“intermission” & how it was made.

Posted on 05/18/12 in How It Was Made

“intermission is the 20th song in the yearbook series, track 2 of the “april” ep.

in my early days of writing music, I discovered delay effects for guitar for the first time and it changed my life forever. (totally dramatic, but also very true..) as a guitar player, I became obsessed. I didn’t use delay in any fancy ways, just simple echo effects and that’s all it took to fall madly in love with my electric guitar. i would set up my amp downstairs in my parents basement and play for hours. I loved it. but in recent years, my electric guitar has taken a bit of a backseat (and my delay pedal along with it!) in favor of my taste for more acoustic instrumentation.

for “intermission” I thought it would be a ton of fun to revisit my old habits of setting up my electric guitar and amp and just mess around (something I’ve not done in many, many years) – I had so much fun. I dusted off my trust line6 DL4 delay pedal and went to town.

one of my favorite features on that particular pedal is the ability to record short loops… click one button and it immediately begins recording whatever you’re playing, click another button and it begins replying it, looping over and over. rinse and repeat and you can create a multi-layered cake of guitar sounds.

after an hour or two of messing around, I created the guitar loop that is foundation of “intermission.” i thought it would be really fun to write the song in the same way the loops were originally compiled – which is how the song begins. one guitar, followed by another with harmonies, followed by another with more and so on and so on. I liked the idea of preserving the origins of this song in the actual final arraignment.

at first, the general outline of the song came together very easily and fast on this one – but once I got to writing vocal melodies and lyrics, that’s when the brakes were slammed to a screeching halt. (never a fun time) … halfway into writing the vocal melodies for this song, I realized that it reminded me of another song I heard a while back. as a musician, this is something that one encounters often – there are only so many notes in existence, and unfortunately sometimes you follow an idea into someone else’s song and have to forfeit the song entirely. it’s happened countless times before and is always a bummer – spending hours and sometimes days and weeks on a song and and realizing that it’s someone else. ugh. I’ve always been very strict about it and throw things out the window right when an idea feels no longer my own. for “intermission” the melody kept leaning into a familiar melody and it took many days to flip it inside to and make it mine. eventually I was able to make it happen and in retrospect, I’m very happy to have invested those extra days of work to bend it into something that feels new to me.

musically, this was a fun song to put together… enjoyed programming the very simple, dry drums… guitar layers, synth patches, etc. a favorite sound for me is the little toy piano bit that starts around 1:30 – that’s one of my favorite little keyboards in the word – the casio sk-1. love that thing.

lyrically, this song is about transition. it’s about the challenges of being stuck between point a and point b. or as the song states, “somewhere between side a and side b” – (which by the way is a mini reference to the iphone game “superbrothers: sword & sworcery” – if you’ve played it before you know what “side a” and “side b” is no doubt.)

when I wrote this, most things in my life felt very caught in some middle space… everything felt a bit up in the air in one way or another.  for that very reason, i decided to make it the middle song of this ep (which also explains the title “intermission“) so writing this song, writing down these thoughts, to get it off my chest, made me feel better - to get these frustrating thoughts outside of my head.

the song “in the meantime” is next up, which is another train of thought about being in some sort of middle place… it was written as a sort of answer for the thoughts written down in this song. a prayer of sorts.

thanks for reading!

love, ryan

listen:

lyrics:

INTERMISSION

i’m so tired but i can’t sleep.
my mind is full but i can’t speak.
among the dust of the hard-to-reach, i’m stuck
right here, somewhere between side a and side b.

i could call it compromise
or just an intermission.
some kind of consolation prize
for the race i never finished.

i want to turn these tired gears.
i want to feel the follow-through,
some kind of equilibrium…
something to set my watch to.

i’m here, somewhere between
victory and a white flag.
caught in this purgatory dream, i’m stuck.

but i want to set the record straight,
i want to retrace my every step.
if i could just rewind all the tapes
then maybe i’d find my loose thread.

call it a compromise
or just an intermission.
some kind of consolation prize,
so close, but never finished.

i want to turn these tired gears.
i want to feel the follow-through,
some kind of equilibrium…
something to set my watch to.

“Tethered” & how it was made.

