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.