Well this one has been a fun if not long process.
Here is a cover of Steely Dan's Black Cow 
It's also a collab with my Dad! He's still got it :)
I hope you enjoy this, it's meant to sound close to the original but you know, we're not top 70's session musos from LA or award winning studio engineers. We work with what we've got, and I think we're allright ;)

Tel Guitar and Bass https://soundcloud.com/tel-guitar-and-bass
Lead and Backing Vocals
Electric piano
Horn Arrangement
Actually being the one to work out the chords

Me
Drum and Horn programming
Horn arrangement 
Guitar
Bass
Clavinet
Mixing

Black Cow - Tel Guitar And Bass W Bob Fish (Steely Dan Cover)

Here's something I've just finished. The chords and the melody have been floating around for a few years. 
This is a power ballad with a prog interlude. I've included a guitar melody but really this is intended as a vocal track.
I hope you like.

Turn the Page

Panda Eyes

Another demo sans vocal. No guitar melodies in place of them either. 
Playing with a heavy Opeth vibe in this one.
The intro section is another years old idea that  i was suddenly inspired to finish.
A few different time signatures going on here. 6/8 7/8 and 13/16.


A Price Too High

A cover of one of my favourites from the amazing Crystal Planet by Joe Satriani.

Originally I recorded live drums for this but ultimately I was unhappy with the sound. The tom in particular gave me trouble, and there was a few days experimenting with heads and tuning. 
I bought my drums during a low point in life and didn't even really notice the shockingly bad heads it had. Pinstripes and Ambassadors? Amirite Drummers? 
Audio to midi to the rescue. I get better sound and my performance is preserved. The shaker, though , that's 100% real!
Had much fun with this and put to use some techniques I learned recently.

Hope you enjoy.

Oh sorry to the five people who already heard this on my previous upload. It was the mix you see? It was bad.

Guitar, Bass, Synths and Percussion By me :)
Art by me based on Crystal Planet cover photography by Neil Zlozower.

Music by Joe Satriani ℗ 1998 Epic Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment

A Piece Of Liquid - Joe Satriani Cover

The Question

New song featuring the awesome guitar skills of Stutrol. Don't blame him for the rhythm parts though, that's me.  
I surprised myself with this song as there is only 1 time signature....and it's 4/4! It is however chock full of synths and a buttload of arpeggios.  
As usual there are no main vocals but i have included some roughish melodies on guitar.  There are some backing style vocals towards the end of the song though. Yep, my voice can be heard finally! 
Spoken Excerpt from Carl Sagan's Cosmos episode 13: Who speaks for Earth.

https://soundcloud.com/stutrol

No Obligations (feat. Stutrol)

*new mix 23/07/2014 - Nothing major, just fixing a last minute mix change I made before I originally uploaded. I removed too much ambience from some of the guitars and it left them feeling not right in the mix to my ears. Anyway here it is with the ambience added back again. :)

A real instrumental this time. Thanks to @stutrol for another great solo.
Friends of stutrol will recognize his style and sound i'm sure, but for those who don't you can hear the mighty trol from 2:30 - 3:30.
This song is intended to come directly after my previous song 'No Obligations'.
Let me know what you think, be it good or bad.

Thanks.
Nel.

Hurricanes (ft. Stutrol) - New Mix

Originally I wrote this as a solo acoustic piece but being a little unhappy with it I decided to arrange it  as a  heavier, full band affair.  Hope you enjoy! Please let me know if you do, or even if you don't! 

Ta, Nel.

Weightless

Surprise! It's a guitar instrumental!
This one has a slightly sadder feel to it. It's about what we are doing to this planet of ours and the feeling of near helplessness that overcomes us when thinking about all the things that could be being done but aren't.

I really hope you enjoy this one, please let me know if you do.

Martin! :)

What If It's Too Late?

Well, its a Monday so that can only mean one thing, Its time for a remix of a song from 2016 that no one asked for!
So here is my alternate version and remix of this awesome song.
Its filled with awesome performances and magic.
As it's an alternate version, there are some differences between this and the original. The intro is completely rebuilt as i didn't have any of the parts. I also decided to use a previous arrangement with a piano solo instead of an acoustic guitar solo, and omitted a keyboard solo. This was mainly done because i genuinely feel like its the best choice for the song, but also because i didn't have them!

This was such a pleasure to work on, in 2016 OR 2023.

Bass - @stringburner
Drums - @bobfishreturns
Guitars - @danarchx
Keyboards - @jules-keys-1

check out the original version here
https://soundcloud.com/jules-keys-1/distant-mirrors-mirko-borach-a-man-called-martin-dan-van-den-berg-and-julien-apelian

Distant Mirrors - Mirko Borach, Bob Fish, Dan Van Den Berg & Julien Apelian (alt version & remix)

The final track from my album, a nice long one to end on.
This is kinda my attempt at a prog epic. Not sure if I nailed it or not. Let me know! 
Thanks to @stutrol for the awesome solos. You can hear them at 6:25 and 8:38

Dreams Are Our Only Hope (ft Stutrol)

***Re-mixed and re-mastered for 2015!! Couple new guitar bits recorded, bit of cleaning up, improved sound (i think)

I got round to covering a christmas song this year.
Here's some TSO for you but with my flavour added to it. Hope you enjoy it.

Merry Christmas! :)

Christmas Eve Sarajevo 12/24 (Trans Siberian Orchestra cover)NEW MIX 2015

So I wasn't really sure if this one was done or not. Maybe it needs a more defined melody part but everything i try on guitar just doesn't sound right. Maybe it stands well on it's own, or maybe needs vocals? Let me know what you think and feel free to suggest anything!

