Song 3, after some teething troubles, is finally done. It’s called Complications, and it’s a lot shorter than the last song.
Download it HERE.
The song was based on an idea I was originally planning to do for Week 4, but I decided to use it for Week 3. Why?
Well, my original plan for this week was to revisit one of my old songs, Can You See Me?, but after programming the drums, putting down a bass part and having a play through on guitar, I decided I just wasn’t feeling it, and decided to use the new idea I’d put down on the Voice Memos app on my iPhone the night previous. And thus, Complications was born.
I could’ve quite easily made it longer – some sort of turnaround bridge section would’ve been nice, and maybe another verse and/or chorus could’ve been squeezed in, but in this case, I quite like it the way it is.
And yes, it’s not my best vocal performance. Been feeling very tired and under the weather today. 🙁 Still, at least I’m maintaining my 100% strike rate. 🙂
This entry was written by , posted on January 21, 2011 at 3:28 pm, filed under music, recording and tagged 52 weeks of music, guitar, music, recording, songwriting. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
So, we’re off and running in this mad project of mine, with a bouncy wee ditty called ‘Absentee’. I actually wrote this last week (hey, I can cheat a wee bit, it’s my project, so I make the rules. :P), but I did the bulk of the actual recording today. The only things left over from my original scratch demo were the MIDI drums, the keyboard solo and the guitar solo after the keyboard solo.
Download the song here – Absentee
The whole tune basically stemmed from the riff that makes up the intro and verses. The frantic octave-ey riff that plays in the instrumental section…I’m not entire sure how I came up with that. I just sort of…stumbled into it, I suppose. Cool riff though. 🙂
I had some disasters recording it. I actually had the whole thing done yesterday, but when I was doing one last save, Sonar crashed and somehow everything I had done went missing from the project file, even the stuff I had saved previously in the afternoon – the whole thing had basically reverted to the scratch demo. Much rage ensued, as anyone who follows me on Twitter can attest to. However, today, I picked up tools again and managed to get the song done without anything dying on me.
Yes, the vocals aren’t the greatest, the playing’s a wee bit iffy in spots and there’s a couple of bits of breathing left in the backing vocal bus, but I’m not bothered about that – the objective isn’t out-mixing the Black Album, it’s about writing and recording music and getting it out there, and so far, I’m succeeding.
Here’s to the next 51 weeks!
This entry was written by , posted on January 4, 2011 at 4:24 pm, filed under 52 weeks of music, music, recording and tagged 52 weeks of music, bass, guitar, music, pop, recording, rock, songwriting. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I mentioned on Twitter a few weeks ago that I had decided on what my big musical project for 2011 was going to be. Well, the time has come to announce my evil plot…
*FANFARE*
Neil-o-Mac’s 52 Weeks of Music!
*RAPTUROUS APPLAUSE*
Ahem.
What I’m planning on doing is writing, arranging & recording a new song every week during 2011.
Why am I doing this? Simple, really. I haven’t really done anything new in 2010, and I need to get the creativity going again.
One of the reasons I’ve been so lax in making new music is that I’ve been holding myself to what’s probably too high a standard. I need to just *make music* and finish what I start. A finished song that’s maybe not as good as my usual is still more of an accomplishment than a half finished idea sitting in my Cakewalk Projects folder.
This is by no means a unique idea – head over to
No, it’s not a unique endeavour, but it should be fun to see how my songwriting and recording chops develop over the coming year.
As far as releasing the songs, I haven’t fully decided yet. I’ll probably release the individual tracks on Bandcamp on a ‘pay what you like’ basis, and maybe do a series of monthly EPs or quarterly albums on iTunes. I’ll probably stick the songs on YouTube as well, seeing as a lot of people consume music that way.
Thoughts, guys ‘n gals? How would you prefer to consume my tunes? Any musical styles/lyrical subjects you’d like to see me tackle? Any of you want to collaborate on something? Hit me up at Neil (at) neilmcdougall (dot) com, tweet me (@NeiloMac) or leave a comment here on the blog.
This entry was written by , posted on December 27, 2010 at 10:34 am, filed under 52 weeks of music, music, recording and tagged 52 weeks of music, music, recording, songwriting. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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