One Song Per Week

Luke Burrage

A lot of my friends are doing some kind of "one x per day" or "one x per week" challenge for the year. This was inspired by various other friends who took a photo a day for a year. My brother is making an experimental video per week, a friend Paul is going a gadget/furniture/electronics building project per week, that kind of thing.

I'm away from home for 6 weeks, down in Lisbon out of the Berlin cold weather, but I brought my guitar and laptop and mixer and keyboard and all the right software. It's been a long time since I properly produced my own songs, so I've decided to write and record one song per week for the 6 weeks I'm in Portugal.

In the last 24 hours I wrote and recorded this track: Just give me time

I recorded the guitar and vocals while videoing myself, so I could share it on youtube, but the camera seems to record at a different speed than the laptop, and I couldn't get the synchronization right. Maybe I'll make another video attempt after the weekend, but for now an MP3 will have to do. I'll probably re-record the vocals too, or get a better singer to record them for me

Note about the lyrics: The song isn't about a relationship or a breakup. I have a fucked sciatic nerve at the moment, so I'm using crutches for walking and spending a lot of time laying flat in bed. This song is written from the point of view of my sciatic nerve, and is sung to the rest of my body.


Next song within one week... see you then!

MrRoboto

I kinda pictured it and laughed.
I'm actually doing a charcoal portrait per day (but am way to self conscious to share)

Sail

This is going to stimulate your creativity a lot. JoCo had his breakout moment while he was doing his Thing A Week series, as have others when doing similar things.

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One Song Per Week

Thing a Week.

I don't think something like this will go anywhere unless you are already skilled at what you are going to do each week. An experimental video a week? One week? That sounds to be just too little to make any worthwhile video.

MrRoboto

One Song Per Week

Thing a Week.

I don't think something like this will go anywhere unless you are already skilled at what you are going to do each week. An experimental video a week? One week? That sounds to be just too little to make any worthwhile video.

Really, cause one or two weeks is what you get for short assignments in both animation and film school down here, most are 1 or 2 min long, you do it to improve, to better yourself. Kinda like "practice makes perfect"

kiwi_bird

Do you create all the instruments with just your guitar and keyboard?

Luke Burrage

Do you create all the instruments with just your guitar and keyboard?

This is where the software comes in. I use Cubase 4 for all non-vocal and non-guitar instruments. The keyboard is just a tiny usb/midi device for playing in the right notes. Once I find the right notes I find the instrument I want and tweak the synth settings it until it fits. In this case I wanted the piece to be driven by strings, so I used a slow string pad (legato everything), then made a dual cello sound for the lower cello lead, then a solo cello for the later and higher cello lead. The highest note of the cello is actually a bit high, and it loses a bit of its celloness, but I'm not so partial to the feel of viola or violin. I added pizzas (pizzicato stings) right out the box. Drums are from the standard midi drumset but put through a guitar distortion to give them a crispier feel. Bass is a fretless acoustic jazz bass, but with an extra delayed attack and played an eighth note too soon to give it a swelling sound. Oh, and an piano sound too. Then I sing out of tune over the whole thing. Guitar I played in while I sang, through some filters to make it sound like the strings aren't nylon, and taken low in the mix.

On the song writing side of things I wanted to go back to basic for the first song in this series. It's in the key of C/Am and uses a simple pentatonic scale (except for one note in the chorus). I first wrote it in a 3/4 time, switching to 4/4 for the chorus, but cut back on that for simplicity's sake, and the only timing distortion is at the end of the chorus, just after the break of the pentatonic scale, emphasizing the "I am going to hurt you more" line. Maybe I over think these things. For the next song I'm thinking of going up a single note and writing it in dorian mode from D. And spending more time on the lyrics.

Luke Burrage

This is going to stimulate your creativity a lot. JoCo had his breakout moment while he was doing his Thing A Week series, as have others when doing similar things.

I'm not looking for a breakout moment, just the inspiration.

Thing a Week.

I don't think something like this will go anywhere unless you are already skilled at what you are going to do each week. An experimental video a week? One week? That sounds to be just too little to make any worthwhile video.

