Closer to All - First Rifts

So, here's what happened. The last two weeks we haven't really been able to have rehearsals with our drummer preparing for final exams. We've had various numbers of people turn up, and been trying out a keyboard player to one day replace our wonderful current keyboard player. (It's an amicable split, with almost a year advance notice - she will leave sometime before next year, depending on our state of readiness).

That means the two demos I have started making have been put on hold. In addition, we talked about broadening the reach with our band and adding more upbeat songs into the setlist, so I have been trying to play around and see what I could get running. For the first time in a long time I picked up my bass guitar, and I've got to say that the first thing it does is force me into a different writing style.

So this is a bare rift draft to give me some structure to play with and play around with the guitar later. It's always a bit difficult, because I'm stepping into our bass players territory, but the idea is to create a rhythm draft that will hopefully inspire something to play on guitar over the top. That means I can't get to attached to the bass lines I write.

Breaking it down:

Tempo - 120 Bpm
Key - Em (well, at least its not Dm)

0:00 - 0:31  - Intro
0:32 - 1:19 - Verse
1:20 - 1:34  - Pre-chorus
1:35 - 2:08 - Chorus

Intro

I plan to build this up more in the next draft, and I was going to cut the drums into two different sections (rushed for time tonight). I like the general bassline, and its a little similar to a song I wrote with a previous band. You'll probably notice the rhythm is slightly off skew - this is intentional, but hard to coordinate with set drum loops. Actually I kind of like it weaving in and out of the standard 4/4 beat...

Verse

So this is an example of how my writing style changes when playing on bass instead of guitar. Not sure I like it that much, but I'll see what happens on guitar before I consign it to the scrap heap.

Pre-Chorus 

First thing you will probably notice is the lack of flow with the drums from one section to another. This time its a result of switching from midi drums to drum loops, so before next demo I will play around with either loops or midi to get a smoother flow.

This is, of course, the return of the into rift, but the idea will be to push a different rift on guitar over the same rift and create a different feel.

Chorus

And here we get the hardest piece of the puzzle. One problem with drum loops is that the tempo can drastically change depending on what tempo they were recorded in, but I kind of like the idea of a slower chorus over a upbeat verse. The Chili Peppers do it in a few of their later songs, and while they're not my favourite Chili Songs, I like the dynamic it builds.

Closer to the Sun - Inception

So its been a week, and things are in a holding pattern with the band because crucial members of the team are neck deep in exams. As a result its been hard to move forward at the moment. Add to this we are recruiting new musicians, as our keyboardist will be leaving us soon.

So walking home from work a lyric started banging in my head.

That which brings me closer to you

Brings us closer to God

Now, normally I'm not a fan of being blatant with lyrics, and although I believe in God I've all but sworn off using the word because of the misconceptions it causes. Those of certain religious traditions immediately associate the word with their definition of God, while many of my closest atheist friends are turned off by the word altogether. My own belief is that we often talk about the same concept and then fight over the word we use, so I've been kicking around other words for the lyric - the all, the universe, the force...

For now I've settled on the sun and the One for the rhyme scheme it creates, so here's mark two for the chorus.

What brings me closer to you
Brings me closer to the sun
What brings us closer to each other
Brings us closer to everyone
And closer to the One

I played around with chord progressions and actually recorded something, but I'm going to sleep on it for a night and see how things look in the morning.

Update

OK, so I showed both songs to the band last night and they seemed to be more interested in Fall than Seed... which just happens to be the song that needs more work, so I will be playing around with it more. I'm thinking of setting up the songs that they are not interested in as a separate project.

When I played Seed in the room, the verses sounded a bit like one of our other songs, but I wonder if that's just how I played it without the demo on hand. Here is the demo without vocals, which I posted for my band.


I'm also going to be dusting off some of my old demos and trying to remix / rewrite some of them, so it will be a chance for some before and after moments.

Seed - (Structure)

I've got this to about as far as I want to take it without taking it into the band room, and maybe beyond what I'm comfortable sharing, but here goes nothing.

So, what you're listening to is a first rough draft of the song, complete with the major sections I want to contribute, a rough vocal guide and a fairly complete first look at the song. So, breaking down what's new:

Vocal  Track

This is something I rarely do, and with good reason. What you are listening to is not my regular singing voice - this is me sitting down in front of my computer singing quietly into my computer's built-in microphone.

Why?

