So, aside from time spent in the recording studio, I spent the better part of the past couple of months doing extra freelance design work, updating my resume and portfolio, and looking for a job. Which, thankfully, I’ve found, started and like. So as I’m starting to get back into a routine, I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back to studying and doing some songwriting, along with the performance and production practice that has naturally accompanied my initial pursuit of studying country hits, and revive this blog a little bit!

With that, I’ll leave you with a vaguely-related video from one of my favorite songwriters, Radney Foster.

Additionally, The Georgian Company will be back in the studio early next month recording our second EP and second half to our debut full-length. We’ll be tracking “Flock of Doves,” “After a Storm,” “Used to Sing,” and “If You Love a Ghost.” I’m pumped about this!

Meanwhile I’ve also been writing a bit, but haven’t had the time to learn any new country songs or track anything. But I’ll get to it, I promise! Meanwhile, I hope to see you locals at The Ghost Room!

On the whole, it was a good conference that was just a little bit disorganized. The speakers were all either pretty qualified or very qualified, and all were very personable. It was cool to meet such established songwriters as Sonny Throckmorton (who is hilarious), Austin Cunningham, Monte Warden and Chuck Cannon, and to hear Allen Shamblin and Rodney Crowell play and talk. It was also pretty cool to have the opportunity to pitch face-to-face to Moonkiss, Ten Ten and Writer’s Den publishing. I wish I’d have had something ready that they wanted. As it was, I ended up taking in my most recent working song, “We’ll Dance Tonight,” mainly for critique purposes… and critiqued it was! Daniel Lee from Ten Ten liked the song on the whole, but pointed out that I had switched points of view from the verse to the chorus, and that tends to confuse and/or alienate the listener. He also had a couple lyric-tightening suggestions. Monte and Brandi Warden really liked the melody and especially the hook (“we’ll dance tonight”), but pretty much hated the lyrics. In my attempt to write more conversational lyrics, I’d actually inserted too much actual conversation! So I’m back to the writing table with that one.

Something that I think has happened in my writing since deciding that I want to write popular country songs is that I may be focusing too much on creating commercial music. I need to remember to let go and to let the songs come to me as they want to be and to follow them, instead of pushing them around. Then, once I get the song’s first draft down, I might be able to reshape it into a more commercial mold—while maintaining its artistic integrity—if it doesn’t come out in its most commercial form to begin with.

I think that what I’m doing by “studying the hits,” as Robin Fredrick calls it, will continue to help me write songs that are both artistically true and commercially viable, because I’ll internalize a lot of the popular melodic patterns and various techniques used in these hit country songs—so the commercial side will come out more naturally. I was blown away by some of the songs that one of the guys I met at the conference, Russel Sutton, had written, and he’d just started writing songs a few months ago. However, he’d previously learned to play and sing over 200 cover songs, and I’m pretty sure that has really set him off on the right foot!

Of course I’m still working on it, so any comments and/or critique would be appreciated. Bring it on!

The file has a few seconds of silence upfront since I haven’t trimmed it yet… just thought I should mention that in case you think it’s not working. It probably is—just give it a few seconds.

“Silver Bells” was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, and was unique in 1950 as it depicted Christmas in an urban environment^[1]. Maybe this is something I should have taken into consideration in my production of the song, but I overlooked it at the time. The song’s structure is pretty simple: verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus. The hook is at the beginning of the chorus and is repeated in an echo, which helps to get it stuck in your head. And the happy-go-lucky—dare I say jolly?—canter of the verse seems perfectly suited to the Christmas theme.

I wanted to give the song a little bit more of a honky-tonk feel, so I added some flangey guitar over the traditional melody played by the piano, and a record static track for a little throwback feel. I also added the requisite sleigh bells and actually programmed the drums through my midi keyboard. This song could definitely use some more work, but I feel it’s pretty successful as a home production study.

I met a handful of other independent artists at the conference, too, and it was fun to talk about the differences and similarities in our experiences looking for an outlet for our musical compulsions. Overall the conference was extremely educational and pretty motivating. I’m ready to get to work writing and re-writing. Exciting!

However, in their most recent spam, their “Road Rally” program caught my attention. It seems like it could actually be good, and $300 for a good conference seems fair. And then I can check out what the rest of the membership benefits are, too: song listing submissions, critiques, etc. My curiosity got the best of me, so I signed up and am flying out to L.A. on Thursday to check out the conference (and visit my homies Blake and Doug).

I may not have time to keep you posted here during the weekend, but I’ll definitely follow-up with my thoughts on the conference, my better-educated perception of TAXI and hopefully an interesting story or two.

And in other news, here’s another take from my video experiment. It’s weird not knowing where to look, etc. when making these. I’ve always thought singing to the camera was a little too cheesy, but maybe I just need to get over that. Maybe I’ll get Doug to give me some video performance pointers. Anyway, this song is called “Off My Mind,” which I wrote and recorded with Just Guns.

In case you’re on a mobile phone, here’s the audio version: