A semester in review: Self Reflection and the Two Concerts

I think I’d like to start with my semester reflection, as I think it will set up my reviews.

Another (extremely) successful semester of songwriting! I’m really proud of how much further I’ve come, and I’m amazed by the high level of quality output from my classmates (and professors), to which I owe a lot of my inspiration. I think just being able to be in a community of songwriters who dissect and reconstruct music from so many different angles has been both eye opening, and frankly a lot of fun.

To focus more specifically on the work I’ve done, I’ve ranked my songs from 1 (favorite) to 10 (not-as-much-favorite)

1: Wild Thing (is this still the title Julie?) Even though it’s still a bit of a work in progress, I am really happy with what Julie and I were able to do with this one. Julie has a mastery of melody, and I think more in harmonies, so we were really able to compliment each other well

2: They Took The Kids Away: Inspired by the movie ‘The Hurt Locker’, I think this has my strongest lyrics of the semester, and I’m pretty happy with the chord progression I came up with. This is probably my only song that has a single harmonic section (The song is made up of the same long progression 5 times, at different intensity levels), which makes it unique for me.

3: Astral Companion: Ben’s rather constrictive demands on the lyrics of this song made me beat my head against the wall a few times this week, but I’m really happy with what I ended up with. Being forced to approach the lyrics from a different direction was a great learning experience, and I’m happy with what I managed to accomplish. My favorite part about the music of this song is probably my use of multiple key changes.

4: The Best Laid Plans: Upon reflection, I’m not sure how well I incorporated ideas from R.E.M.’s perfect circle into this song, but I’m still pretty happy with the result. I’m having a little trouble coming up with an arrangement of sections that I’m happy with, but I’m happy of how each section came out.

5: Stays the Same: This song was written over a long period. The opening guitar riff is something I came up with almost 6 months ago, and most of the sections were written (at least) weeks apart from one another, with all the lyrics coming at the end. Despite the fact that it’s a bit of a frankensong, I feel like all the pieces fit together pretty well.

6: Red for the Wedding: Based (loosely) on the Robber-Bridegroom, this is the only piece for this class I wrote on piano. If I was a more fluid player, I would like to have a more interesting bassline going on, as I think it would add to the song. I kind of like the verse/chorus progression I came up with, but I’m not as pleased about the bridge-outro thing. I would probably leave it as a short song, or come up with a different ending.

7: Bridge Week: I had difficulty writing the Bridge for Parker’s song ‘People We’ll Never Know’ because I felt like his lyrics told a great, complete, concise story that was plain spoken but had a lot of depth. I felt like the sections I came up with were sort of ‘tacked on’. I think if I had to redo this assignment I would have tried to come up with a bridge that took the song in a new direction, since its already pretty self contained.

8: When Doves Cry: I like what I did with this song…for the first minute and a half. I feel like the arrangement I came up with was too repetitive. I think to make this song work well on an acoustic guitar I would have to take more liberties with the harmonic structure.

9: Waiting: The song I wrote over the summer. For some reason this song hasn’t aged well for me, even when its ‘age’ is only a matter of months. However, there are some lyrical ideas and a couple guitar gestures that I might try to rework into something I’m happier with.

10: Found My Way/Dissonance: This song (whose melody was based off David Gilmour guitar melodies) I saw more as an exercise than a real song. Though I learned a couple cool melodic ‘tricks’, I will probably scrap this song on the basis that its too unoriginal. However, the lyrics might be salvageable.

Wow I just talked about myself a lot. Anyway moving onto my thoughts of the shows:

First of all, it was cool how unique each show was. The first one definitely had more of an intimate coffee-house vibe to it, while the second was definitely a little more…rockin. I also want to stress how much I enjoyed all of the material this semester, so the keep in mind the criticisms I make are very minor.

