The difficult second song

So, after the release of my first ever solo project I took a bit of a break from writing to enjoy some family time and concentrate on work and the new podcast.

BUT……. I’ve got the bug for doing more ‘me’ songs, I sat down with my 7 string guitar and started noodling around. (Results below)

My initial chordal idea.

I left the idea for a day because I was worried it strayed too far away from the style/genre of ‘voices’ (my 1st song) however I’m just going to plough on, I like it and it makes me want to write so that’s reason enough to continue.

I wrote a second riff (kinda) I certainly have the idea formulating but I can't play the rhythm that's in my head against the straight drum groove, I really want a disjointed, rhythmically interesting riff that cycles in and out of phase against the groove. Here's my progress so far.

I have rehearsed and refined the riff that was in my head and ended up adding a transition and a melodic (potentially) chorus idea.

D.A.W session as it stands.

I spent today arranging the structure of the piece and sketching out drums which was much harder than I first thought because the guitar riff doesn't cycle perfectly against the straight groove (deliberately) I am really happy with big picture of this so far, Excitingly I have TWO guest vocalists wanting to hep out with this one so VERY excited to see what happens. a melodic idea sprang to me whilst writing this ...... so chorus may be incoming soon

Logic session as of 22/06/22

structure and scratch recordings done, general drum mapping finished. I was tempted to add bass but I prefer my bass bestie Martyn’s ideas and don’t want to influence what he might write for it. (also I best ask to see if he wants to be involved haha) so I am going to focus on lyrics and melody and leave the low end goodness to a professional.

Vocal melody idea 1 A quick melodic improv idea for a chorus melody, I'm going to sit with this for a while and try to refine and add lyrics.

I had a RARE day off today and decided to invest the time in practicing my metal screams, I'm totally new at it but knew how I wanted the vocals to sound and have been trying to bring that into reality, it's nowhere near what I want YET but it's all a step in the direction of progress, my voice is now ruined hahaha but I managed to sketch a chorus melody out as well, here is the progress.

I came back to the session today with grand hopes of magic happening but it just wasn’t meant to be, I did get some rough vocals down and tidied up some sloppy parts and I’m now ready for the guest vocalists to get their verses down which will buy me some time to practice my singing/screaming as the voice is completely shot now. I had fun creating, and persevered even though things weren’t quite going to plan and I’m all about the upside. PROGRESS!!!

Latest session can be heard below.

HELLOOOOOOO! it’s been a while, life has been HECTIC! but I haven’t forgotten about my personal songwriting, in fact I am more inspired than ever to continue writing, I had a few commissions come in that I needed to focus on as well as a session and reforming my function band (woohoo!) oh and finishing my degree and planning for teaching next year…….. I still managed to get some me time squeezed in.

OK back to the song at hand, I reconnected with an old band member ‘Chad’ and spent a night tracking vocals with him at my home (his screams are waaaayyyyy better than mine which is good as it gives me some inspiration and will make me work harder to not let the song down, we got all of the vocals tracked but i would like to get chad to double my cleans in the chorus as well and his voice was shot after screaming for 3-4 hours (sorry neighbours)

I also got Martyn over to track bass for the track which was great fun but man I write some awkward rhythms, all the bass has been laid down with the exception of the BASS SOLO! which Martaaay is working on as we speak.

So probably one more recording session is needed and then its down to me to mix……….. excitingly I also have a friend who is making us a cool music video fro the song!!!!! WOAH!

Here is the track as it stands today…..

Songwriting with my daughter

So this is the second time this has happened, My daughter wanted to get involved with my music making and helped me to write the beginning of a song, she grabbed her djembe, ukulele and home made shaker (Blue Peter would be proud) and started singing : you can hear her melody in the video, and she lit up when I stuck a few chords behind her and joined in. She took the recording straight to Mum to show her, how cool!

Here is the first song my Daughter helped me to write, the initial piano melody was played by her before she went to bed, I stuck the piano on record and asked her to play for me and Mum, I took the recording and added some harmony and rhythms and built it into a fuller sounding piece to show her in the morning. I thought if nothing else this would be something cool for her to have when she’s older. Anyway enjoy! (not finished, as usual HAHA!) Her original melody can be heard being played on xylophone at 00:39.

