👩🏭 Working on the Worst 👎
Can I make the worst song I've made into something worthwhile? Let's find out!
Hi friends!
This post will be a bit “quick & dirty” since I hadn’t really planned for this one at all.
I wanted to share something I last worked on about 2 months ago. Two months ago life was different. Since then, my cat Shosty got very very ill (and then sadly passed away at 15 years old ). You can expect a full tribute post to my kitty baby coming sometime in the nearish future. (Whenever I feel emotionally ready to tackle that subject and give it the full attention it deserves.)
After that I got very distracted with applying for the big music librarianship cataloging job (link to related post below).
But hey guess what! I got the job! So now against my initial intentions, there will likely be some more posts about librarianship (and the oddities I encounter on the job). So, if you enjoyed the previous music librarianship post, there will be more where that came from!
Anyway, this post is happening tonight unexpectedly because my roommate has been asking me to send him the track I was working on two months ago (even though it isn’t finished). He happened to be walking by the bedroom and he popped his head in and said, “Hey! Will you send me that? I want to use it as a backing track to play guitar over.” This is about the highest praise I could expect to receive from him, so of course I must comply!
It all started with this little ditty. (You can listen to the embedded audio below, if you feel like it.) I made this on my phone when I was experimenting with the Ableton Note phone app a lot. I was finding much success in creating songs with one particular method - start with a bass line, then add drums, then add melody, and then maybe add some more textures or chords.
So it became my personal experiment to try writing musical ideas with different aspects as the foundational (first) element. I wrote a “drums first” (that was easy), “chords first”, and then a “melody first.” The little embedded tune below is “Melody First” and that remains its name as I haven’t even been inspired enough by it to give it a name.
Melody First (Ableton Note Version - Work in Progress)
The truth is - I hate it. I like the melody but I have no idea how to compliment it with anything. Melody is usually the most prominent thing I listen for in music, so it surprises me that this is the process I struggled with most. But, I guess it’s kind of like picking a garnish for a meal and then coming up with a recipe for what will go underneath it.
Normally I would have fleshed out this musical sketch with a lot more instrumentation and experimented with textures. But I felt so uninspired by this one, I just kind of…gave up on it. And it sat untouched on my phone for a few months.
When I’m learning something new and challenging I chug really hard at certain aspects until I hit the next obstacle. Then I freeze for a while and work myself up to powering through learning the next new thing I need to figure out. Transitioning from Ableton Note (phone app) to Ableton Live (the full-blown desktop computer version) has been that way for me - big time.
At first I thought, I should work on my favorite songs! Maybe “A New Beginning” would be an appropriate one to tackle. It feels half done anyway. Or perhaps “The Smallest Moment in Time.” (You can hear those half-done demos here if you’re curious.) I’m planning for those both to be instrumental pieces, so I don’t even have to worry about facing my inner demons about recording my voice or violin.
But then I felt just so precious about those. Like, I can’t fuck those up. Those are going to be my favorites. I need to learn more first so I know what the hell I’m doing before I touch those.
Then Scaler 3 came out. Scaler 3 is a plug-in that works within Ableton Live and helps you do stuff. That stuff is, creating chords and chord-based textures for your music. It’s like a little music theory sidekick that helps by suggesting chords based on the key you’re in and the chords you’ve already used. It lets you quickly hear different voicings and inversions and has a modulation tool to help you change keys smoothly (if you so desire). It doesn’t use generative AI (I do not want that), but it’s a handy little tool. It even has hundreds of examples of ways to perform your chords to help you get rhythmic and textural ideas. For me, one who struggles with chords and music theory things, it’s a god-send. It’s been very helpful to have the little bit of theory knowledge I’ve got to be able to fully control the tool and make it do what I want it to do.
I wanted to learn how to use Scaler 3 and get a better handle on using Ableton Live at the same time. It seemed like messing around with a project I hated was the best thing to do. Another experiment! Let’s see if I can turn the song I hate into something I kinda like.
Well…the answer is…kinda! I’m pretty happy with at least the second half of this version. I still feel like this track needs a lot of work, particularly in the percussion parts - some of the rhythms and instrumentation need more consistency and interesting flourishes. I’m kind of happy with the overall structure / form though and very happy with a lot of the new musical ideas that came out of this experiment.
My roommate must have liked it too because when I was wrapping up, he poked his head in and asked me to send it to him!
Today, I decided to go ahead and learn how to export the mp3 from Ableton Live (which proved to be more challenging that you might expect.) And then I thought, well, why not share it with all of you too??
So I slapped some silly stock footage on it and made it a music video. Here you go! You can compare for yourself with the audio clip I embedded above (the Ableton Note version). Can you hear some progress? I for sure can, and it is heartening to know I am at least moving in the right direction - even if there are still lots of improvements to be made and lots more things to figure out.
Melody First (Ableton Live Version - Work in Progress)
As always, thank you so much for being here with me on the journey!
Until next time - keep listening, keep reading, and keep creating,
💜 Tephra
P.S. I am working on my first cover song and facing my fears about recording violin and vocals. That will be coming to you in a blog post real soon! (I am determined to share it even if I end up feeling unhappy with the result.)
I love it!