Welcome to harrygrant.io
and also visit harry-grant.com
Hi I’m Harry Grant aka harrygrant (for search) and
harrygrant.io (for this exact music website).
As fate would have it, there are many, many, many other Harry Grants on Youtube, and 68 on Sound Cloud alone
I suppose I should call myself something memorable like Harry69.
WTF is Harry? Oh you mean Harry69!
So who the heck is that Harry69 guy anyway?
Harry69 is an acoustical opportunist with good sonic sensibilities and responsible for the arrangements such as they are.
A long time guitar player, I love guitars and own a couple. Harry also dabs his hand in keyboards and bass guitar and has a voice like sand and glue.
You should have heard me before the singing exercises. Sometimes you’ll hear royalty free loops singing instead
as in Pretend You’re Mine. Those guitar stabs within the song are me on my red HHS Mexican Strat and using the tremelo arm.
I like guitars with tremelo arms. Bigsbys, of course, and Floyd Rose and Duesenberg arms all have their place in my small collection.
Harry likes rock and roll among other genres.
Whats Better? My Fender Mexican Stratocaster or My Made in USA George and Leo S500?
Thats a tough question. I like them both. Leo Fender himself designed them and they are almost identical.
But the Strat has a Floyd Rose system which can be annoying and the Guitars By Leo (Fender) doesnt!
Also the neck is maple on the S500 so its easier to read the fret dots. Both are quite heavy tone wood.
On the songs you’ll hear here. The guitar I use most on guitar written songs is the red Mexican Strat.
Its got mojo from having an HSS pick up configuration (2 single coil pickups and a humbucking p/u in the bridge postion).
Single Coil Pickups are a characteristic of Fender guitars and humbuckers were invented and patented by Gibson Guitar Co.
Using sinlge coil pickups my composition Mana From Heaven is about being grateful and shining the light within for 2 minutes. Songs not too bad either.
I play the melody on midi keyboard but the vocals are 2 loops provided royalty free by Logic Pro X.
I sing in other songs you’ll soon be raving about to your friends. Mind the neighbors.
More harrygrant.io Songs
The NT-1A is not a USB microphone and necessitates something called PHANTOM POWER which my 10 channel Yamaha mixer gives me. I chose Yamaha mixer for two reasons.
It had phantom power and its had USB. Also Yamaha make a great product and it was 300 eu. Truthfully, I never use more than 4 channels: Guitar one, Guitar Two, Bass Guitar, Vocal.
Think footprint on your desk top.
I also have a 130 eu TUBE MP/C COMPRESSOR LIMITOR WHICH I recommend because not only does amplify your microphone signal, you can record your guitar into it too.
Plus it has a tube in it boosting the signal on the way to Yamaha mixer. You need this extra power a microphone pre-amp such as this gives you. You can spend thousands on these too.
Generally I sing better standing up and after 20 minutes to a half hour of vocal warm up.
With the exception of youTube, I’m not on social media. And with all the distractions and competition it’s difficult to give music away anyway. Toss in the fact that there is so much music available and so many genres, well, you cant please everyone. So I am trying to please myself with what I think are good results and I just started using iZotope for my mastering.
Holiday is a song about how precious every day is. I guess thats what its about. The words kind of came to me in a rush. The hook at the end especially.
The blessing of good health and being grateful. As youth is wasted on the young.
I wrote the song Pleased to Meet You just because it seemed like a good idea when introducing myself.
In it I explain a little bit of my philosophy and what we share by being alive. Actually I don’t explain anything and try to avoid divisiveness of any kind. Or do I?
Please don’t judge me by this one song alone.
Ryderz in dSkyz is a song that came together over time and resolves to a horn part with a guitar passage in there too. Its about scantily clad chanteuses in the first verse and in the 2nd we bemoan David Bowie’s and Jimi Hendrix’s passing. Then we move on to Elon Musks’ Starlink Satellites which are a two edged sword and could be an eye sore too.
