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Days 6 & 7
May 20, 2007 Waiting 1 Comment
Last night, I worked on that Perfect Moment bridge yet again. Sometimes I reach a point where I’m just throwing things together with almost no regard for what actually makes sense, and absolutlely none for context. But then I’ll listen back later on and realize that I’ve done something new. That once I’ve veered from the path of trying to make something sound like this or that, magic starts to happen. And when I listen, instead of thinking “oh, that bassline isn’t hip enough, or oh, those vocals don’t blend right,” I’ll just think, “That’s me! I did that!”
I think I don’t actually like arranging my songs. I just love new ideas; when I work, I get excited about coming up with countermelodies and stringing them together, and somehow it all comes together. So tonight, when I sat down with La Da Da Dee, and tried to change the feel of one of the sections from swung to straight, I started to get really tense. I knew the general feel I wanted, but I didn’t know how to get there. I just wanted a part that you wouldn’t notice (which is something I often want in a rhythm section – if you don’t notice the instruments, it means they’re really playing the song), but I couldn’t make it happen. So I just looped a couple bars and played over them again and again.
Until, of course, I had an idea. And once I have an idea, lights start to turn on, and my hands move by themselves, and soon enough I’m nodding my head, yes, this is how it should be.
But I’m a little worried. I’m worried that I’ll end up not with 9 coherent songs, but with 9 collections of ideas, stuck together with chewing gum and common key signatures. My high school composition teacher once told me, after listening to one of my disjointed pieces, that I should write music for cartoons. I hope that Waiting doesn’t get the same reaction.
Day 5
May 19, 2007 Waiting Leave a comment
Another day, another hour. I spent this one, once again, working on this new bridge section to Perfect Moment. I have only a glimmer of how it needs to go, a sort of epic lightness, that reflects, as Matty suggested to me the other day, the way my characters wait. When you’re lost in your 20’s, your waiting is the biggest thing you’ve got. Your hopes, your wonders. What comes next?
Now how do I get that big sound out of my little voice in my little room? Tip #1: If you want to make a small number of voices sound like a chorus, a Chorus plugin does not help. Not even if you throw a big choir-sized reverb after it. Neither does singing as many different parts as you can come up with.
I haven’t got it yet, and I’m hanging up my headphones for the night. But sometimes it’s much clearer what to do when you’re not actually there to do it. When I get home tomorrow, I’ll write out some 4-part harmony and triple-track it. If I can’t make a bunch of people singing sound like a bunch of people singing, I might as well turn in my Logic Pro dongle and call it a day.
Day 4
May 17, 2007 Waiting 5 Comments
You’d think that, after a long day of fixing and setting up stuff, two more hours of driver-related troubleshooting would kill a man’s spirit. But guess what, Digidesign? Even though I had to reinstall your drivers twice, even though you made me reinstall the whole OS 10.4.9 Combo Update, and even though your goods still stubbornly and mysteriously refused to work properly after all my voodoo magic, I still prevailed. Because I know that if a trick doesn’t work the first time (like unplugging and replugging your stupid crap audio interface), you just have to do it again and again until it does.
I am smarter than machines.
So once I got that out of the way, I got back to work on Perfect Moment. Another listen to the new bridge section, and I realized it’s actually pretty hip! I added in a Dilla-style bassline and hi-hats, a nice little 16th-note-anticipatory thwap before the snare on 4 (kind of like a really big flam), and started building up my airy choral harmonies.
I have no idea how I’m gonna fit this new idea into the song proper, but that’s for one of my more lucid moments. This was a night for zombie creativity. Don’t think, don’t look back. Just eat the brains and move on.
Day 3
May 17, 2007 Waiting 3 Comments
Alright, folks, it’s on. I spent another hour troubleshooting drivers today, and I finally figured out what was wrong. Anyone out there using a Digi 002 or Digi 002 Rack, don’t buy anything from Ximeta. They write really shitty software for their NDAS drives. I should have realized this when I first installed the software and got kernel panics constantly.
So I got down to business. I took a look at Perfect Moment; some great ideas have been coming up in rehearsal, so tonight I was gonna try to integrate some of them into the recording. Success was limited; the recording is at 96 bpm, and the live version is at 85. So some things don’t translate too well. It’s too bad though; we’ve got this really awesome bridge section developing, with shades of “Chicken Grease” meets Radiohead. Perhaps it will just have to be a special surprise for people who come to see us.
