Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Yes, I'm Still Alive

Yes, August was a quiet month, even quieter than July. C'mon, it's summer, for crying out loud!

In all seriousness, I can't blame it on life getting in the way. Part of it was not kicking my own ass to sit down and record. Breaking out a guitar to work out a song structure or molding lyrics hasn't been too difficult to instigate, but a fresh, empty track list is an uneasy thought. Recording is when I have to figure out how the extra bells and whistles I'm hearing in my head are going to come to life. This is usually combined with me discovering how short the final result is going to come, but I need to remind myself that none of this is set in stone; I may not get there this time, but maybe down the road I might be able to make it happen.

On a positive note, I've now laid down a full core track of the song, worked out the dynamics of each section, and found the samples I'm going to need. Now that it's rolling, hopefully it won't take too long. In terms of influences on the sound of the song, I'm dipping into my singer/songwriter favourites such as Neil Young, John Roderick, Jeff Tweedy, Ray Lamontagne and Steven Page.

I actually placed two challenges/restrictions on the current song. The first was to have a longer title. Every song I've written so far have had pretty short titles, and I thought it might push my mind into other areas by basing it around a phrase.  The second was to get away from writing from the perspective of a person/character. Even narrative songs like "The Law Did Rise" and "Isle Dauphine" feel like I'm writing from the narrator's view. I made it an aim to write the lyrics from a more abstract standpoint. We'll see whether these two limits were worthwhile.

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