I've been practicing my scales every day like a good boy. Usually at the end I'll sing through a couple of my demos that have had the vocal tracks removed. It's a funny thing but I never spent much time practicing my vocals before. I always figured that all you needed to do was sing in band rehearsal, and then when you walked into the studio and discovered that everything sounded radically different and you really had no idea how to sing the songs properly, well, you just dealt with the problems as they arose or, as was often the case, just tried to wing it and hope it didn't turn out too badly. It never even occurred to me to practice. I wrote the songs and knew them inside and out and frankly I was usually too busy tearing my hair out over the fact that my band mates seldom knew how to play the songs, or would forget them if we went as long as four days between rehearsals. Between that and all the business stuff, vocals were usually the last thing on my mind even though I was the singer.
Thank God those days are over. My long break from recording music - it'll be four years by the time I record the new album - has been a blessing in disguise; I'm finally enjoying singing, really for the first time since I've been doing it as an alleged professional.
Singing along with the demos is helping me figure a lot of things out. I can hear lines that I need to change because they sound too clumsy or have too many hard consonants that sound similar. I'm also beginning to recognize how certain words should be sung, and when and how heavily to apply which vocal affectations. It's actually a lot of fun because the progress is really noticeable; every day I get a little bit more comfortable with the songs and I find that I sing them a little bit better each time. The actual recording of the album is a long way off but that's okay because I think I'll be much better prepared to do a good job with the vocals.
Now if I can just find a way to sell a few million copies of the new album I'll be all set.
The title of this post is also the title of a song I've been trying to write for some time. The music has been finished for months but the lyrics are really stumping me. I spent last night tracking guitars on the four-track for the final demos to be sent to Mike today after I finish the vocals. Which meant I also had to finish some lyrics. I was pleased to tighten up and complete lyrics for one that's been sitting around in various forms for over two and a half years, and I also did a little polishing of a new one I wrote the night before last. But the Surrender Hymn has me stumped. It's a shame too, because the song is set up in a way that leaves a lot of room for the type of lengthy, syllable-filled lines I tend to favor while still coming across as rigidly structured. It's the type of song that just cries out for clever-ish smart-assed lyrics. These types of songs are not only really fun to write, but they're usually pretty easy too; I always tend to end up with a ton of leftover material that I couldn't manage to fit in. Left to my own devices with no commercial considerations, a song like this would, in my self-indulgent hands, end up with about 12 verses plus 3 different bridges or so. Thank God for the marketplace.
The idea for the song is to discuss giving up on a relationship. This would be done in the form of a series of sarcastic little barbs designed to mock the standard Leftist line on 9/11, the Iraq War and pretty much anything Bush says or does. Whether this comes across as an attack on the narrator's part or whether it's the narrator himself (or herself) who is the Leftist in question is irrelevant - I just need a couple of great lines to get going. I've actually written several songs on the theme of modern Leftist idiocy since 9/11 but they were all pretty straightforward attacks on dumb-bell ideology and I've not made a record since then on which a song like that would fit (including the new one). Besides, the new record is all about relationships gone bad and I really want to make it more about the relationship than the politics.
Not that the political angle isn't interesting. It is, especially the notion that Islamic fundamentalist terrorism wouldn't be a problem if we'd simply sit down and talk with the terrorists. It's that angle that's making me think that the song's narrator probably needs to be the clueless one - the one who doesn't want the relationship to end and who truly believes that all their problems could be ironed out if both parties would just sit down and have a good old fashioned heart to heart. Who among us hasn't been on both sides of that coin at one time or another?
In any case, I'm hoping that inspiration strikes soon because Mike has only a small window of time in which he can take my bedroom demos and turn them into, if not formal dining room demos, at least couch-in-front-of-the-fireplace-in-the-living-room demos. Back to the saltmines.
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I'm very busy these days so I don't have a lot of time for shenanigans, tomfoolery and assorted silliness of the sort I had to deal with yesterday. To wit: After opening the bank account 10 days ago for my new business and applying for a credit card for same, I received a letter informing me that my application was not approved (apparently they don't say "rejected" anymore so you won't feel too bad) due to my "standard industrial classification." I really do need that credit card.
I had to deposit some checks yesterday. As I was leaving I saw Sergio the banker talking shop with a teller by the coffee pot so I grabbed him and pleaded my case. My case being, more or less, "I don't know what is wrong with my standard industrial classification but I'd be happy to try to fix it if it please the corporation, sir."
Two phone calls and a long time on hold later the mystery was solved: The bank rejected my application because they had mistakenly assumed my business was a massage parlor and they don't give credit cards to massage parlors.
My business name is Monona Music, LLC. You figure it out.
I was surprised to read that IPod sales are down dramatically. Almost everybody I know has one and almost everybody I know loves them.
I like mine okay I guess but I almost never use it. But that's only because I don't usually listen to much music. I've been listening to more lately now that I'm working on this online radio show (more on that someday) but I have never really been one to, for instance, listen to music in the car. I'm driving quite a lot more now that I'm living in Wisconsin and my wife even bought me the car adaptor for the IPod but it's just too much hassle to bring all the stuff with me and set it up every time I run out for a loaf of bread or a 1/4" adaptor or whatever. (Besides, I find music to be annoying when I'm trying to drive. I prefer talk radio, either ESPN or Air America. Back in my touring days, very early on I instituted a "no music in the van" policy; bringing your own Walkman was fine but you weren't allowed to subject everyone else to your music. A very civilized rule if you ask me.)
Like I said, I'm listening to more music at home now that I'm doing the radio show, but I tend to just check out the new stuff while I'm loading it into the computer. And truth be told, half the time I end up deleting most CDs before they've even finished loading. I always intend to update my IPod but I haven't in months. I last listened to it about six weeks ago when I was trying to make some progress with a book on tape, but even that's going slow because the quality of the audio on the file is so poor it's really a chore to listen to.
At this rate, I figure it'll be many years before my battery dies - I doubt if I'll replace the IPod then. But if I were listening to music more frequently I think I'd be pretty steamed over the non-replaceable battery, especially given that according to my friends who actually do listen to a lot of music the things die out pretty quickly. Anyway, that would be my reason why I wouldn't buy one today.
Any ideas why they've suddenly become uncool?