Spintunes 4

I'm participating in the SpinTunes 4 songwriting challenge. My round 1 song is due January 29th. My intent is to post "song bio" material here as I'm able. Last time, I had to drop, because real life was just too crazy to allow me any free time at all to work on a sing. I'm trying to make things happen differently this time, but whether I'll really be able to do this or not remains a bit unclear. Stay tuned. Song Fu is also running again, but in a very different form than it did before. I was considering trying to get a song done for Song Fu's "bioluminescence" challenge as well, but I just don't think I can get both done.

Common Lisp and Song Fu 6

I was fortunate enough to be able to record two original songs for the Masters of Song Fu competition, under my nom de (Ken) plume, Common Lisp.

For Round 1, the challenge was:

Write a song that is about (or at least has key to the central narrative) RAIN (the meteorological phenomena). At some point (or throughout) the song, you must utilize an instrument (or vocals) that represent the rain...

My entry was a sort of nerdcore science rap called Polly Loves the Rain. There it is, my first ever complete original song. Joe "Covenant" Lamb was kind enough to track the sung vocal part for me. I added some backing and harmony to his part. My vocal in the the original upload that appeared on the competition page was a little rough, but I managed to record a slightly smoother version and tweak the mix a bit.

There's a video here, based on that earlier mix.

I had a great time recording this song and am very grateful for all the people that told me they enjoyed it! The drums are all from Logic's library, pieced together into a MIDI track; the bass line is my Steinberger Synapse fretless; the keyboard part is again a MIDI track, pieced together using my DX-7 as a keyboard controller; the guitar parts use a Squier Super-Sonic. The microphone I used for this one is the Oktava ML-52 ribbon mic (mine is actually branded an Electro-Harmonix EH-R1).

For round 2, the challenge was:

Write a song that does not rhyme.

CLARIFICATION: Your song can be in any style, but must not contain any rhymes of 2 dissimilar words within a traditional verse structure. Exact repetition of a phrase or word is permitted...

Some challengers were very clever with the premise, writing songs that mocked the concept itself, poking fun at Ken, or implying rhymes. I wasn't nearly that clever -- instead I wanted to write an anthem inspired by a David Feldman gag; in one of his podcasts he made the joke "It's 2010, and I'm still writing 'Dick Cheney is a War Criminal' on my checks."

After his daughter Liz decided that the best thing she could do with her time was to contribute more overheated rhetoric -- attacking Justice Department lawyers for representing Guantanmo detainees, portraying them as sympathetic to Al Quaeda -- I wanted to try to bring the conversation back to what I thought it should really be about: the fact that the men who lied us into Iraq still walk free. I wanted it to be in the style of, kinda sort, The Clash. So here is War Criminal, my second original song. There are some things I might tweak, especially the drums, but overall I'm pretty pleased with the way it came out.

On that track, the drums are again all from Logic; the guitar parts are the Parker Fly; the bass part is, if I recall correctly, the Steinberger XP. For vocals, I used a newly arrived Oktava MK-219 condenser (I picked up two of these at a very low price on eBay; the plan is to have the Michael Joly electronics and capsule upgrades applied at some point, but I like the way they sound on my voice). Everything is direct into the Apogee.

Unfortunately, I had to drop out for Round 3. The round 3 competition involved writing a song that featured a recipe. I was sketching out a few ideas involving water, barley, yeast, and hops, in the style of a Celtic reel, but I developed some kind of bronchial infection. I couldn't sing, had a fever, and was just too washed out to work on the song. I saw my doctor, and confirmed that I didn't have anything dangerous (it wasn't pneumonia), but still, what with our somewhat stressful home life (4 kids and a lot of chaos), I lost a number of work days, and it took me over a month to completely recover. By that time Song Fu 6 was long-done. At some point I'd like to try to complete my round 3 song.

Overall I was very happy to have finally gotten a chance to compete, as I had been considering it for several previous Song Fu competitions but hadn't quite worked up my courage yet. I really enjoyed my interactions with the other competitors. I'm disappointed that I had to drop out. The future of Song Fu remains slightly unclear after several prominent rounds fell apart due to masters who bailed out. That's a shame, but even if it isn't Song Fu under the same name and management, there will be more of this kind of thing -- the idea is too much fun to die. I am looking forward to a future excuse to write and record songs!

Song Fu 6, Round 1

My entry is here. I guess maybe you'd call it nerdcore -- I'm a big fan of MC Frontalot -- but it is also inspired, perhaps, by They Might Be Giants songs about science. Given that I'm mostly a guitarist, my first impulse was to grab my guitar, but I decided I wanted to try something different, and so didn't compose on the guitar at all, but started with the lyric and percussion, then added a melody for the choruses in Apple Logic.

