Ascent: Indigo
"Indigo," the second completed track from Ascent's forthcoming CD can now be heard at AscentMusicOnline.com! If you click ENTER, it will start streaming right away. Just in case it's not immediately obvious, you can also click on "Listen" in the site to choose "What the Crows Know," "Indigo" and a slew of older tracks.
"Indigo" demonstrates a completely different side of Ascent than "What the Crows Know." When we first starting doing "Crows," Christina's comment was, "This is what all our new songs should sound like. This is our sound." Whoops. Didn't happen! Not a big surprise, since we both love so many different styles of music. And we're both delighted by the sound of this song. So it goes.
Christina wrote the words to "Indigo" about a friend of hers, whom she hadn't seen in a long time. Christina has a history of writing songs for people ("Dawn's Resolve" was another), which is a really cool gift to give someone. This is a big difference between she and I - I'm more likely to write words about someone and never tell them (usually because they're too bitter or too abstract). I'll let her comment on the lyrics, if she wants to.
Christina gave me these lyrics just a few days after "Adaptation," which is another new song that's already partly recorded. The deal was that she wanted to have "Indigo" recorded prior to going to visit her friend in Vegas, which was just a few weeks away at that time. Easy to say when there's not even a note of music yet!
The way that I typically write music to pre-existing lyrics is to put the lyric sheet in front of me, strum a few chords, and just start singing whatever melody pops into my head. The melody then suggests further chord changes to me, and it's like "poof," instant song. Although some might think this would be a great ability to have, I can tell you that it doesn't always work out so smoothly, or yield great results. For one thing, the rhythm of the words to verse two isn't always the same as the rhythm of the words of verse one. As a result, whatever melody I came up with might not fit the whole song. For another thing, that initial melody and chord progression aren't always so great. But my brain grabs a hold of that melody and refuses to let it go. Sometimes that first idea will prevent me for coming up with a different idea, because the melody and the words become fused in my head. I've sometimes tried to come back to lyrics after weeks or months to try something different, but still be stuck on the first melody that occurred to me.
The first thing that I came up with for "Indigo" was just dead boring. It was a strummy, folky, R.E,M.-on-a-bad-day kind of a thing. The melody was pleasant, but didn't go anywhere. If I recall, I played that first version of the song for Christina, thinking it was all done. But when I went back to it the next day, I realized what a lackluster song it was. The only really good part was the chorus. I just kept singing that chorus over and over again. Somehow or another, I was able to free myself from the boring chords and melody of the verses, and create a new song around the chorus.
Somewhere around that time, Christina started making comments about wanting to use the soulful, bluesy side of her voice more. I decided to make the arrangement to "Indigo" into a vehicle for her to do that.
I started, as I usually do, with the drums. I wanted the arrangement to be sparse and open, so I didn't want to overplay. To force myself to be basic, I only put microphones on the snare/hi-hat and kick drum. I tried to play quiet grace notes and keep some funkiness in the space between the notes. Somewhere during the multiple takes, the condenser microphone that was recording the kick drum actually fell on the ground (sorry, I play loud!) and I didn't even know it. The kick drum ended up with a more muffled sound than I'd anticipated, but I felt like I'd nailed the feel, so I decided to keep it.
Most of the guitar was played through Guitar Rig LE, which is an amp simulator. The nice thing about using a plug-in (on the computer) for your guitar amp is that you can completely change the sound after you record it. I especially like the raw (for me) sound on the choruses.
It was important to me that the bassline was melodic but also somewhat sparse. It was pretty easy for me to find the right part, but then I had to play it about a million times to get the feel just right. The bass sound is the one that i usually default to - played through my Boss effects pedal, with just a little bit of chorus. The funky part in the middle section resulted from me just messing around and then deciding I liked it. I thought about playing a little guitar solo over it, but I'm glad I left it uncluttered so that Christina could improvise over it.
I'm trying to avoid string arrangements that sound just like the ones I did on the last CD. The string part is very simple, and I used the default string sounds in Dimension Pro. I intentionally avoided the Synful Orchestra sound because I wanted it to sound different. What I was going for was the type of effect that happens when the strings come in at the end of "Hey Jude." I think I got that without going overboard.
Christina recorded the vocal part four times one day while I was at work. I'd never heard her sing it up until then, because we were rushing to get the recording done in time for our Vegas trip. When I heard it, I was amazed at how she'd worked with my melody and turned it into this soulful, bluesy vocal. There's a magic in her phrasing and inflection that I could not have come up with in a million years. I was grinning ear to ear while I put it all together to mix the song.
I've been learning a lot lately about audio mastering, and applied some of that learning to the final mix of this song. I've realized that those critical elements of warmth and sparkle have been sorely lacking in my recordings for a while now. It's amazing what just a little bit strategic equalization and appropriate compression will do for the final mix. I worked very hard at balancing this song out just right. I hope that it sounds as good to all the listeners out there as it does to me. After getting though that process with "Indigo," I have discovered that I desperately need to go back and remaster "Crows;" it sounds good, but it could sound a lot better than it does. It will certainly be remastered for the CD.
