Melodica

I got a melodica for my birthday, but haven't used it to record till now. For some reason the instrument really charms the cat and she meows and jumps at me when I play it. I pretend that I am charming her and that she is not just doing her very best to make me stop.

This was a fun song and I thought it came out okay. The chords are G Bmin Emin7 G/d C D7 or something like that for the verses and the little bridge part is C G G/f# Em C D D7 or something.

Here is a much worse song that involves distortion, simple chord progressions, bass jams, singing about what I'm thinking (mostly nothing) and being not nearly as good as all that sounds.

Actually the only reason why I include it is that I like whatever diminished chord I threw in--with the treble-y strings and harmonica it gives a cool carousel effect. Otherwise this might be the bottom of the barrel.

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.

here's one

What a busy weekend. Bought some used tires, went to the IHOP, went to the Equine Affaire...I think the extra E is supposed to be there. That was a crazy thing, all those horses. What terrible creatures all carrying emotional and physical burdens. Also horse people are awful for the most part. But there was a great trick horse that made it quite worth the drive to the Expo. Also a girl on a pony made me cry. Here's how: we're at some kind of trick-horse world's fair hippodrome event called the Pfizer Pfantasia (a real Pfizer Pfantasia--no pills) and they roll out this therapy horse set. All these little kids in pajamas with various developmental issues come out to the arena and lay in beds, then this music plays and an announcer talks about how important therapy horses are to kids. Then Gordon Lightfoot's Pony Man starts playing and a bunch of people lead in horses. The kids all get on and ride around in various patterns and even though Lightfoot on his own can draw tears, I manage to keep it together. Then they all line up and some lady interviews each kid before he or she rides the horse off stage (the horse still being led by helper-people). She asks each one what riding the horse means to them, and they all give great endearing answers--especially the one kid that grabs the mic from her and goes on about random thoughts until she can steal the mic back from him. One girl says she feels beautiful when she's on the horse, and that's pretty much it for me...but then they get to the last, littlest girl and she's on the smallest pony in the world. "And this is Lynn [Or something...], and you're usually very shy aren't you?" "Yeah" "But are you shy on the horse" "no" "and what's your favorite thing to do?" "trot" "Well let's cheer her on and see if she can trot off stage" And then the littlest girl trots off stage on the smallest pony and my heart melts into uncharted emotional waters.

But here's a song about pretentious types: