The difficult second song

So, after the release of my first ever solo project I took a bit of a break from writing to enjoy some family time and concentrate on work and the new podcast.

BUT……. I’ve got the bug for doing more ‘me’ songs, I sat down with my 7 string guitar and started noodling around. (Results below)

My initial chordal idea.

I left the idea for a day because I was worried it strayed too far away from the style/genre of ‘voices’ (my 1st song) however I’m just going to plough on, I like it and it makes me want to write so that’s reason enough to continue.

I wrote a second riff (kinda) I certainly have the idea formulating but I can't play the rhythm that's in my head against the straight drum groove, I really want a disjointed, rhythmically interesting riff that cycles in and out of phase against the groove. Here's my progress so far.

I have rehearsed and refined the riff that was in my head and ended up adding a transition and a melodic (potentially) chorus idea.

D.A.W session as it stands.

I spent today arranging the structure of the piece and sketching out drums which was much harder than I first thought because the guitar riff doesn't cycle perfectly against the straight groove (deliberately) I am really happy with big picture of this so far, Excitingly I have TWO guest vocalists wanting to hep out with this one so VERY excited to see what happens. a melodic idea sprang to me whilst writing this ...... so chorus may be incoming soon

Logic session as of 22/06/22

structure and scratch recordings done, general drum mapping finished. I was tempted to add bass but I prefer my bass bestie Martyn’s ideas and don’t want to influence what he might write for it. (also I best ask to see if he wants to be involved haha) so I am going to focus on lyrics and melody and leave the low end goodness to a professional.

Vocal melody idea 1 A quick melodic improv idea for a chorus melody, I'm going to sit with this for a while and try to refine and add lyrics.

I had a RARE day off today and decided to invest the time in practicing my metal screams, I'm totally new at it but knew how I wanted the vocals to sound and have been trying to bring that into reality, it's nowhere near what I want YET but it's all a step in the direction of progress, my voice is now ruined hahaha but I managed to sketch a chorus melody out as well, here is the progress.

I came back to the session today with grand hopes of magic happening but it just wasn’t meant to be, I did get some rough vocals down and tidied up some sloppy parts and I’m now ready for the guest vocalists to get their verses down which will buy me some time to practice my singing/screaming as the voice is completely shot now. I had fun creating, and persevered even though things weren’t quite going to plan and I’m all about the upside. PROGRESS!!!

Latest session can be heard below.

HELLOOOOOOO! it’s been a while, life has been HECTIC! but I haven’t forgotten about my personal songwriting, in fact I am more inspired than ever to continue writing, I had a few commissions come in that I needed to focus on as well as a session and reforming my function band (woohoo!) oh and finishing my degree and planning for teaching next year…….. I still managed to get some me time squeezed in.

OK back to the song at hand, I reconnected with an old band member ‘Chad’ and spent a night tracking vocals with him at my home (his screams are waaaayyyyy better than mine which is good as it gives me some inspiration and will make me work harder to not let the song down, we got all of the vocals tracked but i would like to get chad to double my cleans in the chorus as well and his voice was shot after screaming for 3-4 hours (sorry neighbours)

I also got Martyn over to track bass for the track which was great fun but man I write some awkward rhythms, all the bass has been laid down with the exception of the BASS SOLO! which Martaaay is working on as we speak.

So probably one more recording session is needed and then its down to me to mix……….. excitingly I also have a friend who is making us a cool music video fro the song!!!!! WOAH!

Here is the track as it stands today…..