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