AUM162: Week 12

Unfortunately, from last week, that writing block hung around until I was sick of listening to the song. I've had the demo on repeat trying to come up with new ideas, shifting some of the drum patterns around, trying to add different things but nothing felt right. The challenge was that I've had to stretch it out into a full song but I was still stuck in that writing structure: where I basically loop everything and the entire track lasts 2 mins. I eventually got really sick of it. I wrote another track.

I composed a simple beat and then played some long sustained chords on my guitar, which is normally my go to technique to figure out the groove of the rhythm and the sort of chords I want to play. It worked out, then I picked up the bass guitar and starting playing around with rhythms around the guitar chords I recorded. It took me HOURS to even get a recording of the bass part as I was having a really good time playing along with it and I would come up with different rhythms as I go along. I just wanted to find the right groove and melody, then hit record.

Like the composition that I chucked out (metaphorically, out of my brain), I used pad synth to play the main melody line and another synth to act as a pad playing chords. I felt that having this instrument play the melody would be different, and just to give my guitars a break from the spotlight, almost of my compositions are Heavily guitar based: acting as melody, harmony and rhythm.

Because I've been listening to a lot of tracks that have polyrhythms or tracks that have unusual rhythms, I thought I'd challenge myself and change the time signature (towards the end of the track) to 7/4. I just find that when I approach or add techniques or elements that I'm unfamiliar with when composing, a lot of ideas seem to sprout and it can turn my track into something wild. I've got a basic rhythm for chords for the 7/4 section but haven't progressed yet but I have a few ideas on what I could do.

I've been slowly adding guitar parts here and there. For the verses, because I want it to express a chilled feel, I feel like not putting a melody line there and just having the drums and bass going, with the spacey sustained major 7 chords being strummed in the background. I'll have to see what else I could do but I think that will be the plan for now.

I've been a recent fan of adding atmos sounds and dialogue samples to tracks as it helps the audience to have an idea of what you're trying to portray. This however will be the last task on my list for this song as I want to have a completed song to then figure and feel the kind of vibe that I want to portray. I've been thinking about themes surrounding love as this song is already pretty dreamy and fluffy, which is kinda the feelings I get when I'm in that state. Just an idea.

I haven't been stuck yet with this track which is Very Good News, but just the recording process has been taking sooooo longgggg because of how I write: practice and find the write groove and melody, then hit record. I'm learning a few things as I'm composing this track so, can't wait to see where my future ideas take me and to hear the final result.