Starting on the path to a finished song takes time. Though I can’t show you the process at this moment because I’m not at a point where I can mix down, I can tell you how things are going.
I lost time because my Roland 1880’s drive had to be initialized, which is sort of like disk defrag except that you have to unload all your songs so that the disk can be cleaned and ordered. All those takes leave lots of holes once they’re erased, so to keep the laser armiture happy and finding the files properly, I had to spend nearly four hours saving all the music on the hard disk and initializing it so it wouldn’t freeze up anymore.
Today marked a special step forward for me since I haven’t recorded anyone else for a long time, especially on one of my own pieces. O, I’ve done the odd demo for my niece, Kaeli, and a few CDs for friends and businesses that need such things, but I haven’t been able to invite a friend over to record anything for so long it almost hurts.
My bud, Bob Barnes, came over to record vocals. This dude is meticulous and careful about sound and knows parts like no one else. He can pick a part out of the air and we had fun coming up with harmony vocals for his parts. I struggled to find the right notes and really hadn’t taken the time to figure out a good harmony, knowing Bob would be coming over to help with that.
So, what is done today was the BGVs (background vocals) for the first verse, which includes the harmonies, and the vocal for the chorus sans the harmony. Bob will have to make another trip back here to do that and the second verse and chorus through to the ending. I’m trying to get his wife to come lay a couple of tracks down as well.
Bob’s voice blends well, so I can use him on both melody and harmony. I’ll also be using my brother, Tracy, and hopefully Kaeli.
The process for this means I have to double everyone’s vocal parts twice. What this does is allows me to have the big vocal sound without the choir or vocal ensemble. It’s meticulous work and takes a lot of time. We spent from about 2:30 until 5:30 just working on the first verse and melody for the chorus.
The Roland 1880 uses 18 tracks at any one time as the access sounds and has 15 more tracks, called “virtual” tracks, laid underneath the each original. So there are actually 256 tracks available for recording but only 18 can be heard at a time. This allows me to put Bob on tracks 2 & 3 but use virtual track 3 for the melody and virtual track 4 for harmony. We also did virtual 5 for one phrase in order to get a 3 part harmony. It kind of looks like this: 2-3 (channel 2 on the mixer, virtual track 3) & 3-3 have melody; 2-4 & 3-4 have harmony, 2-5 & 3-5 have a 3rd part.
At the end of the song, I have a fourth part to the music. In other words, if the intro and verse basically do the same thing, you could call them “part A”, then the prechorus would be part B, the chorus part C, and the ending with eight bar repetition makes up a part D. What I did after the original song was written was add a second part to the chorus and then an ending which set off in a slightly different direction with a more driving beat.
At part D, I always heard a round of voices singing the message of the song over and over. So one set of BGVs will be sing, “In heaven the angels cry” and on the word “cry” another set will sing “Tears for the children.” Then because I’m such an enthusiast for rounds, I decided to ping pong (bounce between left and right) the word “go” with two separate voices or groups of voices.
While all this is going (and yes, it will be quite busy), the lead vocal will be improvising and scattering thoughts with lead guitar adding lines here and there. I also picture the guitar and lead vocal trading thoughts back and forth during the first sixteen bars of part D.
We’ll see if it works because that’s a lot of noise and could sound more cacophonic than musical. But I want the confusion and chaos to speak to the hearts of people about the same emotions and state of life that these little people have to face daily, so it’s like sound illustration for me.
As soon as I can get some time to mix it down, I’ll set up a demo on MySpace and those intersted can listen. If I had the ability on this blog, I would be putting little snippets of the song here to show you how things are progressing but I haven’t upgraded this site as yet.
I am excited to finish the song and move on to the next one. But the truth is I won’t be satisfied with half-baked anymore nor is this something I feel casual about. I want it to be finished and do the work it takes to get there.
Damn! I love this kind of work!
Tags: arranging, art, music, musician, passion, recording, recording process, songwriting
December 15, 2008 at 1:14 pm |
I see you’re just as meticulous about your songwriting and composing as I am about my novel. If you’re going to do it well and do it right, you need to pour your soul into it, yes?
Second rate is simply not an option for some of us…
December 15, 2008 at 3:16 pm |
I like the raw, rough edged and unpolished nature of some music, at the same time I’m not willing to be skimpy on the adhesive nature of the song, the quality of performance or the professional deliverance of the sound.
So, you’re absolutely right.
One thing I do, though (which drives some other musicians crazy), is throw all the sounds and thoughts at the song I am inspired to put in, then begin the slow process of comparative editing and snipping away what doesn’t create the atmosphere for the song. I also do this in my posts here and the devotionals I write.
I will do this for the novel I’m working on as well.
That’s why I love reading your entries on this subject because you want your characters to breathe–or as near as story teller can make them do so.
That’s my goal for the songs I write.
It’s also one of the reasons I am so reluctant to let people hear the songs before I’m done. I have put some unfinished ones on MySpace but I hope I’ve made it clear they are in process.