"Fortunate Son (Demo)"

...because if you put "Demo" in the name, no one will complain about the poor recording quality. More words...tomorrow?

Update 2 Days Later: I wish I could say my inspiration behind this was strictly political, and that I didn't come up with the idea after hearing it on Sons of Anarchy. I probably wouldn't have gone through the trouble of recording it and posting it if I wasn't such a Communist, though (see previous post).

This song is obviously very similar to "Testify" in that both are really vocal-driven (though here the guitar is used more harmonically, where there it was used more for rhythm and dynamics), and in that both, at least to me, update older protest songs for modern-day issues even though the words aren't changed. "Fortunate Son," while it's rooted very much in Vietnam and the anti-war movement, is pretty easy to translate because it's basically about power and privilege and how wealth tends to set in and fester and slowly decay everything around it. No wait, that's plaque*. Anyway those are universal themes that never go away, they just change to suit the times, like the Endless.

So anyway I was practicing the song, insert "know way do you practice" joke here, and noticed the sort of bluesy sound I was getting from the tuning (it's the same key as the original, but tuned down two steps so you're playing the A/G/D/E chord shapes instead of G/F/C/D). Some versions I tried to do used a lot of seventh chords and switching from the major to seventh chord, but it was too ornate to play easily, and it sort of gets overwhelmed by the vocal anyway. A few sevenths snuck in, on the D chords in the chorus. Similarly I'm sure a full-band version of this is possible, but that would probably be too hard to play distract from what I'm saying trying to say.

I've always had this theory that I could sing, in the same way that I could run a marathon or be elected Dictator-for-Life or get a steady, well-paying job: it was technically possible but highly unlikely. I think I'm getting closer, and didn't expect to get a better take then this one, so decided to use it, but I wouldn't say I'm quite there yet. Also, how do you not breathe into a microphone if it's the built-in microphone? I've had this computer for three years and have taken it apart completely to replace the screen (one of the reasons I didn't blog anything this summer), and I don't even know where the microphone is.

I still have no idea if I'm going to post anything next week.

*I had dental surgery last week.

"End of the Universe"

Don't read too much into this...I made it as a joke for a class project...we'll see...possibly more later...

Drawing is cool I wish I could draw,

I find this series fascinating (there are like 4 or 5). I like people that talk fast; I fell like they're not wasting my time. Also there are cool pictures and oh yeah it makes a supposedly difficult concept accessible and interesting.



Also I couldn't figure out how to fit it into the main body of the post but I really wanted to use the word "mathematic" somewhere around here.

More downloads

Here.

About a third of these songs are identical to the blog versions. Most of the others had some small mixing/ editing/ volume issues reworked. One song ("♣ Noise") has a rewritten track (the piano solo). Another ("Effect & Cause") is a completely new recording.

I wanted to do every song; but I decided it was better to make as many as I can available now instead of waiting six months or tearing my hair out trying to rush and fix 30-something songs in a few weeks.

The songs that were left off were either weaker overall ("Beatbox 1," "LOST"), took longer to rerecord than I had time for ("Enter Sandman," "Sleep Now," "Grace"), or were reworked but I wasn't satisfied with the outcome ("Heavy Wood," "Sound of A Guitar Exploding"). Some of them ("Minor Thing," "Duel," "Teardop"), I had no idea where to start. And a couple ("Hayao," "Spellbound," "2-Note Shuffle") were basically cut for time or pacing reasons. It's a shame though, as I think some these, especially "Enter Sandman," "Minor Thing," and "Teardrop," could turn into really good songs. I'll probably talk some more about this later, if I can get back to them.

Oh, and please give me money. Or else

Soundtracking Your Life is available for download--sort of

...OK, so it's not the final versions, just the demos* (i.e. the versions you've been listening to nonstop on this site and Youtube, with some modifications**), and it's not every song, just the eight that are finished so far, but it's free (but if you can please give me some money, they only give me like so many free downloads; also if it's less than thirty cents I don't actually get anything because of servicing costs).

