Shut Up and Write Some Lyrics

Twenty years ago, I was an English literature major in college. I read lots of books, but found the academic climate stifling. Endless, soulless analysis nearly killed my love of literature, so I switched to media studies instead. Good thing, too. I would have made a lousy English teacher.

Over the years, I've tried to give the lyrics to my songs a certain fluidity and muscle that defies conventional rock song writing. Not to be a fancy pants, but because I wanted both the words and music to be equally engaging to those who cared to listen closely enough to hear them, yet remain unobtrusive enough to those who just wanted to hear the overall sound. And of course, I had a few things I wanted to say.

Many years ago, my bandmates would rib me about the complex lyrics in the songs I wrote for the songs we played. They knew I worked hard to come up with original lyrics that were consistently good and they appreciated it. But one day, they said, "Hey, Ken--did you ever think of writing normal stuff like, 'Oooh mama mama, gonna rock you all night long'?" Believe me, some days when I'm beating my head against the wall trying to put the right words to the right notes, I wish I could.

I don't make these stringent demands of the lyrical content of the music I like. I can barely be bothered with lyrics when engaged in recreational listening most of the time. I'm listening for an overall sound experience. If the lyrics are really amazing, that will leap out at me eventually. If not, I'm not too disappointed if the music and the vibe is really good. In that respect, I can utterly relate to the average listener because I'm not much different. If the lyrics of a particular piece turn out to be profound, it increases my enjoyment. But I don't come to new music expecting it. And thus, i am rarely disappointed. I like a little "oooh, mama mama" myself now an again.

The thing about writing lyrics is that you're treading a fine line between the desire to be autobiographical and the desire to relate and share common experience. In rock songs, personal obsessions become magnified to 70 millimeter Super Panavision Technicolor scale, and this increases the likelihood of appearing self involved to the point of ridiculousness. I'll be the first to admit that I sometimes cloak raw emotion in wordy cleverness, but that's only attributable to personal taste. My hope is that the gestalt of the whole thing will leave some sort of emotional impression on the listener. I don't mind heart-on-the-sleeve emotionalism when somebody else is doing it. In fact, I live vicariously through the work of performers whose ability to express themselves without restraint knows no limits. I admire and envy them.

The process of writing the lyrics for the album is underway. I've had a few ideas in my head as I wrote and recorded the music which I managed to write down. Through repeated listenings, certain vocal sounds came to mind--the babble of infants that sounds like words but are really inarticulate expressions of emotions not yet fully formed into ideas. I know at least what the words should sound like, if not what they actually say or mean. But as I sit down to write, the droll sounds typically from the mouths of babes mature into something intelligible. I try to write equally for sound and meaning.

True to my lit major roots, I often go back to the classic poets of past centuries to rekindle the feeling I get from reading something really good by someone who is unfathomably gifted at what they do. I always had somewhat catholic tastes in literature. I might even read the odd novel or two during this period to get a feel for unfolding drama.

I work in silence for hours, uninterrupted until I get what I'm looking for that day. Some days it never comes. Some days, inspiration comes in torrents. If I get stuck, I go on to another song and wrestle with that one for awhile. I used to keep dictionaries nearby--standard, thesaurus and rhyming dictionaries--but they're al online now, so that makes things a bit easier. I work exclusively at the computer. My eyes will no longer tolerate writing things by hand as they once did. I will write down the odd line if I'm away from home. Sometimes I send myself voice mails with a particularly good line. Any way that works.

I'm working on all the songs simultaneously. if an idea comes into my head for a particular song, I just open up the file for that song and start grinding away. I don't wait to finish one before I start another. I'm interested to see how this way of working will help the album become unified in theme as it is in music. Ideally, I'd love for the songs to have a running dialogue with one another, to let the themes stretch out over the eleven or twelve tracks. We'll see.

I'll let you know how things turn out...

Milestone: Getting Ready to Sing

In Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, the process of flying is described as aiming at the ground and missing. One has to transcend the improbability of defying the laws of physics and gravity. It's an attitude, a mindset that enables you to overcome self-doubt. The moment you get the idea into your head that you're actually flying is the moment you go into a tailspin and crash. Of course, he didn't come up with this idea entirely on his own. Hindu and Buddhist traditions have taught this for centuries. But a steady diet of Douglas Adams in my teens and a steady practice and study of meditation as an adult have enabled me to put this strategy to work in the making of the album.

I've never spent a year on an album in my whole life. I've been adding to the woodpile since September of last year, determined to make an album but just a little bit dubious about pulling it off. And it's funny, because that nagging feeling that you won't come up with enough good material dissipates quite suddenly when you count up what you have and realize that secretly and without fanfare, you have reached one of your goals.

I now have the basic tracks for sixteen songs. My guess is that five of them won't make the final cut, not because they're bad, but because the other eleven songs sound like they work together very well. So that's eleven songs that need vocals and a few other overdubs.

