Forming the FAWM

Here we go again then, more of me chatting about my music and that because of me going through FAWM (February Album Writing Month).

15th February 2013
Between a quarter to one in the morning and 2.37 I wrote and recorded the song 'Music Box', which I think is a beautiful piece.  I was at work but wanted to work on something and didn't have an instrument with me.  I went onto the great website Freesound, where I got hold of a single note on a kalimba (I think it was a G, but I'm not sure).  From there I wrote the background music.  I'm not sure why I thought of that particular tune, but for some reason FAWM seems to be getting me to experiment a little.  I'm happy with that though.

So after I had put that kalimba part together, I thought that with the click track still in place it sounded a little like a music box, much like one that Louise has packed away somewhere.  With that in mind I wrote a lyric where I was trying to be a music box, including the very straight consonant related melody.

At four minutes past seven in the evening I looked at Titular again.  Between 7pm and 7.20 I wrote a couple of verses and a chorus for a new song that isn't finished but has the title of 'You Could'.  Between 7.20 and 7.40 I wrote a chorus and two verses for a song suggested by Titular called 'Leap With A Solution', which I then finished between two minutes past eight and nine minutes past eight..

Between nine o'clock and ten past eleven I did some recording on my laptop of the vocal to 'You Could' and 'Leap With A Solution'.

16th February 2013
During that same shift at work (but basically the 16th because it was at twenty five past midnight), I looked at the weekly challenge which was to write a song with an oxymoron in the title such as 'Earth Angel', 'Hurts So Good', 'The Sound of Silence', and 'Killing Me Softly'.  This was followed then between twenty five past one and ten to two by writing the lyrics for 'The Living Dead'.

Between two and three in the afternoon I purposely set out to do my first song skirmish on FAWM, which is basically where there is an hour to write and record a song using a title that you are given at the beginning of that hour.

The title I was given was 'Try To Relax'.  I purposely looked at writing something that would be relaxed, and the song just seemed to take on a life of it's own.  It is as though it wrote itself in a way.  I actually didn't look at the skirmish until eleven minutes past one.  As a slight difference, I put a capo on the third fret to purposely give it a different feeling.

That was basically all that I did until a quarter to midnight when I saw that a few songs on FAWM had the word "valentine" in them, and I suddenly found myself writing 'My Sweet Valentine'.  I've not actually written the music as such for it just yet, but I have got a vocal only recording of the sort of melody that I am thinking of for it.

17th February 2013
Between twenty five past midnight and one in the morning I wrote a chorus and verse for 'Adieu Atlantis', which was a title suggested by Titular on the 11th of February (I am frequently looking back at things from over the month).  This was then followed at 2.30 in the morning by me just writing in my FAWM note book to look at doing almost parodies of other lyrics such as Neil Peart writing in the Rush song Spirit of Radio "the words of the profits were written on the studio walls, concert halls" as opposed to the Simon & Garfunkel song The Sound of Silence with "the words of the prophets were written on the subway walls and tenement halls".

Between 12.30 and 3pm I transferred some things over from my twelve-track recorder to my laptop (a gospel piece, Friend, some funky guitar bits, and some drum patterns).

Between ten past seven and twenty past seven I wrote an instrumental piece called 'Celtic Stomp', because I carried my uke to work on the handlebars of my bicycle.

Between 7.30pm and 8.15 I started writing music and lyrics for 'Blot on the Landscape', followed by looking at another skirmish from a quarter past eight and ten to nine, which I just couldn't get unfortunately.  Then at ten to nine I got back to 'Blot on the Landscape', which I finished writing at twenty past nine.
Between ten at night and four in the morning I spent time recording stuff on my laptop and doing a little bit of mixing.

There we are then, three days in the life of a fawmer then.

Thank you for reading.  Please take care.

Wednesday February 20th 2013 (42 years, 2 months, and 25 days old).