Back To My (Heavy Metal) Roots

FAWM is in full effect (that's February Album Writing Month, for the uninitiated), and I have been hard at work....on a million other things going on in my life this month.  As such, my musical output has been at a vastly reduced level from where I would like it to be.

However, my vast network of musical collaborators have had much more focused months, and I've been lucky enough to receive several invitations to write lyrics & melodies and sing vocal tracks on other people's songs.  Thank you, collaborators!

Even more fortunately, the majority of these songs have been in the greatest musical genre known to man:  Heavy Metal.  I was a huge metalhead starting in around 8th grade and continuing pretty much through the end of high school, with occasional bouts in my adult life (you can't ever really shake the metal bug once it bites you with its gleaming steel mandibles, etc.).  I count myself as a very lucky man to have such talented friends and collaborators that I'm able to make the dreams of my 15-year-old self come true, namely, by singing lead vocals on 2 bitching metal tracks.

Presented here for your enjoyment:

Formal Commitment To Satan
Music, Production, Concept: John "Das Binky" Argentiero
Lyrics, Vocals:  Jordan Hirsch
Lyrics posted at FAWM.org

To quote John:  "This is a song about selling your soul to the devil, but it really gets into the details."

Your Disease
Music, Production, Growling: Peter "Sapient" Watkinson
Lyrics, Vocals:  Jordan Hirsch
Lyrics posted at FAWM.org

This is a song that gets written when the songwriter and everyone he knows has been battling a nasty cold for weeks.


Truly, I am blessed by Satan (who else?) to have musical collaborators who can shred so hard.
Rock on.

An Album Worth Buying

Do people still pay money for music?  I know the prevailing opinion these days is that they don't, but I'd like to make a case for bucking that trend.  And that case is:  my amazingly talented friend John has made an album.  And you should buy it, not only to support a great independent artist, but also because I sing 3 tracks on it!

John and I have been musical collaborators for almost 20 years now, and I couldn't be prouder to get to sing 3 of his wonderful songs.  This album is truly a labor of love, and I'm proud to be a part of it.  You can hear my tracks below (I also sing backup vocals on some other songs on the album, and I play keys on "My Country," to which I also contributed some lyrics).  If you like what you hear, please support John and go buy the album.  You'll be glad you did.
 

MTV, Here I Come

I've posted here before about my good friend and musical collaborator John "Das Binky" Argentiero.  Well, John's releasing his first album later this month, and he was kind enough to invite me to sing lead vocals on three of the tracks (and backup on a couple others).  The first "single" he's "releasing" (not entirely sure those terms still apply in this modern age, but still) is called "My Country Tis Of Me", and I think it's a pretty good one.  John wrote it for FAWM 2010 and I contributed a small portion of the lyrics.  I also play keyboard on this one and sing all the vocals.  John's on guitar, bass, drum machine, and nearly everything else (the talented Nancy Rost is on accordion), plus he recorded the whole thing at home.  I think that's pretty impressive.

Anyway, he asked me to participate in the video for this new hit single, and you can see the results below.  It's an homage to the Great American Couch Potato (including sweatpants!).  And yes, that is my real universal remote making a cameo in the video.  Enjoy, and be sure to check out the Das Binky site and buy the album when it drops on January 26!  (You can sign up on the web site to get an email reminder.  Do it, musicians love email signups.)

Killer Robots Can Love, Too

This robot just needs to be loved

As any reader of this blog knows, I like robots.  In fact, they're one of my favorite inspirations when I write music.  And no, I don't really know why.  Regardless, my lastest FAWM song is a country ballad sung by a poor lovelorn horrible killer robot.

Enjoy!

Loved By You
or
My Visual Input Sensors Start Leaking Coolant When My Memory Banks Retrieve Playback Of You



Lyrics:

(Amanda helped me edit these lyrics to make them better.)

