Blog #2 - The Start

Blog #2 - The Start

    The last 3 days have been a blur, to say the least. I'm incredibly excited to have finally started on this project. In my original plan, I said that I was going to start with the intro track to the EP as my first burst of work, but on Monday I woke up and felt inspired to get directly started on the first official song, Lilies. As I continue my status updates for each portion of the workflow, I want to reflect on the writing process for the song and the main inspirations for each piece as I deconstruct my project time. Lilies is an acoustic guitar-centered track that I wrote about our old family dog, who passed away when I was young. It's heavily inspired by mid to late-nineties indie artists, particularly Elliot Smith (Here is an example of one of his songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FmYzACF-kg). I started the first day recording first the acoustic as the blanket layer of the song, which turned out to be a much more arduous process than I expected. The way that I am choosing to record and produce the acoustic is by laying down two different recordings of the same section and panning them onto opposite parts of the mix (i.e. one track in your right ear and one in your left). Because I wanted to get this specific effect, I had to record two of the same parts as perfectly as possible and because I tend to have a hard time recording, it took me a couple of hours. The next piece that I worked on was the ending bridge. I created a synth melody (which still gets stuck in my head from time to time) and tried to record harmonies, but they did not turn out how I wanted them. I am scrapping that idea for now but may come back to it down the line. The second day I recorded two electric guitar parts to fill out the choruses and a much-needed bass part. The rest of the day I spent par-mixing the track and sent it off to my mentor to see what his feedback would be. On Friday, I spent nearly the entire day recording the chorus vocals. Vocals are my most untrained instrument and it definitely showed in my recording process. I decided that I wanted to have the main vocal line doubled, but an octave down, and because each of the parts are at the opposite ends of my vocal range, it proved to be much more difficult than I was expecting. But at the end of the session, I was happy with the takes and began mixing to where it is now. I still need to record the verse vocals and add an intro, but I have extra time that I'm willing to put towards finishing up. I can't wait to see where the next couple of weeks take me. 

Here is the current mix of Lilies: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GewpEzAe1F8