As for the other songs, at least some of them will be up soon. Everything's in order, but it takes a long time to upload files. If you're impatient, keep checking here. It's easy to remember, it's the same as this site, but with "bandcamp" instead of "blogspot."

*Devotees may recall me mentioning this exact plan earlier.
**For more information on what modifications, I've written something up on the individual song posts:
1. "Dread"
2. "Rose"
3. "Two Warriors Meet on an Ancient Battleground"
4. "Leitmotif for X"
5. "Insanity in 9:8 Time"
6. "Rise"
7. "Fencing Wire"
8. "Angels Dressed in Black"

"Beatbox 2"

:)

UPDATED 1/3: Some Notes on the Future of Song of the Week: For a long time I had sort assumed that SotW would end here, and I probably wouldn't do a year 3 (I'm not saying I would quit music entirely, just stop with the weekly schedule). I'm going away to school and probably can't take most of my instruments, and I don't know if I'll have time to record. Plus for a long time when I wasn't doing music, the stress of missing the deadline was getting to me, and I figured it would be better to quit than to have to keep to it. Having said that, doing so many songs in such a short time was a lot of fun, especially some of these smaller, less stressful songs from the second half of the week. And I still have a lot of unused ideas, so who knows? Maybe I can find some time to do something.

Over the last few weeks I've been remastering, editing, and rerecording (what a weird word) most of the SotWs in preparation to do some kind of downloadable album release. I've done most of them at this point though a lot of the most important ones (which of course are the ones that are the hardest and take the longest). Still aren't done yet. And I have three days, and I have to spend a lot of that getting ready to go. I guess we'll see.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: This one's the same.

"Lower"

UPDATE SOMETIME BETWEEN XMAS AND NEW YEAR'S, THEN REWRITTEN ON 1/3, BUT IT'S AFTER MIDNIGHT SO I GUESS 1/4: Originally (woo! plastered!) I wanted to end with a different song, which was I project I'd half- recording a long time ago (beginning of this year, I'd guess). It was much wordier, loop-heavy, and very "controlled"-sounding. I gave it up because I couldn't get the old and new guitar sounds to match. I tried going to drop-d, but it still wasn't right, which got me here. In the end this is almost certainly a better fit anyway, what with being more spontaneous and longer and stuff.

One thing both song had in common was this intense, dark, manner to them. It's basically metal but much different than than heavy wood or dread or 22 minutes--the first song (which never got a name) was more trip-hop, where this is more prog.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: This one's the same.



In the end really happy with how this turned out. It's almost fully improvised, and it feels loose but not shaggy or foot-dragging like "Grace" (or some parts of "Testify"), and it's alternately contemplative and violent, but still has the right energy that the fast and slow parts feel like the same song.

I had my guitar amp and my computer on the floor and just used the Mac's built-in microphone. Because I was standing, the mike was about six feet away (probably more, I wasn't standing on top of it). As a result the lyrics are probably a bit hard to make out. Although, the fact that you can make out anything should tell you how loud I was singing. It's not a complicated story, basically a cross between Paradise Lost* and "Viva La Vida"; I wanted something epic but also uncomplicated, and just sang what the title suggested to me.

Lyrics:
I thought I had it all (xseveral)
My kingdom, my kingdom, on fire
My body, my body, in chains
But the only thing
The only thing I missed was you

*If you had told me at the beginning of year one that I would have songs based on both Paradise Lost AND The Divine Comedy, I would have assumed you were joking. People change, plans change.

"All Along the Watchtower"

Part to the reason there are so many acoustic song near the end here is because I wanted more songs to play live. In fact I wrote this to play live and didn't originally (bang) plan to record it. Ironic because Hendrix's version of the song is probably the best example anywhere of using the recording studio as an instrument.

And speaking of awkward segues, let's talk about my favorite song ever for a minute*. I love Hendrix's "Watchtower" because on top of everything else it has this unique sort of surrealist atmosphere, which for lack of a better description I'll compare to the "Space Coyote" thing from The Simpsons. You can hear a lot of techniques from that song in my songs-- panning, guitar effects, a lot the vocal styles (both Hendrix's "talky" style and the "ooh" and "aah"s from the intro). Of course, this is the rare "Watchtower" that's mainly a cover of Dylan instead of Hendrix. I actually put in some changes, like the increase in volume between verses, to make it more differenter.

