These are my demos!
Under each song are a lot of personal notes, along with the day I recorded the demo, which is almost always a few minutes/hours after I finished the draft. I'll write about the things I like and don't like about the song, potential influences, and what exactly the topic might be! (Spoiler: The topic is usually "whatever word salad is easiest for Kaitlyn to remember when she's already struggling to remember how to play the song".)
The newest demo will be at the top, and the oldest at the bottom. They should be in the same order in the playlist.
This functions more like a diary than anything else, but I think it'll be helpful to reflect and look back on what I've written!
The verse melody is something I partially came up with in May, and I came up with the chorus in July. The chorus has always been the same, but the verse has taken a LOT of tweaking, melodically and rhythmically. I didn't have it finalized until today, even though I finished everything else in the song the other day. While this isn't my favorite song I've written, I think the melodies are the best and most memorable I have overall now. (I will admit that I got the G-F-F# progression at the verse's end from "Hyrule Castle". I was enamored with that song when I came up with it.)
Lyrics, lyrics... I like them more in this song than I do in the average song I write, but the music is always more important to me. There are some clunky decisions here that I'll change if I think of anything I can remember better, but the lyrics are pretty alright overall.
The demo is probably better than the other demos I have here in terms of accuracy, but there are still some things I REALLY need to clean up before the open mic tomorrow. Breathing/breath control is the biggest one, so I should work on slowing the pace down, too... Rhythm is my weak spot. Actually, I changed my mind, playing in general is my weak spot. And breath control... And singing anything above a Bb4. But this ain't about that. Song's alright.
I wrote this song three months ago (how time flies!), but I changed the bridge and some chords today. I'm not the biggest fan of either bridge, and I think a combination of the styles I used would work best for this song. But whatever.
This was inspired by Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut's first novel. It's not very good, but I found it to be an interesting read that's really unlike anything else he put out. Other than Player Piano, I guess I was thinking about AI or something. As a result, the lyrics are very cheesy. I don't care enough about this song to try and revise them a second time, to be honest--I'll just perform it if it feels right.
Like the book I was inspired by, this song is clunky and makes its "argument" rather poorly. I also feel like the whole thing is just an excuse to get to the chorus. And it's not THAT good of a chorus, especially if you examine the lyrics. But, again, you don't really know how good a song is until you try it live. So... We'll see.
This is the first song I've made with the Genesis chips! Actually, just one of the chips, I'm pretty sure--couldn't quite figure out how to make square or noise instruments, and also didn't need them, because the mix was messy enough. The synth muddles up things super easily, but I had fun with it. This is just a little snippet to prove I actually make tracker music, even if I don't do it well... When I make "finished" and "produced" songs, they're more or less be songs like these combined with demos like the earlier ones I have here. If anything, there will be less going on that that.
I don't see myself doing anything with this trackbut getting it stuck in my head during class and laughing at it.
This song has been cooking for a while... I've had the verse, pre-chorus, chorus, and little ending section down for a while, but just wasn't sure what to do with the little section between the second verse and pre-chorus. I used a really similar trick in the last song, but I think this ended up working well in the end. (WARNING--LOADS OF MUSIC THEORY BABBLE FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH!) We first hear the key of F# in minor, then briefly in major, then the third time in (sort of) phyrgian. The pattern repeats, but the second time we leave the phrygian section, we resolve to the more natural D major instead of E major. This is great, because I already kind of wanted the end to be a bit lower, I just wasn't sure how to get there. I just think this little "phrygian" bit is too rocky; I wanted this to be a poppy song I could mostly rely on the Genesis synths for. I was going for more Hissing Fauna than The Bends here.
The recording is super messy. I missed some words and played some chords wrong. I only had time for one take between finishing the song and having to go to class. The guitar is also very, ah, sparse, as I'm living in a dorm now and don't want to be THAT person with the guitar, no matter what time of day it is. My voice is shot, too, so I couldn't sing over it if it were much higher.
I'd really love to add synths to this song, maybe iron out some parts musically, but I'm going to wait until I've performed it live to do anything major. I can't really tell how I feel about a song until I've played it live. Some are just worth it, and some aren't. Not too brag--okay, I'll brag for a second--but I think I'd have a really good setlist if (when!) we do another RTX/WCNU open mic. I won't be able to play very well, no, but the songwriting will be tight. In my opinion.
The phrygian part is the part in my head right now. Maybe it's because I just came up with it, or maybe it actually is good... I'm just afraid it won't fit with the rest of the song. That could be a good thing for some songs, but again, I wanted the vibe/texture here to be less "organic". Once again, I need to play this live to tell.
One good thing with this one is that the lyrics are alright. I don't forget them, and none are so bad that I'd have to change them for performance. The song below...... Not so much.
Who even knows what this one is about. I imagine the narrator is a highly immature person talking about a relationship that may or may not be real... But that's just a vague feeling. It could be about lots of things. I was thinking about Kingdom Hearts a tiny bit while I wrote this, but that wouldn't explain much.
Sound feels power pop, almost pop punk. Reminds me of some of the faster Jason Falkner songs he did a bit later on, probably because of all the key changes. Usually, when I write a song with four or five keys, it's really disorganized, but I think this is cohesive enough. It's not supposed to be super cohesive, anyway. I'd like to open shows and an album with this one, unless I ever write something more energetic. Only musical thing I need to revise is the second half of the Eb section. The first half is really good for my standards, but the second half doesn't do anything. Maybe rethink the chords in the F major section, because I always seem to forget them.
I'm really not a fan of how insipid I think the lyrics are, but they're fun to sing, so I might keep them. I think it's best to sing what's natural, even if it's dumb. They just look really stupid on their own... No matter what, I need to get rid of some of the lyrical repetition once I get the playing down enough. I can't vary much musically unless I add some tracked bits, so something in the lyrics needs to change. One thing is for sure... I need to get rid of at least half of the 'baby's. I hate that word, but I put it in all my rough drafts.