The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

Three months since my last attempt at a song and it was the end of April when I gave up on the second on-line song writing course.

So much for the courses getting me writing songs on a regular basis.

I did notice on the Berklee song writing course the idea that there was merit to taking a particular object, item, place, thing etc and making yourself write a song about it. About that time I saw a video about the Ground Arctic Squirrel and thought it could be a good subject. Every so often I have been reminded of this thought, and have then done nothing about it.

It had been a particularly crap week and weekend - maybe that pressure elsewhere gets creative things flowing as an antidote, or at least as a distraction. Anyway - at the weekend this little song about that remarkable creature came into being. I wish the song was as remarkable!

http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13395979

Vintage VE2000GG in DADGAD, plus the Ashbury mandolin, accompanied by the old Viking croak. I hope someone might like it.

Now into week 7 with the new guitar and I'm really enjoying it - I've hardly played any of the others in that time ... hope they're not getting jealous.

You're a complete musician! Backing, solo, singing *and* background singing plus lyrics - sounds great!
Did you record each part separately?

And yes, IF you take the time to record (which I usually forget) you can be very creative when under stress. When I really have some free time (which happens not often) and I think OK, sit down and record something that has been on my mind for some time, it doesn't work.

Great !! Copyprotect this song !!

Whew - one very, very busy (and stressful) week , but I can now start to catch up on hobbies and music forums!

Thanks guys - and my apologies for the lack of blues-iness to the song.

Yes Gerd - each part was recorded separately. I find recording the acoustic guitar and vocal at the same time tricky as I only have two inputs on my USB interface and I much prefer to use two microphones to record the guitar. Dual microphones are so much better for acoustic guitar sound. In any case I find there's problems with spillover with the vocal mic picking up guitar and the other way round too when both guitar and vocals are recorded at the same time.

I rehearse playing and singing at the same time till I've got a strong enough sense of how the words will be sung, then I record the guitar part while imagining the vocal - then immediately record the vocal so that the two link together properly. I like to have the guitar rhythm varying a bit and changing to underline the rhythm of the words.

I'm not keen on the idea of a fixed rigid guitar rhythm that's the same all the way through the song as I don't think it serves the song and the words as well, but I know there's a lot of players disagree and are very keen on a very rigid structure.

Thanks VB!