228. The Good Death (Draft – missing chorus)

DAY TWO-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT

No. You aren’t dreaming. And neither am I. It’s true: this is a post after nearly a year. I’m going to finish the 365.

Part of the incentive behind finishing is that I’ve had so many people come up to me and ask if I’m going to finish that I can’t ignore it any more. It’s a painful thing, in a way, to know you have a creature of your own floating out there in the vastness of internet space that’s incomplete. And I’ve had enough insomnia recently that I can’t put it off any more. Plus, I want to finish it. I miss the exercise of it, and I have felt its loss because I haven’t created anything in a long, long time. I just needed some… time, I guess. Some really wonderful things have happened in the almost year and half since my last song post. Some sad and bad things, too, but even those things can be considered a welcome creative push (in retrospect most of the time).

Let us begin:

Yeah. It kinda feels like that.

The Good Death. This song was initiated by a Pearl and the Beard writing session. I brought to Jeremy and Jocelyn sections of a uke part I had come up with a few weeks earlier on my own. We put things together and configured exact chords, verse melody, a chorus, a bridge, but didn’t have lyrics or exact form of the song at all. We took the bare bones sketch home with us after our session, and it sat. Months and months later, we put it back on the table, and Jocelyn worked out some really beautiful lyrics with the original melody we had designed. In a rehearsal last week, as much as I loved her awesome lyrics, I wasn’t convinced it was in the sweet spot. It just wasn’t there for me. So, I took it home myself as an exercise, throwing out the melody for the verses and the bridge while keeping the chorus melody we had liked. I redesigned the job of the original uke riff, making it more of an intro or ornament rather than it being the verse itself and wrote a new verse section with a brand new melody. The bridge was a different story. Jeremy and Jocelyn and I came up with this t00-hard-for-me-to-play-on-the-uke bridge but didn’t really know how it was going to function in reality. But we liked it so we left it. In this re-imagining exercise, I almost threw it out. I’m still undecided about its effectiveness, but I like elements of it, so it stayed.

I am posting this as an exercise. I wanted to show the development of a song and how deep it actually can go. The original, original version of this is actually a completely different song. We may go back to it, we may take this, we may throw out all versions all together. One can never predict what will stick and what won’t.

I had 4 focuses for this song:

1. Find cathartic, sincere lyrics. Mean what I’m saying while trying to avoid cliché but make it relatable. Maybe use ideas I’ve discussed recently.

Discussing “The Good Death” – From the internets: “There is no single definition of what constitutes a good death. The definition of a good death will vary for each patient. In 1997 The Institute of Medicine defined a good death as: ‘A decent or good death is one that is: free from avoidable distress and suffering for patients.’”

Also, yes. There is a reference to The Neverending Story.

*Personal note begin*

Have depression? Tension? Anxiety? This might be cliché in and of itself, but it totally works: Find an art or a creative outlet you think you might enjoy (baking [and then have a huge party and let your friends who love you enjoy the fruits of your anxiety], rock painting, cat photography, kazoo playing, etc.). It really doesn’t matter if you’re “good” at it. Create something. Anything. Look at it or sing it. Again and again. Or don’t. Burn it or throw it away. Running. Running also works.

*Personal note end*

2. What do you want to hear? Re-imagine the song keeping as many original elements as possible, but you don’t have to keep what you don’t want to keep.

3. Expect nothing. Possibility of disappointment is high when you’re putting yourself out there, especially if you’re writing in a team situation like Pearl and the Beard. This is a [personally cathartic] songwriting exercise using elements of a previously group-developed skeletal song. That’s all. If it makes it in, it makes it in. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Like Tom Hanks says, “It’s not personal. It’s business.”

4. And as always: No Pre-Judgements. None. Hell, let’s just say No Judgements. Ever.

365 Project alumni know that even if this ends up being used in any way by either me or the band, it will be totally different as a finished product. I mean, I went running the other day and already came up with a totally new verse, new tempo, etc. But displaying it in such infancy is why the 365 was developed. And like we say in sessions, “There’s no judgement in brainstorming.”