Science fiction author Jack Vance, actually has as one of his characters, a Star King, excavate a planets moon to his own facial likeness as a prank.
Dearest Elon, 500 is a lot for one of your demodulators, to some people …including me.
Give it Away Now and Harrys Song Writing Industrial Complex ‘n Empire
My songs here are free to listen to. I write the music ‘n words myself. I take all the blame. I’ll use a royalty free loop too if need be.
And it need be quite often.
It’s not I don’t want to collaborate. What with the lockdowns and following the science, I’d still be waiting.
These songs I have dared to put up here are, quantity wise, somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-300 in my write a hundred songs trek to songwriting.
Quality wise is up to you to judge. I have learned a lot and just the other day made some progress in my mixing skills using the iZotope suite.
Its proving to be a sweet piece of kit.
Harry doesnt put cookies on your computer either. Harry eschews SEO because its BS mostly. There is only so much room at the top. That why they make so many genres.
I am supposed to funnel you into my money making juggernaut and turn you into super fans via a cunningly choreographed system of landing pages, teasers and calls to action. I am lured by various gurus who can guide me through the labyrinthine process of making it in todays music business even Synching with films and advertisers. Its a brobdingnagian mess. Since I wont use FaceBook or IG or Twitter I am in a quandry. Only you could help, if you liked my music, by telling all your friends and relatives. Ok maybe tell just one person.
Apples’ Logic Pro is my preferred D.A.W.
I think with todays DAWs anyone can make some interesting music if they apply themselves. I have played guitar for several years. Its only since the advent of the DAW that I have taken up keyboards and drums and bass. In these music productions I am the mixer guy too. A Mac is necessary for Logic. Except Logic, all these programs come in PC versions too. FL Studio, PreSonus Sphere, Garage Band, iZotope, and Waves Plug ins.
A DAW is a sequencer. Think of it a as a smart assistant to organize things for you. It puts things in a sequence which may be edited and re-arranged at whim. Including writing your live input and arranging the material on the DAW. With todays DAWs one does not need to use music notation in their creative process. Logic will give you notes on demand from your live input. Additionally music theory itself is dealt with in a more practical manner where song craft is power and encouraged. A DAW will let you arrange pre recorded loops of various instruments into a composition without you having to play an instrument or sing. I prefer Apples Logic because its designed to write songs in a business like way. IMHO No other DAW compares to its drum presets for layering a foundation for a tune. You can tweak the presets too so its infinite. Also Logic Has Ultra Beat. I am learning to write songs and these songs here are that attempt.
I have difficulty doing any of the things I am supposed to do to make it todays music business. I don’t feel comfortable using social media at this time.
If one of you enjoys my music or a song of mine then I’ll be happy.
However If my music is used commercially thats different and I assert my copyrights.
The ten top things not to do to make it in the music business
Dont practice everyday. I am working on this sentence… stay glued.
I am one guy sitting in a home studio having fun. I have, in theory, available to me, unlimited instruments, sounds and beats. I can buy sound libraries. I can score cinema. If I cant read music Logic will provide a musical score at the press of a button. I can make different sounding kinds of music using genre specific templates which Logic provides. I can do this without my betraying my Chicago blues and Western musical values. Besides hip hop and trance, instrumentals, ballads, electronic, acoustic. I have seen Segovia, Leonard Bernstein, Doily Carte and grew up listening to the radio. Opera is the one thing I am not crazy about.
So anyway, back to the song, Pleased to Meet You. The verse where it says The days are short and the nights are long is something I thought, come summer, most people could agree on. Where I say we had good times and we had bad, we been happy and weve been sad. Hasnt everyone? Then I get into a Doors Crystal Ship inspired refrain, The hourglass is being filled, a thousand girls a thousand thrills.