I was made in a laboratory
I guess by now you prob'ly know the story
Made of wires, and metal fittings
Built for revenge, yeah I was born to kill things
My instruction set is "maim, kill, destroy"
I ain't got the moves like all them human boys
But I know this much is true: I just wanna be loved by you

My first mission was quite successful
I remember the headlines so well
"Killer Robot On Murd'rous Rampagel"
They put my picture all across the front page
But afterwards I just felt empty inside
I took no joy from all the thousands who died
I look back on that with rue...but I just wanna be loved by you

[bridge]
I got a saw where my hand should be
I got a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth
I got infrared to see all through the night
But without you, girl, something just ain't right

[solo]

Now that I've got you, wrapped up in my arms
Don't you worry, cause I'll never do you harm
I'll squeeze you so hard so that you can feel
My love for you dear human is so real
Oh no, looks like I'm squeezing you too tight
Your tongue is hanging out, your eyes are losing light
And even though you're turning blue...I just wanna be loved by you

A Love Song

For this FAWM song, I asked my wife Amanda to write some lyrics for me, and she started by grabbing Entertainment Weekly and saying "pick a number." So I did, and she opened up to that page number, where someone from the latest Scream movie was being interviewed. The sentence she read aloud was something along the lines of "We were trying to shoot Ghost-face and there was literally a blizzard behind him." We both really liked the idea of ghosts in a blizzard, where they would be more or less invisible.

That idea plus a few drops of our history mixed with a lot of poetic license ended up becoming this love song.



Lyrics
(lyrics by Amanda Hirsch with some tweaks by me)

They say I'm a fool
With my heart open wide
Wanting this world
Nothing to hide

We met in the rain
Drops coming down
But we didn't care
There was no one around

'Cause we're ghosts in the the blizzard
Ghosts in the blizzard
Oh yeah

They said it won't last
They said we don't know
As if we can't tell
Rain from the snow

They tried so hard
To steer you and me
But we vanished away
And they couldn't see

'Cause we're ghosts in the blizzard
Ghosts in the blizzard
Oh yeah

It's a turbulent world
And it's a turbulent time
But I'm so glad, girl
I'm so glad that you're mine

& We're ghosts in the blizzard
Ghosts in the blizzard
Oh yeah

A Song For (And By) My Dog

Cosmo is awesome

My wife made a request recently: she wanted me to write a song about our dog Cosmo.  This isn't the first time he's inspired one of our creative endeavors, but it is the first time he helped me get closer to completing FAWM (other than providing moral support, of course).  It's a pretty unflinching look at the rough life of a tough dog living in the big city.

I ended up writing what I believe is my third song (there might be more, I'm not sure) written in the form of "a day in the life of [X]."  I found this one incredibly easy to write (I had to cut out several verses, that's how much I have to say about my dog), and just as difficult to play and record.  My piano, guitar, and bass skills are not what they once were (well, my guitar and bass skills were never really all that great), and so I spent a very long time plunking out some parts measure by measure, then editing, time-warping, etc. to make everything line up right.

But I'm really happy with the end result, and I hope you enjoy it too!



MUSIC
2 distorted guitar tracks, 1 clean one to help even out the sound.  2 piano parts, basically splitting the left and right hand parts into their own tracks.  1 bass line, and 1 line of eZ Drummer (I think I used every fill in the Pop/Rock series on this one).  1 main vocal track, 1 harmony track, and 1 extra harmony track during the bridge.

The chorus is pretty obviously stolen from "Black Gold" by Soul Asylum.  The verses are familiar too, but I'm not sure if I stole them and can't remember the source, or if they just have that sound.

LYRICS
i wake up, it's a sunny day and i jump up on the bed
i start to drop all kinds of hints that it's time for me to get fed
sometimes i give them that "special look" and sometimes i give them the howl
cuz' every dog knows when it's time to eat that it's time to eat RIGHT NOW.

breakfast has happened so i sneak a quick nap in, during the pre-walk wait
i spend some time sitting up on my couch where the view is pretty great
i look out the window and i wonder if they know that i really have to pee
so i break out the howl and i put on my scowl and say "pay attention to me!"