Oh. And there is no chorus yet. I have no idea what to put there that doesn’t sound like I’m 5. (Not that being 5 isn’t way bitchin’, cause it totally is.)

RECORDING: As I mentioned above, I have total insomnia, so it is now 4: 43 am. I recorded it at my kitchen table three times at about 2 am, just taking the last one because I think my neighbors could only stand it that many times so early in the morning.

Thank you for listening, reading, sharing.

THE GOOD DEATH (draft – missing chorus)

Give me the Good Death
Because I’ve called it willingly
Just give me the Good Death
Don’t hold it against me

Conjure The Nothing
I’ll contemplate my final breath
Inside your chest The Nothing
Loss always is where you look last

CHORUS

Reach in and eat a broken heart
Starving mouths make ill returns
Quiet now this lump of heart
I can’t escape what I deserve

CHORUS

BRIDGE
Could this maybe be fiction using all your calculations
With the giants I’ll kill your lofty, genius intuition
Using arms of a dozen like it, there will be no complications
We’ll be strangers then.
Be strangers then.

Give me the Good Death
Because I’ve called it willingly
Just give me the Good Death
Don’t hold it against me

(Considering another chorus here)

223. Pick Me Up (Phase 1)

SONG 223

This morning was hot.  Hot mornings are a warning sign of stranger things to come in my life…and I decided to paint the rest of my bathroom in non-paint clothes, and guess what?  They are now the color of my bathroom.

I have moved.  My new neighborhood is Loud-Quiet: the kind of quiet that is usually loud, but sometimes it’s quieter than it is loud; hence, Loud-Quiet.  Yesterday was no exception to this general rule, however, among the rap that often blares from open home doors or cars, I heard a sample of Amelie soundtrack (one of my favorites) mixed among yet another rap song.  My curiosity was piqued.  I ran out the door and across the street to the group of guys (and one girl) sitting in their front porch.  “Hello,” I said.  They looked surprised.   I wondered if they thought I was going to ask them to turn their music off or something.  “My name is Emily.  Do you know who this is?”  They were friendly and informative: Kid Cuti was their answer.

“We saw you moving in.  Where did you come from?”

“I moved here from Washington Heights.”

“You moved here from Washington Heights?”, they sounded surprised.  (Wow… how do I answer that?!)

“Yes. I like it here.”

“Well, you’re welcome over any time.”

And now I have some new friends.  Thanks, Kid Cuti.

(Of Note: A lady from the 4th floor of her building was just arguing with a guy on the sidewalk and threw a couple of bottles at his car right before he shouted some threats at her and drove off… home sweet home.)

Started it in the wee hours of the morning today (during the quiet part of the day).  This is in its first phase: I thought I could clean it up, move stuff around, add some more stuff, make it longer, add some vocals…but I may not end up finishing it as I’m ho-hum about it generally.  I had all my recording equipment boxed away, so I used my ear buds to record the voice and bells.  Ear buds.  Never a solid way of capturing sound.  I slowed everything down once it was recorded.  Garageband samples filled up the rest of it.

Also, The 80s. You may not know that I love the 80s.

Pick Me Up

114. Pieces and Parts (The Sketch)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN

Well, you can’t say I haven’t learned anything.  I’ve realized something very significant from yesterday’s posting.  All long, I have felt very strongly about being honest and forthcoming in how things are going and how I feel about a particular song.  I still feel like there is validity in writing all of that stuff… however, it occurred to me that, though I might be unhappy with a certain portion of a song or feel negatively about a certain aspect of it, it doesn’t mean you have to know about it.  In fact, as someone said in a comment, it gets annoying (this secretly hurt my feelings, but I understand it).  I also realize that these statements aren’t helping you devise an opinion about the work itself without my own feelings about the work getting in the way.  Someone said to me, “You create the art and, when it’s finished, you let it go and just put it out there and let people think what they’re going to think.”

