This post is being written preemptively to convince myself / to justify this video existing. A companion to a video that has no story without explanation:
(Also this video got wrecked by shooting in HDR. Oh well. Its about the sound more than the visuals.)
Reading or listening first shouldn't matter so:
By the time this post goes up it will probably have been a month and a half since the last video. A far cry from the once a week goal I put up for myself. Last time it took a month to make a video it was because I was trying to make the video for that month; learning and testing and working. This time it was because I was just trying to get through the month. Projects fell to the side.
And it took a lot of thinking and clarity to come to the conclusion that I could just post a video of me playing this song I made. That it was okay. That it didn’t have to have a script, or a deeper connection to my life, or have some cool editing, or a goal, or whatever precedent I’ve set for myself in the other videos. I chose to do videos so I could make anything. When I’ve thought about posting a cover before I thought I couldn’t just post a video of me singing an Alex g song for 3 minutes. That I would have to post all 10 covers I know in a row at different locations and themes to make it justifiable video. But I think thats a little unrealistic as I’ve forgotten some of those 10 songs and 1 of them I never learnt properly; it was hacked together to satisfy a time requirement. This one is different I think because I made it*. It comes back to the overarching goal: Make a video once a week, for 6 months; 26 videos. There’s nothing in there that defines what a video or a movie should look like. It’s just that sitting in front of the camera playing guitar felt cheap. Not what I had in mind initially. And maybe it eventually comes out as some cool music video but I don’t think it will (not yet). I just have to get something out there. Something is better than nothing.
The first song was made in about a week. Was sitting with Tristan while he was finishing up some statistics homework. I started playing and humming and I thought “thats a cool little diddy”, it just needs lyrics. It needs a river. I think I said kern and Tristan said yeah. Or Tristan said kern and I said yeah. Either way I thought it was a fake river until he told me that it was real. And he was going up to the kern river area for skate camp in like a week. Made it a lot cooler. All the lyrics were made in a days time. It didn’t really mean much until it was almost done. But when it was done I realized that it was sort of really personal and had a lesson that I didn’t fully get until a couple days after. It’s all surface level deep but they’re the best lyrics I came up with.
The second song was made in a day. Really simple. It might be better but I wasn’t going to post it initially.
*I put the asterisks next to made up there because it feels more like a collage with writing on top than an original song: The tuning and 2 chords are from a Coldplay song, all the other chords can be traced to 2 Alex g songs, the fingerpicking pattern is from a Bob Dylan-turned-Jeff Buckley song, and the structure is loosely based off of a Neutral Milk Hotel song. It was 10 covers turned into something of my own. 10 covers in a few minutes. Condensed so hard it’s something different. I really thought about this for a while. How closely related all art must be. How even the most creative and unique pieces of art are so supported and put together based off of everything thats ever come before it. Just in my case it’s pretty direct. I’m excited to see what I come up with when I learn 10 more of my favorite songs. Anyway. It’s not recorded yet so ill get on that.
Pre
——
Post
Well… I recorded it. Wanted to record it by a real river but this felt more fitting. Went with Ed and he recorded it for me. We hiked for 30 minutes only to realize that the beginning was the coolest. We also got eaten alive. So many bugs. It was difficult to play and sit still while they ate you alive. There were bugs ive never even seen before. It took 40 minutes of playing to get both songs. 38 of those for the first and 2 for the second. Some takes ended because they were my fault and some because the critters dug deep.
These are the takes Ed felt were worth saving
0:00 Ed.
0:12 ☆ 1st/final take of MbtS
1:03 bad 1st verse
1:50 ★ alternate universe version (Ed’s favorite)
3:15 kern gentle 1st version
6:00 wrong lyrics at the end
8:08 fuckkkkkk
9:15 ☆ final version (the take right after ed said I should just do it in section (locked in))
11:59 outro fix
Are either of these recordings the best I’ve sang these? No. Best guitar? No. But something is better than nothing. And these are the firsts of something I’ve ever done. Imagine 100, 1000 songs down the line. Maybe I’ll never get there but it’s exciting to think about.
Anyway I’m keen to record both of these nicely and keep working on little diddies.