Writing the lyrics, a source of strife and torment to me over the last decade, is starting to happen naturally. As I've said earlier in this blog, writing songs to me is like learning how to speak. The music comes first, and as my capacity to express myself grows and the music takes form, I learn what I'm trying to say. The music tells me what it's trying to express. That wasn't just bullshit. That's really what it's like. And true to form, the words and ideas are starting to flow. I expect to spend the rest of the year writing lyrics and recording all the vocals. Whew!

I had to break through a long period of writer's block to make this happen. The past ten years were tricky for me, and the drama of life left little room for being consistently creative. The making of this album has been a process of healing and learning how to speak again. And what brought me to this point was aiming at the ground and missing. I concentrate on what I'm doing and not why. That's a key thing there: Non-attachment to results gives me the freedom to concentrate on craft rather than what people will think.

When I find myself in self doubt, I stop thinking that way. When I find myself enjoying the music I'm making too much, I pause and breathe. When I find myself either worrying about what people will think of the music I'm creating or believing that everyone will love it, I distract myself. When I find myself getting overwhelmed at the amount of work there is yet to be done, I concentrate on the task at hand.When trying to fly, I aim at the ground and intentionally miss, forgetting the fact that I'm flying and just doing it.

So now it's time to sing and there's still much work to be done. The album isn't nearly finished, but it's a lot closer than I could have envisioned a year ago. Just writing this blog entry gives me a good feeling, and while a certain amount of closure is pretty healthy and necessary, I have to forget even that feeling of accomplishment so I can move on.

Stay tuned. Cutting the vocals will soon be underway.

Musical Dualism

Some of my best friends are critics. I used to be one too until the cognitive dissonance of simultaneously being a creative artist while criticizing the output of other creative artists made my head explode. I was always an artist first, and my time as a music writer was pretty short. I much prefer making music to writing about it. Writing about music forced me to classify, categorize and label. When you write about music, you sort of have to do that. Criticism has its place. I just can't do it.

I have no cultural ax to grind as far as music is concerned. There are people in this world who are all too willing to get themselves in an uproar about what kind of music people listen to. I'm not one of them, probably because throughout my life I have encountered a steady stream of people who told me that what I enjoyed wasn't up to scratch. I don't like the way that makes me feel, so I try not to do that to other people.

When people show displeasure for music that runs afoul of their own tastes, their faces get all squinched up, conveying the same displeasure usually reserved for when someone has just farted. Someone other than themselves, of course. That's why the sour face is immediately followed by a wry grin brimming with smug confidence. A hollow victory.

It's not that I'm not discriminating. I am. It's not that I don't have opinions about music. I do. I simply don't want my musical life to share the same dualistic traits so common to politics, religion, class, education and professional sports. I believe that music should be inclusive. Indeed, I believe that music is that way by its very nature.

As a songwriter and composer, I can't sort my influences into "cool" and "not cool" piles. Those who cling to such ideas of musical dualism would be shocked to find out just how uncool my uncool pile would be if I had one. Growing up, I was exposed to a wide variety of music that I came to truly love--music that is comprised of many opposing camps--and I impose no hierarchy upon those many and diverse influences. All the music I love, regardless of pedigree, gives me the same incredible feeling when I hear it. That visceral sensation doesn't ask where the music came from.

Snobbery is pervasive in all walks of life, and I love music too much to be snobby about it. I don't ever want to use music as an instrument (sorry) to beat someone with. We all have different life experiences, and using musical taste to make others feel bad is demeaning to all involved. It is pointless. It is petty. It accomplishes nothing. It's just music, OK? Relax. I don't get into a froth about what the other guy is into. If I don't like it, chances are it wasn't created with me in mind.

The generational myth about the declining quality of music is the most pervasive one, and it has been passed down since the beginning of time. I often ask myself if the quality of popular music has declined since I was a kid. I think that tracing a clear lineage of decline is damn near impossible since the sheer volume and breadth of music has increased sharply in my nearly forty one years. Who's to say? Saying so would be more a statement about my perception than about the real state of music. I won't presume to tell you how things are because I know that my view of it is very myopic. I can tell you what I see and think of it, but with a big caveat: Musical objects in my mirror maybe be much larger than they appear.

In my experience, no amount of rationalizing, deconstructing or intellectualizing about music can ever be as satisfying as the feeling you get in your gut when music really speaks to you. That feeling is yours and you don't have to justify it to anyone. It is a non-transmitable experience, one that cannot be articulated through words. The number of people who enjoy a piece of music has absolutely no bearing on whether it is good or bad. The class, race or gender of those who enjoy it is utterly irrelevant.

These are divisive times. Such divisiveness has always informed politics and religion and so forth. I'd say that's quite enough without dragging music into the endless grind about what makes us so superior to one another. So forgive me if I pass on having a "this music is good, that music sucks" conversation. I don't have it in me. I don't consume music, I live it. And I can't bring myself to side with any particular camp that extolls the virtues of one musical form while demonizing another. I just can't do it.

