The birth of a song: Thank You

I'm going to copy this from our blog since that's pretty much what I'd say here:

With two group members married and living in one country, and the third living in another, you have to take these things slowly. In the case of this song, the song mostly already existed, but some chords didn’t play nicely together.

Without knowing the melody or meter or anything other than the words and chords, I sent Joey a bare bones chords-only demo. It is the beginning of a song in its simplest terms. Not even so much as rhythm or structure or meter. I did it this way because I didn't want to inhibit where Joey wanted to take the song if she already had some ideas.

(If you want to hear what a Risa uke solid tenor low G sounds like plugged into an Apogee Jam, plugged into an iPad, running Ampkit+ with an acoustic setup but no effects, this is the link you want to click.)

http://snd.sc/SpTNv6

Joey took that and added a vocal in this video.



So the next step is that I build a dummy drum track. It will be removed or replaced later, but for now the bass player likes to have a drum track. And then I'll add a more robust strum track and then Anders and I can play together and flesh it out before recording.

At this stage, it feels to us like it doesn't need lots of tricks. It feels like it needs bass, and keyboards (sparingly) for the mids, and maybe that's all.

Normally that would be this weekend, but I have the SARS so stay tuned!

Wonderful work here folks, great concept.

Yeah the rehearsal is the most fun bit because that's two of us playing together and hearing it come alive. And if Joey joins us on Skype, then all the better.

Less fun is the recording, but we learned a lot about time management the last time we did this, so the plan is just going to be - go slow, track by track.

I'm really looking forward to people not thinking this will sound like much of anything, and then knocking it out of the park. I mean, knocking it out of the park in terms of what this specific song should be. We're not doing The Greatest Song in the World (tribute) here.

Joey, this is just a beautiful song mate. Any song that is written from the heart is powerful and this is so real and very touching. Looking forward to where things go from here

eugene ukulele said:

Joey, this is just a beautiful song mate. Any song that is written from the heart is powerful and this is so real and very touching. Looking forward to where things go from here

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Thanks Eugene, I can't take credit for anything other than the words - Kim did the chords, I do the easy part Keep watching for more updates as they come!

My SARS got in the way this weekend, but I did run a strum pattern idea by Joey that she liked, so there's that. IF we can sync our time schedules, it'll be cool to let Joey into Anders' and my rehearsal. Just fire up skype, plug in the Blue Snowball, aim the laptop in the general direction of us, and let her rip! It'd save us having to worry about "Where are we in the vocal part again?"

It has a form and shape now! Since my mics are beyond useless at recording an acoustic uke (seriously the Blow Snowball should be killed with fire), I plugged the Kanilea into an mxr analog chorus pedal on a gentle setting, and plugged that into an Apogee Jam. The amp is an acoustic one in Ampkit+. I hit record in Ampkit, then opened Garageband to play the drum track. Edited the resulting wav in Hokusai, and added that to the Garageband mix.

The drums will hopefully be removed in favor of something more human-made (The 4 count at the start is obviously just for working purposes), but Anders prefers to hear some percussion, and it keeps us all on the same page. It's not the kind of song that needs to be very busy. I think one of us will add keyboards, and that's about it. Now Joey can use this for practicing the vocals. We're going to take a shot at recording bass this weekend.

First prize goes to: Apogee Jam. Such a clean handy little guy. Runner-up: Ampkit+ - you sound so natural. Should be killed with fire: Blue Snowball mic. Because you want to sound like AM radio.

If you want to hear a Kanlie'a superconcert with t2 strings plugged into an ipad, this is the link for you! http://soundcloud.com/rockingdodars/thank-you

Edit - LOL- Blow Snowball. I'm leaving that as it is, because it does really blow.

eugene ukulele said:

Joey, this is just a beautiful song mate. Any song that is written from the heart is powerful and this is so real and very touching. Looking forward to where things go from here

Click to expand...

Ditto what eugene said...great job Joey...

fitncrafty said:

Ditto what eugene said...great job Joey...

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Thanks Carrie, but Kim and Anders do a lot of the work, I just write and sing

JUST write and sing. Let's see, my voice cracks when I sing in chest voice.. like a preteen boy. Yeah, that's attractive. So if I were the lead singer it'd have to be full-on soprano, and that would sound silly. And as for words... we don't do words. Words are hard.

We didn't forget to add things, it's just that when everything was said and done, the bass needed a re-record. I still have to do a bit of editing to it, but it works now.

http://snd.sc/VyQEYV

Lots has been added since this last post though. There's a heart-bleeding synth line, there's a small uke part for the instrumental bit of the song, and a human-made drum track in Gageband ipad that meshes with the loop I made. Yes, recording percussion on an ipad screen with fingers isn't ideal, but what else can we do? We don't have funds for a decent mic, and the building wouldn't take kindly to a real drum set. Digital drum sets are an option, but a far off one.

I've been working with Joey on the vocal line, and we have the melody down. She just wants to rush into recording, but she needs support her pelvis says no to, so it won't hurt my feelings if she isn't up to it yet.

Otherwise, she has a new mic setup, so we're gonna eventually redo the first song we did, It Hurts to be Me.