Two reasons:

My kids are asleep, so I cannot belt out at my regular volume without disturbing family and neighbours. This is all recorded in the storage room at the entrance of our apartment, so no way am I going to be able to deliver volume.

And the inbuilt microphone? Because all of my microphones are sitting at the bandroom. I considered buying a cheap karaoke microphone just for home, but I do this so rarely I didn't see the point.

So why do it at all? I think for my own curiosity, to see how it all sounds together. Forgive of the vocal performance - this is nothing like what it will sound like at the end, when I get to add range and dynamics to it.

Also notice, the actual lyrics are not yet complete, as the third verse is just a repetition of the second. I am considering adding lyrics after the second chorus to do something different structurally.

Structure

I am shocked at how short this is, clocking in at 3:19, and there are more than enough rifts to extend this song further. I dare say when the rest of the band begins to mold this (again, with the understanding that they may just say 'no') we'll see it extend, but I actually like the idea of keeping it fairly short.

Hell, it's even a slow tempo, at least by my standards (90bpm - and the Fall demo clocks in at 150bpm and lasts 5 minutes), and has 5 different rifts in it, so who's to say its not designed to be a short song.

Bridge

 Ok, considering I'm already very happy with 2 of the rifts in this piece (the transition between the verses and the heavy rift in the chorus) I'm pretty impressed with the two rifts I wrote here for the bridge. I can't help feeling some level of deja-vu, and I suspect I'm rewriting one of my own rifts here (check the chorus from Formaldehyde for what I mean) but the second rift is one that I'm pretty happy with.

Hopefully, if we do extend it, these sections can add some sources to break us out of our regular verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge / chorus / out structure.

Seed - (2nd rifts)

OK, so sat down with the guitar to try and put the music and lyrics together, so this is it so far.


OK, so lets break it down a bit.

Intro (0:00 - 0:20)

OK, so this survived almost unchanged. The tone is much better, though, after spending about 20 minutes fiddling with nobs.

Let me reiterate what I said earlier - I hate the pods digital tones. What I hate most is the lack of natural sustain that you get through an amp,  so its not really the pods fault, more the recording process.

Verse (0:20 - 0:42, 0:53 - 1:14, 1:47 - 2:08)

This time I took the background rift and brought it forward. I did this mainly because I wanted to create the guitar parts that I would play in the song, but then found my playing got sloppy maintaining the speed of the rhythm, so my playing will have to change again on this one.

Transition (0:43 - 0:53, 1:35 - 1:46)

This was originally meant to be a bridge, but I liked it so much I moved it into the verse to break it up and play with the structure a bit. It was a bit hard to swing back into the verse, but I liked it so far.

One big problem was that by breaking up the verse, I have forced myself into the position where I have to write more lyrics...

Chorus (1:15 - 1:35, 2:09 - 2:30)

Bigger change here. I  have moved the whole chorus down to C - which I thought was going to be a pain in the butt because I was trying to move from the transition straight into the chorus. Then I realised I could go straight from the verse and it worked... sort of. Because the note is heading down I'm not sure if it stands out against the rest of the rifts.

Having said that, I really enjoy the second part of the rift when it returns to D. I think the rift might be a little too familiar at the moment, and as I can't quite put my finger on it I can't say whether I'm accidentally plagiarising someone like Korn, or whether I'm cannibalising one of my old songs.

------

What next? Well, there's still more to go on this one. I will have to extend the song and build out the ending. I will be adding further lyrics as I go, and this is all before it gets played in the band room.

Seed - (Lyrics - First Draft)

OK, so this is an odd moment where I managed to fire out a first complete draft of the lyrics so early in the process. Normally this comes only after I have a working demo of the complete song to work with, but I think the concept helped me form this, and once the images were in place this fell together fairly quickly. There are still some clunkers in here - the use of the word 'quest' for example just seems out of place, despite the imagery - but it has a beat and scheme of its own. 

One problem is that vocally (and you have to trust me on this one because this is still in my head at the moment) the chorus is in the same vocal space as the verse, so look for a demo tonight where the chorus.

A landscape of giants

Your reach seeks the distance

Your eyes burn with twilight

But you're still a little boy

You wrestle with dragons

You burn with impatience

So small but you hold

The secrets of gold

In the caverns of your soul

OK, so I love this imagery. My son is into everything fantastic - super heroes, dragons, monsters - he gets it from his father. I love how the imagery comes together on this. 