As I get older, I find myself less and less tolerant about the niggling, petty twaddle that passes for discourse about the arts. Making any kind of art is a put-up-or-shut-up kind of deal. There are people in the world with the guts to put their stuff out there, and our opinion of what they do doesn't even come close to revealing who we are. But how we react to what they create certainly does.

You Are Here

I've never spent nine months making an album before. Not nine solid months--i took time out for meals and for personal hygiene, of course.

But nine months of writing, adding, eliminating, rearranging, bringing things back that I had once discarded, and putting it all together again in various configurations until it starts to take shape. Well, what can I tell you? It has started to take shape.

It's like being lost in a shopping mall or some gigantic public building and finding the glass-encased map with an arrow that says: "You Are Here". Good information to know. And there's a small but definite feeling of satisfaction of knowing that, while you're still figuring out where you're going, at least you know where You are. I haven't arrived yet, but at least I can say that I'm here.

I have eleven songs. I would like two more. And when I say "songs", I mean that the chords and melodies plus most of the arrangements are complete. I am still working on words, but they are coming. I've made an effort not to try writing words. Very few lyrics have been written, so my strategy can thus be considered a howling success. But the words are beginning to flow.

Earlier in this blog, I spoke of songwriting as a process akin to learning to speak. You're all bottled up, and then a song comes but it's just music and you don't have a clear idea of what exactly it is you're trying to express yet. I think very small children get frustrated because they don't have the vocabulary to express how they feel and what they need. As a grown up, I haven't forgotten that feeling because I go through it every time I sit down to write a song. When you can't use words to express yourself, you howl and moan and cry. And then, as you learn the language, you can be more precise in expressing what you feel so others can understand you. The more I work on this music, the closer I get to the hope of understanding.

By letting go of my expectations, I find instead that what I'm putting together is just what I need. I did the same thing with the music when it wouldn't come in forms that I expected. I simply allowed myself to write whatever begged to be written, trusting my instincts rather than using my head so much. I've also tried applying this philosophy to my own life, with similarly encouraging results.

The major turning point came when I decided to use sequencing tools more. I've come up with much, much better tracks using keyboards as the basis of the songs than an acoustic guitar and a click track. I thought that doing to would make things more organic, but doing things that way just made it more difficult. Best to add that stuff later, after the compositional kinks are worked out and you have a solid track behind you. But this project was all about learning, and I am certainly learning my lessons.

The other big factor is the drum sound. I've finally found a drum sound I like, and i generally leave the mics on the kit, ready to go. I have set EQ and compressor settings I use every time and it really makes the tracks come alive. My early attempts at recording drums were ok, but getting it down to a science really helps the tracks feel like part of a greater whole. Plus, i can play drums much, much better now than I could back in autumn. And I discovered this when I went back to replace those old drum tracks with new ones.

Of the songs themselves, well...writing about music on the blog is kind of futile. But I can say that I'm playing much more piano than I expected I would have, and the types of songs I'm writing are a surprise to me. But they sound like different parts of the same thing, and that thrills me to no end. I'm acieiving cohesiveness without trying too hard.

The only thing that causes concern for me is that the kind of songs I'm writing will require some really skilled singing. In short, I'll have to sing my ass off to make them work. But I started this project because I sought a challenge. I've certainly got one.

Corpus Alienum: How I Created Another Album By Accident

On the way to making the album that this blog is supposedly about, I accidentally completed another album first. Oops.

I got on a roll with the one-a-day compositional plan I've written about earlier in this blog. I created a really crazy track that I originally titled "Alien Bounty Deliberation", featuring lots of freaked out, homemade, heavily processed alien voices over an electronica hoedown beat and thoroughly improvised, wandering and atonal orchestration. It was a blast and I really liked it when I was finished.

High on the experience, I had an epiphany in the shower that shed light on what to do next. I thought it would be interesting to create an album-length story comprised of instrumental pieces with one word titles. I reasoned that anyone glancing at the titles would immediately be able to figure out the simple story line. And the simple story line would have to be about aliens from other planets coming to Earth to eat humans--pretty straightforward. Amidst the hot water and soap, an idea, like so many other ideas in mankind's history, was born.

Those ten titles turned out to be...

Scrutiny

Invasion

Capture

Labor

Deliberation

Ritual

Decadence

Consumption

Next

Paroxysm

You get the idea.

The album I set out to create (and that I'm still working on) had reached another stalling point. It really is a big job and I was beginning to feel intimidated by it. Fortunately, since I had been writing so much material that was stylistically very different, I had an escape valve. I wanted to complete something, to have the sense of accomplishment of finishing an album that could quite possibly whet my appetite for finishing my main project. Kind of like a creative crop rotation to ensure a healthy supply of artifacts.

But most of all, it was a lot of fun. The whole thing took about a month, chiseling away a little every day. All of the compositions were created on the spot. I had no notes or ideas before sitting down. I just started recording and improvising and kept going until each piece was finished enough. It was great not to have to worry about conventional song forms--a medium I love, but can be a bit constraining when your mind is elsewhere. Equally refreshing was the lack of restraint I could exercise when creating sounds and drum loops. It was nice to break out and do something crazy.

