Song of the Month 2010.01 - VATLVA

First, some back story (I know right, words on my blog! weird!) to what you're about to experience. You being... wait, does anyone even read my blog?

My biggest dream in life (or at least longest-lasting one that I haven't given up on yet) ever since high school has been to make music. I'm really good at starting songs... but I suck at finishing them. I'm sure it's because I'm too critical of my own work. I'll be happy with a song, and then get stuck somewhere and refuse to move on with the song until I've figured out how I want to proceed. I'm also not a fan of letting people listen to anything I've written unless I'm completely happy with it. Which never happens, of course.

I spend so much time thinking about how much I want to do music, that I decided it's about time I actually do something about it. So my plan for 2010 is to "release" a new song, one per month, every month of this year. They don't need to be perfect... in fact, I'm sure they won't be. They just need to have a start, a middle, and an end of some sort. I would like to make a demo CD at some point, but the first step of that process is having songs. So by forcing myself to examine some of the old songs I've started and attempt to finish them, I'll be slightly closer to that goal. It's ridiculous how ambitious of an idea this seems to me... all I have to do is just make demo versions of 12 songs, and keep on working on them until I've decided they sound the way I want whenever I'm able to. 12 songs in demo form is better than 12 unfinished songs.

I already have a pretty clear idea of 11 of the 12 songs I want to unveil this year (and when I want to unveil them). I will give advance warning NOW so it doesn't seem like I'm making up excuses later... my song for July is both a gift, and has lyrics... so there's a pretty good chance I won't share that with the public. If I'm able to, I'll have a public-sharing song in its place, but it's very important to me that I finish that song, so I'm going to focus on it whenever I can.

So there you go. Please cheer me on, I could definitely use the support. Feel free to comment on any of the songs I upload, but please, be gentle. You all know how I pretty much never stop crying. Most of all, enjoy!

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Song of the Month 2010 #1



Song title: VATLVA
Audio file: http://kurtasbestos.com/ongaks/Panda_Left-VATLVA.mp3
Date Recorded: 2010.02.04
Equipment used: KORG DS-10, KORG D888

Concept: I started this song on the Mosquito Fleet school bus on the way back from Atwater, California, where we had gone to witness the Polini Cup Finals. Travis had recently picked up a KORG DS-10 for his Nintendo DS, as had Alan of Landsquid fame. I brought both of my DSes and 2 copies of the DS-10 along for the trip, so during the 36-hour bus ride home, Zach from Portland and Travis and I played around with our music toys. I think this song started as a parody of that cake video that the Landsquids destroyed our brains with... but it slowly changed into a collection of me playing around with random weird things. Eventually I grew to like this song, and it became one of several songs that I would work on regularly while walking to/from work. The title is, like most things in my life, a reference to something that means nothing to anyone other than Chris Salmonson and Brian.

Process: As my first song for this project, I realized that it's not going to be easy, but it IS going to be great for forcing me to work on what I want to work on. There are a few little details I need to work on, but overall I'm happy with how things sound. Various limitations to the DS-10 (for example, fading out a single instrument while changing patterns around is nightmarishly difficult) made recording the song difficult, but I also just need to practice it more. There is one more part that I want to add that will serve to tie various elements of the song together and provide a more interesting ending, but I ran out of time to practice it, so it didn't make it into the January version of this song. I'm probably going to be saying that a lot this year.

Comments: I almost had this thing out before February, but for some reason the "noisy" part on my DS-10 didn't work the way it was supposed to unless I stopped and started the song. So there are some choppy punch-ins in the song where I had to repeatedly re-record the parts I kept messing up. I suppose knowing how to use my mixer and practicing the song more would have made things easier. Oh well, I'm happy that I got through the end of a song, and I'm excited to continue working on this year-long project!