New Life For Some Old Songs

Last evening I took one of my old recordings that I never officially released and used a minimoog to play the melody part over the backing tracks. I had this song up on myspace.com eons ago and here and there over the years. This song is so old in fact that I no longer have the electric guitars or bass that was used on it. It's from 2006. But I never recorded a vocal track I was satisfied with. Last year I even considered re-writing the lyrics with a complete new melody. That didn't pan out either. So I went back to the original melody and played it with a minimoog sound. I have some harmony parts which I need to add as well. Just for the heck of it, I may try mixing in the new melody I came up with also, just to keep things interesting. The original song was called "All For You." The rewrite was called "Going Back." If I decide to use parts from Going Back I'll call the finished song "All For You/Going Back." Strange titles always make for interesting conversation pieces.

For my next project I may continue on this route with "Long For Heaven." This is a track I officially released in 2011 as part of an EP. I regret having released this EP as I included incorrect versions of some songs and also songs that I have since improved.Long For Heaven is a tune I really like the music to but not the vocals. Not too long ago I tried to rewrite this one also albeit unsuccessfully. So I may minimoog this one too and use parts from both melodies.

I'm also ready to start recording a new song. It will be my first one in 6/8 time. It will also be another dark, moody song--the kind I gravitate towards. I want to get the guitar track recorded because it basically repeats throughout the song. I don't have lyrics for this one yet but they'll come. This song will be in the vein of "Tomorrow" with sparse instrumentation and a haunting atmosphere. Tomorrow remains one of my favorite songs sonic-wise in that all parts can be clearly heard. That is a goal I want to continue to achieve. My earliest recordings feature a lot of distortion from levels being too high and too much instrumentation competing for the same frequency space.

If I ever release an album of instrumental only music these older songs I'm fiddling around with will mostly likely land on it. I'll have to do as much as I can while the cold weather lasts. It's really comfortable to work in my studio during this time. When the heat of summer arrives it will be very difficult to do anything in there without shorting out some piece of electronic equipment. Well, off I go to a more productive year.