I've always been a fan of music that's out there. i can withstand large amounts of dissonance and jagged noise. I enjoy a lot of music that would clear a room. Just ask my friends. Although the music I created for Corpus Alienum isn't too far out as far as I'm concerned, I can see where it might be a bit of a stretch for some folks. It is, after all, abstract instrumental music. But I tried to have some fun with it. There are many musical jokes. Consider it a soundtrack in search of a movie. Or a ballet. If someone wants to stage an alien invasion ballet, inquire within.

I plan on releasing the eponymously titled Corpus Alienum album as a download only release in June. I have already begun planning sequels. This is definitely the first in a series.

Now, back to the other album...

Working Titles

At the end of last week, I reached a minor milestone. I managed to write thirty compositions in thirty days. This doesn't necessarily mean thirty completely fleshed out songs, although several titles have reached various states of completion. And it wasn't strictly every day, either. I took about ten days off from writing when three of the compositions demanded my immediate attention as they were incorporated into the album. But on some of the remaining days, I managed to produce three or four new pieces, so that made up for the missing days. It all came out even in the end.

The pieces range in style from pure incidental music to funk, lounge, pop songs, weird sonic experiments and just plain silliness. By allowing myself to see ideas through, no matter how bizarre, I've come up with three songs for the new album, about a half dozen tunes for an instrumental project and several solid ideas for stock commercial uses and further exploration. Funny how I decry censorship in practice, yet I've spent so many years subjecting myself to my own.

So, for the first time in my life, I have a surplus of ideas. I'm going to keep up the pace merely because I'm curious to see what happens next. When each composition is complete (or as complete as it's going to get on any given day), I do a quick mix, date it and give it a working title.

I'm told that my working titles are amusing. They reflect whatever I happen to be reading or watching or talking with Kate about at the time of creation. I'm including a list of them here:

Twink

Piano Piece Version 1

Molecule

Dark Signal

Petals

Pickles

Bleem

Ledge

Cottonesque

Station to Starlight

Mister Coffy

Green and Gorgeous

Begin the Begat

Jojo

What You See

Anything But

Second Time

Owlet

The Planet Eater

Sub Space Interference

Mid Tempo Number

Botany Bay

We All Ended Up Having to Eat Each Other

Buffering

Clokey

Dust on the Olive

Floating Cookies

I Can Smell the Rain

Grease on the Monkey

The New People

And I added a new one yesterday called "Vacate".

Last time, I mentioned that I planned on re-doing drums on some of the earlier tracks. This turned out to be unnecessary, since fiddling with the mixes seemed to take care of perceived problems. I'm putting the album down for a week or two to see what new compositions I come up with on the "One-a-Day" program.

Fait Accompli

Just a quick update.

I went to my friend Steve's house today to listen to my mixes on his monitors. Mine aren't the greatest in the world and I needed to listen to what I have thus far in a more objective environment.

Listening to those mixes tells me that I'm fairly on target so far. I made only a few adjustments. But I would like to attempt to replace the drum tracks on two of the songs from last fall. Back then, I was still learning to use Logic and still getting my drum chops back together. Now I have a much better drum sound and the mics have not moved since I last recorded drums. I think I would be remiss if I didn't at least try. That will be my job this weekend.

I'm back on my "composition a day" schedule again, dreaming up and slapping down sketches of different types of tunes. I'll probably do that for two weeks and see what i've got. Hopefully, I'll find a few more songs to begin building basic tracks.

I don't want to psych myself out or anything, but I do have a tentative schedule. I'd like to be done with basic tracks by the end of May and complete all recording by July 4th. that's a pretty arbitrary date, but it feels right. I try not to think about it too much. My heart skipped beat the other day when i considered that once I complete the basic tracks, then I have to write and perform all the vocals. This is a lot of work! But I'm in too deep now. It's a fait accompli.

I'm game.

No, It Isn't Ken's Really Heavy Concept Album...

As an independent musician and producer, budgetary constraints have dictated that up until now, I had to record the old fashioned way by writing and arranging the material well in advance. Old habits die hard. Getting started on this project was the hardest part because I was still clinging to old methods.

Well, fie on the old methods.

The practice of beginning a new composition every day--both writing and recording--and then looking at the pool of material I had created to choose the best bits for expansion has worked exceedingly well. Out of eighteen ideas, three of those pieces have now been expanded into three brand new songs with basic tracks now complete. That's three new songs in three weeks' time, plus ideas in the can I can use later. I'd call that a successful working method.

This may seem old hat to folks who have been doing this on their own for awhile, but it's the first time I've had the opportunity to use the tools of today to make a record. I've never had the experience of writing an album as I was recording it. That sort of thing was meant for big recording stars with huge budgets, the sort of thing I read about in music magazines and books in my youth. I always thought that the worst thing that could happen when you got to that level would be to run out of ideas while the meter was running. That, or you could second guess yourself into oblivion, over analyzing everything that you do until you manage to wring every drip of life from your music. I've never, ever been rich and on some level, such indulgence offends me to the core.

