Sunday 22 February 2015

Fawm - Week 3 Summary

Fawm (http://fawm.org) is an annual event to write an album in a month.  The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days and release an album.

Musically a mixed bag this week.

I decided I didn't want to put any effort into writing music for Sunday's skirmish, entitled "I found my happy place".  

I decided I would try and finish the song I started in week one.  The one in 5/4 time.  So I have spent some time re-working it, so now the verse music is the chorus and the chorus the verse.

As a demo I am happy with it.  I just need to write some lyrics for it.  I tried yesterday, but my muse wasn't having none of it.

During the week, I met up with Ian, the other half of The Hair Thieves.  He had started working on a synthy instrumental for Ep7.  Even though we already have a instrumental for the EP.

I had a listen.  There was a part of it, which was screaming out CHORUS to me.  So we re-arranged and recorded a few bits, until we had a proper song structure.

I have worked out a vocal melody.  Added some guitars since.  I just need to write some lyrics. Again, I tried yesterday, but my muse wasn't having none of it.

I have however started a new Sineglider instrumental.  Called Onionhead.



It still needs a bit of work, possibly a lead guitar, more synths, in the intro / breakdown.

But I'm quite pleased with it so far.  A bit more upbeat than my normal songs.   Plus I got to use the new bass guitar I bought during the week.

So current state of play.
6 songs Demo'd
1 set of lyrics I probably won't use.
2 songs with music needing some lyrics.
1 week to go, until FAWM finishes.

There is a skirmish, I believe tonight.  So I will have a go at that.

At the start of the month, I was never really planning to have fourteen songs at the end of it.  I believed I would get at least six and really would be happy if I could get nine songs done.

So with a week to go, I am very close to achieving that.

Then I can concentrate back on which of these new songs will make it on the solo album and crack on and get the first single out sometime before the summer.

I want to get the album released before March 2016.  So much more work to be done (as well as Hair Thieves EP7 / EP8 to complete and a Sineglider EP in 2015).

I'm excited.



Sunday 15 February 2015

Fawm - Week 2 Summary. (and a bit of week 3)

Fawm (http://fawm.org) is an annual event to write an album in a month.  The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days and release an album.

Mixed week this week.  I was happy to have done three songs in the first week (after only managing six during Fawm 2014).

So week 2 should have started with an instrumental on Sunday morning as part of an exquisite corpse game (each participant writes a one minute tune.  The first person writes there and sends the last 10 seconds to the next person, who carries on the tune. etc.  When the last person finishes, it is all stitched back together into one long song).

However, the person in the list before me, didn't manage to do theres.


So on sunday, I finished the demo for "A Winter's Memory".



Starting to really like this.  There is more guitar parts recorded than ended up here. I will re-work this after February.


On the sunday there was another skirmish.  This time the title was "The Devil's Highway".

So I wrote a quick song about my love affair with the M6 motorway.  So glad I don't have to drive down that each day (like I did for 5 years).


Originally, I wasn't going to put this to music, buy some people on the forum said they wanted to hear it.  So here it is.  The demo was made using EZKeys to come up with something really quick.

I'm quite happy with how it turned out.  Not sure if I will re-record this for use later.  Maybe it will be a b-side or bonus track.

During the rest of the week, I struggled with starting a song from the drums upwards.  Spent far too many hours trying to import some .rex files into Cubase.  Cubase seems intent on importing files that are in 5/4 or 7/4 in 4/4 time, regardless as to what the song's time signature is.

After several nights of trying, I gave up and went back to using Ezdrummer.  

On Friday, I was told to start the Exquisite corpse song.  So in three hours, I wrote a one minute instrumental called "Lorana".   I have sent the last ten seconds off to a chap called Tim in Australia to carry it on.

Obviously, I can't yet spoil it for everyone, by posting the song.  I will post the song once the Exquisite corpse is finished.
So Saturday I was home alone.  I re-recorded the devil's highway vocals, since the original second verse didn't work for the melody I wrote for verse one.  Added the music to the bridge (which I thinks needs an instrumental adding before the final chorus.

I then had a go at the failed song.  So far I have some chorus music in 5/4 time, with a guitar riff.  I then proceeded to write a verse chord progression in 4/4 time, that seems far too happy.

So this needs re-working further and lyrics writing.

So the scores at the end of the week are five songs demoed.   One song on the go.


So this is the start of week 3,  I wrote some cliched lyrics for a skirmish entitled "I found my happy place".

Really insistant that I won't write music for this and will use the rest of the time to finish the other song in progress.

"I found my happy place".

In a world of fears and regrets
Wars and famine
Children distressed
All of the illness
and all the duress
I've found my happy place

In a world where we ain't equal
race and creed
hatred begats evil
All of the pain
And all of the suffering
I've found my happy place

Because
In you, I see a shining sun
In you, I see love for everyone
In you I see hope and a reason to be
In you I see courage and the will to be free

I've found my happy place

In a world of rich verses poor
Terror, disorder
Banks rotton core
In all of the sadness
And all this disease
I've found my happy place.

Because
In you, I see a shining sun
In you, I see love for everyone
In you I see hope and a reason to be
In you I see courage and the will to be free

I've found my happy place


So at the end of Sunday at the start of the third week.  I have five songs, one set of lyrics (not) needing music and a partial song musically.

So with two weeks left, I think I will improve on last years total of six songs written.  

