Tag: show-your-work

Songs

Animal cover, version 2

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Building on our original Animal cover, I re-recorded the guitar, this time using a U2-inspired echo called Dublin Delay. I also accidentally found some very tech/industrial drum sounds by setting a “drummer” track to a distorted guitar effect. 🤷🏻‍♂️

A few tweaks – cranked up the guitar a bit, added some minimal intro drums, used vocals takes 2 AND 3. Personally, I like this a lot. 😊 Going for a mysterious, dark sound. Not sure about the ending. I think we’re close, though.

So here is version 2 of our Animal cover with new instruments but the same vocals from our original recording session.

And the GarageBand screenshot for reference.

Songs

Animal cover, version 1

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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.

Books · creativity

The “So what?” test

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Continuing to pull some helpful snippets out of Show Your Work, let’s look at the “So What?” test.

I had struggled for a while on this blog with the “to post or not to post” question. I was honing in on a vague “useful or interesting” test when I read Show Your Work, which attacked this idea with a “So What?” test.

I had a professor in college who returned our graded essays, walked up to the chalkboard, and wrote in huge letters: “SO WHAT?” She threw the piece of chalk down and said, “Ask yourself that every time you turn in a piece of writing.

Now any of my own posts must pass the “Sow what?” test before I will publish it. Clearly I found this “So what?” test useful because I use it here constantly.

As always, the book explains the idea most vividly with an illustration.

From Show Your Work

I will say that this rule seems at odds (or is it just tension?) with other ideas in the book, namely share something small every day.

I mean, do you really have something interesting and useful to share every day? If you’re a professional writer, maybe. But if you’re just a guy with a blog and limited time, maybe not. 😆

So I’m letting the “So what?” rule overrule any others for now.

Songs

Sad Moon Above – New wave instrumental take 🎧

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Alright, I put my new keyboard and old bass to use and came up with a backing track for Sad Moon Above inspired by an early-1980’s new wave sound.

As always, this is a work in progress and more evidence that I am not a perfectionist. Vocals and more refinements to come.

This version is a big departure from the original acoustic backyard version, which I still love. I’m just happy to be pushing into new directions and make something that sounds closer to what I want for this version of the song.

And recording a bass line for the fist time was super fun. 🪩

Books · creativity · Music

“You’re only as good as your record collection.” 🎧

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The little, square book Show Your Work has changed they way I think about blogging, processing my ideas, and has even helped me see my own music playlists differently.

And thus, my first book snippet.

Okay, it’s actually my second snippet – I just didn’t realize that the first one (also from this book) was a snippet when I wrote it.

This book says that creative people should embrace collecting as part of the creation process.

There’s not as big of a difference between collecting and creating as you might think.

Show Your Work

Great musicians, writers, and artists tend to collect and appreciate other people’s work. “The reading feeds the writing, which feeds the reading,” the book says. Or to put it another way:

You’re only as good as your record collection.

DJ Spooky, via Show Your Work

Hopefully this approach works for me as I dig into music creation.

To that end, here is my ever-growing list of new songs I like, built up gradually over the last few years, thanks to Shazam and a few coffee shops with their own great playlists. As of this writing, this playlist is over 49 hours long and could double as its own radio station.

Don’t hoard indeed. 🤷🏻‍♂️