Week 6, Blog 1

I can’t believe it’s already the last week of SCORE! But at the same time I’m right on schedule. My album is almost complete; all I have left to do is record background parts for the nine newly recorded songs on the album. To do this, I had to pack up my computer, charger, microphone and a few other small pieces and parts and bring them all to school to record with instruments that I’m borrowing from Mr. Sokol. So far today I have recorded parts for three or four songs on the bells (basically a xylophone… I don’t really know why we call them the bells here, but we do. I get to play them at pep rallies and football games and stuff). After editing those parts, I went through the other songs on the album to assess which instruments I’d need to record their background parts. I decided that I wanted an extra guitar part in one song, and luckily there was a guitar right here in the practice room, so I tuned it up and got that part recorded fairly quickly. In addition to that part, I have decided on a bass drum part in one song, some extra piano in a few other songs, and a trumpet solo in one song, which I’d been planning on for a while – since I wrote the song, actually. I need to figure out how and when I’ll get it recorded – I think I’m going to ask Josh Christopher to come in at some point this week to record it, if he can. It should be fairly easy for me to write, and easy for him to learn and play. I also left a few of my songs alone with just a few basic parts, because I tend to prefer a more minimalistic style in my music.

Week 5, Blog 4

Because I’m getting really excited about being able to release my album in just a few weeks, I decided to do some work on the album over the weekend. I started Friday, after my AP Spanish Lit exam (and a subsequent run to Chipotle with my classmates for lunch), by releasing the cover art of my album and the track listing on my Facebook page. I also shared the image to my personal Facebook profile, because only about 230 people have “liked” me on Facebook – a number that I hope will grow with the release of the album. I also gave the album its official title: “The Last Words of an Empty Bedroom.” The title came to me at once on Thursday, and it stuck in my head pretty well because I think it’s appropriate to my life at the current moment – I’m about to be leaving my bedroom for another one, and many of these songs are my thoughts on that subject. I also promoted the album more on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, using the new album cover that I made. A lot of people have told me that they are excited to hear it, so I’m glad that the word is getting out and that people are as impatient as I am for the album to be released! Additionally, I worked on re-recording some vocals and other instrumental parts that I wanted to fix over the weekend, so that next week I will be in a position to focus completely on background parts as it is the last week I have to finish recording the album. 

Week 5, Blog 3

On Thursday, I spent a portion of the day exporting my album to iTunes from Garageband, which took me about half an hour, because I had to do it for all nine of my previously unrecorded songs. My computer is starting to get old, and Garageband takes time to open each song, and then the exporting process takes a few minutes for each song. Anyway, once I had all of my songs in iTunes, I first had to put them in the order that I want them on the final album. This took quite a bit of time, because I want the order to be perfect. When considering the order, I took into account both the thematic qualities of the song and also how two songs sound next to each other. After a good chunk of time, I finally had an order that I was happy with. I also spent a lot of the day, once I had the order, listening to the album with my eyes closed, focused on the music. I then made notes on things I wanted to change, improve, or remove in each song, which I will focus on next week in addition to adding background recordings. I did have time to make a few improvements today as well, so I am still feeling like I’m working at a good pace. I also created the album art for the album using Adobe Illustrator, which I will release tomorrow along with the track listing on my Facebook page that I created back in December for my music. 

Week 5, Blog 2

It is now Wednesday and I have already finished all of my base recordings! Out of the eleven total songs on the album, I have had to record 9 of them (two were ones I’d already recorded earlier in the year). To finish the basic tracking for 9 songs in just four days is something I’m pretty proud of. These are just the “rough drafts,” so to speak, however; I am going to devote a lot of time to just listening to and focusing on these tracks once I’ve exported them from Garageband to iTunes, so I can make notes of which parts I like and which parts I have to record again. I already know there are some spots in some of the songs that I’m going to have to redo – I made quite a few mistakes in recording some of the base tracks that I’ll have to correct, but I just wanted to have something down that I could listen to and that would give me a sense of what the song will sound like. I had my phone recordings, but with the microphone I get much better quality. I am also able to record instrumentals and vocals separately, which is one of the wonderful things about Garageband. It enables me to harmonize with myself and layer instruments over each other, while being able to edit each one individually without touching the others. It is a feature that will come in handy when I have to change certain parts, but leave others untouched because they are the final recordings. 

Week 5, Blog 1

Recording is still coming along well! My mom has had a few clients cancel in the mornings, so I’ve been able to record piano with the house a bit quieter. That way I don’t have to worry about background noise (except the phone has rang a few times at the most inopportune moments, which always seems to happen to me). I have a fairly even balance of guitar and piano songs on the album, so with just the few hours I’ve had, I haven’t quite been able to finish getting the piano recordings done. I have one more song to record on the piano. I’m almost done with the guitar parts too – I hope to be done with all of my “base recordings” by the end of the week. The end of the week for me this week is actually Thursday, because I have my AP Spanish Lit exam on Friday, but without my other classes now, I can devote a lot more time to my project. I’ve already made a lot of progress, and despite losing three days to AP exams last week, I think I might be ahead of schedule (i.e. I’ll have my base recordings done far before the end of the week). I also have to start thinking about networking and promoting my album – I am on a variety of social media platforms, both personal and for my music, with which I can promote the album, so I need to figure out how to best utilize those platforms and at what times in order to maximize the attention that the album gets.