FIFTY THREE DEGREES

            Here is a link to my song Fifty Three Degrees

            The image above provides a visual representation of my song's structure.  The bright green strip across the middle of the image above is a very cool sounding synth pattern that travels the length of the song.  You can clearly hear its mesmerizing tones in the intro to the song.   This pattern became its backbone with the drum/bass, in red, a prominent second supporting structure.  The pattern never stops except for one small break in the middle. A sequence that does not change throughout the entirety of a song is dangerous but a challenge I love to work with.   

             I was able to accomplish this by slowly building the tension as the song progressed, adding various instruments  to dance with the backbone and various "sweetener" effects in yellow  to add dissonance and further play with the tension.  I especially like the addition of the guitar (in pink) to the chorus which used an amp pre-set called "Cheap Combo" that just worked for me. My vocals are shown in blue and mostly organically formed out of the rhythms and mood I was feeling emanating from the main chord structure and rhythms.   This song has a darkish atmosphere and a fair amount of edginess.   My vocals have more delay than usual because that's just what I was feeling when I wrote the lyrics.  

             I love to look back at my project after all the pain and joy of creation is over.  The image you see above is an end state and I promise you that the formation state was much uglier, full of wrong turns and plenty of dead ends.  The song you hear was cultivated out of the murky soup of my mind and all the particular content blowing through my skull at that particular moment.   With every turn I also make new musical discoveries that bring sparkle to the process and a never ending sense of wonder and delight to me.  Some of the names of my sweetener sounds make me chuckle; "Echo's ill factor", "Demon Choir" , "Ash Decay" and "Squawk Box" and I'll leave it to you to pick them out of the song as you listen to it. 

             This song was called "Sirens" as that is a frequent repeated phrase in the chorus.  However, I have discovered that about a million other artist also have a song named "Sirens"  Therefore, as of this very second of writing,  I have decided to rename the song "Fifty Three Degrees" just because I feel like it.  How is that for creative license.   

  

             Until next time; Happy Creating and Thanks for Listening!  

  

Dave