i recorded this guitar part for a buddy a while back then decided i should sing it.. so here is my simple take on this Bob Dylan classic

To Make You Feel My Love

30 YEARS LATER

GRAVE-YARD SHIFT

I do not own the backing track to this song. Backing track was created by VITO ASTONE on YouTube. This is my first ever published recording. Let me know what you think. Recorded with an Ibanez RGEX4FM1,Seymour Duncan JB, Seymour Duncan Custom Stack PLus, and Seymour Duncan Jazz pickups and GarageBand.

Sad Song

Recorded using Garage band through a Digitech RP350. Guitar: Agile A-2000 all stock no mods. *****I DO NOT OWN THIS BACKING TRACK. ALL CREDIT GOES TO VITO ASTONE (YOUTUBE).***** Enjoy and let me know what you think. 

Rough Blues

I do NOT own the rights to this backing track....Used soley for recreational purposes only....Performed on a stock Agile A-2000 going through a Fender Mustang Floor unit and then into GrageBand on an Ipad....Enjoy.

Get on Up

This custom song started with only a title from a friend. He said, "Write a song about Sam and the dragon". He said I could do anything I wanted with that, so I sat down with my brother Sam who makes ceramic dragons (samclarkart.com) and we decided it would be fun to hear an epic dragon ballad with a mash-up of Celtic/Beowulf/Tavern feel. 

That turned into a nearly 800 word poem! It was too long to sing, so, in the end, the recording became part song and part narration with a 'soundtrack'. 

On Fiverr, I found a Malaysian fellow named Faliq Auri who records Celtic instruments and he added flutes, tin whistle, and uilleann pipes which rounded out the old ballad feel beautifully. So much fun. 

I've posted the lyrics on my blog here: 

http://www.matthewclark.net/songofthesword


The Song Of The Sword

I went back and edited the panning of the guitar tracks to keep them from fighting over each other in the middle. Hopefully it can be heard a little better now.. Enjoy....

Straight Jammin' Editted

I DO NOT own this backing track, all credit for the backing track goes to Metal Guitar Stuff on YouTube. I came up with this jam while going through some backing tracks the other day and really felt inspired when i heard it. I decided to record my playing on top of it and viola....... Enjoy.

Rock Around

an intro that I'm tinkering with. the lead track is all over the place and riddled with mistakes. recorded on my iPad with jamup pro's built in 8 track

Intro idea

My name is Charlie Bock. For 3 years, I was locked alone in my man cave with only one goal... complete my interpretation of the Arrow TV theme song...

As that whole bit is a tad overused, I'll continue by saying it's been a long journey since I started trying to follow up my take on the Flash TV theme with Arrow. It's a difficult song to work with compared to Flash as Flash had some awesome motifs to work around. The Arrow theme has... "bum bum bum bum bum bum BUM bum". Also, listening to the "full" composition of the theme song, the whole Arrow theme is basically (by design) one long build up. Plenty of little ideas to incorporate, but I had serious trouble trying to form a cohesive song versus just transposing the whole composition to guitars. 

After 3 years of sporadic work (and avoidance), I finally finished it thanks to the motivation from my friends at the Flash TV Talk Podcast (@FlashTVTalk). If not familiar with all the different parts of the the Arrow theme (like me before listening to it for my preparation to write/record this song), it may be hard to really recognize all the little details I threw in, but I still think it all fits into place well enough.

It's a dark and brooding song, which seems to fit the show. There is so much story the show hints at, so this song really had to tell a story, too. The beginning starts really slow, ominous, and thematic before breaking into the basic beginning of the theme song that more or less follows the song. The "bum bum..." rhythm (here on out referred to as the main rhythm to reduce the use of the word "bum") is so hard to make interesting since it's simply a string of equal length notes that repeat, so I had to modify the note pattern slightly to make it into a listenable moving riff when the heavy rhythm guitars come in. When they do come in, you should still be able to hear the inspiration from the original pattern of the main rhythm with a couple of hints that I snuck in right before it.

As the pace slows down, it starts to basically follow the original Arrow theme. It then changes to a really heavy take on the main rhythm with a few leads over increasing key changes to build up a lot of sense of conflict, of which the show is full. As this darker, escalating section builds up to a climax, I introduce an original piece of music to represent a sense of restoration/redemption. This section doesn't build off any of the theme song's existing motifs because I had to create the redemption the show never seems to give! It's so dark, haha!

The song ends by returning to the original straight pattern of the theme's main rhythm as it works better here towards the end of the song. The ending has a quick build up to the familiar high pitch screech that usually starts/ends the episode, but I bring it around full circle by bringing back the arpeggio pattern that began the song as the good ol' fashioned E power chords fade out. 

People seemed to like my take on the Flash theme, so hopefully they like this one. In my opinion it is less accessible than the Flash, but anyone into thematic music (especially heavy metal stuff) might understand this take on the Arrow theme better than those that don't. Again, I had to make some artistic changes, but hopefully it made the song more listenable. 

Successful, or should I have stayed on my hellish island? You be the judge.

Arrow TV Theme 2017

Just a guy who likes playing rock/metal guitar and writing a song here and there. I write instrumental songs because I can't sing or write lyrics. Mostly, I'm a big melody guy, and guitar melodies transfer through me better than vocal ones. Joe Satriani is my biggest influence and favorite guitar player.