w-i-p: I'm Starting to Really Hate Dreaming

[blue2blue]

I've been messing around with this song for a week or so now. I think I've more or less got the lyrics in place and the music -- what there is of it -- is falling in, to.

 

I'd been lollygagging over putting in guitars (a rhythm, a lead) but since one of our members here just posted an instrumental with a title that is, coincidentally, a line from my song -- not to mention one of Tennyson's most quoted lines -- I thought maybe I should post what I have now. In case this Tennyson guy comes back from the grave lookin' for either of us.

 

They always say not to make excuses for your work when you post it for feedback/critique, but let me just say that I'm not imagining this is one of my most substantive works.

 

work-in-progress: I'm Starting to Really Hate Dreaming

 

I'm

starting to really hate dreaming

I can't stand to see the night fall

if can't close my eyes without dreaming all night

and I'd rather not close them at all

 

all my dreams start out happy

we have just fallen in love

day by day it starts slipping away

by the morning, it's all come undone

 

Losing you one time

baby that was hard enough

losing you (each and) every night

makes me sorry i (ever) fell in love

 

Its better to have lost

than never fall in love

that's what some loser said*

I say it's better -- better not to dream

time for dreamin' when I'm dead

 

All of my dreams start out happy

in all of my dreams you're the one

we fall in love every night

by the morning it's all come undone

 

©2008, TK Major

 

 

*Originality check... this was one of those lines that just felt so right (in a cheezy way, mind you) that I was instantly worried that I might be inadvertently nicking it from some other work... (I'm referring to the some loser punchline, not the riff on the familiar Tennyson just above it, of course. ) I'm also a trifle worried about the losing you one time / ... everynight... bit. Which would be the only two interesting lyrical features, pretty much.

 

So if sounds familiar to any of you all, please let me know. As I've said before -- I wanna know when I'm ripping someone off.

 

 

[insider joke: if jxeboy's ears are as sharp as his pop sensibilities, he should have a laugh over this one.]

[uPDATE: insider joke was on me... I'm going to revert back to the un-vocal-tuned performance -- though I haven't yet (and maybe recut it entirely). At first I thought the vocal-tuning wrenchmarks weren't too bad. But once I let it sit a few days and went back and listened, I realized there were a few bits that were unacceptable. Here's an example of the thing that tore it for me: http://tkmajor.com/mmedia/robo-tuning-StartingToHateDreaming-examples.m3u Two brief snips in a playlist. One w/ vocal tuning and one without. The robo-melismaticism to listen for is in the word, lost.]

[333maxwell]

I like it... has a swingin laid back groove..

 

As I hear it, instead of guitars I tend to think (I know I am an oddball) it is almost screaming for some bluesy bar piano licks calling back to the vocals, and in the instrumental, lay back everything and toss in a single trumpet... I think it would be a very groovy addition..

[blue2blue]

I might be able to swing the bawdy house piano but I suspect I don't have the tools to get a decent sounding trumpet in there. But I like the concept. Have to lose the soft, jazzy roads and cheezy strings, though. Maybe I'll have to wait for that budget...

 

I could do mouth trombone... I used to be pretty good at that in my prime. I've kind of lost my lip.

 

[blue2blue]

I was trying for one of those surprise reveal things like they do in the movies, there... it may not have quite the right dynamic.

 

But I was shooting for the suggestion that he goes through the whole cycle of the romance in his dreams -- from that glorious falling in love thang to the bitter dregs -- every night.

 

But, you know, if I find myself explaining it here, maybe that's a sign it may not be working. Still, I don't mind causing someone to puzzle over a seeming paradox a little -- as long as they eventually get it. In fact, I kind of like the idea. But... that's a danger, too. I dunno. I may have to roll it around in my head some more.

[333maxwell]

I might be able to swing the bawdy house piano but I suspect I don't have the tools to get a decent sounding trumpet in there.

 

Drats.. If I were your neighbor I'd pop over and help, although I am not a very good trumpet player I do have a few and they tend to get little used.. maybe in the meantime kidnap a highschool kid who is carrying a case.. *G*

[rsadasiv]

Cool jazzy track. I think the melody should go down in triplets (C# C Bb | C Bb Ab | Eb) with a corresponding chord voicing (C# Fm Eb) on the end of the last line of the verse ("rather not | close them at | all").

[Cripes]

If I don't come away with a message from the lyrics or enjoyment from the melody I dismiss a song quickly. A song has to convince me in words and music. The melody in this song carries the lyrics well but there's a dynamic asking to happen. I'll look forward to further development.

 

The message is a good one. It really isn't something that one hears often, or at least stated this way.

[eeglug]

Bittersweet and tender...I don't think you should add anything to it. I like the restrained feeling it has. If one were to embellish it (and I don't encourage that), I don't hear anything "rock" or "jazz" - I hear orchestration as in Ringo's "Good Night" off the White Album. Or "Town Cryer", the last track on Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom. But the orchestration is way over the top in both of those cases and really needs to be toned down to work on your song.

 

I'm not a real fan of using the phrase "come undone" but that's not such a big deal as the rest works for me.

