My friend Emily and I resolved to try recording some music together. I want to hone my skills at recording songs in GarageBand, and she wants to get into singing.

Instead of jumping right into an original song (writing songs is a whole other creative skill) Emily suggested we start with a cover. I tossed out a few ideas by Angel Olsen, Mazzy Star, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but she knew her own style.

Of the songs she suggested, I picked Animal by Sir Chloe because it was pretty short and simple.

Then I recorded a simple guitar and drum track for her to sing to. We tried collaborating remotely with GarageBand for iPhones, but it was too hard so we held a recording session in person on my MacBook with a decent mic. And I made some edits a few days later.

I added some electronic drums; they might sound odd at first but it gives a little intro and helps keep the song moving IMHO.  Let me know if you don’t like them; I can easily change/remove/reduce them. 

So here it is: our first shot at Animal! This isn’t the final version, but more of a proof of concept, like “Hey, we can do this.” I even left in her very first “practice” vocal take for fun 😬 and re-did the drums etc. a few days later on my own.

And for reference, a screenshot of the GarageBand project.