When The End Is Calling

I love making music, and that's kinda what this song is about. Those contrasting  feelings of doubt and hope that we get when we create something, if we try to ignore them things seem to fall into place. Well, at least I hope they do! :P

Oh I nearly forgot. I borrowed a small part of this track from the 5th movement of Beethoven's 6th symphony, can you hear it? 

Falling Into Place

A nice little guitar track with a nice vibe.
Hope you like it :)

Learning To Fly

I wrote this song for vocals but as yet have no melody for the verse, other than that it's very complete.
Hope you enjoy :)

Close Your Eyes

Well, hmm, yes well I attempted to cover a Vai track haha!
I'm obviously not on Vais level and even this 'easy' vai tune was a challenge for me. And the tuning! I've never tuned a guitar so much before in my life!
Anyway, it's not the most perfect cover in the world but I have to say I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. 

Nel.

Die to Live - Steve Vai Cover

Captain Magniloquent is a fictional sci-fi character who thinks he knows it all while in reality he's borderline incompetent! Good job he's only in charge of a galactic clean up crew and not 'the first line of defence for planet Earth' as he likes to believe! 

Anyway, I wrote this with the intention of it being a theme tune that the Captain might hear in his head. I think it loosely sticks to that brief. I had fun with this regardless, hope you enjoy!

Captain Magniloquent And The Delusions Of Grandeur

Hello there! Well after what feels like a loooong time away from SC, i'm back!
I suffered what might be called a cascade hardware failure with my studio gear which has been expensive and time consuming.  
I've also had various problems with my state of being. Don't worry though, it's not like I lost a finger or anything!

I thought i'd start slowly with a nice jazz guitar cover. 
This version is heavily based on an arrangement by Rich Severson, just a few changes here and there but that's what jazz is all about right?

Anyway this is way out of my comfort zone from a performance and production point of view so if you guitarists could let me know how I did or where it could be better i'd appreciate that!

Hope you enjoy (even though it's not perfect) <---- I'm working on not having to include disclaimers haha!

Nel :)

Arranging credits - Rich Severson
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzyMe5OSJ-Og47XrYFJ17ag

What A Wonderful World (louis Armstrong cover)

I've spent quite a few months trying to get this piece right. 
I learned the notes ok but the dynamics left me quite exhausted.
I hope you enjoy my rendition of Moonlight Sonata.

All playing, no programming :)

Moonlight Sonata 1st Movement - Ludwig Van Beethoven

So this is my first foray into the world of original jazz composition. 
Had a lot of fun doing this.
I played rather than programmed too. Still using vsti's but not a single note was entered with a mouse!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making it :)

Nel <3

Nothings Doin'

I sat down to attempt to write some ambient video game style music and this is what happened.  Things don't always end up how you intend them to. :)

The Return

I uploaded this song last week but I became unhappy with several things. The speed of the track, a few inconsistencies here and there, the mix, the title and the photo used. 
So i decided to fix it. Sped it up by 5bpm, fixed a few bits, remixed, remastered and gave it a new title and photo.
Whenever I remix things I usually feel like I've traded one set of issues for another. Hopefully this will sit well in the long run.
Apologies if you're here for something new but I hope you like it nonetheless :)

Green Light Groove

More Jazz! I hope you enjoy it. And if any instrumentalists or vocalists fancy doing their thing with the melody or the solo, hit me up and i'll provide you with an appropriate version!

Nel

Notstalgia

So this is what I came up with using a similar process as I used during the recent music challenge I took part in. I spent more time on this though and it has hopefully ended up sounding quite nice.

Prismatic

Written By Glover Gill and originally performed by Tosca Tango Orchestra for the film Waking Life directed by Richard Linklater.

Yeah I know, same song two days in a row. I wasn't even going to do the full version but the mood just came over me.
So here's the full version. I've made a few tweaks to some timings and dynamics. Changed some articulations here and there and swapped out the cello sound for what I think is a better sound.

Again, if you haven't seen Waking life  (or just listened to the soundtrack) I highly recommend you get on that right away.

Not bad for two days work if I do say so myself.

Peace, Love and Tango.

Mi Otra Mitad de Naranja - Tosca tango Orchestra Cover (Full Version)

Chopin Prelude Op 28 No 20 In C Minor

A re-orchestration of a piece originally titled 'Dystopian' from late 2018.

This was an experiment in composition, arrangement and orchestration.
I took a track with not much going on (a couple of synth parts, a drum track, some ticky-tacky sounds and a badly executed melody) and turned it into a hybrid electro/orchestral number.

I hope you enjoy it.
Listen to the original track here: https://soundcloud.com/bobfishreturns/dystopian-ending

Dyst(h)opian

Another cover from me today. 
Now I don't 100% nail this one. There is a note i just couldn't get right so it's omitted. There are also a few points where notes die when they should ring. Consider this a 'warts and all' version.

This is track 1 from the album Taproot. 
Tuning is  DADEAB

The Naked Stalk - Michael Hedges Cover

My first go at scoring to picture.
I've been trying get to grips with Hitrecord. Found a short film but the project was closed so i'm not sure if i'll be able to upload it.
Here's the music for it, with a silent section removed.

Edit: Link to the film :)
https://hitrecord.org/records/4638197

The Phone Call

Just sharing the music that I write as a way to give me some focus for composing, something i'm currently striving to be better at.
While drums are my first instrument, guitar will mostly be featured here  and almost everything else you hear will be programmed, including drums. I just don't have the gear or the space to record them.
Comments and shizz will be appreciated verily yo. Feel free to contact me also.

Bob Fish

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