songblog

120 Ways, Take 10

Try as I might, I can't always update the blog every time I manage to do some work on this song, so I am catching up on the last few days tonight.

As the summer is here, and I am working out in the huge garden, its gets harder to find time to work down here in the operating room. Still I grab the times when I can and try to make the most of them.
A couple of days ago, I put in a new ROM in the XL7. The thing is full now, no more slots and while this ROM wouldn't have been the first choice, the blow out price was way too good to resist. I have written back on the random thoughts page
about how its good not to always buy gear when it first comes out - most true in this case, where the price of this ROM fell something like 75%. I now have yet a ton more samples and presets to work with.
For the bridge, I knew I wanted some sort of piano and/or sting sounds - and there it was right when I looked for it. Sometimes I don't think its necessary to tweak every single preset in the synth, although I do some messing with most of them. What I am trying to do with my songs is make a good song, that presents the ideas I am trying to communicate, not necessarily trying to impress people with how good a synth programmer I am.
Once I had the sound close enough for my purposes, it was fairly easy to write a melody for the bridge, quick actually. The jury in my mind is still out if not having great chops on an instrument is a blessing or a curse - certainly having to think simply can be a good thing, since any fool can play lots of notes fast. Hell, with midi you don't even have to think about it. I will never forget, after being totally blown away by the Mahavishnu Orchestra, seeing Bill Cobham on his own tour, and being really bored - I mean, the man is a monster, but all that speed and dexterity couldn't replace the wonderful interplay of the musicians and great song structures that were part of the MO.
At this point I decide just to flesh out the structure, simple in this case, A/B/A/B/C/A/B - and I spend a lot of time listening.
I realize that there is still a hole in the verse section - not enough for all of it to go without a counter melody to weave around the vocal. But what sound? I do some sound grazing on the XL, and of course I am still partly exploring the new presets. Some nice stuff, but nothing that really catches my ear. Then I begin to think about the little melody from the DX200 that I am using on the refrain. I start to play with that sound on the verse section, and soon enough I have come up with something that may actually make the cut. One point for me that is important: just because I can have fifty different timbres in a song, doesn't mean I should. For one thing, I am trying to make songs that sound like humans in a band actually play them, which is why I try as best as I can to play most stuff live and not go crazy on the editing or with throwing in that zither riff just cause I can. The human feel is very important to me.
Still I am not certain that these new riffs on the verse are quite right, so I will be working on that some more, and indeed there may be another sound in there. I will know it when I hear it.
Once that is done, its simply a matter of writing the rest of the verses, recording them, and doing a few more trumpet parts. Which brings me to something I bet you can relate to:
How many time have you had a riff rolling around in your head, and you think, as soon as I get home I will record that thing before I lose it? This is what happened to me last night - I had just a bit of time to work on this song, and I thought I would record this trumpet riff over the intro, that had been in my head for days. I mean, I had even previously played thru it one or twice on the horn, but I didn't record it. And I sat there and sat there and couldn't remember the damn thing for the life of me! I tried all sorts of alternatives, but of course they all sucked, right?
Luckily for me this morning, as I was doing some exercises at 6:30 am, the riff came back to me. I was downstairs in a shot, and just hummed the melody into Sonar. Now of course, I can remember it easily, but did that help me the other night? Thanks heavens the idea floated back up into my conciousness, because as I always say, technique can be learned - but ideas are precious and I can't afford to lose a single one.
I will try and post the bridge so you can check it out, but me being a good working stiff, I need to hit the hay. And think about this song some more as I slip into unconciousness.............it really is a great addiction, isn't it?