Now in the End...Part 1

 The hard work is done, I say with some satisfaction. Only took 3 years. 

As the last 4 posts have covered, I got the songs written, and recorded, and put in an order that I think makes them work well with one another; a nice flow from beginning to end. And isn't that what we all want?

The bigger questions come next, the biggest being: are you going to release the songs for distribution? This is different that passing out thumb drives, or sending out audio files to friends and relatives. This is creating artwork, having physical copies made, if desired, and finding a distributor.

We're now in the business end of things.

Artwork

Gotta have artwork. Just do. It can be a simple photo with a title across it. It can be a full-fledged work of art, something you create or have created by an artist. And it must be large enough, by pixel, to meet the requirements of many of the places you may choose to put it out for you, otherwise it'll look terrible. 

Physical copies

This can be CDs, good ol' vinyl records, labelled thumb drives. The companies that make them will need artwork of commensurate quality, they'll decline it if it doesn't meet their requirements, and hi-res audio files: FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, and DSD. No mp3s. You'll need these for copyright, as well. Vinyl has its own issues with required mastering and wait times given the upswing in interest. You'll also need to make sure your songs will fit. Welcome to the good old days.

Distribution

You'll need this if you want your music on Spotify, Tidal, Deezer, Apple Music Amazon, YouTube, etc. Companies like Distrokid, CD Baby, Tunecore, Ditto, Record Union, and many more. I went with CD Baby basically for simplicity and that they have a one time charge and cover nearly all of the streaming services. But that's just me. Yes, they take a cut.

Head hurt yet?

Don't worry, there's more. We'll look at fun things like ASCAP/BMI and Sound Exchange and copyright and Bandcamp in our next exciting installment.

©2022 David William Pearce

The Beginning of the End...Part 4

 

Let's Put This All Together

The songs are done. Alright. Is that it? Are we done? 

Heck no.

So, now what?

The next great adventure is setting the songs in order...assuming you have any interest in that. And, believe it not, it is a part of the process of putting a record out. I know this because I've read enough articles and interviews with bands and artists over the years discussing just how and why they put this song here or that song there to know that it's a part of the game.

And, it can be a lot of fun. Why? Because you get to listen to all your great new songs over and over again (this doesn't count the many times you went through them while recording and mixing and mastering).

The album playlist, the order in which the recording are played, assuming the listener plays them in order, is fairly important as it defines the flow the album will take when listened to. Do you want to get out of the gate fast? Then begin with a flashy number—one that sets the tone; think Hells Bells on AC/DC's Back in Black. Or maybe there's a song that defines the mood or theme of the album, say if it's all about love or a sign of the times. Maybe it's just a party album and you want the groove going right out the door.

Once that's set, lay out all the other songs and see how they fit together. If it's a CD or straight to Soundcloud or Bandcamp there's no need to find a break to flip over the record. (I never thought that would come back into vogue, but...people are buying vinyl again. Just don't know if they're actually spinning the records on a turntable.) Decide what goes where. The best way to work this out is to move them around and find what sounds best to you. Like I said, you'll be listening to the songs a lot.

Now if every song sounds the same, put the best one first—that's your single.

Next is artwork

This I leave up to you. Just make sure it's big enough and available in the right format. We'll get to that when we send it out and if we decide to have physical copies made.

©2022 David William Pearce

The Beginning of the End...Part 3

 

Recording

Because we live in the era of recorded music, it seems the logical endpoint is to want your songs to have a recorded version. Something to play for those who might want to hear it, in all its sonic glory (hopefully). Something to be remembered by. 

Then there's the nuts and bolts of it, which most songwriters and performers are unfamiliar with. The good ol' tech stuff.

Me, I record my own music. I do it because in the beginning I couldn't afford to rent time in a studio. 10 grand was a lot of money, and still is. So I got a 4-track recorder and over time taught myself how to make a decent recording. These days I have a 32-track digital studio (Tascam) on which I work my magic. I have outboard gear and pedals that I run the mics and instruments through; guitars, keyboards, and drums to perform on (I don't program the sounds mainly because I haven't taught myself to, and I'm reasonably proficient as a player so I shouldn't need to). 

The Process

Once I have to chords and lyrics to a song, I create a scratch track of the main instrument, which for me is either a guitar or a keyboard, and one for the lead vocal. From there I put together the song. Usually at that point I have a good idea of how I want the song to sound, which additional instruments to add, vocals, and the like. For the most part I get what I'm going for, but also I find that which I did not expect, which is the beauty of experimentation. Frustrations happen, but as you work through it, good things come through. Some might find this a fascinating process, others bored to tears. Playing the part requires you getting a clean take without mistakes, which sometimes means multiple takes. And every blue moon you get to the end of recording the parts and realize it's not going to work and you have to start over. I've been fortunate that that hasn't happened too often.

Pretty exciting, huh?