Posted on 05/10/12 in How It Was Made

“tethered” is the 19th song in the yearbook series, track 1 of the “april” ep.

towards the end of each song’s recording process, I spend about a day playing around with new sounds and ideas to put the finishing touches on the song. the sprinkles on the top of the sundae! when I was wrapping up “birthright,” I was playing around with additional sounds and haphazardly laid my hands on the keyboard and played a few random notes. i liked how they sounded and immediately grabbed my iPhone to record the mini idea. that idea became “tethered.”

if you’ve heard my music before, you’re probably well aware that I have a soft spot for strings. I incorporate strings into as much of my music as possible. I’m a sucker for them. there’s a style of playing called “pizzicato,” which is where the strings are plucked on the violin (or viola, cello) rather than played with a bow. I always love how this sounds. it has a sort of romantic sound to me, playful, but earnest at the same time. so I try to toss in pizzicato strings throughout songs when it works. for tethered, I thought this would be the perfect sound for the foundation of the entire song.

being a completely novice (translate: terrible) violin player myself, I decided to take on the challenge of recording these pizzicato strings myself. so that’s what you’re hearing. it took a long while to play it right, but I am happy with the end result.

after the pizzicato foundation was laid, I played around with piano melodies. it came together quick and I really liked the strange rhythms that fit together in this song. after that, i tackled making the choruses “bigger” (a term that is used almost always in the songwriting process ha) – which lead me to my electric guitar. always fun to dust it off and see if I remember how to play the thing. I enjoyed the thicker electric guitar swells in this. was fun to play. my best mate, dan added a bit of bass, keys and some sparkly bits in the end. i love how it all came together. this is a very, very simple song and I’m pleased that it remains so. it’s always tempting to complicate songs, so approaching this song with a simple mindset let it breathe and I’m very pleased with he that works for this.

lyrics… this is a pretty direct, simple and personal love song. a couple years ago, my wife and I were indeed married by the ocean – on the shores of Oahu, Hawaii. and each verse, refers to different aspects of my wife’s and my personalities. some examples:

“I’ll be warmth when you are shivering cold” – my wife is always cold. always. bundled in blankets as often as possible.

“you be patience when I’ve had enough of this waiting game” – is a direct reference to me being an impatient person. always in a hurry. is what my family tells me I am. it’s true.

the idea for these lyrics are centered around one theme: the game, cats cradle. if you are unfamiliar with the game, read about it here.

it’s such a beautiful idea, a game of taking turns making a simple strand of string turn into something more. in my head, that sounded a lot like relationships – a series of taking turns and making something together that is better than what we could have created alone. I also loved the idea that, in this game, we make mistakes to we start over. there is no loser, no winner. just a small team, working together to make something beautiful for the sake of making something beautiful. its fairly obvious, but this concept is what inspired the title “tethered.” and the first set up of this image in the song is the lyric:

“we tied string around our fingers
to remember our ideals.”

when i was scavenging the Internet for visuals of the game for inspiration, I stumbled upon these remarkably beautiful pieces of art by brian mallman:

"String Games 8" by Brian Mallman

so as I wrote this song, those images were certainly imprinted onto my mind.

in february, 2012, the abc show, “grey’s anatomy” used this song to close out an episode. privileged to say the least!

thank you for reading! love, ryan

listen:

lyrics:

TETHERED

we were married by the ocean.
we were tethered by the sea.
we tied string around our fingers
to remember our ideals.

i’ll be brave when you are frightened.
you’ll be strong when i am weak in the knees.
i’ll be calm when you have had enough of these rushing waves.
you’ll be the oxygen i need.

we’ll take turns to untangle the knots,
though our hands may be tied,
it’s all a part of the plot.
cat’s cradle etiquette, we oblige,
as we learn to enlace for the rest of our lives.

you’ll be balance when i waver.
i’ll be warmth when you are shivering cold.
you’ll be patience when i’ve had enough of this waiting game.
i’ll be the anchor cast below.

we’ll take turns to untangle the knots,
though our hands may be tied,
it’s all a part of the plot.
cat’s cradle etiquette, we oblige,
as we learn to enlace for the rest of our lives.