Thursday, March 25, 2010

Delinquents, or Ode to Peter and Sarah

Hello!

So, not much progress these days on the recording of the new album... my violinist has been pretty busy and we havn't had time to practice. I wasn't gonna start looking for more musicians until we got back together so that's sort of on hold.

In other news, I finished writing a song I've been working on writing, and rewriting, for months now. It's gone through three distinct revisions, the first of which was 9 and a half minutes long.

It's made up of three sections, the second of which was the longest and has gone through the most revisions. First I changed the verse, 'cause I didn't like it. And then I changed the chorus too, so I actually ended up with a completely different middle section than the first. Second version was 8:30 and "final" version is 7:00, and I'm finally happy with each part of the song. Oh right in the second version I also changed the first part... from 3/4 to 4/4.

Alright, so here is a REALLY rough recording of this final structure:


This one just has solo guitar and vocals. The finish will be fully arranged, as usual. There are some notes in there that I didn't hit at all in the recording but I didn't bother trying again because I didn't want to annoy my apartment mates too much.

This recording was basically to get the feel for the song, and the length. Also, hearing the song played helps me thing of better parts and accompaniment.

The third and final part is actually the only one I've finished composing, mainly because it's my favourite and has changed the least from the start. You can listen to that here.

If anyone is interested, I'll post the earlier iterations of the song [I have them all recorded actually], but they're long so I don't know if anyone will want to.

That's all for now!


-William

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Track Listings and Some Things you Probably Wont Care About

Let's talk about some album stuff.

Here is the track listing for my first album:

-01. What Holds us Together in Winter (used to be Winter Sleeping)
-02. Seasons and Struggles (used to be Picture in the Clouds)
-03. Flames of Glory (I'm thinking of renaming this)
-04. Simon and Shirona's Song
-05. A Stronger Man, A Stronger Woman

06. A Life of Questions
07. Sunlight
08. By the Sea, Looking Up at the Sky
09. Walkin'

-10. Lonely as a Stump in the Middle of a Forest

Songs with a dash next to their name mean songs that have been fully arranged/transcribed, with sheet music ready to hand out to musicians. So I have four more left to transcribe. I've got plenty of time though because currently I only have a violinist and I need a cellist and hopefully a trumpet before I consider recording. I could probably do a passable job with the trumpt parts but I'd rather get someone more skilled/focused.

Tentative titles for the album are, "Look and See" or "Get Back Up!!" (complete with the two exclamation points). I'm not sure which I prefer but they are both fitting. Feel free to give opinions on that, or the song titles. I have posted rough demos of tracks 2, 4, 5, 6, and 8 on my bandcamp, which is linked to on the right. Those have been up for a while now.

I have also gotten to work composing my second album. I've got 5 or 6 songs already in the works, two of which I have finished lyrics for and also the general song structure/chord progressions. You can hear a rough demo of one here, tentatively titled, "Well, So It's Gone".

For the second album I'm trying to make it generally more up-tempo/exciting and I think generally it's working out. But we'll see!

For now though I'm gonna focus on transcribing the rest of the album and getting musicians, I think. It's more important to get that first album finished.