Now that I have decent gear at my disposal, I haven't fallen into a vat of self-indulgence. I've used the luxury of unlimited time prudently and effectively, redoing things only when they clearly needed it. I have a strong desire to complete this project this year, and that has kept me on track. The tools have kept me focused, and control of those tools has made my creative process faster and more finely honed. I can focus better and make quicker decisions. In short, I've been able to create music more efficiently and realize the things I'm looking for more fully.

I started this album with about a half dozen songs already written, but they remain on the shelf. I really needed some new material to work on to keep my interest. So, after a revision of the work done thus far, I have five songs created between October and January (two others were cut), plus three brand new ones bringing the grand total to eight. Hopefully, a couple more weeks of writing will help me come up with three more. Of those eight, only one of those songs predates the beginning of recording for this project.

So what do the other seven songs sound like? I dunno. I hate describing my own music. Or anybody else's, for that matter (which was why my career as a critic a few years ago was so short-lived). They're definitely different, but still consistent with the way I write. I think people who know my work will be surprised but not thrown for a complete loop. I'm using some different sounds, textures, song forms and ideas, but it's not like going from nursery rhymes to serialism. There is a thread of continuity there. You'll hear it soon enough. Then you can decide for yourself. I think that's best.

The Pace Quickens

Almost two years ago, I took up meditation in the belief that someone like me needed to find new strategies to help myself unclench. It has helped tremendously, although it has taken some time to really understand the benefits of the practice. Having suffered from considerable bouts of writer's block over the years (and the accompanying panic and stress of trying to write in the face of the possibility of failure), I'm really surprised at how mental training has affected my writing process.

The new strategies I talked about in my last entry are yielding results, and the switch from guitar-based songs to piano-based songs has broadened the scope of the album and guided me towards new territory. In keeping with the idea of starting a new composition every day, I now have seventeen new pieces to work on (since March 8th), three of which have made it to the collection of songs that will make up the album. The rest of them are ideas to be plundered later for other projects. It sure is nice to have a surplus of material for a change. And the new methods have kicked things up a few notches.

What I'm learning is to not censor myself so harshly from the very beginning of the composition process. Better to just let it flow and edit things later. It seems a simple idea, but one that took me a long time to learn. I am teaching myself to suspend disbelief in life and in my work. Using simple recording software like Garage Band in the initial stages of composing allows me to play with arrangements before moving over to the Logic side. The ethos of simplicity and the feeling of spontaneity I've been trying to capture are still very much alive, and the sense of adventure is heightened.

But the most important lesson I'm learning is to not be attached to the results. I trust that I'll make the right decisions and that this collection of songs will become what it's supposed to become. I can't think of how much or how little people will enjoy it. i can't think of what friends and family will think or what critics will say. That's all stuuf that is beyond my ability to control. My job at this point is to follow where the music goes. The album will be what it is.

So if you'll excuse me...

Screw the Rules

Funny how time flies. Striking a balance between making an album and writing about making it is really quite a trick. But even when I'm away from the computer, I'm always thinking about it, always going over in my mind what I've done so far and what I'd like to do next.

In the meantime, I've been busy doing other things which have yielded unexpected results. I've collaborated with my friend Mike Schrand from the St. Louis band Salt of the Earth, adding bits to some of his songs. I've also engineered and produced a couple of tracks for an album of music by the employees of Vintage Vinyl, a record store here in St. Louis that's sort of a musical institution here in the Midwest. I also have the opportunity to produce albums for other artists later this year--something I've wanted to do for a while now and that I'm excited about.

This month, I began the process of putting myself out as a composer for hire. I've always been able to do more than write songs. I can come up with ideas and write compositions that have nothing to do with traditional pop and rock songwriting structures. I love instrumental music and I'm musically conversant in a wide range of styles. But in my more traditional songs, I haven't been able to find a refuge for my more eclectic leanings. I've found an outlet for that in writing stock and custom instrumental music for sale. These pieces can be used for commercials, multimedia projects, presentations...whatever you can imagine. In this realm, people are looking for diverse textures. And I'm all about musical diversity.

These experiences have helped me get out of my own head and step back from my primary project. I came to realize that the rules I imposed on myself earlier in this project seemed reasonable, but are proving to be limiting. My musical imagination has ideas of its own that and doesn't really concern itself with adhering to a prescribed manifesto. Ironically, it was work I've been doing on commercial music that led me to reappraise my art project.

So now every day, I get up and write a new composition. My normal writing process is a bit slow because I have a tendency to self-censor (agonize is more the word here). But no more of that now. If it comes out, I write it. Sometimes I finish or at least start several compositions in a day and sort them out at the end of the day. It's wither good music for stock, a song idea to be developed or something that's hot on my mind that moves to the front of the line for further development for the album. It's a whole new way of working and so far I'm thrilled with the results.

