- I started out the week doing a lot of writing for some of my unfinished songs. Ultimately, I am trying a bunch of stuff and hoping some of it sticks (or using bad ideas as jumping off points for good ideas) but this approach seems to be working well for me. I think I'm in a fairly good headspace at the moment and I think I have the beginnings all the songs that will form my final folio (I just have to record/finish them now). As with the two other songs I wrote this term, I will go more in depth with the writing process for each individual song in their own blog.
- I recorded the drum-kit for Smooth Talk with Robbie. We found quite quickly that, although the kick on the off-beat worked well in the verses, it didn't work so well in the choruses and the energy fell flat. We also found that as we tried to add a traditional sounding snare, the whole track kind of lost momentum. Robbie suggested playing the snare with he same kind of tone/feel as a tom and, whilst playing around with the sound, came up with a groove that I asked him to try in the chorus. It worked really well - it had the same feel as the verse but gave the song a much needed lift in the chorus. I let Robbie have a lot of free-reign - we figured out the basic ideas then I told him to play around with it. The drums technically sound bad (as in, from an engineering perspective) but I LOVE how big, boomy and roomy they are. They have really, really brought the track together.
- With Reciprocate, I worked with Bethany to try and get some drum/percussive groove down. I only had a rough idea about the kind of feel I was going for, but Bethany usually has a much better ear for these kinds of things so I thought her input might really help. We recorded claps, a little bit of beatboxing and cajon which, although it needs a lot of mixing, is beginning to layer up nicely and I can really hear where the track might be going. Frustratingly, although everything has been recorded to click, nothing is quite on the grid (i.e. everything is a little bit out of time with everything else) so I'm having to do a lot of fiddly flex-time but needs must. I'm still a bit unsure about what else to do in the bridge/ending but I will do some of the vocal processing and look for more input from my 1 on 1 and group classes coming up to see if that inspires me.
- The more I listen to the 3 tracks I already have down, the more I'm leaning towards a more natural/acoustic/raw sound for a lot of the other songs I'm wanting to write. I'll wait until I receive feedback on everything individually of course (and see how much time I have in general) but that's definitely what I'm feeling at the moment. I have been really enjoying Amy Winehouse's Frank album this week and I've been quite inspired by the really bare production style.