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.

Ambient, Mood & Movie Music

If I should not make it for any reason as a recording artist in my own rite, I would be more than satisfied making music for films or broadcast programs or even commercials. I enjoy writing lyrics and singing even though I find it incredibly difficult to sing on pitch, but I also enjoy creating mood music and letting the instruments do the 'singing.' I am particularly interested in foreboding or suspenseful type music, like the great sounds that can be heard on many if not all the crime drama movies and TV shows of the late 60's through the mid 70's. That stuff is classic. SWAT, Kojak, Mission: Impossible, The Mod Squad, The Mechanic, Death Wish and so many others featured such amazing mood music soundtracks. But I don't want to limit myself to just that era, even the sounds created during that time sets the bar in my opinion.

I have here 2 pieces of original work I created. This first one is more modern sounding and could be used in a variety of applications. It's just a 2 track recording and completely recorded on my Yamaha S90 synthesizer. It could best be described as New Age or Ambient. I'm not sure what other classification I could put this song under. Perhaps Soundtrack. I think Ambient fits best.

This is a short 2 minute piece that I made in 2011. It's different from anything I created up to that point and anything I've done since. It's just a synthesizer track plus a piano track. I call it "Open Sky."




I was going for a simplistic yet foreboding feel. I just completely improvised on the piano part.

This next track has a more 70s feel to it. No wonder with the Wurlitzer and Rhodes electric piano parts! But that's what I was going for. I think it is more than just background music when compared to "Open Sky." It does have more movement to it and a fuller sound thanks to the electric piano parts, electric guitar, electric bass and drumstick beat.

I don't usually start recording any song with drums or percussion but this one did begin with the drumsticks. I was working on another song at the time--probably "Blow Your Mind"--and took a break. I had the vocal mic hooked up to some serious delay and reverb and just started messing around with some drumsticks. I came up with the idea for the cool beat you will hear in this song. I tried playing it in time for about 2 and a half minutes so I could have a decent length recording. After I had that track down I just started layering the other parts on top. The parts on this song were more planned out than on "Open Sky." At least the first half of the song could definitely be used during an on-foot chase or pursuit scene and the second half during some suspenseful or revealing scene. But you listen and decide for yourself.




This is one of my newer projects having been recording just last year in 2012. Would love to make a whole album of just this 70's tinged mood/movie music. The good thing is the songs don't have to be long. They can be 2 minutes and under. Consider this a preview of an album to come then. Perhaps you'll hear this stuff in the theatre or on TV in the near future.

(Edit: I forgot to mention that on 'Coming Apart' there are a few additional percussion instruments I added on there courtesy of my Yamaha S90.)

Homemade Electric Guitar & Bass

My very first amplifier was a mini-amplifier that I purchased from Radio Shack:

This thing was the first step towards 'electrifying' my homemade stringed instruments. This was way back when. I had this game set made out of round aluminum or some other kind of metal that resembled a pizza pan. On one side was a checkerboard design, on the other was a Chinese checkers game board. The 'pan' opened up and stored all the game pieces inside. In essence, when the pan was opened up I had 2 pans. After I had no one left to play the games with, I decided to find a new use for these aluminum pans.

I had these pretty thick and oversized rubber bands that I put around one of the pans. The size of the rubber bands gave nice low tones when plucked--tones similar to that of other stringed bass instruments. But the tones could only be heard if the pan was placed really close to the ears. And needless to say the tiny amp pictured above was not going to reproduce any low frequency sounds. So I had to explore other possibilities for amplification of that instrument.

But what that amp did turn out to be great for was the other pan, which I also put rubber bands around. But these rubber bands were the more typical thin and smaller type. Not good for bass sounds. But good for tenor type stringed instruments!

So I used an old speaker that I pulled out of a broken radio or something as the pickup or microphone. (I used to save old speakers and parts from old radios or tv's or other things that no longer worked). The good thing about using a speaker was that it would lay flat against the back of the pan and remain held in place by the rubber bands. The rubber bands served a dual purpose--the musical notes and keeping the speaker in place. A typical mic would not cooperate as well.

I had wires going from the speaker to a 1/4" plug on the other end for inserting into the mini amp. And when I turned on the amp, VOILA! I now had the sound of amplified rubber bands! It wasn't very musical and it was difficult to get the right tones. But if there was a recording I wanted to make I would mark the rubber bands just where I had 'fret' them in order to get the proper notes. And if I turned the amp up all the way it really sounded like a distorted guitar.

Here is a little recording I made using that set up. Remember, this is before I actually had any real instruments whatsoever. I had no musical training or any lessons. And the recording itself is very old and originally made on very cheap Certron cassette tapes from the 80s and early 90s. This may be as lo-fi as it gets.




There is my rubber band electric guitar! If I can locate the whereabouts of the pans I will gladly photograph them and post on here to give a better idea visually.

I also want to include a snip of how the bass rubber band instrument sounded:




Very hard to get the correct intonation but for me it was super cool and exciting because I got to experiment with sounds and music!