new track in progress
The way I usually write a song is to do the bed, then noodle around with melodies and write up some lyrics that go well with the rhythm and feel of the phrases. This is a bed track for my 2.4.2010 jam. In this case, a “bed” track is the basic shape of the song, with rhythm sections recorded and mixed from beginning to end.
I’m playing the bass, acoustic guitar and keys, and most the drums are live loops (royalty-free!); a few drum parts are sequenced on top to give some more variety. I’m enjoying playing the keys on these songs (I’m slowly moving past my dependence on sequenced keys). The song breathes so much better when the rhythm has space to groove in. This can be especially challenging when writing music for film, television, commercials, etc., where producers may want to cut and rearrange, so you need to still be “on” the click track, overall.
This guitar riff was really fun to come up with. One of the easiest ways to get some “flavor” on the guitar is to play a chord somewhere in the neck, but substitute one or more of the notes with an open string. In this case, playing a lot of F and Bb stuff let me do little pickup notes from E and A. I love the sense of motion you get with those half step, syncopated lead-ins. Of course, you can’t go wrong with sus4 and 7 chords, either, when you’re looking for a way to spend time on a chord, and go somewhere without actually going away from it.
The bass fills and flavors are all recorded improvisations. I probably spent about an hour just playing along with the song and recording my noodling. Then I’d delete and do it again. By the end of that hour, I was able to “improvise” enough stuff that I liked that it’s almost a straight recording with no cuts or edits. Almost… It’s difficult for me to not overplay on bass. As it is, I’ll need to be careful when I do the melody that I cut out or complement the fills when they come. I tried to keep them at the end of phrases for that reason (it’s also where the drum fills go, and I tried to sync my improvs with those, too). The other improvisations are less distracting from the motion of the song and “bass”ic melody, so they should sit fine under the vocals and only the forensic listener will pick up on my self-indulgence.
I’m thinking right now I’ll have two versions, one being an instrumental where guitar takes the melodic role, and the other being a typical rock song with lyrics, singing, and all that stuff. The instrumental will probably come first since lyrics just don’t come easy to this Jammer these days.
