A happy holidays with plenty of thoughts
23 Dec 2011 Comments Off
First of all, I wish everyone happy holidays, wherever you may be!! I’ve been getting better about buying all my presents earlier each year, so I’m glad I won’t have to make any mad dashes over to the mall to get any last-minute gifts! I like to avoid the major holiday rush when I can. :D
So some thoughts came to me as I’ve been writing more and more songs for my next album.
So far this is turning into a very piano-driven project, more so than I ever thought. And I’m loving it! I’ve really taken to the piano this last year and a half. And all of it has been self-taught. I already knew how to read and write music. It was just putting both my melodies and piano playing at the same time that I needed to work on. And I’m still working on it. I’m no Tori, though I’m not set out to become the next Tori by any stretch of the imagination.
Overall, I’m finding that songwriting and singing while playing is far easier with my keyboard than it ever was with my guitar. All the keys are laid out there for me to play with. For chords on the guitar, you have to have a certain fingering for them or you don’t have the correct chord. All of the notes are not easily laid out for you in the same way as piano, if that makes any sense.
It’s interesting to see this new direction. When I began taking songwriting seriously, I started off on guitar. I liked the ease of carrying it around with me. That’s not really something you can easily do with a keyboard. I also loved the sound as I strummed the strings and fingerpicked an accompaniment. I also liked that I was setting myself apart from other female singer/songwriters. I wanted to be different. I didn’t see many women out there rockin’ on the guitar. I wanted to be KT Tunstall more than A Fine Frenzy.
So buying my keyboard was a complete impulse buy. Before I went to BJ’s for groceries with my husband one weekend, I had no intention of coming out with a $200 Yamaha keyboard. But one stroll through the electronics section made me decide to just go for it. I’d always wanted to take up the piano for real and learn to play things beyond just Chopsticks or the bassline and melody for Heart and Soul. Since then, I’ve written countless songs on that keyboard and can even play the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Pretty good for a year and a half of teaching myself!
I’ll never get rid of my guitars, but I don’t intend to play them very often. I’ll still take them out every so often to tune and strum them, but I just haven’t taken to it like I have with piano. My fingers don’t hurt after playing piano for hours like they did with guitar. At least pressing down on the keys doesn’t cause calluses to form after a while on my fingers.
So I’ve found a new favorite instrument. And that’s fine. My husband has been talking about wanting to learn guitar for ages, so I’ll keep my guitar around. And for future children too. With a musical mommy, they certainly will learn all about music!
Being that most of my songs these days are becoming more piano-driven, this also means my music is becoming a little more simple. Beforehand I was content with creating complex soundscapes that couldn’t be easily replicated on a piano live. That’s why some of my earlier Ustream shows were just me singing to a backing track.
But I’m starting to like simplicity. Why go for huge sound atmospheres when the song’s emotion doesn’t really require it? When I over think things, I tend to lose sight of the song’s emotion. I don’t let the song just breathe. Instead I try to suffocate it under layers of synthesizers and wonder why it sounds cold and soulless in the end.
Artists usually start off simple before going weird and experimental. I seem to be doing the opposite!
Speaking of simplicity, here’s a demo of a song I’m working on. I’ve recorded a very good demo of this already and it sounds not too different from what you hear here:
So now I’m off to hit the hay and do some more piano playing tomorrow. Woot! :D