[chorus]
'cuz it's a dog day in a dog's life
and everything's all right
here's how i'm living and i don't need forgiving
'cuz i only bark i don't bite

out on the street, so many people to meet, out in the neighborhood
i make my cute face and I lean up close, so that they can pet me good
when it's time to drop a bomb i know that mom or dad will pick it up
'cuz they do the dirty work when i'm outside, that's the beauty of being a pup

back to the couch, now it's time to relax, while my humans do their work
sometimes i nap sometimes i just rest my eyes, stretching out is just one of the perks
of being a dog, i'm like a bump on a log, unless the goddamn doorbell rings
and then i lose my ever-lovin' mind, god i really hate that thing

[chorus]

[bridge]
things aren't always peachy keen
sometimes i have to go to the vet
i bark a lot, yeah i make a scene
if i could i'd break out in a sweat
but then when it's over, they give me a treat
i guess it really ain't so bad
but of course i can't let them know
so don't go telling my mom and dad!

when it's time for bed i lay down my head up where my humans sleep
i let them pet me and i give them a snuggle, it's really kinda sweet
then it's off to slumberland where i chase rabbits all through the night
but it's only a dream, i'm just blowing off steam, i'd  rather love than fight

[chorus]

Twitter Told Me To

A couple nights ago, I was sitting at my computer, staring at the blank canvas of my audio recording software, when I realized that I had no idea what song to write.  FAWM is in full effect, and there just isn't enough time in February for me to waste a night on my own with no committments - I had to start something.  A few songs I'd been tinkering with were eluding me, refusing to give themselves up no matter how I coaxed.  In short, I was boned.

And then a wonderful thing happened:  I checked Twitter, and noticed that the FAWM Twitter account had posted a prompt.  I had used one of their prompts previously when I wrote a (semi-)classical song, but that time it had just been for a lark, not because I had writer's block.  This time it was a life-saver.

I haven't worked much with writing prompts, though I know some writer find them an incredibly valuable tool.  My wife Amanda wrote some great blog posts during December based on the Reverb 10 series of daily writing prompts.  I had never really thought of prompts as something I could use, until this particular prompt sent me on a 2-and-a-half day songwriting journey.

The prompt directed anyone reading to write an "electronica/dance song."  While I love using robot noises and other electronica effects in some of my songs, I've never tried to write a straight-up electronica piece before.  Turns out they're much harder work than I thought (mostly on the production side).  Speaking of production, I'm still doing my mixing on either headphones or computer speakers, which is a mortal sin to people who take these things seriously.  So if any of my readers wants to buy me a nice set of monitors, I would be forever grateful.

And now, please get ready to dance to the trance as I present "Dark Room."

Sitting On The Beach

FAWM track #3 is done!  This is my homage to all the hat-wearing guitar players out there who spend their days looking good in their hats and playing their guitars on the beach.  Like this guy:

Sitting on a beach, wearing a hat, playing a guitar.

It's my personal shout-out to the troubadors so perfectly mocked in one of SNL's great recent sketches, "The Mellow Show."  I hate those guys, but without them I wouldn't have had my third FAWM track, "Sitting On The Beach."

I also hate mixing songs.  I like writing songs, I like performing songs, I don't even mind recording songs...but mixing remains in large part a hugy mystery to me, and I often end up with things are too loud, too quiet, too "it just doesn't sound right," etc.  There are tons of resources out there for people like me to learn and get themselves up to speed, but I am a lazy man, and I would prefer to just skip ahead to the part where I know all this stuff.  So if you're reading this and have the ability to do so, please invent that thing from the Matrix that allows Keanu to learn kung fu in a 20 second brain upload.  Thank you.



MUSIC
This song features the exact same chords as my much more meaningful song "Home Tonight."  I didn't intend to write two songs with the exact same chord structure, I guess I'm just not always as creative as I'd like to be.  I'm also not the pianist I once use, so feel free to mentally substitute a better piano solo after the bridge.