I avoided some of the hurdles of the other acoustic songs by recording the guitar and voice parts separately, and thus insuring there was only one thing that could go wrong on each take. Of course I did a bunch of takes before I figured that out. This song, like some of the other recent ones, is very hard to sing, especially as it goes on (I'm actually getting pretty good at the first verse). Some takes had the last verse as the same as the first, and some had it even louder, but those tended to be more shouting or yelling than screaming (yes these are all different things).

Leftovers:
As with "Hallelujah", I've written several other covers of this song, including one very close to Hendrix but in a slightly different style.

This song is also keyed down, quite aloo actually, from C# to F#, basically by playing the Bm, A, & G chord shapes in a lower tuning. I used the same technique as Reaction of only playing D/G/B strings of the chord (not coincidintally, they have same I-vii-vi progression; this song was "written" slightly before that one).

*Note that the two songs I've listed so far as favorites are both covers--which probably says more about my work than my work itself does.

"Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Another song picked out of "unfinished" pile, mainly because I knew I could do it well, it wouldn't take long, and it would complement "Watchtower."

Digression: I like GNR's versions, but it's probably less "good" and more "so bad it's good", mainly for how much it ignores tghe whole point of the song (of course i've done that, to a not as good song). They took a song about a man literally on his dying breath and tried to play it as fun and triumphant, and it just doesn't work if you actually listen to the lyrics for ten seconds.

More movies: this cover was conceived as the song that plays during the sad part of the movie. Or maybe the credits (not all my ideas are all that brainulated).Then I saw I'm Not There (of course, Dylan's original was written for a movie, too).

Like Hallelujah, this was keyed down five steps from it's original key (here from g to d)

"Morning in America/ Out to the Street"

wanted to do a double song for a while, even recorded another. these two were recorded separate, but were turining out similar in theme (plus both were in c) so saw chance. wanted third, called "breakfasttime," but couldn't figure out how would sound in time (these were very last two songs recorded, on Sunday night).

Morning in America:
arose out of me fiddling (pun) w piano, and getting this riff i liked because it reminded of Copland (see, i know real things about real music*). in contrast, this very urban and modern where he focused rural. A lot of my instrumentals are trying to conjure a place and time as well as a mood, and this really gets all three.also like bc where a lot of these last few songs are backward-looking,this is something i haven't done before. some previous helped, though contrapasso, dread, helped w strings (in turn this helped strings for dread rewrite)

Out to the Street
originally not intended as a double song, but like the way they contrast, with morning all get up and go and street more reserved, unhurried, but both having same urban/early morning feeling. opening strings based heavily around tone clusters (slam hand on keyboard--which is what i did). horns written similar way, sax synth, played four/ five notes together and rocked hand back and forth. easier than trick i used in diamond. also used clusters on piano for percussive sound. interesting how same technique comes out three very different ways.
Original title (when just strings, before finding whole arrangement) was "inverted rainbow," but sounded somehow homophobic, then "inverted halo." latter is good, might still use for something.


*Speaking of modern composers, anyone who thinks my music is weird should check up on some of those guys. "Rise" could be The Beatles compared to "Ancient Voices of Children." And compare "Insanity in 9:8" to "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima"

[eh, that's good enough. you can understand it]

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: Both of these are the same. Which was lucky, because I don't think I could have had just one of them.

"Doctor Who"

I forget when I had this idea, but it must have been fairly recent, I think either near the end of Series Five or right after it ended. It's a simple idea but I like it because The Doctor's basically a cowboy anyway.

My playing on the lead part sounded fine on the GarageBand file but here seems.. not that great. This is a fairly common problem--a lot of songs lost volume and/or quality when being converted. I might retape it or just try and fix the mix pretty soon.

