Things Change: The final edits are finished

I finally finished editing and re-recording the 14 songs I wrote in February. They form an album called "Things Change". You can listen to the songs with the player here, or on the following page.

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/2548531

This is a song cycle about recovery from addiction: what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. The 14 tracks are built around this three part structure:

Track 1. What it was like

What happened:
Track 2. Step 1: Well I admit it
Track 3. Step 2: Always there
Track 4. Step 3: Things Change
Track 5. Step 4: I was a drunkard
Track 6. Step 5: This with me to the grave must go
Track 7. Step 6: What does it mean to be ready
Track 8. Step 7: Pawn shop
Track 9. Step 8: Rewrite history
Track 10. Step 9: Just some papers we had signed
Track 11. Step 10: Wrong wrong wrong
Track 12. Step 11: You as I understand you
Track 13. Step 12: Fully awake

Track 14: What it's like now.

The songs a really very varied. In talking with a few people, it has come up that the first song ("What is was like") is a bit sad-- as it should be. Things look up as the cycle goes along.

My favorite tracks are "Always There", "I was a drunkard", "Pawn Shop", "Fully Awake", and "What it's like now", although I really am pretty happy with all of them.

http://timothychenallen.blogspot.com/2010/04/things-change-final-edits-are-finished.html

New Song: Always There

This is a work in progress called "Always There" from a 14 song set I'm working on called "Things Change". I'm still working on editing and re-recording the entire set. This is a rough version of the song I put together yesterday afternoon; I have some ideas for it that I still want to write up. But I thought it would be interesting to let people hear what what it is like along the way.



I don't mind if you didn't create everything
I don't mind if you're not always there
I don't even mind if you let me down sometimes
I just need some help with this one thing

I don't mind if you aren't always perfect
I can tell from the look of the world that that doesn't mean a thing
And besides, perfect for me can intimidate me
All I ask is that you be good enough

Cause when I'm falling down
Just need your hand to be there

I don't mind if you didn't create everything
I don't mind if you're not always there
I don't even mind if you let me down sometimes
I just need some help with this one thing

I don't mind if you aren't always perfect
I can tell by the look of the world that that doesn't mean a thing
And besides, perfect for me can intimidate me
All I ask is that you be good enough

Cause when I'm falling down
Just need your hand always there

I don't mind if you didn't create everything...

Songwriting Cliches

I finished off February Album Writing Month with fourteen songs written: mission accomplished. And oddly, I've gone back down to write twice at 5 am this month as well. I didn't expect to want to continue, but I did.

A question came up on the songwriting forum for FAWM: "what are your musical cliches?" In other words, what words, musical themes, etc keep showing up again and again. Kind of like the word "Sunshine" in James Taylor's old stuff.

Here was my answer:

Mine are simple:
1) Lots of E6. I get extra excited if I can end a song on E6. At least three of my songs started in E6 this year (wait... 4... 5... shit, all of them did) (If you don't know what E6 sounds like, the Beatles use it to end "Help!")
2) 7th chords. I just wrote one with E6 into A7 and I thought I saw Jeebus (This morning in "Deer in Headlights").
3) Most of my songs have the word "darkness" in them somewhere. I think this has less to do with any emotional darkness and more to do with the fact that my family life requires me to get up at 5 am to write.
4) I almost always have a section of two or three voice parts going "Dah... Dah dah dah duh". My seven year old son pointed this out to me.
5) I won't write a song in which the primary phrase is three chords. I'll mess up a perfectly good song just so it will have a more complex chord progression.
6) Three part harmony!
7) Oh, and finishing the song by singing the first line of the song again, slowly for dramatic effect (pause to barf on self). I did this on like 16 of the 14 songs I wrote this time.

FAWM: 13 songs written

February Album Writing Month (FAWM) is winding down.  I have 13 of the 14 songs written and have started the 14th song.  Several important things have happened this month as a result of attempting to write 14 songs in one month.  

The first and most important is that my wife, Sònia, has noticed that I'm a lot happier guy this month.  Apparently something about writing music makes me feel good.  

The second is that I have gotten a lot better at coming up with songs, figuring out harmonies for them, and recording them.  The time pressure is the thing.  I think I normally try doodling with the guitar and singing a little, then I realize that what I'm doodling with could go off in four different directions.  So I get flustered trying to decide between the options.  When you have to write a song every two days, you just go ahead and develop the first idea that comes into your head.

The third is that, of the 13 songs so far written, I have three that I really, really love and another four that I think are good enough that they should be developed further.  There are a couple that I am actively embarrassed about.

The fourth is that I am absolutely exhausted.  The idea of getting up at 5 am tomorrow to go write music makes me ill.  Part of me wants to give up at 13.  Except I won't.  I actually have *two* days to complete that last song.

FAWM: Three new songs written

I've written three songs so far for February Album Writing Month (FAWM). I'm pretty happy with them and have posted them to the music player on this blog.


FAWM is pretty similar to National Novel Writing Month, in which I've participated two years running. The idea behind FAWM is to write (and ideally record) 14 songs in the month of February.

I know this is all crazy-- I try not to be so naive that I think that I'm creating an actual "album", any more than my two "novel" manuscripts are anything more than first drafts.  But there really is something that simply feels nice about having a couple of songs completed, songs that no one else wrote.  And it's a lot more writing than I've done recently-- before last year's FAWM, my last song was one I wrote to get Sonia to marry me (it worked) and before that my heaviest production time was when I was in Peace Corps.  In 1992.  In Seychelles.  That's too far back.

The point of all of this is simple: like most things, the only way to get better at writing is to write.  The evidence is clear.  My second novel manuscript is a hell of a lot better than my first.  And the songs I've written so far this year are just better than the ones I wrote last year.  

Most people have trouble writing because they are so ashamed of their first attempts.  They write something, then the next day they read it and realize that it's not perfect and then they hide the thing and never try to write again.  I have an advantage here because I lack what my wife Sonia calls el sentido del ridículo: the sense of the ridiculous.  This probably would best be translated as "I have no shame".  I don't get embarrassed easily.  Or rather, I do, but somehow I have the ability to swallow hard and press on.   This also made learning Spanish easier.  I'm pretty sure I left a sturdy swatch of laughing Spaniards in my wake when I first moved to Spain (ask me about the cone of chocolate ice cream some time, I'm amazed I ever lived that one down).

As far as the novel, I actually found someone to edit it, a West Point grad (I try not to hold that against my editor).  I'll get a look at it when the editing is over and see if there is anything to be done for it.

14 years! My songwriting page

I celebrated 14 years since 15-January-1995 today. Pretty good, a day like any other, really. A little chilly, really.

Who am I kidding, I was over the moon.

One thing I finally got around to doing was sprucing up my songwriting page on MySpace. I wrote a few songs last year for February Album Writing Month and posted them there. I'll be participating in the FAWM again this year, so hopefully my listing will get longer this year:

http://www.myspace.com/timothychenallen

February Album Writing Month: You're Really Great! (Song #2)

I've actually got four songs written so far (I'm supposed to finish 14 in February; we'll see), but I've only been able to record two more or less successfully. Here is the second one: http://fawm.org/songs.php?id=2436. I'm also putting these up on my MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/timothychenallen.

February Album Writing Month: Naphthalene (Song #1)

After finishing National Novel Writing Month, I was looking for something to do and ran across February Album Writing Month (FAWM). The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days. I've gotten started on my album (ha ha), which I'm tentatively calling "14 things I f&"@#!d up (and one thing I got right)".

You can see and listen to "Naphthalene" at http://fawm.org/songs.php?id=227.