Yesterday I learned a few Elliott Smith songs on guitar, including "Last Call", which is one I've long wanted to cover. Elliott Smith is a guitarist and songwriter that I've long (and knowingly) underestimated. For some reason, I am constantly surprised by the quality of his work. You'd think I'd get the hint by now. In any case, I became very jealous of the mode mixing in "Last Call". The verses are in D, but with a borrowed G major, which is shifted to G minor right before the chorus, and the progression that follows is I guess G minor melodic? Regardless, it all sounds very smooth and very effective. The unconventional chords don't feel awkward, but instead give some emotional depth to the music.

I would like to give him a run for his money as best I am able, so I'm revisiting something I started the other day. This is in what I would consider to be A minor, but the first chord is instead A major. the progression for the verse is as follows: A F D E A F Bb E. Point of pride there, constructing a minor sounding riff out of all major chords. After that, I made a chorus out of the chords F G Am C Bb E A C#m F E A. In addition to that slightly fucked up Bb chord, the real weirdo in this progression is obviously the C#m. I like it. As usual though, and this never ceases to amaze or frustrate me, it's much easier to get into these weird notes than it is to get back out of them. As such, I'm not entirely happy with the F that immediately follows it. Maybe it's just a confidence issue? Maybe the right vocal melody will tie it together? We'll see.

There is no vocal melody on this demo, but the verse will be the same melody (roughly) as the earlier demo. CLICK IT.

SONG FOUR POSTED, MOTHERFUCKER

It's called "Visible Scars" and I wrote it while I should have been taking a nap.

HERE IS THE SONG.

Lyrics haven't been coming this last week, but I've been trying to come up with some potentially useful guitar parts. Here's something with a lot of mode mixing. A minor I suppose. Here's a demo.

I think this is subconsciously ripped off from a Commander Venus song. SHHH. Eminor / Gmajor riffing. I think there's a song in this.

Audio demo.

Song four is in progress. In the past, I might consider a song like this to be done. It meets the two minute mark, and it covers a lot of territory, but it doesn't feel finished yet. So far I am incredibly happy with this song. It's exactly along the lines of what I'm trying to tap into with my new songs, and I think I'm really getting to a point where I can just hit the switch and make these lyrics happen. I think if I slave over this song, I can turn it into something that is, at least by my own standards, fucking spectacular. Ironically, after all my bitching about the limitations of working in F major, I went and put this song in the relative minor key (all the same problematic notes).

Here is a demo.

Here are the lyrics so far:

there's eleven years that passed
since I found out about punk rock
another sixteen came before
they didn't add up to a hell of a lot
sometimes I slip up and I let myself believe
that something has a plan for what they thought that I should be
and if that be the case
why'd they make it be so fucking difficult
why not just drop me
virtually anywhere else
as if he thought somehow these trials would make me strong
and if he is infallable than how'd I prove him wrong
cause i've found what doesn't kill me
can only fuck me up beyond compare
and slow me down
and knock all of the wind out of my sails
and leave me floating with no specific goal
trust in every direction pointing me away from home
I never did no drugs
because no one ever offered them
and I've never even been drunk
and I think I have a good reason
I bet it feels the same as when I reach the end of the day
when the volume's cranked on everything and it makes me want to say

I hate your songs
cause they're so damn beautiful
and perfection on that level should not be attainable
I hate your songs
cause I can't figure it out
there's no secret ingredient you just open your mouth

WOO!

An idea in A minor. Pretty standard, except I use a minor 7 chord. Minor 7 chords are not, in and of themselves, nonstandard, but I'm usually too lazy to use them. At the end of this demo, there's a little parallel shift. That was obviously done on the fly. Who knows if I'd end up keeping something like that.

THIRD SONG POSTED

I've been doing bad at keeping this thing up. I think in part because I have virtually no readership. That makes sense, mind you, as this blog is RIDICULOUSLY self indulgent. Still, this blog has been helpful to my process, and I should work harder at keeping it current. The more lax I am on updating, the more lax I am at making good music. Case in point, I offer my most recent FAWM song. This one is called "Covered Bridges, Lighthouses and Landscapes" and it is posted here on the FAWM site.

In short, I hate this song. There are a few reasons.

1. Dynamically, it's flat. Now, a lot of this is in the way I chose to play the song, but some of it is built in. Some of me thinks that's not necessarily a bad thing. I increasingly regret my decision to put the song in the key of F. While I can sing a comfortable highish mid range in F, it doesn't allow me much else. The low octave of F that I can sing is strained, and my options for going higher are essentially out the window. So the song starts out in the same place it stays, vocally. This completely undercuts the bridge, for example, which basically sounds exactly like the chorus, but with different chords.

2. The lyrics are garbage. I should be above this sort of hokey crap by now. This whole, "one big metaphor" thing has not worked for me in the past, and it's probably not going to work for me in the future. I always feel transparent when I do things like this. That is not to say I can't take this metaphor and use it somewhere, but it should not be the entire lyrical content. I think in my last song, "Skull Mansion", I made good use of the line about snowflakes, which was a good multi-layered line. So I should be able to use this whole "puzzle" bullshit somewhere, but I need to balance it out with something.

UNRELATED

I need to figure out what this change is and rip it off. It's like a minor to major shift, and it might be a simple parallel change or it might be something else, but it sounds pretty awesome. I'll have to sit down with a guitar and work it out at some point.