Next Song: Thank You (For Loving Me)

This is the first recording I made that I actually was pleased with the overall sound and balance of instrument mix. Even to this day I can listen to it and feel that the sound quality is pretty high. One of the measures for me of how good the quality of a recording is is the sound of the drums. In this song, the drums sound very good, from the snare to the bass to the toms to the cymbals. A badly recorded drum set sound can turn a great song into something pretty awful. I don't remember how many mic's I used to record the drums. Seeing how this is another one of the songs I recorded on the Boss BR-8 it is very possible that I only used 2 mics. The BR-8 has a 2 mic input capability and unless I used a mixer which would allow a greater number of mic's to be used (which I really doubt), that's all it was. It's not impossible to get a very good drum set sound with only 2 mics. I can to this day get a pretty solid recording of drums with only 2 mics as long as the drums are tuned well. I recorded this song sometime around 2002 and the drum sound still impresses me. To be honest, I'm pleased with all the instrument tracks. The vocal tracks needed some more work.

So this song was my second attempt at a gospel song. I called it "Thank You (For Loving Me)." I do believe this one was a lot better than "God of Love and Peace" in every way. It definitely showed progress on many levels. And it didn't sound country. Well, maybe still a little. But I blame that on the vocals. I don't think any of the instrumentation or guitar playing sounds country.

The guitar solo in this song is quite different from the solo in "God of Love & Peace." It's clean and loaded with reverb and delay. The electric guitar used for most if not the entire song was an Ibanez Artcore AF75 hollowbody guitar, which I no longer have. Here is a photo of it:

The instrument tracks include: a couple of electric guitar tracks; an acoustic guitar; electric bass; drums; electronic keyboard (organ sound); tambourine; and some vocal tracks.




This song placed in the top 1500 and won an honorable mention in the 12th Annual Billboard World Songwriting Contest.

First Gospel Song

Here is another song that would otherwise not see the light of day from a musical standpoint. I figure if I ever do become a paid recording artist or musician and I were to release the typical 'rarities' album that all artists now seem to have, this song would probably not even appear on there.

This is the first gospel song I wrote; 'gospel' being a generic term for any Bible based music. Just like "Autumn" before it, when I completed recording this song I thought it was quite an accomplishment and the greatest thing ever. Now, I can't really listen to it without cringing. Needless to say, I don't find myself listening to it often anymore.

I recorded this song in 2001 and though I was not going for a 'country' sound I realize that it does have elements of country music. I do enjoy country music from the 1950s through the early 1980s but I never really set to make any country-sounding music. I guess it's mainly the electric guitar parts that give the song a country flavour. Maybe the vocals, too.

The recording features a couple of electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, bass, drums, electronic keyboard (organ & piano sounds), tambourine and some vocal tracks. It was recorded with the Boss BR-8. Here it is.




I did enter this song in the 11th International Billboard Songwriting Contest and it placed in the top 1500 for which it received an honorable mention. I don't know how legitimate those contests were but I do have a few more awards I won over the years for some of the other songs I'll be posting here.

Unlike "Autumn" in my last post, I have never considered re-recording this song ever. This is one of those that will remain in the vaults of time and really only served as a stepping stone to much better things.

Autumn (The Recording)

Seeing how this blog is about my own musical endeavours I am now going to embark in the direction of uploading my own songs and recordings here. Another good reason for this slight change in direction is that I don't have any more tabs that fellow musicians want to see at this time.

One more reason for doing this is to just make my music available to anyone and everyone. Life is fragile and you never know what can happen. These are crazy times now more than ever. This can serve as part of my legacy. And some of these songs/recordings would never see the light of day otherwise.

So I'm going to start with the first real high-quality recording that I ever made. I mentioned this song in a previous post. It's "Autumn;" the sonnet that I turned into a song. I made several recordings of this song including some abbreviated demos dating back to I believe 1995. Regrettably, I did not document recording dates during those times so I cannot be certain of precise dates. The recording that is here on this post is the final one I made of this song and is from about 2001.

This was the first song I made on my new-at-the-time Boss BR-8 digital recording studio. It had 8 track recording capability and recorded onto Zip disks. And that did rather suck because Zip disks were expensive and had limited space. And his Boss machine only worked with the lesser-capacity disks which meant that if you were going to record on all 8 tracks the song could not be longer than about 6 minutes. In reality that meant about 1 song per disk. So yes it had its shortcomings but it offered a sound quality better than anything I had tried up until then.

The recording features both 6-string and 12-string acoustic guitar, a couple of electric guitar tracks, bass, drums, an electronic keyboard and a couple of vocal tracks. I believe that of these instruments the only one I still have is the 12-string guitar. The rest was sold or given away. The drums were not mine.




I was really excited when this song was completed. It took a long time to do so. There recording is not mastered because the BR-8 offered no mastering capabilities. It is just a mixdown of the tracks. But I have come a long way with my recording and production skills since then. As I continue to post my songs here--chronologically for the most part-- you will definitely be able to see the progress made over the years.

From time to time I do think about re-recording this song with some different arrangements. But the idea of redoing old songs is not something I'm really crazy about. I'd rather work on the new stuff at hand. Of course it can be a great project if I'm going through a spell of writer's block and there's nothing else to do.

On a side note, I'm glad I came across Soundcloud. I was looking for a stable website where I could upload my music and be able to embed it here and Soundcloud has turned out to be the best choice.

I'll be blogging here more often now and the posts will feature my songs and a little bit of history behind each one.

Social Media

Here's an idea that came to me and I just sat around a bit working it all out. It's a sort of poem. Yes, I do dabble in poetry and have for quite some time. And since I have not posted here in a while this is better than nothing.

Also, I'm posting it here because when it goes crazy viral, I want the original source to be duly noted as having come from my social media website(s).

You have filled my days with pound signs
And endless one-liners from across the time zones
Only spring and summer
Have brought forth more tweeting
But in the form of pleasant, dreamy bird songs
Some have gained a following
Some have gained notoriety
I have neither one nor the other
And now I say "Goodbye, Twitter"
And off to something more useful.

You gave me the dashboard but you firmly held the wheel
You allowed others to follow without actually stalking
Questions and answers
And rebloggings galore
I never really had to contribute anymore
The silliest of photographs
The strangest of micro-writings
At the end of the day it was all out of mind
And now I bid adieu, tumblr.
And off to time better spent.

You gave me a wall but then you tore it down
You replaced it with a line based on time
Had the opportunity
To like nearly everything
Without actually liking anything
The number of virtual 'friends'
Greatly surpassing actual friends
And bringing the realization: I don't really know my 'friends'
And now I say "Farewell, Facebook"
And off to more meaningful things.