I had a phenomenal time with the family over the holidays, and because this website is supposed to be about the musical activities I'm involved in, that's what I'm going to talk about.

Here's something that I've known for a while, but is maybe something that you don't know: There are some very musically talented people in my family. Such talent was on display at a family event known as Nick's Taverna - an annual talent show of sorts featuring the Haggis family and assorted friends, held at my uncle Nick's place. Each year, some people come prepared with a song or a dance. Some people drink too much ouzo and are only able to experience their impromptu performance through embarrassing photographs. All are welcome.

What is far from embarrassing is how much fun it was to jam with my cousins and uncles and aunts. There was a fairly consistent "house band", of which I was part, and then a steady stream of relatives singing songs, dancing, telling off-colour jokes, making stuff up. Talent isn't a prerequisite for fun, but it is fun to see talent in my younger cousins grow every time I see them. Playing music with them is pretty cool. Hell, seeing my cousin Cody grind his way up with his hockey team to win the Macs Midget Tournament is pretty kickass, too, but that's another story. My uncle Adrian is a piano player, and some of the first jazz I played was with him. Fifteen years later it's just as fun to do. My cousin Ella, 13, is a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist now. My cousin Reid, 16, is a singer/dancer/choreographer. One of his pieces was performed by a group of something like 90 dancers at his school. These kids are the real deal.

Photos by Sally Haggis

On New Year's Eve I had a gig with Jessie Farrell at The Ranchmans in Calgary, AB. That was pretty cool because there was a bit of an 'X' factor - a wildcard, if you will. Our regular drummer Jesse Godin wasn't on the gig because he was playing another one back home in Vancouver. Also, Kylee Epp (backup vocals and guitar) was away on another gig, too. The other act on the night (playing 6 sets, no less!) was Craig Moritz and his band, so Craig's drummer, Ben Bradley graciously agreed to help us out by playing some drums with us. This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment thing, Ben had known about this for a few weeks and had learned most of the material - at least everything we gave him and then some new stuff we threw at him at soundcheck. Still, you never really know what is going to happen when there's no rehearsals and everyone is still kind of getting to know each other.

In the end, Ben is a great drummer and did a tremendous job. Bass and drums locked up really well and we crushed it.]]> Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:00:26 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/1068785 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/1025251 This video is from footage captured at some point last summer. It is admittedly, a bit overdue, but considering the numerous boxes of tapes and many dozens of gigabytes of video files that I have in my possession, this puppy is right on time.

I like the hotels and motels that we stay at while touring with Jessie Farrell, but one comes to appreciate the novelty of accommodations that are a bit off the beaten path, which the Garlic Patch B&B certainly is. Our time there was brief, but I left feeling rejuvenated, with my chakras aligned and my spirit high. I recommend it for anyone looking to stay on Manitoulin Island. If you need a spiritual guide, I'm sure Jesse Tucker would be happy to oblige, as he does here.

Enjoy.

Zamfir at the Garlic Patch from Ryland Haggis on Vimeo.

What you'll see and hear in the version below is original dialogue, new music, and new scratch sound effects the Paz did just for the screening. Those sound effects will be the next things that I'll be replacing, and there are some definitely some spots where I could add some more music as well.

I did the music in Logic 8 with the available software instruments and a USB MIDI keyboard controller, and I'm not going to pretend that the orchestra doesn't sound a bit fake here and there, but Abbey Road Studios was booked and I couldn't get in there with the LSO on short notice. My bad. Throughout the writing and tracking (which were simultaneous processes in this case) I had a few web browser tabs open with YouTube uploads of old Looney Tunes and some newer stuff from the Cartoon Network that Paz suggested, like Dexter's Laboratory, as inspiration. No, I did not plagiarize anything...even if I had wanted to it would have taken me longer to try and duplicate that music than to come up with my own.

Not in my wildest dreams could I ever come close to doing what guys like Carl Stalling and Milt Franklyn did in their time. These two gents were the geniuses behind the classic Warner Bros. cartoon scores, and in case you're inclined towards brushing them off, I invite you to watch this and listen closely to the music, thinking about the fact that each and every sound was thought up and then written down before being performed by an orchestra to a click-track (that they invented) and synched to the animation basically on-the-fly as it was being recorded. Skill, folks, skill and talent. Stalling wrote a full score every week during his two decades at that job.

I remember when I was at school I talked to Dennis Esson, a local trombonist (tromboner?), about performing these type of cartoon scores. He is a very accomplished musician both in classical music and jazz, and he said that without a doubt it is some of the hardest music to play because of the rapid key, tempo, and time signature changes, and because advanced techniques in the extremes of the range are called upon for each instrument on a regular basis: Stuff that's really high or really low or really squeaky or growly or weird, etc.

Back to me and Logic 8. That particular software package doesn't give me access to any samples of the kinds of zany things that instrumentalists are called upon to do on a session for a cartoon, not that I would necessarily know when and how to employ them if it did. I haven't done anything exactly like this before, but it was fun jumping in the deep end with a deadline looming. Coming up with snippets of music that corresponded with the action on screen was the hardest part, and I found that in order to get the timing right I had to sort of start at my desired ending point and work backwards with the writing in order to figure out how many bars I needed at a given tempo. Details such as that are not normally a concern whilst playing bass in a country band.