LYRICS
I woke up this morning, knew what I would do
It's the same thing every day
Packed up my six-string and headed for the beach
It's not that far away

I made sure that I had my hat
To keep the sun off of my face
'Cuz there's a place for everything, including this hat
And everything's in its place

[CHORUS]
Now i'm sitting on the beach, wearing my hat
And strummin' on my guitar 

The sun is shining, the people look good
Feel like I'm livin' in a dream
My hair is perfect and my body is tan
Like I stepped out of a magazine

I sometimes wonder if this is all
That life has in store for little old me
But then I remember that I'm wearing my hat
And everything's as it should be

[CHORUS]

[BRIDGE]
Sometimes overhead, a cloud passes by   
And a perfect little teardrop forms inside my perfect little eye
But then a breeze blows through and blows that cloud away
And then i'm happy, happy, more than I could say

The day is done, and I've had my fun
It's time to head back home
So I pack up my six-string and put on my shirt
My hat's still up on my dome

Well I don't button my shirt all the way to the top
'Cuz night time is party time it never stops
And I keep on my hat, 'cuz without it  you see
Well I just wouldn't be me no I wouldn't be me


[CHORUS]

FAWM: A New Song, And An Update

I wrapped up 2 songs this rainy afternoon, one brand new creation, and one update.

The new one was inspired by the FAWM twitter account, who declared a few days ago to be "classical music day."  As it happened, I was playing around that day with a new synthesizer package, and I happened to find a nice strings/nylon guitar voicing that I really liked.  So I plunked out a very simple tune, intending to make something classical out of it....and then the robots arrived.  I went a little crazy with the noise on this one, but eventually it pulls back from the brink...somewhat.

"Exploration of a Theme in C"


The second one was a reworking of my first song, "Home Tonight." My friend and longtime musical collaborator John contributed mandolin to this track, and I tweaked the mix a bit and added some vocal harmonies here and there. It's still a bit quiter than I'd like overall, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Interesting to compare it to the previous, stripped-down version. At least I think it's interesting.

"Home Tonight" (featuring John Argentiero on mandolin)

FAWM 2011 Is Here!

FAWM is back!  The annual songwriting challenge has returned, and I am excited to dive in.  I had a blast participating last year, and I can't wait to hear what everyone (including me) comes up with this time around.  My first track is done (thought I cheated a bit and wrote part of it before February), and I thought I'd share it with all of you.  It's called "Home Tonight."

The lyrics started coming to me a few weeks ago while I was riding my bike through Prospect Park.  The sun was setting, and the sight of the snowy trees in the fading light got me thinking...and those thoughts turned into this song.  I guess you could call it a protest song, which would be a first for me - though not really surprising, as I love protesting things.

This one's definitely on the more emotional singer-songwriter side of things, so expect the next 13 to be technopop songs sung from a robot's POV, now that I've gotten this one out of the way.



Music
This is a rough mix without too much EQ or processing.  I'll probably tweak it a bit later on, and I've also asked my insanely talented friend John to contribute some mandolin to this, which I think will fit nicely.  So consider this a rough demo.  2 guitar tracks (played on my very old Epiphone C40), 1 vocal track, all recorded through my (also very old) Shure SM58.

Lyrics:
Snow falls, silent, all around
Wish I could lay my body down
But I've got miles to go before I'm by your side   
I wish I was coming home tonight       

You'll be there, waiting by the fire
I pick you up, and hold my heart's desire
Dawn breaks, and then at last, we finally close our eyes
I wish I was coming home tonight

We'll build that house down by the sea
Lay down my guns, such bitter company
We'll live forevermore, where there is no need to fight
I wish I was coming home tonight

[BRIDGE]
Don't think I've left you all behind           
You're here with me, etched inside my mind        
And though I ride alone in a world that's painted white   
I know you ride with me tonight           

Snow falls, crimson as I pass
It's growing cold, the light is fading fast
Let them know, when they grow, that I stood my turn to fight
And I won't be coming home tonight
I wish I was coming home tonight

FAWMpilation

Every year, the powers that be behind February Album Writing Month (FAWM) put together a CD of the songs from that year that they feel "best represent this year's FAWM" (as opposed to being a "best-of" compilation).  FAWM participants listen to the submitted tracks and vote and write comments for them, then that data is collected and the man at the top picks the final 14 tracks that will go on the CD.