Josh: I really enjoyed Faster from the Sun, especially the way Rosalind’s and your voices blended. All Ye Shackled Men was a very cool number (and a lot of fun to be a part of). Let’s all Walk with our Hands in our Pockets, despite its brevity, really captured your humor and unique poignancy. I also loved your version of O Holy Night. I wasn’t as crazy about Dawn’s Broken Crutch, which in my opinion became a tad repetitive and I was disappointed by your ‘surpise song’, though this is mainly because I thought the song you were supposed to play was absolutely brilliant. I hope you reconsider your thoughs on it.

Roman: I really loved Tribute, St. George, and Hotline (again). I think Tribute has a lot of emotion in it, and its really effective the way you turn around the meaning of the song towards the end. St. George has a lot of really cool guitar patterns and a great melody. Hotline is great because it has a very unique pacing for you that still fits in your style. I wasn’t as crazy about Rocking Chair as I was about these three because I feel like a lot of the concepts you use in Rocking Chair are better used in the songs above.

Jonathan: You wrote some great, totally-not-epic songs this semester. Getting to play on Neverland was a lot of fun (and a bit of a challenge…that’s the most chords I’ve had to learn at once in a long time). I really loved Fjord, the collaboration with Parker. Your two styles came together in a really cool way. I also thought your Bridge for Ben’s song was fantastic, another great meeting of styles. Jenny and the Ghost is also a very cool song, but (all sarcasm aside) it is epic. I recommend you embrace it.

Ben: I really love the arrangements for Pink Pills and Pestle/Coathanger, they help to accentuate what is already a couple of great songs. I also feel like your subversive lyrical style really fit these two songs well. I’ll Roll Back to You is also a fantastic song, made even stronger by Jonathan’s bridge. This song was definitely caught in my head for a while. As a child of the 90’s, it was fun to hear your very different interpretation of All the Small Things. I didn’t quite love Citalopram as much as your other material, and while Shamus (or Seamus?) Taylor was a fun song, I feel like both you and Rosalind had stronger material this semester.

Julie: Like I said before, I’m so happy with how our song turned out! Your vocal strength really helped to strengthen the guitar part I came up with. Worry Away had an awesome arrangement, and it managed to stay ‘chill’ (sorry I couldn’t think of a better word) while staying interesting, which is a difficult line to walk. I also thought Sally was a really cool song. I wasn’t as crazy about Me and You, I wished it had a little more rhythmic diversity to it, and I felt like it paled in comparison to all your other great work.

Parker: Like I said in Jonathan’s section, I really love Fjord. Valley Bridge is also a great song with great narrative and imagery. I was blown away with your playing on Arizona, not to mention your witty lyrics. Easy Going Easy Gone was catchy and a lot of fun, but like most pop songs I find myself liking it less with each listen. A little cheesy synth goes a long way.

Rosalind: My Madness is probably my favorite song of yours this semester. The chord progression during the chorus is just too cool, and Julie’s bridge added extra flair to an already great piece. I also loved the lyrical imagery and delicate arrangement of Grow, and the dark and ominous affect of He, which is not your usual style but I thought you pulled it off really well. For Shamus Taylor, like I said before, I think both you and Ben have generated better material this semester. I also really like the individual parts of Fish and Lobster, but I feel like this could be an even stronger song if it were arranged differently.

Song Analysis and Resynthesis (or...how I know I've found a college music blog)

The song I've chosen to copy emulate analyze and resynthesize is R.E.M.'s Perfect Circle from their debut album Murmur.

ANALYSIS

'Perfect Circle' follows a straightforward verse-chorus (3x) path. The song keeps fairly consistent intensity dynamics throughout, and thus relies on other methods to distinguish the two sections. The verses consist of a punchy, honky tonk piano accompanying the vocals, with a highly syncopated (borderline arrhythmic) bass line coming in partway. The eclectic mix of sounds, combined with the bizzare chord changes (F,D,F,G) leaves the song somewhat unsteady until it collapses into the chorus, where the chord changes are much more regular. The drums that enter at the chorus slow down the pace of the song by being in halftime, and the highly reverb'd guitar that also joins in washes out the sound, making the chorus dreamy, and with the repetitive melody, chant-like. The two sections essentially act as a long-form tension and release, which gives the song it's shape.