Like I said: nuts and bolts. How long a song takes is usually dependant on how simple or complex the arrangement. A guitar and vocal generally go quick. Multiple guitars, voices, keys, percussion, take more time and make mixing a more time consuming affair.

Mixing/Mastering

Mixing is putting it all together into something that sounds great, which isn't as easy as it sounds—exactly. It's like officiating: do it well and no one notices; do it poorly and everyone complains. I personally go for clear and clean, rather than loud and compressed, which often lends itself to muddy thick recording or all low end, some high end, and no real middle. 

I record with the mix in mind, meaning I add whatever effects directly to the track when recording it. The only variable then when mixing is reverb, which I do through the board so it can be adjusted in the mix. This makes the mixing easier because you're basically panning (moving the sound left and right) and setting track sound levels, while not also trying to find the right effects as well. Mostly this is because I don't have a beautiful Neve mixing board and a big room of outboard gear. 

Mastering is a fancy term for setting the right amount of compression across the entire song versus individual tracks after setting the final mix. I'm not a fan of all the massive compression found in pop and rock music these days. I run it through a standard program that's part of my recorder.

If you've gotten this far and haven't fallen asleep, congratulations. Like I said, nuts and bolts.

Next, making sense of what you've got.

©2022 David William Pearce

The Beginning of the End... Part 2

 

In the beginning was the music, and mostly, it was good...Got to have the songs to do anything.

The Music.

We all approach how we write our songs in our own way, to state the obvious. For me, the music always come first. It's possible that I've written a song from a lyric, but if I have I don't remember it. The music comes to me mostly in my head: I'll hear something (music is always dancing around in my head) and try to replicate it on the guitar, or every blue moon on a keyboard. Sometimes it comes from goofing around while I'm practicing other music and my mind wonders. This happens often. Sometimes I'm playing through a cover and that sparks an idea. I also tend to write in batches and have unfinished songs sitting around as I work through the other songs I'm recording.

It was in these unfinished songs that I went from Whispers (From a Forgotten Memory) to This Wonderful Life, with Winter in the middle. 

Organizing songs.

Since the early 80s, I tend to organize the songs I'm working on around a common theme, and having written 2 albums, We Three and Whispers, around the personal and intimate, I wanted to work on something else. I wanted to talk about the world we live in, as I had in the late 80s and those times. (Remarkably, or perhaps not, little seems to have changed.) Some of this was started when I was asked to write a song for a benefit to support homeless mothers and their children. I don't generally write to spec, but it's good to challenge yourself periodically. What came out was A Mother's Arms, and it was the spark that got me moving.

I know that most of the people I associate with in the songwriting community are not recording artists (a somewhat pretentious term, but that's how I see myself, as recording is what I focused on most with my songs), and because of that, I always hear the songs arranged with multiple instruments as I work on them before I ever start recording, and being a DIY guy since the 80s, it seems perfectly natural to do this.

Consequently, all these songs were taking form in my head as they came to me, and it was as that point that I decided to push myself to create a kind of musical journey (more possible pretentiousness) that drew from all the years of listening to and making music. I wanted to, in a sense, memorialize the music of my life—to create my part in all the music that I'd loved over the years. In this instance, I tried to structured the songs based on the genre they came from, whether they would have definable verses, choruses, and bridges.

The lyrics.

For the most part, I'm a terrible procrastinator when it comes to lyrics. Songs will sit around for months before I put any words to them. Mostly because I want the lyrics to mean something. Some songs are just for fun, are meant to be simple; there's no need for them to be anything beyond that. Dance music is like that: it's meant to be danced to, you're not going to spend any length of time listening to them with headphones in order to really understand the song (think the difference between a disco tune and a Dylan tune). I like lyrics that can be read with many meanings, but in the simplest way. I think for the most part I've succeeded. This Wonderful Life is full of these kind of songs. I also like the music and the lyrics to work together, I want the mood the music creates to inform the feel of the lyrics if that makes sense. 

All together now.

Once the songs have a musical structure and lyrics, it's time to record.

©2021 David William Pearce

The Beginning of the End...Pt 1

I've found that often I have much I'd like to say, but don't say, mostly because others are already saying it—probably better—and my two-cents will go unremarked. And as I have other outlets for writing what falls into my febrile mind, this blog often goes quiet for longer periods than I'd like. So maybe it's time to let go, save for a last hurrah.

Which got me thinking...

As the above photo illustrates, I have a new album, This Wonderful Life, that will be released on January 7th.  In the following series of posts, I'm going to bring you along this mostly solitary endeavor (which is of my own making, which I'll explain later) from starting to finishing.

I'm doing this mainly as an exercise, to share what I've learned over many years. We'll make a record, have physical copies made, copyright the album, register it (or more precisely make sure it gets registered) with publishers and PROs, in my ASCAP, as well as SoundExchange, so that whatever revenue the songs produce, I'll get my cut. 

