It’s ditty song collecting week. My brain needs to empty a fair few tune ideas. This one below? The main title was to be ‘There She Goes’. But ‘Say Goodbye’ is edging it currently. Need more verses and lyrics….so it could change again if this one comes to being realised as a song.

Little experiments on the Mac M2 recording system are very therapeutic. After the full on malarkey of last year’s recordings, it has been quite nice to record quickly and simply. I have lots of melodies kicking around and need to off load them.

And so, as like I uploaded yesterday with a couple of ideas, it is a case of just doing one a day. There are other things to do really. Read more from unlooked at books. Get some food ready for tonight’s and other days’ suppers. Also on other days? Watercolour painting. The sun is shining….so get outdoors. Do a bit of meanderings mentally. A bit of gardening. Things that are good for keeping chilled really. Last year was too damn awful to repeat it again.

These are only sample/example songs. But are nice to capture in simple framework reality. As said above. They bring a massive therapeutic contribution to life. I said the same in yesterday’s blog. They enhance mood and dig you out of the doldrums.

Sequence is:

1. Set up a microphone and open ‘Acoustic/Echo Strum’ mode in GarageBand.
2. Pick up the Guild acoustic guitar. Capo on fret #1. Play and sing the little idea ditty into the microphone.
3. Add a percussion choice with the Taiko Drums from the World Orchestral library. Play a very, very simple beat along with my rhythm choice of simple guitar strum.
4. Add a String Ensemble choice from the Orchestra file and play a one finger keyboard style to create a little melody.
5. Sing a little bit of ad hoc voice melody to give some ideas of ‘maybes’.
6. Just record it and file it to go back to. If it grows and grows in my mind, then it could become a bigger song later on.
7. If it is to be done as a full song? It can all be levelled up and mixed properly on a new recording at a later date. This raw take just gives an idea if it could work.

Finally:

No AI involved whatsoever. I played a real acoustic guitar, plinky plonked on the keyboards and sang oh so whimsically. Cheers all.

There she goes

Looking for all the World

Like an Angel

My friends tell me

She’s gone for good

It’s understood

But I don’t believe them

Coz she promised me

We’d be together

Old and Grey

Walking hand in hand

By the Sea

Walking on soft sand

Until we

Say our goodbye’s

You eventually learn how to fly

And touch the sky.

REFLECTION ON MUSIC IN LIFE PRESENTLY.

Moving into the sound of Faded Walls I began realising that it is simply the use of echo that brings a comfort factor. I read about John Lennon not liking his own voice. I saw an interview with David Bowie too. He said that he would have loved people to sing his songs and for himself to be only a songwriter. I can completely emphasise. I dislike my voice immensely and want it to sound unlike myself.

Back in the day when playing cover versions, it was a case of failing to emulate singers. What do I do? That was my thinking. Become a weird parody of the vocalist singing the song. Or sing everything in my own frail, un-spectacular voice sound. I suppose that is why songwriting gave the choice of having no choice but to go down my own road. But adopting the punk rock style growl, the New Wave ‘Bowie’ croon, and the higher harmony backing the soul edge singer in Team 23 meant I was still styling my voice to suit the music. It all got complicated.

Now it just needs a consistent ‘I’m happy with this sound’. This musical journey I’m on is simply for therapeutic aims now. Done to keep dementia at bay. Done to express better vibes and dump maudlin emotions that need to be released. An introvert nature has the valuable entity of folding yourself up into a ball and to not care what happens with aims. The one true ambition is to stay true to your own self. Respect the soul within and keep it safe. This is best served at home. Away from life’s fray.

Echo as a comfort blanket? On Faded Walls it has even crossed into the guitar sound. My six string electric guitar playing is meagre. So I dislike that aspect of my musician experience too. So in order to get different textures I use the GarageBand choices of a library where you put my guitar playing into different types of sound. Rather like a proper guitarist uses foot pedals to change guitar sound.

I suppose my preference for acoustic guitars comes from the comfort of actually loving the song writing experience. It is pure therapy. You pick the guitar up, strum and the notes fill up the room and myself. The gentle hum brings about the basic requirements of seeking a hopefully decent melody. Completely different from recording. Complicated layering of playing different instruments for each track and then ongoing mixing becomes too intense at times. So it defeats the purpose of channeling calm. I’ll leave you with Faded Walls again. I like this song to be honest. In some strange manner….it doesn’t belong to me. I can separate myself from its performance. But I do use it as a marker song to enhance current vocal style. I try to play it before I turn on the Mac M2 computer for recording and it gives me a vibe.

Cheers all.