So happy with how February is progressing so far.

Sunday 8 February 2015

Fawm - Week 1 Summary

Fawm (http://fawm.org) is an annual event to write an album in a month.  The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days and release an album.

It is now the start of day eight, so I thought I would update my progress so far (given in 2013 I managed 3 songs and 2014 I manged 6).

Well, the scores on the door is currently sitting as 2.5.

I started off on February 1st, whilst everyone else in the house was asleep.   So it was headphones on, leave the noisy guitars alone and work on a new tune for my Sineglider instrumental project.


This is based around the Alchemy plugin by the recently defunct Camel Audio.  Shame, given I like their plugins.



As with all songs I am going to demo this month, it will be very rough and will be re-worked over the coming months.

In the afternoon, I went to visit E from my band The Hair Thieves. I challenged him to come up with a song in the three hours we had.  

To speed things up, we used Toontrack's EZKeys piano plugin.   So over the course of three hours, we chose some piano patches, re-worked the chords.   Sorted out a rough beat and started the lyrics.

At the end of the day we had a rough tune and some partial lyrics.

On the Monday I recorded the lyrics, before reconvening back at E's on the Tuesday to finish the demo.

So after deleting the vocals for lines that didn't work (either melodically or scan).  We reworked the lyrics, added bridge lyrics and recorded some more vocals.

We then called it quits in the demo and released it onto the world.

This song will probably be on The Hair Thieves EP8, so we will rework this sometime later in the year. We will possibly throw away the piano and using the chord structure re-write for guitar.

Overall we are pretty pleased with the song.

The third song that was started is called "A winter's memory" the title was given as a skirmish (where you have one hour to write and record a song, with a given title or subject).

I managed to write the lyrics in under an hour, but never finished the music.

Idea came from a conversation I had with a friend at Uni.
We was talking about his girlfriend and he said something along the lines of,

"I love her, but sometimes, I wake up and look at her and just want to punch her in the face."


A Winter's Memory

Waking from a long sleep
A vision of you
Head under a pillow
I was never so cruel
It was so easy
though I'm not thinking straight
Why is it love, comes with such hate

And the winter remembers
The ghost of you
The coldness, the darkness
The screams and untruths
And the memory sparkles
as the nights draw near
Into my silence
you're worshiped and revered.

Snow falls on the landscape
On coats of blue
Ice breaks and dredgers
Still looking for truths
It was so easy
To make them understand
The love of a woman, can melt a man.

And the winter remembers
The ghost of you
The coldness, the darkness
The screams and untruths
And the memory sparkles
as the nights draw near
Into my silence
you're worshiped and revered.


I have started the music for this.  Initially, using EZKeys again.  I am currently in the process of replacing the piano with guitar and bass.  A the moment, this is in the tuning of DGDGBD since that was the guitar to hand.   So this will be a song for the Rollasoc project.

I will try and finish the demo in the coming days.

So on to week two.   I have signed up for an exquisite corpse game.   This involves several people, with the first person writing a minute of music and then sending the last ten seconds to the next person.  This process repeats until the end of the line is reached.   The first person then stitches all the snippets together into one long song.

I did this last year and got the Sineglider tune Foxtrot 4 out of it.


So another one minute Sineglider tune will be on the way this week, given I am second in line in my corpse.

Until next week's update, I'd best crack on and write a couple of new songs.

Sunday 1 February 2015

Fawm - Day 1


Fawm (http://fawm.org) is an annual.  Write an album in a month.  The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days and release an album.

It is a great way of kick starting a project, collaborating with people and generally being challanged to come up with songs under tight deadlines.

Now given, my primary concern is writing for The Hair Thieves, then for my solo "Rollasoc" album as well as my instrumental persona "Sineglider".  I'd be happy for one or two songs for each of my musical personalities.

I attempted this in 2013 and managed three parts of songs. I have just listened to two of the songs and think they might need resurecting, since I really like them.  (One will be a Sineglider tune in retrospect)

In 2014, I attempted it again.  This time I managed six songs. A few of which have been released into the world.




One made it on to the last Hair Thieves EP.

Original Demo
The final released version.



The others are in various states of completion / abandonment.

So I thought I would attempt Fawm again in 2015.  The aim this year, is for possibly nine new songs at the end of February.  One every three days.

So at the end of day.   How am I getting on.


Well,I started the day at 9am.  With everyone else in my house asleep, I felt it best to put the headphones on and write an instrumental.   This will be a Sineglider tune.   I wanted to use my Alchemy synth, since the company has recently stopped trading.  So it is synthy.  It started as an ambient tune, but got a bit noisy towards the end.

I'd arranged to meet with E from the Hair Thieves in the afternoon, with the intention of thrashing out an entire song.   We pretty much managed to write a song in four hours.  It will need a little work to finish the demo, later in the week.

Finally, I did the first skirmish tonight.  A Fawm skirmish, is,  given a topic, write and record a song in an hour.  The pigs (demo) above was from a Fawm skirmish.

Tonight's topic was "A winter's memory".  Which is a title I liked.   I managed to write two verses and a chorus in 31 minutes.  Which is pretty fast for me.   But I failed to finish the demo in time to post it at the end of the hour.

So at the end of day one.  I have three songs on the go.    So I need to get them demoed by Friday, if I am going for 14 songs this month, or just over a week, if I'm not.

So expect some demo links over the coming week.