So, there you go! Another new song, and another ton of information. I have already recorded all my parts for the third new Ascent song, "Talking in Circles," and most of the fourth, "Adaptation." If you've read this far, and you've listened to the song, I humbly ask that you leave your comments either here or on the Ascent Guestbook.
"Indigo" demonstrates a completely different side of Ascent than "What the Crows Know." When we first starting doing "Crows," Christina's comment was, "This is what all our new songs should sound like. This is our sound." Whoops. Didn't happen! Not a big surprise, since we both love so many different styles of music. And we're both delighted by the sound of this song. So it goes.
Christina wrote the words to "Indigo" about a friend of hers, whom she hadn't seen in a long time. Christina has a history of writing songs for people ("Dawn's Resolve" was another), which is a really cool gift to give someone. This is a big difference between she and I - I'm more likely to write words about someone and never tell them (usually because they're too bitter or too abstract). I'll let her comment on the lyrics, if she wants to.
Christina gave me these lyrics just a few days after "Adaptation," which is another new song that's already partly recorded. The deal was that she wanted to have "Indigo" recorded prior to going to visit her friend in Vegas, which was just a few weeks away at that time. Easy to say when there's not even a note of music yet!
The way that I typically write music to pre-existing lyrics is to put the lyric sheet in front of me, strum a few chords, and just start singing whatever melody pops into my head. The melody then suggests further chord changes to me, and it's like "poof," instant song. Although some might think this would be a great ability to have, I can tell you that it doesn't always work out so smoothly, or yield great results. For one thing, the rhythm of the words to verse two isn't always the same as the rhythm of the words of verse one. As a result, whatever melody I came up with might not fit the whole song. For another thing, that initial melody and chord progression aren't always so great. But my brain grabs a hold of that melody and refuses to let it go. Sometimes that first idea will prevent me for coming up with a different idea, because the melody and the words become fused in my head. I've sometimes tried to come back to lyrics after weeks or months to try something different, but still be stuck on the first melody that occurred to me.
The first thing that I came up with for "Indigo" was just dead boring. It was a strummy, folky, R.E,M.-on-a-bad-day kind of a thing. The melody was pleasant, but didn't go anywhere. If I recall, I played that first version of the song for Christina, thinking it was all done. But when I went back to it the next day, I realized what a lackluster song it was. The only really good part was the chorus. I just kept singing that chorus over and over again. Somehow or another, I was able to free myself from the boring chords and melody of the verses, and create a new song around the chorus.
Somewhere around that time, Christina started making comments about wanting to use the soulful, bluesy side of her voice more. I decided to make the arrangement to "Indigo" into a vehicle for her to do that.
I started, as I usually do, with the drums. I wanted the arrangement to be sparse and open, so I didn't want to overplay. To force myself to be basic, I only put microphones on the snare/hi-hat and kick drum. I tried to play quiet grace notes and keep some funkiness in the space between the notes. Somewhere during the multiple takes, the condenser microphone that was recording the kick drum actually fell on the ground (sorry, I play loud!) and I didn't even know it. The kick drum ended up with a more muffled sound than I'd anticipated, but I felt like I'd nailed the feel, so I decided to keep it.
Most of the guitar was played through Guitar Rig LE, which is an amp simulator. The nice thing about using a plug-in (on the computer) for your guitar amp is that you can completely change the sound after you record it. I especially like the raw (for me) sound on the choruses.
It was important to me that the bassline was melodic but also somewhat sparse. It was pretty easy for me to find the right part, but then I had to play it about a million times to get the feel just right. The bass sound is the one that i usually default to - played through my Boss effects pedal, with just a little bit of chorus. The funky part in the middle section resulted from me just messing around and then deciding I liked it. I thought about playing a little guitar solo over it, but I'm glad I left it uncluttered so that Christina could improvise over it.
I'm trying to avoid string arrangements that sound just like the ones I did on the last CD. The string part is very simple, and I used the default string sounds in Dimension Pro. I intentionally avoided the Synful Orchestra sound because I wanted it to sound different. What I was going for was the type of effect that happens when the strings come in at the end of "Hey Jude." I think I got that without going overboard.
Christina recorded the vocal part four times one day while I was at work. I'd never heard her sing it up until then, because we were rushing to get the recording done in time for our Vegas trip. When I heard it, I was amazed at how she'd worked with my melody and turned it into this soulful, bluesy vocal. There's a magic in her phrasing and inflection that I could not have come up with in a million years. I was grinning ear to ear while I put it all together to mix the song.
I've been learning a lot lately about audio mastering, and applied some of that learning to the final mix of this song. I've realized that those critical elements of warmth and sparkle have been sorely lacking in my recordings for a while now. It's amazing what just a little bit strategic equalization and appropriate compression will do for the final mix. I worked very hard at balancing this song out just right. I hope that it sounds as good to all the listeners out there as it does to me. After getting though that process with "Indigo," I have discovered that I desperately need to go back and remaster "Crows;" it sounds good, but it could sound a lot better than it does. It will certainly be remastered for the CD.
So, there you go! Another new song, and another ton of information. I have already recorded all my parts for the third new Ascent song, "Talking in Circles," and most of the fourth, "Adaptation." If you've read this far, and you've listened to the song, I humbly ask that you leave your comments either here or on the Ascent Guestbook.
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