Drumslog Til we're there

I got my first outsider help at the weekend. A buddy who is a competent ivory tickler popped round to put down the 'central movement' of the third song being recorded, namely For longer than a day should last.... (the song I am in the process writing and writing about) He duly accepted my instructions on what was to be achieved and pressed on with the part, he even recorded an optional coda by taking a little melodic walk on the chords in half-time.

However, none of this is why I am posting, the remarkable moment occurred after he listened to Sweet Beauty - as it currently sounded. His appraisal included a throwaway remark about the drums being a bit 'Northside'.

This led to a rethink of what I was doing drum-wise, he was right I had let a drumloop dictate the sound of the whole song. It was supposed to sound kinda dirty, not sexual like Marvin Gaye, more like Nirvana but served as a summer pudding. The path that the song was travelling down was making it sound more like a 70's rock radio affair than I had ever planned. This was evident when the grindy bass sound I had selected ages ago no longer fit [Note: I had spent a week after the bassline debacle previously described working out a decent bass guitar part and learning to play it] and was unconsciencously being replaced with a soft Andrexish ditty. 'Whew! a timely rescue' I hear you say and you would be correct cos this little comment led me to rip the drums out and start from close to scratch, completely change the lead guitar and allowed me to get back to the pudding I wanted.

During the next week(by Mojave the weeks are passing quickly, my 'song a month' strategem is crumbling like a ginger biscuit from the farmers market) I dabbled in drumage most nights for about 20 mins to 1 hour and by about wednesday I was happy with all parts except the chorus.

So I sent an email to a drummer friend of mine asking for some assistance, which I still awaiting a response (give the guy a break, he travels around, he may not even had access to a computer). I worked out the final touches to the bass and laid it down all nice and dirty like.
So it was on to the retake of the vocals but thats a another blog for A.N.Other (what does that mean? almost everyone says it, is it supposed to be a persons name?) time...

Stay Frosty!

Sweet Bassy

Got a second hand bass guitar yesterday. Worked out a nifty bassline over the course of the last two days amped up over the computer playback.
Tried to record it and now I am in a rage for 2 reasons:-
(1) As soon as I press record I start to play like I have hooves.
(2) When I finally hit a decent take I listened back only to realise my 'nifty' fucking bass line is actually a bit shit.
Need to work on this during the week, me thinks.
OUT!

Autumn a new song

I spent many hours trying to write songs where every line had a specific meaning based somewhere in reality, thinking that truly great songs (which I think you must aspire to write) were all written like that. Very recently I realised how limiting this was in creating something.

I started to just let ideas flow and put them together and let the meaning sort of find itself, if you know what I mean.

For example, I have been writing a new song as the backdrop to the recording stuff, on which this blog was originally based. The song is called 'For longer than a day should last...' this title has been sitting written in my wee song notebook for years and leafing through the pages I noticed that I had tried, unsuccessfully, several times to write it into a song. Reading the line now I don't know exactly what it means, literally, but it conjures a sorta melancholy emotion that I like.

So I got a second hand piano for my birthday a few months ago, and as mentioned previously can barely play it. However, within a couple of weeks of getting it, with my very limited ability, I started to write a song on it. It was quite a simple chord based thing, which I started to hum a melody over the top of thinking about 'autumn' and all that word/time of year/emotion entails. Every so often I threw the word autumn in to keep it going (It is worth noting that the piano was temporarily situated at a window in the living room and the time of year was autumn).

I hadn't written a new song for several years so I wasn't really expecting much to come of this thing. I decided to write 'the autumnal piano thing' on a page of the wee song notebook, it just so happened this random page had a line/verse/quasi-poem (I hate it when people use quasi- in front of words, or pseudo- for that matter but I always have this urge to use it. In fact part of my policy when writing this blog was not to back edit any of it, leave in mistakes etc. Well I broke my own rules on this one, I first tried quasi, then pseudo, then leaving out the poem part altogether, but the urge was too strong and there it is, you can see it there next to the smashed rules, bah)scrawled on it already (running out of space in the wee song notebook) which was about leaves and cars and all the stuff I could see out that window.

Good things?

So we have started recording the second song 'Post LIfe (Good Things?)' it was untitled when I started recording it and is now titled, good eh? It was also unfinished, which may be a running theme of all the songs I attempt to record, sitting here right now I can't think of one that is in the bag, compositional-ly speaking.

I should also note, at this stage, for those of you who have been avidly following the progress of Sweet Beauty, that I laid down the guitar on and was scuppered only when I found out my bass guitar was completely knackered and needed an overhaul to the point where it would cost almost the same (or more still not got the quote in) to buy a new one of similar standard. It sounds ok vocals need work, like completely re-done or ideally sung by a competent singer.

Recording is going pretty well on this one except that my idea to sonically simulate an anxiety attack several time during the song has not worked quite like I had hoped it would. Well it certainly does sound out of place (like it was meant to) but instead of being unsettling and stirring it must come across as funny cos the few people who have heard it have laughed. So I am back to the drawing board on that bit I have a couple of ideas to make it slightly more musical and I will let you know how they go. The intro melody is played on the midi because I can't lay my hands on a pedal steel guitar or a theramin easily. I am beginning to realize what a producer does.

It shouldn't be too long now before I can post a song for public consumption.

OUT!