Studio Recap: Day Fourteen

Yesterday, Monday, was our last day in the studio.

We started by recording backing vocals for "Sunday." Joe, Jonathan, and I all gathered round the microphone and did our best to harmonize (with minimal giggling). I had my doubts as to whether it would sound good - I suspected that we'd have to multitrack our individual harmony parts to get the right balance - but it actually turned out great. Also, we learned that bluetooth liberates us from the necessity of having an engineer in the control room at all times. Jonathan brought his wireless keyboard into the live room and used it to run ProTools. This wouldn't work for every recording situation; usually we need ears in the control room, as well as hands to man the levels, EQ, etc. But I remember being told in audio school that "you can't be on both sides of the glass at the same time," and that's just not entirely true anymore. Hooray for technology!

We listened to some Kylie Minogue to get some ideas for "producer-y" things to do with the vocals for "The Constant," which has evolved enormously from its beginnings as an accordion improvisation. So I sang 'em with as much sass as I could muster, and we played with harmonies, filters and even flange. I'm really happy with the end result. It's a sort of gleefully demented, deconstructed/reconstructed pop song.

We've been playing with ideas for "You and I in the Formidable Fire," and on a whim, I decided to play around with a keyboard part. That worked, and Joe added some string sounds (I think he grabbed them from our violin session a few days ago), and it all just fell into place.

So, after about 12 hours of sometimes tedious but ultimately rewarding work in the studio, I decided to go on a dinner run (I was also planning to pick up a bottle of champagne to pop when we finished). It was about 10pm, and Jonathan followed me out, in order to lock the door behind me. When I stepped outside, I heard a loud crash - glass breaking in the parking lot behind the studio, near where our (borrowed from my parents) car was parked.

Long story short, we interrupted a man who was in the process of breaking into the car parked next to us. The kerfluffle that followed involved three drunken rednecks, two 911 calls, and a whole passel of police officers. Joe got punched in the face. One of the guys who assaulted him was picked up by the cops.

We decided to call it a night.

Studio Recap: Day Thirteen

I Prepare to Sing

I finished writing the lyrics for "The Constant," and recorded a passable scratch vocal.

Joe and Jonathan worked on some final arrangement decisions for "You & I in the Formidable Fire."

Joe polished "The Falsified Documents of Ms. B." into a state of near-finishedness.

Jonathan worked on a new verse for "Is There Something Different...?"

Tomorrow will be our last day in the studio. It's a bit bittersweet - I'm ready to get back to NY, back to my friends and real life, but I wish we had more time to work on a few of these songs. Then again, I'm feeling pretty wrung out - I don't think I'd be able to keep up this rate of creative output much longer. Having a deadline can make it possible to push harder.

Studio Recap: Day Twelve

Cinnamon Pecan Roll from Amycakes

We took a trip to the bakery. Spent much of the day writing lyrics for "The Constant." Joe rocked the vocals for "Sunday," after intensive coaching/bullying. We went out for lunch: beer and fried fried fried. Had tummyaches later.

Studio Recap: Day Eleven

Joseph Rocks the Melodica

After our Thursday of marvels, there was no way that Friday could measure up. Indeed, it was a grind of a day, although we started strong, with a few small edits to three songs that helped them shine a little brighter.

Much of the day was devoted to vocal work for Joe, and I think he was experiencing something like what I went through a few days ago: the frustration of the endless vocal takes. One of the downfalls of our glorious modern recording technology is that you can record a song, and think it sounds great - or good, or good enough - but when you sit down and listen to the playback, you hear all of these small - or major - imperfections that you couldn't hear while you were singing. It can be very discouraging. But Joe also managed to rock out on the melodica and trombone, so the day had its moments. And Jonathan is playing with Ableton Live more (normally he works in ProTools or Logic, but Joe and I both tend to work in Ableton for our other projects), so it was a day of working and learning.

I have been working away at writing lyrics for a song we are calling "The Constant." So far it is proving elusive.

Studio Recap: Day Ten

Slinkyvision

Thursday was a day of marvels.

Moods were good, the weather was glorious, we were silly, and I was reunited with my beloved Slinky.

We are beginning to cross songs off the to-do list. We made some mix decisions for "I Let It Stay." Just a few simple changes made all of the difference, and the song has a lot more pizazz now. We also recorded keys and guitar for "Sunday," and the Anti-Tank Guitar for "The Falsified Documents of Ms. B."

Joe Plays Anti-Tank Guitar

I was most excited by the work I did on vocals. I've been feeling really down on my voice lately, and even though I knew that I would get the performances I wanted eventually, I was starting to worry. The combination of lack of practice with the cold weather and dry indoor heating was really creating some havoc in my upper respiratory system. Thankfully, temps have been much milder in the last few days, and yesterday was the first day that I sounded like myself (to myself). So we recorded final vocals for "Ivy Choir" and "Her Gentleman Caller," two songs that I've been wanted to get another crack at since last January. Here's the OLD VERSION of "Her Gentleman Caller." We almost gave up and decided to keep this vocal, but the new one feels so much better in my ear-holes. You can hear the new one soon, I promise!