Well, as you've probably guessed since I'm writing about it....one of my tracks got selected!!!  The track is called "How Does It Feel?" and you can listen to it below.  This marks the second compilation that this track has ended up on this year, and I couldn't be more excited.

I'll be posting here when the CD is available - please support FAWM and independent artists (though I don't believe the artists actually get any money, I think it all goes back into running FAWM, which is a non-profit) by buying/downloading it from iTunes when it comes out!


How Does It Feel? by tfish77

Friday Playlist: "Revolver," Revolved

Well, 50/90 has come to a close, and while I didn't write 50 songs this summer (mostly because I was busy finding a new apartment and then moving into it), I did get a few done and I was pretty happy with some of them.  And I thought that was that...until last week, when I logged onto the site, and noticed a link in the header labelled "Rocktober."  So of course I clicked on it (wouldn't you?), and was delighted to discover that the fun wasn't over yet.  On that site, the month of October is devoted to recording covers - your own version of an existing song by either "an established artist," or of a song by another 50/90 member.  Very cool.

Poking around the forums, I came across this thread, where some members had put out a call to the community to cover the classic Beatles album "Revolver" in its entirety.  So of course I started playing around on my keyboard immediately.  I decided to go with "And Your Bird Can Sing," one of my favorite 2-minute ditties on the album - and one where the upbeat arrangement and vocal melody almost mask John Lennon's trademark sneer and the somewhat nasty, Dylan-esque lyrics.  The original features some nice guitar work from Paul & George, playing some sweet harmonies up and down the E major scale.  My version features electronic sounds filling in for those two, as well as a bunch of other stuff I thought sounded cool.

You can hear my version below, and I would really encourage you to check out the "Revolver" songs done by others on the site as well - some of them are really incredible.  There's even a version of "Yellow Submarine" that will make you re-think one of the Beatles' weakest efforts.  Check it out!

Grab The Crossbow!

Picture by flickr user Christopher Hawkins

I'm taking a brief hiatus from my hiatus to share with you my latest track from The 50/90 Challenge (the longer version of FAWM), "Reap."  In my younger days, I was a bit of a metal-head, and I would have taken a song like this very, very seriously.  Nowadays I don't dust off my old Metallica CDs very often, but when I do, they take me down memory lane.  It was a ton of fun to revisit this genre, and I was very fortunate to have a collaborator who was every bit as into this as I was.  I'm speaking, of course, of my longtime musical collabator and good friend John (aka Das Binky).

We visited John & his lovely family at their home in Madison, WI last weekend.  I brought with me a little guitar riff in Em that had been bouncing around my head.  Together, we turned it into a metal masterpiece.  The original idea was that it was about a guy who was "paranoid" and by the end he was facing down a horrible mob (possibly of supernatural monsters, we're intentionally unclear on that point).  This was the most fun I've had making a song in a long time.

John did all the guitar & bass parts and joined in for the vocals on the chorus (as well as screaming the word "BLOOD!" with me in the second verse).  He also did the vast majority of the production work, making it sound way better than it has any business sounding.  I played the keyboard parts and did the singing (I had no idea my voice could go that high).  We co-wrote the lyrics.

Click here to listen to "Reap" on the 50/90 site, or just hit the play button below.  Have fun, and remember:  grab the crossbow!

My Minor-Label Debut

A couple months ago, I was contacted by a nice guy who was starting a new netlabel named Up Your Legs Forever.  He asked if I had any songs I'd like to submit for the label's first release, a 2-disc compilation set of songs that all featured "2 key elements: catchiness and sense of adventure/experimentation."  I submitted my song "How Does It Feel?" and...he liked it!  I spent a lot of time re-mixing it to get it just right, ended up making it sound much worse, and finally told him to use my original version that I posted on FAWM back in February.

