Full Transcript:

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John Kennedy: Hello, welcome to Tape Notes.

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John Kennedy: I hope you’re well.

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John Kennedy: Before I tell you about this week’s new episode, I wanted to remind you about the Tape Notes Christmas giveaway.

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John Kennedy: As mentioned in our last episode, we have been speaking to our friends across the music industry to arrange a big gear giveaway competition.

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John Kennedy: One winner will walk away with an incredible prize list, which includes a Neumann TLM-103 mic, a Scarlett 18i20 interface from Focusrite, a Novation Launch Key 61, a year subscription to the Roland Cloud, and a P6 sampler from Roland, Native Instrument Complete 15 Collector’s Edition, an EP-133KO from Teenage Engineering, the FabFilter Pro Bundle Plug-in Suite, a pair of Adam Audio H200 headphones, and a pair of their D3V monitors, and Tape It Pro for life.

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John Kennedy: For more details and to be in with a chance to win the bundle, all you have to do is head over to the Tape Notes Patreon page at patreon.com/tapenotes.

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John Kennedy: Sign up for free.

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John Kennedy: You don’t need to join one of the paid tiers and comment who you’d like to see on the podcast on the top pinned post.

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John Kennedy: The competition is open to all current subscribers on Patreon as well and will remain open until the 2nd of January, at which point a winner will be drawn.

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John Kennedy: Now, on to this week’s new episode.

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John Kennedy: I caught up with Michael League, best known as the creator and band leader of the wildly successful jazz fusion group Snarky Puppy.

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John Kennedy: Michael joined me remotely from his studio in Spain and as well as digging into tracks from Snarky Puppy’s latest Grammy-winning record, Empire Central, we also spoke about his work as a producer, working with Varijashree Venugopal and dug into a brand new project, Ellipsis, which we get a sneak preview of.

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John Kennedy: His passion for music and creativity and diversity is extraordinary and the way he constantly blends elements from across the world all into one whole is fascinating.

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John Kennedy: It really was an interesting conversation.

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John Kennedy: To watch the full video of the podcast, head to the Tape Notes Patreon page at patreon.com/tapenotes.

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John Kennedy: And as usual, there will be highlight videos coming out on the Tape Notes YouTube channel throughout the week.

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John Kennedy: Thank you also to our partners at Tape It, the iPhone recording app designed specifically for musicians.

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John Kennedy: More on them later in the show.

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John Kennedy: This will be the final Tape Notes episode of 2024.

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John Kennedy: Merry Christmas and a very happy new year.

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John Kennedy: Thanks for all of your support and I’ll see you for episode 150 in January.

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John Kennedy: But now without further ado, let’s get started.

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John Kennedy: Hello, and welcome to Tape Notes, the podcast that looks behind the scenes at the magic of recording and producing music.

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John Kennedy: Every episode, we’ll be reuniting an artist and producer and talking through some of the highlights from their collaboration in the studio.

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John Kennedy: So join us as we lift the lid on the creative process and the inner workings of music production to see what lies beneath.

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John Kennedy: Hello, I’m John Kennedy, and joining me for this episode of Tape Notes is Michael League, to talk about his work writing, recording and producing with Snarky Puppy and across other projects.

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John Kennedy: Michael League is an American producer, multi-instrumentalist, and founder and band leader of the jazz fusion ensemble Snarky Puppy.

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John Kennedy: Michael began his journey into music, learning guitar at the age of 13, before picking up the bass at 17.

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John Kennedy: Going on to study jazz at the University of North Texas, it was shortly after his second year, he assembled a group of college friends to jam together, laying the foundations of Snarky Puppy.

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John Kennedy: Constantly expanding with new members and leaning heavily into the musical diversity of individual players, in 2005, the band released their debut album, Live, at Uncommon Ground.

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John Kennedy: Having achieved international recognition for their artistry over their 20 years together, the band have released 16 albums, four of them, Sylvia in 2015, Culture Vulture in 2016, 2020’s Live, at the Royal Albert Hall, and 2022’s Empire Central, have all picked up Grammys for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.

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John Kennedy: Outside of his Snarky Puppy work, Michael has shared his talents as a producer with a number of notable artists, including David Crosby, Varijashree Venugopal, and Becca Stevens, among others, often releasing on his own label, GroundUP.

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John Kennedy: Today, I’m at home in modern South London, and I’m joined by Michael from his studio in Spain.

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John Kennedy: Just a quick note that unfortunately, at one point in the recording, we had a few technical issues, so there’s a very short section where the quality might not be up to the usual standards, but the subject matter more than makes up for it.

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John Kennedy: And what better way to start than by hearing something from the record.

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John Kennedy: This is Lingus.

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John Kennedy: We like it here.

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John Kennedy: This is Snarky Puppy with Lingus from the We Like It Here album, and I’m playing that because I’m very pleased to say that Michael League from Snarky Puppy is connected to me online to talk about his wonderful world of music.

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John Kennedy: Hello Michael.

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Michael League: Hey, how are you doing John?

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John Kennedy: I’m alright, thank you.

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John Kennedy: I thought I’d play Lingus because it’s nearly 20 million streams on there, Michael, and that’s just Spotify.

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John Kennedy: That’s not the other streaming services as well.

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John Kennedy: So it’s one of the most popular Snarky Puppy tracks, and I thought we could use a little bit of explanation about the wonderful world of Snarky Puppy, because the band’s been going for 20 years now.

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John Kennedy: Is it the 20th anniversary this year?

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Michael League: Yeah, yeah, actually in June we turned 20.

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John Kennedy: Wow, well congratulations.

00:06:07.335 –> 00:06:08.895
John Kennedy: Happy birthday.

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Michael League: Thank you.

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John Kennedy: And you’re one of those bands that are kind of revered in the music world and you’ve won like five Grammys or something like that.

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John Kennedy: And yet for some, you might not be so well known.

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John Kennedy: So I thought we’d find out a bit more about that world because it’s amazing that you’ve created this thing that so many people revere.

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Michael League: Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say that if we are revered now, we weren’t for a very long time for over half of the life of the band.

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Michael League: I mean, it was a college project for me when I was studying at a university in Texas and just put together a group of my friends to play music that I was writing.

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Michael League: That’s really all it was and all it is still.

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Michael League: Now everybody writes for the band, but it still has that feeling.

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Michael League: I think if you came backstage five minutes before a gig, you would get that feeling from the group that it’s just a bunch of college friends playing music that they want to play.

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Michael League: Yeah.

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John Kennedy: That’s always a great thing, isn’t it?

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John Kennedy: Something that started for fun, for the sheer joy of it, connects with other people and it’s led you to go on and collaborate with lots of different other people on other projects which we’re going to hear about in this episode of Tape Notes.

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John Kennedy: But the first track we’re actually going to look at is a Snarky Puppy song to help set the scene.

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John Kennedy: We’re going to look at Bet from Empire Central.

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John Kennedy: Maybe if we play a blast of the master of that, and then we can hear how that was created and find out about how Snarky Puppy works.

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Michael League: Sure.

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John Kennedy: It is Snarky Puppy with Bet from the album Empire Central.

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John Kennedy: So how did that one come about?

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John Kennedy: What’s the process for Snarky Puppy?

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John Kennedy: I suspect it differs every time, but at the same time, I think that there was an approach for this record.

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Michael League: Yeah, every record is a bit different.

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Michael League: Some are more similar to each other than others.

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Michael League: The first two records, I think, you know, I wrote all the music for the first record and most of the music for the second record, and it was all written out, sheet music, handed to people, no audio demos made, nothing like that.

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Michael League: And then we started getting into the zero sheet music, learn everything by ear phase, which has lasted until today and will never go back.

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Michael League: We found that not having sheet music, making people memorize the songs, not only made everybody play better instantly, and also have a greater sense of awareness of what was going on around them, but also they started kind of unintentionally learning each other’s parts, you know?

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Michael League: So then in situations where the band would change in the middle of a tour, someone who was previously playing the chords would now have to play the melody, and they wouldn’t have to sit down and learn it, because it was already there in their ears.

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Michael League: I think it’s easy to kind of steamroll and phone it in when you’re reading music, you just play your part and that’s all.

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Michael League: Obviously, great musicians don’t do it that way, but it’s a way that you can do it.

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Michael League: And when you’re learning by ear, you can’t do it like that.

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Michael League: You absolutely have to know what’s happening around you as well as what your responsibility is.

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Michael League: So then from then on, we started making audio demos, mostly in GarageBand or Logic, and then we would email the demo to everybody.

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Michael League: Personally, I’m a fan of demos that sound bad.

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Michael League: All of my demos, as you’re about to hear, I mean, they sound terrible.

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Michael League: And the reason why they sound terrible, I don’t intentionally make them bad.

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Michael League: It’s just that I don’t put any energy into making them sound good, because I don’t want anybody coming into the rehearsal saying, oh wow, the demo sounded so beautiful.

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Michael League: I’ll just play that.

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Michael League: Let’s just make it sound like that.

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Michael League: Because I want to leave a huge amount of space for every single person in the band to add what they hear and to contribute what they feel.

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Michael League: And if the demo is like super, super mega specific and picture perfect, inherently people are going to be serving this kind of, in a way, it’s not arbitrary, but this one little shred of audio that was designed to be kind of a rough roadmap.

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Michael League: They’re going to treat it like, kind of like the Bible in a sense.

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Michael League: And it will inherently restrict their creativity in the process.

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Michael League: So I tend to make demos in a way that’s kind of macro rather than micro.

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Michael League: I try to make sure that the bass line is clear.

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Michael League: I try to make sure that the chords are clear, and I try to make sure the melody is clear.

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Michael League: And sometimes I do all three things with the same sound.

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Michael League: I’ll just use like a Fender Rhodes to play all three things.

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Michael League: So then even the band, like they don’t even know what their part is.

00:11:59.422 –> 00:12:01.602
Michael League: They don’t even know what they’re supposed to be playing.

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Michael League: They just know that there’s chords, melody, and a bass line.

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Michael League: And so they learn all of them.

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Michael League: And then it’s very quick in rehearsal if we say, oh, it’s not really working with the horns on the melody.

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Michael League: Let’s have the guitars play the melody, and let’s have the horns play the pads.

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Michael League: And we can switch kind of instantaneously.

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Michael League: And for me, that’s what rehearsal is.

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Michael League: It’s not making the song sound like the demo.

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Michael League: It’s a workshop.

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Michael League: It’s an opportunity for everybody to chime in and share little visions that they have for how the song could be.

00:12:29.702 –> 00:12:32.002
Michael League: And then we kind of come to a consensus about it.

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Michael League: But all of that process, I want to make clear, happens after the band has played the song exactly like the demo.

00:12:39.542 –> 00:12:45.262
Michael League: So like the first kind of rule is like we earn the right to change things.

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Michael League: And it’s very easy to hear a demo and go like, oh, well, I don’t like that bass line.

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Michael League: I’d rather play this thing that I want to play without having learned the bass line.

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Michael League: Then once you learn the bass line, you might go, oh, no, actually that bass line is really cool.

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Michael League: I just didn’t think so at first.

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Michael League: So it prevents us from being lazy.

00:12:59.162 –> 00:13:01.762
Michael League: It prevents us from kind of putting our egos into it.

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Michael League: Everybody’s very humble and very generous at the beginning and serving the composer’s vision.

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Michael League: And then once it sounds exactly the way the composer intended, then we open stuff up and people chime in.

00:13:13.662 –> 00:13:13.982
John Kennedy: Yeah.

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Michael League: And then we play it every night on tour and it changes every night.

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Michael League: So, you know, then it like just becomes this whole other beast.

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John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, of course.

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John Kennedy: Very interesting though.

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John Kennedy: Can we hear that demo then?

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Michael League: We sure can.

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Michael League: Don’t be prepared to be blown away by this.

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John Kennedy: So how involved would a demo get?

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John Kennedy: Would you work out the whole song, or would it just be a sketch?

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Michael League: Yeah, so this is the entire song.

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Michael League: Right now, there’s no melody because this is a solo section.

00:14:46.795 –> 00:14:53.535
Michael League: So I’ll leave the solo section open so that whoever’s going to improvise over it has a chance to practice just over the chords.

00:14:54.915 –> 00:14:58.555
Michael League: And like this song is basically, there’s like an intro, which is the same as the outro.

00:14:58.555 –> 00:15:01.375
Michael League: There’s kind of a verse and a chorus and a bridge.

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Michael League: So maybe I’ll just jump to the bridge.

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Michael League: So this is the end of the second chorus.

00:15:08.615 –> 00:15:11.755
Michael League: And there’s going to be like a little vamp before the bridge.

00:15:13.015 –> 00:15:13.415
Michael League: Right here.

00:15:19.362 –> 00:15:23.742
Michael League: And it’s interesting because, you know, listening to these demos, the dynamics are totally flat.

00:15:23.742 –> 00:15:28.642
Michael League: There’s no life, there’s no personality, there’s only content to be learned.

00:15:28.642 –> 00:15:30.822
Michael League: And I like it that way.

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Michael League: So here’s the bridge.

00:15:45.727 –> 00:15:58.187
John Kennedy: And in a way, by presenting it this way, you kind of save energy and wait till people are involved in the music, so then they can put in their personalities and put in their own flavors.

00:15:58.287 –> 00:15:58.767
Michael League: Yeah, 100%.

00:15:59.587 –> 00:16:10.227
Michael League: And it does one other thing that for me is actually much more important than saving energy, which is it prevents me from getting demoitis, right?

00:16:10.227 –> 00:16:13.927
Michael League: Which, you know, every musician suffers from demoitis.

00:16:14.067 –> 00:16:27.527
Michael League: Every musician is prone to seeking to recreate certain elements of their demo kind of at their own peril and at the expense of the music, simply because they’re just so familiar with it, right?

00:16:27.987 –> 00:16:30.647
Michael League: And the demo becomes what the song is.

00:16:30.647 –> 00:16:32.587
Michael League: So I try to take as many steps as possible.

00:16:32.587 –> 00:16:33.887
Michael League: I recognize I’m human.

00:16:33.887 –> 00:16:36.367
Michael League: I recognize I’m prone to this like everybody else.

00:16:36.367 –> 00:16:39.867
Michael League: So I try to take as many steps as possible to avoid allowing this to pass.

00:16:39.867 –> 00:16:41.147
Michael League: So what are the steps that I take?

00:16:41.607 –> 00:16:47.147
Michael League: First off, you know, I try to make the demo pretty quickly after I write the song.

00:16:47.147 –> 00:16:58.647
Michael League: I try to make it as bare bones and basic as possible so that the information that needs to be communicated to the band members so that they can learn it is communicated effectively and clearly.

00:16:58.647 –> 00:17:07.927
Michael League: I don’t take much time with the sounds because I don’t want us to spend 30 minutes in a rehearsal looking for a sound that sounds like the demo.

00:17:08.127 –> 00:17:11.807
Michael League: I’d rather have kind of fresh ears when people are cooking stuff up.

00:17:11.807 –> 00:17:15.067
Michael League: And I also don’t listen to my demo after I’ve made it.

00:17:15.067 –> 00:17:20.207
Michael League: You know, as a producer, I’ve worked with so many artists that listen to their demos hundreds of times.

00:17:20.207 –> 00:17:23.167
Michael League: And then they come into the studio and they say, no, no, no, I don’t want it to sound like the demo.

00:17:23.327 –> 00:17:25.087
Michael League: I want it to be its own thing and blah, blah, blah.

00:17:25.087 –> 00:17:33.887
Michael League: And then as you start working, you notice that they’re making all these decisions that are edging the song back towards the demo because that’s just what the song is to them.

00:17:33.927 –> 00:17:34.947
Michael League: But really, what is a demo?

00:17:34.947 –> 00:17:36.107
Michael League: The demo is not the song.