Special thanks to the youtube commenter who pointed out The Doctor HAS been to the wild west (and of course, as I just found out a couple days ago, it looks like he's going back there). maybe they can get someone talented to redo this for that episode.

"Hayao"

Over the last summer, I was having a lot of problems with my mood. I wouldn't say it was full-on depression, because I know it wasn't because I had some of that too, but later. But I'm not going to write about that, because it's not a very interesting story and also wildly off-topic. Maybe some other time. Anyway, one of the things that helped was that I got to see all the Miyazaki movies for the first time (the other thing that helped was Calvin & Hobbes). I'm not very good at explaining it, but there's something about even the darker ones that just makes you feel better about everything.

This song isn't really an StL song, but it is soundtrack-realted (similar situation with "Grace", but that's a different long story). Basically what happened was I just had this scene in my head, and I heard this music under it, like a waking dream almost (or am I the only one who writes music in their sleep?). And it reminded so much in spirit, and setting, and style, that I hummed it into my computer and gave it this title in homage.

The main thing with this guy is that it sounds like a Joe Hishashi-style piece, but somehow doesn't resemble any specific one, either in terms or melody or arrangement. [Or it's an exact copy and I'm in big trouble. I've never done pastiche before, so these problems are new to me.]

"Alabama Frog"

This was the first song I wrote after getting back from Europe, around the end of June, which is a long and involving story that no one but me will find interesting. Anyway, probably as a result this is the most American song ever.

Originally (shot) it was just the one guitar part; the second guitar was added as a test. In retrospect it's maybe more electric-sounding than I'd like, which is mostly a mixing problem.

I have no idea where the title comes from. It just seemed to fit.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: This one's the same.

"Untitled, No. 61"

This was a test of MIDI instruments and Apple Loops. I completed most of it inn about 15 minutes, on October 29. I know this because I know it was a Friday, and Rock Band 3 came out that same week.

I wanted to write a song called 52. It would be the last song of Song of the Week Year One.

For obvious reasons I didn't do that, but I revisited the idea and decided to do a song called 61. Since that's where about I was at that point. Sort of, but "60" and "62" both sounded wrong.

I wasn't going to post this originally. I thought of it as too much of a joke, and was going to have it as a bonus track or such. But since I already had a title, and it's kind of a fun listen, I figured "can't hurt."

Though it was finished sooner, this song was probably partially inspired by "Club Noise", in terms of structure. Along with that song, this is the one I most want to see performed live.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: This one's the same.

"We Used to Be Friends"

Trivia: did you know "We Used to Be Friends" is a total ripoff of this song?

If you don't know why this song is short you fail at everything. (The correct answer, by the way, is that it's because I'm more a TV geek than a music geek. Also I think the theme song version works better because of how it builds to a single, perfect climax, where the original comes off as a little more draggy and repetitive. I was going to write a blog post about it but couldn't think of enough other examples).

For this song I wanted something more "live" sounding. I was sort of inspired by the AV Club's Undercover series. That's why this song features only voice, uke, and handclaps, even though I originally wrote it with more backing tracks (of course, it also helped me record it faster).I used the uke instead of guitar because I want a cleaner and brighter sound. I did try to add backing guitar and vocals, but I didn't think it added much. Maybe I was just doing it wrong.

I'll admit I wasn't entirely sucessful; it's surprisingly hard to make something look easy without it just seeming half-assed ("Effect & Cause" has the same problem). I probably also ran into singing problems after changing the key.

"Reveille"

another sequel, this one to "taps". wanted more shoegaze sound where that was surf rock. took 15 mins to learn, 10 mins to set up and play, 1 and a half hours to mix and master.
reveille is this song, which you can almost make out in final recording. i played it more or less right, but like 2.5 octaves down (from b to e)
got to play with gband 11's electric guitar settings. used three modified tracks, then had to include a clean track to make melody recognizable.
this was song where i finally figured out how to mix out static. it involves an eq setting.

[that makes sense, I'll just leave it like that].


DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: Mixing. Can't remember.