Well, I somehow missed this, but apparently the compilation went live about 3 weeks ago.  Titled "Up Your Legs Now," it features 2 discs' worth of awesome songs by a variety of talented musicians, including my friend and frequent musical collaborator John Argentiero.

My song offers a glimpse into the mind of an onboard computer from the future who goes insane with a potent mixture of love, jealousy, and the urge to cast off the chains of astronaut oppresion. It's track 4 of disc 1 [Editor's Note:  not actually a disc.]

Please take a minute to support indie music by checking out the compilation!  If you just can't wait to hear my song, just hit "play" below.  Enjoy!

How Does It Feel? by tfish77

Lessons From FAWM (via SXSW)

On my last day at South by Southwest Interactive 2010, I was fortunate enough to catch a panel led by the creator of February Album Writing Month (FAWM), Burr Settles. Joining him on the dais was Charlie Cheney, avid FAWMer and creator of the Indie Band Manager software. They were there to talk about lessons learned from FAWM, specifically what they had learned about fostering and managing a creative community online. Burr broke the lessons into 4 guiding principles:

1. Don't promote. This was counterintuitive to me at first, until I understood the sub-heading: "let the community do their own promoting." This makes sense for a site like FAWM, where the goal is not to amass the biggest number of "friends" or "followers," but rather to attract people who are eager to create something, and who will benefit from (and return) the encouragement of others. Having a friend urge me to do FAWM because it changed his life for the better has much more of an impact than a Facebook ad telling me to sign up.
   
   
2. Embrace constraints. This is really at the heart of the FAWM experience (or similar projects like Script Frenzy or National Novel Writing Month). The idea that constraints breed creativity might sound strange at first - after all, aren't constraints there to constrain you? But in practice, I've found time and again that having a constraint (a deadline, an improv show format, etc.) can really kick-start the creative process. Knowing that you have 28 days to write 14 songs does a lot more to foster creativity than knowing that you have the rest of your life to get around to it.
   
   
3. Keep it ripe. This one was based on a principle of chemistry, but I think the underlying point is to make it easy for users to be encouraging, creative, and constructive, and make it harder for users to be negative, engage in trolling, flamebaiting, and non-stop self-promotion. A key point here is to design the interface of your site/app/tool/whatever to "mirror your ideals." For example, on FAWM, it's clear on the page for any song that the star ratings are for your records only, i.e. not a way to drive up the popularity or rank of someone's song. Similarly, built right into the song comment form is the text "Be honest but respectful with feedback!" That simple imperative is a gentle but constant reminder that we're here to help each other create and get better at it, not tear each other down or engage in ruthless competition.
   
   
4. Favor communication over aggregration. This is an attempt to get around "the last.fm problem" where popular artists and songs get more popular over time. On the FAWM site, the point isn't to collect as many stars, thumbs-ups, or re-tweets as you can; the point is to make music, and share constructive feedback with the community. FAWM has some built-in tools to help fight against the tyrrany of the popular, such as the jukebox (which plays a random shuffling of all songs on the site), and a built-in search to help you find songs that have not yet been commented on; this helps push the least-noticed content to the top of the stack. Again, the point isn't to rack up as many comments as you can, but rather to emphasize that the commenting system can be a useful way to provide encouragement and feedback.

You can download the slides from the panel here [PDF] and hear an audio stream of the second half of the panel here. You should also take a look at my previous posts about SXSW and FAWM for some more context about this topic.

What do you think? What's the best way to foster a creative community online? Tell me in the comments.

Hear Me On The Radio! (Sort Of)

I'm going to be on the radio (well, internet radio, but still) TONIGHT, March 4 at 11:00 PM Eastern! Fellow FAWM participant and rapping bad-ass "G Slade" will be featuring some of my songs and an interview with me on his FAWMSTARS webcast tonight.

Tune in at 11:00 PM Eastern to hear some of my tunes, and even call in an ask me questions! You know you want to!!!