This new way of working essentially does three things: One, it helps keep the lights on. By helping to pay the bills, I'm able to keep working on the album. Two, it helps me to get rid of musical cliches that are woven into my consciousness. Some of these I use in my songs, some of them I try to avoid. Writing commercial music means I have an outlet for things I wouldn't necessarily use. Conversely, in coming up with new themes to develop on the commercial sides, So thirdly. I often stumble upon ideas I wouldn't have normally found otherwise. Some of these are so good that I'm often prompted to say, "Well, that's way too hip to give away. I'm keeping that bit for the album!"

But of course, the very best part of all of this is that I get to work on creating music all the time. That's the part I like best.

I originally set out to make an album in a very traditional way, accepting limitations of the equipment and keeping an organic feel to the sound and organization to the tracks. Now I'm using sequencing and keyboard tools much more, but sticking with traditional sounds--indeed, all of the classic keyboard sounds I've been using so far have all come from software. I'm simply broadening my palette and building instrumental arrangements that have a little more depth to make the tracks I'm working on a little richer. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Intermission

The first burst of euphoria and frenzied activity has passed. It was a good run, lasting several months filled with creative spirit and energy. But the time has come to take stock of what I've done so far and start to think about what needs to happen next.

I made some attempts at creating basic tracks for songs that I've had sitting around for awhile, but some of them just didn't feel right. They're good songs, but the process of putting them down felt forced to me. I've attempted to record ten songs so far. Of those ten, half were old and half were new. All of the new songs have made the cut so far, plus only two of the older ones. That makes seven songs so far, and my goal is twelve for the album.

Engineer Jack Petracek came to visit me last week. We sipped delicious tea and listened to the work I've done so far. Good musicians don't always make good recording engineers and Lord knows I'm not a hot-shot engineer. To my great relief, Jack said I had done a pretty good job so far. He pointed out a few problem areas and even showed me how to fix them. They were mostly minor EQ fixes that helped unclutter some of the mixes. I'm learning more every day.

His arrival couldn't have come at a better time. After several weeks, sometimes you're just not sure of what you're hearing anymore. Certain things that seemed so right can seem utterly wrong some days, and sonic weirdness can lead to self-doubt if left unchecked. That, plus the looming reality of having to write five more songs that are as good as the ones I already have was starting to bug me.

I've made a few attempts to come up with some ripping new stuff, but it just wasn't happening. I've done this long enough to know that dry well periods are normal and very temporary. I had hoped to put off doing vocals until later, but I really need to keep the project moving forward. One has to be flexible when making an album. Things don't always go the way you've planned them and you have to be willing to go wherever the road leads.

So this week I'll begin working on the vocals for the tracks I have. Some of the songs have complete sets of lyrics, most of them don't. In the past, some of my best lyrics came exactly when I needed them, often just outside the studio minutes before tracking. Now and then. I need some self-imposed pressure. I must admit, I begin vocal tracking for the album with some trepidation, but once I'm into it, I know I'll come around. I have to force myself to start things sometimes.

Wow, I feel better just having written all that. I really hope this blog is interesting to people, but the one who ultimately benefits from it is me. By dissecting my own process, I'm able to better understand what I'm doing and get a better insight into what I should do next.

The Process

Writing songs is much like the journey from infancy to adulthood. I start with a feeling and musical ideas to express that feeling, but at that stage, it's still a non-verbal process. That's when I am most childlike--a bundle of emotions without the language to express them. My cognitive and verbal skills grow until I can find the ideas and words to express what I really feel. By creating music, I learn how to speak and I discover what I'm trying to say.

The way I do it has changed over the years. I used to sit down with a guitar, pen and paper and write a song from beginning to end including the lyrics. I made a transition to writing music in my head and writing it down later for awhile. Now, almost invariably, it's music first and rarely do I ever finish a new song in one sitting. I'll come up with little ideas and write them down or record them for so I can expand them into songs.

This led to a problem for many years--I could never finish anything. Now, when reviewing notes and audio snippets looking for what to do next, I'll often pick one in the evening and earmark it for work the next day. In the morning, I'll generally turn the snippet into a song very quickly and begin tracking it as soon as possible so it remains fresh. Preserving the freshness of the demoing process while recording final versions for release is the goal of this project. The griddle-to-plate time has been reduced to ensure freshness.

My most productive time of day for recording is from about 2 o'clock in the afternoon until about 10 pm. By then I've either done what i needed to do or my ears are so shot that I can't work anymore anyway. I like to sleep at night, but I'm not above staying up late to lay down really quiet instrumental or vocal tracks. Sometimes I have to because the traffic outside my house can be very, very noisy during the day.

