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Post by Kapitan on Aug 1, 2021 17:18:44 GMT
This morning while thinking whiningly about the smoky air, I had a song idea. Two and a half hours later, a full recording! I had the Mountain Goats in mind while writing it, which helps explain the arrangement, singing style, and production choices in some respects (e.g. no reverb on acoustic guitars, crazily compressed voice on the edge of distortion).
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Post by Kapitan on Sept 6, 2021 16:25:17 GMT
Slowing down a bit lately, aren't I? Well here is a new recording I did over the weekend, "Yellow Pass." It's another old song that I'm trying to record half-decently (by my standards), as I've got one 20-year-old version that's an embarrassment and another 15-year-old one that's basically live, energetic, but not great quality. So ... third time's a charm?
"Yellow Pass." It's a nice little nasty ditty about insane jealousy, mixing a slightly funky rock with a minor blues and then something else altogether. Hope you like it.
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 26, 2021 15:37:18 GMT
Yesterday afternoon I had in mind an old song I'd written a dozen years ago but never recorded. It was a bit of a Buddy Holly knockoff kind of thing, total throwaway lyrics, etc., but I always liked the tune.
Anyway being not in the mood to work on real work, I began taking a few minutes to record little bits. Fiddled with drums. Added acoustic guitars and bass. Gave a little thought to lead electric guitar. Last night overnight I was thinking about Spectorizing the bridge, so today I wrote a string section, added timpani, and had a few other ideas to incorporate. (All synth obviously, in that I don't have a string section or timpani on hand...)
Hoping to work through it all today and (more likely) tomorrow!
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Post by Kapitan on Oct 26, 2021 22:04:32 GMT
Yesterday afternoon I had in mind an old song I'd written a dozen years ago but never recorded. It was a bit of a Buddy Holly knockoff kind of thing, total throwaway lyrics, etc., but I always liked the tune.
Anyway being not in the mood to work on real work, I began taking a few minutes to record little bits. Fiddled with drums. Added acoustic guitars and bass. Gave a little thought to lead electric guitar. Last night overnight I was thinking about Spectorizing the bridge, so today I wrote a string section, added timpani, and had a few other ideas to incorporate. (All synth obviously, in that I don't have a string section or timpani on hand...)
Hoping to work through it all today and (more likely) tomorrow!
Done! (I admit it, I need to work fast--and frankly a little sloppily--while the iron of enthusiasm is hot.) I enjoy the song dopey as the lyrics and sloppy as the mix, at the very least, might be. I actually like the string part most, though it got a little lost in the mix.
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Post by Kapitan on Nov 5, 2021 21:37:32 GMT
Here's one I wrote on Tuesday and recorded this afternoon. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Hope you enjoy "Election Day."
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 1, 2021 21:47:34 GMT
Here is a new recording I did over the past couple of days of a new song. It comprises a pair of sections I'd written recently on piano, though it's pretty guitar-driven now (along with a little piano, electric piano in the bridge, and some flute-mellotron on the refrains). One odd thing is, the title occurs at the end of both verses, not in the refrain. It also begins with the riff from the verse, not the refrain ... but then the refrain begins the song.
For some reason the volume feels like it REALLY swells with the lead vocal's "answer" lines in the refrain. I don't know exactly why... I am not pushing up volume there. I went through tracks individually and there is nothing along those lines. But all together, BAM. I think it's that certain of them (harmonies, electric guitar, etc.) might all go in a similar register together.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 4, 2021 17:50:10 GMT
Today I'm working on a song for which I want to include brass quintet. This means turning to synthesized instruments. For some reason, while I have no qualms using synth drums, organs, and electric pianos, when it comes to strings and horns I'm always a little queasy about it. They feel like cheating.
Why them and not those others?
Great question...
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 5, 2021 15:24:30 GMT
Today I'm working on a song for which I want to include brass quintet. This means turning to synthesized instruments. For some reason, while I have no qualms using synth drums, organs, and electric pianos, when it comes to strings and horns I'm always a little queasy about it. They feel like cheating.
Why them and not those others?
Great question...
I finished up the above-referenced song, "Ne'er the Twain Shall Meet." I started getting lost in possibilities for it and losing the forest for the trees, so basically I just added an electric guitar line, cut a bit of the brass, mixed it, and said it's done. I hope you enjoy it.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 10, 2021 21:08:58 GMT
Here is another new one, "Hate Your Slang." You know how people add "right?" the way they used to say "ah" or "um"? Well, that's the song, basically. I can't take it. The song is pretty straight ahead, kind of garage rock sort of thing. Two guitars, an organ, a bass, and drums. Some vocal harmonies but fewer than usual. Two minutes, in and out in a hurry.
