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I am nearly two months into the concept album and I have already vetoed out 2 of the 24 nearly completed songs I was confident I would use. I am writing new material because I just can't handle some of my old songs (old = written in 2010). These songs just don't fit into what I am trying to create. I feel that these two will not be the only ones I remove. As I roll ahead and as the overall concept falls into place more and more, I most likely will discard more and more of my older material. I'm happy with this!
I am approaching this future double album in a whole new way. Sometimes I record the drums first, sometimes voice and sometimes keyboard. Depending on which is used determines how the song will end up sounding. An example of this is when I record drums first. I lay down a track of a simple beat. From this beat comes a basic melody. I record this melody over the drums and BOOM! The song explodes to life. This happened today and, as a result, I got a very cool song (reminiscent of U2's "Joshua Tree" album. Which is one of my favorite albums of all time!) came into existence. As far as where this song will appear in the grand scheme of things (within concept album) is still a mystery.
It's hard writing a concept album! Questions like: "what is the theme of this concept album?", "where will this song go within the concept album?", "should write the intro and work my through to the end, or what?", "will this song even fit within the theme lyrically?" all come to mind. These are just a few of the many!
My approach to recording this double album had to grow and unfold in a whole new way. No longer could I simply record each track (drums, keys and vocals) on my convenient little Tascam. Songs had to be butted up aside one another in order to hear how they would work within the whole. To achieve this I had to get creative. Software to the rescue! I had to "master" each rough draft from my Tascam and import them into my PC. From there I had to import them into the actual recording application and conveniently butt the songs against one another. Once this process was mastered I was in awe of what I could do using recording software! I'm still hesitant about recording directly into my PC one track at a time. At this point the aforementioned process works just fine.
I'm planning on recording at Ballistico in May for the release of another single. This time it will be from my future concept album. More songs will be released over the summer and fall. Exciting stuff!
Congratulations to the winner of my "Weight of the Words" t-shirt! The contest went well. I will be posting a new contest in a week or two.
Thank you to all for listening and your continued support!
Ian
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