#FinishThatSong: A song challenge & my projects for this month

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I came up with a little challenge to work on unfinished songs for the time between now and the beginning of 50/90. I have written about it in more detail here.

Which songs do I commit to working on?

  • Birthright, a song that I intended to make for the Fedivision Song Contest but didn’t finish in time. I have lyrics, chords, an idea for the structure and some riff ideas, as well as an Ardour session.
  • Badass, a song from FAWM 2021 – I wrote the lyrics, but never recorded anything.
  • This Is My Voice, a song I started in FAWM 2020. I have lyrics, an idea for the chorus melody, nothing recorded.
  • It’s complicated, a song I started in FAWM 2020. I’ve got one verse and a chorus.

Four songs doesn’t look like a whole lot, does it? For me, this is ambitious, though. I am usually a slow worker and I don’t get around to recording a lot. Also, I’d rather work on a small number of songs and go deeper than do a lot in a shallow way.

What constitutes “done” for me? I guess, for now, I’d define it as: I have a recording of the song that’s more than a dirty one-take or a rough sketch, possibly one that I’d feel comfortable putting on Bandcamp.

I’m looking forward to this month of making more music and talking shop with fellow musicians!

I made an album!

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In September and October, I had a good look at my back catalogue of electro songs, picked some I really liked and edited those songs into an album.

The album has 8 instrumental songs with a playful electro/EBM vibe. All of these songs were written in 2012-2013, most during FAWM or 50/90. I made them exclusively with Linux and open source software, namely seq24, ZynAddSubFx, Hydrogen, amSynth and Ardour.
Polishing the mixes and mastering them now made me realize how far FLOSS music software has come in the past years, but also how far I have come, and how happy it makes me to go back to making music with Linux after a few years away from it.

Even better: This album is licensed under an Attribution-Non Commercial CC license, so you can use it for your own works (such as podcasts or videos) as long as you’re not doing them to make money and as long as you’re crediting me.

By the way, today (November 6, 2020) is #bandcampfriday, that means: Bandcamp is waiving their usual share, and 100% of the price (after taxes) go to the artists. So if you want to buy my album, today is a very good day for it!

A few tips on singing high notes

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Disclaimer: I am not a voice teacher; these tips are merely extracted from my own experience as a singer. Use this information at your own risk. When in doubt, or if you experience discomfort, pain or hoarseness while singing, please consult a singing teacher, voice coach and/or a medical professional.

High notes can be intimidating and a source of stress and frustration for many singers. They are more likely to cause vocal strain, tenseness or other unpleasant feelings than singing in your comfortable mid-range. But they are an important expressive tool; going to higher pitches is an effective way of expressing intensity and increased musical tension. So how do you get them without pain?

Continue reading →

Warm-up for singing: Physical and breathing exercises

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A little over three years ago, I shared my vocal warm-up routine. Re-reading that article alerted me to the fact that I have branched out a bit and my warm-up routine is now more varied.

The function of a warm-up is still the same: warming up the muscles that play a role in my singing, “greasing” the coordination, “getting into the zone” and checking in with my voice and body. Two things have changed, or rather become more varied:

  1. I use a wider array of exercises as a starting point. Some days, it’s glissandi on “m”, “ng”, and “n”. Other days, I sing scale fragments in my comfortable middle range on different forms of “r” and with “horse lips”. Other days, I start with octave glissandi downwards, or I launch right into scale fragments, depending on how I feel.
  2. I often use five to ten minutes of physical activity and/or breath-focused work to mobilize my body and get into good tension.

Now, the latter is probably informed by the fact that I have, over the past two years, adopted a pretty regular exercise habit, mainly bodyweight exercise programs, but also some yoga.

Last summer, I got a few interesting pointers form a friend of mine who freedives. From the resources he shared with me, I was able to extract some exercises that helped breathing a lot – I can now sing through some phrases I struggled with six months ago! Also, my high notes seem to come more easily. Another source of my new pre-singing warmups popped up in the “related videos” section of my favorite Youtube yoga videos.

I’m going to share some of them here – with some precautions. Continue reading →

A new writing project: Notes on vocal health

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So a couple weeks ago I had this brainfart of writing down my answer to “How do you keep your singing voice healthy?” And this kind of escalated. As of now, I have over 12000 characters in my draft. I am debating whether I should make it a blog post series, a free e-book or both.

Now, who am I to write about this? I didn’t even complete music school and I’m not a singing teacher, right? But I have been singing and absorbing a lot of knowledge about singing since I was 10. That’s over 30 years! I’ve sung in choirs for long periods and I had about a decade of more or less arduous singing lessons. And I suppose I picked up a bit of knowledge over the years 🙂

I’m not going to gear my advice towards professionals. There are better resources out there for that! The series/e-book I’m writing is for all the people who sing on an amateur level out there who just want a friendly treasure trove from an expericenced singer.
And because I’m writing it for you, dear readers – what do you want to know about singing? Ask me in the comments or hit me up on Twitter or my Mastodon profile at metalhead.club!

Like what I do? Yo can throw something in my tip jar on my ko-fi page.

Why there was so little FAWM blogging this time, and how I’m doing

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Both FAWM 2017 and FAWM 2018 had been FAWMs where I had pretty sparse results. Well, in 2017 I was busy getting (legally) married and moving in with my wife. In 2018, I hadn’t gotten my recording setup out yet and I was busy with (breadwinning) work.

This year, I was finally feeling more in balance. But my songwriting mojo was buried deep and I had to dig it back out. I have rarely felt so unable to judge the quality of what I was writing and so self-conscious and vulnerable.
Also, I could barely make the time to write anything at all, but feeling self-conscious and vulnerable was the main reason why I wasn’t sharing anything. Continue reading →

FAWM Songs Nr. 1: Soundscape I

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OK, the orchestral piece I mentioned a few days ago is done.

It sounds like MIDI, because it basically is – just the Sibelius export. I couldn’t be bothered to fiddle with the mixing and balance beyond the standard settings – I wanted to get this out of the way, so I could move on to other ideas.

What I make for FAWM is not set in stone, though. It’s after the ideas, after all, not about perfectly produced things. I may revisit this later and find a way of balancing the instruments a little better.

FAWM! My first 3 days.

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Now that my 30 Practice Prompts for Musicians are completed, what comes next? Well, as usual in February, I’m doing FAWM! You can follow my songwriting adventures on my FAWM profile.

As usual, I have the feeling everyone on my watchlist is cranking out songs and I’m the only one who has a hard time coming up with anything. This time it’s incorrect… I just went with an idea that turns out to be so much work. I am composing a thing for (romantic-era) symphony orchestra. Not quite as big as a Mahler or Shostakovich orchestra, but… it’s a lot of instruments. And a lot of details to pay attention to. But now that I have been at it for two days, things are getting easier. I start having an easier time coming up with complementary motives, writing things out and alternating between detail work and the big picture.
And btw, I’m going the all traditional route with this, writing it out in Sibelius. No MIDI at work here.

It’s pretty common for me to be a really slow worker, and it’s especially true with classical composition. I want to see this idea through and do it justice. I suppose it’s going to be worth it.

I want to do a few more songwriter-y things this year, too – when this one is done 🙂

Also, I’m turning an idea in my head for the next blogpost series. I want to share my knowledge about keeping your singing voice in shape. Even when you’re not a singing teacher or vocal coach, you can’t sing for most of your life and not pick up any useful knowledge about it 🙂
So if you have any questions about that – feel free to ask!

(And if you like my blog and want to throw something in my tip jar, you can do so over on my ko-fi page.)