For this song, I thought I’d take a less literal approach than usual. It’s a figurative song, and it’s about finding your inspiration. For the lyrics, I wanted to play around with internal rhymes and assonance.
Musically, this is in E mixolydian (except the bridge, which modulates to C# minor, where the D becomes a D#) with a very short visit from flat-VI and flat-VII, borrowed from the parallel minor, and the minor IV chord making a tiny cameo at the very end.
This is a simple recording — I captured the track live on my phone.
First, a little update since I’ve missed a few days. I started getting a tickle in my throat on Thursday night, and it developed into a full-blow illness on Friday. I spent the entirety of the long weekend with congestion, coughing fits, and a general lack of energy that obviously made it difficult to do Jamuary tasks. Luckily, COVID tests for me have been negative. Unfortunately, the symptoms hit me pretty hard and I’ve had to skip songs for the last few days. I’ve decided to leave those “slots” open and revisit them at the end of the month to make up any days I’ve missed. I’ve got some very rough ideas or song sketches from those days (it’s harder to write when you can’t sing!) that I’ll flesh out in the same framework that I’ve been doing for normal days.
This is a song about recognizing when it’s time to listen to other people, and how that perspective helps us to learn. Especially in our digital era, it’s very easy to develop a hot take or just keep running your mouth. Sometimes we lose track of the value in hearing other perspectives, especially if they are from people with different lived experience than your own. I wrote and arranged this song on the 15th but wasn’t recovered enough to record anything until the next day, as I especially didn’t want to push myself too hard on the vocals and further delay my recovery.
Musically, this is all pretty diatonic and straightforward: all the chords are the usual suspects, leaning heavily on I, IV, V, and vi, with a small appearance from ii right at the end of the verse.
The guitars and bass are both electric here, and the drums are provided by the Blasting Room kit. I recorded the vocals on my Shure SM-7B in as few takes as possible because my voice is still recovering from the cold that I’m getting over.
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.
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.
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.
