School Bus

A new song this summer. I had a postable semi-instrumental version of this, but decided to wait until I fleshed it out. Thus, this is a pretty fleshed-out version, with vocals and about 12 tracks.

To be honest, I associate tracks with layers in Photoshop, so I'm anal about keeping them nice and neat

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by tmcw (5 comments total)

Are the verses in...5/4? Nutty!

This is pretty cool. I especially like the high guitar part (first heard at :45) and the banjo part (2:06).

There's a lot of of giving us things and then taking them away -- things build up and then drop back down again -- which I find a little frustrating; it was harder to "get into" the song. It may just be me...?
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 8:37 PM on July 2

Hey, yeah - the first and second verses are in 5/4. I hope it doesn't sound unnatural that way - it's just the way I initially came up with the riff, and the melody relies on it pretty seriously.

Thanks a ton for your comment: it does sort of thin & thicken out a lot. I like the choruses being a big contrast, but the second verse could probably benefit from some of those parts (clapping, maybe a second guitar) keeping on.
posted by tmcw at 9:14 PM on July 2

Oh man the 5/4 part is good. I think its really hooky the way it is. Sufjan Stevens uses 5/4 all the time and it works just fine for him. I think the build up and back down thing that Karlos the Jackal mentions wouldn't be so jarring with drums and bass backing things up throughout and/or maybe a bit of compression (my guilty pleasure) so that things don't pop out so suddenly.This is really good songwriting dude.
posted by dobie at 5:41 PM on July 3

Irregular meter is one of my favorite musical features, so kudos for that!

My only suggestion would be to make the vocals more present -- they seem to hide behind the guitar parts a bit. The high guitar part in the chorus especially seems to dominate. The contrast is nice, but it's a little jarring to my ear.

That said, this is good stuff. Keep it up!
posted by danb at 8:04 PM on July 3

I like this song. You blended the nonstandard time signatures well -- it flows well.
posted by spiderskull at 11:03 AM on July 11