00:17:36.107 –> 00:17:44.887
Michael League: The demo is a practical tool to allow the song to become the greatest thing that it can be.

00:17:44.887 –> 00:17:50.867
Michael League: And so in all these little ways, yes, sure, I’m saving energy, I’m saving time, but it’s not a thing that’s born out of laziness.

00:17:50.867 –> 00:17:57.047
Michael League: It’s kind of a countermeasure against my own tendency to get married to musical ideas.

00:17:58.267 –> 00:18:10.127
Michael League: And one other little extra bonus that making not great sounding demos gives you is that as soon as you start playing as a human, it sounds better than the demo.

00:18:10.127 –> 00:18:11.907
Michael League: And this inspires you.

00:18:11.907 –> 00:18:20.247
Michael League: If you have a demo that’s produced as if it were the song, and you start playing and stuff doesn’t sound as good, it depresses you, right?

00:18:20.247 –> 00:18:26.607
Michael League: And then you can start making decisions musically that aren’t necessarily prudent because you’re feeling pressure.

00:18:26.607 –> 00:18:30.827
Michael League: You’re feeling pressure to make this thing sound as good as it sounded in your headphones when you heard it before.

00:18:30.947 –> 00:18:35.707
Michael League: So, you know, I use Logic MIDI controller straight in.

00:18:35.707 –> 00:18:36.967
Michael League: I don’t spend a lot of time on it.

00:18:36.967 –> 00:18:41.287
Michael League: You know, I spend a lot of time on the composition process, but not on the demo making process.

00:18:41.287 –> 00:18:42.587
John Kennedy: Yeah, really interesting.

00:18:42.587 –> 00:18:45.367
John Kennedy: And how many people are getting the demo then?

00:18:45.367 –> 00:18:48.287
John Kennedy: Because it’s a kind of shifting line up, isn’t it?

00:18:48.287 –> 00:18:55.107
Michael League: Yeah, I send it to everybody in the band, because normally when we make records, everyone in the band is present for that record.

00:18:55.107 –> 00:18:59.227
Michael League: And then we go on tour and we’re only taking one third or half of the people in the band.

00:19:00.007 –> 00:19:08.187
Michael League: But then the people who are not on that tour will hear recordings from that tour and then kind of relearn the song in a way, according to that.

00:19:08.187 –> 00:19:16.427
Michael League: I also want to make clear that this form of demo making, this kind of like nuts and bolts, I do on records where we have time to rehearse.

00:19:16.427 –> 00:19:21.007
Michael League: There are certain records that we make where we do not have much time to rehearse.

00:19:21.007 –> 00:19:29.387
Michael League: For example, the Family Dinner albums that we’ve made and the record that we made with the Metropole Orchestra, a 52-piece symphony orchestra.

00:19:29.387 –> 00:19:35.147
Michael League: So, I think we had two days to rehearse with the band and two days with the orchestra and then we made the record.

00:19:35.147 –> 00:19:37.787
Michael League: You can’t be ambiguous in these situations.

00:19:37.787 –> 00:19:45.927
Michael League: I mean, those songs, the demos sound almost exactly like the recording just with worse MIDI sounds, but not a lot changed.

00:19:45.927 –> 00:19:55.347
Michael League: Even some of the drum grooves are identical that I plugged in just because we didn’t have the time to allow so much input from the band members.

00:19:56.167 –> 00:20:01.187
John Kennedy: Yeah, but with Empire Central, you did have time for rehearsals.

00:20:01.187 –> 00:20:07.767
John Kennedy: And so you’re going to be able to share some of those rehearsals now and show the progress and evolution of the song, I think.

00:20:07.767 –> 00:20:09.407
John Kennedy: That’s what I’m hoping for.

00:20:09.407 –> 00:20:12.007
John Kennedy: So what should we hear first?

00:20:12.007 –> 00:20:15.807
Michael League: Hopefully this will be a little less painful than the demo, but it will still be painful.

00:20:17.087 –> 00:20:24.607
Michael League: We had seven days of rehearsal leading up to Empire Central or maybe more, seven or eight.

00:20:24.607 –> 00:20:27.787
Michael League: And this was the first day that we played this song.

00:20:54.421 –> 00:21:01.041
John Kennedy: I mean, you can all ready hear an instant change in terms of the percussion and everything.

00:21:01.041 –> 00:21:08.121
John Kennedy: So, you say you send it to all the members of the band, but the membership of Snarky Puppy is 40 people, is it?

00:21:08.121 –> 00:21:10.021
Michael League: No, it’s like 20 active members.

00:21:10.021 –> 00:21:15.121
Michael League: I think over the years we’ve had 40, but it’s 20 active members, yeah, 21, maybe.

00:21:15.121 –> 00:21:18.541
John Kennedy: And how many people are playing on this demo, and who are they, I guess?

00:21:18.541 –> 00:21:19.481
Michael League: 19.

00:21:19.481 –> 00:21:20.701
John Kennedy: 19?

00:21:20.701 –> 00:21:21.181
John Kennedy: Wow.

00:21:21.181 –> 00:21:22.061
Michael League: Three drum sets.

00:21:22.721 –> 00:21:24.621
Michael League: They’re trading off every section.

00:21:24.621 –> 00:21:37.041
Michael League: That was a thing that we started doing on the record, Immigrants, where, because we had multiple drummers, but having three drummers playing at the same time is largely unnecessary, right?

00:21:37.041 –> 00:21:43.881
Michael League: So we would have one drummer play the verse, one drummer play the chorus, one drummer play the bridge or the solo section or whatever, and they’d change on the downbeat.

00:21:43.881 –> 00:21:51.121
Michael League: So it just sounds like one drummer who’s changing the tuning of their kit instantly, which is very cool.

00:21:51.121 –> 00:21:56.621
Michael League: So we did the same process, but live on Empire Central.

00:21:56.621 –> 00:21:58.541
Michael League: We also have three percussionists.

00:21:58.541 –> 00:22:05.141
Michael League: So yeah, it’s a big ensemble, but it’s not like you have 19 people all playing at the same time.

00:22:05.141 –> 00:22:06.861
Michael League: That would be excessive.

00:22:06.861 –> 00:22:16.141
Michael League: So we’re trading it off in a way that’s really what we’re trying to do is simulate what happens when you make a studio record, which is maybe you tune the bass drum differently on the chorus.

00:22:16.141 –> 00:22:19.641
Michael League: Maybe you switch guitar sounds between the bridge and the solo, right?

00:22:19.641 –> 00:22:28.341
Michael League: Well, we’re doing that but live by changing humans, which I think is an interesting concept that I’ve never really seen before.

00:22:28.341 –> 00:22:30.621
Michael League: Not saying it hasn’t been done, but it’s not a thing that I had seen.

00:22:30.621 –> 00:22:32.941
Michael League: So I like it a lot.

00:22:32.941 –> 00:22:39.361
Michael League: But yeah, for example, in this demo, it just sounds like a funk jam groove-wise, right?

00:22:39.361 –> 00:22:44.881
Michael League: Then if you fast forward to day six, it sounds very different.

00:22:51.503 –> 00:23:00.023
Michael League: So now it has kind of like a more Brazilian feeling groove with the low sound on two and four instead of the snare on two and four.

00:23:00.023 –> 00:23:04.983
Michael League: You know, Marcelo Woloski’s playing pandeiro with like a kind of Brazilian swing.

00:23:06.783 –> 00:23:08.963
Michael League: And the verse is a lot different groove-wise.

00:23:08.963 –> 00:23:10.983
John Kennedy: And who’s deciding all these changes?

00:23:10.983 –> 00:23:12.503
John Kennedy: When do those decisions get made?

00:23:12.503 –> 00:23:15.563
John Kennedy: I mean, is it in the days of rehearsals?

00:23:15.563 –> 00:23:16.723
Michael League: Yeah, it’s during the rehearsal.

00:23:16.723 –> 00:23:27.903
Michael League: We’ll start playing something, and I mean, I kind of like to joke that Snarky Puppy is a Democratic dictatorship because basically everyone has an equal voice and everyone’s opinion is encouraged to be heard.

00:23:27.903 –> 00:23:39.063
Michael League: But in the end, only one person says exactly which way we’ll go, and that’s my role as the music director and the band leader and all that stuff.

00:23:39.063 –> 00:23:44.323
Michael League: But I would say that very, very rarely do I go against the majority.

00:23:44.443 –> 00:23:50.963
Michael League: I don’t even know if I ever have made a decision that was against the will of the people, you know?

00:23:50.963 –> 00:24:00.183
Michael League: But what’s funny about that is that it’s very rare that we’ll even have a situation where 13 people feel one way and six people feel another way.

00:24:00.183 –> 00:24:01.103
Michael League: You know what I mean?

00:24:01.103 –> 00:24:07.703
Michael League: It’s like, normally we try an idea and the band goes, oh yeah, or they go, oh no way.

00:24:07.703 –> 00:24:10.763
Michael League: And it’s like a group, it’s like a hive mind.

00:24:10.763 –> 00:24:14.363
Michael League: After 20 years of playing together, like we share similar tastes.

00:24:14.363 –> 00:24:25.943
Michael League: Also a thing that you notice about this version of the demo, which is now like, even though it’s less funk, like 2 and 4, snare on 2 and 4 funk, it’s actually funkier in a way, because it’s a little more fluid.

00:24:25.943 –> 00:24:33.803
Michael League: And this solo is now being taken by a Rhodes player, where it was a guitar on the, in the first day of recording, of rehearsing.

00:24:33.803 –> 00:24:37.263
Michael League: And then I think on the actual recording, it’s saxophone.

00:24:37.263 –> 00:24:39.943
Michael League: So during the rehearsals, we’re trying everything.

00:24:39.943 –> 00:24:41.403
Michael League: We’re trying so many different things.

00:24:41.403 –> 00:24:45.703
Michael League: We’re switching soloists, we’re switching tempos, sometimes we change keys.

00:24:46.283 –> 00:24:48.403
Michael League: It’s really like a chance to just try stuff.

00:24:48.403 –> 00:24:52.783
Michael League: And then in the end, the band kind of says, we like this or we don’t like this.

00:24:53.083 –> 00:24:56.603
Michael League: And if there’s any kind of difference of opinion, I’ll just make the call.

00:24:56.603 –> 00:24:57.043
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:24:57.043 –> 00:24:59.383
John Kennedy: And how are you recording this?

00:24:59.623 –> 00:25:04.263
John Kennedy: To what level do you go with regard to recording the rehearsals?

00:25:04.263 –> 00:25:15.003
Michael League: I think we just had like a little mixing board and we’re, we have our sound engineer basically doing like an instant stereo mix, but I think he’s also multi-tracking it.

00:25:15.003 –> 00:25:18.043
Michael League: Mike Harrison, our sound engineer from Scotland.

00:25:18.043 –> 00:25:27.783
Michael League: So he’s like, you know, every day after rehearsal, within an hour, I would have that day’s rehearsal recorded as mp3s, you know, divided out by song.

00:25:27.783 –> 00:25:30.203
Michael League: And then I send that to the band at night for them to check out.

00:25:30.203 –> 00:25:36.243
Michael League: Because we learned like 18 songs in eight days or something, eight or nine days for this record.

00:25:36.243 –> 00:25:38.103
Michael League: So it’s a lot of information to take in.

00:25:38.103 –> 00:25:41.923
Michael League: And, and, you know, we start on the first day, we rehearsed three songs, right?

00:25:42.403 –> 00:25:44.423
Michael League: And then the next day, we add three songs.

00:25:44.423 –> 00:25:46.903
Michael League: But then we also play the three songs we played the day before.

00:25:46.903 –> 00:25:48.743
Michael League: And then the next day, we add three songs.

00:25:48.803 –> 00:25:51.103
Michael League: We play the six songs that we played the two days before.

00:25:51.103 –> 00:25:53.103
Michael League: So each day, it’s like compounding.

00:25:53.103 –> 00:25:53.763
Michael League: It’s really funny.

00:25:53.763 –> 00:25:58.223
Michael League: I’m looking at these folders in my, these files in the folders from this session.

00:25:58.223 –> 00:26:01.403
Michael League: And yeah, day two of rehearsal has three songs in it.

00:26:01.403 –> 00:26:06.903
Michael League: Day three has six, day four has nine, day five has 12, day six has 15.

00:26:06.903 –> 00:26:10.183
Michael League: So it’s intense, but really fun.

00:26:10.243 –> 00:26:20.043
Michael League: You’re just watching the songs grow and you listen to this demo now and it actually feels like that could be a record, you know, like people are playing with feeling, they’re playing confidence.

00:26:20.043 –> 00:26:21.183
Michael League: They know their parts.

00:26:21.183 –> 00:26:23.803
Michael League: Day one, it sounds like everybody’s scared.

00:26:23.803 –> 00:26:27.263
Michael League: And that makes sense, you know, it just needs reps, needs mileage.

00:26:27.263 –> 00:26:28.283
John Kennedy: Yeah, that’s amazing.

00:26:28.283 –> 00:26:40.763
John Kennedy: I mean, that’s a lot to take in and a really big workload knowing that you’re kind of learning and then rehearsing that again, plus adding things and then reviewing at night after the rehearsal.

00:26:40.763 –> 00:26:41.263
Michael League: Yeah.

00:26:41.263 –> 00:26:41.643
John Kennedy: Wow.

00:26:41.643 –> 00:26:46.663
John Kennedy: So I mean, with Bet, when do you know, right, we’ve got that done, we’ve nailed that in rehearsal.

00:26:46.663 –> 00:26:50.183
John Kennedy: And then when do you go and record?

00:26:50.183 –> 00:27:03.923
Michael League: Well, this record, Empire Central, was done in the same format that we’ve utilized quite a bit on records, like starting with Tell Your Friends, and then we did GroundUP, Family Dinner Volume 1, we like it here, Silva, Family Dinner Volume 2.

00:27:04.803 –> 00:27:13.023
Michael League: We used the same format, which is a live performance in a recording studio with an audience with everyone wearing headphones.

00:27:13.023 –> 00:27:17.463
Michael League: So I don’t really look at it as like a live show with an audience.

00:27:17.463 –> 00:27:21.683
Michael League: Sorry, I don’t look at it like a live show in a studio.

00:27:21.683 –> 00:27:28.763
Michael League: I think of it as a recording session with an audience, because we’re bringing them into our zone.

00:27:28.763 –> 00:27:31.503
Michael League: We’re not just taking like a live gig and throwing it in a studio.

00:27:32.083 –> 00:27:43.943
Michael League: We’re effectively making a record the exact same way we would make a record without them, but then the audience is just sitting around us also in headphones, hearing the music being recorded in its rawest form.

00:27:43.943 –> 00:27:50.363
Michael League: And this is great because then you get the sound quality of a recording studio, but you also get the live energy of musicians playing for human beings.

00:27:50.363 –> 00:27:53.603
Michael League: You know, you don’t get to go down your little perfectionist hole.

00:27:53.603 –> 00:28:00.763
Michael League: You know that you have one take and you better communicate something, you know, because you’re not going to play it perfectly.

00:28:01.003 –> 00:28:03.243
Michael League: Which I like, and I think that’s where the energy comes from.

00:28:03.243 –> 00:28:24.363
Michael League: I think this song, particularly at the end of Sean Martin’s solo, it like had kind of one of those moments for me, especially when you watch the video where you just feel like, you know, a very special thing that is the result of a lot of human energy in the room, kind of like rising from the audience and the band.

00:28:24.623 –> 00:28:32.983
Michael League: And that’s, I guess that would be like the special juju or whatever that Snarky Puppy has is that the live energy.

00:28:32.983 –> 00:28:34.163
Michael League: I mean, I’m not saying the music’s good.

00:28:34.163 –> 00:28:44.203
Michael League: I’m not saying, you know, the band is good, but there is a unique energy that we have from so many years of playing together and understanding how to emote together.

