The Furry Musicians page is running its fourth annual Express Yourself showcase. Furry Musicians are encouraged to submit up to three original works of about 1 minute in length that reflect themselves as artists and writers. You can check it out here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:51804522
In years past I haven't participated. I didn't have anything to say, or couldn't say it in about one minute, or didn't feel I had good enough equipment - choose any excuse. I didn't really plan on it this year. As a musician, my gig is providing live accompaniment for others, and for myself when I sing very old and/or dirty pub songs. When I went to bed the other night, though, a song rushed into my brain as soon as my head hit the pillow. I've had bits of lyric or melody pop into my head before at odd times, but this sprang forth almost completely realised out of nowhere. I got back up, found an old envelope and a pen, and jotted down the words. Last night I typed out what I'd written, added a couple of lines to finish some rhymes, and went to record it.
I was going to just use my mobile phone, but Rhubarb wasn't doing anything in his studio, so I asked if I could pop in and he let me record there. Frankly, I was terrified that he'd hear the song and judge it. I'm terrified that anyone will hear and judge it. This is the most intensely personal thing I've ever done. I very nearly backed out of recording it several times, and it's taken me 24 hours to work up the courage to post it here. I can't even come up with a good name for it - so far it's "Untitled (Mix 1)".
I've been working for months in the background to establish an actual web site presence, a possible Patreon and a crowd-sourced fundraiser to produce three CDs of music representing the various facets of what I do. "Three Albums, Two Continents, One Musician". Sounds epic. I wish. But as part of that, I've said I want to push myself to write more. I don't think much of my own writing - I look at some of the other writers of music in the fandom and I'm not even in the same game, let alone the same league. But if I don't start, I'll never progress. This is step one.
So here it is, an approximate minute of music that expresses what I do as a musician, my writing style (musically and lyrically), my performance style, etc. An approximate minute of me. Which would be an interesting title if it weren't so clodgy and long.
If you feel moved to comment, please be gentle, but please be honest. :)
http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/...../#cid:51804522
In years past I haven't participated. I didn't have anything to say, or couldn't say it in about one minute, or didn't feel I had good enough equipment - choose any excuse. I didn't really plan on it this year. As a musician, my gig is providing live accompaniment for others, and for myself when I sing very old and/or dirty pub songs. When I went to bed the other night, though, a song rushed into my brain as soon as my head hit the pillow. I've had bits of lyric or melody pop into my head before at odd times, but this sprang forth almost completely realised out of nowhere. I got back up, found an old envelope and a pen, and jotted down the words. Last night I typed out what I'd written, added a couple of lines to finish some rhymes, and went to record it.
I was going to just use my mobile phone, but Rhubarb wasn't doing anything in his studio, so I asked if I could pop in and he let me record there. Frankly, I was terrified that he'd hear the song and judge it. I'm terrified that anyone will hear and judge it. This is the most intensely personal thing I've ever done. I very nearly backed out of recording it several times, and it's taken me 24 hours to work up the courage to post it here. I can't even come up with a good name for it - so far it's "Untitled (Mix 1)".
I've been working for months in the background to establish an actual web site presence, a possible Patreon and a crowd-sourced fundraiser to produce three CDs of music representing the various facets of what I do. "Three Albums, Two Continents, One Musician". Sounds epic. I wish. But as part of that, I've said I want to push myself to write more. I don't think much of my own writing - I look at some of the other writers of music in the fandom and I'm not even in the same game, let alone the same league. But if I don't start, I'll never progress. This is step one.
So here it is, an approximate minute of music that expresses what I do as a musician, my writing style (musically and lyrically), my performance style, etc. An approximate minute of me. Which would be an interesting title if it weren't so clodgy and long.
If you feel moved to comment, please be gentle, but please be honest. :)
Category Music / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Gender Any
Size 50 x 50px
You rhymed "always" with "hallways" and put the accent on the wrong syllable both times?
*twitch*twitch*
*twitch*twitch*
Sorry, to my ears it sounded like you were singing alWAYS and hallWAYS. I'll listen again.
I took another listen again - the syncopation may distort the emphasis, but the first syllable is still stressed. :)
Wow. I loved it. Short and sweet but a great message that really hits home. Good luck in the showcase and I hope to hear more from you. Love your voice man. ^_^
I like it! I don't know you that well but from what I know from EF 21 this does sound like it represents you :D
Ow, and I like your singing voice, it's soothing :)
Ow, and I like your singing voice, it's soothing :)
People like yourself (and Rhubarb) have so much experience playing and absorbing and arranging the plethora of music you've worked on, maybe you don't even realize all that great songwriting knowledge you've been steeped in totally comes through in your own music. I can tell in the first two chords "ok this guy knows what he's doing".
I don't know you very well (yet!) but I get the impression from your post that writing your own songs is still relatively new for you? One thing that really made it possible for me when I started writing songs was realizing that ones doesn't have to write lyrics "about" oneself, you can make up anything. And that opens up an endless Universe! In the end it's still you :) I think the the idea that pop lyrics must "express one's inner feelings" is a real ball-and-chain for lots of would-be great songwriters. Your personality and emotions etc always come out in the overall work.
I don't know you very well (yet!) but I get the impression from your post that writing your own songs is still relatively new for you? One thing that really made it possible for me when I started writing songs was realizing that ones doesn't have to write lyrics "about" oneself, you can make up anything. And that opens up an endless Universe! In the end it's still you :) I think the the idea that pop lyrics must "express one's inner feelings" is a real ball-and-chain for lots of would-be great songwriters. Your personality and emotions etc always come out in the overall work.
