Long Nights
For my second vocals project I chose a song that was more in my natural range. This song is by Eddie Vedder, the lead singer of Pearl Jam. It is part of the Into the Wild soundtrack. It has a great quiet yet strong quality to it that I very much enjoyed working on. It has a fast fingerpicking guitar line in the higher voice, with the vocal line being midrange and a light bass line acting as the accent during chordal transitions. While there isn’t a version of this I’m ready to put out yet, I’m setting a deadline of February 1st to have a version out on Soundcloud.
To Travels and Trunks
My first music project to include vocals is a song from Hey Marseilles called To Travels and Trunks. While the vocals are not great, I hope to hone my vocal skills over time. I’ll probably do a few more takes of the vocal track before calling it done. While the vocal and guitar tracks are done in this version, the violin and accordion tracks are soon to come. This song also has the vocal line recorded on guitar so I can practice singing with it. I’d like to figure out adding something else to strengthen the vocal track (maybe just lower the volume on the guitar version), as well as add a bass line to fill the song out a bit more. It is a bit high for my natural vocal range, but it is a fun song that will help me be more comfortable in the higher register.
12 Bar Blues
This just me riffing over a 12 Bar Blues in A, messing around with some of the effects, panning and loops available to get comfortable with the tools. I am using Pro Tools SE and an M-Audio FasTrack interface to record the guitar. The drums are just a jazz loop I cut up and put in there for backing. It is a very eye-opening experience to listen to yourself playing. Listening to it now it is apparent that I need to plan out my songs better (I was just making this one up as I went along). I also need to figure out a better monitor system, as my volume and dynamics came across way differently than I had expected.
Culture Heist
Check out my friends’ music blog at http://www.cultureheist.com. It covers an eclectic variety of musical genres, providing knowledge and perspectives from years of first-hand industry experience.