Winter is Over
Sunday, February 23rd, 2025 05:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
44F and partly cloudy, only going down to 33F tonight!
As of today, the cold snap is over!
There were two bad cold snaps this winter... meaning single digit highs, and negative lows... both for over a week.
The first happened in late January, and this second one was mid-Feburary.
But now, I'm sitting here with the window open... and we're looking at high 40sF for the highs, and 20~30sF for the lows... all the way to March 9th, which is the horizon of the outlook.
So... it's spring now, in the sense that the songbirds are back, the snow's done, the days are getting longer, and the bitter cold is overwith.
It'll take another three weeks, I think, before we start seeing the first little leaves and buds... and many more weeks before it's warm warm... the things most people need to see & feel before they'll call it spring.
Yesterday I was up by 1PM, and... I didn't do a whole lot, but I did go out for smokes, and I did give Bed in the Suburbs another pass... tweaking the dynamics and the drums and soforth.
As for recording vocals... my research into the different units in this building have revealed that my north wall is the 07 neighbor's bedroom, and my south wall is the 05 neighbor's livingroom.
So... if I record during the day, the 07 neighbor won't hear me, cuz they won't be in their bedroom... but the 05 neighbor will hear me, in their livingroom.
And if I record at night... now I'm bothering the 07 neighbor while they're trying to sleep, but the 06 neighbor doesn't hear a thing.
So, from a vocals perspective, the New York, which are the 07 units, is the ideal unit to have!
In an 07, I have only one neighbor, and my bedroom is between my studio and them!
Also, a lot of my livingroom/kitchen area shares a wall with the stairwell, that nobody ever uses.
The 07s are also at the opposit end of the hall from the elevators, meaning there's no hallway traffic passing by.
Anybody in the hall might hear me, but they'll be walking away from me, and gone a few moments later.
Only the neighbor in the 03 across the hall could possibly hear me, if they were right by their door, but... from inside their unit, probably not at all.
So... 07 would be ideal!
In an 05, I'd share my livingroom wall with the person in the studio unit, the 06. And they'd definitely hear me if they were home!.. and probably get pretty fed up with me, pretty fast!
Unless it was an old deaf granny, or something.
For now, however... the best bet is to do the vocals early in the afternoons, between like 1PM and 6PM, or so... on the weekends.
Today I was up by 2PM, and got my gas & groceries straight away.
In a minute here, I've gotta get off my ass and shave my head, then vacuum.
Well!.. this is a new record for getting clean & shiny, with the laundry in the washer!
I'm only now opening my first beer!
First, I took out the garbage.
Then, I shaved my head... trimmed my beard... and cleaned up the edges with a razor.
After that, I vacuumed the flat.
Then, I went ahead and took a shower... and put the laundry in the washer downstairs!
So now, other than the laundry, the rest of my Sunday evening is free!
And it's not even 7PM!
I'm gonna call this a successful weekend, because in addition to vacuuming & shaving my head (two things I never want to do), I put away the Christmas tree... and got two songs further along.
As I said, yesterday was another pass through, Suburbs to resolve some issues.
And just now I got done doing the dynamics for, Miss Fortune, which I did NOT think was gonna take me four hours!
One thing I've been learning is that doing dynamics for a song is more than just making some parts quieter and some parts louder.
Because there has to be transitions into, and out of the louder parts!
It's not so hard to transition from a quieter part into a louder part... but going back to quiet, from loud, can be really awkward if it's not done right!
All these songs were originally scribed in, to flow at, more or less, full volume... with the increase of intensity in different parts being just... more instruments, and more fuzz on the guitar.
So, a more intense part of a song just kinda rolled into the less intense verse part to follow, without any breaks.
The other instruments just ended their bits, and the guitar went back to less fuzz.
But what I've been doing lately is, in the quiet parts, decreasing the velocity of everything, including drums, and bass.
But it's jarring to go from loud drums & bass, to quieter drums & bass, with other instruments kind rolling into it, or through it.
So the solution is to create breaks, at the end of intense parts of the song, where there's a few beats of silence, as the final notes of the louder instruments ring out to silence.
