I've been neglecting my music studio, so I've made the decision to dedicate at least one day a week (Monday) to creating new music.
Tonight, I went to work on a song I started almost a year ago. "The Lingering Parade" started with lyrics from my old band mate from high school days, Joe Fasula. Joe's the best writer I know, and I had him write and send me lyrics. Joe now lives in Florida.
The lyrics are about Ground Hog Day, in a beautifully crafted, mysteriously metaphoric manner. I'll post the lyrics when the song is complete.
Joe wrote most of the lyrics to my Mighty Fleshhammers CD, "Boneswivel".
Boneswivel explored more humorous topics, and was kinda Frank Zappa-ish lyrically.
For this project, I told Joe I wanted lyrics that were more spacey and progressive sounding. Kinda like the stuff he wrote for Eternal Void & Providence. And he delivered, big time.
Now I have to make them work.
The process...
With lyrics in front of me, I found a really kool, cheesy drum pattern on a old Casio VL-Tone to use as a "click track" (metronome). The plan was to keep this drum pattern in the final product.
Next, I find some nice sounding chord progressions on the guitar, My favorites use Em, D, C, and G. As I played, I guesstimated the time it would take to melodically fit the lyrics in front of me. First, the Intro... verse...verse... chorus... verse... verse... bridge... ending.
Since I'm not very good on the guitar, it's nice to have 24 tracks to play with on my Tascam 2488 recorder. I save a lot of time by recording each guitar part; verse, chorus and bridge, to its own track. It would take me forever to learn the whole song, and record it without making a mistake.
After recording the acoustic guitar parts, I recorded a "ghost" vocal. An exploration of melodies, where I try to fit the lyrics within the space of the guitar parts.
I may keep some or all of this ghost vocal, depending on what happens as I add more instrumentation.
After I was happy with the main melody, I added a nice MiniMoog Voyager, lead synth part in the intro, and a rhythmic synth pattern using the touch pad on the Voyager.
This is where I began tonights recording...
Creating a song for me, is like painting a picture. Each voice, each instrument is a different color. The recorder is my canvas. I just add "colors" until I'm happy with the way it sounds.
After unsuccesful experiments with some synth, and E-bow guitar, I found a big crunchy guitar to add to the end of the song. I like songs that start simple and slow, and build to a big musical climax. My limited guitar skills kept me from overplaying. Keep it simple.
After the big guitar was added, I needed to change to a raspier synth sound that would bite though the bigger sound, and stand out on its own. I found a great patch and recorded a sweet, simple, big analog, melodic Moog ending.
Things are coming together now, I listened to the song a few times, and started thinking the Casio V-Tone drum pattern was starting to sound out of place, it was crowding things. And there was one original synth part that was bugging me, it was slightly off the beat, but it has a "feel" that I like, and I'm not sure I can get it again. So I took the drum pattern out, and it sounded better. But it still needed a beat to hold it together. I got out my Alesis drum machine and tapped out a simple kick and snare pattern on the little pads. Oh Yeah! That's what it needed.
For the next half hour, I played the part with the funky synth rhythm, over and over, with the drums starting at two different places to see which sounded better.
Then I went back and added a simple big drum sound to the final chorus that leads into the part I was worried about. The big drum was perfect, and made the decision easy.
I recorded drum fills in the end of the bridge, and my recording was done for the evening. It's 1:30 a.m. and after trying some Moog bass sounds to fill in the low end, I decided if I start on the bass now, I won't get any sleep tonight.
I'm done for the night.
The next session, I'll try to record a bass synth in the second half of the song, and start on finalizing the vocals. That means coming up with harmonies and maybe re-recording the main vocal. Maybe I'll double some acoustic guitar in the last verse too. Just to see if it adds anything.
Photo #1... The Casio VL-Tone.
Photo #2... The SM-57 microphone in place and ready to gather the sound from the Fender Champion 110.
Photo #3... My 50th Anniversary MiniMoog Voyager.
Photo #4... The Tascam 2488 Digital recorder. This will be my first album recorded completely in one's and zero's. Hopefully, I will get a sound as good, and as "warm" as my old Tascam 1/2" analog tape recorder.
Photo #5... The Telecaster at rest.
Photo #6... The Moog.
Photo #7... The Alesis SR-16 drum machine. (My drummer & drum kit.)
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