00:28:44.203 –> 00:28:45.123
Michael League: Yeah.

00:28:45.123 –> 00:28:48.303
Michael League: But I also want to say it’s not like we only do one take of every song.

00:28:48.303 –> 00:28:51.263
Michael League: For Empire Central, I think we did seven or eight nights of gigs.

00:28:51.263 –> 00:28:53.623
Michael League: So the song also grows from night one to night eight.

00:28:53.623 –> 00:28:57.283
Michael League: I would say the majority of the takes that we chose were in the last half of the nights.

00:28:57.883 –> 00:29:04.323
Michael League: So that also allows us that the freedom to try new things even as we’re recording for people live.

00:29:04.323 –> 00:29:04.863
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:29:04.863 –> 00:29:07.983
John Kennedy: Those lucky people who are part of that audience.

00:29:07.983 –> 00:29:09.523
John Kennedy: Can we dig into the final recording?

00:29:09.523 –> 00:29:11.063
John Kennedy: Maybe highlighting some of those parts.

00:29:11.063 –> 00:29:11.963
John Kennedy: Is that possible?

00:29:11.963 –> 00:29:12.683
Michael League: Of course.

00:29:12.683 –> 00:29:13.063
John Kennedy: Excellent.

00:29:13.063 –> 00:29:14.563
John Kennedy: Well, let’s start.

00:29:14.563 –> 00:29:16.363
John Kennedy: What are you going to start with then, Michael?

00:29:16.363 –> 00:29:18.563
Michael League: Oh, God.

00:29:18.563 –> 00:29:19.143
Michael League: Good question.

00:29:19.143 –> 00:29:23.023
Michael League: I haven’t opened this session since it was mixed.

00:29:23.363 –> 00:29:29.043
Michael League: So this is the pre-mix ProTools session that I sent to our engineer.

00:29:29.043 –> 00:29:30.523
Michael League: The way we were doing this record was funny.

00:29:30.523 –> 00:29:49.663
Michael League: He was sitting in this room on the desktop computer mixing as I was in my tracking room with a second computer setup doing all of the editing, which was very intensive on a record like this because you have, I don’t know, 80, 90 open microphones and maybe only 30 are being used at any moment.

00:29:49.663 –> 00:29:57.183
Michael League: Then you have a drum set switching, so 26 of those channels suddenly go from being essential to needing to be muted and 26 more need to be opened up.

00:29:57.183 –> 00:30:04.563
Michael League: So the editing was pretty intensive and then I would just send him each session as I finished it and he would start mixing, and then I’d work on the next session.

00:30:04.563 –> 00:30:06.243
Michael League: We had a little assembly line going.

00:30:06.243 –> 00:30:06.783
John Kennedy: Wow.

00:30:06.783 –> 00:30:14.063
Michael League: So just some interesting things maybe about this session that people that are as nerdy as all of us would find curious.

00:30:14.063 –> 00:30:16.363
Michael League: We have everyone in the same room.

00:30:16.363 –> 00:30:24.963
Michael League: We have three drum sets, three percussionists, three guitars, four horns, a violin, four keyboardists and a lot of keyboards.

00:30:24.963 –> 00:30:26.143
Michael League: All this stuff in the same room.

00:30:26.143 –> 00:30:27.343
Michael League: There’s a lot of bleed.

00:30:27.343 –> 00:30:31.143
Michael League: Obviously, we went DI as best as we could.

00:30:31.143 –> 00:30:37.343
Michael League: By the way, the mastermind behind all this stuff, the engineer that I work with on almost every project I do, is named Nick Hart.

00:30:37.343 –> 00:30:43.603
Michael League: He’s been a very, very close friend and colleague of mine for over a decade now.

00:30:46.063 –> 00:30:49.863
Michael League: This was his first live Snarky Puppy recording with us.

00:30:49.863 –> 00:31:01.303
Michael League: He’d mixed and engineered both of our studio records, Culture Vulture and Immigrants, but he came on then for Culture Vulture, which was 2016.

00:31:01.303 –> 00:31:12.883
Michael League: He was really spearheading all of this stuff and all these decisions, but there’s a secret weapon we had on this record, which is a microphone made by Lauten, Lauten Audio called the Ls-208.

00:31:14.623 –> 00:31:20.363
Michael League: This microphone isolates better than almost any microphone I’ve ever heard in my life.

00:31:20.363 –> 00:31:24.683
Michael League: We had it on the horns and I’m going to just show you how little drum bleed you have.

00:31:24.843 –> 00:31:29.163
Michael League: I’m telling you, you have three percussionist playing and a drum set.

00:31:29.163 –> 00:31:29.903
Michael League: Check this out.

00:31:40.970 –> 00:31:41.810
Michael League: It’s unbelievable.

00:31:41.810 –> 00:31:46.570
Michael League: I mean, the drum set is 10 feet away from him in a large room.

00:31:46.570 –> 00:31:49.310
Michael League: This is like on, this is Bob Reynolds playing tenor saxophone.

00:31:49.310 –> 00:31:50.330
Michael League: Check out his solo real quick.

00:32:14.960 –> 00:32:17.800
Michael League: So, I mean, this is crazy, you know?

00:32:17.800 –> 00:32:28.700
Michael League: I mean, it’s crazy how much these microphones were able to give us control over the tone that Nick ultimately was sculpting in the mix.

00:32:28.700 –> 00:32:36.160
Michael League: I can’t recommend these microphones highly enough for live sessions or any situation in which bleed would be detrimental.

00:32:36.160 –> 00:32:59.160
Michael League: I even tour with this microphone as my Oud mic when I play in, I have a duo with a British piano player named Bill Lawrence who also plays in Snarky Puppy and I bring this mic as my mic because Ouds are famously difficult to mic up and a grand piano five feet away from an Oud is going to eat up all the sound, right, that you’re producing from the instrument through the microphone.

00:32:59.160 –> 00:33:12.380
Michael League: But this microphone isolates so beautifully, it cancels, you know, all the peripheral frequencies so beautifully that it gives you a lot of autonomy over the sound that you’re trying to create with what you’re recording.

00:33:12.380 –> 00:33:18.880
Michael League: And so much so actually that we are, we’re going to do a record with The Metropole Orchestra, a second album.

00:33:18.880 –> 00:33:24.940
Michael League: We made a record in 2014 called Silva, and we’re making a new one that I’m writing in a couple of months, and we’re recording it in January.

00:33:24.940 –> 00:33:34.000
Michael League: And I think we’re asking for like two or three dozen of these microphones from Lauten because we’re going to have 75 people in a room recording together, you know?

00:33:34.000 –> 00:33:35.980
John Kennedy: And so for this session, how many are you using?

00:33:36.080 –> 00:33:41.040
John Kennedy: I mean, is everybody miked with the Lauten Ls-208 or no?

00:33:41.040 –> 00:33:41.500
Michael League: No, no, no.

00:33:41.500 –> 00:33:47.600
Michael League: I think the Ls-208s are only on at least the horns and the talkbox.

00:33:47.600 –> 00:33:58.040
Michael League: And I know that since then, they’ve released, I think that they just called the Lauten Snare Mic and I think also one that they called the Lauten Tom Mic that kind of had the same level of cancellation.

00:33:58.040 –> 00:34:00.560
Michael League: It’s just so awesome.

00:34:00.560 –> 00:34:03.080
Michael League: For live recordings, it’s unbelievable, you know?

00:34:03.080 –> 00:34:07.940
Michael League: And we also used a lot of this microphone that I’m speaking into now, which is the Lauten Atlantis.

00:34:07.940 –> 00:34:20.320
Michael League: You can see them as the overheads on the percussion and in other places on that live record, which this for me is like a mic that in mic shootouts that we do in the studio for vocalists.

00:34:20.320 –> 00:34:24.760
Michael League: When I’m producing records, this mic wins more than any other mic that I have in the studio.

00:34:24.760 –> 00:34:26.940
Michael League: And it also sounds great on guitars.

00:34:26.940 –> 00:34:31.060
Michael League: It’s like a workhorse, but it sounds really beautiful and rich.

00:34:31.060 –> 00:34:34.920
Michael League: We also used a lot of Audio-Technica microphones on the Empire Central recording.

00:34:35.520 –> 00:34:37.740
Michael League: I mean, especially like the condensers and stuff.

00:34:37.740 –> 00:34:41.980
Michael League: I mean, just really, really, really beautiful stuff.

00:34:41.980 –> 00:34:42.980
John Kennedy: Really interesting.

00:34:42.980 –> 00:34:44.180
John Kennedy: Should we dig back into the stems?

00:34:44.240 –> 00:34:49.700
John Kennedy: I think it would be interesting to hear how the percussion and the drums work.

00:34:49.700 –> 00:34:53.600
John Kennedy: You were saying how one drummer starts, next picks it up.

00:34:53.800 –> 00:34:59.160
John Kennedy: And just to see if there’s something we can detect when isolated.

00:34:59.160 –> 00:34:59.300
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:34:59.300 –> 00:35:01.180
Michael League: So I’ll just show you the different drum sounds that we had going on.

00:35:01.180 –> 00:35:03.860
Michael League: Three different drum sets, three different setups, three different players.

00:35:04.940 –> 00:35:12.080
Michael League: So, I mean, actually in the ProTools session, we don’t even have them as like drum set one, two or three.

00:35:12.080 –> 00:35:18.960
Michael League: We just have them actually by name, because that’s just the easier way to do things in Snarky Puppy.

00:35:18.960 –> 00:35:22.340
Michael League: So here is Laurel’s drum set.

00:35:41.658 –> 00:35:42.698
Michael League: Now, switching to Jamison.

00:36:07.561 –> 00:36:10.821
Michael League: And now, switching to JT, Jason Thomas.

00:36:13.101 –> 00:36:15.161
Michael League: Oh, sorry, that’s later.

00:36:29.347 –> 00:36:34.767
Michael League: And if I dump the percussion into this, it will sound like this.

00:36:56.347 –> 00:36:57.147
Michael League: Drop the bass in.

00:37:35.708 –> 00:37:44.088
Michael League: So, yeah, I mean, it’s a thing that you see a lot of people playing at once, and it feels like, wow, this has got to be chaotic.

00:37:44.088 –> 00:37:54.088
Michael League: But actually, when you dive into the sessions, it’s like people are playing very carefully constructed parts in a very restrained way to serve the greater good, the overall sound.

00:37:54.088 –> 00:38:01.988
Michael League: And it’s just fun having that many colors available to you as a producer and as a band leader.

00:38:02.868 –> 00:38:03.448
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:38:03.448 –> 00:38:06.028
John Kennedy: So, I mean, is more more?

00:38:06.028 –> 00:38:10.008
John Kennedy: I mean, everybody talks about the famous maxim, less is more.

00:38:10.008 –> 00:38:14.068
John Kennedy: But here, in the world of Snarky Puppy, is more more?

00:38:14.088 –> 00:38:16.248
John Kennedy: I hope that doesn’t sound silly, but…

00:38:16.248 –> 00:38:18.708
Michael League: No, I love it.

00:38:18.708 –> 00:38:24.088
Michael League: I would say more used less is more, you know?

00:38:24.128 –> 00:38:31.488
Michael League: Because more is more, for me, in Snarky Puppy would mean everyone playing all the time as much as possible.

00:38:31.488 –> 00:38:35.288
Michael League: But I think what we’re doing is we have more options.

00:38:35.288 –> 00:38:40.148
Michael League: We have so many colors available to us with so many musicians playing so many different instruments.

00:38:40.148 –> 00:38:44.348
Michael League: And then we just choose when each person plays what.

00:38:44.348 –> 00:38:50.548
Michael League: And we do it in a kind of like prudent, restrained, hopefully tasteful way.

00:38:50.548 –> 00:39:02.588
Michael League: You know, the hard thing is being able to be in a situation where you can afford to have 20 people with 20 different personalities that are playing their instruments at a very high level that are also happy to not play when that’s the most appropriate thing.

00:39:02.588 –> 00:39:05.928
Michael League: And we’re in a very fortunate position to be able to do that.

00:39:05.928 –> 00:39:07.728
Michael League: But yeah, I think it also just depends on the music.

00:39:07.728 –> 00:39:15.368
Michael League: I mean, you know, I made a duo kind of folk record with a great singer, Catalan singer named Lau Noah last week in my house.

00:39:15.368 –> 00:39:18.868
Michael League: And between the two of us, we’re capable of doing different things.

00:39:18.868 –> 00:39:19.948
Michael League: We can play different instruments.

00:39:19.948 –> 00:39:21.388
Michael League: We can do lots of different stuff.

00:39:22.408 –> 00:39:33.428
Michael League: But in the end, for that music, we found that the thing that created the most powerful emotion was literally two acoustic guitars not being overdubbed and a bass and our voices.

00:39:33.428 –> 00:39:34.828
Michael League: I didn’t even play keyboards on it.

00:39:34.828 –> 00:39:38.228
Michael League: I was expecting to play piano or Rhodes or I didn’t do any of that.

00:39:38.228 –> 00:39:40.008
Michael League: Because that was the right thing for the music.

00:39:40.008 –> 00:39:49.748
Michael League: And I think in Snarky Puppy, the music is like maximalist in a certain kind of way, but the approach that each individual musician takes is actually very minimalistic.

00:39:50.248 –> 00:39:56.328
Michael League: Like it doesn’t seem that way because you have 20 people playing minimalistically and that sounds like a lot.

00:39:56.328 –> 00:40:01.988
Michael League: But if you really isolate these parts, I mean, it’s crazy how simple the parts are.

00:40:01.988 –> 00:40:04.928
Michael League: It’s the way that they interlock that gives it richness, I think.

00:40:04.928 –> 00:40:05.408
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:40:05.408 –> 00:40:06.348
John Kennedy: And it’s quite different.

00:40:06.348 –> 00:40:11.928
John Kennedy: I mean, I was just thinking of comparing it to other big ensembles and ideas about sound.

00:40:11.928 –> 00:40:19.888
John Kennedy: So say if we take Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound and the idea that he wanted to just build and build and build so that you had this literal wall.

00:40:19.888 –> 00:40:30.328
John Kennedy: And similarly with somebody like Reese Chatham or Glenn Branko when they’re kind of building this layer and layer of many guitars playing at the same time.

00:40:30.328 –> 00:40:42.148
John Kennedy: It’s quite different to what Snarky Puppy are doing because you’re each individually reassessing and dropping out, dropping in, disappearing from a certain other part to allow somebody else in.

00:40:42.148 –> 00:40:43.228
John Kennedy: No, it’s quite different.

00:40:43.748 –> 00:40:57.228
Michael League: It is, and there’s a lot of techniques and tactics you can employ if you’re in a large ensemble to make sure that things don’t get too cluttered and crowded and chaotic, which is the first and most effective option is to not play.

00:40:57.228 –> 00:41:03.308
Michael League: The less people you have playing, the more space there is and the cleaner and clearer things will be.

00:41:03.308 –> 00:41:09.548
Michael League: That’s always everybody’s first line of defense against chaos creation.

00:41:10.468 –> 00:41:16.548
Michael League: The second thing is you can play the exact same thing that another person in the band is playing.

00:41:16.548 –> 00:41:19.148
Michael League: The person next to you, the person across from you.

00:41:19.148 –> 00:41:27.528
Michael League: Doubling, like a guitar player and a keyboard player might double what the horns are playing in one moment, while the keyboard player and guitar player next to them are playing the chords.

00:41:27.528 –> 00:41:28.588
Michael League: Doubling is another thing.

00:41:28.688 –> 00:41:32.788
Michael League: Then the third thing is playing dramatically different parts.

00:41:34.608 –> 00:41:35.728
Michael League: I’m actually curious.

