

Another part of this latest review involved listening to all my videos on YouTube and there were five of the older ones that I just can't stand to listen to anymore, so I've deleted them. Two piano recordings, two saxophone recordings and one guitar recording. That was my latest watershed. It was very clear cut and there was no hesitation.

There are two examples of my more recent piano playing on YouTube, but I'm now working on arrangements for a couple of solo saxophone videos that should appear in a few weeks. The guitar video I deleted was of a composition called Bare Foot On Gravel, the arrangement of which I've been working on at the piano, so it wasn't just the playing I couldn't listen to, the arrangement has evolved significantly since then. The piano arrangement is finished and my performance is almost ready for recording.

Thanks very much for your interest.

Thoughts After A Year On Spotify

There was a post above that pointed to my Spotify Wrapped (albeit very modest) for this year, but they have now removed them.

A journey of a thousand steps begins with the first step. My first important achievement so far is my cover of No More Mr Nice Girl being published by Cordelia Records on the Lost Meat album, which was then published on Spotify and a big thanks again to Andrew Greenaway for having faith in me.

I'm still really busy, just over half way through my five year plan to work full time on building my composing, performing and production skills. I currently have about fifty compositions under development and about twenty of those nearing completion and jelling into a possible first album, which I'm hoping to publish before the end of 2021, but it shall take as long as needs. I will continue to post YouTube videos to document my progress.

It's many, many hours of work. First I write the arrangements, then practice most of the parts until I can play them, then make recordings and finally produce the results. Some of the more difficult parts are still waiting for my skills to catch up.

It would be good to have a group of musicians eagerly waiting to play my pieces, saving me a huge amount of time, but I'm finding I really enjoy this process, it's very organic and is adding breadth to my perception of music; to the way I compose, perform and produce. This is a process I need to go through. This is the first time in my life that I've made this great an ongoing commitment to music and there are no shortcuts.

Hopefully, the videos I've published since the start of 2019 show something more developed than those that came between 2009 and 2013, that appeared between the lines of the other things I was doing with my life during that time.

Many thanks to those who have taken the plunge and listened to my music.

I've recently added a video to my YouTube Channel - another acoustic guitar/drums duet. In terms of my progress on the drums, the Cardboard Shuffle drum part was recorded in June 2019 and the Palindromatically Inclined drum part was recorded in December 2019.

https://youtu.be/z5FLFOZ2eO4

Cardboard Shuffle, composed, performed and produced by Geoff Pointer. Chronologically, this recording was made several months before Palindromatically Inclined. It's another acoustic guitar/drums duet in it's current form. I'm ...

I've recently put these two pieces up on YouTube, that have been languishing on SoundCloud for some time.

https://youtu.be/-4EUvc4IPHI

https://youtu.be/GwHUTXqdYGw

Palindromatically Inclined, composed, performed and produced by Geoff Pointer I'd been playing this on guitar for some time and then about eight months ago I wrote a drum part, so the version in this video is an acoustic guitar and dru...

Turbulator is on holiday. I'm in Sydney for a week and I didn't take my guitar. Biggest mistake I ever made in my life!

Just completed this musical sketch today and posted it on Sound Cloud - so you know I'm keeping busy.

https://soundcloud.com/user-26681424/palindromatically-inclined

Palindromatically Inclined Composed and produced by Geoff Pointer. Acoustic guitar and drums played by Geoff Pointer. This is just a taster of what I'm up to at the moment - keeping very busy. This piece has sax, bass and piano