One more

here's a last song for January. I really meant to redo this one with better vocals, cause the rest is pretty nice. But here it is with totally ad libbed vocals about being in love and nice things. It's not so great, but has kind of a nice feel for a one-taker. I almost don't want to redo it even though I should, and I probably won't. The verse chords are great: C C9 C6 C7 F Fm Fm/d C. I spent a long time playing the first four chords trying to figure out what to do next, and I'm pretty happy with this resolution. I don't remember the chorus chords anymore...something with Am and Fm I think.

Here's to a more productive February!

So many love songs

Here's another romantic type song. It is a pretty bare waltz and a bad attempt at a story song. I guess I'm getting in the mood for valentines day. It's funny that I can be pretty caustic about human tendencies to verbalize the mundane over the profound--and then turn around and base my song-writing on the holiday times of year. I guess that's one of the many cons of my structure-less writing style...the main pro being that it's way more fun to make up words and melodies off-the-cuff. I imagine that it would feel better to work really hard on a piece and have it come out great than it would to do the same in one take. But I'm not sure. Is it better to win the lottery and buy a mansion or to earn the money for the same house through hard work?

I guess at some point I'll have to work hard at a song to see if there's a difference.

more ukulele

Here's another one that's mainly just ukulele and silly percussion. This is the first song that I wrote on the ukulele in a long time. It goes something like G G11 G7sus4 G7 in the verses, which is nice; then the chorus is C C7 C7/6 C7 Dm7 G7 and then some rhythm changes here and there. It has a good shuffle feel to it, just wish I could get a better quality sound. The pipes in the basement ruin a lot of tracks, and this was the best I could salvage. I think this is the first song I've written in a while, though, where I'm happy with all the parts. No real complaints about this one.

A few more songs

I haven't posted much lately as I spent most of December doing Christmas stuff and have spent most of January without very good internet connection. Before then I was averaging five songs a month I think, so I'm going to try and pick up the pace a little.

Cait got me an agogo and a tambourine for Christmas, and I make use of them in this song. I think it came out pretty okay--it's got a great verse chord progression, but the chorus isn't so hot. It needs to build more, maybe some better vocals or a different chorus melody. Maybe a bridge.

The verse goes like this : C E7/b Am Am/g F A7/g D7/f# G7 // C E7/b Am Am/g F G C

or something like that. So the bass has a nice descending and ascending walk through it.

Unfortunately I managed to record it in a weird key somehow. I don't know if I tuned my guitar to an odd pitch or messed up the speed or something. Thinking about it I might have messed with the speed. Anyway, after recording the guitar and vocals the only instrument I could easily get in tune was the ukulele and even then it doesn't sound all that great. So no bass on this one.

Happy birthday, Tim. I give you memories. I also discovered that I named our recordings under the band name TrueHeart, which is awesome, both as a band name and as I have no recollection of it.