It’s snowing out and the music is done!

I’m happy to report that the music portion of the album is now complete! I have finished all the music tracks and now am on to finishing lyrics and final vocal takes.

I was listening to all the songs last night on my I-pod. I’ve talked before of needing some distance from the songs so they sound like songs to me. When I first write them, they never quite seem ‘real’ to me. Well I guess enough time has passed because as I was listening I was able to hear them as a record and not my songs for the first time. So this is kind of how this phase goes for me: listen to the songs A LOT. Screw around with vocal rhythms, notes, harmonies. Listen more. Pick out the phrases that will form the lyrics, tweak words. Listen more. Finally record the vocals. Then the last part starts. Mixing. Well, ok, almost the last part. Because then I need to put the songs into some kind of order for the CD that makes sense. This has a lot to do with what songs sound good next to eachother, the ’story’ being told and the flow of the album. Just like songs have sections and build or drops, intense moments and lighter times, the over all album should reflect this too. I’m already playing with this in my preliminary listening, but I can’t really finsh this part until I have all the lyrics.

So over the next couple days I’ll be posting up some demos on the webpage that may or may not have ‘lyrics’ to them. Check em out.

I’m gonna take the dogs out into the snow storm and let them run around while I listen to the songs. Have a great holiday!

peace
Mike

Tripping over a flat sidewalk

Sometimes things get a little weird when you didn’t think they would. Working on the final versions of songs. Some are perfect and need little added/polished/edited. Some have changed quite a bit. New ideas for the parts, new instruments added or subtracted. Overall I’m very happy with how it’s going. Every once in a while though, something doesn’t seem to work and I can’t figure it out.
There’s a song called ‘Denver’ which I’m working on. I sat down a few days ago to replay the acoustics, bass and electrics the same way I had them on the first demo I did. Which I REALLY liked. I played, put up a quick reference mix and didn’t get back to it till yesterday. It sounded empty and boring. I tried to play with the mix at first until I wanted to shoot my speakers out. Came back to it today. Still the same problem. Well that’s obvious you think, but sometimes you just get tired of listening to everything and the song/songs you’re working on can all start to sound pretty much like crap so if you give it a rest and come back, you can listen with new ears. This did not help.

The problem is sometimes that the first time I play something, even though it’s messy and poor playing, the performance will be really good feel wise, or the way it comes out has something to it that really captures me. Replaying ‘good’ parts (by this I mean with good mic placement, levels etc, which isn’t always the best thing…) means letting go of the ‘moment’ of creation. I know how it’s supposed to go and try to play it that way, but being picky about the whole thing. Mostly this isn’t a problem. However it can be. Getting too careful can rob the passion and any kind of life from the song. I think this is what’s happening here. There is very little difference between the new version and what I originally recorded other than the sounds are clearer. But now the song just bores me. and it seems to be missing something that wasn’t missing before. It feels stupid like when you trip on a perfectly flat sidewalk. Which I do. A lot.

ARRRGHGHFHFWER@#$#$%$%Y^%$!!!

Other than that, everything is coming along great. Every other song has become better so far. Maybe this is just an unfinished song right now and I didn’t realize it before I started doing the ‘final’ version. I guess I’ll find out.

I’ll be posting a few in the coming week so check back soon.

Happy holidays.
peace