First Entry, bruv
Here is where I am at right now. I wrote 100 songs in the last few months, and I’ve whittled it down to 17 that I wish to record. I’ve committed to the style of acoustic guitar + vocals, hopefully recorded live in one take—sometimes a daunting task if I only finalized the written song in the same day. 17 is a lot, and maybe should be split into two releases. For my own sense of progress, and for the enjoyment of the listener; if a project is too large, the core essence of the album is prone to being watered down. Especially for myself, whose style rapidly changes. I used to ruin my own songs by trying to make one song 10 different things (less impactful). Now, my goal is to understand the core of what I am trying to accomplish, and work towards that with every decision. Making 10 songs one thing; a concise album! The message is clear in an album like Immutable by Meshuggah or Dark Side of the Moon imo. The excitement (and maybe intense nervousness leading to procrastination, or vice versa) comes from exploring this ONE concept you wish to create from. It is also a practice of understanding yourself to create genuine self-expression. “How do I feel?…I feel so incredibly happy that I wanna go buy a car and gift it to the CEO of Ralph’s for the sole reason of how I am FEELING!” So make punchy, high-energy sounds with the instrument you want to play! Or, “I feel so low and frazzled that I cannot bare to concern myself with anything faster than a snail’s pace.” So make spacious drone music with the instrument you want to play! For me, the perfect explanation of self-expression is DO WHAT YOU WANT.
As of two days ago, what I wanted to do was NOT to work on my 17 acoustic songs, it was to make challenging, high-energy, hard-hitting, throw-you-off-your-feet-and-into-a-batmobile music! So I scat-vocalized and recorded three songs, improvising intense rhythms and grooves to a metronome. Then immediately recorded the drums to the scat-voc’s. Yesterday, I replaced the vocal demo with real guitars and came out wonderfully. The entire song was created and recorded in less than an hour of work, and it’s one of my favorite things I’ve made. There are two more songs in that style to record guitars and bass to. I also composed a short piano piece that I wish to put on the 4-song EP. And I’m doing that because it excites me. It excites the me that is alone and centered, without any external validation needed. This is MY expression, not yours. Otherwise it’d be your expression, and expressing you is not my job. I am aggressive in this stance, because I’ve experienced that art is lessened when the desire of the audience is foremost in the mind of the artist.
With 1/4 songs completed for this heavy metal EP, I am inspired to potentially add more songs to this. Because with this achievement of song 1, I can’t help but think that if I allowed myself more time to sit on these original scat-demos, would I be able to convey the core of this music even better? So as an experiment, I might create another demo tonight, and rework it until it is undeniably incredible. The process of finding golf is mining for hours until you find a nugget…might as well enjoy the sifting process while you’re at it. Without sifting, there is no gold. Unless you trip and fall into gold, which has happened to, but not something to bet on. Erwi erwi dj scratch sounds. G’day.