And then the quieter drums & bass pick back up on the 4, into the 1 of the next quiet section.
So that requires some structual work to the patterns, and often the creation of new patterns... based on existing ones, that have these special features that might only be needed once or twice in the song.
And that's why, Suburbs needed a second pass... and why Miss Fortune took four hours tonight.
But every song I've done this dynamic treatment to, so far, now sounds a lot better, to me!
And we're talking about many I've been listening to for a year now, and had gotten quite used to... and thought were fine!
What it is, is... when everything's at full, or near full velocity... it starts to feel tedious!
Especially in headphones, there's this kick-drum fatige that's undeniable.
Just got off the phone with Brian.
We didn't talk on Friday night... and this was the first ever, Sunday night call.
Also talked to Tim last night.
But I'd meant to close out this entry talking a little about the song, Miss Fortune.
Because at one point tonight, while working on the musical interlude, I was tearing up.
And there's context, as to why.
The song itself is kind of a... moody, whispy... saddish number?
So... not some happy jaunt.
The title, Miss Fortune, is a play (clearly) on the word, misfortune, and the... chorus, if you can call it that... is, "Miss Fortune's gonna find me soon."
Or, "misfortunes's gonna find me soon," depending on how you want to hear it.
And the weird thing about the song is that the melody of that phrase is juxtaposed against... a dark bridge?.. but later against the verse music... and works both ways, but feels different.
So, the song does a good job of playing the double meaning of the phrase... without the verse lyrics ever spelling it out.
Either, Miss Fortune, is gonna find me soon... or if she doesn't, then, misfortune is gonna find me instead!
And this song wasn't "about" anybody or anything, back when I wrote it, in 1995.
The verse lyrics are just these semi-nonsensical poetic verses about a soul mate out there, possibly looking for me, or possibly missing me, because we were old flames, or... like that.
And I did have to give them a good work-over in 2023, when this song made the cut for the album.
But, well... here's an example, out of the middle of the song...
"an early frost took him away
in the first light of the morning
but he could take dark skies of doom
and make a lovely afternoon
---------
she says, never as the smile
i could wear, like a style
in a fall breeze
my little star, you've gone too far
---------
miss fortune's gonna find me soon
miss fortune's gonna fine me soon
---------
another world, another time
another face, another mind
i've got a good one, to off the roof run
and bring the long awaited end
---------
she says never as the talk
i could bear, as i walk, under the tall trees
my little star, you've gone too far"
And that's just to give you a feel for the tone.
But it's not the lyrics that make me cry, it's the music, and especially the musical interlude.
Because I composed the whole interlude, with a piano solo, strings, and flutes, all moody... back last April, when I still had the house, and Yvette, and Prowly, and still had some hope I was gonna hold on to all of that.
And now that interlude... and that whole song!.. is just the bittersweet soundtrack number to losing the house and saying goodbye to all of that.
Bed in the Suburbs is difficult to work on, for the same reasons... a big musical interlude, composed when things were still good at the old house.
But that song is also literally about the house!.. and celebrating how thankful I was... in my early 20s... to have my bedroom there in the neighborhood, with he crickets and such.
Early in the foreclosure crisis, it became kind of an anthem for me, to rally behind saving my life at that place.
So, I guess what I'm saying is... the reason I've slowed down so much on the album, and seem to procrastinate some weekends on getting anything done with it...
Is because the ten that I recorded at Melody Manor, in the months before I lost the place, really took on a TON of emotional weight that they didn't have, originally... 30 years ago.
It's kinda painful working on these songs now!
But they're great songs!.. and these productions of them do need to be seen to completion!
And I will get them there!
But... I can only take so much, per week.
Because I'm still processing the trauma of 2024.
And I don't want to end my Sunday entry on a low note, so...
Hey!.. let's just circle back to the top, and say... the final cold snap's over, and it's spring now!.. at least in my mind.
And this final week of February's gonna be a lot milder than the past few.
And March hit's on Saturday!
And I'm gonna talk to Fernando about an 07 unit this week!
And I'm well groomed, and the apartment's clean!
Let's move the ball this week!
°¦}