Her Gentleman Caller by Listing

It's a sweet little song about a lady who sets her hair on fire, a partly autobiographical story. Of course, when I did it, it really was an accident...

Studio Recap: Day Nine

We only had a few hours in the studio, so I spent them working on my vocal for "It Pushes Back" (formerly called "Shivers and -Umbles," which was formerly known as "Slinkitzer"). We ran into an all-too-common problem: I loved the sound of the scratch vocal, and we were unable to match it on the day we set out to do the final vocal. Unfortunately, there were too many problems with the scratch (the vocal in the clip I posted on January 10) for us to keep it - it was the first time I actually sang the song, so there were some melody and timing problems, and I had made some lyric changes. I can live with the vocal as it is now, but I am not in love with the sound or the performance, so I'll probably revisit it if we have time.

While I tried to tweak the vox, Joe worked on a Casio keyboard line for "Sunday" (formerly known as "Convey"), and Jonathan played with some ideas for "I Let It Stay," the pop song with hate in its heart.

Studio Recap: Day Eight

We spent the vast majority of the day Tuesday working on a song entitled "The Falsified Documents of Ms. B." It's one we wrote last year, and it never quite sat right with the rest of the album, so we tried some different arrangement ideas. Joe had been taking the lead on vocals on this one, but we played with some call & response vox. It's not quite there, but getting closer.

We had to wrap up early, because the studio was booked for the evening, so Joe and I went to the pub, had some beers, and tried to work on prioritizing...

Studio Recap: Day Seven

Jonathan Holds the Power of ProTools in His Heart.

Joseph at the Drums

Monday was Drumday. Joe and Jonathan did drum takes for a few of the older songs - "All Forward All," "On the Island," and "Más Más Más" - as well as the new song which I am now calling "Shivers and Umbles." Nice work, guys! I assistant-engineered a little bit, but mostly I worked on lyrics for "The Constant" and provided my invaluable input.

I also taught Joe a few important things about how to use Twitter (@ replies and such) which I am sure he will never use.

Studio Recap: Day Six

It was a short Saturday in the studio: 6pm-10:30pm. I tried some vocals, but sounded pretty rough, so I'm holding out for better weather and restored respiratory bits.


Here's a clip of the song formerly known as "Slinkitzer" with my scratch vocal from Friday:
Shivers and -Umbles by Listing

I might tweak the lyrics a bit, but I don't think the first attempt was too bad. Joe and Jonathan played with some drum, bass, and guitar ideas for this one, but ultimately we weren't able to check anything off the list that night.

Sunday was a day off (I saw The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus with my brothers), so we're much refreshed for the new week.

Notes on writing lyrics

Sometimes people ask me how I write songs, and I usually give cagey, unspecific answers. This is mostly because I can ramble endlessly on the topic, and partly because the writing of songs is, in my experience, a lengthy and frustrating process that I don't imagine would be as interesting to others as they might suppose.

However, because I am in the midst of a songwriting frenzy, I thought this might be a good time to organize some thoughts on the subject - specifically, on writing lyrics.

In these current sessions with Joe and Jonathan, the composition process has been very collaborative. We usually begin with instruments; it is rare for us to begin with a vocal melody and to write instrumental parts to accompany it. In the beginning, we usually have a rather bare-bones musical arrangement, and maybe some idea of what the song could be about. Sometimes we have a title, and sometimes the title determines the lyrical content of the piece. Other times the original title ends up being discarded after the lyrics are written.

On Monday, we began writing the song provisionally titled "Slinkitzer." We started with a wandering Wurlitzer/guitar/walkietalkie jam. Joe had mentioned to me that he wanted to have a song about capillary action. To paraphrase, he said we should have a song about things being pulled through other things. So I looked up related terms on Wikipedia: capillary, capillary action, wick, and I followed all of the "See Also" links. I wrote down words that interested me from the entries, words like "perfused" and "everted." I looked at pictures of frost flowers (ice formations that are formed as the result of capillary action in plants) and from there I looked up other types of frost: hoarfrost, hard rime and soft rime. I went through my notes from the last few months to see if I could grab words or images (no dice there, this time, though usually this kind of synchronicity does pop up). I wrote a list of words that I liked that day, words like wish and asp and aluminum. I wrote a list of colors that have been mentioned in the songs we have already written for the album, and then a list of colors that have not yet been named. I wrote down this question: Would you draw me through?

Another resource that I tapped was a book that I recently started reading: Archimedes to Hawking: Laws of Science and the Great Minds Behind Them. There were a surprising number of instances of the term "capillarity."

I also grabbed some phrases from Joe's notes. "It pushed back" and "radiator smell." We have agreed that we can steal words from one another. Don't worry.

We came back to the "Slinkitzer" recording on Thursday, and made some structural decisions about which chord progressions would comprise the verses, choruses, etc. These decisions made, we put an audio file on my iPod and I spent much of Thursday and Friday listening to the song on repeat while trying to organize my lists of words into lyrics.

