Drone

My latest obsession is for the first song on the Wickerman Soundtrack. A little hunt around the internet tells me it's called The Highland Widow's Lament sung by Leslie Mackie. Anyway, it's composed as a drone. I've always thought that drone songs are boring but this one is truly beautiful. It's also memorable, which again, I didn't think would be possible with a drone note running right through the song. From what I can hear it's just on one chord. Amazing!

I usually spend a long time working on intricate chord-changes as I think that's what gives my songs their interest. But now I'd like to set myself the task of writing a drone. I know a bagpipe player too who would be great to collaborate with.

As it's on one chord the song could also be sung acapella, something else I've wanted to try.

I just have to write the damn thing now!

Compare

Another open mic at the Brunswick last night. Not nearly as enjoyable as playing at my studio gig. There's just something about plugging in to an amp; it makes it stressful; more like a chore than an enjoyable experience. And it's really uncomfortable because you have to keep your head still to sing into the mic. I fluffed my lines and I could hear my voice going out of tune.

I had the usual out-of-body experience on stage. This time it was like dreaming about being on stage. It felt like I was in this room completely by myself, singing to nobody.

Interestingly, I didn't get nervous until I heard the people who were playing before me. It was then that I realised that I'm not as good as I am in my head. In my head I'm really quite good. But I don't often go out so I don't get the chance to compare myself to other musicians so there's only my past performances to compare myself against. And compared to me, I'm quite good!

Instrumentation

The next stage in recording my mini-album is to add extra instrumentation on to the songs that need it. I want to keep it all quite home-grown and a bit wonky sounding. On the weekend I bought a beauty of an instrument for this purpose. It's a little, blue, portable glockenspiel.

I've come up with a little melody to go over the chorus of 'Grace is Just Her Middle Name'. It matches the theme of the song perfectly as it's got that kiddy, girly, delicate, toy-like sound.

But I just don't know what to do with the other songs. I imagine orchestras on some of the songs but unfortunately I don't know any orchestras.

The main problem is that I just don't know music well enough to know what to put on there. It's all very well saying I would want an orchestra on a song, but what notes would they play?!

Ah well, I suppose it'll just take a bit of time to come up with the right instrumentations.

Words

I was just looking at the words I've used as titles for these blog entries...

Words, Roots, Song, Relief, Hastings, Change, Before, Stormy, Well, I've, Another, Interference, Worthy, Cock-ups, Hate, Dive, Job, Scrabble, Low-key, Ghosts, Eve, Jumping, Two, Hooks, List, Week, Toy, Appreciation, Stadium, USP, Honest, Extraordinarily, Real, Booming, Caravan, Arigato, Why

...and it's given me an idea to try and write a song using some of these words. I knew there was a reason for keeping titles to one word. Maybe I should cut them down a bit first though.

Or I could use them together:

Word roots, Song relief, Hastings change, Before stormy, Well I've another interference, Worthy cock-ups, Hate dive, Job scrabble, Low-key ghosts, Eve jumping, Two hooks, List week, Toy appreciation, Stadium USP, Honest Extraordinarily, Real booming, Caravan arrigato, Why?

Roots

Funking hell! Just discovered Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings. The super-hot weather we've been having lately has been annoying me. But as I drove home from work in the usual rush hour traffic last night, a Sharon Jones track came on and everything was alright for 3 minutes.

This video isn't the song I was listening to but it makes me want to get back to my roots and try and write a funk song.



Did I tell you I used to be a funk DJ? I played at the Yum Yum club in Swansea when I was at University there. It was great! It used to be free to get in and you got Big Issue sellers in there. One guy would play reggae and dub to start off with, then I would play funk then someone else would play more latin jazz style funk. It was the highlight of mine and my housemates two weeks. I met my first girlfriend there too when she drunkenly asked me to play another record.

I've loved funk ever since my mate Bezz got me into The Brand New Heavies in the nineties. Bezz lent me a load of Stax records and I heard all the originals of beats I'd heard sampled on hip hop records. I realised that the bits of hip hop records that I liked the most were the beats and grooves. Listening to the original funk records was like heaven: pure beats and groove.

I know you probably have to be more of a jazz musician to be able to write a funk song, and I don't want to stop writing melancholic folky stuff, but I'd love to give it a try.