I have released “Waves” for download, my latest music album.
Currently it consists of three tracks:
01. Sun Becomes My Leaven
02. You Opened One Eye – Classical Version
03: Now You Fall In The Shade – Classical Version
Each song comes in both MP3 and WAV formats.
The idea for the album came after editing “When I See Your Child’s Face”. After creating this track and uploading, I felt a little unhappy. The song was sickly sweet, in that the melody lacked depth and complexity. It was like the “intent memory generators” (baby goggles) scene in Donny Darko. There was no darkness. I had been using only white keys on the keyboard up until that point, and I was noticing, firstly, that the songs were always on the uplifting side of the spectrum, and also, that the song was using leading melody notes instead of using chords, and letting the melody sing for itself.
So, I adapted the song. I decided to learn how to use chords. This was a lot harder for me than writing melodies, and I have so little idea of what I am doing, that I don’t know if I’m breaking rules or what not. Everything I do and make is by ear. I don’t follow any music theory.
Once the new song began to materialize, I realised how poweful black keys and minor chords could be. They provided tension and contradiction; an ambiguity to proceedings. Eventually, I felt that I had a song with not only more sonic depth, but it also reflected my bittersweet perspectives about my positive, but long distance, relationship with my daughter, and also, lyrically, in the contrasting perspectives on life of an adult and child. I called this song, “Sun Becomes My Leaven” . I had to change some lyrics from the first song to work with the new added darkness.
Once I had this initial song, I was eager to transfer my melody reverse techniques to both, “Now You Fall In The Shade”, and, “You Opened One Eye”. Both songs are lyrically quite sad or melancholic in nature, and so the introduction of minor chords worked well. In fact, I am happy with all three songs, as they only sound similar in lyrics to the originals. Combining both major and minor chords provides a totally different sound and complexity.
The third step I took with all three songs was to minimise the more electronic synthesizer sounds, and introduce classical instruments. I felt that this added further depth and emotion. There is something about classical strings which connects with the soul. I still left some electronic sounds in there, but they are subtle, there to pad, or add a little dissonance.
Lyrically, the songs remained much the same, which is to say that the songs remain quite raw. The songs were all originally written in states of high emotion. I find it easier to write in these periods. The lyrics are highly personal. Although I felt in some way that perhaps I shouldn’t share my feelings, especially where others were lyrically involved, I wanted a record of this period, particularly for my daughter, and also for others.
I called the album, “Waves”, without giving much thought. But if I were to analyse, I would say that we are all on a sea, sometimes calm, and sometimes turbulent. This album represents a more turbulent time of my life.
