[12] Captain Nemo Music

Written and Performed by Monty Dicksion

Newly Re-Recorded November-December, 2021



  Best listened to on speakers capable of shaking the floor.  This song is meant to be cranked up.  But be sure to make sure the pictures on your walls and your dishes are secured because this song will kick your butt.

  Why this song is called “Captain Nemo Music” – Well, the song’s construction is based on the chord resolution from F# to C, which happens to be a type of a chord resolution that is often called “diabolus in musica”.

  But the inspiration for this song most definitely came from the theme music by Bernard Herrmann for the movie “The Mysterious Island,” released in December, 1961 (exactly 60 years ago from the time of this writing), and that theme music also uses that sort of chord resolution in a powerful way.

  One of the main characters of that story, of course, is Captain Nemo.

  I must tell you about one of the chords I’ve used in this song.  I play it only twice.  To me, it is THE special chord of the whole song.  But when you hear it, you’ll say, “Oooo, no.  You screwed up there, Monty.”

  Well, the chord is vert dissonant.  But actually, it’s really the exactly correct chord for where it’s used.  I don’t know the name of the chord.  I’m sure someone who’s really smart, like Rick Beato, could identify it.  But I have no idea what it’s called.

  It’s dissonant because it’s a combination of B, D, D# and G.  In this song, on the guitar, the fingering is exactly the same as an ordinary open G chord, but played up on the 7th fret –

      E    A   D   G    B    E

1  |    |    | °  | °  | °  |   |

2  |    |    |     |    |    |    |

3  |    |    |     |    |    |    |

4  |    |    |     |    |    |    |

5  |    |    |     |    |    |    |

6  |    | x |     |    |    |    |

7  | x |    |     |    | x |     |

 

  I don’t remember exactly when I made this song up.  But I recorded it on my early Docorder reel-to-reel tape recorder back in 1977.  That recording is on my collection I call “Summer of ’77 Keepables.”  It’s likely that I made up the song in ’76 when I lived on Maui.  But with this new re-recording, I have much better gear and a lot more tools I can use.  Now, even though I play the guitar part exactly the same as I always have, I was able to really pump up the song to where it’s a whole new animal.

  The little Yamaha FG-75 that I play is just a small acoustic guitar, but it really is a very special guitar, capable of producing amazing sounds like no other guitar.

  I don’t know how old it is.  My dad bought it used at a swap meet in La Mirada, and I’ve been playing it easily for over 50 years.

  I do have a really good vintage Martin D-28, and it’s great for when you need a big guitar sound, like you hear from people like David Bromberg.

 But this little Yamaha is quite special.  Once I was playing something for another guitarist, and I was getting some amazing sounds out of my guitar.

 He said, “How did you do that?”

  I said, I don’t know.”

  He said, “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  Sure, it has to do with a lot of things – your strings, your pick, how you hold the pick, how you finger the strings, where you strum …  But I’ve tried all those things on my Martin and it can’t reproduce the kinds of sounds I can get from this guitar.

  On this song, there are 2, 3 and sometimes 4 multiple guitar tracks that I recorded individually and separately.  But, with the exception of the reverb I put on the very end of the song, I used no EQ or compression or any other effects of any kind.  It’s just a very special guitar that way.

  With the completion of this song, I am still a little less that half-way through Phase 1 of my “As Live As I Can Make It” project.