One More New Song

Another song became reality for me today. Its creation did seem to be more deliberate, coming in a rare way for the music I create. I thought up an idea while in the process of listening to a song by, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, from their album, "Looking Forward".  My intention in that moment was to simply listen to this album, because it is new to me. The tune is called, "Stand Up and Be Counted," although; the song has no actual baring on the song I wrote, it is merely a coincidence. Yet the kind of music that those guys have made has always influenced me and the way I seem to make my own music.

I am trying to write about the process of writing and composing in this blog. For this particular song, I am less than willing to state much of this songs content with specificity. The subject really has little baring on the process in reality. Now the last song I wrote about came to me in a very different way. The first lines of that song came out at its inception, while with this one a question came up, a question that becomes a statement of fact in reality. This question, although pertinent to the theme, is something that I chose to use more as a summary at the end, rather than placing it at the lead off position in the song.

Thus having found a subject that had no previous supporting story, the story had yet to be told, so I went about writing the supporting story. The subject is what we would call current events. Thus the only real challenge was to write it in the form of poetic verse, that had a suiting rhythmic phrasing. After writing one verse, I got out the guitar to figure out a structured rhythm that could be suited to the cadence my mind was imagining. I figured out a tune in Bm, having 4 chords, in 4/4 time, as the A part. With that I quickly developed a melody for the vocal part and sang through this first verse. It worked well enough, although not knowing what the lyric is, singing it was very fractured. It seemed sound enough, so I put the guitar back down and set out to write another verse to enhance, building on the story. With a second verse complete, it was time to introduce the chorus or the B part. Using the line I had previously typed out in the word processor, with its question, it demanded an explanation, so I went about creating one, comparatively equaling the structure of the two verses already completed.

When I again tried singing these lyrics, the total seemed off but I didn't know why. So I thought about it soon realizing I had fallen into a trap of familiarity, the chord sequence was equal to that of another song of mine. To use that again would really lack a place at my table, so I changed the whole thing up. First I dabbled with some 5/4 timing, but that is just a bit too out there for my desires at this point. Sitting here in this moment, I again feel a want to dabble in that 5/4 rhythm at some time in the future. However I settled in with a 3/4 time and changed up the chord structure quite significantly, though I did keep it in a Bm. Where the original idea, when using the 4/4 time had a moderate tempo, I slowed this one down a bit, phrasing the verse in a way that each line of verse took up two cycles of the chord progression to complete. In the previous attempt, while in 4/4 time, the lines were sung within one repetition of the chord pattern.

I then played the song enough to allow making a rough recording without too many errors.. When that was completed, I didn't even listen to it, instead, after saving the data, I shut down the programs that held them and went back to listening to CSNY. Right now when reflecting on that decision, I find it odd. Yet I was lacking a forceful desire to continue with the process at that point, so I was done with it for the time being. I lack any preconceived idea of this song as to its quality or if it will stay in its current form, or be altered again in the days to come.

 

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Post writing edit/insert

Today, is December 26 2021.  I just published the song that was referred to above.  I should tell here, that I did go back and do some editing to the song along its life's course.  I put it back into 4/4 time and changed the key of E minor. 

I also did an unusual thing for my works, in that I edited the lyrics some back on January 11, 2018, the day that I finally went back to work at this song.

The title of the tune is "Oh Edward", originally it was Oh Edward, What Have You Done, but the latter phrase is not necessary.  This song is about Edward Snowden's reporting to the world what the National Security Agency of the United States of America has done to surveil the world's private communications.  Listen to the song here: Oh Edward.