I have been openly writing my feelings about the way a song has been going and making my frustrations apparent for the sake of my own learning and future use.  That works privately on paper, but not in the world-wide web where everybody reads everything and remembers everything.  So, from here on out, I will tell you what you need to know about the process, not my personal experience with the insecurity of it.  In short, I am ridding myself of the need for validity.  I simply appreciate that you come and listen.  Simply posting what IS will be enough for me now.

Pieces and Parts (Uke Solo):

I thought I might give an insight into a song as it’s being worked on, not just at the end of it.  Yesterday, I went to pick up a new tenor uke string.  They didn’t have what I needed at the store, but they offered me a replacement alternative which was a .36 gauge guitar string.  It is so tight!  And I’m finding it makes an interesting sound for me to get ideas.  So, this is a rough uke part I have been toying around with.  I found several sections in this very simple tuning (E flat, A flat, E flat, A flat) that I put together.  I have yet to decide on a melody or words, however, and I’m still working out the kinks in the uke part.  Usually words and music come somewhat at the same time, but in this case, I had to teach myself the uke part as I am shifting around frets and playing thirds on two strings.

Pieces and Parts (Vocal Sketch Sample):

I’m also attaching a section of a sketch with vocals I did just as a trial to see if I could find a form.  This was recorded well before the drafted uke part below, which has more form.  If my mind is locked, I can sometimes free it with some improvisation like I did here.  This is the first of about three I did.  Any stylistic vocal choices (creative vibrato, unusual word pronunciation, etc.) usually come later unless I’m struck with something from the very beginning.

To be honest, usually, if a song doesn’t strike me with that specific “something” or its composition doesn’t come right away, I put it aside for a while until I give it away or it disappears.  I would probably would have done it to do this song, but I’m finding it good to push an initially attractive and then suddenly unappealing song to some kind of finish point: a stick-to-it-ness, so to speak.  Maybe this song has something to say, maybe it doesn’t, but trashing it too early on doesn’t help.

I may show this uke part to someone for a collaboration, actually.  It’s very helpful to get another ear.  I’m actually leaving to collaborate right now: driving to Baltimore to meet with a violinist friend named Emily Price (for real!).  Then, off to DC to play with Anna Vogelzang and start the SPRING TOUR!

Pieces and Parts (Uke Part Solo)

Pieces and Parts (Vocal Sketch Sample)

110. Untitled: Sam McCormally and Emily Hope Price #3 (Incomplete)

DAY ONE-HUNDRED AND TEN

I couldn't decide what picture to post of Sam... I think this one's a bit funny (if not intimidating - though it's a great shot of his sweet glasses), but it's all I have. Taken in DC on Pearl and the Beard's tour to Austin, TX in March.

Well, this is a bit unprecedented, but I think this will be an interesting addition to the 365.  This is a song Sam McCormally (of day 10 and day 22) and I worked on about two months ago.  Jonathan and I visited DC a while back and Sam and I had a quick second to sit down and work out a skeleton of this song.  We attempted working on it over email, but it kind of came to a screeching halt when lyrics became a problem (as there really aren’t lyrics for this song).  Sam laid down the guitar and his vocals, sent it to me, and I put cello and my vocals on top.  I sent it back to him to do lyrics for it, but… life happens, you know?

BUT, I really wanted to post it, and I’m just not sure when it will ever get completed.  We went back and forth for a while with 3 different versions (the second one being a little over the top on my end of things…).  This version, the last version I offered up to Sam after he sent me his parts, was by far the most simplest and complimentary to the vocal line.  I resisted Sam’s suggestion to leave my vocals word-less at first, but, in listening to it again, maybe he’s right.  In any case, this unfinished song allows insight into the gibberish that occurs when lyrics have yet to be incorporated.  What you’re hearing lyrically here is an improvisation.

That’s it for today.  I will now be getting back to more writing.  I do hope one day this gets finished, but, until then, I offer up this sketched version to you as the one-hundred and tenth song of the 365 Project.

Untitled and Incomplete (Sam McCormally and Emily Hope Price)