May 12, 2004
No, that's not a typo... the song is 11 minutes long :) It
certainly didn't start out that way, and I had no intention of making
some kind of epic, but that's the way it turned out nonetheless.
It's amazing the way the song has changed from its original concepts.
Hearing it from its beginnings - just a few scattered ideas with no real
structure or pattern - you'd hardly recognize it now. I'm really
proud the way its turned out. I think it's my most "amazing" work
yet. Not to say it's an "amazing song", but that it's my "most
amazing work yet" :) The composition, complexity and arrangements
go beyond anything I've ever done before.
Originally, there was only one piano part in the song. The other
parts that are now piano were originally going to be acoustic guitar.
I even bought a new electric acoustic just for this purpose. What
I found out though is that if I didn't originally write the part on
acoustic, it probably won't sound good that way :) So the parts
changed over to piano... really bringing the style of the song together
throughout all its changes, and also allowing for a mood and atmosphere
that I don't think I would have gotten otherwise. That acoustic
will certainly come in handy in the future... just not for this song.
There's a lot of solo work in the song... stuff like I've never done
before. There are solo guitar harmonies, as well as some layering
of very different melodies going together at the same time (especially
at the end). I really love the result though. The end of the song
is almost completely nuts, with so much stuff going on all at once...
yet it all seems to somehow flow together... and despite the almost
confusing state, it just wouldn't be the same if any one part was
missing. Despite the solo work, it's really not a solo-driven song
though. The solo work is just a part of it, with all of the
instruments sharing the load. In fact, I think some of the coolest
parts in the song are not the solo parts, but parts involving other
instruments... which I think is a pretty significant thing for me, being
a guitarist first and everything else second.
I made quite a few changes in the way I mastered the song as well, and
spent a ton of time trying to significantly improve the production
quality of the recording. I also did a lot of work with the
imaging of the song... spreading stuff out so everything isn't directly
in the center. What a huge difference it made! ...especially when
listening through headphones.
While still not "professional quality", it's definitely way above
anything I've done before. All in all, I consider this song to be
a significant accomplishment, and a huge step up in my music creation
efforts. The trick now will be to keep the creative momentum
going, and keep working on stuff instead of waiting a year before doing
my next song (you'll notice that my previous song was done almost one
year ago today). Hopefully I can do that... though hopefully not
quite to the level of obsessiveness I had with this song :)