I'm pretty skilled at what I do, so I hope to just get better. This afternoon I spent some time downloading the first half of Jonathan Coulton's Thing A Week music, and had a lot of fun listening to it. The difference here is that Coulton was a professional musician extending his repertoire and fan base, and I'm a professional juggler finding something I can do while my leg is fucked.

Apsup

I don't think something like this will go anywhere unless you are already skilled at what you are going to do each week. An experimental video a week? One week? That sounds to be just too little to make any worthwhile video.

I believe that could really help one, because even if you don't use all your skill and do as good things as you can, you have to force yourself to finish things and doing one finished piece of work is a lot better than ten unfinished ones. What I mean is that if one has problems doing enough stuff to improve setting that kind of limits to yourself makes you really go and do stuff and that always results in improvement in one's work.

Luke Burrage

It turns out that 24 hours wasn't enough time for me to be happy with the track. I sorted the drums and did a whole new mix. I'm much happier now. All I want now is a better singer to sing it for me.

Just Give Me Time - a much better version.

kiwi_bird

All I ant now is a better singer to sing it for me.

I think you just have to practice singing A LOT more.

Luke Burrage

I think you just have to practice singing A LOT more.

Three years ago I was much better, as I was singing and playing the guitar a lot more. As a juggler, I'm well aware that practice makes you better at stuff.

WindUpBird

I could in theory do a song per week in Renoise...two nights ago I composed a nice little riff for a house track in the Promethian scale. Maybe I'll do it second semester when I can slow down on homework.

Kate Monster

All I want now is a better singer to sing it for me.

I am sure you have a friend with a good and/or trained voice. Ask them to lay down some vocals for you when you are home for long enough. I have done this for a few of my friends when they needed a voice.

Luke Burrage

All I want now is a better singer to sing it for me.

I am sure you have a friend with a good and/or trained voice. Ask them to lay down some vocals for you when you are home for long enough. I have done this for a few of my friends when they needed a voice.

This is what I'm finding annoying, I used to have a much better voice. The last time I recorded myself singing I was a lot happier with my voice. For example, check out the other music in the http://www.lukeburrage.com/music/ folder any you'll find a lot more confident singing. The production is a lot simpler, as the songs were recorded to be put on an mp3 player and given to my girlfriend as a christmas present. I just need practice and to regain my confidence.

In other news: today I got inspiration for my next song, and it has a handy topic to make a video too. But I'll work on it later, as today my project is Python programming.

Luke Burrage

There was a bit of a mad rush to get this song done in time, but this evening it all sort of fell together and I finished the writing and layout of the song in the last hour or so. You can listen here:

On The Hill

It's a lot more upbeat than last week's song, as I "brought the funk". Bringing the funk is actually quite tricky when you don't have a bass guitar, and no electric guitar either... in fact I only have a nylon string classical guitar with me. But I think it came out just fine.

The weather here in Lisbon is fantastic, so I spend a lot of time sitting on a terrace about 200m up the hill from our apartment. It has a fantastic view and a great vibe, so I decided to write this song as a way to remember it and the pleasant evenings I'm spending there. Of course that doesn't make for a particularly interesting song, so I added in a story of meeting someone you've seen about lots, but you finally speak to them for the first time. Does it end in happiness or disappointment? Listen and find out.

I may rewrite some of the lyrics, as I'm not 100% happy with all of them. However, there are a LOT of lyrics, so I've not had time to fit every syllable perfectly. Also, I like the between bits where I didn't actually write any lyrics, and went freestyle to express emotional content.

Enjoy, and I'll post another next week (though I'll be on a ship so won't have access to any musical instruments... hmmmm).

Luke Burrage

Hmmm, no comments on the last song... and I thought it was a lot more fun than the first.

Song A Week 3: From The Start

I was away for 5 days working on a ship. Due to (continuing) nerve trouble, bad weather (leading to much vomiting on the stormy sea), and a few other issues, I found myself in a bit of an emotional state while sitting in the airport today. I didn't think I felt too bad, but my subconscious obviously had other ideas. I put on a Jack Johnson album and the opening words were "All at once/The world can overwhelm me/There's almost nothing that you could tell me/That could ease my mind" and I found myself crying into my hands. I wasn't so much sad as, exactly as it stated in the song, overwhelmed.

So, as I only had a few hours before the week was up and I hadn't even started thinking about a song, let alone recording it. There's nothing like a deadline to give me focus...

