Sweet July

Hey Ho!

Week 5 and I'm still hanging in there with the Songwriting Challenge.  This one is sweet and naked as far as production goes. This weeks challenge was to write for a new TV series described as "a 19th Century 'Dexter' centring around a female anti-hero, lots of emotions: love, lust, hate, danger". 

So I started by simply listening to some of the songs provided for reference, in particular Hozier's 'To Be Alone'. Using electric piano combined with guitar sounds I came up with the harmonic structure....then honestly, I can't remember. Words just started falling out of me. 

I demo'd up the song using garageband (such a great tool). I played all the parts that you're hearing on the track including the guitar....which, since I don't play guitar, is my piano and some guitar midi sounds. I exported the wave files to Brad and we did the vocal takes in the studio. Didn't have a lot of time to do all the things we would normally do as he's had a busy week in the studio but I managed to snake a couple of hours. Apparently Brad is only human not robotic and can't engineer 20 hours a day. Who knew?!

I look forward to recording this song for real, perhaps extending it a bit with a third verse or bridge. 

Listen here to

Sweet July

Behind these closed eyes

I'm feeling hypnotized oh

Before your breath is gone

I wanna take the long way home

My body's begging me

for more of you and your lies

Don't know what this could mean

Don't wanna feel goodbye

I wanna lace you up and tuck you in real tight

to my delight.

Oh my sweet July

I feel your heat inside

And all I can say is c'mon c'mon let's burn

Oh my sweet July

You're my darkest knight

Holding your sword all I can hear is c'mon c'mon

Ooooooo

My sweet July

Ooooooo

Sweet July

Inside this mystery

I wanna set us free oh

With shadows in our hearts

We're hiding in the dark alone.

Written by Trish Evans

No Tailgating this Country Song

Well, here I am at Week 4 in the epic 2015 Songwriting Challenge au Canada! Honestly, I didn't think I would make it this far. Between my Berklee class and easing myself back into regular life after cancer treatment with exercise, food and wellness workshops, I thought it was a pretty good bet that I would be a spectator here on out in the challenge. 

But here I am. 

So here we go.

The Song....... Stand Up. (listen here)

This weeks task? Write some edgy country/pop and don't talk about marriage or kids or partying at the lake or trucks and tailgates. Oh, and No 'Bro Country' vibe.

My first thought was, "What the hell is 'bro country'", followed by "What the hell am I going to talk about then". Oh, and the song is for a male country artist in his 20's. Hmmmm.  Okay. Let me just put myself in his shoes then and away we go! haha.  Not.

So, I began with a chorus that I had from a Berklee assignment from a few weeks ago. Seemed like a good starting point. The rest of the harmony and melody lines came pretty quickly. Overall, I was happy with everything except the first verse, which is a bit of a drag on account that its the intro and set up for the whole song. If there was one part of a song that you didn't want to have suck, it would be the first verse. But it was the best I could do in this amount of time and the fact that its ready to post is, in itself, amazing to me. 

The Recording

Well, a few firsts for me in demoing up this song. I have never sang about my girl leaving me before nor have I sang about having a beer or two.  I must say it was a bit weird singing a song that is from a dude's perspective but alas, on short notice, there was no singing dudes to be found in time. 

Like I mentioned before I had the chorus, so I piano'd my way through the harmonic structure for the song and then Brad went to town on creating the groove and feel of the song, recording all the guitars, programming the drum tracks, mixing the whole thing, producing the vocal....etc. etc. You know, the easy stuff! Honestly don't know what these songs would be sounding like without him. I'm thinking Trish live via iPhone! Painful. 

Anyways, I sang a lot of the verses and harmonies on the fly. Brad has told me that we in fact tracked all the vocals in an hour and a half, which is another first. I think because I'm doing so much singing and small garageband type demoing for my music course, its helping me with my confidence and proficiency. Whatever the reason I'm pretty proud of being able to get it done. 

So congratulations to all of us who are still meeting the deadlines, wether it be in style or by the skin of our teeth! Cheers!

Listen to Stand Up Here

Lyrics

I was new in town and feelin' down

Cuz my girl left a second time.

So I found somewhere to have a few beer

And ease my troubled mind.

Well I shared my past and got a few laughs

'Bout the stupid things I did

And I can't believe, like a mall police

They fink'd every word I said.

Well there's just one thing that turns my disposition black

Its a 2-faced double crosser talking shit behind my back.

