The Creative Process, Two Examples

With a new album coming out, I thought it would be fun to use 2 songs as examples of how I come up with this stuff. the 2 songs are The Day and The Eyes That I See, both from Whispers (From a Forgotten Memory). 

The songs can be heard here, mrprimitivemusic.com, just click on the This Week's Song ( yeah, I know, there's nothing like a little self-promotion).

The first song, The Day, came about while I was goofing on a descending A-minor chord. I've always liked finger picked songs even if I didn't do many if at all in the past, but when I picked up the guitar again back in 2010 I decided to mix it up a bit. I don't have an actual explanation or reason for any particular chord progression I hit upon other than I think it works, or to my ear, sounds good. Chord-wise, it's pretty simple, Am, E7, F#, G, D, and A. The lyrics came one day as the song was playing in my head and I thought it would be fun to have to verses that could be cross-sung at the end. Throw in a couple of bridges and there you have it. I know how that sounds but after all this time doing this that's really what happens.
The lyrics are meant to evoke a sense of endings and renewals; of the cycles that govern life and death; you know, upbeat stuff.
The production is also fairly simple. Two guitars, left and right, one through a chorus pedal, the other through a delay. On the workstation, which is a fancy term for a keyboard that does lots of different sounds and rhythms, I added a cello and vibes. For the intro and outro, a bright steel stringed acoustic guitar. On the vocals, I sing on the right and Nancy on the left; during the bridges, I used both of Nancy's recorded tracks to give us stereo Nancy.
The overall production was meant, as does the whole album, to be an homage to the sounds I loved from the 60's and 70's; think sensitive singer-songwriters.


The Eyes That I See, was a product of an impulse buy, a Seagull dulcimer.

I thought wouldn't it be fun to have one of those!

I didn't have an actual need for it and had no idea how to play it.
The dulcimer is tuned to D (DAD high to low with the high D double stringed). Playing it reminded me of Celtic music and after a while the melody that would become the song presented itself to me. I was intrigue by the idea of doing a song with a spritely melody and anguished lyrics. At this point, I knew that the album's theme was memory and how it interweaves itself into our daily lives. In this instance, and because I had the idea that Celtic music could be about a love promised that ends too soon. What I ended up with is a song of regret and longing for a lost love.
The production, like The Day, is fairly simple; the dulcimer, a Dobro left and right (also tuned to D), synth bass, and a Cajon, tambourine, and floor tom for the percussion. Vocals are a single voice as lead vocal and a building chorus as the song progresses with a new voice added following each of the verses and adding to the bridges. It starts with the beat, the Cajon, that represents the beating heart, then the Dulcimer, then a single voice, then the Dobros, the tambourine; always insistent. The chorus represents a building sense of loss and finality till at the end they are just an echo of lost promises and lost lives. It builds till there is nothing left but remorse.

I really liked how the songs turned out.


Whispers (From a Forgotten Memory) will be released on Nov. 10th, 2017.