And February Begins…

And with it comes my fourth year of participation in February Album Writing Month. I’m not going in this year with any particular ideas or concepts in my head, but one thing that I would really like to do is address one of my weaknesses, and write more one-take style songs on guitar that I might potentially perform.

So where are we after Day 3? Nothing solo written yet, except for one little snippet of…something…that picked the inopportune time of 3:00am last night to come knocking. I fought with it for a while and tried to commit it to memory but it wouldn’t leave me alone so I scribbled it down on an envelope before rolling back over and getting back to sleep.

On the collaboration front, things have been happening quickly with Mal and I writing something right off the bat at 12:01am, February 1st, over a beat of G Slade’s. “It’s All About the Dishes” (listen here) now has 54 comments over on the FAWM site and we’re quite flabbergasted. It’s easily smashed our previous comment records. And for those wondering we get along very well domestically and actually enjoy doing dishes together.

Here’s why I’m blogging now – because I need to blow off some steam. Today absolutely slaughtered me vocally, and by extension physically. I spent most of the day recording vocals for two more collabs. If they were regular-fare collabs, I probably would have been able to get through each in an hour or two, though yes, I know, FAWM is supposed to be about writing songs, not recording them.

The first was with a new FAWMer by the name of Psy-T, who had sent a really, really gorgeous ambient track for me to put vocals over. I’ve never done worked with a track quite like it before before. I decided to let it speak for itself, for the most part, so the lyrics I wrote yesterday were really sparse, but emotionally packed and I agnonized over every word because there were so few of them. Nothing would do but razor vocals, in other words, vocals that sound as though the singer is on the edge of insanity and completely falling apart. Vocals that are really, really hard on my vocal cords, and on my body as well, because to get the tension into my voice I tend to tense up my body an end up drowning in whatever I’m singing. Vocal teachers, you’re probably cringing, huh? What was most amazing to me was that I actually got them done in the space of two hours and sent them off to Psy-T to mix. I am so, so eager for everyone to hear this one.

After that I came downstairs and tried to get some work done (getting just one report done – awful) and started getting a feel for the second collab of the day, a rap/hip-hop track with the aforementioned G Slade. Working with G is normally a breeze and he’s more than happy to let me do whatever the heck I want to his tracks. Except…we want to use this track to raise money for Haiti relief, I really wanted to give him exactly what he envisioned vocally. Which was basically “soulful-diva-like-you’re-in-a-church-praisin’-Jesus.” Did I mention that I’ve never sung hip-hop before? I decided that all of that meant that I should sing from the belly, which I did, and sent him some test tracks which didn’t quite cut it. Four hours, more instructions (“okay, forget about singing like you’re black and just pretend you’re singing along at a rock concert”), and G singing on a webcam later, we were both happy with a take (and excited about the song) and I could go sleep. Except that instead of sleeping I’m writing this blog.

And…as tired and as beat up as I am, all I can say about today is that I am actually thankful for the challenge, and grateful to both collaborators for pushing me out of my comfort zone. And happy that I can feel competent out of that zone and work hard until I’ve got something I’m proud of. And I am definitely proud of these songs.

And now I’m going to sleep, hoping the finished tracks will greet me in the morning.

Goodnight!

Edit: The collaboration with Psy-T, “Genesis”, is now uploaded to the FAWM 2010 page. You can check out G’s Haiti Relief song (and buy it too) here!

Comments (1) Feb 04 2010