 

I'm guessing that your percussion is not finalized but at the moment that hihat is poised somewhere in between sounding real and sounding fake and drives me bonkers. Either make it a mechanical drum machine tick or really work on a realistic hihat part LOL!

[Eclepto Funk]

i love the sound of the song

 

i'm not entirely sold on the chorus ... musically ... it doesn't seem distinct enough from the verses ... i love what is here though

[Music Calgary]

The track didn't do much for me but I really like the texture of the vocal performance. A simple-but-intriguing harmony voice added to the chorus might enhance it. Nice work overall.

[LeonardScaper]

Like the way the bass swings it at 'Losing you.......'

[blue2blue]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

 

I think they'll be helpful in rounding this out.

 

For sure, there are more instruments to come (sorry minimalists!) But not necessarily a lot of them. Maybe a mandolin filigree (that simple quarter note chord plink sounds pretty bare, now), a rhythm guitar and some sort of melodic thing (or things -- maybe a guitar/mandolin tradeoff) in the middle 8.

 

 

So, the vocal-tuning didn't strike anyone too bad?

 

There are a couple places where I seem to really notice it -- but it seems to be to some extent a product of interaction between the robo-tuning and compression. When I say robo-tuning, it's not like I put it on automatic and squeezed through the whole song. I went through a phrase at a time and only hit phrases I thought were just too far off... but my 'vocal style' is so melismatic that getting tuning to sound natural is a real uphill battle. (I'm being way too kind to myself, actually, it's less melismaticism and more like I'm gonna hit the note on the way up and on the way down but not necessarily gonna spend much time in the center of the note. )

 

I kind of used this track as a lab to see if I couldn't come to some kind of terms with vocal-tuning... clearly it's a useful tool but in so much contemporary music it's so crudely misused -- and I despise the sound of out of control vocal tuning.

[Michael Blue]

 

...I was shooting for the suggestion that he goes through the whole cycle of the romance in his dreams -- from that glorious falling in love thang to the bitter dregs -- every night. But, you know, if I find myself explaining it here, maybe that's a sign it may not be working....

 

 

 

I got that from it. Nice song!

[Nick*]

Wow....holy crap. This song is great! I think I like this so much because I feel like I can relate to those lyrics so much right now. It's weird how that just happened. I don't know what to say.....that's just so weird.

[rsadasiv]

my 'vocal style' is so melismatic that getting tuning to sound natural is a real uphill battle. (I'm being way too kind to myself, actually, it's less melismaticism and more like I'm gonna hit the note on the way up and on the way down but not necessarily gonna spend much time in the center of the note. )

 

I totally know what you mean. I have Melodyne, and it seems like the product is geared towards people who can hit a note but then fall off pitch as they try to hold it, or people who hit and then hold a wrong pitch. I have not yet had a satisfactory outcome trying to tune my melismatic vocals.

[3rd_harmonic]

I like the tone.

almost like you can take it or leave it .... "losing you", that is. It's like lost love is on the same level as soggy breakfast cereal. Nice. Good medicine.

 

 

I have an aquaintance at work who told me one time that his secret to happiness at work was this : You have to care.... but not too much.

 

I was trying for one of those surprise reveal things like they do in the movies, there... it may not have quite the right dynamic. But I was shooting for the suggestion that he goes through the whole cycle of the romance in his dreams -- from that glorious falling in love thang to the bitter dregs -- every night. But, you know, if I find myself explaining it here, maybe that's a sign it may not be working. Still, I don't mind causing someone to puzzle over a seeming paradox a little -- as long as they eventually get it. In fact, I kind of like the idea. But... that's a danger, too. I dunno. I may have to roll it around in my head some more.

 

No no... I got it. I saw the dream play out.

 

(Thank God I dream about other things!)

[blue2blue]

Thanks, guys!

 

Really appreciate the comments and critiques! I think they're going to help a lot.

 

Ram, I don't know if you saw my addendum to the original post -- but I'm going to go back to the un-tuned vocals (or maybe just start over -- but I might have another go at the robo-tuning... most of the stuff I did didn't stick out... but I did work with that one phrase that I excerpted just to get it as good as it was. What was funny was that I lost perspective on how tweaked it actually was until I'd hadn't heard the track in a few days. (I really burn out on my tunes when I work on them. I just have a real low tolerance. Once I get them where I want them -- it's usually OK... but until then it really produces tension in me.)

[kurdy]

 

Will it damage my cred if I say I can't hear the difference?

 

I'll have to give the song a few more listens before I can comment on the details, but good effort overall.

[lisa_qld]

wicked song pro i think you should get some copyright happening before you hear it on the radio

[3rd_harmonic]

BTW...with reference to "I can't stand to see the night fall"

 

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22I+hate+to+see+that+evening+sun+go+down%22&btnG=Search

[blue2blue]

I totally know what you mean. I have Melodyne, and it seems like the product is geared towards people who can hit a note but then fall off pitch as they try to hold it, or people who hit and then hold a wrong pitch. I have not yet had a satisfactory outcome trying to tune my melismatic vocals.

 

I think I have a new theory on how to approach this.

