Wonderful Time of the Year
I know it's cheesy, tacky, sacreligious and just plain silly but for some reason I do love December, the holiday season, and pretty much for all the wrong reasons. Well, one reason that isn't wrong is the weather here in California. Alternating between "ALMOST" cold, and warm/sunny is just the ideal situation for me. I hate the hot summer weather, but this is just perfect.
Secondly, I love shiny, glittery light-up decorations and such, and there is plenty to be found this year. I'm disappointed with myself for not having already gotten a tree and putting up my decorations but I have been rather busy.
Which also leads me to what I've been doing that has kept me so busy. Well I am working on music with my band Shitting Glitter, and I have been playing the piano quite a bit more than usual. The other night, I loaded all the demos for the next Shitting Glitter album on to my iPod, hooked that in to my piano, and played along to each song. I was stunned just how many songs I could play on the piano because before "Free Alongside Ship" I never gave much thought to playing Shitting Glitter songs on anything other than a synthesizer. At the occasional prospect of "acoustic" shows I would become very nervous and almost feel like a phony. I've always felt that the sign of a truly great (or at least competent) band would be their ability to strip their music down to a piano, guitar and vocals and still have the songs sound good when played by the members of the band. I can honestly say I'm at a point now where I think I could hold my own in a situation like this, and not completely fall apart (like I did when we tried to do an acoustic show on tour in San Francisco last may).
I wrote piano parts to two new songs, "Black Magic Marker" which I'd been avoiding for months because I didn't think I could add anything worthwhile to it (I liked the way it sounded with just guitar and vocals) but I came up with something that I think augments the song without taking away from it. Also I wrote a "creepy, melancholy" (described by Dylan) part to "Treasure Good Things" which I already think is going to be a stunning album closer. It's a lot different from "The Amnesty Party" and actually different from anything we've done. Brandon programmed the basic tracks on the Korg which I think makes a big difference because he tends to be much more experimental in his programming than I am. It's like I have certain parameters and boundaries I tend to keep my programming within (some exceptions include Calendar Girl and Socially Activist) and it's hard to break out of the same type of patterns and sounds. Brandon on the other hand didn't take years of music lessons like I did so he is able to have free range which is really cool and leads to some great songs. So, the part I wrote for it really ties two different worlds together, because the program sounds like some weird dungeons and dragons computer game soundtrack, and I wrote like a dramatic haunted-house type piano part for it, and then the chorus comes and it's suddenly sunshine and daffodils. Teriffic!
Last night we recorded and got much work done, so that is always a good feeling. Then I went back home to work on more video projects, which I am inundated with at the moment with the holidays coming up... some people are going to be getting some DVD's for the holidays, and I'm really excited about that. Anyway more on that later (like, after Christmas).
Until then, enjoy this most Wonderful Time of the Year!
Secondly, I love shiny, glittery light-up decorations and such, and there is plenty to be found this year. I'm disappointed with myself for not having already gotten a tree and putting up my decorations but I have been rather busy.
Which also leads me to what I've been doing that has kept me so busy. Well I am working on music with my band Shitting Glitter, and I have been playing the piano quite a bit more than usual. The other night, I loaded all the demos for the next Shitting Glitter album on to my iPod, hooked that in to my piano, and played along to each song. I was stunned just how many songs I could play on the piano because before "Free Alongside Ship" I never gave much thought to playing Shitting Glitter songs on anything other than a synthesizer. At the occasional prospect of "acoustic" shows I would become very nervous and almost feel like a phony. I've always felt that the sign of a truly great (or at least competent) band would be their ability to strip their music down to a piano, guitar and vocals and still have the songs sound good when played by the members of the band. I can honestly say I'm at a point now where I think I could hold my own in a situation like this, and not completely fall apart (like I did when we tried to do an acoustic show on tour in San Francisco last may).
I wrote piano parts to two new songs, "Black Magic Marker" which I'd been avoiding for months because I didn't think I could add anything worthwhile to it (I liked the way it sounded with just guitar and vocals) but I came up with something that I think augments the song without taking away from it. Also I wrote a "creepy, melancholy" (described by Dylan) part to "Treasure Good Things" which I already think is going to be a stunning album closer. It's a lot different from "The Amnesty Party" and actually different from anything we've done. Brandon programmed the basic tracks on the Korg which I think makes a big difference because he tends to be much more experimental in his programming than I am. It's like I have certain parameters and boundaries I tend to keep my programming within (some exceptions include Calendar Girl and Socially Activist) and it's hard to break out of the same type of patterns and sounds. Brandon on the other hand didn't take years of music lessons like I did so he is able to have free range which is really cool and leads to some great songs. So, the part I wrote for it really ties two different worlds together, because the program sounds like some weird dungeons and dragons computer game soundtrack, and I wrote like a dramatic haunted-house type piano part for it, and then the chorus comes and it's suddenly sunshine and daffodils. Teriffic!
Last night we recorded and got much work done, so that is always a good feeling. Then I went back home to work on more video projects, which I am inundated with at the moment with the holidays coming up... some people are going to be getting some DVD's for the holidays, and I'm really excited about that. Anyway more on that later (like, after Christmas).
Until then, enjoy this most Wonderful Time of the Year!
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