Dear Alberton

Last summer my friend and I set out in a songwriting challenge. Each of us wrote one song a week based off of a mutually agreed upon topic. We got our topic by spinning the wheel of Wikipedia randomness. For this particular song, the topic that the wheel stopped on was "Alberton-Roseville".

The result is this song, "Dear Alberton".

The reason I'm posting this song is because it's not finished, and I wanted to give you a peek into the songwriting process. Right now I'm arranging songs for my next record, but I've yet to find anything that I am happy with for this particular song. So below is a video of me playing the song as I originally wrote it. Below that I will post several SoundCloud files that are different versions of the song I have demo'd as I try and find a direction I want to go with the song. (I've also posted the lyrics and chord progression at the bottom of the blog.)

The demos are not complete demos. There are holes in the arrangement without drums, or bass, etc. I use demos like these to help me get ideas out as I work at putting a song together.




Here are a few of my thoughts about the song:

Lyrically I'm pretty happy with it. It's a bit more pop sounding than a lot of what I write, but that's probably OK. I've been writing a lot of slow songs lately, so I could stand to have a few fast ones, and several friends have had good responses to this song.

When I started arranging it, I realized that it's at an odd speed (I played it a bit slower on the video than I originally played it). It's really too fast for a standard back beat (traditional drum groove with snare on 2 and 4), and honestly, that would make it come off a bit too mainstream for my taste anyway. But it's also a bit slow for a cut time feel. I also realized early on that my acoustic guitar part was probably a bit too busy for a big arrangement, which meant that at some point I would need to consider simplifying it.

I originally tried to see how it might work out if I kept the tempo the same with a back beat in the verses and a more driving feel in the chorus. Add some electric guitars and tadaaaaa... I have a song that sounds like the love child of a pop song and a Switchfoot song. Here it is:





While that was fun to mess around with, it's not really what I'm going for.

So I decided to slow the song down by a few bpm (beats per minute) and went for a groove that's a bit more broken up and staggered in the verse that would then go to more of a standard backbeat in the chorus. This would help keep things interesting. I also went for a more open sound on the electric guitars. I wanted to give the chorus some room to breathe. Below is the second demo:



Tempo-wise this felt a little better to me except that it was starting to sound a bit heavy and melancholy for a song that's about venturing out, taking chances and living life. This isn't helped by the fact that the first chord of the chorus is an E minor (WARNING: MUSICAL JARGON COMING UP). It's much less obvious in what my acoustic guitar is playing because of the fact that the fifth (B) is in the bass and the third (G) is buried in the middle of the chord. This keeps the focus off of the chord sounding dark. But on the bass guitar I was playing an E, so it brought the minor sound a bit back into focus, adding to the heavyness feeling. So this is something I have to keep in mind as I'm arranging.

I'm convinced that capturing the right feeling in this song begins with the drums, so I opted to focus more on the groove of the song, changing up the pattern that the drums were playing in the chorus. I also think that with the standard back beat that the song feels a bit too "adult contemporary", so my goal with the drums in the chorus was to get rid of the standard snare on two and four feel but still maintain the feel of a groove. I changed nothing else in this demo other than the drums. Here is the third version:




This drum groove did not help the song any. In my opinion, it actually got heavier feeling. There may be some things that might help this particular pattern feel less heavy, maybe some brushes instead of drumsticks? Overall though, the song still feels heavy and not light and carefree.

So needless to say, I'm not happy with any of this and I'll keep working on it. But I wanted you to be able to see some of the process. At this point I will finally give in and start considering changing the acoustic guitar part. I've really been clinging to it because I like playing it, but I think overall, it might not be serving the song that well, at least for the musical direction I want to go. My wife has suggested more piano and bigger strumming sounds, but then I feel like I'm moving into Caedmon's Call territory, which I want to avoid.

I've also stuck primarily to traditional rock instrumentation and now I will start branching out into other areas. I'll keep you posted on how the song is coming along, as well as doing more videos of music along the way.

If you have any questions or comments about the song or any of the demos, feel free to leave them. Let me know what you think.

