Hello, I’m R.E. Fort, and welcome back to my podcast, this episode of my Feature Tracks playlist, May 2024. Before we get to this month’s playlist, I want to give an update. I’m currently working on a new CD. This will make my 15th CD, but my 7th that’s available on all music streaming sites, so stay tuned for more updates on the new release.
Okay, with that out of the way, on to this month’s playlist. I want to change things up a bit this month. In this playlist and podcast, I will do a deeper dive into three tracks from my most recent CD. The title track, Life On The Other Side, Listen to your heart, and Why Don’t You Just Let Us Play. As always, you can find links to this playlist for YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, and Amazon Music, in this post and on my website at refort.co/playlist. Let’s get to the playlist.
Podcast and playlist – Featured Tracks Playlist May 2024
The Tracks
Kicking us off this month is the title track, Life on the Other Side. I’m often asked how do I come up with names for instrumental music. Well, it’s not an easy thing sometimes. I listen to each section of a song, listening for the words that sometimes come to me. Sometimes they hit me quickly, and other times it takes a lot of time. In this track, something about the way it starts sounding like time clicking by. From that thought, I kept thinking about how things change in each stage of life. I kept thinking of how young love is so different than the love you feel after you’ve been married for years. That’s how the title came about, Life on the Other Side of that Young Love.
In this track, I used a 6-8 pop-rock drum pattern that I heavily modified. There’s something about that drum programming and the bass guitar work that really gives this track that blues feel. In this track, the melody is played using my Fender Acoustic Electric, which I used for all the guitar work in this track. The melody is accompanied by a cool grand piano sound. I used the same formula, if you will, for the counter melody, but there I used my Fender Rhodes Electric Piano sound and a brighter effect on my Fender Acoustic Electric. To fill out this great tune, I added to the sound canvas strings and that Rhodes Electric Piano sound playing the chords. Let’s give Life on the Other Side a listen.
Up next is Listen to Your Heart. This track came about while my family was hanging out at our house one weekend and I heard my daughter whistling a melody. I sat down at my baby grand and started to play it. From there, I was hooked on this track. Instead of naming it after my daughter, I went with Listen to Your Heart. In this beautiful ballad, I start with just a grand piano playing the melody and slowly bring in the strings and the rest of the orchestration. With such a pretty melody, I knew I needed to let it shine through. So, the rest of the sound canvas is an electric piano and strings softly playing the chords in this track. My Fender Acoustic Electric joins the grand piano melody while the bass guitar and the drums keep the rhythm of the track moving.
On ballads like these, I love making big key changes. This song is written in the key of D major and towards the end of the track, I build it up and change keys to G sharp major and then work my way back down to the key of D major, completing a full circle, ending with the same melody played on the grand piano and the Fender Acoustic. Let’s give Listen to Your Heart a listen.
The last track on this playlist is Why Don’t You Just Let Us Play. Now, this is one hot track. This one reminds me of when I played in a band. You know, there’s always one song the band really loves playing. To me, this is that jam. For the drum programming, I started with what is labeled a 4-4 pop rock pattern that I heavily modified. I play my Gibson SG for the rhythm and melody of this track, and then my Fender Stratocaster covers the guitar songs. This up-tempo jazz has some killer horns that back up the melody and accent the rest of the track.
I believe when I started writing this track, it began with the bass guitar and those opening notes. Then, once I grabbed my Gibson SG and started playing the chords, I knew this was heading down a rock fusion mode. The combination of the Fender Rose electric piano along with that gritty sounding horn section really drives this track. Now, I’m not a drummer, so the drum programming took me the most time to work out, but man, was it worth in the end. Towards the end of this track, I changed up the drum programming a little, which gives this section a totally different, cool feel to it. I really do love the bass guitar work and the solo on this hot track. Let’s give Why Don’t You Just Let Us Play a listen.
Well I hope you enjoyed this episode and get a chance to listen to the full tracks on either my YouTube, YouTube Music, Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, and Amazon Music sites. Remember you can find links to this playlist and those sites in this post and on my website at refort.co/playlist. The song opening and closing this podcast is the track named So Cool from my cd 10. Thanks for listening, and as always, Without Music, Life Has No Soul. Thanks
Now available and streaming on these and more services
Without Music, Life Has No Soul
I Hope you enjoy
Follow and listen on these social and streaming networks.