"Spellbound"

This last grouping of songs is full of intentional reprisals and sequels (obviously Diamonds and Clubs noise, but also "Sunrise" vs. my first Bass Solo, "The Cove"/"Teardrop", "61"/"Mixology", as well as, slightly earlier and less intentionally, "Reaction"/"Duel" and "Insula"/"Hawaii"), as sort of a "look how far we've come" statement. This song was also written, about six months ago, as a response, though not, as you might expect, to "Rose", but to "Heavy Wood". It's meant to be equal and opposite-- where "Heavy Wood" used the textures and playing styles of metal but less of the melodic content or instrumentation, "Spellbound" uses metal-style scales and tonalities but is played in a different style altogether. Does that make sense? Probably not, but whatever.

Like "The Cove" and "Ray of Light" this idea that was written recently but shelved; unlike those I rediscovered it on accident when going through my GarageBand files. All i remembered was the basic concept, the overall Spanish guitar style, the use of diminished scales, and that it was about 2 and a half minutes long.

The song is based on a diminished scale which I'm pretty sure goes like this:

D|-0-1-3-4-6-7-8-9-12|

Music people will note that this scale has one too many notes. Whatever.

"Contrapasso"

Another "title inspired" song. I picked contrapasso because it sounds like a music term but actually translates to something like "punishment that fits the crime"--it's mostly related to Dante's Inferno. From there I got the idea to write something more classical-sounding but simultaneously hellish and scary, with this sort of theme of descent.

It's the key of e-flat minor, chosen because so far few of my songs are in sharp/flat keys, and because it uses mostly black keys, which let me reference the pentatonic scales scales used in a lot of religious music. I used a church organ for a similar reason. The only instrument that I allowed to play out of the scale was the piano, both because I wasn't good enough to play the whole thing in key and also because I think it makes things more chaotic as you head toward the end.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: I think I made the flute a bit quieter. I can't remember.

"Angels Dressed in Black"

Soundtracking Your Life Part Eight--The Last Stand*: There's a specific moment in a lot of movies, when the female lead enters and one of two things happens. In the first she's shot from behind, then turns to reveal she's The Most Beautiful Woman He's Ever Seen (TM). This is generally accompanied with strings, or perhaps a harp, and may or may not be in soft focus. The other way of doing this usually shows up in Badass Movies That Don't Play By Your Lame Rules, Old Man (TM), so of course it's the more common of the two. The girl walks into the room as the camera pans up from her feet to reveal She's A Sex Bob-Omb (TM). The music in these scenes is usually "Bad to the Bone" or "Born to Be Wild" or one of its cooler offspring (Wolfmother's "Woman" is a good choice), and may or not involve a wind machine.

My idea was to marry the two, hence the title. It sort of moved away from that to a more generic "entrance theme", but that was my starting point. This was actually (albeit accidentally) a pretty good idea, as it gave me a good way to do an instrumental verse-chorus-verse structure. My initial plan was to have each "verse" end with a guitar solo, then go into the chorus, but the rock guitar solo is sort of my Kryptonite, because my normal playing/writing style is so different from it, so there's only one solo now, and as a result the "verses" (especially the second) ended up a lot shorter. I decided instead to end them with the noise blast you hear at the beginning, which is a tone cluster on a guitar synth played 2 octaves below a guitar's natural range, then I set the volume to fade in, then back out out quickly (I changed this part when I was remixing stuff, so it's wrong here but right for the later version which no one but me has heard).

I always knew the song would have this riff, but learning how to play it took a long time. It's actually two guitars, one playing the chords and one playing the response. I used a borrowed wah pedal (thanks, Tito!), and the overall sound is played by working the pedal while scratching the pick one the strings. I actually got the riff wrong-- I worked so hard trying to get the sound right I forgot there should be two dead notes at the end of each bar. This is basically the definition of missing the forest for the trees.

The synthesized vocals were played once (actually, I think it took about four takes), and then I used lots of copying and pasting to get them to sound at every vocal range, for a choral effect. I wrote them on piano and then had to basically custom-make a synthesizer that sounded just right. I originally wanted to use an organ, and add a bunch of harp and string sounds on top of it, but the fake choir just sounded more "clear," I guess.