I started off with a different lyric and completely different song, which sounded like a mournful, slow early Peter Gabriel track. I decided partway into that one that it wasn't really doing it for me, and fortunately this lyric popped into my head as fast as I could write it down. It got a rewrite, but there isn't a lot of time in Song Fu for rewrites, especially after I had abandoned one concept already -- you've got to freeze your ideas in the form of real tracks quite quickly.

Joe "Covenant" Lamb was kind enough to sing a vocal track for me, which I then mixed with my vocals.

Given the realities of life with a day job and small children, I only really had one afternoon to record vocals, although I was able to get a few hours in the evenings earlier in the week to work on the lyrics, MIDI instruments, and bass and guitar parts. It just so happens I've had a sore throat for a couple of weeks now, but I did the best I could, given that I was rapidly running out of time.

Despite all this, I'm quite pleased with it -- it came out better than I was expecting. I was concerned that I would just freeze up solid and draw a blank, given that I've never recorded an original song before (aside from some instrumental improvisations), and I don't really know a lot about writing melodies and accompaniment parts.

There's a video to go with it.

I'm playing the Steinberger Synapse 5-string fretless bass and the Squier Super-Sonic on this track. It's more-or-less in the key of G. If you're a guitarist, you may be wondering what I'm playing in that "rain" harmonic riff. It's a little cheat. For that riff, the Super-sonic is tuned to an open E7 chord. Then, I have a capo on the 3rd fret to make it an open G7. The harmonics are then all octave harmonics at the 15th fret. To make this sound right, you have to tune the guitar very carefully after the capo is applied.

Ghoul Tide

So, last week I worked on this track with my buddy Joe "Covenant" Lamb. Joe resides in Dundee, Scotland and we have never met in person, but we have wound up collaborating on music projects. I'm considering it sort of an apprenticeship in songwriting and recording -- he can write original songs, and I've never done it! It's good experience for me.

This is his entry for Song Fu 5, round 3. The challenge was to write a song that sounds like a holiday song, but which is not really about the holidays. Warning: it's kind of gruesome! Funny, but gruesome!

If you like it, consider donating to Joe, or buy some of his other tracks. (Voting for round 3 is over).

Joe plays guitar himself at an intermediate level (he says he can't play barre chords), but he is having painful problems with his shoulder, so was having a terrible time recording even a simple guitar part. He was kind enough to give me credit right in the song title itself.

On this song, I'm playing the Babicz acoustic, strummed and with some very simple finger-picking of the same chords, into one of the Rode NT-5 mics. I also gave Joe a very simple bass track, in which I'm playing the Steinberger XQ-4 v2, direct into the Apogee Ensemble. I also recorded my son Isaac (age 15) playing a bass line. Isaac's more of a bass player than I am, and plays upright acoustic bass in his high school jazz band, but he's not used to recording, and his timing was a little rough. Joe says for the final mix he used parts from both our tracks.

I laid down two tracks on the 12-string Adamas as well, strummed and finger-picked, and at least one of them is in there. And, finally, I transcribed Joe's demo into notes in Logic and had it play them using some virtual instruments. I think harp and glockenspiel are the ones that made it into the final mix. That was pretty tedious -- since I'm not much of a keyboard player, and my guitar synth is on loan, I started with my DX-7 but put in most of the notes by hand. MIDI note quantization in Logic is still a bit of a mystery to me.

Collaborating this way was a pain! Joe is 5 hours ahead of Michigan. We tried using Skype, and it worked once, but then on the second try Joe couldn't hear me, I could only hear him. We finally determined that Joe's tuner had malfunctioned, which meant that everything he had recorded was based on a concert A at 430 Hz, not 440. Joe's download speed was terrible. Then he changed his mind about the track tempo after I had recorded my parts twice. This all meant it took about three times longer and required three times more aggravation and retakes than it should have for such a simple part.

If we had been in the same studio we could have nailed all the tracks in an hour or two. At one point we were reduced to arguing about which beats the chorus chord changes should fall on by using _text messages_... talk about the blind leading the blind! I'm sorry to say that at one point I may have threatened to fly to Scotland and kick his rear end... sorry Joe! But I think all the pain was worth it. Next time, assuming we do this again, I hope we can figure out how to do it a lot more efficiently!

Song Fu: Vote for "Tom Furby"

Please go here and vote for Joe "Covenant" Lamb's song! And whoever else's songs you like best.