I'm not completely sold on the rhyme scheme, but we'll see how it turns out when I put it together with the rifts. I like the move away from the typical AABB rhyme scheme.

You're the seed of the sky

Made from the atoms of the stars

How beautiful you are

How powerful you are

I've already talked about this in the last post, so I won't go into it again today.

You leap without seeing

Fall without fearing

Land without slowing

And we all hold our breath

Will you stand without trying

Lift your eyes without crying

Find the horizon

As you face your tests

Ride forward on your quest

Like I said, I'm not sold on the last line here, or the entire second half of this verse, to be honest. The first half, though, is a fairly true what I'm trying to express. I'll reevaluate that second half of the verse.

OK, so I'm going to reevaluate the rifts I wrote and see where it goes from there. If my kids get to bed on time, I expect to get a new rift track done by tonight and get this one rolling as well.

Seed - (Concept)

OK, so, after listening to Project Target today, I realised that I could quite easily sing the lyrics I came up with earlier today over the chorus, with a few minor alterations, so Project Target has become the song Seed, at least for now.

The updated lyrics are:

My seed of the sky

Made from the atoms of the stars

How beautiful you are

How powerful you are

Again, all things are subject to change, but it became clear this afternoon what I want this song to be about. I try to keep my songs personal, even when I'm saying something more generally about our society or the world we live in. 

My family has featured in a couple of my songs before. Stay is largely a song about my relationship with my wife (although it is far from the one great love song I owe her) and was inspired by a time she and my daughter were on holiday and I was left in Macau to work. Blacksand (and forgive the poor state of the recording - I asked the sound engineer for a decent clean tone and this is what I got) is a song dedicated to my grandmother, and also features a shout out to my daughter within it. 

The one person I have not managed to connect with my music is my son. He is, if you had to describe him in one word, mischievous, or perhaps even impish. He is the type of kid who tests where the line is by throwing his ball over and running to chase it. I don't think that side of him will ever change. 

But of course, defining a person by one word is like defining a country by one person, and he is much more than that. 

One thing that strikes me about him is his doggedness to stick up for himself. He is resoluteness. As the youngest in the family, I know that he has a hard time because he is the voice least consulted. There are rules and lines and promises that one day he will have the freedoms he doesn't have now. And, of course, too often our conversations are about the rules and what he did wrong, and not enough of them are about how much I love him, and how, for all the nuisance and pain, I wouldn't trade that for the world.

I heard that (and physicists, feel free to correct me) that because of the big bang, we are literally made of stardust. I want this song to be that message to him.

Seed - (First lyrics)

Ok, so I have been listening to the two demos and thinking through various ideas when a lyric hit me... Khalil Gibran like...

You're a seed of the sky
Made from the atoms of the stars 

That's how powerful you are

Not sure whether this fits with Project Target or will be another project.

Seed - (First Rifts)

Seed - (First Rifts)

OK, so Fall is on the way, but at the moment I can't move it ahead much. I was going to start to write lyrics, but I will probably wait until the band is on it before I settle on anything lyrically.

As a result I've decided to start a second project, this time working music first. I should probably warn you that there may be a number of abandoned rifts in this process, so unless you tell me "hey, that's a cool rift" there's no guarantee I will finish any given song in this blog.




Boy, I hate the guitar tone on the Pod, so long term I'm  either going to have to buy new equipment, work out how to get a better sound from the pod or become a better guitar player. The last thing probably ain't going to happen soon enough, so we'll see what happens.

Ok, still going with writing multiple rifts at the same time to build, but did something different this time - writing two guitar parts simultaneously. (Yeah, I know smart ass - obviously I'm not literally playing both parts simultaneously - just hang in there wiseguy).

This has 3 basic rifts, but 2 separated with the 2 guitar parts, so you'll find:

0:00 - 0:20         - verse rift 1
0:20 - 0:40         - verse rift 2
0:40 - 1:04         - chorus
1:04 - 1:25         - bridge rift 1
1:25 - 1:48         - bridge rift 2

Noticed after mixing that I had pushed the 2nd guitar too far back in the mix. This was because I was embarrassed by the tone. I will play around with the rifts over the next couple of days, probably push the tempo up a little and polish the playing. I tend to be very sloppy when I first write rifts, and I can hear it clearly in the verse and bridge rifts here.

And, ironically, I think the rifts on the second guitar, the ones you can barely hear, are actually the better rifts, so look for a number of changes regarding the two guitar parts in the next blog.

