Song #37: Hanging By A Thread

This is a oldie that sat half written for a several years. All I had were the first two lines. I finally got around to finishing it by adding a few more lines, a bridge and an ending. The arrangement is a cross between something Coldplay would do and Death Cab For Cutie's "Transatlanticism." 


This arrangement includes acoustic guitar, several electric tracks done direct with no amp (including 2 tracks where I did "volume swells"), drums, bass, and several vocal tracks sung at different octaves and occasionally staggered. It gets pretty epic at the end. What do you think?

Song #36: Lounging Around

This week's tune is in the style of bossa nova! It's inspired from probably one of the most famous bossa nova tunes, as well as a jazz band standard (and elevator music), "The Girl From Ipanema" by Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz. 



I used the my small keyboard to get a bossa nova drum machine beat and added maracas, a jembe, and a guiro to round out the percussion. I found a cheezy organ sound on the keyboard, which helps with the elevator music atmosphere. Towards the end of the song, I layered on harmonies (at one point, there are 10 vocal tracks). I'm happy with the result. It's the first song I've done like this.

Song #35: Red Dress

This week's tune is inspired by the Black Heart Procession's "It's A Crime I Never Told You About The Diamonds In Your Eyes."


I attempted the same waltzy piano feel and swing. The drums were recorded in my basement with two mics. It's not the greatest tone but I think it works for the song. There are actually two piano parts: one that's a little lower playing mostly the chords and another playing more a lead part and little higher. I think it helps fill it out. Lyrically, the song is about getting tied up with deceptive women. Enjoy.

Song #34: Reminders

I wrote this song very late at night several years back. In order to keep from waking my roommates, I had to play and sing very softly, which dictated the direction of the song. The inspiration was Nirvana's "Something In The Way."



The instruments are an acoustic guitar, voice, and one electric guitar with an ebow. It felt like it dragged a little so I programmed a kick drum into the song, which totally changes the feel of it. It think it makes the song come across a little more like TaughtMe (acoustic guitar with a driving kick drum).

Song #33: Not Aloud

The sound of this one is inspired from the bands Low (particularly the song "Over the Ocean") and Red House Painters. I would definitely call it minimalist approach (or "slow-core," as it is often cited). The elements of this sound that I emulated: soft clean electric guitar strums, use of brushes and ride cymbal on the drums, whispery vocals with a second voice an octave higher, and a hypnotic repetitive beat and bass line.   



This is one of the slowest and longest songs I've done. With the drummer in my band leaving his set at my house recently, I had access to a drum set for the first time in a while. When I had my studio at Muse, I would usually use 7-10 mics to record a drum set. Since now I'm only using an MBox Mini, I can only record two tracks at a time so it was a bit of challenge to get a good sound with just an a mic overhead and one on the kick but I think it works for this song. I used the Ebow on the guitar to add more texture, which is becoming my trademark sound these days. It ended up being 8 different Ebow tracks! I also added a minimal piano line. Hopefully it's not too long. Thoughts?

Song #32: Based On A True Story

This song is influenced by the Radiohead album, "The Bends" and in particular, the songs "High and Dry" and "Bulletproof... I Wish I Was." My goal was to create the same type of atmosphere with the acoustic guitar strumming and a soft pick electric guitar part. I added a "flange" effect to the guitar to give is a washy sound.

Song #31: Night Sky

Another oldie written during high school. At the time, I was digging the mandolin sounds on R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion." It was kind of surprising to look back and think that a song with a mandolin was such a big radio hit in the era of grunge. As I set out to write it, I didn't have a mandolin so I tried to approximate that sound by playing my guitar with the capo on the 4th fret.


When it came time to record this, I was planning on having the mandolin (which I now have) replace the acoustic guitar (or at least play the main lead part) but it wasn't sounding right, so instead I had the mandolin play a simple part to supplement the two acoustic guitar tracks. I added one vocal track, two tamborines tracks, and a shaker and thought it felt like it was done. Does it need something else?