You can listen here. I hope you like it.
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 18, 2021 20:41:08 GMT
Here's what is probably my final new song of 2021, built around a melody and line that I thought of maybe six or more months ago, "I wouldn't quite believe me, believe me. Why don't we fall together?" However, a line does not a song make! I've fiddled with it, and even included some of it in a different song earlier ("Fall Apart"). But I just finished writing this Wednesday or Thursday, and recorded it since. It has some high notes. My goodness. The refrain melody ends with G-A-B-A, which damn near killed me...
I enjoyed the intro, and then the return of the bassoon, English horn, and oboe in the bridge.
I hear this one as a kind of album kickoff song, not that I have an album to kick off. Anyway, I hope you enjoy "Fall Together."
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Post by Kapitan on Dec 29, 2021 19:59:06 GMT
Depending on terminology, I lied: this morning I finished another new ... thing. Is it a song? Eh, not exactly, but yeah.
The "Feels" thread in the main forum stems from the root of this songish thing, "Nothing Going On." I've been stuck in a brain-loop for a week or so (approximately...I don't recall exactly when I thought of it) with these chords:
G-7/D ' ' ' / F-7/C ' ' ' / (3x)
Bbmaj7 ' ' ' / Ebmaj7 ' ' ' / (2x) F7/Eb ' C-7 ' / Eb7/Db ' Bb-7 ' / Db7/Cb ' Ab-7 ' / B7/A ' ' ' / D7/A ' D7 '
It feels nicely self contained like that to me, and I just keep going and going and going with it, without coming up with a song. So instead I just took a different approach where I just recorded the piano and bass and drums straight through, then went through adding a little bit each section to give it some variety even though things just repeat. So as it proceeds, it adds: electric guitar; electric piano; harmony voice; sax quartet; doubled voices; marimba; high harmony voice.
But it never goes anywhere. And the lyrics, even the title, say so: there's nothing going on. (Those are the only lyrics: "there's nothing going on.")
I hope you enjoy it, maybe especially knowing the background and how I was thinking very much about Brian's "feels."
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 3, 2022 16:11:39 GMT
Thanks to a little nudge from B.E. in the shoutbox, I got to work on a new song this morning. I took the melody and changes to an existing verse (to which I'd written two verses) as a starting point and wrote more in one of my favorite, if least convenient, writing methods: while on a walk. (I like to quietly hum or sing, then I start fiddling with new melodies and lyrics, and put them in my phone if I like them so as not to forget.)
Four miles later I had a third verse and the melody and lyrics for a refrain and a bridge. When I got home, I figured out the accompanying chords and started playing with some little arrangement ideas. I want to be ambitious and say I'm going to finish it off during this long weekend, but I'll be a bit more conservative and shoot for having a recording done and posted by the end of next weekend.
The song title at the moment is "Ready, Fire, Aim." There is one part in the verses that I'm really worried about singing, where the melody goes (pickup note of E up to high) B-A-F#. That quick leap of an ascending fifth in a relatively high register might be the death of me. (Or I might have to enlist some Joe Thomas trickery...)
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 7, 2022 13:06:45 GMT
After getting drums, bass, and two guitars done on my new song, I've come to the conclusion that the opening riff (which repeats later in the song) has to go. It's better suited for a faster tempo than the rest of the song, and the texture of it just isn't right, either.
So now, to not only excise that bass and those guitars from those sections, but to think of something more appropriate and get that onto "tape"... and then get whatever else into the song that's required.
It's annoying to realize that your plan is better abandoned half-done than completed. But it's better than finishing it and then coming to the same realization.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 10, 2022 17:19:43 GMT
Mission accomplished! This morning I finished the song I mentioned last week. The basic track is drums, bass, two electric guitars, piano, and organ, plus vocals. I added a sax quartet to the bridge and parts of the last chorus. Also rare for me, I didn't double-track the lead vocal during the verses (though it's doubled during the chorus and tripled in the bridge).
The vibe as I hear it is mostly early Elvis Costello, but maybe a little bigger.
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Post by B.E. on Jul 16, 2022 15:31:32 GMT
I really like the title, "Ready, Fire, Aim", and the sax quartet works really well, I think. Then your previous song, "Nothing Going On", came on, and I really like just about everything about that one. I suppose it's just more to my style, but it definitely gave me a similar vibe to "Can't Wait Too Long" and the arrangement also reminded me of Friends-era Brian. (And this was before coming here today and being reminded of the "Feels" thread and that discussion - of which I don't recall the specifics.) Also, again, I liked the implementation of the sax quartet.
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