Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Song169_BC

Today begins a new week of recording. This next album, Week25_Round Yon Virgin, will be a collection of (OTTO-style) Christmas songs. These songs will have some standard 'Christmas elements" (such as the sleigh bells that begin the album), but I will incorporate many non-traditional sounds and themes as well. (Example: one of the songs this week will be about the failed assassination attempts on Jesus right before and after his birth....which would've been a much more exciting and action-packed movie than Valkyrie, which was about the failed assassination attempts on Hitler).

Today's song, Song169_BC, was written earlier today on the electric guitar. I recorded this distorted guitar first ('click' set at 82bpm), and then I structured the drums and bass. The picking guitars were fun to play because the song was already developed. There were a few sections that I recorded more times than needed...mostly because it felt like playing along with a full band. I edited a few versions of this song, and the structure changed many times. I added the (drum-less) intro right before the final mix, and I have to admit that I didn't even think of using the sleigh bells until I made this edit. I had a rhythm and style in mind today, but this song (like most of the others) became a song track-by-track.

This instrumental represents the period of time that Earth experienced before Christ visited. I believe that things got better for us as people after Christ's life on earth, but there are some very intriguing aspects about life during the time before he arrived. I wanted this song to have an energy of anticipation and newness (created by the instruments I chose, the rhythm, the edits, etc), but I also wanted it to have an element of uneasiness and a sense of disconnection (which I tried to create using abrupt pauses and unpredictable chord progressions...A-D-E, then F#-G, then B-C).

-Matthew
http://www.anewsongeveryday.com/
matthew@anewsongeveryday.com

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