vocals

I’ve spent the last two days on vocals, and all I can say is “wow.” I didn’t know beforehand just how much vocals would key this project. I decided last year at about this time to sing for this project. I hadn’t sung much of anything for the past 10 years or more. I kind of assumed I still had the chops– and I still think that I do, basically. But I needed to buckle down on articulation and phrasing and breathing. There’s much more sustain to singing than speaking.

All in all, I did somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 takes, along with tweaking effects and various technical settings. And I’m not finished yet. I believe I’m going to have to re-mix down Lines to transpose it from C#m to Dm. I learned this because I decided I had to drop my Sunday takes an octave lower in my register. This was a weird discovery. I thought I had nailed multiple takes over passionate, focused efforts…but when I went back and listened, I felt like I was just too thin, too exposed, whereas by dropping an octave I not only blend into the mix but I feel better! It’s smoother and not as strained.

I was also surprised by how much singing presented this virgin territory. I used to take singing somewhat seriously, as in I would sing because I had a guitar in hand and it was fun enough. I never thought about staking out a career, and in fact ran in the other direction when the singer-songwriter path opened up before me. I found playing to be more sublime. I know that could sound condescending, but those were my thoughts at 19, and continuing to, well, last year.

Vocals have so much more gravity than other instruments– and I mean all others. This must be due to the psychology of hearing tones produced by the human voice is more impactful. I’m sure there are scientific reasons behind it. I actually experienced it, seemingly for the first time, or for the first time again, just yesterday. I became discouraged at points, too, because I felt the whole thing was lacking. But then (smartly, I might add) I thought: this is my voice. And just like on guitar or bass or sax how you can’t hide behind other phrasings for long before either you’re exposed or you make the breakthrough yourself, I started to become happy with the results.

Vocals are still very much a work in progress. I’ll work on them off and on this week, and try to settle on something by the end of the weekend. Then, back to guitar for the lead parts, which is, along with the songwriting, is the true art of the project. By the end of the week, I may just add singing to that too.

songs within songs

Writing a riff comes down to jamming. I doubt my preconceived notions would have gotten very far. I basically have two guitar parts written for Can’t Wait now. Rhythm track one is Jimmy Page via John McLaughlin (circa Que Alegria– one of my favorites ever). The other track is a page out of modern rock.

This, I suppose, is my fusion.

guitar

I have the submixes sitting inside my computer now. Yes! And I dig how they turned out. As I turn my attention to guitar parts, I’m realizing that I have quite a bit of work to still do– I think. It’s been a little while since I’ve revisited the various musical scraps I have for guitar.

I was listening to Can’t Wait yesterday, and I started to worry that the bridge was going to be difficult to find the right guitar part for. Actually, the whole tune presents somewhat of a challenge, because it ended up taking its own direction. Now, I love the direction things went. I wasn’t at all freaked out that the song was morphing into something I written earlier (!) When it came time for guitar, I noticed the chords had changed, because the melodic nature of the bass lines (what I wrote about all last week) implied certain other harmonic movements. It’s possible to just stick the old chords on top of the new bass in most places– and that’s exactly what I plan to do in most places. Never the less, some new composition will be necessary.

hmmmm

And what the songs needs are riffs. I love those, of course, as a guitarist, riffs come as second nature. Lines has its own riff already, written specifically for Lines back in the days I was cowriting and playing small gigs around the city. Strange Trains will need a riff too, I think. I came up with quite a few parts for Trains just by jamming. Oh, and I’ve decided to nix the rhythm part on Can’t Wait (yes, even after 96 takes).

So I’m back in songwriting mode, feeling a bit of pressure from the schedule, but internalizing a lot of how this works and how it feels. My next EP project, pharma-cynical, should speak more clearly to me about what’s needed.

I also came across a Wired article on forgetting about Facebook and the other social networks and using blogs and various Web toolie widgets to create an open version of that same thing. It reminded me that I have to build this site out, and describe myself more.

But for the next couple of weeks, it’s nothing but riffs…

art of the mix

There are some technicalities to mixing– many, probably– such as rolling of the kick and bass below 50Hz, but I think a lot of it is a matter of taste. A friend tells me he aims for a smooth mix, as if he’s planing a piece of wood to make furniture. Picking up on competing frequencies is the first thing I try to do. Optimally, each instrument should be distinct, adding its unique qualities to the overall song. Much of this is accomplished by moving the levels. How the frequency range is divvied up is somewhat mysterious, although I’ve learned the value of parametric and regular band EQ-ing. Some of the instruments in Strange Trains are actually samples tweaked out by the para EQ.

Mixing also forces you to look at details that might go overlooked, such as panning. I have the kick and the bass dead on center; the snare is 7 to the left, and the hats are 10 to the left. I’m imagining how a drum kit would be played, even though, I suppose, the drum could flatten out in the master. It’s still a starting point– and it seems to work well.

