When you add a certain amount of self-delusion and narcissism, couple that with a lack of proper musical training, all kinds of fun situations arise
Unfortunately, the music scene here is so thin that it is āslim pickinsā in the real sense of the word.
@LazyE I realized that I just have too much musical material that I want to record and finish, if I were to nitpick every production decision, I wonāt get any songs written. My main problem is that I have to switch hats from musician to engineer all the time and after a certain song is written there is little patience to spend as much time on the mix on it. I burn out quick nowadays. On this next album I am using a studio and let the engineer sort it. It might be liberating for a change to get someone else to worry about the sonics so I can just play. It could end up a disasterā¦but itās only money, right?
Haha, thanks. I have a fan! Lol
I wish i could find time get my new stuff recorded but at the moment i only go in my studio when i need to chase a 3 year old out for bashing my guitars!
Getting the music completed has not been much of an issue, itās getting the vocals done, thatās the hardest part for me. I feel a great vocal melody and performance can really take a song to the next level, so I take my time with it, sometimes too much time.
I can definitely say that lyrics are my biggest challenge. For the longest, I have written songs very quickly and kinda went with whatever came out if it seemed relevant. However, Iāve watched more and more interviews of my songwriting heroes and they are more deliberate with word choice. Sure, I may have some natural talent but songwriting really is a craft so I have to hone my skills. The music comes very easily and Iāve used that as a crutch so that I can be lazy in a sense.
I have been reading a couple of books written by Berkleeās Pat Pattison about song structure/form and lyrics. Iām also enrolled in a course on writing lyrics online through Berklee. Just a week in, my mind is being blown by how much brilliant stuff Iāve been missing for the last 20 years!
Stumbled on to this again today. I feel like every time I write something, it is great as I hear it in my head. Getting it out of my head and completed lately is an exercise in frustration.
My current lack of motivation is embarrassing. I get out the guitar and play 6 or 7 songs Iāve completed, and then another one or two pop up. Iām a one man band that needs to kick myself in the rear end.
Iāve got a ton of music projects going on and some are very close to completion but Iām finding myself unusually unmotivated to work on my recordings. Iām trying to trick myself into feeling motivated.
Now as somebody whoās released exactly zilch songs to the public, I speak with all the authority of some fool who noodles around in their cough - cough studio whenever he has time away from two nutty daughters and a full time job.
When I was in Uni, I used to spend my nights just writing music. I had a crappy old 286 PC that creaked and rattled, but armed with a copy of Fasttracker II, and a bunch of samples that Iād stolen off CDās using Windows Sound Recorder, and feeding the microphone input directly from the headphone output of my CD drive. Good days!
My output for a few years consisted of about 30 songs that still hold up to this day. They are all instrumental, all based on samples and programmed in using codes in Fasttracker. Somehow, those early 90ās songs survived all these years and are now saved on the Cloud forever.
Fast forward some 30 years, and I struggle to fix 4 bars of a song Iāve been working on for 3 years. But quoting the great philosopher of our time - Arnold Schwarzenegger - āPlease donāt be that hard on yourself. We all go through challenges, we all go through failure. Sometimes life is a workout.ā But Iām not going to be so hard on myself. When I sit down and think about my normal day - cooking - cleaning, running after kids, working, maintaining the house, Iām less inclined to beat myself up over a song that I havenāt finished. I would still love to go to my āstudioā, press record and John Mayer the hell out of a solo, but most days I make incremental moves, such as learning to put a high pass on a channel to clean it up a little! But thatās ok - because Arnie told me not āto be that hard on yourselfā
I write a lot of songs, and with midi and my amateur voice am able to quickly produce a lot of fairly listenable product that I can share online or wherever.
So in a private discussion, it was suggested that maybe I should consider going back and polishing up some of my best songs, you know, taking them to the next level.
I thought about it, and yesterday ended up writing a new song about it. To me, it doesnāt exactly suck, but it is like a private joke amongst songwriters, so in a way, as a song to release to the general public, I do think it sucks, but as a valid song I kind of still like it! It may be my all time favoriteā¦
I Had To by Steve Bancroft
I had to
I didnāt have a choice
I was at the mercy
Of an inner voice
I had to
I never had a chance
The unknown song
Was asking me to dance
I know I should be doing something else
This was not really a priority for the plan
Instead of adding another brand new tune
I should be polishing an old favorite that needs a helping hand
I had to
I began before I could stop
I was happy, almost dreaming
And the beat was about to bop
I had to
As I told myself today
Maybe just this last time
It will be OK
I feel bad for all those ballads
Those folk anthems really rocked
Those blues and experimental fusion
Their charms are forever locked
I had to
I clearly canāt say no
I have no sense of duty
And no self control
I had to
It nearly wrote itself
Its words were just so accessible
Like jelly jars on a shelf
And now that itās done I feel so proud
And play it over and over and over so loud
And one thing that never changes, Iāve said it all along
Is it becomes my very favorite of all time song
I had to
And I think youāll hear it too
On the day I share it
With the world and you
I had to
And I think that youāll know why
I will likely stay the same
Until the day I die
