NOTES… on Drawing Songs

Well that changed fast didn’t it?

All is now on hold.

We have made the basic recording, but will need to wait before we can get back into the studio to do backing vocals and small adjustments and to add little details.

Meanwhile, we are emailing lyrics and recordings back and forth, writing new material, and resurrecting old to review and bring into the light.

On Sunday we shall attempt to get together via Zoom. I don’t know how possible it will be to play together, but it will be lovely to see faces, and chat in real time, and laugh together.

My personal research and development work has also been put on hold. Two days before I was due to discover if I had got funding. ACE pulled the plug on all project funding in order to react quickly to the coronavirus issue. I have hugely mixed emotions about that. It felt so cruel, but yes, of course, the funds are best used spread about a bit for now. But I don’t know how I will feel about applying again once the suspension is lifted. I suspect my focus will be changed by then.

Who knows?!

Yesterday was one of the best. One of those that shift your perspective, refresh, rejuvenate, and also exhaust!

The band are recording a new EP, which you will already know if you have read previous posts. I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks, and we have been planning for it for weeks/months too… deciding which 5 songs to record, work on them, refine, rehearse, and perform at every opportunity so that they are they best they can be before we hit the recording studio. We have to know them inside out and make the decisions, on our own time, not the time we have to pay cash for.

I have discovered that I absolutely love this process. I love being in the recording studio. I even love being shut up in a small soundproofed booth singing the same song six times in a row “just go again, when you’re ready, rolling” says our producer, engineer, advisor, mentor, general all round great guy Michael Clarke. So, we go again. “Let’s just get one more in the bank, one more to play with”

We did five songs. We have to wait for them to have a preliminary mix, then we will go back in to add backing vocals and twiddly bits, but this collection of songs has been recorded live, all of us at the same time, in order to capture the things we are good at, and without a click track, just reacting and building from each other. This can make edits a bit of a pain I’m sure, but that’s where being well-rehearsed comes in. We are pretty consistent. Listening back in the studio they sound pretty good to me.

By the end of the day we were flagging. It’s been five years since I did Nine Women, the last big bit of recording I did. I’ve done small amounts of backing vocals for other people’s work, but nothing this big… I had forgotten how exhausting it is. Concentration levels are intense. You need tea breaks, lots of snacks to keep your energy levels up.

By the last song we were definitely flagging. We wanted to leave it till last because it is the one we need to be well warmed up for… but actually I am wondering if I will need to re-do my vocal… It felt weary as I was doing it. But it’s ok, the advantage of me being isolated is I can do it again if needs be. Michael will be honest and tell me if so… or if I listen and feel I can do better, I can go back in. By the time we finished we did have a discussion about whether to do “just one more?” But truly felt by that stage it could only get worse!

I have been feeling a bit down… but yesterday has given me a much needed creative boost. I recognise in myself a real determination to go back into the studio for my own solo project. I have ideas that are scratching at my insides, desperate to get out.

All I need is the money…

As I said in the last post, I’m not very good at January, so it came and went without me raising my head much above the parapet.

But February continues to be busy, with a definite music focus. Even as I draw I play my own music into my ears. Next Saturday we (by which I mean the band, The Sitting Room) will be recording our second EP. We have been selling the first EP with the funds in mind to go towards this, and of course, splitting recording costs between five of us is rather more achievable than the extravaganza I have in mind for my solo recordings.

We have earmarked five songs, hoping to be able to get five done, but with high quality uppermost, it may well turn out to be four. We shall see how it goes.

It is a curious thing… the need to record…

Yes, it’s nice when people ask if we have a cd, it is a tangible way to support a band, but to be honest it isn’t really cost effective. Giving them a tenner for petrol is probably economically more useful. I like to have a “thing”… I like a cd… it’s probably my age. A collection, rather than a playlist. But this band range from their mid fifties to mid sixties, and I’m somewhere in the middle. We are products of our time… the guys like a band t-shirts, we talk of gate-fold vinyl album ritual, record shops… who we saw first, which venues, which songs… Our rehearsals can be a feast of nostalgia. Those who like our music are similar, they like a thing, so we are making a thing. We will also be uploading to the usual digital platforms.