Part 1.

In the beginning was the idea and the sounds in my head—and there are always sounds in my head. Having finished Whispers (From a Forgotten Memory), I rashly decided to start another series of songs about the world we live in these days—something I'd done with albums Apologia and Nothing Left to Say, among others. This was in late 2018. That it took more than 3 years is more a monument to my going in too many different directions and that the project itself grew as the years passed.

Initially, it was supposed to be 8 songs on social issues with the title of Primitive Desires, and the early songs, for the most part reflected that, but...

I was also working on Winter, an album of songs I wrote in 1984, that I had originally planned to record with a band in 1985. That didn't work out, but I'd always harbored the idea that I should record the songs proper-like. So naturally, it made sense to record those songs while I was working on This Wonderful Life. And as happens when you're working on two things at the same time, one inevitably takes over. I finished Winter in 2019, all the while continuing to write songs for This Wonderful Life.

I had 13 songs at that point, and again rashly decided to do a traditional double album, which to me meant two 8 songs sides, like all the dinosaur bands I grew up with and admired. Seemed appropriate. Anyway, with Covid slamming the door on all our use-to-be-normal get-togethers, I used the time to work on the songs, and I challenged myself to go for it, to push my limits of ability and gear.

In the end I did that.

Next: Part 2, the songs...

©2021 David William Pearce

Ah, The Tangled Webs We Weave...

 I'll confess up front that I'm not a big Taylor Swift fan, and that's not a knock on those who are (less I get the Gyllenhaal treatment). However, having read about her performance on SNL of All Too Well, I decided to see for myself. It's quite a performance and I recommend any nascent or new to performing player to watch it closely.

As to the song itself, two thoughts come to mind. It's a beautiful song, particularly the lyrics, and as with all things musical, once out it becomes the providence of whoever is drawn to it. 

The song is an ode to a failed romance and the poor way in which the singer, Swift, is treated by her lover. A young woman, deeply in love with a cad, who is cavalier with her feelings and those of her family. The music is fine but it is the lyrics, and Swift's delivery of them, that cut to the bone. They are that good. The ache, the longing, the heartbreak, the anger; it's all there. So it's easy to see why people, particularly her fans, which I'll hazard are mostly women, see themselves, or their experiences, in it.

That brings up the second part. Obviously, the song is Swift's: it chronicles an episode in her life that was to her very profound (I assume). This is evident in her delivery; there's no need for theatrics, it is simply her channeling her grief and anger (again, I assume). It is then remarkable, though probably expected, that her fans would take it upon themselves to excoriate Gyllenhaal (as well as his family and friends) for his treatment of her. I find this deeply ironic because there's no way they could top Swift's lyrics in its dissection of his behavior.

This brings in another point: since so many people don't actually know either Swift or Gyllenhaal (including me, hence the notes above), or have any first hand knowledge of their relationship 11 years ago, everything that impresses or offends them is of their own making; their own projection onto this pair that dated for a few months in 2010. Fame is an elusive thing with many wanting it and few finding it. Swift's song gives the listener all they'll ever need to see it as they want to: either of her and her honor (I suppose) or their own. It also seems pretty obvious that Swift doesn't mind her fans taking the ball and running with it. Whatever happened between her and Gyllenhaal, which she herself neither confirms nor denies, is left to the imagination of those who identify with it. For good or for bad.

I bring this up because I have a song on my latest album that talks about the freighted relationships we have with our musical idols, about how invested we become in them even as we know so little, truly, about them; that it is purely a projection, upon them, of how their music affects us. Consequently, I find the topic fascinating.

©2021 David William Pearce

To Perform or Not to Perform...

 

As we ease on down the road out of perdition, however cautious or foolhardy, for musicians and performers the question arises: will you or won't you?

Odd as it may seem, some are reluctant after so long a break. Including me...which I'll confess I find surprising. I'd gotten into a pretty good groove prior to the pandemic. At least 1 open mic a week, sometimes 2, hosting and open mic once a month and having people over to play—I was setting up to host house concerts. That all ended rather abruptly. Naturally, it was assumed I would also play, which I did.

Will I now?

It should be a no-brainer. I have a new album that'll be done soon. Songs I released last year that I haven't had a chance to play for people. And all the songs I played before. If they were good enough then...

Still. Many are itching to get back out there. One assumes that the line will be long at restarted open mics, showcases, plain old shows, with all of us there to listen and play, working out the kinks and cobwebs and getting back to our old selves.

Except our old selves we left back in March of 2020.

And maybe that's part of it.

Having performed in the past in a certain contained way, I have the desire to open up, be free, all that old hippie vibe stuff, except there's always the fear of not getting it right, to not pull it off, and while I'm old enough to know that I don't have to prove anything, I don't want to get it wrong, or, even worse, just blow through it.

So, we'll see. 

First I have to finish the album.

©2021 David William Pearce