Category: Jamuary

This song is about falling further and further behind on recurring obligations, when it can be hard to push through and get to a point of rest, and it can be just as hard (if not impossible) to break the cycle. It may or may not be a bit meta and referring to Jamuary itself. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do a song tonight because I’m catching one of the many fashionable respiratory diseases going around Seattle right now, but luckily this all came together without much friction.

Musically, it’s fairly diatonic, with the verse’s sus4 chords and the V7 being the only departure from basic triads, along with the Cadd9 chord in the intro. I had originally written a bridge with a minor IV chord and a modulation up a whole step, but decided to simplify in the end. I believe that the refrain here marks the first appearance of the Bo Diddley beat in one of my Jamuary tunes.

This is a fairly basic setup: Zoom recorder X/Y pair for the uke and SM-58 for the vocals, both recorded live. The keyboard is a live pass with an organ patch.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2024 Day 11: “Snowball”” →

An acoustic pop-punk song about once having been happy in a relationship, but determining that it is time to pull the plug because both parties have changed. I wanted to acknowledge the happy times while highlighting the need to move on. Tricksy me — is this song about a romantic relationship, or could you perhaps read it as a depiction of some other kind of relationship, like a person and an institution?

Musically, this is fairly diatonic — only the minor IV shows up. I tried to use the melody and chords to create a “falling” feeling, and as a result the minor vi chord makes up a significant portion of the harmonic time in this one.

The core track is a live performance — Zoom X/Y pair on my acoustic guitar, and a Shure SM-58 on my vocals. The piano is also a live overdub on my mini Akai keyboard. Obviously, the vocal “canon” in the outro is also overdubbed.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2024 Day 10: “Time To Go”” →

This one is just a “music painting” of what I imagine it feels like when it’s been raining for a while (remember, I live in Seattle and it’s currently the Big Dark) and the sun peeks its head out for a minute. Get ready, because I’m gonna drop a certain word here and I know it sounds pretentious, but it’s the best fit. This piece is a piano étude (sorry, sorry) with a little bit of effects mischief creeping around the edges.

Musically, it’s not that fancy. Halfway through, we switch from 4/4 to 6/4. We start out in Bb minor, and gradually transition to the relative major of C# as we progress. This is an obvious choice considering the subject matter. Harmonically, we stay mostly diatonic, except for that mischievous major seventh on some of the V chords. I did some fun stuff with suspended chords as well — their ambiguity is really useful to help tie the major scale second half to the minor scale beginning. And of course, we end on a nice C#6/9 chord, as a reminder that those wet yards and streets will need a while before they dry off.

This is just the Kontakt Grandeur grand piano patch, with some reverb, pitch-shifting, and reverse reverb effects.

Jamu

This song is a tribute to my English bulldog, who is about eleven years old. That’s a pretty long life for the breed, and he’s definitely showing signs of age. One of his quirks is that he goes HAM when he’s having fun; the downside is that he has to deal with the consequences the next few days. Despite some health problems (we struggled with chronic pneumonia until we could find a combination of food and elevated feeding method that prevented him from aspirating it, and he’s had arthritis forever, and he had to have surgery for his ACL which helped but left him with a limp on that leg), we manage to keep his weight in check and the most pronounced change in his behavior is that he’s become a bit crankier in his old age.

Musically, it’s fairly straightforward in E minor up until the bridge. The flat-II pops in during the chorus for some color, and of course I grab the major V7 from harmonic minor. Once the bridge hits, we modulate to the relative major (G major), then really go out on a limb and modulate to the relative minor of the home key’s parallel major (e.g., we go to C#m, the relative minor of E major, which is the parallel major of E minor), before pivoting on a IV -> iv (in C#m, II -> ii in Em) to take us out of the bridge.

I recorded the acoustic guitar and vocals on the Zoom Recorder. The lead is an overdubbed acoustic guitar part. The bass is my Kala U-Bass, and the drums are courtesy of Superior Drummer. My favorite detail is that, in the fade-out tail at the end, you can just barely hear my dog snoring, since he was sleeping in the couch behind me while I was recording the guitar parts.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2024 Day 8: “Bully Boy”” →

A little bit of a departure here: it’s instrumental, and all sequenced drums and synthesizers. In order to get a bit of a break on writing (there are no lyrics) and performing (there aren’t any live instruments), I decided to go with an electronic arrangement. The title is just a reference to this time of year, and a condition that is very common among the Seattle populace in that time.

Musically, it’s just in D minor, and harmonically it doesn’t stray very far from minor i, III, and VII.