00:41:35.848 –> 00:41:41.488
Michael League: I don’t know what’s happening in this bridge, but I’ll listen to the three guitar players and see what each one is doing.

00:41:41.488 –> 00:41:46.908
Michael League: I would guess that they’re doing two to three different things so that they don’t get too close to each other.

00:41:46.908 –> 00:41:49.148
Michael League: So let’s see.

00:41:51.788 –> 00:41:56.948
Michael League: So this is Bob Lanzetti, rhythmic chord strumming.

00:42:01.548 –> 00:42:16.108
Michael League: Chris McQueen, playing the same rhythm and the same chords, but a different extension of the voicing, which is really interesting.

00:42:16.108 –> 00:42:29.028
Michael League: Basically, they’ve taken a single chord voicing that one guitar player is capable of playing, and Bob is playing the lower half of it, and Chris is playing the upper half of it, which is a really cool tactic.

00:42:33.708 –> 00:42:38.448
Michael League: And then Mark is playing, actually, the highest part of that voicing.

00:42:38.448 –> 00:42:47.088
Michael League: So actually, we have Bob Lanzetti playing the lower third of the voicing, Chris McQueen playing the middle third of it, and Mark Lattery playing the higher third of it, the upper third of it.

00:42:47.088 –> 00:42:56.468
Michael League: And so when you listen to it all together, it’s only one rhythm, and it’s only one concept, which is chordal accompaniment.

00:42:56.468 –> 00:43:04.288
Michael League: But it’s being expressed by three different people, just playing more minimalistically than they would play if they were alone on the stage, right?

00:43:04.288 –> 00:43:14.288
Michael League: So this kind of stuff gets employed a lot in our band because there are so many people, and we want to make sure that there’s space for the music to breathe.

00:43:14.288 –> 00:43:19.568
Michael League: But it’s, yeah, it’s fun kind of meeting that challenge and finding different routes.

00:43:19.568 –> 00:43:19.948
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:43:19.948 –> 00:43:21.788
John Kennedy: And is anybody directing that?

00:43:21.788 –> 00:43:27.168
John Kennedy: Is that the kind of decision-making that comes out of these days of rehearsal that you were talking about?

00:43:27.168 –> 00:43:28.008
Michael League: Yeah, exactly.

00:43:28.008 –> 00:43:39.228
Michael League: I mean, I think probably when we rehearsed this song, we said, okay, horns are on the melody, keyboards and guitars, let’s all play this one rhythm and maybe one guitar play, funky single note stuff or whatever.

00:43:39.228 –> 00:43:42.728
Michael League: And then we try that and say, oh, that sounds too chord heavy.

00:43:42.728 –> 00:43:45.268
Michael League: You two laid out, lay out, don’t play.

00:43:45.268 –> 00:43:48.868
Michael League: You two play the chords, you two blah, blah, blah, and we just try different stuff.

00:43:48.868 –> 00:43:56.408
Michael League: And sometimes also it’s a thing that like, we’ll be in the middle of the rehearsal and we’ll play a section for the first time and everyone will have a million ideas.

00:43:56.408 –> 00:44:02.388
Michael League: And I’ll notice that one of the guitar players is saying something to one of the other guitar players and I’ll just let them do their thing.

00:44:02.388 –> 00:44:03.548
Michael League: I’ll be like, they’re going to work it out.

00:44:03.548 –> 00:44:05.408
Michael League: The three of them work great together.

00:44:05.408 –> 00:44:06.528
Michael League: They’re going to come up with a plan.

00:44:06.648 –> 00:44:08.068
Michael League: I don’t even need to get into it.

00:44:08.068 –> 00:44:10.528
Michael League: And then I’ll work with the horns or I’ll work with the keyboard as well.

00:44:10.528 –> 00:44:11.448
Michael League: The guitar players are talking.

00:44:12.128 –> 00:44:16.308
Michael League: It can feel kind of like British Parliament at times, I guess, you know?

00:44:16.308 –> 00:44:21.648
Michael League: Like if you just walked into a Snarky Puppy rehearsal, you hear 30 people all talking at the same time.

00:44:21.648 –> 00:44:23.128
Michael League: You know, you’re like, what is going on?

00:44:23.128 –> 00:44:28.008
Michael League: But actually, that’s what the work looks and sounds like sometimes, right?

00:44:28.008 –> 00:44:31.948
Michael League: It’s like everyone’s talking at once, but they’re not talking into the middle of the room.

00:44:31.948 –> 00:44:34.628
Michael League: They’re talking to their respective section mates.

00:44:35.388 –> 00:44:36.628
Michael League: And actually, things are getting done.

00:44:36.628 –> 00:44:42.848
Michael League: And they’re actually getting done five or six times faster than they would be if everyone was just silent and we were dealing with one thing at a time.

00:44:42.848 –> 00:44:44.908
Michael League: I’m not saying the whole rehearsal is like that.

00:44:44.908 –> 00:44:48.028
Michael League: You know, it’s just when I sense that, okay, everybody has a grasp on what’s going on.

00:44:48.028 –> 00:44:50.088
Michael League: Now we try it again and then we observe.

00:44:50.088 –> 00:44:55.228
Michael League: And then maybe I’ll make a comment or someone else in the band will make a comment about what can be improved or whatever.

00:44:55.228 –> 00:44:56.408
Michael League: But it’s funny.

00:44:56.408 –> 00:44:59.988
Michael League: Yeah, it’s like I’ve seen people walk into the sessions and just everyone’s talking.

00:45:01.888 –> 00:45:05.008
Michael League: And the person that walks in is like, what is going on?

00:45:05.008 –> 00:45:05.668
Michael League: This is chaos.

00:45:05.668 –> 00:45:06.728
Michael League: But it’s really not.

00:45:06.728 –> 00:45:11.148
Michael League: It’s like people are just taking care of their business internally like in their own sections.

00:45:11.148 –> 00:45:11.528
John Kennedy: Yeah.

00:45:11.528 –> 00:45:12.728
John Kennedy: Amazing.

00:45:12.728 –> 00:45:14.008
John Kennedy: We have a lot to talk about.

00:45:14.008 –> 00:45:15.448
John Kennedy: We’re going to look at another couple of tracks.

00:45:15.448 –> 00:45:22.328
John Kennedy: So maybe we should round off Bet with maybe that section, but the full thing with everybody playing.

00:45:22.328 –> 00:45:25.968
John Kennedy: That section you just played us or the ending, whatever you think.

00:45:25.968 –> 00:45:26.688
Michael League: Yeah, absolutely.

00:46:48.750 –> 00:46:58.330
John Kennedy: So, that is Bet by Snarky Puppy, and we’ve just had a little window into the world of Snarky Puppy and how you create together, Michael.

00:46:58.330 –> 00:47:00.230
John Kennedy: Absolutely fascinating stuff.

00:47:00.230 –> 00:47:07.170
John Kennedy: We have got a lot to get through, though, because we’re going to look at two other tracks, two tracks by two different artists that you’re working with at the moment.

00:47:07.170 –> 00:47:13.630
John Kennedy: And we’re going to take a quick break, and the next of those people that we’re going to listen to will be Varijashree Venugopal.

00:47:43.817 –> 00:47:50.257
John Kennedy: This episode is being supported by Tape It, the ultimate iPhone voice note app designed specifically for musicians.

00:47:50.257 –> 00:48:01.637
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00:48:01.637 –> 00:48:07.957
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00:48:26.417 –> 00:48:28.877
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00:48:28.877 –> 00:48:30.697
John Kennedy: Now on with the show.

00:48:34.537 –> 00:48:42.797
John Kennedy: This episode is brought to you by Roland Cloud, a service giving you access to Roland’s suite of iconic software synthesizers, drum machines and sampled instruments.

00:48:42.797 –> 00:48:48.977
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00:48:48.977 –> 00:48:51.697
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00:48:51.697 –> 00:48:52.477
John Kennedy: Hi, Brandon.

00:48:52.517 –> 00:48:54.317
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00:48:54.317 –> 00:48:57.777
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00:50:04.077 –> 00:50:04.877
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00:50:37.597 –> 00:50:45.377
John Kennedy: The next track we’re going to look at today with Michael League is by Varijashree Venugopal, and it’s Ranjani from the Vari album.

00:50:45.577 –> 00:50:51.077
John Kennedy: So, Michael’s going to play a blast of the master, and then we’ll work out how this was all created.

00:52:15.300 –> 00:52:22.040
John Kennedy: Just a little taste of Ranjani by Varijashree Venugopal from the album Vari.

00:52:22.040 –> 00:52:28.380
John Kennedy: Michael, how did you meet up with Varijashree, and how did this all begin?

00:52:28.380 –> 00:52:32.880
Michael League: I first heard of Vari through the internet.

00:52:32.880 –> 00:52:43.900
Michael League: I think I saw a video of her singing John Coltrane’s solo on Giant Steps in Sargam, which is the South Indian, the Carnatic form of Sulphagio.

00:52:43.900 –> 00:52:53.620
Michael League: They have their own syllabic system with corresponding pitches, and she sang this whole train solo on Giant Steps using that system.

00:52:53.740 –> 00:53:01.720
Michael League: So it wasn’t just like babaduba, babaduba, you know, it was like with all of the corresponding pitches, syllables to those pitches.

00:53:01.720 –> 00:53:05.480
Michael League: It was totally mind blowing for me.

00:53:05.480 –> 00:53:21.720
Michael League: And people do a lot of stuff like this on the internet, like because they know that it’s going to get attention and you can kind of like smell when someone’s faking it or when they, you know, recorded it and then filmed themselves doing it later, or if they tuned it or quantized it.

00:53:21.720 –> 00:53:29.620
Michael League: And it was like so obvious from this video that this was a person that had just learned this solo and was singing like everything in tune.

00:53:29.620 –> 00:53:30.920
Michael League: I mean, everything in tune.

00:53:31.160 –> 00:53:32.300
Michael League: It was unbelievable.

00:53:32.300 –> 00:53:34.820
Michael League: Perfect time, perfect, like just all the feeling.

00:53:34.820 –> 00:53:36.300
Michael League: It was so rich and beautiful.

00:53:36.300 –> 00:53:37.260
Michael League: So I think I just sent her a message.

00:53:37.260 –> 00:53:38.860
Michael League: I was like, this is amazing.

00:53:38.860 –> 00:53:40.180
Michael League: If you ever come to New York, let me know.

00:53:40.180 –> 00:53:41.220
Michael League: I’d love to meet you.

00:53:41.220 –> 00:53:50.920
Michael League: And she came to New York with her percussionist, Pramath Kiran, who went on to be the co-producer on this record Vadi with me in Bangalore.

00:53:50.920 –> 00:53:57.080
Michael League: We recorded over two weeks in Bangalore in April of 2022, I think.

00:53:57.080 –> 00:54:00.060
Michael League: And we went to see Roy Haynes at the Blue Note.

00:54:00.060 –> 00:54:00.900
Michael League: It was hilarious.

00:54:00.900 –> 00:54:02.040
Michael League: It was great.

00:54:02.040 –> 00:54:05.800
Michael League: And she came to my studio the next two days, and we just kind of wrote some stuff together.

00:54:05.800 –> 00:54:07.100
Michael League: We worked on some songs together.

00:54:07.100 –> 00:54:08.580
Michael League: This was one of them.

00:54:08.580 –> 00:54:16.240
Michael League: And it was incredible to just see how fluently she spoke.

00:54:16.240 –> 00:54:20.720
Michael League: Not only her native musical tongue of Carnatic music, right, of South Indian classical music.

00:54:21.200 –> 00:54:23.740
Michael League: You would expect her to speak that fluently, of course.

00:54:23.740 –> 00:54:37.340
Michael League: But how quickly she adapted to Western aesthetics and idiosyncrasies and all of these things, like, you know, I mean, she’s coming from a form of music that doesn’t have chords in it, right?

00:54:37.340 –> 00:54:38.800
Michael League: You have a drone.

00:54:38.800 –> 00:54:45.300
Michael League: You have this incredibly rich rhythmic vocabulary and this incredibly rich melodic vocabulary.

00:54:45.300 –> 00:54:48.880
Michael League: But people don’t play chords in South Indian classical music.

00:54:49.920 –> 00:54:56.660
Michael League: So, like, you know, this is the first time in her life she’s ever really dealt with chords on this record.

00:54:56.660 –> 00:55:03.440
Michael League: And what was really crazy about it was that she would send me demos of just her singing a melody with click.

00:55:03.440 –> 00:55:09.980
Michael League: And on one song in particular that’s called Dream, the first song on the record, she sent me the melody and she said, can you write the chords to it?

00:55:09.980 –> 00:55:11.740
Michael League: And I said, I think you should write the chords.

00:55:11.740 –> 00:55:13.180
Michael League: And she said, I’ve never written a chord in my life.

00:55:13.520 –> 00:55:14.980
Michael League: I don’t even really know how that works.

00:55:15.140 –> 00:55:20.560
Michael League: And I said, well, you know, chords are just different melodies happening at the same time.

00:55:20.560 –> 00:55:27.760
Michael League: So sing a second melody under your first melody that you’ve already recorded, and then sing a third melody under that and see what happens.

00:55:27.760 –> 00:55:31.980
Michael League: And she sent me back this demo and I actually cried.

00:55:31.980 –> 00:55:36.340
Michael League: It was like some of the most beautiful harmony I’d ever heard in my life.

00:55:36.340 –> 00:55:38.160
Michael League: And I called her and I said, okay, we have a new rule.

00:55:38.160 –> 00:55:40.120
Michael League: And on this record, I’m not allowed to write chords.

00:55:40.120 –> 00:55:43.820
Michael League: You have to write all the chords because it’s just going to be so unique.

00:55:44.420 –> 00:55:54.300
Michael League: If I do it, it’s just going to sound like other stuff I’ve done that I’ve produced or arranged or co-written to really give this record a more special feeling.

00:55:54.300 –> 00:55:56.160
Michael League: You have to do all that.

00:55:56.160 –> 00:55:59.520
Michael League: And so she did and it was really beautiful.

00:55:59.520 –> 00:56:03.300
Michael League: And on this track in particular, there aren’t chords.

00:56:03.300 –> 00:56:14.480
Michael League: We formed a chord by stacking a bunch of this crazy instrument that’s called not a swatum that sounds like a, I don’t know, it’s like a long double reed woodwind instrument.

00:56:14.480 –> 00:56:18.560
Michael League: It’s got a very piercing specific sound.

00:56:18.560 –> 00:56:28.520
Michael League: And we had a not a swatum player, like a traditional not a swatum player, stack all of these different notes which you would not hear in Carnatic music.

00:56:28.520 –> 00:56:32.540
Michael League: We also did something really interesting with the strings on this song.

00:56:32.540 –> 00:56:35.340
Michael League: You hear like a kind of orchestra of violins playing.

00:56:35.920 –> 00:56:40.580
Michael League: In Carnatic music, you never hear two violins playing the same thing.

00:56:40.580 –> 00:56:48.940
Michael League: It’s a thing that you very often hear in Western classical music or in Western folk music where you have people playing a melody together or whatever.

00:56:48.940 –> 00:56:53.160
Michael League: This doesn’t happen in Carnatic music because every time you play a melody, you play it differently.

00:56:53.160 –> 00:56:55.780
Michael League: You embellish differently, you ornament it differently.

00:56:55.780 –> 00:57:01.040
Michael League: So it inherently having more than one person do that would sound kind of messy.

00:57:01.040 –> 00:57:06.280
Michael League: But we wanted to have this sound of kind of like, I don’t know, like the first Carnatic orchestra.

00:57:06.280 –> 00:57:11.800
Michael League: So we got these two sisters who play violin together and a guy who plays frequently with them.

00:57:11.800 –> 00:57:21.000
Michael League: We got the three of them together and we made them, before they recorded each phrase, we made them agree on how they would ornament and embellish the phrase.

00:57:21.000 –> 00:57:23.240
Michael League: And then they would all play it together, the three of them.

00:57:23.240 –> 00:57:27.140
Michael League: And then they’d stack it like four or five more times the exact same way.

00:57:27.140 –> 00:57:39.040
Michael League: So the result that you get is it sounds like you have 15 to 25, or I can’t remember how many stacks we did, people playing with the ornaments and the embellishments almost identical.

00:57:39.040 –> 00:57:50.240
Michael League: So this was like kind of the process for this record, was we were trying to take this really deeply rooted tradition and just play with it and experiment with new things.

00:57:50.240 –> 00:57:51.540
John Kennedy: Can we hear the demo?

00:57:51.540 –> 00:57:53.480
John Kennedy: Because I know that you have a demo for this track.

00:57:53.480 –> 00:57:55.220
John Kennedy: It would be great to hear that.

00:57:55.220 –> 00:57:55.740
Michael League: Absolutely.

00:57:55.740 –> 00:57:58.440
Michael League: Yeah, the original demo is this.

00:58:31.460 –> 00:58:32.760
Michael League: So this is basically what the demo is.

00:58:32.760 –> 00:58:38.740
Michael League: It’s Tampura playing this drone, a click and Vari singing a melody.

00:58:38.740 –> 00:58:39.580
Michael League: That’s it.

00:58:39.580 –> 00:58:53.260
Michael League: So basically I took that melody and just decided how to orchestrate it, decided kind of Pramath and I decided what grooves the percussion would play in which moments, when we wanted a full groove, when we wanted it to be a spacious groove.

00:58:53.260 –> 00:58:54.680
Michael League: Then we added this section.

00:58:55.700 –> 00:59:01.080
Michael League: I really wanted this song to kind of drop into like a trap kind of feeling.

00:59:02.820 –> 00:59:17.700
Michael League: I wanted to have this huge contrast between this very typical Carnatic melody, which is in the Raga of Ranjani, and then just have this huge modern contrast with this.

00:59:17.700 –> 00:59:39.720
Michael League: Because I think also India, a big part of this record with Vari was kind of representing India, also not just Indian musical traditions, but representing the spirit of India, and India is a place where you do feel this huge collision between this like deep, rich history and past and tradition with like hyper modernism, and a country that’s developing so rapidly.

00:59:40.940 –> 00:59:44.100
Michael League: So we thought this would be like a nice way to do it.

00:59:44.100 –> 00:59:45.660
Michael League: So this is the section I’ll show you.

00:59:49.200 –> 00:59:49.500
John Kennedy: Right here.

01:00:04.289 –> 01:00:10.549
Michael League: So these are all folk or classical instruments being played like chende playing this…

01:00:10.649 –> 01:00:13.109
Michael League: Ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta-ka-ta.

01:00:13.109 –> 01:00:15.749
Michael League: And then we have a, you know, whatever, a snare drum.

01:00:15.749 –> 01:00:19.309
Michael League: I sampled an Indian drum for the kick.

01:00:19.309 –> 01:00:27.249
Michael League: I’m playing a mini moog, model D for the bass, and Bela Fleck, the great banjo player Bela Fleck, is taking the solo on this.

01:00:27.289 –> 01:00:29.089
Michael League: And then Varijashree takes a solo.

01:00:31.229 –> 01:00:33.629
Michael League: But what’s interesting is there’s still no harmony.

01:00:33.629 –> 01:00:39.669
Michael League: You know, it’s just, it’s, it’s still like a drone, but the drone is in the bass now.

01:00:47.629 –> 01:00:51.089
Michael League: And the time and the groove and all this stuff is continuing.

01:00:51.089 –> 01:00:56.489
Michael League: So we’re preserving a lot of these traditional elements, but making things modern also.

01:00:56.489 –> 01:00:59.409
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:00:59.409 –> 01:01:03.609
Michael League: And this is an old Carnatic melody now.

01:01:03.609 –> 01:01:06.569
Michael League: That body inserts it as the thing after the solo.

01:01:23.334 –> 01:01:26.154
Michael League: So it’s, yeah, it’s like all about this clash of worlds.

01:01:26.154 –> 01:01:33.874
Michael League: I think that was the kind of the idea of the record is like, let’s respect all these Carnatic rules, but let’s also just like break as many as possible.

01:01:33.874 –> 01:01:44.254
Michael League: I mean, always in Carnatic music, or almost always you have a drone, which is normally played on a tampura, which is like a large stringed instrument that kind of looks like a vina or a sitar.

01:01:44.254 –> 01:01:49.754
Michael League: And we have a drone on every song, but it’s never on the same instrument, and it’s never on an Indian instrument.

01:01:49.754 –> 01:02:04.394
Michael League: So in this case, I think the drone is like a harmonic I played on a hammer-tone 12-string electric guitar that strung one octave up, that then I put like an endless kind of delay reverb on.

01:02:04.394 –> 01:02:07.074
Michael League: Sometimes I did it on a fretless guitar with an Ebow.

01:02:07.074 –> 01:02:09.314
Michael League: Sometimes I did it on a synthesizer with a bunch of effects.

01:02:09.314 –> 01:02:11.854
Michael League: So we’re like, OK, Carnatic music has a drone.

01:02:11.854 –> 01:02:14.254
Michael League: We’ll also have a drone, but it’s never going to be the tampura.

01:02:15.594 –> 01:02:26.614
Michael League: So this process is really exciting for me, this idea of like, how do you kind of like, I don’t want to say update tradition, but how do you put an old tradition in new clothes?

01:02:26.614 –> 01:02:27.134
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:02:27.134 –> 01:02:39.034
John Kennedy: Would you be able to play us those sections that you were talking about before, where you had the people playing the same melody in the same way, augmenting it in the same way, breaking tradition?

01:02:39.034 –> 01:02:42.134
John Kennedy: I mean, how do they feel about breaking these traditions?

01:02:42.134 –> 01:02:57.814
Michael League: Yeah, I mean, it’s an interesting thing because a lot of the people who played on this record are very, very, very highly respected members of the Carnatic music community, and they were all like really into it, super into it.

01:02:57.814 –> 01:03:08.774
Michael League: And I mean, in a lot of cases, they were in their recording, we were asking them to play things that were similar to what they normally played or not so similar or whatever, but they’re in there and they’re only kind of hearing what they’re doing.

01:03:08.774 –> 01:03:15.274
Michael League: And then they would come in and hear how it fit into the context of the track, and they would be like, what?

01:03:15.274 –> 01:03:26.794
Michael League: You know, I mean, we had the Nadaswadam player actually improvise two different solos in two different ragas that fit two chords that were next to each other in a song.

01:03:26.794 –> 01:03:32.134
Michael League: So it was like two alternating chords that were in different keys, which for us is normal, right?

01:03:32.134 –> 01:03:36.994
Michael League: You have like a C major and then you have like an A major or something, right?

01:03:36.994 –> 01:03:43.054
Michael League: Those two chords are technically never in the same key, but we do that a lot in our parts of the world.

01:03:43.054 –> 01:03:45.114
Michael League: In India, you don’t, you have the raga.

01:03:45.114 –> 01:03:49.494
Michael League: The raga doesn’t just like change every bar and then change back, right?

01:03:49.494 –> 01:04:19.614
Michael League: So we had him take two different instruments, two different not-as-wadams that are in those respective keys, and take a solo in each of those keys, and then we edited it together to where we take one solo for one bar, and then the other solo in the other key for the next bar, and then the first solo from the first key in the third bar, and then the second solo in the second key for the fourth bar, and we did this for like 16 bars, you know, and he came in and he listened to it, and he was like, what?

01:04:19.614 –> 01:04:20.294
Michael League: It was amazing.

01:04:20.294 –> 01:04:26.134
Michael League: He had never played a solo in multiple keys in his life, and for us, that’s just so normal, right?

01:04:26.134 –> 01:04:27.994
Michael League: But in Carnatic music, it’s really not.

01:04:27.994 –> 01:04:33.794
Michael League: It’s just not in that vocabulary, and they have so much vocabulary that is way out of what we do.

01:04:33.794 –> 01:04:35.334
Michael League: It has nothing to do with complexity.

01:04:35.454 –> 01:04:43.714
Michael League: I think if you had to make an argument for complexity, you would argue that Carnatic music is one of the most complex forms of music in the world.

01:04:43.714 –> 01:04:44.334
Michael League: It’s not about that.

01:04:44.334 –> 01:04:51.514
Michael League: It’s just about aesthetics, and it’s about vocabulary and things that happen in different styles of music around the world.

01:04:51.514 –> 01:04:53.634
Michael League: So it was really fun.

01:04:53.634 –> 01:05:00.874
Michael League: We did a lot of stuff like that, just like trying to bend and stretch rules and tradition as much as possible.

01:05:00.874 –> 01:05:18.794
Michael League: I’m sure that there are people that disagree with what body is doing, because whenever you’re dealing with a form of music that’s that deep and rich and deeply ingrained in a culture, I mean, we’re talking about a thousands of years old music tradition, right?

01:05:18.794 –> 01:05:20.814
Michael League: I mean, thousands.

01:05:20.814 –> 01:05:29.874
Michael League: So that gives a lot of time for people to get pretty snobby and purist about how things can be.

01:05:30.074 –> 01:05:37.114
Michael League: And obviously, it’s like when the music is performed in the traditional way at the highest level, it’s unreal.

01:05:37.114 –> 01:05:44.314
Michael League: But it doesn’t, in my opinion and in body’s opinion and really everyone’s opinion who worked on the record, it doesn’t mean that these two things can’t coexist.

01:05:44.314 –> 01:05:48.254
Michael League: You can’t have this traditional way of playing the music.

01:05:48.254 –> 01:05:55.354
Michael League: I mean, you can have this traditional way of playing the music, and a radically different way of playing the music.

01:05:55.354 –> 01:05:59.534
Michael League: They can both exist at the same time, and they’re not going to cannibalize each other in any way.

01:05:59.534 –> 01:06:01.374
Michael League: Yeah.

01:06:01.374 –> 01:06:15.454
Michael League: Also, I think it’s worth saying that every single thing that we consider to be fundamental to a tradition at one point was a revolution or was an innovation, right?

01:06:15.454 –> 01:06:19.014
Michael League: At one point, the drone was introduced to Carnatic music.

01:06:19.014 –> 01:06:24.574
Michael League: At one point, the Raga Ranjani was introduced to Carnatic music.

01:06:24.714 –> 01:06:28.654
Michael League: It’s not like it fell down from the heavens when the Earth was formed.

01:06:28.654 –> 01:06:38.414
Michael League: So I’m a big believer in this philosophy that you respect tradition 100% because it is the way.

01:06:38.414 –> 01:06:40.634
Michael League: It is the guide for all of us.

01:06:40.634 –> 01:06:44.994
Michael League: If we’re unrooted, it’s easy for us to blow away in the wind.

01:06:44.994 –> 01:06:47.814
Michael League: But that doesn’t mean that we got to stay in the ground.

01:06:47.814 –> 01:06:48.434
Michael League: You know what I mean?

01:06:48.434 –> 01:06:52.474
Michael League: Even if the ground is beautiful and rich, it’s fun to try new stuff.

01:06:53.154 –> 01:07:00.314
Michael League: And everyone who we respect as a stalwart of the tradition was innovative in a certain sense.

01:07:00.314 –> 01:07:05.334
Michael League: They brought something new, which is why they have their place in the annals of the history of that music.

01:07:05.334 –> 01:07:06.334
Michael League: So let me play you some of the stuff.

01:07:06.334 –> 01:07:08.934
John Kennedy: Yeah, you’ve got a lot to illustrate us now.

01:07:08.934 –> 01:07:09.274
Michael League: Okay.

01:07:09.274 –> 01:07:15.334
Michael League: So here you heard the drone from the demo, which sounds like this.

01:07:15.374 –> 01:07:20.314
Michael League: This is a tamboura, right?

01:07:20.314 –> 01:07:29.914
Michael League: And the drone that we used was this, this 12-String electric guitar that’s strong an octablet made by F-Bass called a hammer tone.

01:07:34.214 –> 01:07:35.014
Michael League: This is with an Ebow.

01:07:41.000 –> 01:07:43.880
Michael League: So that’s our drone, it’s happening throughout the song.

01:07:43.880 –> 01:07:46.460
Michael League: It’s the same principle, it’s serving the same purpose.

01:07:46.460 –> 01:07:51.080
Michael League: It’s filling up space and establishing the key, but with a different texture, right?

01:07:52.220 –> 01:08:06.300
Michael League: This Not A Swatum thing that we did in the solo section, we had this Not A Swatum player play a bunch of different notes in separate passes, and we stacked them together to form a really interesting sounding chord.

01:08:06.300 –> 01:08:07.540
Michael League: So this is it in context.

01:08:14.382 –> 01:08:15.382
Michael League: And this is it, soloed.

01:08:21.632 –> 01:08:26.872
Michael League: And all of these pitches are pitches from the raga, Ranjani, that we’re using in this song.

01:08:26.872 –> 01:08:30.532
Michael League: And just so you can hear how like, just one of these instruments sounds on its own, it’s like this.

01:08:36.128 –> 01:08:39.388
Michael League: It’s a really, really, really cool sound.

01:08:39.388 –> 01:08:50.888
Michael League: Some other cool things that we did to respect, like tradition was basically involving similar combinations of instruments to traditional forms.

01:08:50.888 –> 01:08:58.628
Michael League: So like, Nadaswaram always appears with a drum called Tala and something in music.

01:08:58.628 –> 01:09:07.888
Michael League: So we would include both of those instruments kind of at the same time often, but playing parts that they normally wouldn’t play or something.

01:09:07.888 –> 01:09:12.228
Michael League: This is the sound of the Tala, which is a two-sided percussion instrument.

01:09:19.260 –> 01:09:24.660
Michael League: This is just the high side of the instrument with the rhythm that you wouldn’t normally hear at table play necessarily.

01:09:24.660 –> 01:09:30.860
Michael League: Table player wears these caps on their fingers, kind of looks like Edward Scissorhands in the right hand.

01:09:30.860 –> 01:09:32.240
Michael League: I love the sound of this drum.

01:09:32.240 –> 01:09:37.560
Michael League: And then they have a stick for the low side and the left hand that they can kind of improvise with.

01:09:38.760 –> 01:09:40.700
Michael League: I’ll show you the violins that you asked.

01:09:40.760 –> 01:09:42.120
John Kennedy: Yes, please.

01:09:52.140 –> 01:09:54.080
John Kennedy: So how many are playing there?

01:09:56.300 –> 01:09:57.660
Michael League: This is…

01:10:02.980 –> 01:10:05.200
Michael League: four stacks of three.

01:10:05.240 –> 01:10:06.820
Michael League: So 12.

01:10:06.820 –> 01:10:21.860
John Kennedy: And normally, there would just be one, and then that would be augmenting and kind of ornamenting the tune constantly with each phrase changing all the time.

01:10:21.860 –> 01:10:28.020
Michael League: Well, yeah, they would be playing the melody, but they would be playing it in a kind of improvised way, right?

01:10:28.020 –> 01:10:30.800
Michael League: They wouldn’t be cutting off exactly with the singer.

01:10:30.800 –> 01:10:31.420
Michael League: They wouldn’t be…

01:10:32.000 –> 01:10:38.860
Michael League: It’s like, you know, if I ask you to sing a song right now, you’d probably sing it differently than if you would sing it tomorrow.

01:10:38.860 –> 01:10:41.700
Michael League: But if you were in a choir, you would be taught.

01:10:41.700 –> 01:10:50.060
Michael League: You cut off on this beat, we round this syllable out with our mouths, we have like a stronger T in this word or whatever.

01:10:50.060 –> 01:10:52.400
Michael League: You know, it gets planned and organized.

