Sunday, February 17, 2008

eight songs in

Yesterday, after an evening spent whooping it up at an "Anti-Valentine's Day" party, it was back to Newburyport for more vocal tracking. Fatigue and hangover were weighing on my head, but let's just say that I have learned to love a challenge, no matter what form in which it appears...on the plus side I managed to get the vocal/guitar track for a new tune that has proven to be more difficult for me than other tunes. Called "walking (to wake)" it was one of those tunes that, when I first heard it in my head, it had a couple of vocal parts where I said to myself "NO WAY you can sing that...give it up...". Usually, I would resign such song ideas to a mental box called "Come Back and Sing Me When You Learn How To Sing" but I got stubborn this time. Actually, went out and took a [dramatic pause...] voice lesson...yeah...weird... And then I relentlessly practiced the tune (and the voice lesson) for a couple of weeks until I began to hit the notes I had in my head.

Kudos to Mike Null for spontaneously composing an instrumental bridge for the tune, too. It will definitely add to the ambient impact of the song. You can read more about that on his blog.

So I got that tune down, plus two others. Then, the voice began to fall apart (after 4 hours I will quickly add...) Compared to the previous session, I will admit that a night of celebration can lead to a day-after of lessened productivity...but we are making good progress nonetheless. This project can loosely be divided into two parts: solo songs and band songs. [Note to Reader: "band" songs do not necessarily mean songs from The Jody Grind's (un-recorded) catalogue...in fact almost all of them are not Grind tunes...it merely means there might be some percussion in the mix, which changes the whole dymanic...] The solo songs all now have vocal tracks, and now they will be put through the ringer of sonic wizardry courtesy of Tom Eaton and Mike. Textures, ambience, and the occasional fiddle or accordion will round out the sounds...I can't wait to get started on that part of the process! I feel like a kid in candy store! Let me revise that: I feel like a kid WITH NO FOOD ALLERGIES in a candy store...

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