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Home – Song #3 in 52 Song Project

Please start playing the song before you read my comments below. I don’t want to color your opinion of the song.
What did I learn from this third week?

  • No matter how much I try, I can’t write lyrics for certain songs when I have a time limit. I had, what I thought was, a great hard-ish rock song… but I couldn’t come up with any lyrics that weren’t horrible, so being frustrated, I did one take on each instrument for this song and called it good.
  • I need to bump pretty much every song by 5-10 bpm. Personally, I like this song, but at near on 5 minutes, it’s too long in my opinion. Thoughts?
  • I felt like last week was pretty difficult, but after spending probably 6-8+ hours trying to write lyrics for another song with no success, I’m wondering at the moment if I’ll make it even 2 months on this project. Would it be bad of me to release a song with no lyrics if I couldn’t come up with them? If that’s ok, what do I do then? Do I come back the next week with lyrics? Do I put it out there for you to write and record lyrics so that we can post it together the following week?
  • I really like to play rock songs, but maybe it’s best for me to stick to acoustic guitar. I feel like I can write faster. Plus, it’s the guitar I pick up first most times.

FYI – If my vocals sound week in one of the choruses, it’s because I was taking a sip of water and must have thought I could breathe at the same time. I tried to sing through it, and after the frustration of not being able to come up with lyrics for the other song, did not want to re-record that part unfortunately. Also, that sound during the bridge is me whistling with some stereo delay and stereo reverb applied.

You can download the mp3 HERE or from my not-updated-in-forever MySpace page.

Again, please tell me what you think… the good and the bad ;-) And, let me know if there’s a style you would like to hear, think I could do better, any of that.

Thus far, I’ve had suggestions for a sea shanty, a jingle, and a Twitter song. Thoughts?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under 52 Song Project, Hobbies, Lessons, Music, Song a Week, questions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Hannah
    Eric, you're doing great! Ignore any mean comments and keep going- the nature of what you're doing is that you'll turn out a lot of first-draft songs that you might or might not keep after the year is over. The main idea though, is to get the song down and recorded- as you go, the schedule will force you into musical styles and creativity you wouldn't have run into otherwise.

    If you want to write some without words, you should do it! Try singing with a banjo! Add a harmonica solo! Write a song in the style of Chinese Opera! (etc.) At the end of the year you can go back and fix things up, change things around, delete some things, and end up with lots of new music to work with.

    I'm enjoying the weekly installments, for sure.
  • Thanks, Hannah. :-)

    Good point about the schedule. I was speaking with my father yesterday about how I feel there is probably a hump that I have to get over with regard to being accustomed to putting things out like this... a lot like when I started blogging. I had plenty of things to say, but I was not used to actually formulating those thoughts so that people could read them in a few hundred words. Now, it's relatively easy.

    Since I'm still working on this week's song, I was thinking that I might get down the normal instrumentation, record a melody on my guitar, attempt to fit my story to it, and if that does not work, just go with an instrumental version. If the lyrics don't come, being able to get the idea down and then take some time away from it to think would probably be very useful.

    Thanks again, Hannah :-)
  • drewholt
    I like the vocal backing track half way thru. It reminds me of Lou Reed's "Satelite of Love". Great work, Keep it up Eric.
  • donsnedecor
    As a journalist, I can tell you firsthand how frustrating writing can be--can songwriting be that much different? First, I would come up with a story (forget about your rhyming dictionary for now). Ultimately, that's what a song is. Think about something that happened to you, maybe a long time ago. Hammer it out as best you can remember. Now take a step back. You're telling me something I've never heard before, something only you and a couple of close friends, perhaps, would know anything about. Now you can start coloring in the five senses--how does that make you feel? Is it starting to look like a song yet? Maybe...
  • Good point about telling the story. One thing that I've always had trouble with is writing about things that have actually happened to me. I think I tend to come upon an idea that I feel just flows really well with the music and then go with it. And, that is an awesome idea about the 5 senses. I'm still feeling out this week's song, so I'm going to see if I can go at it from that direction tonight. :-)
  • frankdinicola
    hi eric,

    i like your song :D you might raise the volume of your vocal track just a bit. about lyrics; just let them flow from within you. some of the best lyrics i've ever written have really just been nonsense that happened to be quite inspirational. as soon as you can learn not to stress about your lyrics you'll find that they make themselves amazing.

    great luck in the future! and if you're ever looking to collaborate, look me up!

    frank dinicola
  • Thanks, Frank. Let's do it. Shoot me an email at contact@ericpratum.com and we'll set something up.
  • Hi Eric,
    This is wonderful, we finally get to hear your voice. Not bad.
    How did you find the single track /single take idea?
    More voice (compress it a bit), a touch less acoustic guitar, pan the background guitar hard left and right, delay the left channel about 5ms and say 9ms on the right. It should give you a more defined sound without adding volume.

    Love the whistling, just priceless. and the vocal highlights are almost perfectly done, again I would probably do some panning and a bit of slapback echo as well as the reverb

    Now your questions

    This shouldn't become a chore for you, it will kill the vibe cold

    "Would it be bad of me to release a song with no lyrics if I couldn’t come up with them? If that’s ok, what do I do then? "

    Of course, just put it up as a work in progress.

    Do I come back the next week with lyrics?

    It may take a longer time put it up as a finished product when it;s finished. We get the fun of seeing how you work.

    "Do I put it out there for you to write and record lyrics so that we can post it together the following week? "

    I have been thinking about this since you suggested it a few weeks back. I am not sure you aren't opening up a can of worms with regard to copyright. I am not sure what the answer is on that one.

    Best one so far.

    thatch
  • Hey, thatch. Sorry for the delay in responding. I was on vacation in Montana Tuesday-Sunday.

    I liked doing a single take of everything. It will take a while to get used to it if I continue that way, but I think it will likely be the way I go. It's much faster, I believe it helps me keep things simple.

    Good point about the copyright issue. That got me thinking... I would have no problem giving over my rights to a song that someone else wrote if they only wanted a part from me (for example: guitar, a solo, vocals, etc), but if I originated the song and someone else contributed, I would not want to turn over my rights, and I could definitely understand if someone else felt similar.

    How has the recording gone on your end? Want to post a link for people to follow?
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