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Back On Track

Well folks, it’s been a long time. Which is not to say that I haven’t been working. Oh, I have. Instrumental parts, vocals, harmonies, lyrics. The usual struggles. Just behind the scenes.
Incognito.
But I’m coming out to show my face. Maybe it’s the showy spirit of Sexyween. […]

Day 25

Worked on Far Side again this evening. It’s hard to tell what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s beautiful and what’s just too much. Time for bed.

Day 24

If you have it, put on Stevie Wonder’s I Believe When I Fall In Love and listen to the piano going into the chorus right at 1:13. If not, you’ll just have to read this entry instead.
—-
On the subject of timing, Questlove in a recent blog entry:
and FEELING is something you aint getting now.
this is […]

Day 21

More work tonight on Far Side. I redid one of the verses and made it sort of stark. I tried some reversed harmonies, but immediately it sounded like I was trying to do Radiohead. The song is Thom Yorkey enough as it is.
But it’s turning out well. It’s meant to be haunting, […]

Days 19 & 20

I’ve been working for the last two days on “The Far Side of Town.” It’s so nebulous right now. I’m not even sure if that’s what the song is called.
It started life, as many of my songs do, as just a musical idea that I fleshed out in Logic with nonsense […]

Day 17

Lovely rehearsal tonight for our mini-gig on Monday. Come on out; it’ll be great.
After: spent a while tweaking sloppy timing in In The Days. Spent another while pondering whether the sloppiness I’d just tweaked was what made the song work. Undid tweaking. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Tried out some different drum sample kits […]

Day 16

So, after a long day of work, then a visit to the doctor about the soft-wrapped marble that my throat has turned into, and an attempt to make dinner without falling asleep, I tried to get down to work tonight. I started in on 4ths again, trying to make some sense of the weird […]

Day 15

So I just spent another hour working on La Da Da Dee. The keen readers among you may remember that just yesterday, I proclaimed that song “done.” But you can never underestimate the need to revise, to perfect, to tweak. I started by just making innocuous fixes here and there, cleaning up […]

Day 14

And La Da Da Dee is done.
Well, not done, exactly. But in a complete form. An arrangement I like from beginning to end. The drums could use some reworking, and the languid section of the bridge still isn’t right. But it’s at the point now where I could give it to […]

Days 12 & 13

I’ve been working some more on La Da Da Dee. Cleaning up those bridge grooves, filling out the 3rd verse, trying to get the ups and downs right. I don’t like programming drums for slower songs. It’s too easy to subvert the groove with a misplaced fill. I just looped a […]