So I should be able to mix the three tunes down this weekend. The fourth one, Fits and Starts, is waiting for some attention. The song actually gets its name from waiting! F&S may end up being kicked onto next year’s release, because I’m already a little behind the schedule I invented.

As much as I want to record songs, and have them listened to and dug, I’ve always thought that making a process is the equal goal. In my busy life, I’d like to be able to get musical ideas into the computer as fast and easily as possible. I’m not even worrying about the new songs at this point (I do have a great melody for one though!) I think it was the jazz bassist Steve Swallow who said, “I’m dedicated to my fragments.” That’s how I feel. Get a whole bunch of motifs and then see how they fit together, like refrigerator magnet poetry.

goals for a weekend

I’d like to knock out the guitar parts to Lines and Strange Trains this weekend. Yes, that’s ambitious. I’d be happy with half of that.

The first issue I’ll have to confront here will be guitar tone. I’ve gone back and forth with this one. My preamp, which plugs directly into the computer for recording, emulates 6 different preamps. For Zen Luck Ticks, I’ve been torn between sending my Les Paul through a Fender or a Marshall. Both tonal directions have similar sounds above the preamp setting, but the preamp setting truly does create some distinctiveness. I’ve thought as a compromise that I could lay the rhythm tracks with one and do the leads with the other. That may in fact be the solution, although the rhythm track I laid down for Can’t Wait uses the Marshall, and I had thought of doing those in reverse.

The second consideration will be the chord voicings and the last will be the groove. There’s an art to separating lead and rhythm parts, and for that matter, rhythm guitar and bass. Ultimately, I think, you want to create a unity. It gets back to lush versus sparse. The more difference there is among the voicings, the more dense and lush you make the production. Multiplying tracks is only necessary where a physical limitation occurs on a single track.

We shall see what happens when I plug in. I’m sure I’ll have many lessons learned to share.

Strange Trains intro

I took Diplo’s advice when I sat down last night to write and intro section for Strange Trains. The ideas to include an intro and start with the bass line weren’t exactly novel. I’d been planning to do that anyway. But it’s sometimes nice to know others think your approach makes sense.

I was surprised by how it shook out. I sat in front of the computer for an hour, and it was only in the last 20 minutes that I broke through with an idea I liked. The basic groove for Strange Trains, heard in the bass figure, came from a failed attempt to create a tom roll pattern. Essentially what I was going for was a rolling, sixteenth-note feel, which took it’s inspiration, ultimately, from the “chugga-chugga” rhythm of moving trains on tracks. I was stymied though. I wasn’t able to put enough inflection into the beat– it came off as too rigid, no matter what I did. I eventually gave up on it, but luckilly, I transferred that working groove to the kick drum. It spoke on the kick. It stood up and did something. I couldn’t lock the bass in though, I think, because there was too much movement. A pattern that would have “fit in” on toms was too active for the kick, Still, I played around with this for a couple of weeks.

Then, I copied the transformed kick beat to bass– and the fundamental ST groove was born.

This changeability of musical ideas is the thing I love most about Live. A seemingly dead-end idea can find new life slightly altered in a new part. This is a radical departure from the sequncers I was used to that locked you into a linear beginning-to-end workflow. When you’re ready to mix down, this is reasonable enough. But when music is up in the air, still being worked through, it’s a real limitation. Live allows the musician to make major changes, quickly and easily, to go down different roads, and not have to worry about the whole song. I’m still taking weird electronic artifact effects that I experimented with months ago and putting them to use in filling out the ST arrangement. It’s as if nothing is lost. And this is something I very much appreciate.

The ST intro came from an older kick pattern, tweaked to create a new melody. But, here, rhythm is what’s important. The likely accompaniment will be some drum kit odds and ends and a whole mess of guitar. And this intro figure is something. I need to listen again and evaluate it, hear it against other beats. And again the recycling of ideas that Live enables is a godsend!

Will there be an outro? I think if I can get it to pop enough, I may duck back into a points in the song. Maybe I’ll tuck it into an interlude-type part, say, between the guitar solo and the last chorus out. Then the chorus out will be…well, the chorus out.

Back to discuss more about Live…

Greg

bass lines

A trend I’ve noticed in rock is to bring the bass closer to the surface, almost as if to use it as the riffing instrument instead of the guitar. As a guitarist, I might be partially opposed to this on principle. But as an electronic composer, I don’t see the big difference besides timbre. I’m all for riffing with the bass. Bass has a little more weight to it, so I think it’s a bit shocking to hear it take real melody lines– by that I mean not just contrapuntal figures, but the primary melody. I think this shows creativity on the part of musicians today.