Stand Up

And look me in the eye

Stand Up

When you're unpacking all those lies

I almost fell to the ground

When I finally found

That your truth is worth nothin

And that you've been bluffing

oh yah whoa you better

Stand Up

With the money I was makin' my dates were always taken

To places extra nice

But she'ld be gone before mornin' and that should have been my warnin'

I was gonna have to pay a price

When things seemed too good to be true

I started to question why

Turns out she was cheatin' and the candy she was eaten'

Was from a richer man than I.

Well there's just one thing that turns my disposition black

Its a 2-faced double crosser diggin' gold behind my back.

I wrote this song about right and wrong

Cuz I was taught to tell the truth

How we act should be manner and fact

Hey There"

I'm talking to You!

Sold in 60 Seconds!

S.A.C Challenge #3

Create a 60 second clip for advertising "something child-like, light and playful, fun, capturing the moment and that captures the spirit of a child".

The Song....Follow Your Heart

I must admit, I lucked out on this one. I had written a piece for homework for my Berklee songwriting class a couple of weeks ago and when this challenge came up I knew right away it was a strong place to begin. 

I decided to change a couple of lines in the verse as I felt they were perhaps a bit too heart stringy and heavy. Then of course, I started overwriting and doubting the material that I had, but was able to pull myself out of the impending nose dive I was taking and found a happy medium. I kept the full chorus and re-arranged the verse lines into one. 

As I was cutting and pasting, doubting and hating, I began to think about who was the real target for this advertisement. A child may be in the commercial but its still the parent who packs the pocketbook of cash. This helped me to work the song better for the challenge. I thought that if I went too far into the classroom crowd it may not appeal to the finance department at home! Of course if the commercial is for a Barney spot I'm definitely screwed. But I took the chance that it was a general product and if it wasn't quite on the right road, the song as it stands could remain versatile enough to perhaps entrigue some advertising onlookers.

Recording

Brad and I had tracked a lot of this a couple of weeks ago so it was a good feeling to have that under my belt at the beginning of the week. All we really had to do was re-track the new vocals. He was inspired to add a Ukelele track to give it more childlike bounce, which I think worked great.  

In the original recording session of Follow Your Heart, I became inspired to have children voices on the track. In fact, I had been talking to some of my friends during its first recording about the possibility of rounding up some kidlets to come and sing on it. I thought that the echo part and the final choruses would be fun with children's voices. Unfortunately rounding up random children's choirs on the fly is difficult at best and wasn't feasible in time for this post, however, I still intend to make it happen. I'm curious how it will affect the song possibly causing quite a party for us as well here at Taylor Sound.

Creating a 60 second window with viable 15 and 30 second stand alone segments took some chopping from the original layout.  I was mindful of what the client may need and tried to give multiple chopping opportunities. I kept and intro without vocals for instrumental time that clocks in around 7 secs. The could be doubled for a 15 sec fill. The verse is 26 secs long which combined with the 5 sec outdo gives a useable 30 sec window. The whole song together is 60 secs......exactly 60 seconds. 

Listen to Follow Your Heart Here
Recorded/Mixed @TaylorSound

Write a Hit? How hard can it be? Bahahahaha.

Songwriter's Association of Canada's Songwriting Challenge 2015 
Week 2. Song 2.

Our first song submission challenge is very simply 'Write a Hit'......Kinda like saying 'Win The Lottery' isn't it? If it were that straight forward, the whole world would have grammys on their bookshelves and Ferraris in their garage. Never-the-less we persevere. Someone has to, no matter how daunting the task or  how slim the chances are.  

Multitudes of things change in life as we get older and I felt like I needed to check back into my musical self and see what still worked and what was still viable. I accepted the Canadian Songwriter's Challenge to see if I could meet a musical deadline. To see how strong the competitive personality I was born with was. To see if after taking time away from recording and touring with my own original projects I was still musically relevant. To face rejection and criticism with grace and to challenge my composition skills with a variety of tasks that may or may not always be clear and concise. And finally, after working separately for over 5 years, could my husband and musical cohort and I come together once again as a viable writing and production team. That's a lot to put out there and be accountable for, and I'm loving  it.  

It seems that I perhaps have something to prove to myself, or maybe its simply that now I have the time to do what I've always wanted. Knowing what I want I think has been my biggest challenge of all, but 10 months of dancing with cancer has helped to put my desires into perspective and outline my idea of a joyous life. 

