Stage One - Ambience

I opened up Logic with a bass guitar in hand and some ideas in mind. My ideas ranged from 70s horror film soundtracks to Western folk songs. I started by playing some midi notes into Logic's virtual bass guitar and recording my finger clicking to create this demo:



After booking a studio, I began by routing my bass guitar to the guitar amp and started mic-ing that up, experimenting with a process called re-amping.

I started out with some effects, trying to produce something ambient with a guitar. I was heavily inspired by Tangerine Dream’s style of sequencing synths to produce a sort of ethereal atmosphere with an element of percussion and tension. Some of this was accomplished through polyrhythms generated by the delay, and by activating the guitar in different ways, such as: quick brushing, tapping the body, pickups and neck.

Stage Two - Composition

One song that I liked the composition of recently was ‘(Yo la tengo - False Alarm, 1995); this song begins with a guitar wailing, imitating an alarm, then the drums come in with the bass guitar. I really liked how this was pieced together, as I feel that the quieter intro that was less dense enhanced the impact of the second half of the composition.

This 'Loud Quiet Loud' technique was popularised by The Pixies. David Bowie said that the key element which made them an influential band was "their pure dynamics, the very obvious now but not obvious at the time dynamic of keeping the verse extremely quiet and then ... it erupting into a blaze of noise" (Bowie, 2002). This was key inspiration for my composition as it allowed me to create a greater sense of change between the sections.

I teamed up with Arthur Robinson, (the drummer of indie-pop band Autocamper) to play drums for my composition, we toyed around with a couple of briefs that we worked on together, some of these started with short sentences such as 'cartoon chase scene' and '60s bossa nova'. We settled on one that I felt contrasted the first section well enough.

[Arthur Robinson (Iplu / Autocamper) Pictured In the Central Image]

Stage Three - Bass & Time

Me and my friend Hazel worked together to compose a bass guitar part reminiscent of 70s horror soundtracks such as ‘Black Forest’ (Goblin, 1977), although part of my brief was to help bring some structure to the song to help make way for the lyrics so we decided on a 4/4 time signature as this helps to provide a set structure for me to write the lyrics, however the negative aspect of this is that it restricts your ability to write the lyrics since you're always trying to consider whether or not they would fit into the composition seamlessly.

Inspired by songwriters such as John Linnell (They Might Be Giants) who always begin their writing process "starting with the music and the melody" (Linnell, 2003) so that "the lyrics and the music ... have some interesting kind of collision or concordance or contradiction" (Linnell, 2003) which is evident in the song 'Stuff Is Way' because Linnell wrote equally abstract lyrics to fit the song, an opposing example would be how he wrote the song 'I Broke My Own Rule' where the melody is a scale, contrasting this by writing about his own error.

I felt that this method would allow me to represent the obscured meaning of the song, leaving the lyrics more over to interpretation.

[Hazel Pictured In Left Image]

Stage Four - Lyrics

After recently having rats invade my house, I thought it could be a good topic to base the lyrics around as it has affected my life personally, this is Taylor Swift’s method of songwriting which is “confessional” as she draws from her ”own life and my own stories” (Swift, 2013). I also felt that I would be able to express the experience in a fun manner whilst exaggerating in a couple of places to make the lyrics more engaging.

When writing the lyrics I started out with a core concept in mind, however I felt the original lyrics had been too heavy-handed about the song's subject. Rats were mentioned too frequently, which became an issue since I didn't want the listener to know the song was about rats until the word was explicitly mentioned. For this, I was inspired by Lloyd Cole's 1987 song 'My Bag' which is from the perspective of a cocaine-addicted narrator, but he obscured the lyrics to such an extent where the meaning is still present but it's able to be interpreted in different ways to the extent where "it will mean different things to different people" (Cole, 2008). I was really drawn to this method because I feel that it makes the listener contemplate the meaning of the lyrics in more depth.

After writing the lyrics I thought a sample would help to give the composition greater depth by using a vocal sample about an invasion of territory during war times, whilst helping to reinforce the previous lyrics. "the samples ... give it ... more structure" (Public Service Broadcasting, 2013) which I feel helps to create a sense of progression through the song and builds tension towards the climax of the second section.

Stage Five - Twang Guitar

For the final segment I came up with the concept of writing three guitar parts that would be layered together.



The first of the guitar parts is the main layer, which holds the core melody and is constant throughout.

The second guitar part is the high frequency layer which accompanies and accentuates certain parts of the main layer.

The third guitar part plays the lower frequencies which add the darker undertones to the overall composition.

I found out that by putting this into practise, I was able to achieve a greater sense of depth.
Another vital decision in this recording process for the final section talked about here is the fact that I decided to record this without a click track, as this segment was intended to represent decay and societal collapse I felt that it would provide a subtle sense of disorder whilst developing the 'rambling' style.

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading, I really enjoyed putting this project together and I hope you found it amusing!

References

Yo la tengo - False Alarm (1995). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f_RslWBFAo.

Goblin (1977) Black Forest Goblin. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHZfaC5r7Gs.

Linnell, J. (2003) 'They Might Be Giants: Bed, Bed, Bed Children’s Book,' NPR, 26 November. https://www.npr.org/2003/11/26/1523055/they-might-be-giants. (TRANSCRIPTED HERE: https://tmbw.net/wiki/Don%27t_Let%27s_Start )

Bowie, D. (2002) Channel 4 Pixies Documentary 'Gouge' Interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7VhNjZXALU (Accessed: December 20, 2024).

Swift, T. (2013) 'Taylor Swift talks favorite Christmas songs, next album,' EW.com, 24 December. https://ew.com/article/2013/12/23/taylor-swift-christmas/.

Public Service Broadcasting (2013) Interview: Public Service Broadcasting - Soundsphere magazine. https://www.soundspheremag.com/features/interview-public-service- broadcasting/.

Cole, L. (2008) 'My bag - lloydcole.com,' lloydcole.com -, 18 May. https://www.lloydcole.com/my-bag/ (Accessed: December 19, 2024).