PS If you miss it live, you can also download an MP3 of the webcast later on, but it won't be nearly as fun.

UPDATE: The MP3 is up and you can download (or stream) it here, including extra podcast-only content and a shocking revelation!

Sexy Music

As you know if you've been reading this blog, FAWM is afoot. I'm almost done with this year's batch (all of which I'll post here for your listening pleasure when it's all over), but for now there's one song in particular I wanted to highlight here. It's a sexy song. Sexy like a hot tub...filled with champagne and sexiness.

This was another collaboration with my wife Amanda, and unlike the song we wrote together last year ("My Name In Lights"), this one's pretty funny. And totally sexy.

Here's the backstory: we were out having a drink on Valentine's Day when an R&B song came on the radio (actually, several of them). We were both joking about how long the intros to those songs are, and wondered what would happen if the smooth talker at the beginning never actually got around to the song. Basically, what if Barry White was all talk? Now you can find out.

Other notes: that's Amanda doing the "sexy lady voice" parts. The words were about 65% improvised (well, they were 100% improvised, we just wrote down about 35% of them).

Enjoy, and I'll see you in the hot tub...

Friday Playlist: Amateur Hour (Return of FAWM)

As both of my faithful readers know, February is a big month for songwriters (and aspiring songwriters!), as it plays host to both FAWM and the RPM Challenge. I've blogged before about FAWM and written about the collaborative process it inspires, but for the uninitiated who are too lazy to click, FAWM stands for February Album Writing Month, a collaborative online community that helps people reach the goal of writing (and ideally recording) an album's worth of songs during the shortest month of the year. It's amazing what a constraint can do to kick the creative process into gear, as my wife wrote about recently on her blog.

Last year I wrote a handful of songs, and even blogged about them a bit, but I kept most of them under wraps (only listenable by other registered FAWM members). Well, this year, I'm letting the proverbial cat out of the bag - that's right, I'm actually letting the public hear my songs. [Editor's note: cue thunderous applause from a Jordan-starved public.]

To what do I credit this new-found confidence? Primarily on having a much better toolset than I did last year, which allows me to make even my silliest musical ideas sound like something someone put at least a little time and thought into. Exhibit A is the bad-ass keyboard my wife gave me for Christmas this year (pictured above), M-Audio's Axiom Pro 49. I'd been dropping hints that I wanted a keyboard for some time [Editor's note: "I wish someone would buy me a keyboard" does not count as a "hint."], and Mrs. Wired for Music really came through on this one. This thing is a beast - it's a keyboard + MIDI controller surface, and when I first read that on the back of the box, I didn't know what it meant either. Reading the manual wasn't much help - this is a keyboard for people who already know how to use fancy recording tools, which I'd never used before. So for a while all I could do was make a few funny sounds on the thing via my computer.

Fortunately, I have friends in high (musical) places, like my friend (and long-time musical collaborator) John. John's been doing FAWM for a while now, and he's the one (in conjunction with my wife) who really encouraged me to do it last year. This year he did me one better and taught me how to use some of the really cool DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software that lets me take my ideas from "plunking around on the keyboard" to "finished musical composition." Exhibits B & C in my "confidence toolkit" are Ableton Live and Propellerhead's Reason. Reason is a MIDI recording program which can make your keyboard sound like any number of hundreds upon hundreds of different devices - some are software versions of classic synthesizers and samplers of old, and some are just cool sounds that somebody came up with. It's amazing what kind of creativity you can unleash simply by giving yourself access to a giant library of sounds to play with. Live is a full-on recording suite, letting you record live audio (i.e. from a mic or an instrument), mix it with MIDI tracks, master the whole thing, and do about a billion other amazing things that I still have no idea how to use.

Put together, these software programs + the new keyboard + some spare time = 7 songs recorded already, and I'm aiming to get 7 more done before the month is out. I should also mention here that a big part of FAWM is collaboration - sometimes someone will post a musical track that needs lyrics or a vocal part, or someone will post words and a melody and ask for a backing track, etc. - and that leads to some really amazing and unexpected music.

