Weekly song sketchbook blog starting next Monday, Dec 8
If you feel like you haven’t heard much from the Northernness lately, it’s probably because we haven’t been doing much as a band. That’s all going to change (hopefully) around February, when we’re planning to start playing some full-band shows again in Florida. In the meantime, however, I’m going to be taking on a little side project of my own.
I’ll be writing and recording a song a week on my Tascam Portastudio 414MKII four-track cassette recorder and posting it online. You’ll still be able to stream our entire EP in our discography, but starting next Monday, the “From the EP” section on our homepage will transform into the “Song Sketchbook” section.
This will obviously have to be a bit of a lo-fi operation, and that’s fine with me. I love the sound of the Portastudio’s warm preamps combined with the soothing cassette tape hiss, and I’ve grown very fond of the quirks of my cheap microphones. Most of my favorite recordings are just one or two acoustic instruments and one or two voices, and the best ones usually have some trace of spontaneity, a creaking chair, or cars going by outside.
I guess I’ll have to realize that not every week will be my best song ever, but I’m hoping that the body of work that comes out of this will be something worthwhile. It will force me to dive into writing and recording mode like I never have before, to be disciplined with it.
So I hope that you’ll come around and visit the site on Mondays to see what I’ve been up to, and to leave me your thoughts.
Bruce Floyd says:
Sounds like an interesting and challenging idea. By this time next year, you’ll have 52 new songs!
Ben says:
Thanks for the note Bruce. It’s good because it reminds me that I actually forgot to mention a couple of things…
One is that I’m only going to tie myself down to three months. That means that I’ll be done after the first week of February, before we start playing shows again. The other is that if there’s a week that I don’t finish a song I’m not going to worry about it too much. I’ll still post a four-track recording, just not necessarily a brand new one. The goal will be to have twelve new songs by the end of the three months, but I’m not going to stress too much over it if I miss a week. Maybe I’ll make it up after the three months.
Dan Dickhaus says:
Some of my favorite recordings were done in the infant stages of sound recording. Old recordings of Robert Johnson, Hank Williams,Billie Holiday etc. with all their lo-fi ambience render an atmosphere of intimacy between the listener and the artist that doesn’t translate with hi-fi. I’m also a big fan of including environmental elements in production with appropriate generes of music. Although I write almost exclusively at the whim of my muse, I have from time to time put myself in the position of a timeline to write, and it has proved fruitful. I wish you well. Please e-mail me as a reminder as you make progress so I can see what you’re up to.
Ben says:
Thanks Dan - I usually do find that the times when I write the best songs are the times that I actually sit down and spend structured time writing, so that’s why I’m optimistic about this project.
I’ll be sending out some updates to the email list. Also, I’m going to try and set this up as a podcast so you can subscribe to the feed. We’re still on track to have the first new song up on Monday.
Dave Hall aka davehall7 says:
Ben- refreshing acoustic work. Lyrics have phrases reminding me of Aslan and Narnia, for some reason. Need to listen again…
Keep up good work, brother.
Dave Hall aka davehall7 says:
I like what Dan said above too. I’ve been listening to some of my “old stuff” and the “lo-fi” aspect of it and the “rawness” of it too. 8~]
Ben says:
Dave, I appreciate the notes. I’m really glad that it makes you think of Narnia - in fact my hope for what people could get from my songs is that “northernness” signpost that Lewis writes about.
From The Deep End » Blog Archive » Discipline and Creativity Required says:
[...] name ,”Song Sketchbook,” instantly grabbed my attention with the use of this literal visual aid to describe the [...]