01:10:52.400 –> 01:10:54.380
Michael League: And in Carnatic music, it doesn’t.

01:10:54.380 –> 01:11:09.120
Michael League: You learn the melody and you know the melody and you perform the melody, but you have room to slide, you have room to ornament a note, you have room to play dynamically in a way that where you’re constantly kind of improvising upon the melody, you know, as you express the melody.

01:11:09.120 –> 01:11:13.940
Michael League: So it’s, yeah, it’s a, this was like a challenge for them, but they rocked it.

01:11:13.940 –> 01:11:18.820
Michael League: I mean, it was just really funny because we’re like, okay, listen, you can play it however you want to play it the first time.

01:11:18.820 –> 01:11:23.040
Michael League: But you have to remember how you played it because you got to do it three more times, exactly the same way.

01:11:23.040 –> 01:11:24.180
Michael League: You know, they were like, okay, cool.

01:11:24.180 –> 01:11:28.820
Michael League: When they heard it back, they were like, wow, this is wild, you know, it was really fun.

01:11:29.680 –> 01:11:31.860
John Kennedy: And this is absolutely fascinating, Michael.

01:11:32.060 –> 01:11:37.140
John Kennedy: I’m looking at the time and thinking we’ve got one more song to look at, another project entirely.

01:11:37.140 –> 01:11:41.740
John Kennedy: So maybe we should just round things up by hearing the end of Ranjani maybe.

01:11:41.740 –> 01:11:42.440
Michael League: Great, sure.

01:11:42.720 –> 01:11:44.140
John Kennedy: And we’ll be able to move on.

01:11:44.300 –> 01:11:45.780
John Kennedy: Absolutely fascinating.

01:11:45.780 –> 01:11:46.340
John Kennedy: Absolutely.

01:11:46.340 –> 01:11:48.240
Michael League: We’ll take it from the end of this solo section.

01:12:01.082 –> 01:12:06.942
Michael League: So, this is Varijashree improvising in the raga of Ranjani.

01:12:06.942 –> 01:12:27.082
Michael League: We still have this hammer tone drone happening very subtly in the background, but the groove is pretty stable and pretty consistent, so the conversation now is more between body and the bass, which in Carnatic music, you don’t really have an instrument that fulfills the role of the bass in the way that we do in Western music, so…

01:12:47.159 –> 01:12:59.139
Michael League: Kind of like a little square pushery there with the production, taking the snare and kind of like sampling it and editing it and dropping it in and doing stutters and stuff like that.

01:13:04.859 –> 01:13:12.799
John Kennedy: It’s fascinating because I think in some ways, we listen to it in a different way to how Vari would listen to it and her musicians would listen to it.

01:13:12.959 –> 01:13:26.699
John Kennedy: We’re getting a different sense of it because we don’t know, well, I’m speaking for myself obviously, but we don’t know the context and the history and the language in effect, the musical language that they’re talking in.

01:13:26.699 –> 01:13:29.879
John Kennedy: But at the same time, it’s really impactful.

01:13:29.879 –> 01:13:31.519
John Kennedy: It sounds incredible.

01:13:31.519 –> 01:13:31.979
Michael League: Thank you.

01:13:33.479 –> 01:13:38.819
Michael League: Well, the idea is that we’re trying to involve all of these things that are essential to the tradition.

01:13:38.819 –> 01:13:42.239
Michael League: In this song, you have Saigon, which is the Carnatic solfeggio.

01:13:42.239 –> 01:13:45.659
Michael League: Every lyric she sings in this song, they’re not actual words.

01:13:45.659 –> 01:13:49.119
Michael League: It’s just saying like do re mi fa sol la.

01:13:49.119 –> 01:14:00.279
Michael League: Then the thing that you have in the intro and the outro, which is the rhythmic language of South India, which is called conical, which is the intro that you hear as well as the outro.

01:14:00.279 –> 01:14:02.199
Brandon: Just play a snippet of that.

01:14:02.199 –> 01:14:07.159
Michael League: This right here is conical, which is sung by the percussionist.

01:14:07.159 –> 01:14:14.479
Michael League: Actually, the guy BC Manjunath, who’s playing the percussion on this song, he’s the one doing the conical.

01:14:14.479 –> 01:14:24.539
Michael League: The idea is like you said, there’s this super deep tradition with all this vocabulary in this language that most people from the countries that we’re from are not necessarily familiar with.

01:14:24.539 –> 01:14:31.439
Michael League: But it’s rich and beautiful and the objective of this album as stated by Buddy was to try to bring this music to the world.

01:14:31.439 –> 01:14:41.039
Michael League: I think she’s representing Carnatic music around the world to people who maybe otherwise would never have had it come on their radar.

01:14:41.039 –> 01:14:49.179
Michael League: And I really respect that about her and it was an honor to be able to be a part of the process with her and Pramath Kiangma, the co-producer.

01:14:49.179 –> 01:14:50.679
John Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely.

01:14:50.679 –> 01:14:51.919
John Kennedy: Really, really interesting.

01:14:51.919 –> 01:14:58.219
John Kennedy: We’re going to take a break and then we’re going to look at a new duo that you’re working with, Ellipsis.

01:15:00.479 –> 01:15:05.599
John Kennedy: This episode is supported by Museversal, an amazing new service for working with session musicians remotely.

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01:15:20.839 –> 01:15:24.119
John Kennedy: I’ve got David from Museversal here to tell us more about it.

01:15:24.119 –> 01:15:24.679
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01:15:24.679 –> 01:15:25.879
John Kennedy: Great to have you on.

01:15:25.879 –> 01:15:27.679
John Kennedy: What is Museversal?

01:15:27.679 –> 01:15:29.179
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01:15:29.179 –> 01:15:30.179
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01:15:37.259 –> 01:15:44.239
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01:15:44.239 –> 01:15:49.599
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01:15:58.719 –> 01:16:03.219
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01:16:03.219 –> 01:16:05.939
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David: And the benefit for you as a member is that you get a roster that you can depend on around the clock.

01:16:26.799 –> 01:16:27.819
John Kennedy: Very impressive.

01:16:27.819 –> 01:16:29.319
John Kennedy: How does it work?

01:16:29.319 –> 01:16:29.619
David: Yeah.

01:16:29.619 –> 01:16:31.699
David: So it’s designed to be extremely easy.

01:16:31.699 –> 01:16:36.299
David: All you need to do is pick a time, book a session and send your song in whatever stage it’s in.

01:16:36.299 –> 01:16:41.679
David: You can send sheet music, a chord chart, audio files, and then tell the musician what you’d like them to do.

01:16:41.679 –> 01:16:44.419
David: You know, they can either play as is or improvise, right?

01:16:44.419 –> 01:16:49.039
David: And so then you’ll join the musician over live stream and they’ll start recording right off the bat.

01:16:49.039 –> 01:16:54.939
David: Because the session’s live, it’s like you’re literally sitting in the studio with them and you get to give that feedback in real time.

01:16:55.339 –> 01:16:58.599
David: And then you’ll get your session files to download right afterwards.

01:16:58.599 –> 01:17:01.819
John Kennedy: And David, can you remind us of the offer for Tape Notes listeners?

01:17:01.819 –> 01:17:06.779
David: Yes, so we’re huge Tape Notes fans here and we wanted to have an offer that’s exclusive to you guys.

01:17:06.779 –> 01:17:09.599
David: So we have a 50% discount for your first month.

01:17:09.599 –> 01:17:15.879
David: So it’ll cost you $99 or 75 pounds for unlimited remote recording sessions in your first month.

01:17:15.879 –> 01:17:20.319
David: And unlike everyone else, you’ll be able to skip our waitlist and start booking sessions right away.

01:17:20.799 –> 01:17:22.959
John Kennedy: That is 50% off, folks.

01:17:22.959 –> 01:17:24.079
John Kennedy: Half price.

01:17:24.079 –> 01:17:25.519
John Kennedy: What an amazing Christmas gift.

01:17:25.519 –> 01:17:27.039
John Kennedy: Thank you very much, David.

01:17:27.039 –> 01:17:31.899
John Kennedy: To get the offer, find the link in any of our recent episode show notes.

01:17:31.899 –> 01:17:37.939
John Kennedy: The next track we’re going to look at with Michael League today is a new project that Michael is involved in called Ellipsis.

01:17:37.939 –> 01:17:42.599
John Kennedy: We’re going to hear a blast of the master of the track, Obbakoso, and then we’ll find out all about it.

01:17:43.019 –> 01:17:43.619
Michael League: I’m going to answer.

01:18:51.816 –> 01:18:54.056
John Kennedy: So, this is Obbakoso by Ellipsis.

01:18:54.056 –> 01:18:57.216
John Kennedy: Tell us what Ellipsis is, Michael.

01:18:57.356 –> 01:19:11.956
Michael League: Ellipsis is a trio with the great Cuban percussionist and singer, Petrito Martinez and the great Mexican drummer Antonio Sanchez, who’s now a neighbor of mine here in Spain.

01:19:11.956 –> 01:19:20.416
Michael League: It’s a project that we put together years ago when we were all living in New York, but we only did one gig, like a largely improvised gig in North Sea Jazz.

01:19:20.416 –> 01:19:30.076
Michael League: And we made a record during the pandemic, like in the middle of the quarantine, or I guess after the most intense part.

01:19:30.076 –> 01:19:33.656
Michael League: Pedro and Antonio were in New York and I was here.

01:19:34.016 –> 01:19:36.376
Michael League: Stuck in Catalonia where I live.

01:19:37.856 –> 01:19:47.476
Michael League: So we floated the idea of doing a record over the kind of distance, and inherently we knew we would have to do it in a different kind of way.

01:19:47.476 –> 01:20:04.296
Michael League: So we cooked up this really interesting workflow that I’ve never employed ever in my life as a producer, as a musician, in which Pedro and Antonio went into what used to be Avatar recording studios in New York, but now it’s called the Power Station.

01:20:04.296 –> 01:20:08.336
Michael League: They went in for two days and they improvised.

01:20:08.336 –> 01:20:10.556
Michael League: Pure solid 100 percent improvisation.

01:20:10.556 –> 01:20:22.596
Michael League: We would pick a tempo and a meter, time signature, and in some cases, maybe there would be a baseline or something that was pre-recorded for them to play to.

01:20:22.596 –> 01:20:26.196
Michael League: But mostly it was just drum and percussion improvisation.

01:20:26.196 –> 01:20:33.856
Michael League: Pedro plays congas and he also plays bata, which is a folkloric drum common in Cuba.

01:20:33.856 –> 01:20:38.016
Michael League: They would just improvise and they’d improvise for six to eight minutes at a time.

01:20:38.016 –> 01:20:45.656
Michael League: Then when they were done with all this improvisation, Pedro would sing some improvised Yoruba.

01:20:45.656 –> 01:21:06.636
Michael League: Yoruba is a religion, it’s a language, it’s a culture that originated in Africa and was brought to Cuba via the slave trade, and has sustained itself miraculously above all in a town called Matanzas, which is about an hour and a half from Havana.

01:21:06.636 –> 01:21:08.816
Michael League: Pedro grew up with this tradition.

01:21:08.816 –> 01:21:12.856
Michael League: He’s actually a priest in the religion.

01:21:13.376 –> 01:21:20.276
Michael League: He would sing these improvised parts based on Yoruba chant stuff, and he’d harmonize with them.

01:21:20.276 –> 01:21:22.476
Michael League: Essentially, I was sent only this.

01:21:22.476 –> 01:21:31.736
Michael League: I was sent eight-minute drum and percussion improvisations with vocals in certain moments, all recorded to a click.

01:21:31.736 –> 01:21:43.116
Michael League: And my task as the kind of primary producer on the record was to turn these into songs with 100% freedom.

01:21:43.116 –> 01:21:54.556
Michael League: I could take a two beat moment between the two of them and make it as a loop for the entire song and compose whatever chords or whatever that I wanted and fit the vocals over it, mute the vocals, do anything.

01:21:54.756 –> 01:21:57.156
Michael League: It was basically like, this was the material that I had to work with.

01:21:57.156 –> 01:22:03.976
Michael League: So I spent a week and a half or two weeks here in my studio just chopping up these songs.

01:22:03.976 –> 01:22:20.716
Michael League: Like well chopping up these improvisations and writing chords under them, writing basslines, copying and pasting vocals around, changing how many part harmony was happening, and really just like taking the scalpel, not even the scalpel, like the hatchet really to everything.

01:22:20.716 –> 01:22:27.196
Michael League: So it was the first record that I’ve ever been a part of where that composition process was actually after the recording session.

01:22:27.196 –> 01:22:28.576
Michael League: You know, normally it’s the other way around.

01:22:28.576 –> 01:22:30.696
Michael League: Normally you compose the song, you rehearse it, you record it.

01:22:30.696 –> 01:22:33.896
Michael League: In this case, we recorded it and then we composed it.

01:22:33.896 –> 01:22:40.136
Michael League: So I’ll show you the raw form that it was in.

01:22:40.136 –> 01:22:40.536
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:22:40.536 –> 01:22:44.456
Michael League: And then I’ll show you kind of how that transformed into what it is now.

01:22:44.456 –> 01:22:44.936
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:22:45.296 –> 01:22:46.236
John Kennedy: So we don’t have a demo.

01:22:46.236 –> 01:22:50.516
John Kennedy: We have the improvisation that the two of them made that they then sent to you.

01:22:50.936 –> 01:22:53.716
Michael League: We totally skipped the demo in this recording process.

01:23:11.956 –> 01:23:16.676
Michael League: So, it’s like eight minutes of this, of the two of them improvising together.

01:23:22.176 –> 01:23:28.196
Michael League: And then after they had done this, Pedro went in and improvised some vocals.

01:23:37.400 –> 01:23:46.060
Michael League: And one thing that we were trying to do was avoid playing, like, beats that are, that sound like loops.

01:23:46.060 –> 01:23:51.040
Michael League: Like, the whole idea was keeping a conversational approach to the drums and percussion.

01:23:52.020 –> 01:23:54.060
Michael League: So that it’s not just, like, a beat.

01:23:54.060 –> 01:24:04.020
Michael League: But then, in editing that, I could create loops based on those conversations, which would also give it an inherently different color than if we just said, here’s the groove, play the groove.

01:24:04.020 –> 01:24:05.040
Michael League: Right?

01:24:05.040 –> 01:24:06.760
Michael League: So I’ll play you what became the chorus.

01:24:25.543 –> 01:24:37.503
Michael League: So, I heard this section and I thought like, okay, this is super catchy, added the claps, we have a repetitive thing, this will be our chorus, for lack of a better word.

01:24:37.503 –> 01:24:44.143
Michael League: So then I just started adding stuff until it felt good, and this is how it sounds in the master.

01:24:45.663 –> 01:24:45.963
Michael League: Right here.

01:25:07.607 –> 01:25:11.627
John Kennedy: So, we can hear a lot more going on.

01:25:11.627 –> 01:25:13.027
John Kennedy: You’ve been busy.

01:25:15.607 –> 01:25:20.507
Michael League: Yeah, I mean, it’s a repeated chord progression, but there’s a lot happening.

01:25:20.507 –> 01:25:35.387
Michael League: I mean, I think I added Moog Bass, I added Ngoni, which is like a West African lute, and I added acoustic guitars and some synths.

01:25:36.807 –> 01:25:43.287
Michael League: So, basically, I mean, on this record, my role was to bring like a…

01:25:43.287 –> 01:25:47.587
Michael League: Basically, I think we think of this trio as like futuristic folklore, you know?

01:25:47.587 –> 01:25:57.307
Michael League: We’re taking the roots and trying to push, shove the stuff into the future using unique sounds and textures and techniques.

01:25:57.307 –> 01:26:02.467
Michael League: I think in a second, I take a solo on a fretless electric baritone guitar.

