Here are two new sketches on the continuing Ballad.
Walk*
This bit represents my coming to terms with the most basic influence for what I hope this record will be.
Dialogue is invaluable to me during the creative process. I don’t create well in a vacuum so I need the back and forth and exchange of ideas I’ve generally found in bands, friends, music venues, etc. However over the last year that dialogue has been somewhat lacking. Since the arrival of our daughter the band hasn’t been gigging. The Ms and I have played a few shows in the past month and we are slowly making our way back to the clubs, but it’s been slow moving. Since we haven’t been gigging we also haven’t been having official band practices. The Ms and I practice at home when we can, but she is busy with her new business and with the baby, so the little time we get alone together we haven’t been using for practicing music. We also haven’t been in bars and friends houses playing and exchanging ideas until the sun comes up. Of course, none of this is said as a complaint. It is our new life with our daughter, and I love it. But it’s a transition period, and it needs a little tuning. And one of the aspects that needs tuning is that I’m having to find new ways to interact with people and get that dialogue that I use as part of my creative output.
I am working on various ways to obtain such dialogue, and one of them is this blog. Granted it is not the same as all of us sitting around in a practice room with our instruments working on music, but by the same token it may offer other possibilities. That being said, I appreciate the comments that have been offered, but at the same time I wish for more. I wish you would all see this blog as the great opportunity that it could be. We each have our own preferred modes of expression and we don’t necessarily agree on aesthetics, methodology, or much else for that matter, but we’ve all made a commitment to this blog and to me that combination is one of the best foundations to create something that could actually evolve into something greater than the sum of our parts which ultimately would be a very musical thing to do.
Back to the sketch. In this first sketch you might recognize the beginning of a previous sketch (the wrecking ball). It starts the same, but please, if you’ve heard it stick with it through that beginning because it’s going somewhere totally different this time. However, just as I felt before, I still feel that this is how the record starts. Though I feel the mood is now more acurately described.
Sometimes Mariana*
This is an older song. We have live recordings of it but have never done any kind of studio recording of it. Subject-wise it’s the central inspiration for this record I’m working on. And in a way it’s her record. Mariana’s record, that is. I grew up with Mariana from very little until her dad was stabbed on the street, walked into a bar and bled to death when everyone thought he was just drunk. Then her mom and her and her little sister moved to Canada and I never saw them again. She was my first best friend.
Anyways, the usual version of this song that we play as a band is quite fast (runs about 2 minutes) and in D major. For the record and since I’m thinking about it in terms of being the song right after Walk (see above), I feel it should be slower, more folksy, and in C major (though I’m already beginning to see how it would work with the faster version too). Here’s a first sketch of it with just me on the guitar.