I didn’t get into recording recently with this production concept in mind, but it has crept in. The Can’t Wait verses have an almost exaggerated bass riff that might be overboard in theory…but I just like it so damn much. Music I’ve heard that turns up the bass has usually turned down the guitar, which makes sense in the interest of simplifying. I may push this threshold. There’s no reason, I feel, to dumb things down. It may be easier for listeners to have only 3-4 parts to take in. But I don’t think that’s a good enough reason to not write more.

This gets into a running bar debate I’ve had over the last few years. I find the main distinction in musical forms today to be one of lushness vs. minimalist. To take a rock example, in the lushness camp you have Radiohead and Interpol. In the minimalist one, you have the White Stripes. It’s interesting to try to discern motives. But I think if you proceed from the premise that these artists maintain independence, you’d have to conclude these contrasting styles of production are simple expressions of what they feel needs to be in the songs.

I might say Zen Luck Tricks is an active minimalist. My setup and style tend towards the more spartan approach. But there are some densities. I don’t anticipate doing a whole lot of layering, say along the lines of Kill Hannah. My jazz background seems to compel me to think in terms moving harmonies.

On my next project I’ll probably take greater liberties with adding and subtracting. What will be most interesting then is to see what survives from now, because a new style for me is coalescing around these arrangements. Can’t Wait transformed over the past two weeks right before my eyes into something that was more Zen Luck Trick-ish, as if to really drive home exactly what I’m hearing.

I’m reminded of a music researcher who’s name and works I’ll have to look up and link to. He studies how the brain interprets pitches and timbre, and he’s argued that pop music is more about sound than about the elements of music. That probably sounds obvious to a lot of people. But those of us who studied music academically tend to think– overthink, that is– that those elements intellectually are the foundations. If sound is what is truly most attractive, then we’d have to re-think some of this.

I’m going on record as calling myself a “soundwriter.” I haven’t googled it, and millions of others might be using the term. But it describes to me a state closer to the goal…

Lyrics

[verse] 

Let’s start it up ’cause it’s so brilliant

How we light the night up with our sun signs

hey…

hey…

The elements lay nature bare

When you touch me, I’m fire breathing air

[chorus]

I find a lot of things about you

Leave me searching for words to say

To explain what we can do

And I can’t wait

[verse]

I believe it’s time that makes us wait

Curves and edges fill our spaces

hey…

hey…

Force of attraction, course of stars

Bring us together, earth and water

signs…

[chorus and out]

I wrote that when I was checking out career options selling music to publishers. Luckily, I failed at that, or I would have lost the rights

When I moved to New York City in 2002, I was reacquainted with rock. I’d kind of given up on it, or maybe the better way to put it is I fell behind. I heard a lot in electronic music that I dug. Having went through music school in college, I scoffed at rock a bit– at least on the outside. I got to NYC and heard the Strokes and Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. A friend of mine was in a band that iconoclastically– and unabashedly– played grunge. There was a bit of grunge revival, I felt, at the time with a few lackluster tunes on the radio. Can’t Wait tapped into that, at least as far as some meta organization goes. I thought of it as a loose direction.

The original chord progression altered between G and F and went to Eb in the “hey” parts. It’s a much-used progression, you might call it an aeolian major, with roots in R&B. Madonna and Seal have used it on hits, and it’s common in hip-hop. The movement grabs well because of the inherent major-minor tension.

The chorus was pretty bare, a means to an end mostly. It actually came out differently when I recorded demos. The more demos I recorded the more it seemingly changed. Like I said in the last post, CW wasn’t written with a strong musical hook in mind. So a bunch of crazy musical hats can hang on it. Instead of forcing pegs, I’m going to start at the guitar and wrap the groove around. And the guitar’s main job is to follow the vocals, so this will be top-down tracking. I can’t wait.

Can’t Wait

I’m beginning to record the guitar for Can’t Wait this weekend. Grooves for Strange Trains and Lines are in the bag. Can’t Wait was much trickier, resistant to conforming to my time and phrasing ideas. I’d learned (the hard way) to record electronic music from the bottom up, which means starting with the kick then the bass on up to the melody instruments. I’m finding with Ableton’s Live sequencer that it’s not necessary though.

Can’t Wait was always less about music and more about lyrics. I say that it’s musically sloppy, because it’s a bit of everything without being strongly one thing. The song has a bit of an identity crisis. It never even had a true chorus until I married it up with a theme I wrote a few months ago. As far as superimposing order, Can’t Wait wants to be on its own. I hope it doesn’t mind me teasing out the essence on guitar.

I’m new here. I hope this all works. If you found this blog, welcome. This is online home of my musical project, the hurry gain. I’ll be releasing an EP titled Zen Luck Tricks in about a month. I’m also thinking of posting all submixes and samples I used on the album. The blog will be a daily record of current and next steps in pursuit of my true love, music.

Let’s see if this publishes correctly. I’ll be back to discuss the lyrics and inspiration behind Can’t Wait.