I’m not sure if there’s anything more narcissistic than sitting around recording multiple tracks of your own voice and then listening to them, but there also might not be anything more FUN. That’s essentially what I did yesterday, with a song that I began writing a long time ago with the use of my looper pedal. There’s more, but here’s a 15-second snippet to give you a glimpse:
The looper allows me to create vocal lines, record them, and harmonize with them on the spot. This particular song – a baby song, I suppose, in its infancy – didn’t begin with a heavy vocal focus, but Mike really liked the harmonies I created and suggested I bring them forward a bit more. He offered up a couple different examples of vocal layering, including Elliott Smith’s “I Didn’t Understand.” Even though I don’t want to make this song a cappella, that was a really helpful point of inspiration, and after listening and thinking a bit, I started messing around with some vocal layering in GarageBand. From here I’ll keep working on more of a demo, getting a good skeleton of the song together until possibly doing a studio recording of it.
Today was spent more on personal things (read: doctor’s office visits) and other “extracurricular” activity. I went to see my dear friend Craig Ramsay speak about his book, The Anatomy of Muscle Building, at the Authors@Google series in Venice. And I’m shortly on my way to a volunteer/staff party for 826LA, an organization that I’m part of as a volunteer tutor. I usually try to take weekends off, at least when I’m not traveling or playing shows, but I’m on my own at home for a good chunk of tomorrow, so I’m hoping to make it a productive writing and/or demoing day. More to come then!