- Feb 15, 2024
My next album is officially underway! I had a meeting with my co-producer John Caviness last week, and just finished filling out all the work order forms to start the next phase of production on the album!
I'm so excited to finally get to showcase these songs to the world. They've been in development on and off since about 2022, and some of them are just dying to be heard. I'm so excited to see how everything takes shape.
Releasing my first album, The Queen of Time, was a huge step for me and my journey as an artist and creative person. I never expected the project to achieve vast commercial success or notoriety (and it hasn't, largely because I really have done little to nothing to promote it), but most of my personal goals came true. I feel 7/8ths confident that all the songs are good, appreciable, meaningful and thoughtful pieces of music that can and will continue to exist in perpetuity. While it didn't open a lot of doors for me professionally (again because I never really asked it to), it did open doors in my personal life and I feel like it gave permission for me, and the people around me to see me as a real, professional artist- and that's huge! When I get stressed out and feel like I'm not doing enough or I haven't made anything that matters or gets finished- I can look back at that album and say "That's done. That happened, and everyone said it was good and real."
Producing an album is expensive and difficult, and I'm keenly aware that I have a number of other financial and personal goals at the moment- but continuing to make and release music is important to me. The sense of purpose and relief I feel for having published even one album is massive and helps me feel like I'm not wasting my time or potential by continuing to write and make music and art. Even if no one ever sees 90% of the things I make in my life, I'll be happy knowing that at least some of what I've made can appreciated and seen.
This has all been very top of mind recently as I sign contracts and work out budgets and expectations for the next project. The value of having another set of smart hands and ears is huge- not to mention the magic way that two people inherently create constraints and timelines that propel things to actually get done. I'm so excited to get work underway on these mixes! I feel like this album is equally as strong conceptually (if not stronger) than The Queen of Time, and I'm so excited to take what I learned from the production, technical, and organizational aspects of that project and apply them to this one from the start. My tentative timeline is to have the final mixes done by sometime in October or November 2024, but it all depends on me and how quickly and confidently I can make the last few decisions that need to be committed before the mixes gradate from Demos to Tracks... There's a lot to do, but I can't wait to make it happen!
- Jan 25, 2024
Over the last week or so, I've really been struggling to envision a mix for one of the songs on the new album. "All the Pretty Wolves" was the only song I didn't have a fully mixed demo for when I pitched this album to my producer John, so I've been working hard on getting that together before we start diving in on the mixes in February.
I think the biggest issue with the mix has been establishing a sense of scale. Writing and playing the song for piano, the only difference between large and small moments is how many keys you play, and how loudly you play them... When a song gets translated into a bigger more developed iteration (with synths and percussion etc...)- the challenge becomes making sure that the new song retains the contour and flow of the old version. For a long time, this song felt stuck in the "small" place. Everything I tried to add to it felt wrong and foreign... The piano version has always had a lot of dynamic range. There are moments of literal whisper over a deep low rumble, and other moments of very loud, strong, bold chords...
My first instinct was to try to run a few synths through the whole thing, and follow interesting moments in the melody and chord progression... but I wasn't sold on any of my early attempts. I think, ultimately, the synths felt too consistent, and quickly faded into the background and became easy to ignore. The lines I tried to bring out with the synth felt boring and dull to me as well- either too obvious (making things feel cliche) or too strange and out of character (pulling attention away from the structure that makes the song work).
The percussion I added felt wholly un-earned. The chord progression is locked-in with the melody in some pivotal moments (giving no indication what the underlying rhythm should be), and every percussion voice I experimented with felt super out of place against the more delicate rumbling and plunking of the piano. The sudden jolting percussiveness of my drum parts stuck out way too much and didn't feel at all at home with the piano alone.
I contemplated just leaving it as a solo piano song after all... I had practiced and written the song extensively while playing and singing together- so much so that there were moments that I couldn't play correctly without also singing. And consequently, when I tried to recored the piano track for a mix, I made lots of mistakes in both technical performance and structure... I felt like I was constantly fighting against what I heard without vocal and trying to remember how it fit rhythmically and dynamically with the vocal... As I started to realize all this, I really considered doing a version where the piano and vocal were baked together in one take... but that would be a nightmare to produce with my current setup, and it's not something I have a lot of experience doing. On top of that, it just didn't feel right for the album- and I could tell there was A TON of potential in the song for a bigger mix if I could pull it off...
