Trampoline

This is the first thing I have almost finished from my trip out to the middle of nowhere.

This is a sweet little love song inspired by a trampoline in the garden of the old farm house I rented for my recording project. I might have a friend redo the drums and I might redo the guitar solo but this is the first thing I have to show so far. The rest of the songs are more heavy and "out there" They are almost finished but they need a bit more work.

Here are some pictures of where I was staying and working.

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posted by chillmost (7 comments total)

Lovely. This really hit a sweet spot for me - I've played it several times already, and it's holding up nicely to repeated listening.
posted by EvaDestruction at 6:02 PM on June 24, 2010

I really like this. The strange rhythmic interplay between the voice and the backing is really interesting... the voice seems to be really late, but eventually it sort of makes sense.

Some hopefully constructive thoughts: the melody guitar in the opening seems to fight for attention with the voice, might be worth trying it a few db lower and see if that does anything good.

I like the little melodic change on 'and that's not all'... it's really all that's needed in terms of a bridge.

The guitar solo seems longer than it needs to be and meanders towards to the end. I was really hoping to get back to the vocal melody before the song finished.

Lastly, the harmonies are good and very well done but a female voice there would be lovely.
posted by unSane at 8:09 PM on June 24, 2010

Good song -- the vocal harmonies are melancholy and lovely.

Are the drums a machine now? I'd like to hear shaker or tamborine, maybe even instead of the drums.

I agree with others in that I'd like to hear that chorus again. Nothing against your solo, but the chorus is great.
posted by Karlos the Jackal at 12:17 AM on June 26, 2010

Thanks for the comments. The arrangement will have to stay as is. I generally try to eschew traditional arrangement structures and tropes for my own compositions. If I tried to rearrange it by putting another chorus at the end, I would have to have to rerecord it and I don't want to because it is a record of the time and place it was recorded. If I tried to copy and paste another chorus at the end, it wouldn't sound right because of the different dynamics there at play towards the end of the song. Plus the chorus has a different chord structure than the end of the song. Maybe when I play it live I can throw one in.

The drums are live recorded using the Glyn Johns technique but they sound kind of mechanical due to my reluctance to try lots of fancy fills and due to a wonky noise gate on the snare during mixdown. I'm not really much of a drummer. When I'm jamming and playing live I tend to take chances with my fills, but during recording I hold back because I don't want to mess up and start again.

I also considered a female part on the harmony but I didn't have a female singer available. Maybe soon though.
posted by chillmost at 9:50 AM on June 26, 2010

I can see it would be a pain to futz with the arrangement, but you could maybe bring in the chorus-words with a new melody over the end of the song. I can almost hear it already.
posted by unSane at 10:01 AM on June 26, 2010

PS I like the drums. There are a couple of sloppy hits in there but it goes with the general looseness of the song.
posted by unSane at 10:02 AM on June 26, 2010

and when I say chorus words I actually mean the 'up and down' lines, which I now realize aren't the chorus but they feel like the hook to me.
posted by unSane at 10:33 AM on June 26, 2010