A Christmas Album in the Future?

I really love Christmas music and these last 2 holiday seasons where I have come up with a couple of original Christmas songs has led me to seriously consider making a whole album of original Christmas tunes. Sure, the classics and traditional songs are wonderful but there is always more that can be said. There are always new perspectives and different ways of saying some of the old expressions. Certainly "deck the halls with boughs of holly" can be updated to reflect our modern methods of decorating and making merry.

Some writers like mixing the subject of Christmas with romance. And some of those songs are very good and memorable--Merry Christmas Darling, All I Want for Christmas is You, Merry Christmas Baby, etc. Many songs have nothing to do with romance and instead focus on the aspects of Christmas or the season itself. Some are religious in nature. Some are just plain silly. Others are serious. Some are upbeat and festive. Some are low-key and reflective. Others are downright depressing.

As a writer, I prefer the non-romantic, upbeat and low-key, reflective compositions. The two songs I made I consider to be mid-tempo numbers that are somewhat reflective in nature. I think this is the best formula that works for me. That's not to say that I will never experiment with some of the other categories. I don't intend to produce an album of 10 or 12 sound alike songs. In fact, the 2 songs I have already recorded are quite different musically from each other. "It's Christmas" is an all-acoustic and guitar driven song with verses and a bridge and a guitar solo. It would probably be categorized as folk-pop. "Christmastime" on the other hand is not all acoustic and not at all guitar driven. It's more of a piano driven song and would probably classify as pure pop. Verses and chorus. No solos. Both songs do time in at about 3.5 minutes, though. That's something that I can trim down, as some of the moved loved Christmas recordings are 3 minutes long or less.

If I intend to make a Christmas album in time for Christmas 2015 I would probably have to spend much of next year writing and recording. Could I do it? I'm sure I have the ability but the motivation to work on Christmas music during the spring and summer might just not be there. Even now that Christmas is so close I've already lost some drive to try to come up with new holiday music. It's challenging to want to work on something that after tomorrow no one will want to hear until 12 months later. I keep listening to Christmas music sometimes into March but I know most people do not share that kind of passion for it. I continue to listen throughout the winter. Why not? After all, many of those songs are just about the snowy season anyway.

I might however still work on making a cover of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" for now. An instrumental. I may make a medley of it and "We Three Kings" just to keep it from being too short and repetitive.

New Christmas Song

Happy to announce that I finished up the new Christmas song just in time for Christmas! Actually it was completed on Saturday night and all things considered I'm really happy with the way it came out. Already submitted it to ChristmasSongsRadio.com and Nick & Bootsy played it on their Basement Tapes show last night.





So another goal complete. Now to fiddle around with the idea of creating an instrumental version of one of the classics. Not sure I will get to it. It's okay though. I'm feeling pretty accomplished at this point. But it's good to work on the Christmas music now while the mood for it is so built up.

Debut Album Released!

I would like to recap on my progress regarding the goals I wrote about in my last post.

First and foremost, I am very pleased to say that I have released my debut full-length album titled "Milestone." I was having a very difficult time uploading the tracks to the Record Union website. Thus, I contacted them and they assisted by uploading the tracks for me. I officially released the album this past Tuesday which coincides with the day of the week that the music industry releases new material. I did not plan it that way. My original intentions were to release it by Thanksgiving, but due to the lack of success I had in uploading to Record Union it was pushed back. The good news is that it is finally out which means that 3 out of 5 of my goals have been met.

The other 2 goals included recording a cover of a traditional Christmas song and recording an original Christmas song. I thought the former would be the easier task but it turns out that lyric ideas were flowing rather nicely. So for about the last week I've been working on recording this brand new Christmas song called "Christmastime." Making Christmas music just feels so good. I really enjoy it. You can keep it so simple. The real importance of it is in the lyrics and in an easy yet memorable melody. A lot of new Christmas music that I hear tends to be overproduced, schmaltzy and sad. To each his own but I can't go for that. I like the songs "White Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I realize those songs are more reflective in nature and as such are more slow-tempo. But some artists just make those songs sound so depressing that I cannot listen. Nowadays it seems that Christmas music in general has become nothing more than a vocal showcase for many popular recording artists, providing the public with uninspired, contractually-obligated holiday music. I much prefer to hear original Christmas tunes, such as Coldplay's "Christmas Lights," as long as it's not schmaltz.