01:26:08.456 –> 01:26:17.416
Michael League: Which is a sound you don’t hear in traditional Vioro music, to say the least, you know?

01:26:18.436 –> 01:26:23.316
Michael League: Because Pedro and Antonio, they’re both guys that like to push things.

01:26:23.316 –> 01:26:24.536
Michael League: They like to push the envelope.

01:26:24.536 –> 01:26:36.016
Michael League: They’re really into aggressive sounds and fusing things together, but they do it with complete mastery of the tradition.

01:26:36.756 –> 01:26:46.676
Michael League: You know, I mean, they have their roots very, very deeply planted into the ground, so that gives them actually more versatility, more flexibility, when they want to branch out.

01:26:46.676 –> 01:26:54.936
John Kennedy: Yeah, and it’s interesting, because this is a very rich world that you’ve created, you know, and you were separated.

01:26:54.936 –> 01:27:04.116
John Kennedy: Did you then, once things had opened up, did you reconvene and continue working, or did you work on these projects completely separate?

01:27:05.736 –> 01:27:18.956
Michael League: Antonio came over to my house and added some things, like he’s really great with electronics, so we put some final touches on some of the songs, and I asked Pedro to sing some more stuff on one song where we needed more vocals.

01:27:18.956 –> 01:27:27.096
Michael League: But I would say it was 90 percent done, you know, after the recording stuff that I did here in my studio.

01:27:27.096 –> 01:27:30.196
Michael League: They did the vast majority of their work on the front end, right?

01:27:30.196 –> 01:27:35.336
Michael League: And I was just sitting back here with a glass of wine, watching them on Zoom and listening on Audio Movers.

01:27:35.336 –> 01:27:36.096
Michael League: It’s really funny.

01:27:36.096 –> 01:27:47.016
Michael League: There’s some really funny photos of Pedro and Antonio with the engineers, like with a photo, and they’re holding an iPad with me on Zoom, like in their arms.

01:27:47.016 –> 01:27:49.136
Michael League: You know, it was a weird way to make a record.

01:27:49.576 –> 01:27:54.196
Michael League: But I was talking with Antonio yesterday on the phone and we were like, this should just be our process every time.

01:27:54.196 –> 01:28:04.556
Michael League: But maybe the next time, instead of me doing 90 percent of the composition work post improvisation, maybe we share that so that we get some different colors and it’s not all like kind of my sound.

01:28:04.556 –> 01:28:10.376
Michael League: But it was really cool to do a record in this kind of backwards way.

01:28:10.376 –> 01:28:13.576
Michael League: The funny thing is we’ve never played a gig with this music.

01:28:13.576 –> 01:28:18.336
Michael League: So the record’s coming out in spring of 2025.

01:28:20.156 –> 01:28:24.156
Michael League: So if this podcast comes out before then, it’ll be the premiere of this song, I guess.

01:28:24.156 –> 01:28:24.556
Michael League: Yeah.

01:28:24.556 –> 01:28:24.916
Michael League: Wow.

01:28:24.916 –> 01:28:25.836
John Kennedy: Amazing.

01:28:25.836 –> 01:28:29.916
Michael League: And this record’s coming out in spring of 2025, but we have two gigs next week.

01:28:29.916 –> 01:28:31.976
Michael League: We have a gig in Barcelona and a gig in Madrid.

01:28:32.616 –> 01:28:53.416
Michael League: And we’re inviting a great Cuban pianist and singer named Glenda del A to come and kind of be the ghost member, like the fourth person who’s helping us carry the weight of all these overdubs that I did in my house that I can’t possibly replicate with two arms and legs without using like samples and tracks, which I really don’t like doing.

01:28:53.416 –> 01:28:57.616
Michael League: So we have two days of rehearsal to figure out how to play this stuff live, and then we’ll do a couple gigs.

01:28:57.616 –> 01:28:59.596
Michael League: So it’ll be interesting.

01:28:59.596 –> 01:29:01.336
Michael League: But for me, it’s a fascinating project.

01:29:01.396 –> 01:29:07.916
Michael League: You know, I mean, obviously these are monster musicians who are just like masters of their respective traditions and crafts.

01:29:08.636 –> 01:29:10.876
Michael League: And it’s a fun combination of things.

01:29:10.876 –> 01:29:13.436
Michael League: I think the mix of ingredients is nice.

01:29:13.436 –> 01:29:14.396
John Kennedy: Yeah, amazing.

01:29:14.396 –> 01:29:21.196
John Kennedy: I guess we should hear some of the parts that you added to their original parts that they created.

01:29:21.196 –> 01:29:28.116
John Kennedy: You know, to see how you, I mean, obviously you rearrange things, you chop things up, you edited them and looped.

01:29:28.116 –> 01:29:28.676
John Kennedy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:29:28.676 –> 01:29:29.416
Michael League: Absolutely.

01:29:29.416 –> 01:29:31.496
John Kennedy: But it will be interesting just to hear some of these elements.

01:29:31.496 –> 01:29:52.916
John Kennedy: I mean, and whether you approached it as you might do with Snarky Puppy, maybe, in that you were playing off them as musicians, did you give yourself a chance to kind of improvise with them, you know, because you had the recording of them and you were reacted to what they were doing or did you approach it more methodically and start writing things down?

01:29:54.216 –> 01:29:59.516
Michael League: No, no, no, this was every decision that I made was based on what they had improvised.

01:29:59.516 –> 01:30:00.276
Michael League: Definitely.

01:30:00.276 –> 01:30:04.936
Michael League: It wasn’t like, okay, I have this song and let’s see how what they played can fit into the song.

01:30:04.936 –> 01:30:05.756
Michael League: It wasn’t that way at all.

01:30:05.756 –> 01:30:17.616
Michael League: I would listen to what they played and I would find a three, four, eight bar passage that I thought was really, really evocative in some way of what they improvised.

01:30:17.616 –> 01:30:22.156
Michael League: And I go like, oh, okay, that sounds like it would be a great chorus groove.

01:30:22.156 –> 01:30:26.456
Michael League: Or I would say, oh, that sounds like it would be a really great fill at the end of a chorus or whatever.

01:30:26.456 –> 01:30:28.656
Michael League: And I would just like make notes.

01:30:28.916 –> 01:30:36.876
Michael League: I’d copy these little chunks, I’d paste them and I’d make little notes saying chorus groove or bridge groove or whatever.

01:30:36.876 –> 01:30:38.696
Michael League: You know?

01:30:38.696 –> 01:30:47.496
Michael League: And then I would start to play instruments that I had around me, along with what they had improvised and to see what stuck.

01:30:47.496 –> 01:30:55.556
Michael League: And I think that with the, I’ll just use this chorus as an example, because I think it’s maybe the most kind of interesting section of the song.

01:30:55.556 –> 01:30:55.876
Michael League: Yeah.

01:30:55.876 –> 01:30:57.816
Michael League: For lack of a better word.

01:30:57.816 –> 01:31:02.476
Michael League: I played it for you just voice and percussion.

01:31:02.476 –> 01:31:05.496
Michael League: And then we heard the master of it where it’s like huge.

01:31:05.496 –> 01:31:11.776
Michael League: The first thing that I started with when I was writing it was the bass because I was trying to figure out where different chords could land.

01:31:11.776 –> 01:31:15.216
Michael League: So I’ll play the drum percussion groove with the Moog Bass.

01:31:15.216 –> 01:31:15.356
Michael League: Yeah.

01:31:32.290 –> 01:31:34.890
Michael League: So, pretty simple, actually.

01:31:34.890 –> 01:31:43.090
Michael League: I mean, I think, you know, very similar to Snarky Puppy in that you have a lot of things doing very little, and it sounds full.

01:31:44.530 –> 01:31:49.750
Michael League: So now, the next thing that came in was the acoustic guitar part.

01:31:49.750 –> 01:31:51.490
Michael League: There are two acoustic guitars here.

01:31:51.510 –> 01:32:03.510
Michael League: One is just simply doubling the bassline so that you have the Moog providing the kind of like booty low end in the mix, and then you have the acoustic guitar providing some mid-range warmth and definition.

01:32:03.510 –> 01:32:06.590
Michael League: And that will sound like this.

01:32:12.453 –> 01:32:20.253
Michael League: So, it’s still just the bass line, and then I added this kind of arpeggiated accompaniment on an acoustic guitar.

01:32:26.824 –> 01:32:30.364
Michael League: Which is interesting, because it’s just the same thing over and over.

01:32:30.364 –> 01:32:32.524
Michael League: It’s not actually changing chords.

01:32:32.524 –> 01:32:36.124
Michael League: But those notes all work over every bass note.

01:32:36.124 –> 01:32:42.604
Michael League: So it has the illusion of playing chords, which is not actually, if we listen to it without the bass line, it just sounds like this.

01:32:46.684 –> 01:32:47.544
Michael League: Right?

01:32:47.544 –> 01:32:47.984
Michael League: Yeah.

01:32:47.984 –> 01:32:53.524
Michael League: But then, in context, you get the sense of harmony from the bass line providing some roots.

01:32:56.104 –> 01:33:01.544
Michael League: And then, I think, I doubled that on the Angoni, the Molly and Lute.

01:33:04.564 –> 01:33:06.004
Michael League: An octave up.

01:33:08.404 –> 01:33:14.004
Michael League: Just to give some punch and some brightness and pluck to the thing.

01:33:17.044 –> 01:33:21.504
Michael League: And Antonio added some effects.

01:33:24.204 –> 01:33:25.884
Michael League: Which are very, very subtle.

01:33:28.144 –> 01:33:30.744
Michael League: Little plucky stuff.

01:33:30.744 –> 01:33:34.744
Michael League: And actually, that’s really all that’s going on, besides the vocals and the claps.

01:33:34.744 –> 01:33:37.804
Michael League: I mean, then, when you hear everything kind of in context.

01:33:46.284 –> 01:33:51.144
Michael League: There’s also this keys, keyboard drone that I have just playing the root.

01:34:02.224 –> 01:34:11.864
Michael League: But yeah, I mean, it’s a lot of different elements playing very simple parts, which is a thing that I love to do.

01:34:11.864 –> 01:34:17.304
Michael League: Obviously, I guess, over the course of this chat, you’ve kind of heard me say that probably a dozen times.

01:34:19.864 –> 01:34:20.344
Michael League: It’s fun.

01:34:20.344 –> 01:34:32.184
Michael League: I love the interlocking effect that it has, and I also love giving a ProTools session to a mixing engineer that doesn’t already feel full and mixed.

01:34:32.184 –> 01:34:38.104
Michael League: I think you heard the master and it felt so big and powerful and rich.

01:34:38.104 –> 01:34:41.904
Michael League: Most of that was Nick Hard in the mixing process.

01:34:41.904 –> 01:34:46.264
Michael League: I mean, I’m giving the essential elements, but he’s the one who’s really making it bump.

01:34:46.584 –> 01:34:57.464
Michael League: And I’ve had that problem in the past before, especially when I was in my earlier years of producing, where I wouldn’t send anything to the mix engineer until it felt perfectly full and rich.

01:34:57.464 –> 01:35:02.004
Michael League: And then I would send it to him and what I’d get back just felt like too much.

01:35:02.004 –> 01:35:07.424
Michael League: And then I realized, oh yeah, you have to leave room for the engineer to express themselves artistically too.

01:35:07.424 –> 01:35:10.304
Michael League: They’re not a servant, they’re an artist.

01:35:10.304 –> 01:35:17.004
Michael League: I would arguably say the most important artist on a record, even more so than the lead vocalist.

01:35:17.004 –> 01:35:20.404
Michael League: Because a not great lead vocalist can sound great.

01:35:20.404 –> 01:35:25.764
Michael League: Well, can sound good with a mixing engineer that really knows what they’re doing.

01:35:25.764 –> 01:35:30.824
Michael League: You know, but a great vocalist can sound really terrible with a bad one.

01:35:30.824 –> 01:35:34.464
Michael League: You know, you can take away all the frequencies that make them sound beautiful.

01:35:34.464 –> 01:35:36.684
Michael League: You know, you can edit it poorly.

01:35:36.684 –> 01:35:40.944
Michael League: You know, you can slap, you know, auto tune on them, you can do all these kinds of things.

01:35:41.364 –> 01:35:51.904
Michael League: And I think that we got to treat mixing engineers with the same amount of respect, if not more, than we treat any artist that’s performing on the track.

01:35:51.904 –> 01:35:54.084
Michael League: So, yeah, I like leaving.

01:35:54.924 –> 01:35:59.784
Michael League: I like for it to feel about 70 to 80% done by the time I send it off to mixing.

01:35:59.784 –> 01:36:02.484
Michael League: Full, I should say, 70 to 80% full.

01:36:02.484 –> 01:36:03.524
John Kennedy: Very interesting.

01:36:03.524 –> 01:36:10.024
John Kennedy: Very interesting to get a little taste of a completely new project that won’t really see the light of day until 2025.

01:36:10.804 –> 01:36:12.444
John Kennedy: So thank you very much for that.

01:36:12.444 –> 01:36:13.324
John Kennedy: That’s pretty amazing.

01:36:13.324 –> 01:36:14.704
John Kennedy: And what’s going to happen then?

01:36:14.704 –> 01:36:16.744
John Kennedy: So obviously, you’ve got these gigs.

01:36:16.744 –> 01:36:21.004
John Kennedy: This is going to be a whole album that will come out in the spring of next year.

01:36:21.004 –> 01:36:24.624
John Kennedy: And then will you then try and do more shows?

01:36:24.884 –> 01:36:25.604
John Kennedy: Is that the plan?

01:36:25.604 –> 01:36:32.424
John Kennedy: Is it going to be a bigger project or are you all juggling so many other things that you won’t be able to do that?

01:36:32.424 –> 01:36:39.964
Michael League: I mean, yeah, each of the members has a pretty full plate, but we’re planning on doing a week or two in July.

01:36:40.364 –> 01:36:44.224
Michael League: Doing European Festivals next year after the record comes out.

01:36:44.224 –> 01:36:50.804
Michael League: I think it’ll be a band that plays a couple of times per year when there’s a really nice opportunity.

01:36:50.804 –> 01:36:58.104
Michael League: It’s not going to be like a kind of like, let’s get in the van and not get out for eight months kind of project like Snarky Puppy was.

01:36:58.104 –> 01:37:00.804
Michael League: Antonio has got like four projects he plays with.

01:37:00.804 –> 01:37:05.944
Michael League: He’s doing a bunch of TV commercials for like Lacoste and huge brands.

01:37:05.944 –> 01:37:07.064
Michael League: He’s got his Birdman thing.

01:37:07.364 –> 01:37:13.684
Michael League: He did the like 95 percent of the soundtrack to Birdman, is him improvising drum set.

01:37:13.684 –> 01:37:18.364
Michael League: He’s doing a tour next year with Bela Fleck and Edmar Castaneda.

01:37:18.364 –> 01:37:23.684
Michael League: Pedro’s playing, one day he’s playing with Eric Clapton, another day he’s doing his thing with his band.

01:37:23.684 –> 01:37:27.884
Michael League: So we all stay busy, but it’s really fun when we get together.

01:37:27.884 –> 01:37:35.244
Michael League: I think that it’ll be a thing that will have many more years of life and many records and hopefully lots of gigs.

01:37:37.284 –> 01:37:46.964
John Kennedy: Let’s have a blast of the ending of that track and then we have a few questions that we always ask everybody who comes on Tape Notes and some questions from some of our patrons on Patreon as well.

01:38:31.567 –> 01:38:34.727
John Kennedy: How are you going to do that live if you’re playing bass and guitar?

01:38:35.847 –> 01:38:47.787
Michael League: So, Glenda will play key bass with her left hand, and she’ll be playing that figure that the guitars are playing in her right hand.