Going Solo

Today I started writing my FIRST SOLO SONG!!!! I started writing with the only intention being to complete a song from start to finish that I am proud of. I will try to document the process so you can all see my thought process and struggles as I move forward with the project. At the end of the process I will publish the song and put it out into the world and move on, hopefully some people will like it?

For the sake of context, I have never written, produced and performed an entire solo song before, I am usually a hired gun (guitarist) or work with others to produce their own music, so this is an entirely new experience for me. I deliberately tried to stay away from my comfort blanket of reaching for my guitar, although spoiler alert it does make a justified appearance.

I begun writing the song on a Friday morning at around 6:00am whilst waking myself up with a coffee.

Started messing round at a piano (6:00am) whilst having a coffee. Came up with a cool haunting chord sequence and a starting of a melody.

I started to record the piano parts and basic melodies, I got pretty carried away as I could hear an orchestral section building in my mind so I nerded out on that for a while, the song now has a loose structure and shape but the sections don’t gel together very pleasingly. Next step is LYRICS. I really struggle with this but will try and push through to write something meaningful and that doesn’t make me die of cringe!

I listened to the recording of the song on repeat and it made me think about a family member that means an awful lot to me who I have kind of lost touch with, I started writing out words and phrases, feelings and anything that came to mind before I started trying to construct them into a story. Although it’s not finished I know the story I want to tell and how the music will try and support that, and I now actually quite like the jarring change between the verse and chorus sections as it suits the context of the song. I recorded a rough version of the vocal line for verse and chorus to help me continue writing and generate more ideas. You can listen below if you like.

This is a snippet of the verse and chorus sections as they currently stand.

Took a break from lyrics as I haven’t had much time today and wanted to unwind with some guitar. I decided to work on improvising over the Bm chord vamp that makes up most of the verse to see if any melodic ideas popped out (some cool things did happen) I explain my approach to improv in the 1st video and you can have a listen to the actual improv rehearsal in the second video.

Feeling out of a B drone improv using Bm triads and pentatonic shapes. Gathering some melodic ideas and trying to familiarise myself with the fretboard.

Second full day working on this, really struggling with finding vocal melodies that fit my voice but for the most part the general shape of the piece and the melodic shape are about there. I think today I have found that just accepting the sound quality of my voice has been the biggest challenge, I hate the muffled, nasal character in my voice but I am still pretty chuffed that I powered through the process though and came out the other side with a piece i’m becoming a lot happier with; and the vocal stuff is something I will hopefully get more confident with as I continue with voice lessons and just using my voice more.

I also asked a couple of close musician friends for some feedback to help me out a little in deep waters and it felt good to just show someone else my voice ‘warts and all’ and makes the whole process feel a little less daunting, now it’s out there I feel a bigger sense of freedom and dare I say “drive’ to get it finished!

Ok, so at this point I have come to really like the disjointed movement between the chorus, moving back into the (orchestral) verse which is something I initially regretted doing. It definitely suits the character of the song, and I purposefully tried to avoid writing a conventional pop song structure in favour of trying to tell a story first and foremost. I suppose it’s closer to a musical number than pop song? (or at least in my mind it is) I have had to remind myself that the purpose of writing this first solo project is to prove to myself that a) I can do it, b) songwriting is a craft that takes time to get better at, and c) nobody cares; the only person that this really needs to get anything from the process is me! I know people might not like/understand it or critique it harshly, but actually the process so far has been pretty therapeutic and I know I will come out the other side a slightly better version of myself. I am aiming to put another couple of hours in tomorrow (if my voice has recovered by then) which is another step closer to completion.

3rd songwriting session

Work has been crazy busy with getting students ready for their exams, and meeting coursework deadlines etc. but I managed to work on this for most of last night and the entirety of today (Thursday/Friday) and I will do some more tomorrow morning before other things will likely get in the way. I changed the title to “voices” and I have now firmly decided on the structure, melodies and harmonies and for the most part have recorded them all, I will need to re-record some vocals that I am not happy with but I am chuffed that I have the ideas in place and its a case of just trying to get my voice to do what I hear in my head. The past two days have shown me that some of the insecurities that I have with my voice and with writing lyrics and expressing myself can be overcome with some perseverance. Because look, I know I’m not a great singer/songwriter at this moment in time but I am definitely getting better, and the initial thoughts I used to have when writing vocals “that’s utter crap, burn it with fire” have turned to shaky acceptance and pride. Perhaps because this is a new skill I am trying to develop it feels more frustrating and slow than what I have become accustom to when writing instrumental or incidental music. Anyhow, here is the latest version if you would like to listen.