As far as when my new song will be finished--all I can say is sometime next week. You don't have a lot of time to spend on a Christmas song when the big day is only 12 days away. And of course I want to have it on rotation at ChristmasSongsRadio.com so I have to give it to them early enough. Currently I'm working on some piano parts for the song. Planning on some electric guitar. Probably add some sleigh/jingle bells. Also considering the possibility of some bells sounds and harpsichord. One of the main issues will be drums. Will I actually play drums or will I use the drum sounds from my Yamaha S90? Its drum sounds are very authentic-sounding. But it's so hard to get a perfectly timed beat in sync with the song. Much better playing actual drums but, as I've ranted so much about before, it's so hard to get a good snare drum sound. So I don't know what I'll do as of yet.

So when I'm done with "Christmastime" I may have enough time to do a cover of a traditional x-mas song. I have been strongly leaning towards doing a cover of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" with the lead melody played on a mini-moog.

Until next time.

End of the Year Goals

Once again we are here in the final one-sixth of the year and I've got a plate stacked full of musical ambitions. Why do I do this? Not sure but I do know that there are some times throughout the year when I'm just not interested in working on my music. And it's not because it is some kind of a fleeting, semi-passion for me. It has more to do with a general malady of frustration and at times a quiet desperation at the thought that maybe--probably, in fact--this is not going to ever go anywhere. Those are hard sentiments to deal with and can be very paralyzing when it comes to creating or even forcing oneself to work on unfinished projects. In addition to that, I'm easily carried away by other interests I have and can easily devote hours to those things, which although not being bad things they are things nonetheless which will not necessarily take me where I want to go. Thus, another year almost over and quite the unproductive one at that.

So how do I make up for precious time lost? By creating a long laundry list of things to accomplish by Christmas. The list includes:

-Finish recording the new song I've been working on for release on the album
-Make final touches on some of the other songs for the album
-Release the album (by Thanksgiving)
-Record a cover of a traditional Christmas song
-Write & record a brand new Christmas song

What do you think? All this along with keeping my other interests/obsessions in check. I think everything but perhaps the brand new Christmas song is feasible. My top priority is doing whatever needs to be done in order to finally release my first full-length album by Thanksgiving. That means finishing up recording the song I'm currently working on which will be the 10th track on the album. I have just about 3 weeks to do that AND tweak some of the other songs. Once that is done I can devote the next few weeks to recording a Christmas song or two. I plan on doing my take on another traditional Christmas song. Something in the public domain of course so I don't have to concern myself with copyrights and licensing and all that holiday-spirit stuff. There most certainly are some contemporary ones I would love to do but many of my favorites are so definitive-sounding that I don't think I could add anything to them. And there's that issue of licensing. Public domain it is.

But getting back to the album.
I decided on a new, original tune to fill out the album. With that I don't mean to say that it's filler material. But I was severely lacking in terms of a solid 10th track. I tried going back and rewriting lyrics to some solid tracks I had; however those did not pan out well. If you keep going back trying to fix the old material you will never move forward and produce new material. I wrote that this new song is the 10th song but not referring to it in a way of significance. It is the last song I needed for a somewhat cohesive album, but it will also be featured as the last track on the album. It is a song of hope. Thus the project closes out on a high note.

Here is a tentative track listing. I am trying to pick the song order as if it were to be released on a vinyl LP:

Side 1
1. Another Morning (What a Drag)
2. Tomorrow
3. The Moment of Truth
4. Call On Me
5. Doesn't That Blow Your Mind

Side 2
1. You Are So Good
2. Where I Belong
3. The Rain
4. Erie's Song
5. We're Gonna Make It

In conclusion, as much as I would love to start tackling all those things at the same time, I need to first finish recording "We're Gonna Make It" in a manner which is quick yet as pleasing as possible to me. I do not plan to go all-out-production on this song so within several days it should be completed. Then, if at all constructive and possible, I want to go back and 'touch up' about 6 of the other songs. Some have very minor issues. Others have a bit more work. Some of those songs have been previously released on my EP a few years back so I would like for these to have a slightly different mix at the very least.

Well, it's time to get to work. And I don't mean wage-slavery-type work, LOL. I mean work that matters. The kind of work that each one of us was placed here to do. Mine is music. What's yours? I will provide more frequent updates on my progress. Thanks for reading!