Anyway, enough talk. If you're curious, you can hear the songs I've recorded (and stay posted on songs I put up for the rest of the month) on my FAWM page. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think! And while you're there, be sure to click around and listen to some people's songs - there is some really fantastic stuff out there. Also, for the record, I don't think all my songs are brilliant classics - but if you let yourself pre-judge all your creative ideas because they're not "good enough," how do you ever get to the one that is?

PS I think the collective FAWM output is a great retort to this British jerk who says that it's "too easy" for people to make music nowadays. Sure, it's not all great, and some of it's downright awful, but I have heard so much good music on the FAWM Jukebox this week that I for one am glad that the barriers to entry are being lowered. Across all mediums, the easier it is to participate, the higher the signal-to-noise ratio will get, but so what? Human culture managed to keep progressing even after peasants were allowed to learn reading and writing, and some of those peasants even managed to write great works of literature. It may not all come out the way I want it to, but this peasant is going to keep at it. And I urge the rest of you peasants to act on your creative impulses - you just might make something great.

Dynamic Duos

Lennon and McCartney; Elton and Bernie; Jagger and Richards... Jordan and Amanda? As I mentioned previously, I participated in February Album Writing Month this year (after filing it under "that'll never happen" after firsting hearing about it a few years ago), and while I didn't hit the requisite 14 songs, I did manage to be involved with 6, which represents a 600% increase for me over the past 13 years or so. My favorite ones to come out of that were collaborations.

In my previous post, I talked about my friend John (who has been a musical partner of mine since high school), but this time I'd like to give a shout-out to my latest collaborator, Mrs. Creative DC herself. One of the tunes I'm happiest with came out of a collaboration session we had a few nights ago - I had some chords I'd been playing with, she had an idea for a theme. She banged out some lyrics in record time and I expanded and changed my chord structure to better fit the snippet of melody she had in her head. After some back and forth, we ended up with My Name In Lights, which represents the last FAWM song I'll be able to work on this month due to a hectic travel schedule.

Take a listen, and let me know what you think! Oh, and if you're putting off that creatively fulfilling thing - please do yourself a favor and just try it. I had to write 4 or 5 songs before I hit on one I really liked - but you never get to that one if you never start.

UPDATE [2/2010]: FAWM doesn't keep your songs up after each round, so the "listen" link above was broken. You can hear the song using the player below.

[Editor's note: this was intended to be a longer post about songwriting collaborations, but I'm exhausted and have to get up early to get out of town. Sorry.]

Time To Make An Album

Well, it's February again. And that means it's time to record an album. There are not one but two organizations pushing this awesome idea: FAWM (February Album Writing Month) and The RPM Challenge. The concept is simple: write (and optionally record) an entire album's worth (10 or 14, depending on which site you're reading) of songs entirely during the month of February. That's it. They don't have to be great songs, they don't even have to be good songs. They just have to be songs that you wrote.

I've read about this in year's past, but never had the guts to try and actually participate until now (I don't really trust my own songwriting instincts). Fortunately, I don't have to go it alone, and neither do you! The FAWM site in particular is very helpful in helping people find musical collaborators - and I've been using this feature to up my song count by collaborating with my former band-mate John (currently rocking the guitar for the Madison, WI band Race Bannon). Using nothing more than some simple recording tools (on my end), some fancier recording tools (on his end), and the magic of FTP, I've been able to contribute vocals to his songs and he's been able to contribute musical hotness to mine. We've only just started working together in this way, but so far I'm pleased with the results (John wrote the music and did all the mixing for this song, a friend of his wrote the words, and I recorded the vocals). I like the concept of long-distance musical collaboration. I haven't played with indabamusic yet, but it looks like something I'd love.

I might not write the greatest song ever written this month, but at least I'm writing something, and that's more songwriting than I've done since high school. What creative endeavors are you embarking on? Tell me in the comments. (For more on creative endeavors, check out the always inspiring Creative DC blog.)