For me, the selected songs as a collection are the thing. I do see this as an important expression, this “thing-making”. I have written the lyrics to all five songs. They’ve come from a deep place. I am attached.  I have let them loose, for Andy and Ian and then Lloyd and John… to shape them and turn them into something else. And then we play them. I find it hard to explain… what I write is like Frankenstein’s monster before the electricity. It’s only when they take musical form that I see them differently. When I let someone else read them for the first time I am terrified. I have exposed my deepest thoughts… some of them can be a little twisted, a little morose. They can be observation of, or from, dark corners. But they take them and urge them into life… and then I am able to sing them, once they have been trained (and I have been trained) and can set them out into the world. But to get them down, make them permanent is a vital part of an artist’s way of operating…

When the songs are recorded as an album, they have matured. We’ve chosen our best, the ones that sit well together, and show our range. This can be difficult on an EP – 4 or 5 songs only – but I think we’ve done it. Andy and I are touting for a sixth to be included… but maybe not this time…

And then it is a case of stringing them together, the order is important. The gap between is important… what sits in that gap is important too. I love that bit. It’s stitching, embroidery, drawing. The bits in between hold the story together. This is why I like a thing. The album, presented as the artist wants it presented. I have been working on artwork and layout. This has to be precise too. It’s not just a label of identity… it has to add to the drawing. Who are these five people? What do they sing about? What does it mean to them?

You can’t stream that.

You can’t download that.

…but you can listen to this, from the first EP ‘Studio Sessions’

WEATHERPROOF

The next rehearsal evening was booked in for January 21st.

But I’ve been feeling very “January”. I’ve been writing new lyrics, and I’ve been drawing. Over Christmas I was at home enjoying being with my family… and then once the new year started, I felt a bit down. It always happens.

So I put the call out to the guys in the band that if anyone fancied a bit of singing and noodling about, I was up for that.

We have four gigs booked in for February, and I’m looking forward to these, as most of them are good long sets – 45 mins which is good. Most seem to be up to and around the 30 mins which gives us about 6/7 songs. But 45 minutes is great. It gives time to get warmed up, settle in, get something upbeat to start with, have a spot of mellow in the middle and then build up to the finish… with maybe one or two more up your sleeve just in case. Maybe even a cover or two.

Anyway… Andy came over to the studio and we looked at a few songs we had written in the summer. We’ve played them live a few times too, but in playing songs live, little bugs and snags crop up. So it was good to just play through them and think about why little things were going a bit awry, or just didn’t feel quite right. Usually they’re small things that in discussion fall away. Sometimes the arrangement doesn’t seem right. Sometimes the chorus needs to move… a bit of a break provides a little distance and objectivity.

The morning’s work was productive, and definitely mood-enhancing!

As with most things there is a balance to be achieved. And the balance between the amount of rehearsal and the amount of live playing is no different. As a Newbie, I have only just begun to appreciate this. There comes a point at which you have to go for it and put it in the set. Prepared, but a bit scared is the feeling I’ve become used to. But there’s nothing like playing live to sort out the issues with a song… things that don’t seem to happen in rehearsal.

I am happier these days to take a bit of a risk with a new song. Many of the gigs we play are to an audience of other performers and songwriters. So it is comfortable to say “we have some new material we want to air” and they get it, and will feedback any ideas. All good. I’m now past the terror of getting things wrong, and feel I can chat to an audience rather than curl into my boots and go bright red and wish the floor to open. The new found confidence means that as long as we keep going and smile, we can get away with it.

We are hoping to get a few songs recorded for our second EP at the end of February, the gigs are worth much in the rehearsal stakes, so the songs to be recorded will feature in the sets. I might even ask the audience to let us know their favourites.

And in terms of solo stuff… I also have a list of things that probably won’t get played live (certainly not at the moment). These will be formed in the studio, then released as recordings. If they develop a live life, that will be exciting. But will happen later. I want to make them. Then I will decide what they are for.

So here we are, possibly my favourite day of the year, Boxing Day!

I have some time to myself.

I have begun sifting and sorting some of the sounds recorded on various devices. At the moment this is just a case of organisation, there’s nothing for you to listen to yet. But I’m also sifting through lyrics, deciding which are of worth.

This piece has actually become a song already, but I didn’t know what to do with it. It exists as a very poor first recording, just a writers’ note. So I won’t be posting that just yet. But I’m looking at it, and considering it. I like the picture and the unfolding drama that I see when I read it.

A CONVERSATION 

He watched her laugh at someone else’s joke
He saw her nod while other people spoke
He heard her swear when she spilled a little milk
He felt her tongue as she licked her coffee lips
He knew the sting that she never could be his

She watched his green eyes sweep around the room
She felt his touch as they paused at her and smiled
She barely heard what other people said
She heard the depth of his seldom spoken words
She knew the sting that he never could be hers

They sat apart so they could look and not be seen
They didn’t touch
They didn’t touch
But they felt the pull between

They made excuses and left by different doors
They talked in silence
Their feet beat out the rhyme
The rhythm set by separate beating hearts
Not close enough to synchronise their time

The parting hug was a second far too long
A conversation by any other name
His breathing deep so that he could smell her hair
A guess how soon they might not quite meet again

She whispered a kiss just below his ear
It wasn’t much
It wasn’t much
But they felt it all the same