(no subject)

[jfb]

Via dougo I ran across this post, in which nothings issued and responded to this challenge:

Take your iPod or other mp3 player with a large collection of your favorite songs. Put it in shuffle play. Now, record covers of the first songs that come up on it, as many as you can in a single block of 24 hours.

So a few days ago I did it too, kind of: In 12 hours, covers of (as it turns out) Swan Dive, Pet Shop Boys, Joni Mitchell, Lori Carson, and Stars.


Let me first echo nothings's disclaimer: "I think the value of this is in the experience, not the results. That is, I don't actually think they're worth downloading, but for the sake of completeness I've posted mp3s." Usually by the time I post something I'm pretty sure someone will enjoy hearing it; this time, even I don't enjoy hearing them. If you're curious, try the Pet Shop Boys one, and the Lori Carson's okay. Don't bother with the rest.

1. Swan Dive Automatically Sunshine (June)

A breezy, effortless-sounding pop song by Swan Dive. In my version the effort is all you can hear. I started figuring this one out by plunking out the bass line on the Fender Rhodes. I kind of liked that, so I kept it. The rest of it is me trying to find sounds that kind of work with the song. The only part I think works pretty well is the ending, with drum loop, fake strings, and four vocal tracks I was making up as I went along. Yes, I don't know how to do drums.

2. Pet Shop Boys The End of the World (Behavior)

The song features a repeated instrumental section, chords built on a rising bass line. I was surprised to discover this was something I could play on the guitar, and started building a simple guitar-and-vocal version. (This was also a relief after the multi-instrumental awkwardness of the last one.) Ironically, I ended up cutting the instrumental bit; it wasn't that interesting without a more layered arrangement.

3. Joni Mitchell Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (Don Juan's Reckless Daughter)

For a while in college I was sure this was the best song ever written. That's why I'm so ashamed of this recording. I still think the initial idea--the triangle-synth bass line--was promising, but I don't know how to build that kind of arrangement, and I can't sing this song. The guitar was an afterthought, after a lot of other things didn't work. Seriously, even if you're curious, skip this one. Also, it's 11 megabytes long, for some reason.

4. Lori Carson Make a Little Luck (Everything I Touch Runs Wild)

Another guitar and vocal number. The original is a tender, piano-centered sad song. I stepped it up and shifted the mood a little toward anger, I guess. Of all the vocal tracks I recorded for this project, this is the one I'm happiest with.

5. Stars Tonight (Nightsongs)

Even sparser. The guitar line here is pretty much a direct translation of the left-hand piano part from the original. Originally I'd intended to go back and replicate the right-hand part, possibly on electric guitar, but by the end of a couple hours of recovering from a software error, I was in no mood for that.

All in all, a useful experience--I learned about some things not to do, anyway. What struck me most about this exercise is how much guitar has become my default instrument. I still think of myself as a piano player first, but on most of these--the more successful ones--I started by working it out on the guitar, and it remained the principal (or only) instrument. Even "Automatically Sunshine" becomes dramatically better when the acoustic guitar comes in on the chorus.

This might be partly because I made a conscious effort this year to develop as a guitarist--picking up the guitar first when I felt like noodling around, trying to write songs in standard tuning. I might start a similar effort to reacquaint myself with the keyboard. On the other hand, the guitar's a lot easier to lug to gigs.

Comments

addenda

[jfb.livejournal.com]

1. The kind of thing I had in mind for the Joni Mitchell song was the synth bass on Gemma Hayes's song "Making Waves". There are clips on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00008RV0Z/qid=1101880795/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl15/102-2663444-2296953?v=glance&s=music&n=507846) and Walmart (http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2408490&cat=126864&type=4&dept=4104&path=0%3A4104%3A108376%3A80380%3A126864).

2. Interestingly, I can't remember ever hearing "Tonight" before I did this. So there's another nice benefit.

challange

[artname.livejournal.com]

I like things like that to get creativity going. Sometimes I used to get jammed up taking pictures -- nothing looked photo-worthy to me. So I'd take what we called a 'roll' of film and say: 36 pictures in one hour, all on this street. Or all portraits. Or all from the hip. Or who cares, just SHOOT.

I've heard of similar things with writing, both poetry and prose, and with painting and sketching. Just jam down on being an artist and remember how to tell the critic in you to just shut up for a while ..

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Hey, cool. You should tell him you picked up on his meme, maybe he'll do it again (or someone else will do it). I'm mildly surprised you don't already know him; I think he's been on Waterpoint (but I don't remember under which name).

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I forgot to leave a comment over there.

[nothings.livejournal.com]

Cool. I totally didn't expect this. And it's good you feel you got some useful experience out of it at least; I feel your pain.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Now that I've listened to them, I have to say that covers are much less interesting if you don't know the original. I guess I should track them down.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

I don't think any of these are particularly interesting even for people who know the original (e.g., me). The Pet Shop Boys song might be interesting for contrasting instrumentation; the Lori Carson one for the way that changing the tempo and/or gender inflects the song. But, well, not very.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

By the way, are you familiar with Coverville (http://www.coverville.com/)?