Posts tagged short songs

If it’s been a while since I picked up my guitar, often I find a fun new riff or a new take on an old riff. If I happen to be recording, it helps me stay in the moment and not worry about losing the idea. I know from experience that if I stop myself part way through, connect my recording setup, then try to re-capture the idea it’s often already gone. 

A “creative energy sacrifice to the universe” is how I look at loosing the idea. It’s not the end of the world, but I do prefer capturing the ideas to possibly use later.

When I recorded this (a couple days ago) it had been a few weeks since I played. I chose to get setup to loop record in GarageBand and have fun riffing over a drum loop from “metalcore drum pack 2”. 

I decided to add lead and bass after capturing the foundational riff for this clip. The foundation riff is lots of E string punishment, a little bit of straight 16th note beat with some swing, and some 16th note triplet gallop punctuated by a power chord progression. 

v_stampede_-_driven_metal_riff.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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Lean Into Art is an online art center/learning network I’ve been building this year with Jerzy Drozd. As part of the project we started a podcast called The Lean Into Art Cast which needed an intro and outro song.

Looking back at the official intro song it feels as if I was channeling the up-beat let’s-go-kick-some-monster-butt feeling of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer theme.

LIA_Theme_-_intro.mp3 Listen on Posterous

My initial theme attempt was a rough doodle trying to do something funky, happy, and a little bit metal. It ended up being a mishmash and didn’t speak to me. None of the riffs had enough of a hook and I quickly set this one aside.

LIA_Theme_-_intro_-_rough_and_funky_attempt.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Then I made the official outro, some days I really dig this one, others not as much.

LIA_Theme_-_outro.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Last I worked on a third candidate for the official intro. I set it aside, forgot about it. There’s a little special something about it, though it’s a tad too long to fit an easy outro.

LIA_Theme_-_intro_-_alternate_attempt.mp3 Listen on Posterous

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