Artist Name: David Myers Title: Take Me Home Genre: Instrumental Rock Rating:
Equipment
DAW – Cakewalk by BandLab; Interface – MOTU 16A; Instruments – Yamaha Digital Piano, VST softsynths, Roland JV-2080, Gibson Les Paul, Ibanez Bass, Gretsch Catalina Drum Kit, Zildjian Cymbals; Guitar Amp/Interface – Kemper Profiler; Drum Mics – AKG D112 (kick) Shure SM57 (x4 – snare and toms), Behringer B-1 (x3 – hi-hats and overheads), RØDE NT1-A (ride) and RØDE NT2-A (room mic); Monitors – Yamaha HS5; Headphones – Beyer DT 150.
Music
“Take Me Home” is an instrumental rock song composed by David Myers. Myers played piano; Peter Hanmer played guitars, other keyboards and bass; and Larry Rose played drums. Peter Hanmer produced and engineered “Take Me Home” at Foxglove Studios in Alberton, in the Gauteng Province of South Africa.
The song begins with a lovely solo piano, with the theme repeated a few times. It builds slowly, augmented with VST synth pads and the Mellotron patches in a Roland JV-2080. After this build, the work’s second section is more rock-oriented, with the theme supported by guitar, bass and drums. The track builds more into a tasteful and melodic guitar solo, followed by an even bigger restatement of the melody before relaxing into a quiet re-intro and finish.
Review By Dave Martin
Building a piece of music around a theme with variations has been around for centuries; “Take Me Home “illustrates why that approach still works very well.
I find “Take Me Home” enormously satisfying. The melody we hear at the beginning of the song is the anchor for everything that follows, and the secondary melody maintains a relationship to the original theme. This means that to the listener, there is a scene change, but it’s not a disruptive change that draws you out of the music.
Special mention should go to producer and engineer Peter Hanmer. Peter told me that composer David Myers came to him with the piano composition but with no real ideas about what to do with it. Hanmer didn’t want to take the focus away from the piano but wanted a big production; I think he succeeded in achieving both goals with a wonderfully dynamic recording.
As is often the case, the recording process for “Take Me Home” was more complex than it appears. Myers’ piano tracks were recorded first as a guide, with some parts played to a click and others played without. Once the pieces of the piano track were put in order, that track became the foundation for the rest of the instruments.
Hamner put the track together using programmed drums as a guide while adding the other parts, and then added live drums at the end of the process. When listening to the track, the complexity of the recording process isn’t noticeable and is a tribute to the skills of the producer and the musicians.
Dave’s Suggestions
I have nothing to suggest, and “Take Me Home” is exemplary on all fronts. For regular readers, though, there are some ideas that are worth noting. First, if an instrumental composition doesn’t hang together as a solo piece, making it work with full instrumentation can be challenging.
Notice that the other musicians were also sensitive to the producer’s goal of keeping the piece’s focus primarily on the pianist.
Those of us who regularly work with click tracks or programmed drums often forget how much expression is lost when the music doesn’t have a chance to breathe; Hanmer’s approach to this track, where some parts were recorded with a click, and some were not, offers a great way to explore freer and more expressionistic music.
Related to the above, it’s worth noting that the piano track on “Take Me Home” was recorded first, and everything else came later. Compare that with projects that start with programmed drums or a click, and build a rhythm track first. What ought to be the most important parts of the track are then added at the end of the recording process. You might find a project in your future that would benefit from the idea that changing the process changes the results.
Summary
This is a wonderful track from an artist I hadn’t heard of before. I’ll be looking up more work from David Myers and listening to more productions by Peter Hanmer. Highly Recommended.
The video of the session can be found here:
youtube.com/watch?v=ozVBzbR43j4
Dave Martin is a producer, engineer and bassist. Dave owned Nashville’s Java Jive Studio for close to 25 years. Dave has recorded, produced and/or played with symphony orchestras, rock and roll icons and country music legends ranging from the Old Crow Medicine Show, The Dead Pickers Society, Porter Wagoner, Robben Ford, Billy Cobham, The Box Tops, Carl Verheyen, Richie Faulkner (Judas Priest), Adrian Belew, Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Eric Johnson, Robbie Fulks, Steve Vai, The Coasters and others. Dave is also a member of the Western Swing Hall of Fame.