So I’m still working on musical stuff, but school’s ridiculous and this weekend I’ve actually found some time to work on a song. A song that I think sounds pretty good, but wha-at ever. And I really enjoyed listening to Happy Riff Song after a while of being stuck on a Death Cab/LCD Soundsystem/Arcade Fire/Flaming Lips/Radiohead playlist. All of which I like, but now I’m breaking out of the chains that are iTunes playlists and the shuffle button. Either way, I realized that the greater part of the lyrics that I came up with for it are pretty bogus and are generally cheesy. But yeah, this new song is much more sincere, I think, with a little (<-emphasis) bit more somber tone. And harmonies that aren't just octaves. It's okay, octave, ur stil cool.

Walker

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

It’s so annoying that when you’re trying to come up with stuff you never come up with anything good, and when you’re half-asleep humming to yourself in the middle of the night you come up with something amazing and you have to wake yourself up enough to remember it and write it down.

Such is the case with an interesting chord progression I came up with for the bridge and another for the outro of Happy Riff Song. I’m still having quite a hard time coming up with lyrics, I’m afraid it’ll sound too teenage-poetry-y. But the chord progression sounds pretty cool. The end of the song will just be the same melody as the chorus, maybe the same lyrics, but sung against this new chord progression. It’ll be cool. I just need to get to recording it, and last week was crazy, this week is crazier, and although I had a day off, I was waiting for something to arrive in the mail (keep reading) so that I could test it out and stuff. Besides, it’s a day off for a reason, and although it’s fun to do, recording this stuff is work.

So what arrived was a condenser microphone, a Røde NT1-A to be precise, that I had ordered to replace my O.K. dynamic mic to use for recording. It sounds wonderful, and it’ll be nice to record my amp with it, as well as acoustic guitar, and drums (sort of). But that’ll be cool, my vocals will sound a lot more nice and clear. The only thing I’m worried about is that the room that my studio is in is terrible reverb-wise; things echo like a… I dunno, something really bouncy and energetic. I may need to breakout the thumbtacks and funky wool stuff or whatever it is that you get at the craft store to make a little vocal booth of some sort.

In other news, I’ve been satisfying my electronics interest by looking at modular, analog, control-voltage synthesis. It’s quite interesting, and would be a great (if somewhat expensive) thing to start, because it would be pretty fun to make but would yield something that I could make music with. I already know that pre-built modules are pretty expensive, but as far as I can tell it’s cheaper to build your own if you make your own PCBs, buy components individually, etc. Besides, I have a local electronics store that I’m almost certain would have everything that I need besides fancy potentiometers and other music-centric components. I’ve found a few cool sites that have diagrams and schematics and such, like the “Bergfotron” or the “Synthesizer DIY pages”. But yeah, I’d get started by making a VCO of some sort and then figuring out how to give it notes (i.e, a CV keyboard, a midi-to-CV interface or software Audio Unit), and then test it using oscilloscope freeware that I found. From there, I’d build maybe a VCA and an EG and so on and so forth, and it would be awesome.

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

Basically, I’m just going to discuss the new songs and such that I’m working on.

In addition to writing lyrics for “Happy Riff Song,” I also had three other musical ideas that I’d like to turn into songs.
The first one is a very piano-centric piece that I’ll unofficially call “Epic Piano Song” because it’s pretty classical-sounding in a very epic, dissonant, minor kinda way. It’s in 6, and it is relatively emotional sounding and will yield a good melody. I PROMISE.
The second one is a little less piano-centric, but has a specific chordal arpeggio thing that reminds me a lot of “Summer Skin” by Death Cab for Cutie and once I listen to the song again I’ll decide if it just sounds way too similar and therefore scrap it or change it up a lot, but I think that it sounds different enough to really work.
The third one is a lyric-centric piece (i.e. not particularly fancy chords or anything, and, keep reading) that tells a story. I figured I could put a couple of stories into song. I really don’t have the time to sit down and write a short story, nor do I have as detailed ideas in my head as I would need to write one. So I write songs, and even though it’s taking me forever to come up with good lyrics for “Happy Riff Song” I can at least write wherever and whenever. But it’s actually a pretty sad-ish story, or at least it has a sad ending, sort of, but I have a couple of good lines for it. I can’t really be too specific, but yeah. To give the people, i.e. the 1.5 people who actually read this blog, something to chew on before I actually finish “Happy Riff Song,” here’s a few lines I came up with that may end up being the bridge that will turn the chords into 2/5/1/4:

In the yard with autumn leaves
I was standing right here
until the impulse said go ahead
and everything disappeared…

Words about a dream I had… anyway.

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

P.S.  Don’t plagiarize! ©2009

So I’ve been working on lyrics and sorta writing ideas down hoping that something interesting enough to become, say, a verse, comes up and I can skip happily down into the sunset of having lyrics. Not much has changed on the audio side of things and I haven’t had that much time to work on it, BUT…

ROTOSCOPING!

I figured out how to rotoscope the video that I made using Photoshop and a graphics tablet. It takes a REALLY LONG TIME but the result is really, really cool. What I intend to do is when I’m finished with the song, I’ll make a music video where everything is rotoscoped. In the words of the WKUK, “IT WILL BE AWESOME!” For those of you that don’t know, you silly people, ROTOSCOPING is the process of essentially tracing over each frame of video to create an animated effect, but with more emotion and style than a simple video. Examples that you’ve probably heard of (or rather seen) are the music video to “Take On Me” and “A Scanner Darkly” (which used a funky half-computer-generated version of rotoscoping). But yeah, I think that it’s a cool style that really grabs people’s attention. I’m aiming for the YouTube featured video, or something

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

“Even though I’ve been patient
I really cannot wait
Even though I’m not in pain
It’s the discomfort that I hate,

Can’t decide on the next thing
The next thing I should say
Until I’ve fed the fear in my head
and I take the plunge anyway”

Hope that ends up working out, it seems relatively (this word to the left here has meaning even if I’m the only one that understands it) poetic and if I come up with something better these might end up in a verse.

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

P.S. : Don’t plagiarize! ©2009

Forever Endeavor,

Walker

P.S: I found out what was causing the sporadic volume; it was either the “input” or “record” setting on the channel strip that lowered the volume of everything in the track, so that I could hear myself play at the same time as the computer! Thanks, Logic, for being so unintuitively helpful.