Now that things have (kind of) settled down for me, I want to get my thoughts on the first two songs I’ve released written while they’re (relatively) fresh in my mind.
Fields of Gold
Back in the 90s, I was rather confused musically (along with being confused in general). I was just starting to get into metal after a childhood of almost nothing but classical and the pop music of the day (of course, I still love 80s/early 90s pop if just due to the nostalgia factor) and I was starting to disdain anything that I thought was ’too light’ (a lot of which I love now, naturally). But whenever Fields of Gold came on the radio, I was mesmerized, the same way I am now. (Even now, after spending so much time recording/mixing/listening to my cover over and over, I’m still not sick of it). There’s something about it that is wistful and melancholy but not in a depressing way..back then, I think it made me remember the summers when I was a kid and now it makes me recall summers as a kid and as an adolescent. It’s odd in that it can stir similar feelings then and now and I wouldn’t be surprised if it will do the same for me 10-20 years from now.
Actually making the cover itself took a very long time since I had to learn the entire process from scratch but I found the process fascinating while also giving me a lot of appreciation for the work that professional producers/mixers/masterers do. I started with piano sheet music and transcribed it while also learning the bassline (thanks to a custom Rocksmith video, if I remember correctly). Over time, I made a few tweaks to the line (a few fills here and there) and also slightly changed the fingering (using the A on the E string instead of the open A, for instance). My bass recording method was rather interesting; I did the whole song in each individual take and then stitched together the best parts using manual crossfading. Vocals were recorded a verse at a time (after a very time consuming process of trying to figure out why there was a persistent echo no matter where I recorded; turned out to be something in Garage Band itself..sigh…) I think my vocals are ok; Sting himself sang it rather sadly and calmly and I put a bit more emotion in it without going overboard (like some of the unused takes did, but it just didn’t sound right). Mixing took quite a while as I was learning that as I went as well (that’s the main thing I still have to learn going forward; my future plans are for songs with more instruments and thus more complicated mixing) but eventually, after several iterations listening to it on various speakers/headphones/etc. I was happy with the result and released it.
Technically, the cover is in 2 sharps (B minor/D major), 104 quarter notes per minute and begins with Bm7. With the verse, it begins a Bsus2, G, D, Bsus2, G, D, G/B, A, Bm7 and D progression with a few tweaks here and there. This is the main progression of the song (along with an interlude that goes G, D, G, D, G/B, D, G/B, D) The bassline closely follows the overall progression through the whole song; I only really added anything significant at the very end. Here, the original bass plays nothing but Ds (since the chords are just D and G/D) but I play a riff (keeping the same rhythm) based on the arpeggio of the D major triad instead (D F# G A) and then end with a D5 chord, which is very natural to play as the little finger is already on the A on the D string and the index finger just has to fret the D on the A string (sounds backwards, I know, but it makes a lot more sense in practice) while the index and ring fingers on the right hand hit both strings at once (I wrote a similar chord for Rainbow). Making the video was also a fun challenge; eventually, I figured out how to use ffmpeg to generate the video dynamically using the music, add the text overlay, add an outro, put it all together and then script it. (For the record, aside from Garage Band, every other tool I’ve used so far for music production is open source).
Anything else I have to say is in the cover itself.
Rainbow
The first time I heard this song (over the end of the MLP movie), I knew I was going to cover it..I just wasn’t sure how yet. I was working on it concurrently with Fields of Gold, so I used a lot of the same techniques at first..i.e. get the sheet music, transcribe it, and then figure out the bassline. For this one, I felt like I could write an original bassline and not just follow the piano’s bass clef (I had done this before, actually, for a commercial cover that is currently on the backburner). What I wrote follows the piano bass closely at first but then becomes much more arpeggio and fifth approach based along with various chromatic approach notes here and there. I have no idea where this style of bassline comes from, to be honest..I really like writing and playing it, of course, but I don’t know if it comes from my obsessions with Rush/Geddy Lee, Jaco, all the jazz I listen to or something else entirely..not knowing things like that irrationally irk me.
Also, I changed how I recorded the bass with this one; this is a bunch of stitched-together sections with a bit of cut/paste involved. After doing it both ways, I’m not sure which one is ‘better’ or involves more work; they each seem to have their strengths and weaknesses and it might depend on the song itself as to which technique would be the most effective.
Anyway, the song itself is also in 2 sharps, 82 bpm and is a textbook three chorder..A D G. I mostly stuck to the root notes on the first beat with a few exceptions, turning those into slash chords (the verse kicks off with A/E, for instance). The chorus is a root/maj2/4/5/maj6/5/root/5/5/maj2 riff (at least I know where I derived that from; Led Zeppelin’s take on “Dazed and Confused”) and then (for the second riff) it starts the same pattern a major third from the previous root, with the exception of a minor 7th to finish. Then it’s up a fourth on the last goround, finishing with arpeggios on the A and G chords. After two verses and choruses, there’s an interlude that’s also mostly comprised of arpeggios. I do like how I finished the section, though, using a G6 arpeggio to lead into a resounding A5 chord. In the original song, the next section had minimal instrumentation so I had the idea to just have bass and vocals; the bass would be the riffs used during the chorus, just one octave down. This also leads to an A5 chord before going back for one more chorus, which ends with a low E this time. I tacked on a riff on the vocal “I can see a rainbow!” (5 Bs, and then an A) at the very end and even after writing all that out I’m still not sure how I came up with it, but I am, at the least, satisfied with the final composition.
Though speaking of vocals (and the lack thereof)..I tried singing it every way I could but with my quite limited range it just didn’t work; my voice is just not suited to this piece. I substituted an instrument instead and while I don’t think it sounds too cheesy, it’s the only part that I’m not 100% content with. To be completely honest, my vocals would have ruined the song..well, maybe I could have salvaged it with more production experience but let’s just say I was more than ready to move on. I recognize that I do need more of said experience but the only way to get better is to keep doing it, of course.
Overall, I’m alright with how it turned out though there’s still quite a bit of room for improvement and I’m not satisfied overall..there’s still a lot more music that I want to do, a lot more that I want to say with music that I don’t know how to say with words.
For the record, my take on Rainbow
What’s next?
I currently have three songs on my mental Kanban..one commercial cover, one pony cover, and an original. No idea when any of them will be done but I’ll get through it the same way as the others; a little bit here, a lot there, and keep on going until it’s done.