Dear Alberton - Lyrics and music by Chris Freeman

Capo 2 (chords are with capo)
verse: C Cmaj7 am am7 F Fsus2 G G7
Prechorus: B em am7 D7/A
Chorus: dm/A am7 F Fsus2 G G7
Bridge: F am7 dm/A C C/B

Dear Alberton I wish that I could stay
But there's a siren that is calling me away
This city feels so comfortable and safe
But what is life without rough roads and risks to take?
You've settled for autumn
Even when the spring is just beyond your fears

Alberton I hope that things go well in Roseville when I'm gone
You should know that life is better when you're facing the unknown

Dear Alberton it's time that I must go
But think of me as I embrace life's ebb and flow
Wisdom comes from knowing that you know nothing at all
And leaning forward without fear that you might fall
Don't settle for autumn
When the sounds of spring are just beyond your ears

Lessons from The A Team.

I grew up watching the A Team. Not the new one. Not the one that came out in theaters last year. I mean the original, old school A Team. The one with Mr. T. It was an awesome show. Predictable? Absolutely. Great plots? Negatory. It was pretty much the same thing in every episode. But for a 6-year-old, it was the definition of awesomeness.

The best part in every episode was where the A Team would get captured by the bad guys. Inevitably they would be locked in a room with a bunch of tools, welding equipment, sheet metal and and old beater of a car (oh, and apparently guns, as well, since the A Team was always able to come out shooting). The A Team would then look at all of the stuff in the room and in a matter of a 30 second music and video montage, they would craft together a sweet armored vehicle, which would then be used as a means of escape. They were incredibly resourceful and also apparently quite gifted mechanics. Surely you've seen shows like this before. Maybe you've seen McGyver. The things that man could craft with some duct tape and papers clips was unbelievable.

The ability to make the most out of a given situation using only the things immediately available to you is one of the most important things for a creative individual to embrace. Shows like The A Team and McGyver remind me of the value of resourcefulness (if even in a cheesy way). Resourcefulness requires us to not only be purposeful in what we are creating, but stretches us in our creativity to work within our means.

There are certainly two sides to this discussion. Many would argue that their dreams and vision are too big for what they have available to them. And this certainly is a legitimate concern. But honestly, if you are dreaming and visioning, the reality is that you will always find that your dreams are bigger than your resources. It's the nature of dreaming. The responsibility of the artist is to figure out how to make that vision a reality, given our available resources. And most of us will never have everything that we want in order to see those visions completely fulfilled to their original form. Working within limitations causes us to think outside the box.

As a musician, there is much that I would like to do in my production. There are state of the tools that I would love to have at my disposal in order to produce my music. Would it sound better? In some ways yes. The overall production quality of the music would be much higher. Is it necessary? Absolutely not. So the question is, what do you do in the meantime? How do you create something great with very little? As artists we must force ourselves to be resourceful. To make the most of what we have. It forces us to use our creativity in ways that we might not normally use it. We must consider options and creative directions that we might not have considered otherwise. I believe that it makes us better artists.

Can a musician still produce a great song without all the bells and whistles that big budget records have? Yes. An artist right now that is very fresh in all of our minds is Bon Iver. Most are more familiar with his latest record, for which he just walked away with a Grammy award. But it's his first record that is really remarkable to me. For 'Emma, Forever Ago', was recorded in a cabin in the woods, basically on an SM57. Very, very basic. And yet it was voted to be one of the most influential records of the last decade. Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), is a great demonstration of resourcefulness. One of the cool byproducts of the home recording revolution is that it is forcing artists to be very experimental and resourceful with how they make their music. Some of the biggest artistic leaps and advancements are coming from the world of independent music and home/project recording.

There are also applications for churches, especially in worship and media ministries. Churches are one of the largest users and consumers of the latest technology. They dream big ideas and then convince everyone, including themselves that ministries will fail otherwise. And because most churches have large budgets for music and media ministries, many churches get the new toys and are never forced to consider if there are other ways to be artistic. And forget about ever considering whether or not the use of all the technology is actually artistic or tasteful at all.

I fully realize that technology is constantly evolving. It is not, in the words of Dennis Duffy, "cyclical", and churches will constantly find themselves in the position of having to reevaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of what they have. It is in many ways a necessary evil. But there is a difference in necessity and just going out and getting the newest and greatest things just because we can. Technology ≠ Art, at least in most cases. It is a tool, and nothing more. And in my humble personal opinion, I have seen very few examples of these new technologies used well.

There is also a spiritual side to resourcefulness. It is a close relative to sustainability. Working with and making the most of what we have been given. Operating within our means. Being a good steward. The idea of stewardship requires that we be resourceful. It requires that we think outside of the box in order to make the most of what we have and make it go further than it should. This is a very God honoring thing.

There is an inherent beauty in art that is born out the very struggle to see it realized. Are you a McGyver of an artist? Consider what this looks like for you as a creative individual.