 

Since I spent a fair amount of time going through the song and manicuring the vocal with the vocal tuning software (Roland V-Vocal that came with Sonar Producer 6) only to end up throwing it out...

 

... I'm thinking maybe I should just put more effort into my singing to get my pitchiness under control.

 

I'm also going to be doing putting some more effort into controlling the nasal/head sounds that so define most of my singing. (It comes out considerably differently when I sing 'soft' as in this track or this one, which is a little closer to in between but still softens that nasty edge that comes from my perennially congested sinus cavities and my pinched little vocal mechanism.)

 

 

Kurdy

 

Nah... Hell, I thought at first I could let it go. And I was up front and personal with it, tinkering the vocal-tuning to get it as 'good' as it is. In those snippets, the "tell" is in a sudden shift in acceleration in the pitch drop in the "lost" syllable and what I presume is a sudden shift in formant correction. (I'm no expert on the technology behind today's vocal correction/auto-tuning. But I have been following this stuff since a session I produced in the mid-80s where the engineer used a pitch-shifting box to correct a single syllable of a vocal in an otherwise acceptable track. He recorded the shifted phrase to an open track on the tape and then, when we were all satisfied, he punched that in. It worked pretty well, actually.)

 

 

lisa_gld

 

thanks for the nice compliment! But I've been waiting to find one of my songs stolen for a long time and, so far, it doesn't seem to have happened. Although I have found apparently unauthorized copies of my (generally freely available) tunes on sites in Japan and Asia. But at least they were credited to my (one man) band, one blue nine. Of course, if they hadn't been, I might never have found them, particularly if the title had been changed. But, you know, it costs a lot of money to get a song on the radio these days (since the Clinton and Bush FCC's pretty much took all the teeth out of anti-payola laws -- except when it came to one black radio network that got a nasty set of fines even as Clear Channel and Infinity raked in the "considerations" and "promo" money. Funny how that works.) Anyhow... lemme know if you turn on the radio and hear me sandwiched between Fallout Boy and Britney. (Ain't that a yuck sandwich. )

 

 

3rd_harmonic

 

Yeah, St. Louis Blues (in its many variants) is pretty much in my musical DNA, I'm guessing. But with regard to my originality concerns I was worried about something even more direct -- like the basic premise of the song and particualry the first verse -- and/or that loved/lost/loser thang.

[3rd_harmonic]

blue2blue

 

10000 years...I like the vocal. Occasioanlly I try something similar. MAybe I'll get it someday. In the mean time, my voice choices seem to be between ricky ricardo and an adolecent in a mid life crisis.

[Nick*]

I can't get over those lyrics. It's like you wrote this song for me or something, hahaha. I couldn't sleep because I had a hard time getting over this girl I knew. So then I started taking sleep pills. Then when I fell asleep I would dream about her.....only to wake up and find out it was just a dream and get depressed again.

 

It's just so weird how I connected to this song.

[blue2blue]

3rd

 

That vocal description sounds... promising.

 

 

Welcome to my life, Nick.

 

(Except the sleeping pills. I was taking them for a while after a motorcycle accident until I realized my daytime speech was becoming slurred... and I was only taking them 3 or 4 times a week. Later I found out they had a half-life in the blood of 6 days and were linked to senile-dementia-like symptoms. My orthopedist had given me a prescription for up to one a day. If I'd done that I would have been a zombie -- at least for a while. Anyhow. That was my sleeping pill story. )

 

But, yeah... back in the late 80s and early 90s when I was gigging a lot as a sort of ex-punk folkie, I used the tagline, the Bard of Bitterness, Denial, and Regret. As the twig is bent.

 

Mind you, it's more a safety valve thing. I actually don't mope around or anything. It's like I have this toxic raw material and then I detoxify it by using it to manufacture this product that sort of binds the toxins in, chemically.

 

And they called it the birth of the blues... or something.

 

 

Anyhow, I hope you got over your own broken hearted blues. I mean, a sensitive person never gets entirely over these things but we integrate them and find a way to move on. They tell me... Seriously, though, if that broken heart lasts a month or two -- that's soulfulness. If it lasts a year, get your ass in to talk to someone. Or, at the very least, change your (bad) habits; get on an exercise regime; don't mope around but develop some activities and interests. Get out more. Do as I say, not as I do...

[3rd_harmonic]

 

I can't get over those lyrics. It's like you wrote this song for me or something, hahaha. I couldn't sleep because I had a hard time getting over this girl I knew. So then I started taking sleep pills. Then when I fell asleep I would dream about her.....only to wake up and find out it was just a dream and get depressed again. It's just so weird how I connected to this song.

 

 

women are special Nick. Each one. But they all have something that connects with you if you give it a chance. I found that making new friends with other woman ( and getting closer to my own wife - yeah yeah it's complicated you know) helps to minimize that feeling of loss. Then you just let time do its thing.

 

I haven't yet made up my mind about the benefits of songwriting though. As I struggle to find the right lyrics in a song about "lost love", I sometimes fall back into internalizing it all. But I think that in the end, turning the feelings into something for which you can say "I turned that bad day into this good song" has got to be a positive thing. one man's opinion.