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!

Inner Voices?

Singing your own songs is hard, I find. For a kick off you have no point to aim for, no note to commit yourself to or drop away from.
This proved even more difficult when singing in a silent room, on my own. Not normally bothered by this type of thing, I found myself feeling quite self conscious when attempting to belt it out.

I started by sitting down with the mic in a stand which failed, badly. I assessed the reason for the failure was because I wasn't trying hard enough, too lax. So I stood up, mic still in stand and went for it again. Better, yes, good, no. Standing up, Mic in hand, very slight gyration of the hips? YESSSS!!! So after a few takes decided that was enough for one day.

Postscript: Listened with fresh ears a few days later and it turns out that one was pish too.

Hey, Ho! Lets Go!

I am a good chunk through recording the first song 'Sweet Beauty'. Having selected a suitable drumbeat, I looked at the words and music, everything was completed except a sort-of middle-8ish bit against which all that was noted was the word 'late' and 'George Harrisony bit'. I think whenever I played the song previously I just fudged that bit 'til enough time passed to get back on to the verse. So I looked through my complex filing system of song notes (post-its stuck to books, books, work diary pages, A4 sheets etc) which have been jammed into boxes, laid in piles and stuck on shelves. Stored in various locations I eventually found out what these cryptic clues meant (I think) and set about writing down a definitive version.

You see my problem is that I rarely finish songs I get them up to a point where they are finish-able and my brain ticks it off. I think I am more into the creation of the songs rather than playing the finished article or maybe its some deep rooted psychological issue I have thats obvious to other people, who knows?

Anyway, recording a song its pretty tricky stuff - I started with a nice simple acoustic guitar track. This went pretty well a couple of mistakes but it was in time and meant I could really get cracking.

I mentioned my piano skills were lacking so I fannied about for ages with this cos I only had one firm idea for the piano line which was for the bridge. I wanted to check out the possibilities for some keyboards so I kinda layered on bass bits, high bits and some minor league tickling. The outcome was 4 piano tracks which any semi-competent piano player could easily achieve drunk with one hand, but it was done and I was happy cos I could listen back to a rhythmic thing.

Next post Singing (oof!) Lead Guitar (ouch!) and Bass....tbc.

Starting with Sweet Beauty

So here we go.
I have started to record the first of, hopefully, many songs. The main hurdle for me is that I am doing it myself so I need to learn how to play all the instruments and how to make decent drums on the computer etc.

The first song I decided to record is called Sweet Beauty. It is one of my more conventional rock numbers and I don't think its one of my best overall.

I thought that this would be a good starting place for 3 main reasons
(1) I have a strange affection for it, particularly the lyrics.
(2) I had the most fully formed idea of how it would sound and importantly how I could achieve it.
(3) It required the least piano, which I can barely play yet.

This song was mostly written about 5 years ago and in quite interesting circumstances, and it sort of marked the beginning of me making a conscious effort to write songs from a very personal perspective.
Sweet Beauty in particular has resonance for this reason, it remains, probably, my most personal work to date.

What is interesting about the lyrics is that they were written half before and half after a major 'incident' in my life. It was an incident that I had no idea was going to happen and probably changed my perspective forever and what is amazing about this song is that the lyrics written before the incident made more sense after the incident.

I had the lyrics fully written for ages looking for music and melody, so as a starting point I decided to bastardise the chords from a song I had written years before about getting hammered and having a good time when I was in a band. I liked the poetry of taking something that meant a lot when I was younger and marrying it to my newfound sensibilities.

Right thats the introduction, if you are still reading well done if you are not, get it right up ye!

The next post will be about have my first few recording 'sessions' went down.

OUT!
MMP