I have one song that’s coming along nicely, and thinking about this possible album yesterday, I wrote bits of lyrics for several others, including complete lyrics for a song that doesn’t quite fit the concept (and that I should probably never release, for…reasons), but hey…

Anyway, we shall see if any of this goes anywhere :)

2/2

So since the last toot in this thread, I actually recorded and released the aforementioned song (Choo-Choo Train), and have written (but not recorded) two more songs in wildly different styles. Very unusual for me to have several songs going at once (and notes for a couple more). And it allows me to switch between earworms.

3/2

So one of these new songs is really synth-based and as unguitaristic as could possibly be (in B flat-ish), and yet I picked up the guitar tonight, capo’d it on the first fret and found a way to play the song in such a way that you’d swear it could only have been written on the guitar in the first place. Which makes me rethink the entire arrangement. Or maybe It’ll just be the unplugged version if I ever do a livestream again. We shall see… 🙃

4/2

Arrangements merged into something resembling a final mix. Still tempted to release the songs as I finish them, as I always have. Old habits die hard (especially when you’re old 😅). Not rushing the decision, but…

5/2

While the finished song is rather quirky and offbeat, the second one has a more traditional chord progression. Contrast is good. But yesterday, I was looking for a bass line for a bridge section and stumbled on a melody that instantly delighted me, and I’m now rethinking the whole song around it. This is what happens when *humans* make art. Accidents, serendipity, emotional response, rinse, repeat.

It’s that delight and emotional high that they’re after, and that they *want to share*.

6/2

And it reminds me of this thing I heard or read and that won’t leave my brain : Composing music is listening to music. That’s it.

https://mamot.fr/@sknob/114516206409310097

7/2

I’m quite pleased with the arrangement of the second song, so I tried recording some vocals, but it just wasn’t working for some reason I couldn’t quite identify. The usual suspects are things like range, or a problem with the arrangement (too sparse, too dense). So I let it rest over the weekend, and yesterday, it suddenly dawned on me that the problem might be the tempo. So I lowered it from 100 to 96 bpm and I think that might do the trick. We’ll see…

8/2

(I enjoy reading about other people’s work in progress, so hopefully you’ll enjoy these toots)

Anyway, one advantage of releasing songs as soon as they’re done is that I don’t have time to second guess and potentially censor myself. The more I wait, the more the superego, which I manage to totally banish when I’m writing, creeps back in.

That being said, with one song down, one half recorded, and a third song now taking shape(!), it seems I’ll just have to grit my teeth and bear it 😬

9/2

I’d also like to take a moment to thank generative AI for robbing me of my day job and thus giving me even more time and headspace to create (no #GenAI is used in any way shape or form to write these songs of course. I do sometimes use a thesaurus though).

10/2

I spent most of today on that third song I mentioned in passing yesterday, starting before sunrise in bed sketching ideas in GarageBand on my iPad mini. A lot my tracks start that way, and bits often make it to the finished tracks in Logic Pro (which can import GB files).

I have stuff to do for #NHAM and #TIBtv (and I actually received a bit of day job work) so I need to find the willpower to interrupt my #musicMaking for a bit 😅.

11/2

Ooooops, another song poured out of me in bed this morning. First an idea, then a title, and then 7 long stanzas.

So I guess that’s #4 (and I had an idea for another one yesterday, but I have plenty of those that never pan out).

This is getting out of control 😅

I should probably finish recording songs 2 & 3 before going any further, but this is new and uncharted territory for me, so we’ll see what happens when.

And anyway, I have to $dayjob today.

12/2

#musicMaking #newAlbum

Assembled and premixed the instrument tracks for song #3 this morning. So far, these songs are overwhelmingly synth-based, even though I wrote them on the guitar. Weird. And this one doesn’t even have drums or percussion. Could it be ambient-adjacent? 🙀

So now songs #2 and #3 are ready for recording vocals, by far the most frustrating part of any song, because no matter what, I’m never quite able to get them to where I’d like, although I’m used to it at this point.

13/2
#musicMaking #newAlbum

Although I do think my singing has somewhat improved over the last few years, mostly because I care more than I used to about interpretation, and have less of a utilitarian approach. Better late than never 😅.

And probably the result of forcing myself to write stuff that l’m able to sing and play live on the guitar (might come in handy in these apocalyptic times…)

14/2

#musicMaking #newAlbum

Appropriately enough, song #3 is in 3/4 time, at least it started out that way. Except I then found this simple repeating 8th note arpeggio that I liked and I built the whole arrangement around it. So more like 6/8. But when I started singing the words, I kept changing the feel, from 3/4 to 6/8 to 4/4 (dotted quarter notes), sometimes using a lot of half-note triplets. Until I kind of settled on a shuffle/triplet feel (for now at least). So, more like 12/4? 😅

15/2

#musicMaking #newAlbum