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the song.

Sail

Hmmm, no comments on the last song... and I thought it was a lot more fun than the first.

I, personally, have held off on specific comments on these songs because I really don't like them. And what I mean by that is this isn't at all the kind of music I enjoy. You seem very confident in what you've done here, very much more so than I am when I share one of my songs with people, so I'm sure that you can take my constructive criticism with a grain of salt knowing this.

Of these three, "On The Hill" was the one I could most get into. You definitely got the chorus stuck in my head for a few hours. I can't say I enjoyed having it in my head, but you achieved the most important and basic aspect of a pop song. One thing I need to say about all these songs but this song most noticeably is how fake sounding all the "instruments" are. Now, of course this isn't really your fault. Obviously you probably don't have the time or the money to invest in recording the real thing or one of those really expensive programs that are made to synthesize a specific instrument. What I'd personally prefer to hear would be something more electronic and ambiguous that still fills the role of the instrument in the song. Rather than using a midi that's supposed to sound like a "bass guitar", why not just use "bass"?

My biggest beef with the other two are the lyrics. For "Just Give Me Time", you had such a strange and interesting concept. But why did you make it so vague? I feel like, if it is from the perspective of a nerve, it should make some mention of the muscles of which it's connected or it's role in your daily life or something. They Might Be Giants does this sort of thing well. For example, the song "Birdhouse In Your Soul" is about a boy's perception of his nightlight. The song could say something like "I light your way" or something else mundane like that, but instead manages to make a lot of intelligent and witty allusions to what the song is actually about. It talks about how it's ancestors were lighthouses and compares itself to a guardian angel, stuff like that. I'd link to a YouTube for it, but they're all taken down due to the WMG claim. I'm sure you can find the song. But stuff like that would definitely make that song a lot more interesting.

There's a lot more I could say, but none of it constructively. You already know that your music isn't my cup of tea, so I'll just leave it at that. I hope this was helpful.

Luke Burrage

Thanks for the comments. A few points in return...

On confidence: If you are going to do something, why not be confident? Everything I've ever tried in life I've acquired enough skill to impress myself, and that is what is important to me. (Everything except learning a foreign language.) Why attempt to do anything if you don't think you'll be happy with the results? Confidence is just that. While I'm not very impressed with the singing so far, I think I'm on target with my main goal, and that's to get back into writing songs again. And I'm happy with all three songs so far, especially because I normally spend months or years writing and refining a song, and these I've written in just hours each. I know they'll change as I keep playing them though.

One thing I need to say about all these songs but this song most noticeably is how fake sounding all the "instruments" are.

I find it funny that you say that about this song in particular. The drums for On The Hill are taken from a live recording of someone playing real drums (though not me). All the guitar parts are played by me, with effects to make them sound more electric, lead or bass. The organ is a digital emulation of a digital synthesizer, so about as real as you can get. The singing is real too. The only instrument you could say is truly "fake" is the piano, which is used four four stabs per chorus.

But all these songs are what you call "demos". They are demonstrations of what the songs may sound like if the artist had a full studio and professional session musicians. When I have more than a laptop and a single guitar I plan on working on them more, but I'm probably not going to have access to a string section any time soon...

Lyrics: the whole point of the first song was that it would be ambiguous and vague, that was the entire concept. The last song was meant to be exactly literal, and to make it clear I even included the opening lyrics of the song I'm singing about in the chorus of the song I recorded. With all three songs I had a very clear concept in my mind as to what they would be about, and hit the nail on the head each time.

As for Birdhouse In Your Soul, I've listened to that song more times than I can count, and your explanation above is the first time I've ever had a clue what they were singing about. Good thing or bad thing, that just isn't the kind of songwriter I am. 99% of my songs tell of quite obvious situations and emotions, normally with good grammar and complete sentences and no non-sequiturs. But then again, I'm a professional juggler, not a professional songwriter or poet.

More criticism is welcome, by the way, as I'm going to take on board what you say about ambiguous electronic noises for the next song.

Sail

All the guitar parts are played by me, with effects to make them sound more electric, lead or bass.

Ah, that would make sense. The thing that most bothered me about that song was the way the bass sounded. Perhaps it really wouldn't bother other people who aren't as familiar with the sound as I.