Monday – Wednesday, August 7,8,9
I’m a week behind with the write up so I may need to be somewhat vague.
Taking a break from the Sobule/Kristofferson session I went back to a song idea that I see from this journal I have not looked at for 3 months.
After living with the mp3 rough mix it was apparent that the song, which is basically a chorus from 2002 and a verse from 2005 needed to emphasise it’s dual nature. Not hide it. So I set about finding a new feel for the chorus.
The verse is somewhat funky, for want of a better word, and by my standards, that is, anyway. The chorus is a simple rock pop melody, so I decide straighten it out. I keep the existing piano part which links to the song intro, and the verses and I ditch the bass and drums, and the guitar.
First I create a simple ballad r’n’r drum part, to be refined later. Then add simple root note on the beat bass (Trilogy, usual sound).
Now I try to play guitar. The verses are syncopated. I try to do the opposite in the chorus and I end up with slightly syncopated.. Getting somewhere.
I take the nylon strung guiatr melody from the intro and play this, or close to it, on the piano, to have a 2 piano thing going again.
The main guitar is still not rooting the song down enough, so I add a second, really straight 1,2,3,4 type arpegio, with a 2nd fret capo so I can play key of C shapes, against the key of D shapes on the original guitar. These two guitars interlock and overlap in a good musical way, the dynamic is constantly shiftling between them.
I still feel I’m missing something. I spend a very long time trying counter melodies on various electic piano type sounds. Nothing is working for me. Everything is sounding too lyrical. I want abstract. Eventualy I fool around with a glockenspeil. The sound is working. I find a 6 note repeating melody, all off the beat, like an echo, which seems to add what I’m after.. I think.
Having created a chorus I’m happy to work with, i have to now try to get back to the verse.. Going straight back to the original guitar isn’t good. So a stripped down verse seems like agood idea. I find a Linplug Albino synth sound to arpegiate like congas. This is (very) vaguely Sympath for TD ish.. and fits with the syncopated feel.
Rest of work is on arragement. Copy this here, paste, erase, try this, scratch that, etc. Eventally I have a 5 1/2 minute song with words for about a third of it.
Then work on drums in second half of song, Drum fills are not my natural forte. But I’m getting more comfortable imaginaing them and then trying to create them from within my set up. Will I keep my fills or get a drummer in? I don’t know.