Earlier this week I went back and started a new project file for the song from scratch. I committed to singing along with the piano as I played it, and just didn't mic the vocal. I was sick of all my scratch tracks having a different structure, and I needed something I could work with more confidently. Yes, the vocal leaks through to the piano mics, but maybe that's not such a big deal 🤷♂️ If it bothers me later I can always re-take it.
Yesterday I sat down and thought about what I'm doing on piano to fill the interstitial spaces, and I realized the song is constantly swaying with these broad arpeggios under the chords when they linger... So I plotted out some arpeggiating tracks for the synth to play and experimented with putting them under the chorus with some heavy reverb to send them further back in space. That felt like it was on the right track. With this slightly more fleshed out chorus going, I took another stab at percussion. It still felt a bit out of place, but things were a little more robust now and it wasn't as jarring as before.
I dawned on me that the piano I've been trying to 'follow' should simply be the centerpiece. Rather than trying to cover it up and mirror it's ideas, I could just use the piano track for more than just scaffolding. The only problem was the sound... In the developing sonic space, the predictable voice of a piano just didn't sit right with me. As a listener I get exicted by unique sounds and unexpected sonic moments. So I started toying with my my piano tracks. I ended up running two parallel tracks with some very aggressive pitch tuning- one, an octave up, and the other, also an octave up... but 'worse'... using a plugin that struggled to identify a tonal center and instead introduced a strange drone underneath everything. I found that I could automate the pitch of that drone and play it like a bit of a synth (retaining the character and dynamics of the piano running parallel) and that process sounded very strange, expansive and exciting under the chorus. Once I had an interesting sound happening in my piano tracks, I went back in and exercised necessary restraint and moderation- cutting the more outlandish sounds in/out of moments when they felt more/less useful to the overall flow- accentuating the contour and creating even more contrast.
Once I had done that, I started to realize exactly where the moments of energy were, and what the flow looked like in the daw. Cutting in/out the parallel tracks revealed to me all the moments where I can push/pull harder and introduce more complexity without overwhelming the delicate and quiet moments.
I think this song is finally on the right track. I'm excited to continue to develop it from here!
- Jan 19, 2024
Work continues on Invertebrate Waltz! - though admittedly slower than expected... I've begun to realize a few things about myself and my creative habits.
I'm finding myself far more in tune with the processes involved in making new songs than refining songs that are more than a year old... I love when I am working through the uncertain murky parts of writing. I enjoy the difficult process of refining a raw idea/ outline and giving voice to a feeling that's fresh and alive. I've talked a lot about how much I love when the process of writing a song helps me clarify my own feelings and work through them- and that doesn't feel as much like it's happening right now with Invertebrate Waltz.
I've always considered myself much more of a "songwriter" than a "musician". For me, the creative and intuitive decisions that go into constructing a song are much more exciting than the technical execution and recording of a project. This is part of why I seldom devote any attention to writing covers or learning songs by other musicians.
I know that re-learning and practicing my own songs is a much more flexible process than learning someone else's song from scratch, but the project lately has felt much more like learning/ adapting a cover than writing my own, current music.
Part of the difficulty jumping back into these songs has to do with the subject matter/ tone of the project, and the feeling it demands from me. The feelings and themes in this project are a bit harsh and frustrating, and I'm not always ready to enter that world with my whole heart. I know, logically, that these songs are good and have a lot to say, but it's hard to let myself be in a state where I feel an unstoppable urge to express them.
I think the season is getting to me, too. I've been quite distracted lately. Over the last few months I've been experiencing a barrage of new feelings and exciting developments in my personal life that have inspired a rather urgent need to write lots of new songs. I really feel lost and anxious when I'm not using music and songwriting as a tool to process my present moment (this is both a blessing and a curse for sure...)
I have no intention of giving up, I'm merely taking a moment to gather my thoughts and reflect on how everything has been going lately. When I sit down and play through these songs, I leave with the feeling that this album is genuinely quite good, cohesive, and relevant. I do want it to exist and be heard, and it will.