The melody of the verse seems to be based around D, hitting both the major (F#) and minor (f) third, along with the G. The root shifts to C in the chorus, with a repetative ascending-descending figure. During the first chorus, the melody stays in a similar range, but the second and third choruses are marked by repeated leaps up to C, which in my opinion is the most notable and memorable aspect of the melody. The lyric of the song remains vague and mysterious, choosing to present an array of ideas and imagery instead of any tangible narrative.


RESYNTHESIS

One of the most striking differences between 'Perfect Circle' and my song is that my song somehow ended up with about 4 distinct sections instead of 2. Other than that, I tried to incorporate as much of the above discussion as I could. Here's a list of some of the ideas I did keep:

-Bizzare Chord Change in Verse
-Rhythmic slowdown in Chorus from verse
-Similar Ascending-descending melodic figure in chorus
-Repeated leaps to same note in Chorus#2/Bridge (or whatever you want to call it)
-Minimal intensity dynamics (or 'attempts to rely on the ideas used in 'Perfect Circle' to achieve variety')
-Lyric?*

*So I didn't exactly write similar lyrics (mine is generally more narrative, though still a bit vague). However, I had gotten caught up on the 'Heaven Assumed' phrase repeated in one of the choruses of perfect circle. I chose to rely on the double meaning of 'assumed', and I called upon the notion from my childhood where I 'assumed' heaven was a place, much like I 'assumed' Santa Claus was a real dude until I was informed otherwise. This song is about the first time I realized heaven wasn't an assumption, it was a belief, and possibly one that I couldn't subscribe to. (SPOILER ALERT: I'm now an atheist.)

Wild Card Assignment 1 - Follow the rules

This week I was commissioned to write a song with the following restraints:

1) Write a song whose lyrics contain no nouns/pronouns except for those that refer to lifeless objects (no people, animals, plants, etc.).

2) Further, do not use personification if/when lifeless objects are referred to.

3) Finally, use no more than three different nouns throughout your song (you may use the same noun multiple times).

Whew. This was a tough one. I decided that I would have to start with the lyrics first, as they would require the most thinking and concentration. After a few dead ends, I came up with a concept I liked. I tried to build a song around the lyrics, and I made a few small alterations to make more musical sense, but mostly the words dictated how the music would go.

Here are the lyrics...I know that I managed to accomplish directives 1 and 3, and 2 is up to interpretation, though I did make an active effort to avoid blatant personification. Also, if you count the title that's a fourth noun, but I found it necessary.


Astral Companion

Radio spills out
As it begins to twist around
Invisible light
Starts to show
Even now
Radio

Radio cannot be buried
Radio cannot be controlled
As the world’s light fades
Radios begin to glow

Radio spreads out
It comes in loud
Crackling light
Starts to show
Even now
Radio

Radio cannot be buried
Radio cannot be controlled
As the world’s light fades
Radios begin to glow

Rising up falling through
Growing old staying new
As black as white as gray as
Swirling swirling swirling sway

Radio vibrates
Shining in the sound
Sparkling light
Starts to show
Even now
Radio

Radio cannot be buried
Radio cannot be controlled
As the world’s light fades
Radios begin to glow

Invisible Light
Radio
Crackling Light
Radio
Sparkling Light
Radio
Fading Light
Radio




P.S. If I get a postable version I'll try to post it later

Lets build a bridge!

For this week, I was commissioned to write a bridge for Parker Silzer's song People We'll Never Know. My favorite part of this song is the lyrics, which really connected me and managed to say a lot without many words. I did not want to disrupt the narrative flow of the song, but since the song follows a more or less verse/verse/verse...etc pattern, I knew I had to add a section in the middle to give a little variation. I tried my best to write in the style of the song by using different lengths of time for some of the chords.