I begin each new song with the acoustic guitar and a click track. This forms the basis of most of the songs on the album. Once I have a decent guitar track that lays out the form of the song, I move next to the drums. After a small eternity devoted to drum tracking, I move on to the bass and keyboards. On a good day, I can get a decent guitar/drums/bass/keys thing recorded in an afternoon. I mix as I go because I want to have an idea of what the record will actually sound like. If it sounds good as it takes shape, it excites me and motivates me to keep going.

Some people find this a very difficult way to work and are aghast when I describe my working methods, but I usually have arrangement ideas worked out in my head before I even start. Multiple takes allow me to work out parts and I usually revise as I go along. Sometimes, it takes a few days before I go back in and change things, but aside from occasional complete remakes, I usually commit to workable versions early on. But if I encounter obvious problems as I'm layering more parts, I'll happily make changes or start again from scratch.

The very last thing I worry about is the vocals, including the lyrics. The melodies are all in my head so I don't even cut scratch vocals--one of the perks of not working with others! But as I track and mix, the song forms are constantly being reinforced in my head and I'll find myself humming along while I'm working. Sometimes, a repeated melody will suggest a phrase or a line here and there and I'll write it down. At some point, I'll take a couple of weeks to concentrate exclusively on writing lyrics.

In the next installment, I'll post some video for you so you can get a look at the space where I'm working and hear some of the sounds. Take good care until then.

About Ears

Ears are very eccentric sensory instruments--moody, easily influenced by the environment, emotional states, physiological factors and just plain fatigue. In my case, add to that a imbalance that affects my right ear and a touch of tinnitus, and making an album can be an even bigger challenge. In the insular environment of a recording studio, objectivity is easily the most prized and often the rarest of commodities.

This past week, I recorded the basic track for a song I wrote eighteen years ago but never "officially" released. It's a song I could play in my sleep and the tracking went well. This song was actually the first song I recorded for the new album back in September, but a remake was in order at a slightly slower tempo. I set up one of the small mics, recorded an acoustic track to a click track, doubled it and started to record the drums. The song calls for a sort of two-step beat using brushes. It's a time-keeping part intended to push the groove along. These repetitive parts are often the most difficult to play, but I was able to nail it in a few takes. Slowing it down was a good call and I was pleased with the result.

I went to bed that night secure in the knowledge that I had what I needed. But when I woke up the next morning, my ears told me something else. I had noticed a slight sag in tempo close to the beginning of the song. The previous night, my ears told me that it wasn't that noticeable and that it added a touch of humanity to the recording--the very aesthetic I've been going for with the whole project. But now my ears had changed their opinion and convinced me that the whole drum track needed replacing.

Kate was listening from her office as I got out the brushes and sat behind the kit once again. After a few passes, I had a take that sounded pretty good to me. But Kate stopped me in the hallway and suggested that the take I had just made didn't have the same feel as the one I had done the night before. She said it had an easygoing groove that was very appealing. The track I had just laid down didn't have that "something" that made it work, and her ears, and thus her whole body, missed it. She simply didn't feel the same way when she heard the new drums.

I had almost completely wiped the pervious night's work, but I dug out my backup drive to hear the difference. She was right. When I revisited the original version, I noticed that it was the guitar tracks that dipped in tempo and that the whole thing could be saved by cutting the first four bars of drums. There was something special there that had to be preserved. Kate's ears had succeeded where mine had failed because i had lost perspective. A good woman can help steer your ship and keep your tunes in the right groove. Had she not spoken up, the song would have been less than it could have been. Kate truly saved the day.

Working on this project alone has been very fruitful and satisfying. But without an outside pair of ears popping in now and then, the whole process can become myopic. Very few people have heard these tracks, but I value the input of those who have stopped in because sometimes their mouths say things my ears couldn't initially hear. My ears are pretty finely tuned despite their shortcomings, but they aren't perfect. Music is, after all, a form of communication. When all is said and done, I want to reach people. No wonder that an extra pair should bring such needed insight into how music is felt and experienced.

Every Note

Producing, engineering, writing and performing an album on your own can evoke the grave specter of self-indulgence. With no one to tell you "No!" you might go over the edge. It might just look like you're showing off. Either you really are that talented, which seems unlikely, or you're really talented and nobody wants to work with you because you're a miserable human being. Or you're a real nerd, which in my case is probably right on the money. I want to do this merely because I can. Or rather, because I can't help myself.

I learned about audio production in the age of analog tape. I worked at WPKN, a community radio station in Bridgeport, CT when I was a teenager in the early 80s. I learned how to edit audio tape with a razor blade and soaked in the basics from guys with lots of experience. I learned about overdubbing when the first cassette multi-trackers came on the market and later got to record my own music at Webster University's 16 track studio. I've made several records in both analog and digital since then and I'm glad that my experience straddles both the analog and digital eras.

I still haven't lost a sense of wonder about it all. I'm still easily moved by chord progressions, easily excited by sounds, even ordinary ones. I love the very idea of capturing sounds for posterity. But I'm a musician and songwriter first and foremost, and I've long considered the recording process to be a natural outgrowth of writing songs. I've worked with good engineers, looking over their shoulders and learning their craft as they helped me pursue my own. This is the first time I've taken on the responsibility of engineering my recordings past the demo stage. If I had known when I was a kid what amazingly powerful tools would be available in the future, I would have been astonished.