And here we are so let's do this thing.

The Song....Too Big?

"write an explosive pop hit" ... hmmm ... "think Selena Gomez" ... ok-I'm a rich teenager - got it ... "interesting title" ... naturally ... "trim the fat" ... did he just call me fat?... "maximum 3:30"... well no epic solo for me then I guess. 

I read the challenge and then tuned out for a few days. The pressure. The doubt. blah blah blah. On Wednesday I had spit out a really interesting verse with an equally interesting topic matter surrounding bullying...(I think..it's not super clear, but I think that's where its heading). BUT try as I might I just couldn't get past the verse. I think I was trying to cram the poor thing into a genre where it didn't want to go. So I sent it to bed and will awake it later. 

By Friday panic was starting to happen. I had written roughly seven different song ideas for homework for the Berklee Songwriting course that I'm currently taking. I was tired and thinking there was no more creative worth left in me....and still ruminating on the verse I had put to bed. I dropped my personal pressure and expectation and relaxed and low and behold it started to come and by Saturday 1:00 AM the song was complete. Whew! (Demo included....thank you GarageBand). 

I took the position of 'ballad 101'. Everyone is battling for that Top 40 uptempo super song position, and although there may only be 1 per album, everyone needs a good ballad. Plus, in the right hands a ballad could be 'club mixed up'. Like a teenager sneaking in the back door late at night, I am as well with my song "Maybe Tomorrow". 

The Recording

Over the past 5 years Brad (the cohort mentioned above) and I have been piecing together and developing our own music studio called Taylor Sound. So pretty convenient for me hey? On Sunday Morning we started rough tracking it. We didn't have much of a game plan other than perhaps just to present the song like a simple organic piano vocal song.  However, I stepped out for a bit and when I came back Brad had doubled up the rhythm and presented a Kelly Clarkson "Since You Been Gone" feel.  It was very intriguing so we kept rolling with it. We ultimately decided that it sounded dated and perhaps that production may have a pigeon hole effect on the song so we pulled back. Threw some keys at it, layered the vocals, harmonies, some drum beats and secret guitar tracks and a day and half later....voila!

I am really pleased with the result that we have shown with this song challenge; meeting our deadline and producing a well sounding finished commercially viable song. I have this S.A.C. Challenge to thank.....and my peeps at Berklee too!

Trish Out. 

Listen here to Maybe Tomorrow.
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Brad Taylor @ Taylor Sound


Lyrics
My friends ask why I'm blue
Why I don't have a 'you'
I just keep saying its complicated
Cuz I don't want them to know
So I keep my feelings close
Inside of me when I see your face and

What have I done
In thinking about what you and I could become

Maybe Tomorrow
You won't see me as your best friend
Who's heart you borrowed
And coloured all in
Could you dream of me at night
Could your heartbeat skip like mine
Maybe Tomorrow
Maybe Tomorrow

you're everywhere that I look
In my mind and my picture books
I feel that you just don't remember
In the field where the daisies grew
You'd pick one for me and one for you
Everyday you were my December

I wanna take back my heart
Before you added her and start all over

Lyrics and Music Written by Patricia Evans
February 20, 2015
Copyright Protected

Challenge 1 for S.A.C.

S.A.C Songwriting Challenge 2015. Week 1 Well, I'm not an experienced blogger nor have I ever had such short deadlines for songs so lots happened this week around getting organized and time managing the upcoming 6 weeks. I am taking a songwriting course at Berklee right now, entering week 6. Things are starting to really ramp up there and I feel like I may have jumped head first into the deep end without knowing what's in the water, but that's ok. I will figure it out as I move along. I am a solo writer with no co-writers to accompany me at this point in my career. I do hope to change that in the future. In saying that though I do have a producer/engineer in my home as well as a studio, so not all is forlorn! The first songwriting challenge for recording artist Matt Dusk I found to be difficult because of its wide range of choices. An artist who is looking, from what I understand, to move from 'crooner' status to more of a groove based contemporary field of music was really a vague concept for me. There were many examples that Matt gave us from well produced uptempo funk to more ballad type songs,so for me this week was really about making a decision in which way to go. I really didn't do any writing on this right away. I did a lot of listening to various pop and groove styles of music. I will start to brew and manifest ideas over the next few weeks. My target is to have the song written by week 4. Do pre-production for week 5, and then record it out on the final week. We will see. Plans don't always happen the way you'd like.! Short and sweet. T