So here's the lastest iteration of "No Recipe", a work in progress:

No recipe, remastered from darkmotion on Vimeo.

Check out a good article about the genius of Carl Stalling here.

There is something truly special about having friends in creative fields, because you can have conversations that might go something like this [DRAMATIZATION]:

Me: "Wow, Paz! Thanks for creating that awesome illustration you completed in just 6 minutes! That's amazing!"

Paz: "No problem - anytime. It's fun and I'm insanely good at it."

Me: "Hey, if there's any animation projects that you need music or sound design for, just let me know. I'd be happy to work on something like that."

Paz: "Sure thing. I'll take you up on that sometime soon."

That time has come, so I'm going to see if I can put together a score for a cartoon that Pasquale has been working on. I think I'll try to do my best Carl Stalling impression, taking into account that he was a genius and I'm a bass player.

Fun, eh? It's bartering, but at the end you've participated in making something awesome, instead of the usual type of bartering where you get an old goat or something from medieval times.

Here's the video as it is now, with the original music and sound effects. We'll see how it plays when I'm done with it. It's a grand experiment, but I'm happy to have a go at it, and I'll try an post newer versions if time (and Paz) allows.

No recipe from darkmotion on Vimeo.

At about 1pm on Friday afternoon, Jessie will be performing a tune or two live on the radio on XM105 Country, so tune into that if you can't make the show.

Also, head over to Jessie's website to check out her newest music video for "I Guess". It's #13 on the video charts, but you can always do your part by requesting at]]> Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:44:26 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/954356 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/954355 My "Music" page is up and at 'em, so check out the little jukebox to hear a smattering of recordings that I've done for a handful of different projects.

Post a comment and let me know what you think!

The title of this post is pretty self-explanatory. I'm on a 7:30am flight to the 'Peg in the morning (less than four hours from now -- last minute packing!), and the first a handful of performances this weekend at]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:59 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944982 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944981 ]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:59 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944981 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944980

This post is overdue. Summer has been dunzo for three weeks now, and it's only really because I'm sitting at my computer and my feet are cold that I've just now really clued in. But with such a realization comes an opportunity to give a backward glance to the music and music-related activities that kept me busy over the weeks of summer.

I toured with a country-singer from Vancouver named Jessie Farrell, playing the bass (as my large, impossible-to-ignore website header makes clear) and singing backup vocals. Behind the scenes I like to help with arranging the tunes, which the five of us do largely as a group at rehearsals. Luckily, I tend to not really care about peoples' feelings when it comes to trying to make the show better, so the tweaking process has evolved so that when someone is doing something that I don't think sounds good I just bring it up and we fix it. It's not because I'm flawless - that's ridiculous - it's because Jessie, and Jesse Tucker (the guitarist, co-songwriter, and hobnobbing gadabout) are more than capable of envisioning and actualizing the larger arc of the songs and the show. This is where decisions are made to create a mood and a feeling, and to hopefully leave an audience satisfied and glad they showed up. Kylee, the backup singer and acoustic guitarist in the band is seasoned and skilled to the extent that she memorizes new lyrics after hearing them once or twice and instantly creates harmonies to compliment Jessie's melodies. Jesse Godin, drummer, has emerged as the guy in charge of the shows' pacing, guiding the band through the transitions between songs and holding the reins over the course of the set.

These are all generalizations. Each of us does more than I've said so far, but it's safe to say that we each have our areas of expertise, we each have unique sensitivities to different aspects of the music, and we each contribute to varying degrees at various moments. This process of building the songs and the show has been happening for a couple years now, but this was the summer when the music started to arrive at, in my opinion, some level of maturity. For me, I think it's a case where the show gets easier and more enjoyable - not that it wasn't before, but there is a feeling of comfort when you're able to trust, anticipate, and respond to the stuff that the band is playing, and when you're able to let muscle-memory take over just a little so that you can look around at the crowd and the band and actually listen to instruments other than your own. I know from past experiences that this is something that mostly comes from playing a lot, and I suppose that's what Jessie and her band did a lot of this summer.

I'm trying to keep in mind that this isn't an endpoint, or even a place to have a nice little rest and to coast or to go through the motions. It's the setting of a new standard and a new starting point for getting better individually and collectively. We have a ways to go before we're in the same league as a band like Emerson Drive or Johnny Reid (if we're sticking to comparisons within the same musical genre). Likewise, this idea isn't the product of an unrealistically zealous commitment to any single project -- for me it is about doing work I can be proud of, whether it's with country music or jazz or Eurotrance Prague-rock. Playing is music is more fun when you can feel like you're getting better at it. This summer, the Jessie Farrell band got a bit better. We played shows in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Some shows were short, some were long (and all of them strangely coincided with local thunderstorms, which was weird). We gained some recognition from fans and recognition from our peers, which are the two best kinds of carrots-on-sticks to hold in front of our noses as we carry on into the fall.

