Spell I'm Under
Saturday, July 19th, 2025 02:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
74F this afternoon, and overcast, with a chance of rain.
I'm just drinking my coffee, trying to wake up before heading over to Elgym.
Today's song will be, Spell I'm Under, as lowered one step, and sped up 5BPM.
I did a bit more work last night with the snares, or snare alternates, such as in, Reavis 309 which had a wood block going in place of a snare for much of the song.
I replaced that with a better sounding woodblock, plus a conga drum.
Hitting together, they give the song more of a groove.
In, Magic Monday, I had been using a rimshot, together with a shaker, in an attempt to simulate a brush sound.
Here, I found a better rim shot, and then blended to gether two different shakers... one quick and crunchy, the other drawn out and whispery, to create a more hypnotic sound that is reminisicent of snow crunching underfoot.
And where there is snare, in both songs, I added in the second snare, as described yesterday.
I like that it's essentially Beer:30 as soon as I'm back from Studio C, every week.
These Saturdays are a blend of; 1) Sleep in for two extra hours, 2) Go, somewhere, get exercise, and do some intensive album work, 3) Time for beer!
That walk to Elgym is a slight uphill grade the whole way, with a heavy backpack, and then two flights of stairs to get up to Studio C... so that's what I mean by exercise.
But the vocals themselves, as I mentioned last week, can also be a workout.
Like last week, it wasn't too hot outside, only about 80F, but we did get rain this morning so, once again, the humidity in Studio C was kinda stifling!
The vocals for Spell I'm Under, broke down into four levels of difficulty.
1) The easy to sing verses, low and somewhat croony. No issues at all.
2) The 1st & 3rd lines of the four-verse chorus... higher notes, but well inside my range, yet held fairly long... requiring extra control.
3) The 2nd & 4th lines of the chorus... the highest notes. Very difficult to nail correctly.
And we'll get to the bridge below.
After singing the song through twice, I was so worried about those high chorus lines that I proceeded to stack five versions of just those lines, which ended up serving as practice, and gave me some confidence.
After that, I recorded five full takes, each in three stages... verses first, then the easy chorus parts, then the hard chorus parts and the bridge... on three separate tracks, which were mix/rendured to single tracks after each was done.
But I was sweating more than ever today, due to the stagnant air in the suite, and occasionally felt a bit dizzy.
Especially when singing the bridge parts!
For some reason, every time I sung that bridge, I'd feel like I was about to lose consciousness!
I was really worried about fainting, and falling on top of all my equipment, there on the little coffee table, in front of me.
But I was determined to get this damn song recorded, so every time I sang the bridge, I bent my knees a bit and tried to lean slightly toward the couch.
Thankfully however, I made it through the session without passing out.
That would've been pretty awkward to be standing there, one minute, all, "Got in a few good shots, and made good my escape!.."
And then suddenly I'm waking up on the floor... night having fallen... two young rap artists standing over me like, "Are you okay old man? Should we call an ambulance?"
"What? No!.. I just need a beer! Is my laptop okay?"
I think the issue was a combination of the humid, stagnant air, and also a lifetime of smoking, which, while it has not trashed my voice... has drastically reduced the amount of wind I can muster to sing this stuff!
A combination of heat stroke and oxygen deprivation, I guess.
But the show must go on!
I am confident that I nailed everything enough different times, in enough ways today that a perfect vocal is in there.
And that's a relief, because this was one I had been worrying about!
I guess I've been saying that about a lot of these songs.
But that's just how it is when I can't sing anywhere but Studio C itself!
Walking home, I took in the downtown surroundings... the buildings... the river... the people on the sidewalks enjoying their summer... and thought about how I was living the lyrics of the song.
"Now I'm all alone in London, with all my plans come undone. And now I'm left to wonder, what kind of spell I'm under."
In the old song, Aurora, about this town, I refer to it as, "The Paris of the drug world," and, "The London of the unknowns," In addition to the, "Mecca of the brilliant failures."
Ironically, the song, Aurora, begins with the line, "I'm all alone here..." back at an age when being all alone simply meant being single!
In, Spell I'm Under, it means... my parents are both dead, I have no friends left, my family all live in other states, and I've lost the family house!
What kind of curse lead to losing that house?.. it's up for debate.
What kind of spell am I under now?... I think it's a good one.
There is definitely a magical quality to this life, a year after the big calamity.
As for the money I'm spending on these sessions... I've come to look at it as a monthly expense, like groceries, or WiFi.
I've observed this in different ways before, but didn't have that succinct realization until recently... that it's not a question of, how much money have I sunk into this project???
It's simply, This is an ongoing activity that is part of my life, and it costs X-dollars per month.
Okay, time to get back to comping!
Tomorrow I have to do building checks at the high school, as Cezar is on vacation.
And then it's one more 5-day week, and one more two-day weekend... before my mid-summer break (and August) will be in view.
Next weekend is, Miss Fortune, and then, over the four-day break I'll record, Archeology, the song, itself.
That'll require me to solder wires and a plug onto an electret element for the verse vocals, to simulate the sound of a stressed out boom box condenser mike.
And now I know that if I use a long length of unshielded wire, wrapped in a loop, sitting on top of the MOTU, I'll get some nice warbles and hum of radio interference!
So stay tuned!
The adventure continues.
°¦}