AND ANOTHER THING...
If I understand correctly and writing your own songs is still a relatively new thing: something that I used to find intimidating was hearing other people's finished songs, which give the impression that they just appeared that way, complete and fully-arranged. Obviously they don't, they start out as one little idea, just a snippet of melody and chord, then another little idea is born out of that, you realize some other little snippet you've had floating around fits perfectly as a bridge, it starts to come together, and grows even more once you start arranging and recording. In the end, there it is: BANG it's a song! As if it just appeared by magic!
I also have to add that, again from all your musical experience, you have a sense of melody and how to back that up. Anyway let me know if I'm preaching to the choir or if I'm being encouraging :)
If I understand correctly and writing your own songs is still a relatively new thing: something that I used to find intimidating was hearing other people's finished songs, which give the impression that they just appeared that way, complete and fully-arranged. Obviously they don't, they start out as one little idea, just a snippet of melody and chord, then another little idea is born out of that, you realize some other little snippet you've had floating around fits perfectly as a bridge, it starts to come together, and grows even more once you start arranging and recording. In the end, there it is: BANG it's a song! As if it just appeared by magic!
I also have to add that, again from all your musical experience, you have a sense of melody and how to back that up. Anyway let me know if I'm preaching to the choir or if I'm being encouraging :)
First off, I'm sincerely flattered that you posted comments. Truly. :)
I've written a few songs before, but always very trite and/or intentionally pastiche/comic songs. It's not that it's new to me, it's that I do it once every ten years or so. Also, I don't tend to write anything serious. A professor of mine said it's because I have a perverse-reverse mechanism: I'm afraid to open up and succeed. I don't think she was entirely wrong - it was a defence mechanism caused by not coming out until I was 30. The point is - what was so difficult was writing something personal and real, rather than outrageously unreal for comic or pastiche effect. I can handle any comments on those songs - they don't "mean" anything to me. When the song "means" something, I know I'll take everything personally and it's hard to open up to that. :)
I have a digital shoebox full of unfinished songs... half a verse, several verses, sometimes just a couple of couplets as an idea. I get "so far" with a song and then nothing comes, so it goes into the shoebox and waits for inspiration. I had a great one last year around this time, but then the sun came out, my depression lifted, and it was too daunting to remain angry enough at the person who inspired it to ever finish it. C'est la vie, eh?
I TOTALLY agree about other people's songs. "Nothing I write will ever be that good" is a great vampire. It just flies around your head until you completely shut down and can't write anything. Actually, one of the things I'm most proud of in this song is that I use the phrase "la la la la la". I've always said Lennon & McCartney's genius was that they could turn the lyric "She loves you yeah yeah yeah" into an entire chorus. I always seem to over-write. Simplicity is hard!
I'm bummed you won't be at CFz this year. Maybe Anthrocon? Or even JFTW? I'd love to have time to sit down and chat more about this with you. Thanks again for the comments. I really do appreciate them. And I'm secretly delighted that you thought I knew what I'm doing from the first two chords. I thought it would take people until the descending progression at the end. (Remember what I said about not being able to just keep it simple?) :D
I've written a few songs before, but always very trite and/or intentionally pastiche/comic songs. It's not that it's new to me, it's that I do it once every ten years or so. Also, I don't tend to write anything serious. A professor of mine said it's because I have a perverse-reverse mechanism: I'm afraid to open up and succeed. I don't think she was entirely wrong - it was a defence mechanism caused by not coming out until I was 30. The point is - what was so difficult was writing something personal and real, rather than outrageously unreal for comic or pastiche effect. I can handle any comments on those songs - they don't "mean" anything to me. When the song "means" something, I know I'll take everything personally and it's hard to open up to that. :)
I have a digital shoebox full of unfinished songs... half a verse, several verses, sometimes just a couple of couplets as an idea. I get "so far" with a song and then nothing comes, so it goes into the shoebox and waits for inspiration. I had a great one last year around this time, but then the sun came out, my depression lifted, and it was too daunting to remain angry enough at the person who inspired it to ever finish it. C'est la vie, eh?
I TOTALLY agree about other people's songs. "Nothing I write will ever be that good" is a great vampire. It just flies around your head until you completely shut down and can't write anything. Actually, one of the things I'm most proud of in this song is that I use the phrase "la la la la la". I've always said Lennon & McCartney's genius was that they could turn the lyric "She loves you yeah yeah yeah" into an entire chorus. I always seem to over-write. Simplicity is hard!
I'm bummed you won't be at CFz this year. Maybe Anthrocon? Or even JFTW? I'd love to have time to sit down and chat more about this with you. Thanks again for the comments. I really do appreciate them. And I'm secretly delighted that you thought I knew what I'm doing from the first two chords. I thought it would take people until the descending progression at the end. (Remember what I said about not being able to just keep it simple?) :D
Very well produced and the mix sounds clean!
Good job!
Definitely can hear that you know what you're doing.
Good job!
Definitely can hear that you know what you're doing.
Haha this was an interesting entry, definitely fresh. Very comedic, and I liked the piano melodies. I do like the production quality behind the vocals, sounds very clear.
That sounds like a fantastic overture to your planned album project.
Comments