Dave Short

The song asks a question about how many times we try the same or similar things, before we decide those attempts have failed and try something radically different. How long have we had entirely too much poverty, overcrowded prisons, and the majority of our fellow humans one accident away from financial ruin? The longer I think of the line “for nearly forty years,” the more bummed out I get, because I have my doubts that it won’t need to be updated to nearly 50, nearly 60, and then nearly 70 years. I don’t necessarily want an answer to the questions asked here, and I certainly don’t want the answer to “how long” to be “never.”

This one’s a true 4-tracker. Just the uke + vocals on one, another instrumental track from the Hohner, and then two vocal backing tracks. Could have done it on an analog Portastudio! It’s also the first one to use a time signature other than 4/4. Not completely, though — for some reason I felt it necessary to switch from 6/8 time on the verses to 4/4 time on the bridge.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 10: “A Better World Is Possible”” →

I struggled with an idea, trying in vain to find something in a “brainstorming session” (this is what I call taking a nap and thinking of ideas). I eventually decided to use a constraint to kick-start creativity, and in this case, that constraint was to limit myself to just the 3 major chords in the key (B, E, and F#). This is standard pop-punk fare; it’s probably at least partially inspired by the Mr. T Experience album I was listening to this morning while dropping off my kid at school.

This is back to the 4-track format, with the acoustic elements (Hohner mini guitar, soprano ukulele, vocals) recorded as usual with the laptop mic in mono. The electric lead line was recorded using a guitar simulation pedal via its USB interface. Technically there’s a tiny bit of overlap between the backing vocals and the guitar line — and technically the guitar line is in stereo — but rules were made to be broken… right?
Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 9: “Cheer Up”” →

Speaking from experience, having someone to discuss your feelings with is tremendously beneficial to your mental health. Everyone can benefit from this, but I worry that there’s a stigma among young men, and they age into angry men who can’t understand what they they are feeling and become more likely to lash out. I worry this confusion surfaces as a desire to be perceived as “masculine,” which causes further suppression of emotions until something explodes.

Since it was a weekend day, I had some extra time to devote to the recording, with more layers than I typically have time for. It’s built on top of the dread I-V-vi-IV progression (a.k.a. the “Axis Progression”), but I hope there’s enough variation to keep things interesting. The instruments are just guitar, bass, and drums from the Blasting Room sample library.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 8: “Talk”” →

I think the concept is fairly straightforward here. Corporations think they deserve our eyes and our ears and if they could, every waking moment would be sponsored by something. One thing I like about the form is the bridge modulating down a whole step, from D to C.

This one is multitracked via just my laptop’s mono microphone, built on top of a base track of just the Hohner guitar and my vocals. Ukulele adds some more oomph for the choruses and some chopping in the verses, and some fingerpicked arpeggiated chords in the bridge, which also has a piano piece played on my laptop’s keyboard. A keyboard keyboard, if you will. I tried to stick to the “4 track rule” but vocals likely would have required bouncing down since the chorus has the base track, the uke, two vocal tracks, and the sampled handclaps all at once. I had originally recorded the claps with laptop microphone, but they sounded brittle and weak, so I went with a sample instead of overdubbing lots and lots of takes of me clapping.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 7: “Limited Time Offer”” →

This track is about my self-perception, specifically how skewed toward the negative it is. I also wanted to experiment with the classic soft-loud-soft dynamic. I had originally written a little lead guitar line that served as an intro, but couldn’t get it to gel with the rest of the song, so I replaced that with a simpler, 4-bar little ringing chord thing.

For this recording, I think I found a good balance between capturing the idea simply and getting something that sounds decent. I worked under the self-imposed limitation that I wouldn’t do more than would be possible on 4-track tape recorder. This allowed me to flesh things out a bit more, while still limiting the amount of time devoted to the recording itself. The basis of the track is the Hohner half-sized guitar with vocals recorded at the same time, with a ukulele providing some oomph in the choruses (and some mandolin-esque chopping on the verses). The other two tracks are devoted to some vocal doubling and harmony on the chorus, with a little ukulele lead part sharing that space. All the recording itself was done on my laptop’s mono microphone again.

Continue reading “Jamuary 2023 Day 6: “King of the Imposters”” →