So, I got a take of the acoustic part recorded tonight, and I learned a lot from recording four minutes and eleven seconds of music.
1) The bass part has too many notes in it. As much as I liked it, and as melodic as it is, it's got so much going on that it distracts from the acoustic part. There's a quote from John Paul Jones (and I'm way paraphrasing here) where he says "with Zeppelin, anything that was notey and melodic was mine, and anything that was blocky and chordal was Page's." I had been thinking about that quote before I sat down to start writing the bass line, and I suspect that it got the best of me.
2) The strumming pattern for the acoustic part needs refinement. I had suspected this might happen going in, and while it wasn't too bad by the end of the song, it was really rough around the edges at the start.
3) The chords for the chorus are perfect, but the voicings in the verses still need a bit of work, the 3rd chord in particular. I made a few other changes to the verse chords to even things out, but that one is still puzzling me.
4) While the bass part had too many notes, it did mesh well with both the drums and the acoustic. Which means I'm using the right tone. A few minor adjustments to both bass and acoustic will go a long way toward tightening things up.
Didn't record the solo tonight, in part because I'm going to have to go back and make a few changes with the bass part, and I really want to work hard on building these songs from the ground up. Once I get the drums and bass locked in (shouldn't be hard, as I've already got the essentials there), the acoustic part should just fall right into place.
People always say you should record yourself practicing, that you can learn a lot by listening to yourself objectively. I always forget how much one can pick up by hearing something back. Not anymore. A great day with some good progress. I'll have something by the end of the day tomorrow. I doubt it will be radio-ready, but it will be more than I had at the start of the week.
1) The bass part has too many notes in it. As much as I liked it, and as melodic as it is, it's got so much going on that it distracts from the acoustic part. There's a quote from John Paul Jones (and I'm way paraphrasing here) where he says "with Zeppelin, anything that was notey and melodic was mine, and anything that was blocky and chordal was Page's." I had been thinking about that quote before I sat down to start writing the bass line, and I suspect that it got the best of me.
2) The strumming pattern for the acoustic part needs refinement. I had suspected this might happen going in, and while it wasn't too bad by the end of the song, it was really rough around the edges at the start.
3) The chords for the chorus are perfect, but the voicings in the verses still need a bit of work, the 3rd chord in particular. I made a few other changes to the verse chords to even things out, but that one is still puzzling me.
4) While the bass part had too many notes, it did mesh well with both the drums and the acoustic. Which means I'm using the right tone. A few minor adjustments to both bass and acoustic will go a long way toward tightening things up.
Didn't record the solo tonight, in part because I'm going to have to go back and make a few changes with the bass part, and I really want to work hard on building these songs from the ground up. Once I get the drums and bass locked in (shouldn't be hard, as I've already got the essentials there), the acoustic part should just fall right into place.
People always say you should record yourself practicing, that you can learn a lot by listening to yourself objectively. I always forget how much one can pick up by hearing something back. Not anymore. A great day with some good progress. I'll have something by the end of the day tomorrow. I doubt it will be radio-ready, but it will be more than I had at the start of the week.
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