Song For A Friend

Back in January of 2010 one of the kids from my youth group passed away at the age of 18 due to cancer. Later in October of that year as we were getting ready to commemorate what would have been his 19th birthday, I wrote and recorded a song for him. It was probably one of the quickest songs I ever wrote, as everything from the lyrics to the melody just came to me amazingly fast. At the time I had a Ten Shekel Shirt song, "February," in heavy rotation. That song was also about the passing of a person or persons. Definitely a sad sounding song but something really attracted me to it.

I had been listening to a lot of piano driven pop/rock songs at the time such as "Leaving Ninety-Nine" by Audio Adrenaline,  "Look What You've Done" by JET, "Bedshaped" by Keane, "Brighter Than Sunshine" by Aqualung and various others. So this song I wrote for my friend was styled on these aforementioned songs. At the time I was also interested in playing slide guitar so there are some slide guitar parts on this song.

I have changed the title of this song various times over the last few years. It started off as "Song For Chris" then "October 24" and currently it is "Song For A Friend." I have been flirting with the idea of rewriting the lyrics for a more generalized sentiment because I feel the song has a very strong modern pop feel to it and may even be the song that helps me break into the music biz. I don't know. But I do know that I have to be flexible and ready, willing & able to rewrite lyrics if I am serious about a career as a songwriter/composer.

This is one of my very few and rare songs that do not feature me playing the drums. Well not real drums anyway. I don't think I had my own drum set yet at that time and going over to my church with all my recording equipment was a major hassle, not to mention that it wasn't sounding all that great on the last few songs I had recorded that way. And this was a song I was trying to get done quickly so I opted to use the drums sounds from my Yamaha S90. Sounds authentic enough but not very practical for doing any kind of genuine sounding fills.

This song also features: piano (Yamaha S90); slide electric guitar; rhythm electric guitar; electric bass; vocal; and 'drums'. I used that blue Rickenbacker guitar I used to have for the rhythm parts.

There are also a few electric guitar parts with volume swells during the verses that I played on the Carvin. Here is the song:




Since I may end up rewriting the lyrics I don't think I will go back and fix up some of the 'too soft' vocal passages or some of the flatter notes on the high parts. One friend when first hearing the song said it sounded like The Beatles. Interesting, but definitely not the sound I was going for. You decide.

Now Until Then

I have an upright string bass (or double bass) that I don't use much in my recordings because I haven't gotten down how to play without frets yet. It is my own fault because I rarely practice playing it. But occasionally I do use it and there are at least 2 recordings of mine that feature it. It is also a very hard instrument to record well. I hear these modern jazz recordings and the double bass just sounds so rich and deep. Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that mine is an $800 Chinese made instrument, while theirs are most likely vintage and cost thousands of dollars.

Here is a song titled, "Now Until Then," which I made in 2011. I was just fingerpicking away at my nylon string classical guitar and I came up with something I thought interesting so I recorded it and used it as the basis for this song. It features 2 classical guitar parts, a drum track and a double bass track. (I don't like referring to it as 'double bass' because drummers also have something they call a 'double bass.' So in order to avoid any confusion from here on out I will refer to the 4 string acoustic double bass as upright acoustic bass or just upright bass.)

This song has elements of jazz, folk and even classical. I wouldn't know how to categorize it. Actually most of my music is very hard to categorize. This one is no exception. Listen to it and decide for yourself:




I am leaning towards more instrumental music not only because it is more universal but also because it is very difficult for me to sing and whenever I do vocal tracks I end up doing so many takes and edits. It requires the most amount of time compared to any other instrument I record.

Well, here is another similar type recording. This one was made several years ago and pretty much fits the same arrangement as "Now Until Then." The exception being that steel string acoustic guitar tracks replace the nylon string guitar ones. Drums and upright bass are both here as well. This recording was really just an improvisation. I did not set out to make an actual song. I was just laying down some ideas, especially concerning the rhythm acoustic guitar. So the songs starts off well but really breaks down about midway through or later. I don't even really have an official title for it. But I will record an official version of it at some point.

This is one of those recordings that would not normally see the light of day, but I include it here because it has some interesting elements:




I am interested in acoustic music and would like to record a whole album just of acoustic string instruments. Would be nice to have a resonator guitar and also a banjo. But I'll make do with what I have for now.