01:38:47.787 –> 01:38:50.287
Michael League: And then I’ll take the guitar solo, in theory.

01:38:50.287 –> 01:38:50.687
John Kennedy: Right.

01:38:50.687 –> 01:38:51.167
Michael League: In theory.

01:38:51.167 –> 01:38:52.527
Michael League: We don’t know.

01:38:52.627 –> 01:38:52.927
John Kennedy: Amazing.

01:38:53.407 –> 01:38:53.767
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:38:53.767 –> 01:38:54.967
John Kennedy: In theory.

01:38:56.427 –> 01:38:57.767
John Kennedy: Excellent.

01:38:57.767 –> 01:38:59.667
John Kennedy: So exciting to hear that.

01:38:59.667 –> 01:39:01.707
John Kennedy: We have got some more questions for you.

01:39:01.707 –> 01:39:15.967
John Kennedy: So, some are our own, but I’ll go to a Patreon question first from Christopher who says, how do you keep organized in your workspace when writing some of your music and keep an idea flowing without hitting proverbial brick walls?

01:39:15.967 –> 01:39:17.667
Michael League: How do I stay organized in the workspace?

01:39:20.327 –> 01:39:28.207
Michael League: Well, first off, I think your environment makes a huge difference upon the way that you feel and the way that your brain functions.

01:39:28.207 –> 01:39:33.067
Michael League: And so, I created a space here that feels really cozy, really warm.

01:39:33.067 –> 01:39:34.207
Michael League: It feels very homey.

01:39:34.207 –> 01:39:39.867
Michael League: I mean, it is in my home, but I’ve been in people’s home studios that feel like you’re in an interrogation room.

01:39:39.867 –> 01:39:48.447
Michael League: So, I paid a lot of attention to the lights, the walls, you know, everything so that I feel good and fresh.

01:39:48.447 –> 01:39:53.367
Michael League: And today is not a great example because we worked on four records this week, and I haven’t had time to reorganize the studio.

01:39:53.367 –> 01:39:57.187
Michael League: But it looks like a bomb went off in the middle of it, but normally everything has its place.

01:39:57.427 –> 01:39:58.607
Michael League: It’s very organized.

01:39:58.607 –> 01:40:00.207
Michael League: I know where everything is.

01:40:00.207 –> 01:40:13.527
Michael League: I also opted to not go through with a lot of decisions that people make in studios, kind of stereotypically, that for me can be a little bit cumbersome.

01:40:14.007 –> 01:40:17.347
Michael League: Like for example, I don’t have a board in my studio.

01:40:17.347 –> 01:40:27.167
Michael League: I do everything in the box because the joys of having an analog board come with things that are not necessarily joyful, right?

01:40:27.167 –> 01:40:32.487
Michael League: Which is like, it takes up a lot of space and personal space makes you feel a certain kind of way, you know?

01:40:32.487 –> 01:40:37.047
Michael League: If you don’t have it when you’re trying to be creative, it can kind of suck some creativity out of you.

01:40:37.047 –> 01:40:40.167
Michael League: When you do have a lot of space, you feel more creative.

01:40:41.127 –> 01:40:47.027
Michael League: Also, even in major studios, most projects aren’t even using the desk.

01:40:47.027 –> 01:40:51.107
Michael League: Or if they do use it, they’re using it in a way that they could just do stuff in the box.

01:40:51.107 –> 01:40:58.067
Michael League: You know, people using desk preamps, well, that’s cool if the desk has amazing preamps that work, you know?

01:40:58.067 –> 01:41:05.427
Michael League: So in my space, I just kind of made a commitment to what this space is capable of doing.

01:41:05.427 –> 01:41:08.827
Michael League: This is not a place where you bring your 20-piece band to make a live record.

01:41:09.287 –> 01:41:11.407
Michael League: It’s largely an overdub studio.

01:41:11.407 –> 01:41:12.807
Michael League: We can do several people at a time.

01:41:12.807 –> 01:41:18.567
Michael League: We have done more than several people at a time, but it works best in certain contexts.

01:41:18.567 –> 01:41:24.547
Michael League: And I tried to maximize the efficiency of those contexts.

01:41:24.547 –> 01:41:31.567
Michael League: And then if a project comes along that needs something greater, then I just go to a great studio.

01:41:31.567 –> 01:41:34.387
Michael League: I don’t try to make this studio do something that it can’t.

01:41:34.387 –> 01:41:38.447
Michael League: And then, yes, I get to enjoy the warmth of an analog board, which I love.

01:41:38.687 –> 01:41:40.287
Michael League: I love that, you know.

01:41:40.287 –> 01:41:42.147
Michael League: But I knew that I wouldn’t really need that in here.

01:41:42.427 –> 01:41:46.647
Michael League: And I think you have to be pragmatic when you’re thinking about space.

01:41:46.647 –> 01:41:49.307
Michael League: What am I going to be doing 90% of the time in here?

01:41:49.307 –> 01:41:55.407
Michael League: Okay, then 90% of my gear needs to be based around that, not 10% of it, right?

01:41:55.407 –> 01:42:01.547
Michael League: I do make to-do lists, but my favorite thing to do when I’m working on records is task sheets.

01:42:01.547 –> 01:42:07.027
Michael League: So I take like an Excel spreadsheet and I write the names of the songs at the top.

01:42:07.287 –> 01:42:12.847
Michael League: I write the names of the instruments on the side, and I have three different colors of Xs that I put in.

01:42:12.847 –> 01:42:22.767
Michael League: So a red X means it needs to be recorded, a yellow X means that it has been recorded but needs to be edited, and a green X means that it has been recorded and edited.

01:42:22.767 –> 01:42:28.927
Michael League: And this keeps me, like helps me keep track of what things need to be done on each song, you know?

01:42:28.927 –> 01:42:35.927
Michael League: So that like three days after your keyboard player left, you don’t think like, oh, we forgot to do Rhodes on the chorus of this song, you know?

01:42:37.687 –> 01:42:39.867
Michael League: So that’s very helpful.

01:42:39.867 –> 01:42:43.847
Michael League: I think there’s little, yeah, little tricks like that in terms of organization.

01:42:44.947 –> 01:42:46.787
Michael League: I forgot what the second half of the question was.

01:42:46.787 –> 01:42:52.407
John Kennedy: Yeah, no, I think it was about workflow in a way, and you’ve explained and expanded on that really well.

01:42:52.407 –> 01:43:01.707
John Kennedy: I mean, we ask everybody who comes on Tape Notes, whether they have a favorite piece of tech or an instrument or something that they couldn’t work without.

01:43:02.367 –> 01:43:14.047
John Kennedy: I mean, you talked earlier about your Lauten microphones and how useful they were, but as an example of something, is there anything else that you would highlight?

01:43:14.047 –> 01:43:24.787
Michael League: Something that I haven’t mentioned maybe that I do use just constantly is this $300 Danelectro Electric Sitar.

01:43:25.907 –> 01:43:28.727
Michael League: It’s right here on the couch, I’ll show it to you.

01:43:28.727 –> 01:43:29.827
Michael League: It’s telling that it’s out.

01:43:30.307 –> 01:43:32.227
John Kennedy: Wow, that looks amazing.

01:43:32.687 –> 01:43:35.087
Michael League: It’s 300 bucks or something, you know?

01:43:35.087 –> 01:43:50.907
Michael League: I mean, it’s, the intonation is not great, but I just keep finding all these fun ways of using it, like playing really short, funky stuff, so you don’t even really hear the buzzy-ness of it, but there’s a little bit of buzz, so it kind of cuts through.

01:43:50.907 –> 01:43:52.367
Michael League: I did that the other day.

01:43:52.567 –> 01:43:55.007
John Kennedy: Are you able to hook it up and we could hear it?

01:43:55.047 –> 01:43:56.407
Michael League: Yeah, yeah, why not?

01:43:56.407 –> 01:43:57.607
Michael League: Why not?

01:43:57.607 –> 01:44:02.127
Michael League: So, yeah, I mean, right now, this is just direct into a preamp.

01:44:02.127 –> 01:44:09.567
Michael League: It’s not going through an amp or anything, but so the sound of it is basically like, right?

01:44:13.687 –> 01:44:18.027
Michael League: But you can play like funky stuff on and it sounds so cool, like…

01:44:22.187 –> 01:44:24.307
Michael League: And it sounds more or less like a guitar.

01:44:24.307 –> 01:44:27.047
Michael League: You don’t really hear the the sitar-ness of it.

01:44:42.814 –> 01:44:53.454
Michael League: And then also like doubling melodies, like if you really want to go for the like TSOP thing, like Sound of Philadelphia, like 70s stuff, just playing melodies like, you know.

01:44:59.648 –> 01:45:06.508
Michael League: You know, stuff like this, you’d cake it in like, you know, the second piece of gear that I can’t go without is my Roland Space-Echo.

01:45:06.508 –> 01:45:10.268
Michael League: I mean, you put this through a Space-Echo and through an old amp, and it’s like, it’s magic.

01:45:10.268 –> 01:45:10.788
Michael League: It’s amazing.

01:45:10.788 –> 01:45:14.508
Michael League: I mean, right now it feels really funny because it’s going indirect.

01:45:14.508 –> 01:45:19.828
Michael League: But it’s like one of those instruments that I think it gets a lot more use in the studio than it should.

01:45:19.828 –> 01:45:21.208
John Kennedy: Yeah, that’s great.

01:45:21.208 –> 01:45:21.688
John Kennedy: That’s great.

01:45:21.688 –> 01:45:24.488
John Kennedy: I’ve never heard of a Danelectro Sitar before.

01:45:24.488 –> 01:45:25.068
John Kennedy: Amazing.

01:45:25.068 –> 01:45:26.528
John Kennedy: How many in the world do you think there are?

01:45:26.528 –> 01:45:27.768
John Kennedy: There can’t be that many, really.

01:45:28.568 –> 01:45:30.128
Michael League: Yeah, that’s a great question.

01:45:30.128 –> 01:45:30.828
Michael League: I have no idea.

01:45:30.828 –> 01:45:38.348
Michael League: I think that it was like maybe a thing they only did for a few years because there was another electric sitar that’s like too grand or something.

01:45:38.688 –> 01:45:40.028
Michael League: I’m trying to remember the name of it.

01:45:40.028 –> 01:45:42.048
Michael League: It’s named after a person.

01:45:42.048 –> 01:45:44.428
Michael League: But this is like an incredible instrument.

01:45:44.428 –> 01:45:46.388
Michael League: That’s like the craftsmanship is very high.

01:45:46.388 –> 01:45:49.268
Michael League: Everyone was playing it during a certain era.

01:45:49.268 –> 01:45:55.328
Michael League: But then I think Danelectro is like, look, we’re going to just make one that like, it’s just like a guitar, but we put something in the bridge to make it buzz.

01:45:55.988 –> 01:45:59.168
Michael League: We give it this like funny kind of faux Indian aesthetic.

01:45:59.168 –> 01:46:01.808
Michael League: And it just totally does the trick.

01:46:01.808 –> 01:46:03.908
John Kennedy: Yeah, totally.

01:46:03.908 –> 01:46:05.068
John Kennedy: Do you have any advice?

01:46:05.068 –> 01:46:15.608
John Kennedy: We always ask if anybody has any advice, lessons that you’ve learned along the way, or things that you’ve been given in the past, that you would pass on to other people.

01:46:15.608 –> 01:46:29.188
Michael League: There’s a lot of like little specific things, like if you want a lot of richness in your like vocal stack, put the lower harmonies like a little louder and on the sides, you know, like little things.

01:46:29.188 –> 01:46:36.368
Michael League: David Crosby was the person who hit me that, and that changed the way that I mixed harmonies.

01:46:37.748 –> 01:46:42.208
Michael League: There’s a lot of little things like that, I think in terms of like macro advice.

01:46:42.208 –> 01:46:51.088
Michael League: Nick Hart, the engineer that I mentioned over and over in this session, who I work with most closely, there’s an expression he uses that’s maybe a little too crude.

01:46:52.748 –> 01:47:07.948
Michael League: To use in this podcast, it’s not pleasant, but basically the idea is that like, if you’re trying too hard to make something work artistically, it’s probably not as good as you think it is.

01:47:09.048 –> 01:47:14.948
Michael League: The really good things in art flow and are kind of effortless.

01:47:14.948 –> 01:47:19.508
Michael League: As a result of that, I try to not spend like three hours trying to solve a problem.

01:47:20.188 –> 01:47:30.628
Michael League: Like if 10, 15, 20 minutes go by and I’m still hitting a brick wall, I just take a break or I do something else and then I come back later with fresh ears, you know?

01:47:30.628 –> 01:47:38.068
Michael League: That’s one of the main things that I think I’ve learned over the last few years as a producer is just like the importance of taking breaks and cleaning your ears.

01:47:38.068 –> 01:47:45.188
Michael League: Like listening to other records at night or listening to nothing, but I find that listening to other things also kind of like re-centers you.

01:47:45.188 –> 01:47:55.008
Michael League: It kind of like re-calibrates your brain and your ears so that you can engage with the projects that you’re working on with a greater degree of freshness and perspective.

01:47:55.008 –> 01:47:57.048
Michael League: So that’s the advice that I would give.

01:47:57.048 –> 01:48:00.088
Michael League: Like don’t go down the rabbit hole for too long at a time.

01:48:00.088 –> 01:48:08.468
Michael League: Like take breaks, stay fresh, keep the ball moving, keep things flowing and come back, come back to it if you’re having a hard time.

01:48:08.468 –> 01:48:09.348
John Kennedy: Yeah.

01:48:09.348 –> 01:48:11.028
John Kennedy: Thank you so much for your time, Michael.

01:48:11.028 –> 01:48:12.928
John Kennedy: It’s been brilliant to speak to you.

01:48:12.928 –> 01:48:17.748
John Kennedy: Thanks so much for all the preparation involved and for sharing upfront material from Ellipsis.

01:48:17.748 –> 01:48:19.728
John Kennedy: Very very exciting.

01:48:19.728 –> 01:48:26.268
John Kennedy: We should round off by playing something as an outro piece, something to see us off into the sunset.

01:48:26.268 –> 01:48:27.348
John Kennedy: What would you suggest?

01:48:27.348 –> 01:48:33.148
John Kennedy: Another track from the Vari album or a Snarky Puppy track?

01:48:33.208 –> 01:48:43.928
Michael League: Yeah, how about I mentioned that song Dream, the song that Vati, the first time she ever wrote vocal harmonies.

01:48:43.928 –> 01:48:48.828
Michael League: That’s the first song on her record and I think it would be a nice last song for this podcast.

01:48:48.828 –> 01:48:49.208
John Kennedy: Excellent.

01:48:49.208 –> 01:48:50.608
John Kennedy: That’s a great suggestion.

01:48:50.608 –> 01:48:51.668
John Kennedy: Thanks again, Michael.

01:48:51.668 –> 01:48:53.028
John Kennedy: Brilliant to speak to you.

01:48:53.028 –> 01:48:56.988
John Kennedy: And here is Varijashree Venugopal with Dream.

01:49:13.883 –> 01:49:19.203
John Kennedy: Thank you for listening, and in particular, thanks to all of you who have signed up to support us on Patreon.

01:49:19.203 –> 01:49:23.703
John Kennedy: I’m just one part of the team that brings you Tape Notes, and it relies on your support.

01:49:23.703 –> 01:49:31.683
John Kennedy: Access to Patreon includes the full-length videos of new episodes where possible, ad-free episodes and detailed gear lists among many other things.

01:49:31.683 –> 01:49:35.503
John Kennedy: If you’d like to join, head to the link on our socials or website.

01:49:35.503 –> 01:49:44.183
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01:49:44.183 –> 01:49:45.723
John Kennedy: Once again, thank you for listening.

01:49:45.723 –> 01:49:47.003
John Kennedy: Until next time, goodbye.