A Collection of Bits and Pieces

Don't You Run Away From It All

Working on a new song, 17 August 2024

On 08 August, I started work on a new song. I began with just a few parameters in mind. The first goal was to work with simple sounds if possible, something childlike or naive, or at least remeniscient of early-70's synthesizer tones. Primarily, I was imagining a bright blippy sound that bounced back and forth between the left and right channels, and then some simple and static droning chords underneath which would hold for far longer than they decently should. The idea was to impart some sense of tension around 'where is this going to go?'

I'm working in Ableton, so the blippy sound is just the default Operator instrument without much adjustment. I used the Arpeggiate MIDI tool to generate random sequences of notes and let that run for a while and then fished thru that result and found a four bar sequence that I liked.

My first attempt to get the notes to bounce back and forth across the stereo field used an LFO carefully timed to zoom the pan control back and forth. I worked on that for far too long before realizing it wasn't going to give me the results I was after. So I did it old school by doubling the track, setting each to the far opposite side of the stereo field, and then going into the MIDI data and manually muting an alternating set of notes. This turned out to work far better than my initial attempt because the notes land irregularly and therefore it is far more dynamic and random-seeming as a result.

Because the blippy notes are so random I felt it would be okay to hold a very simple and static four-on-the-floor root note bass to drive the engine of the song, and used the Tension instrument to do so.

From there, I added three simple chords on Wavetable and extended them for two full cycles of the blippy notes in order to emphasize that sense of 'surely this has gone on for far too long.'

So far, so good.

In early July I purchased the recently-released Lin Loops From Mars sample pack from Samples From Mars. I'm a big fan of their work and have been a satisfied customer since 2015. Over the last few years, I've been purchasing the "all the samples" bundles to be sure I keep up-to-date on all of their releases. I cannot recommend them enough to anyone looking to capture good-quality samples from just about every drum machine you could possibly imagine, and then some you never knew existed. Did I say I was a satisified customer and a fan of their work? I am.

Anyway, since 50/90 began in July I decided to use the Lin Loops From Mars as the default starting place as I work on this current batch of songs. Once the three melodic and harmonic tracks were in place I auditioned several Lin Loops tracks to find something I liked and that fit with the vibe. Once I had the basic drum loop selected, I added an additional track using what are called "TOPS" in the sample pack, which are often hi hats, snares, cowbells and the like. Once those selections were in place I added an extra hi hat sample from the pack to add a bit of punctuation.

At that point I had a really nice vibe together that I liked very much.

And that's where work on the track ground to a halt.

Why?

Because I wanted to add lyrics. And lyrics are often the bane of my songwriting existence.

(I'll need to go into that at some later date.)

I spent a lot of time listening to the track over the next few days with no inspiration. Finally, on Monday night as I was getting into bed some phrases popped into my head. Phrases that were reminiscent of old childhood playground taunts. Except the phrasing wasn't exactly the kind of things kids would yell at one another so it was a bit off-kilter and that seemed to satisfy some of the original impulses for this song. I spent about half an hour writing down as many of these pseudo-taunts as were ready to present themselves and then went to bed.

The next day, I tried them against the music. And? Nope. They didn't work. So it was back to the drawing board.

Well, maybe I could come up with another melody line while I waited.

I decided to broaden my sonic palette to see what I could come up with. Eventually, I landed on a combination of Arturia's MiniFreak V and Pigments blended together. But the improvised MIDI line was far too busy and fought against the blippy track bouncing left and right, so I had to simplify it. Even then these new melody voices were too wide and conflicted with the blips. So I grouped these two tracks together, EQ'd both the highs and lows out of the track and set it to mono so the reverb tails wouldn't spill over so much. It's not a solution I would've otherwise tried, but it was either that or ditch this new melody line or get rid of the blippy tracks.

This didn't lead to any new lyrics, unfortunately, so I went back to listening to the track intermittently through the day as I worked on other stuff.

A few days later, a new phrase popped into mind while I was in the shower: "Don't you run away from it all." Could this be the chorus? I had to keep repeating it to myself for the rest of the shower and while I dried off and dressed so that I wouldn't forget it before I turned on the computer and opened the project in Ableton.

Initially, I didn't feel like it sat very well with the rest of the song. In response to that, I decided to record three more copies of the vocal to give it more weight and emphasis and that seemed to overcome most of that critique. What this then gave me was a solid chorus that I liked and gave me a direction to focus my attention for verse material. Again, I spent more time re-listening and waiting and keeping busy with other tasks. On Thursday a few phrases again popped up while I was taking a shower. Once inside Ableton, the phrasing didn't fit as nicely in the song as I'd prefer, but if I added some space between each phrase they at least landed well enough to go forward. It took a few attempts to record a version I liked and then I spent the time to double-track the lyrics.

And that's where the song stands, as of today.

I still need lyrics for verses two and three, and have no idea what they will be. This means going back to listening and waiting, and hoping that my internal scribe will continue to tumble and sift bits and pieces together and offer up some more phrase options to try.

Stay tuned.