-Update -

OK, been playing round with this track in my head and noticed that they can fit the beat to this demo somewhat, so henceforth this project will go by the name Seed. Read my blog post from earlier today to read those lyrics.

Fall (Initial Structure)

Fall (Initial Structure)

So, I've extended the song into a full length demo, and some of it is beginning to take shape. You'll notice some changes, some small, some not so small, to the previous demo, so just to break it down a little.

Some overall changes - I have sped the song up again, now at 150bpm, and put on a totally different rhythm track. This comes from discovering a free drum loop site, MacLoops, and downloading all of their metal loops. This is more effort than I would usually put in, but I did find it made a pretty big difference on the loops.

The lyrical hook has changed to meet the chorus rift as well.

Don't let me fall

Because I count on you

To keep me sane

Keep my head in the game

 Introduction 

This is still largely the same, and still likely to change. This is still largely a place holder. I also noticed that my timing got sloppy when I turned up the tempo, but not too worried at this point.

Verses

So, if you've listened to the demo, this is where the first big change has happened. The drum track, despite being sped up, actually sounds slower due to the new drum loop I'm using. I know our drummer, Pony, has some fairly similar beats that don't rely as heavily on kick in his repertoire, so I'm pretty certain he'll find something cool to do with this.

I've also extended the guitar rift to de-emphasise the reliance on the 3-note structure I (over)rely on. While it still sounds slower than I originally wanted, I'm pretty happy with this now, and its given me some rhythms to play with for the lyrics.

Transition

Another big change, but not one I'm particularly happy with, either way. The chord change sounds OK, but something we already do in several of our songs in exactly the same place (see Babylon, Voice, The Shot). This will hopefully come together in the band room as something different.

I  hate the double kick in this drum loop, by the way. It sounds particularly sloppy for some reason, but it could be it just doesn't work with the guitar...

Chorus

So, the Chorus is largely the same, but the drum loops underneath it give it more of the power I had originally wanted. The first thing our drummer Pony said when he heard this was "are you trying to kill me with the drums?" because of all the double kick, but if there is one point in the song I would like to keep it, it's here.

Please excuse the massive screw-up in the final chorus. This is meant to be a demo, so I'm not too worried about the little mistakes here and there, but that one particular mistake grates when I hear it. 

Bridge

What a difference the tempo shift made here. It was originally meant to be one of the quieter parts of the song, but after speeding up the track and playing with the drum loops, I ended up with this. Playing the rift ended up a lot more difficult, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out.

What's next?

Well, not everyone in the band has heard the demo yet, so it might end up a case where everyone listens to it in the bandroom and says 'eh' and we consign it to the rejection pile. But I'm happy enough that if that's the case I will probably move on to writing the whole thing anyway, for my own personal amusement. Our drummer has listened to it, however, and he seems pretty happy on the whole.

It's now on my phone, so I will be listening to it repeatedly over the next few days, trying to get lyrical ideas. I'll talk about this more as the lyrics come together, but the first stage is to try out different rhythms and melodies for the lyrics before I think about the actual words. I'm guessing there are some purists out there who would comment on the lack of "purity" to this - how it puts the poetry of the song at the mercy of the rhythm. Funny thing is I often find the rhythm of the song inspires lyrical ideas I would never thought of...

But that's for the next blog...

Fall (First rifts)

Fall (First rifts)

OK so this is the first set of rifts I have written for this song. I'll explain what I'm doing, how I did it and why I did it afterwards. OK, so breaking this into pieces, there are five basic rifts here.

00:00 - 00:27 - Introduction
00:27 - 00:54 - Main verse rift
00:54 - 01:08 - Transition from verse to chorus rift
01:08 - 01:35 - Chorus rift
01:35 - 02:10 - Bridge

 First thing you'll probably notice is that the drum tracks are really disconnected from each other.I use garage band, and I used to have a large collection of drum loops to choose from, and I would spend considerable time programming drums. These days, with a working band, there is no real point. I create these demos mainly to remember the rifts and the drum tracks are mainly there to either help me keep time or to give an outline of the dynamics I want in the sound.

I know, from this point, that Pony (our drummer) is going to take these and create his own rhythms with them, so I am not spectacularly worried.

For those gear-heads who want to know, the guitar parts are played through a Line 6 Pod XT. It's not my favourite guitar sound, but again, I'm focused on getting down the ideas and not mixing here.

OK, so breaking down the sections.

