What used to happen when you wrote a song with intentions is that you pick up the acoustic guitar or, in my alternative case, my bass guitar and you present the idea to your band mates. They begin adding and exploring the developing of said song. It’s complex in that you arrange the dynamics alongside everyone giving their own contributions of their playing skills.

I thought I would put an idea down today to quickly show how modern day songwriting Summers has to work.

Up to now last version below. Still a tune and lyrics to write. Vocal level test here in this one. Later in the blog the progress explanation.

First: I chose a drum beat I liked from the GarageBand drum ‘library’. Then I altered various dynamics in the drum ‘edit’ to create the beat I wanted to play my style of bass thoughts to the rhythm.

Second: I wrote and played a very straightforward bass line/riff on my Fender Jazz bass guitar. It went directly into the audio interface, so no amplifier needed. .

Third: I strummed acoustic guitar chords on top of that on my Eko dreadnought guitar.

Fourth: I played a simple keyboard octave three note progression and then played an ethnic rhythm through the arpeggio choices to create a fuller consistent vibe.

Fifth: I then began playing little plonking keyboard single notes with a couple of different simple tunes. Familiar/similar tunes from ones I wrote in the recent past.

Sixth: I added an electric guitar, the Vintage SG, on top of all this. Plugged directly into the computer interface. Therefore no external amplifier needed. Also softened the sound by using the Master Track settings.

Seventh: Set up two vocal tracks, main and harmony, and put tester vocals down. No lyrics or tune yet so just blab anything to check volume levels. This new pre amp booster I have for my old 1970s microphone can be quickly checked for stability against a backing track.

Nothing was cut and paste instrumental wise at all. Every single instrumental track was played from start to finish. So mistakes may well occur. Luckily, there weren’t too many. No Editing involved in this at all, other than the drums in order to get little tweaked additions for a different beat. The thing is, Editing can only be achieved on a few outcomes for my own skills. I haven’t the knowledge to do the sort of changes that can be possible in the GarageBand system. Simply. Currently. A technophobe and not an engineer of sound.

And so, this ‘put together’ today is how I have to work on my lonesome. I suppose the weaknesses are having to still move on to the next stage of creating a song arrangement. The highs and lows, the fast the slow, the changes that happen through a song to create the song’s story. So much to learn presently with the need to cut out certain parts and transfer them to other parts in songs. Simply build fragmented layering.

I have an idea how to do this now. Drums and an acoustic guitar recorded first. Then the layering and drop outs can then be introduced where they are needed in the song. Problem is, I am no musician of various instrumental skills. If I had somebody that I could say to ‘come in on this part here……and here. Then it would be like how we worked back in the day. I just need to start arranging the songs now as the next step.

I’m a Bass guitarist.

Not a whole band! Very much miss those days…….