Blog Description

The development of an artist, who seeks to make the world an inspiring and beautiful place through the gift of music.

Sunday, March 19, 2017

"Can't Say No" - The Evolution of a Song

When you write songs, there are times that you start with an idea, abandon it, just to come back to it in the end. Such it was with this song.

So often, we just get to reap the benefit of enjoying someone's art without knowing how many hours they've labored on it. I thought you'd like a visit to the inner workings of this songwriter's brain. So, we'll look at this song in depth.

First it started with an idea. I kept thinking of the words to be "Can't Say No" so I created the Sibelius file to have that title, but somehow it morphed into "Inspiration" I recorded my voice onto my favorite app, "Voice Recorder Pro". As you can see the whole process began sometime in the latter part of February.



Next, I opened up Sibelius and began figuring out the key and chords I wanted to put into the piece. There were times I had to walk away from the song due to waiting for more inspiration or a conflict with time.

I worked at putting the song together in stages, Chords for keyboard and bass parts, then Sax and then Vocal. I also only worked on different sections: First the Intro, then the First Verse, Chorus, and so forth and so on. Went back and perfected to parts. On the whole, I listened to the song over 50 times before I was satisfied enough to let it go into the recording process. It was about 2 weeks ago that I began recording. 

I then brought it into Logic Express to record vocals. I exported the Midi files to have the instruments on Logic play them back. When I realized that it would take much, much more time to fix the sounds of these instruments into what I liked (quantifying, style, etc...) I decided to go back to Sibelius and use the recorded version of the song. 

Remember, I had changed the song to "Inspiration"? So, I initially recorded the song with a completely different set of lyrics. They went like this:


First I downloaded the background audio tracks as a whole chunk, all the instruments at once... Nope! Then I went and put them in separately and recorded the vocal. I worked with the EQ, reverb and other mix options to get it where I wanted. I listened on my living room stereo after I thought I had a great mix. UGH! Boomy, nasty! Horrible!!!

Back to the drawing board. I realized somewhere in here that I hated the Lyrics, so I changed them back to my original thought. After the first 20 remixes, running up and down from my studio and listening on the stereo, I realized I may need to change something in the original recording.So looked at Sibelius, and sure enough, Chorus and Reverb were on for every track making it almost impossible to fix the EQ. Resend Files. Back to Mixing. 

Mix should be good now right? UGH... STILL???? Time for some help. Looked up EQ expert advice. AHA! Too much of this Frequency, not enough that. I used this Cheat Sheet from Sonic Bids. Very handy. It was my piano and Bass mostly. 

10 more mixes with tweaking latter... And my sweet husband's help.... We got it? Maybe.. Think So... Send it off to family to listen on different devices. Some good feedback, some not so good. My brother Chris (Audio Engineer and Awesome Eskrima Instructor) thought it sounded a bit thin. So, back for 2 more tries and this time I think it's good. Chris may be taking a crack at it yet. 

It's best to listen to it with headphones (laptop/desktop speakers are terrible!!). Remember the song is not MASTERED, just mixed. I think it sounds pretty fun though. Let me know in the comments your thoughts. 

So, let's break this down from the initial time of beginning the idea of the song to completion of the song (which may still be going on). 

Inital setup (Idea development): 3 days or so
Writing out song: 2 Weeks
Recording/Mixing song: 2 Weeks

A month to make a song? Yeah well, remember that the more you do something, the more productive you become. It used to take me much, much longer and hopefully, one day it will take me even less time. Also consider, I work part time, take care of kids and a household, and have friends. 

I love writing music! It's amazing, fulfilling work. Keep doing the best at everything you love! It's so worth it. 

Keep moving forward!

Amy