The Introduction: 

Not my favourite part of the song, and I know I over rely on that three note / quarter length starter far too often, so I dare say this is part of the song which will be the most radically altered by the end of the process.

 Main Verse Rift

This hasn't turned out as aggressive as I would like it, and I generally imagined the rift faster, so I will probably play around with the tempo here. The song was recorded at 140bpm, so this will be a case of speeding up the rift while slowing down the drums. I will probably look for a way to add more grunt to the guitar as well.

It relies on a 3 note rotation, which is something I tend to do. Basically, instead of playing the rift in groups of 4 eight notes, I extend over 2 bars and divide into groups of three. So over 2 bars, with 16 notes, it divides up as 3 / 3 / 3 / 3 / and either 2 / 2 or 4.

Again, this is habit of mine, so look for this to probably change as well. 

 Transition 

OK, so structuring songs is something we are trying to explore as a band. Rock n Roll tends to follow a familiar verse / chorus / verse / chorus / bridge / chorus / out structure, or some variation on it. Our lazy way has been to add a transition between verse and chorus - again, nothing mind blowing there - and as we build this song look for some structural changes.

Having said that I tend to create 5 rifts when building the song and then add or subtract as appropriate. We'll see how much ends up in this, but what I do like about this part is the C in the rift, which adds an ominous moment not in the other rifts.

Chorus

OK, so this song was build chorus first. I have a habit of writing songs in D or E - not surprisingly as I tune my guitar in double drop D (D / A / D / G / B / D) and its really easy to write rifts that way, so I originally wanted to write this in C. Strange things is, despite C major being one of the most popular key in pop music, I find it incredibly hard to write in C major...

Eventually I dropped to B (which I use in a couple of our songs but nowhere near as often as D or E), and it managed to suit my initial lyrics much better.

The other thing I try to get away from is the 4 chord chorus - really common and one I use by default as well. As I wrote the first couple of chords for the chorus I was worried this would be another one for the pile, but playing around with it I got something I was happy with. I dare say Simon will adjust it somewhat, but a reasonable start.

Bridge

OK, so this is an effort to satisfy my guitarist and give him something to hook into. I know Simon would dearly like our band to be somewhat progressive, so he loves pushing for odd time signatures / and if not odd rhythm structures. In this case, I was trying to find something a little off beat, but also something that we could play around with a go further with.

Next Stage

OK, one of two things is going to happen from here. I'll put this by my band. If they show interest before the weekend, I'll be using the basic rifts to build a structure so I can start playing around with lyrical ideas. If not, we'll jam with them on practice on Sunday, make a few decisions, and I'll have a very rough "in-the-bandroom" recording to write over.

Or we'll scrap the whole idea altogether, but we'll see what happens.

Fall (Inception)

Fall (Inception)

OK, tried creating a number of blogs, but I think I have finally hit on an idea that I might stick through with.

The idea will be to follow through with the evolution of some of the songs I am writing for my current band - Frontline Caste - from start to finish. If you don't know who we are, you can check out our band at Reverb Nation or on Facebook.

So, first stage was getting an idea for a song. This song started lyric first, and if you want to get into an argument about which one comes first, words or music, let me just say that I'm fairly ambidextrous in my song writing. I used to start music first because I'm stronger as a lyricist, so I tried to find rifts that I enjoyed first, knowing that I could write lyrics around anything I wrote. Wit the new band, however, I'm working with a guitarist who also contributes to the songwriting, so it's not an issue anymore.

This one came from a simple lyrical hook:

Don't let me fall

I need you to keep me sane

To keep my head in the game. 

Nothing mind-blowing yet, fairly cliched, but it's coming from a real place so I trust that there's a store of emotion when the bulk of the song writing comes. A week ago we had one of those gigs where some things went right and some things went horribly wrong. One cover in particular came out vocally terrible, something I didn't realise until I saw the video. I asked my band why no one told me in practice that the vocals were off and my guitarist said he thought I was holding back. 

So its a simple idea of trusting someone to tell you the truth, even if its not what you want to hear. 

A quick proviso, though. I often find, as I'm working on a song, that the initial idea for the song is abandoned and something else put in its place. 

I'll post the guitar rifts I jammed out around this soon and let you hear the initial ideas musically. Don't worry, they'll be bastardised as soon as I take it into the band room, especially because Simon will want to put this in some odd time signature - and we'll compromise and try to make some parts of the song rhythmically different but push forward on others.