]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:58 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944979 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944978 The ballot for the British Columbia Country Music Association Awards came out this week, and I've been nominated for Bass Player Of The Year!

I'm thrilled to be recognized for the work I've done as part of Jessie Farrell's band in the past year, and just as thrilled to be nominated alongside some great musicians like Shane Hendrickson and Darren Parris. As one might suspect, Jessie Farrell has been nominated in pretty much every category she could have possibly been considered for, so it's looking like we'll all have another kick at the can like we did at the CCMAs last month.

The BCCMA Awards are being held at the end of October. For more info and to get tickets and such, visit their website.

The title of this post is pretty self-explanatory. I'm on a 7:30am flight to the 'Peg in the morning (less than four hours from now -- last minute packing!), and the first a handful of performances this weekend at]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:57 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944977 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944976 ]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:57 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944976 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944975 ]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:57 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944975 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944974

This post is overdue. Summer has been dunzo for three weeks now, and it's only really because I'm sitting at my computer and my feet are cold that I've just now really clued in. But with such a realization comes an opportunity to give a backward glance to the music and music-related activities that kept me busy over the weeks of summer.

I toured with a country-singer from Vancouver named Jessie Farrell, playing the bass (as my large, impossible-to-ignore website header makes clear) and singing backup vocals. Behind the scenes I like to help with arranging the tunes, which the five of us do largely as a group at rehearsals. Luckily, I tend to not really care about peoples' feelings when it comes to trying to make the show better, so the tweaking process has evolved so that when someone is doing something that I don't think sounds good I just bring it up and we fix it. It's not because I'm flawless - that's ridiculous - it's because Jessie, and Jesse Tucker (the guitarist, co-songwriter, and hobnobbing gadabout) are more than capable of envisioning and actualizing the larger arc of the songs and the show. This is where decisions are made to create a mood and a feeling, and to hopefully leave an audience satisfied and glad they showed up. Kylee, the backup singer and acoustic guitarist in the band is seasoned and skilled to the extent that she memorizes new lyrics after hearing them once or twice and instantly creates harmonies to compliment Jessie's melodies. Jesse Godin, drummer, has emerged as the guy in charge of the shows' pacing, guiding the band through the transitions between songs and holding the reins over the course of the set.

These are all generalizations. Each of us does more than I've said so far, but it's safe to say that we each have our areas of expertise, we each have unique sensitivities to different aspects of the music, and we each contribute to varying degrees at various moments. This process of building the songs and the show has been happening for a couple years now, but this was the summer when the music started to arrive at, in my opinion, some level of maturity. For me, I think it's a case where the show gets easier and more enjoyable - not that it wasn't before, but there is a feeling of comfort when you're able to trust, anticipate, and respond to the stuff that the band is playing, and when you're able to let muscle-memory take over just a little so that you can look around at the crowd and the band and actually listen to instruments other than your own. I know from past experiences that this is something that mostly comes from playing a lot, and I suppose that's what Jessie and her band did a lot of this summer.

I'm trying to keep in mind that this isn't an endpoint, or even a place to have a nice little rest and to coast or to go through the motions. It's the setting of a new standard and a new starting point for getting better individually and collectively. We have a ways to go before we're in the same league as a band like Emerson Drive or Johnny Reid (if we're sticking to comparisons within the same musical genre). Likewise, this idea isn't the product of an unrealistically zealous commitment to any single project -- for me it is about doing work I can be proud of, whether it's with country music or jazz or Eurotrance Prague-rock. Playing is music is more fun when you can feel like you're getting better at it. This summer, the Jessie Farrell band got a bit better. We played shows in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Some shows were short, some were long (and all of them strangely coincided with local thunderstorms, which was weird). We gained some recognition from fans and recognition from our peers, which are the two best kinds of carrots-on-sticks to hold in front of our noses as we carry on into the fall.

John Wayne Bus Tour from Ryland Haggis on Vimeo.

What we would find out is that an old bus like that doesn't necessarily provide much in the way of insulation, so playing video games or watching movies in the front lounge area meant wearing a ski jacket and a toque as icy cold wind blew in through the garbage chute under the sink. Well, at least until you were starting to kick Bjorn Borg's lanky Scandinavian ass in an epic Top Spin 3 match-up.]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:56 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944973 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944972

]]> Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:22:56 -0800 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944972 http://virb.com/rylandhaggis/posts/text/944971 The ballot for the British Columbia Country Music Association Awards came out this week, and I've been nominated for Bass Player Of The Year!

I'm thrilled to be recognized for the work I've done as part of Jessie Farrell's band in the past year, and just as thrilled to be nominated alongside some great musicians like Shane Hendrickson and Darren Parris. As one might suspect, Jessie Farrell has been nominated in pretty much every category she could have possibly been considered for, so it's looking like we'll all have another kick at the can like we did at the CCMAs last month.

The BCCMA Awards are being held at the end of October. For more info and to get tickets and such, visit their website.