So far as I can tell, there are no rules for lyric writing. Sometimes the lyrics and melody seem to spring from my mind fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Upon further reflection though, I have to admit that those moments that feel like inspiration are usually the result of months of verbal accumulation - ideas, notes taken, things people have said. Other times, it takes ages for lyrics to sit right in the song. Sometimes I write the whole thing out in sequence on a piece of paper and the words stay that way. Other times I shuffle things around.

For this song, I did a lot of shuffling. To make it easier to switch things around and organize, I used a program called FreeMind, free mind-mapping software that I usually use to outline essays and papers. You can see an image of the song in progress at the top of this post. This song is a lot more wordy than my lyrics usually get, so using this software really helped me to play with/refine meter and phrasing, without wasting tons of paper. I also find that switching up writing media can help me get through blocks, so going from pen & paper to computer can loosen up the ol' word machine.

Finally, after two days of focused work, I had a draft and was ready to sing a scratch vocal (the scratch vocal is a rough performance that is not meant to be kept, but is used as reference for the other parts, and so I don't forget the melody in my head). Performance-wise it was a little bit rough, but all in all I think the song is going to be really strong, and having the vocal melody in place sparked other ideas and has allowed us to move on with the song - this is what we are doing tonight.

For me, melody is almost always the easy part. Words are hard. But for some reason, this is the only thing that I am compelled to do year after year, even when it is difficult, when it feels impossible, when I think I suck, when I think I'm all tapped out and I have sung everything I have to sing. The words are out there. I just have to discover them.

Studio Recap: Day Five

On Friday, it was time to evaluate our progress. Granted, this project is mad and ambitious, but when we sat down to make our to-do list I must admit I was awed by the sheer amount of work that remains for the next week. Luckily, we have an in-house drill sergeant (Joseph) who keeps us forging ahead:



Joe cranked out an accordion part for the pump organ song - now entitled either "Sunday" or "Sunday Looked Down" or suchlike - while Jonathan pounded out some drum ideas and I looked up types of frost formations on Wikipedia in the service of lyric writing.

The accordion work apparently was a breakthrough for Joe's lyric-writing and arranging of "Sunday." We also tried to record some backing vocals (I sang some multitracked ooh-aaahs), but we may discard them.

I finished a draft of the lyrics for "Slinkitzer," and threw down a scratch vocal that turned out rather well in my estimation. I may post a clip of the demo later today. Putting vocals on the track sparked some ideas for further work on the song. It is exciting when things start to come together.

We will start working later in the evening today, so I am going to try to write a post on songwriting, or maybe just lyric-writing. We'll see how it comes together.

Studio Recap: Day Four

Yesterday started with a bang because Joey found a violin. It only had three strings. (violins normally have four?) None of us know how to play, but we never let things like lack of skill prevent us from doing things that are awesome. Things like forcing poor violins to make beautiful awful sounds.

We also took some time to make some structural choices regarding the Wurlitzer-based song we started on Monday. It is useful, I have found, to decide which chord progressions will comprise the verses and choruses (and pre-choruses!) in order to facilitate the writing of lyrics.

But we also had to take a lunch break, and after lunch we were sleepy. Jonathan and I took refuge in our laptops:



Joe was working on music, apparently, whilst we basked in the screen glow.

I ran off to live room B to work on lyrics for the aforementioned Wurly tune provisionally titled "Slinkitzer." Jonathan usually gets to pick the working titles for the songs, which seems only fair, because the final names almost always come from the lyrics that Joe and I write. This way Jonathan gets some naming glory, but we also have to call the songs things like "Slinkitzer" (or "Slinkitizer," or "Slinksville") until we come up with the titles.

When I returned to the control room, Joe was ready to enlist all of us in vocals for the number he'd been working on. Even Jonathan sang!






Thus concludes the day four recap. Today I have made a list of everything we need to do in the next week and a half, and it is terrifying. So back to work I go.

Studio Recap: Day Three

Yesterday we spent our entire eight hours of studio time on the pump organ piece we started Tuesday night. First we made structure choices; we decided which parts would be called things like Verse, Chorus, Bridge, and my favorite, Pre-chorus. When the dust settled, we were happy to find that we had cut a 14-minute jam down to less than half its original length. Then the boys played some drums. Then Jonathan played some guitar. Then Joe tried some lyrics. Feeling good about it.

Here's a short clip:

Convey Demo by Listing

Studio Recap: Day Two

We started around 11am yesterday with Joe on drums. Accordion/guitar/wurlitzer jam in the afternoon. Took a break in the evening, then went over to Nick Sibley's studio and played the pump organ for a while. Productive day all in all - two or three potential new songs....

Studio Recap: Day One

Yesterday was our first day back in the studio this year. This is how we spent it:

Played with slinky
Kidnapped Wurlitzer
Bamboo tubes
Goof wheel guitar
Drums
Brainstormed words for lyrics
Bent Casio

Key words for the day were:
Capillary action
Propulsion

We worked for about nine hours, and at the end of the day we had a meandering noise jam. But if there is anything we learned from last January, it is that our songs never end up sounding like the first recordings. The slow sludge jam is expected to evolve into a short, sweet, and nasty little pop song.

We're off for day two shortly. Will post progress.