Songwriting is so interesting sometimes. I’m relatively new to it, and there are many ways in which I still have no idea what I’m doing. I’ll write a song from a certain angle (e.g. Perfect Moment was born from a lyric about having dinner with someone who’s too shy to make eye contact), add in other layers (the sort of hip-hop soul feel), and then start building off the new layers, without regard for the original. So I end up with this really hip jam section in the middle of a song about inaction and waiting for things to happen. And then I have to rejigger everything to make it all make sense. Fun with incongruity!
I’m digging this idea of daily status reports. I know they’re a lot less interesting than my epic posts of the past, but even if no one’s reading them, at least they keep me honest.
Day 2
May 15, 2007 Uncategorized Leave a comment
I just got home from rehearsal with the Geniuses. Since we don’t have a drummer anymore, it’s just me, Matty (our bass player), and my sister Marie (who sings). Matty forgot his bass, so he played acoustic guitar.
And it was so sweet. I love that feeling of friends and family making quiet music together at home. I could feel pieces falling into place tonight, grooves starting to lock in. Harmonies are starting to unfold in my head, ideas of how to really make this music beautiful. And Marie bought us these really cute band pins.
It just feels good to be with them. I can’t wait to play with them onstage. I’ve been building up so much in the past few months as a performer and as a person, and I’m itching to give that to an audience. I need to get out there and share that feeling with the world.
But everything comes at a price. No work on the album tonight. I need to get some sleep.
Day 1
May 15, 2007 Waiting Leave a comment
I started on my new schedule tonight. I taped some logs up on my wall for filling out dates and hours and what songs I worked on and all that good stuff. I decided on a minimum of 1 hour per weeknight and 2-3 per weekend day. By the time my mixing appointment rolls around, I’ll have put in some serious hours, and hopefully this thing will be everything I’ve wanted it to be.
Tonight, however, was not. I spent maybe 30 minutes messing with a drum track and over two hours setting things up and troubleshooting audio interface driver problems. It’s so frustrating to allot myself this nice creative time in the evening and end up spending it the same way I spend my time at work. But I started writing a new tune while I was waiting for my computer to restart the third time, so it wasn’t a total loss.
Perhaps tomorrow will be more fruitful.
Project “Get It Done”
May 15, 2007 Waiting 4 Comments
One day in August 2005, in a rented flat in Scotland, with a rented laptop, I suddenly had something. The day before, all I had was things. Machines and cables. Cases that nearly didn’t make it onto the plane. Cheap surge protectors found at the end of a long walk with a bad map. But that day (let’s pretend it was a Thursday), that Thursday, there was something else. Play in a drumbeat, a couple notes of piano, put some strings on top of that – holy shit, we’re making an album!
Almost two years later, I’ve put in hundreds of hours writing, recording, sequencing, and tweaking. Each track has a personality, eight children growing all at once, one more still waiting to be born. There’s a mockup of the cover on my wall; under it is a list of all my little ones’ names, so I don’t forget to feed any of them. They’re all so different, but they’re all my babies. They’re always in the back of my mind.
And yet I still haven’t gotten over that initial shock. That all this work I’ve done in my apartment in my underwear will actually mean something, that someday I will have a thing to show for it. A little plastic box that I can hold up and say “This is what I’ve done.” And maybe even, “This is why I’m here.”
That someday is coming soon. As of this weekend, I’m officially in album lockdown mode. No new commitments, no stupid wastes of time. Just spending time at home, building this thing up until it’s done. And when it is, I’ll revel in letting them all go. Watching them run out into the world, and desperately hoping that my little songs can succeed. Soon, my darlings, soon.
Talk Like A Pirate Day 2005
Sep 19, 2005 thingsThatHappened 2 Comments
It be that time of year again. Arr!
I Just Can’t Keep It To Myself
Jun 19, 2005 food 5 Comments
Yesterday, for lunch, I had the best Thai food I’ve ever had. In Woodside. And I LOVE Thai food.
Then, for dinner, I had awesome soup dumplings. In Flushing.
How did I find these places? What is my secret? Have I been holding out on you all?
Yes, I have. I hope you can forgive me.
I Never Thought I’d See The Day
Jun 6, 2005 programmingandInterfaces 5 Comments
I’m still expecting someone to pop out from behind the bushes and say
“April Fool’s!” But it’s June, and it is far too hot for hell to have frozen over.
And yet…