No matter what the medium, setting out to play every note on a collection of songs--including real drums--is a daunting, time-consuming process. I'm making an album under difficult conditions, in a cramped space, with bare-bones equipment, some self imposed restrictions and raw inspiration...God, I love a challenge! But how I achieve the goal is secondary to the fact that I'm trying to get some songs out--songs that I believe are solid enough to warrant all this fuss. And I'd go through fire to put a song across the way it should be. I'm just like that.

So here are the basic guidelines, some self-imposed, others determined by circumstances and resources:

1. Methods
For the instrumental tracks, I'm treating my computer like an old analog machine--set up the mic and play the part from beginning to end, just like the old days. I'm trying to avoid excessive punch-ins or comping, resorting to those methods only when any given take is at least 98% there. Needless to say, it's a very time consuming process, but the result is a sound that feels closer to a band performing. I wont be nearly so rigid when the time comes to record vocals, however. I'll comp and fly in to my heart's content. I'm using Logic 8 Express on my Mac. for all tracking and mixing.

2. Gear
I have all the instruments I need including several guitars and basses. The drums are on a permanent mic setup after much trail and error. My firewire interface has only two inputs, so I have to be creative when getting the drums to sound right. This worried me at first, but now I see it as a good thing. I'm using classic keyboard sounds inside my Mac controlled by a MIDI controller I bought for $20. It works just fine.

3. Discipline
The lack of multiple inputs and outboard processing gear means I have to be frugal and creative to get the sounds I'm looking for. I want a very clean, direct, up-front sound on this album, so the limitations are a blessing in disguise. These limitations keep me from going overboard and keep my focused. Apart from some guitar effects, I'm using nothing more than EQ and compression to sculpt the sounds, and even then only to carve out space for each part.

I want to limit laying down parts to what is absolutely necessary to make the songs work. The backing tracks generally have no more than five or six tracks. Ideally, I want to sub mix vocal backgrounds when the time comes so that when it comes to final mixdown there are no more than twelve faders or information to deal with--and that's at the absolute maximum. That's my goal and I'm sticking to it.


I don't want to put too fine a point on the fact that I have a visual impairment, and while it's way, way down on the list of things I think about when working on these tracks, I'd be lying if I said it didn't make things a bit more difficult. I'm using Logic because it's the most visually straightforward option out there that I've found. I use screen magnification software, which means I often don't see the whole picture. I'm often zeroed in on specific areas of the scree. It's a challenge, but I'm becoming pretty proficient.

So those are the parameters. So far, it sounds pretty good. I may not have the best equipped studio in the world, but what I lack in luxury I make up for in time and gumption. So far, limitations have brought out the best in me. This isn't merely a blog about the process of getting an album done, although it is certainly that. It's the inner processes which interest me.

Faced with adversity, I hope to grow and exceed my own expectations. That's what this blog is really about.

New Album Journal Begins Now!

The Ken Kase Group played it's last show in Chicago in April, partly because things really weren't jelling in quite the way I'd hoped, partly because the allure of playing the clubs again faded quickly. In the two years we worked together, we put out a good single, made a video, played in Chicago a couple of times and opened up for Chuck Berry. Not a bad run for the KKG's third act. But I've learned when to say when.

Ever since I heard Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind when I was eight or nine years old, I've wanted to make an album where I played all the instruments myself. It took a while, but I guess I'm ready to do it now. Years of fiddling on different instruments, working as a hired hand in a variety of settings and my eternal musical curiosity are being put to the test.

Although I've made some recordings I'm proud of, more often than not a feeling of disappointment set in as my demos became finished products. There was a spark, a certain eccentricity and spontaneity present in many of my demos of new songs that I was never able to recreate, no matter how good the musicians were (and I've had the good fortune to work with some doozies!). Notes and arrangements are easy to communicate, but the nuances in my head are often non-transmittable. This difficult process is known as "chasing the demo".

This project represents an attempt to bypass the middleman and get straight to the meat of the songs. Many of the songs were completed the day of recording, mostly from hastily scribbled notes and scratch recordings I've made this year. Some ideas have been kicking around in my head for over a decade and have only seen the light of day with these new recordings. One or two are old songs I'm bringing back to life. So far, these recordings have come closest to replicating what's in my head. And if a certain feel or vibe happens when I'm recording, I don't have to worry about recreating it later.

I started this project in earnest in September, 2009. As of today, I have the basic tracks for six songs more or less completed. I'm having fun and I'm consistently surprised by how it's turning out. I'll use this blog to share my progress and observations with you, mostly about the new album, but sometimes about things that have nothing to do with it. Either way, I'll attempt to be entertaining while keeping you up to date on the album's progress.

So come with me as we take a deconstructive journey through an album that isn't finished yet...