I am aiming to have a releasable version finished in the next few days before I convince myself out of it, or end up over producing ideas; and it’s the process of writing and finishing a song I actually care about, not how perfect the production or recording is at this stage and to be honest I feel I have learned a lot from writing this already and want to move on to the next song ……….

Ok, so this will be my last post on this song for a little while as I am pretty happy with the finished article (although it does need mixed and tidied up a bit) but I am ready to move on and want to try writing a new piece with a different work flow this time. I have honestly learned so much about myself, my voice and my approach to songwriting during this project that I will carry forwards with me. I am now 100% invested in creating my own music and have a clear path laid out of what I need to do to continue getting better. I am beyond excited for continuing my voice lessons (for my own gratification and to enable me to help others more convincingly) and for proving to myself that I don’t always need to rely on others to complete a composition. I am more capable than I often give myself credit for, and I reckon that’s something we all have in common. It’s the easy way out to put things off or convince yourself you are not good enough to do something but the truth of the matter is if you persevere YOU WILL SUCCEED!

Learning a new skill is hard and trying something for the first time can be embarrassing, you might fall flat on your face, people might not ‘get it’ or might think you’re weird for even daring to try something new but honestly the feeling I have right now writing this is nothing but pride and admiration for myself (which I can’t tell you the last time that happened) I could have bailed on this project at any point, when I was tired, or when the appeal of Netflix and beer was infinitely more compelling than sitting on this rickety, uncomfortable chair with a pen, paper and a microphone and zero idea of my next steps but I tell you what, I am sat (albeit with a numb arse) a better version of myself than I was yesterday and nobody can take that away.

So, enjoy the blood, sweat and literal tears that went into making this, in the hopes that it can inspire someone else to get off their backside and make something happen for themselves. (because no one will do it for you)

Be kind, be happy, and rock on.

Darren - ‘The (Slightly Less) Insecure Musician’

Songwriting without a safety net

I am forever helping others finish their own music, I support students everyday to write lyrics, melodies, harmonies, rhythms and encourage bringing life to the music that they want to create. I have worked with many bands were I am happy to contribute ideas and write collaboratively and have loved the process (although often feeling a little unfulfilled) I have helped poets turn their art into music and supported songwriters in arranging their music but for some reason I can’t seem to finish my own music projects?

And I think I have finally figured out why! I have often pigeonholed myself into the category of being a guitarist, a supporting role, a cog in a machine. People have frequently called me an ‘enabler’ helping others shine brightly and to realise their potential, and to be honest that feels great if it wasn’t for the fact I can’t enable myself to do the things I want.

It boils down to my insecurities as a musician, and perhaps more broadly as a person. I know no one wants to put themselves out there for fear of someones disapproval or judgement and that’s one of the things thats been stopping me. I have hard drives full of unfinished projects that I convince myself needs someone else’s vocals/lyrics, or that the guitar part sucks and I cant possibly put that out because my guitar buddies will see through my crap playing, or the thought that my music won’t be interpreted the way I intended becomes too crippling to push through.

I have started the process of trying to address my habitual ‘backing out’ and ‘putting off’ by throwing myself into new experiences such as beginning vocal lessons (this is WAY out of my comfort zone), singing in a choir, learning some jazz guitar, composing using piano, writing my own lyrics and melodies and actually recording/using them.

This whole process has been spurred on by a recent trip away, where I stayed and studied at a music conservatoire ‘Trinity College Laban’ and worked with an AMAZING group of like minded musicians who all had their own insecurities despite their obvious unique musical talents. We all pushed ourselves so far outside our specialisms and left our comfort zones in the dust! we supported each other in situations that could have been crushing to our fragile musician egos and you know what, I think in that one week I grew more as a musician (and person) than I have in years.

Which leads me to this project, I created this website/blog/podcast as a way of sharing my own struggles with music and as a way of celebrating the struggle! because we are all struggling in our own ways, and maybe by me sharing my own journey it can help others to overcome their own challenges whilst in the process make me more accountable for my own musical development.

CELEBRATE THE STRUGGLE AND LET’S TALK ABOUT IT!