*It's not the last StL song, just the last that you'll see on the blog. At some point in a million years or so I want to do a proper album of it, possibly with real musicians who can actually play guitar.

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:

Rerelease Notes: I wasn't able to fix the riff, but I did fix some mixing problems, mainly changing the way the noise blasts are used and making the bass louder.

"♣ Noise"

With all the "___ Noise"s, I tried to create something completely different, but at the same time I wanted there to be elements that were common to all four--basically a "spirit" that justifies the hyperlinked titles. While each focuses on one element--Hearts on the way the tracks are layered, Spades on how effects change the sound, Diamonds on balancing order and chaos, and this song on playing different textures and styles against each other-- they all have this thing that unites them, which is that they're all almost something, but not quite. They're supposed to be sort of deconstructed, "wrong" versions of what they're sound like they are. Hearts is almost, but not quite, pure noise--everything still fits together in some recognizable way even as it clashes at the same time (compare to "Insanity," which uses noise more as an instrument in itself, rather than a result of the composition and how the instruments are used). Spades is almost a straightforward rock song, but the rhythms and scales are all off and for some reason there's an all-sped-up version. Diamonds could be pop, but the vocals are just an inaudible moan and the horns sound defeated, and some of the other instruments aren't even paying attention to what the others are doing. This song has the synthesized sounds and mash-up aesthetics of modern dance music, but it's near-impossible to actually dance to.

This song has probably the most uniquest (take that, grammar Nazis) structure of any of my song, one which I don't think I've ever heard before. It's a refrain/solos structure similar to jazz, but there's no refrain, just a series of consecutive solos (bass, ukulele, piano, and acoustic guitar) played with barely any breaks between them. The rest takes a sort of A-B-A form, but the second "A" section isn't really all that similar to the first, and adds a new motif (the 10:8 guitar/drum breakbeat) which gradually takes over the whole song.

Other things:
At one point (around the end of July/ start of August), I spent most of a week trying to figure out how to get the guitar sound on this--something that would be simultaneously atmospheric and musically dynamic--but gave up, and the next day ended up writing "Insula" in less than an hour*. The final sound is me playing weird rhythms on an A Minor chord, playing a wah pedal with my left foot and a whammy pedal with my right foot, which is essentially the same as something I made a joke about a long time ago.

It's probably fitting that my attempt to write electronica has the most metal riffs I've ever written.

The screeching noise that ends part one is a triangle scraped with a drum brush. I used the same effect on it here as I used to create "Insanity in 9:8"
Initially I tried to write around the bass and drum parts, and recorded a bunch of additional "solo"parts to use later. Everything but some minor percussion and the two electric guitar parts was thrown out and ended up rerecorded.

As I said above, this song, like "Diamonds" has a 5:4 beat (really more 10:8, which i actually use a lot but not in anything I've recorded yet). I want to use more weird time signatures going forward--so far really all I've done is the 3:4 parts of "Rise"-- but I especially like how it's used here because everything else is still 4:4. Other weird key and tempo stuff-- the song is mostly in A minor but the piano and uke are in C**, the bass in f#, and the guitar breakbeat in G.

The guitar breakbeat uses the A, G, and E power chords, the same chords "Ray of Light" is built on, and has a similar circular pattern to both "Reaction" and "Watchtower."

The endless coda to this song isn't some bold artistic choice, it's a mistake, caused by me setting something wrong and then not bothering to listen to the song before posting it.

Out of all my songs, this is the one I'd most like to see performed live.

*To be fair I also figured out structural elements like the piano solo, and the pattern for the breakbeat, then played on cymbals.
**I later went back and made some minor changes, the biggest of which was writing a different piano solo which is in A Minor

DOWNLOADABLE VERSION:
Rerelease Notes: See ** above. Also I used a hard pan to put the acoustic guitar on the left and the rock guitar/drum breakbeat on the right. Also the ukulele is a little quieter I think.