Another song Hey Yea is me trying out PreSonus Sphere for the first time. I joined it for a year. All these DAWS offer loop libraries to greater and lesser extents and I found that reggae bass riff you’ll hear. I augmented it with some key tinkling to get that honky tonk vibe and layered in some Hubert Sumlin inspired rhythmic figures. Now I had to think up words and some came to me. Sadly I never wrote another song using Sphere and dont plan to renew. IMHO Spheres’ design is by engineers not musicians to its detriment and the loops too self possessed.
Carla is another tune and obviously its not me singing. Carla is a voice. A really nice royalty free voice.
I wish my voice was anywhere near as good as hers.
I can claim credit for the arrangement of her voice however. I am playing chords and melody.
So if you search for me, say in YouTube,
SoundCloud or band camp please use
harrygrant w/out the .io (Indian Ocean)
harrygrant vs. harrygrant.io
The later for direct access Harry’s Music
I hope that you enjoy my music.
If you like it tell your friends please because they wont find me on FB or IG or Twitter
FYI I don’t put cookies on your computer.
Harry Unleashed and Unexpurgiated
Existential PlayList
DAW Tip: Logic 10.7 likes you to have saved your song,
ideally, as soon as you create it.
But for sure every few changes you make to it.
By creating too many unsaved variations
and adding anything else, such as more plug-ins,
you begin to overtax the CPU.
The mini Mac doesn’t allow you to put in enough memory in my opinion.
It could use more USB i/o and audio i/o as well.
The most annoying thing about Logic
is the notification every time you unplug hardware in audio set up!
Also It cant seem to figure out that we
want to use the inputs we have previously used a million times.
Music Technique Fact Check
Writing Music on DAW Logic 10.7 is Fantastic
if you seek educational material to familiarize yourself.
Big Bad Pronoun
Also Quantum Mechanics are at work
and the mere act of observation itself alters
our acoustic impressions. This is no longer strictly my interperation. I learned to align my mouth correctly with the Rode NT-1A microphone.
Microphone Placement is very important to a singer. I learned, and have to keep reminding my self, about my “breaths” while singing between verses and vocalizations. Avoid them if possible. Warm up first.
Chickin Pickin
Another good tip is, after you pretty much have a song length chosen
to go to your mix menu up top and choose to create an automatic fade at the end of the song
In your mixer window right clicked on a blank part of its column in the mixer window
and choose to get it to show up on your regular tracks view. Then use “A”
to see automation view and adjust a bunch of fun stuff.
I don’t have recording studio or a vocal isolation booth.
I have an odd shaped room ill suited to music mixing acoustics.
One wall is glass, the other lined with books and so on.
Vocal Exercises ‘n Singing Technique
I do vocal exercises, Ariela Vaccarino, Maria Muldair, Jeffrey Allen.
Basix Rock Singing Techniques is good too Alfred Press.
My range is limited but expanding.
Yes I use auto tune and any anything else to enhance I can find.
I Like Butch Vig and JJPuig as vocal plug ins as well as pitch correction too.
Less is more however. Anyone can do this if they apply themselves long enough.
I am into helping fellow pilgrims in their musical journey.
I recommend men using a male vocal coach CD/DVD exercises
and women using a female.
Later you want to listen to as many exercise coaches
as you can as they all have something to offer
My lyrics vary from absurd nonsense to profundities.
They are only songs.
If you want more info on Greece check out my Greece travel guide
harrys-greece.com
contact me at hgrant at otenet.gr.
Guitarists interested in upping their game should visit my site via link below
which analyses over 150 guitar lessons and the guitar lesson industrial complex.
Call to Action harrygrant.io
This next song is a sarcastic but polite look at the song writing industrial complex. Wether I have talent or not, even I know I am not a great singer. I dont pretend to be.
This is a short commentary. A jaundiced view. Its not my preferred work environment. I am on youtube harrygrant.io Music on Youtube
www.guitar-dvd-reviews.com
I hope you like these musical efforts of mine.
All mistakes are mine
Thanks for listening.