Bridge Chords: C-D-Gmaj7/C-Em-D-Cadd9, C-D-Gmaj7/C-Em-D-G


I can't explain why I just took off my coat and slept
I slept through the whole damn day

woke up at 6 and checked the mirror and fixed my hair
I'm expected somewhere at 8

Changed my plans and called up Sam and I guess we'll drive
in the summer's fading light

(bridge)
And if there’s silence in the air
We won’t be afraid to let it linger there
And if I have something to say
I know that the words won’t just drift away

The town's a bore but we'll explore all the countryside
where my favorite secrets hide

The roads are home to snow white horses and walls of stone
and people we'll never know

(bridge)
As the evening starts to grow
Bursting all moonlight and indigo
Its comes and goes so fast
But I’d say I’m at my most relaxed


Tonight I'll spend
With a few good friends
Laughing at lovers we've had and
We'll have again



Here is a recording I made...I'm still recovering from a cold so forgive the could-be-better vocals.

Err...well here WILL be a recording when our wiki lets me upload a file...stay tuned.

Covers

Cover Week

I think, as a general rule of thumb, if one is planning on recording a cover of a song, they should stay away from artists they revere. Otherwise they will be hesitant to make it their own, and end up with something as uninspired as Pearl Jam’s cover of the Beatle song ‘You’ve got to hide your love away’. Its not that Pearl jam isn’t creative or talented, they simply respect the Beatles vision too much to produce anything other than a carbon copy. And at that point, why bother.

However, I think it’s a mistake to swing the other way. If I personally believe a song doesn’t have enough, or any, redeeming qualities, I’m probably not going to really put much of myself into a cover of it, and it will come out uninspired as well (unless, like Ben Folds and Alanis Morissette before me, I’m going for irony).

So this leaves us with what? Only cover mediocre songs? That seems like sort of a cop-out. I suppose it’s worth revising, or elaborating, my first point. It’s a mistake to cover a song one worships, but worship and love are two different things. There are artists I listen to because I like the music, and artists I listen to because the music takes me to a deep, emotional place. I wouldn’t want to alter (or spoil) my relationship with the latter, but I’m happy to tinker around with the former.

For some reason this disjointed thought process led me to Prince, an artist whose music I enjoy, even admire, greatly, but for the most part have no deep connection to. I started messing around with “When Doves Cry” on my acoustic and I thought ‘this could work’. At this point I made myself promise that I would stick with it unless it turned into a complete disaster. This way I would save myself from the maybe-there’s-a-better-song-to-cover second-guessing that exists anyway, but is ignored.

Now I ask myself, ‘what do I want to change about this song for my cover’. Well, the arrangement, by simple necessity. Take out the plodding drum machines, wailing electric guitars, catchy synths, multitracked vocals, and add in a dude with an acoustic. Already its sounding pretty different. Now to think about the chord scheme. Something that’s cool about this track is that it is pretty harmonically sparse; most of the chord changes are implied by the melody. This leaves room for a little experimentation. I decided to throw in a couple extra chords that I felt fit with the melody. Prince’s version of the song relies on layering to give the song complexity and movement, but since my only layering came from how hard I was strumming my guitar, I thought these extra chords helped keep my version from getting too boring. I left the melody mostly unchanged, though I took a few minor liberties with it, and I modulate a bit during the last chorus to keep things interesting. Not feeling any need to change the lyrics, I kept them the same, though I repeat the first two lines of the chorus at the end.

After all this, I still had one hurdle to overcome. I needed to come up with a way to emulate the synth hook that is so key to the song, but I wasn’t having much luck. I couldn’t come up with a way to make it sound pretty, so I decided to take it in a different direction by making it sound unsettling. Given the last chord I choose for the chorus, the pattern is actually somewhat dissonant, and I use sudden dynamic changes to do my best to keep the listener on their toes.

For those unfamiliar with the original:

I will upload my version when I am cold-free.