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Song 4 – Song #4 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.

Last week, I was contacted by Jamie Stellini, who is doing a very similar project at The Weekly Song. Take a look at her site. I’ve got a bit of work to do if I want to catch up to her in terms of musical talent/skill ;-)

What did I learn from this fourth week?

  • I think there’s a great beginning for a song here, but it needs to be reworked… maybe different instrumentation, tempo, something. I’m just not quite sure yet, and maybe that is what is leading to my problems writing lyrics for this?
  • There are apparently some songs I cannot write lyrics to. I spent hours trying on this one last week. Nothing came. Tried again this week. Still nothing. Part of that problem stems from the fact that I cannot seem to separate the vocal melody from the bass line. How can I write lyrics that fit without keeping the music in mind, especially in a song that primarily relies on a 7 bar loop as opposed to the normal 4, 8, or 12 bar loop?
  • There must be a wall to break through with regard to producing on this schedule. At the moment, it is quite difficult, which is causing me to think about taking a week or two now and then to re-record and remix songs from previous weeks. I would like to produce weekly even if that means lower quality because I think that, at the end of the year, I will have a lot of material to choose from when I go back to rework the gems based on what I have learned. At what point does the quality become so low that it’s better to take some extra time before posting? Was this song posted too early?
  • Single take songs (this isn’t one of them) contain a lot of mistakes, but make it easier for me to accept them. Not sure why though. Maybe, it’s because I convince myself that I don’t have the luxury of re-recording again and again?

This song was originally quite a bit longer and arranged differently, but I changed it this week in hopes of spurring some inspiration.

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 ;-)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 5:15 am and is filed under 52 Song Project, Hobbies, Music, Song a Week, work. 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
    I like it! Sounds like it could be used for a soundtrack for some exciting movie- you didn't post it too early at all- I'm sure it doesn't sound perfect to you but it got you through another week and broke you out of your earlier pattern.

    Don't take a break now!! It will be 100x harder to get started again!

    And why not do single-take recordings? Unless you trainwreck part-way through, don't worry about little mistakes. Those aren't important. The less you worry about all the little crap, the easier it will be to get your big ideas down, musically, or lyrically, or whatever. It will all be waiting for you at the end of the year.

    Think of it like writing a first draft- if you start paying attention to little spelling errors or punctuation mistakes, or finding exactly the right word for that one sentence, the harder it will be to stay in the flow of the main point of what you're writing. You can edit all you want, later.
  • Thanks, Hannah :-)

    All good points. The last two writing attempts were pretty frustrating, but I've felt since then like the creative juices are flowing, so hopefully, this next week's song will feel whole to me. Plus, I might do some of the songs in the next few months in collaboration with a few random folks.
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