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Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 4)

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Arrangement Week

I took the (somewhat) easy way out today. I was gonna be ambitious and play the fiddle for the fourth part of Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing, and I did try, but Good God. I used to know a little bit of fiddle, but let’s just say, I saved yall from some serious pain.

So instead I played the mandolin. I’m by no means a good mandolin player, but I can at least strum the chords I need to strum and sing while I do it. There’s no bow involved. No rosin. No tuning fork. It’s all tuned the same, though…like an upsidedown guitar with four strings.

Anyway. I finished the song this afternoon. There’s no chorus. No bridge or extra part. It just is what it is. But it’s one I can really get behind. I usually don’t really get behind songs that take me a week to write…I guess I just worked harder on this one.

Tomorrow I’ll merge all the files together and we can hear what that sounds like. It’ll most likely be a big mess. On Saturday I’ll record an “official” version of the song and then it’ll be done and I’ll maybe start playing it out around town.

So, there ya go. Four days of the creative process or struggle or whatever ya call it.

Nothing is hard when you work hard and put in time.

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Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 3)

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Arrangement Week

Okay. I’m really putting myself out on a limb here today. I’m playing upright bass on this one. Upright bass looks like this:

Nothing oughta be as hard as playing upright bass with a blistered thumb.

I’ve had one of these for a while now, but I’ve never actually sat down to even try to play it. I guess I see it more as an accompanying instrument (even though that’s ridiculous because I love Charles Mingus.) Anyway, I took it down today and got a big old blister on my finger.

I finished the third verse this morning. It came to me pretty easily without a whole lot of wranglin. The hard part was singing it and playing the bass. This recording is probably the 5th or 6th take. Which means the 5th or 6th time I’ve played bass. I’m not apologizing, though, cause I like how it turned out. The melody of the song kinda gets lost in there cause I’m focusing so hard on the instrument playing and then the instrument playing gets fuzzy when I start focusing on the new verse. But, all-in-all, I think I did a fair job of holding it together.

I probably coulda played it a few more times and got it cleaner, but maybe not. My instrument track was actually turned off by accident on this recording, which is why the bass is kinda quiet. It still got picked up by the vocal condenser, though. But it’s small things like that which lead me to believe that I probably wouldn’t get it perfect without a couple hours of practice. But who wants perfection anyway.

So, the song is shaping up. I’ll work on one more verse for tomorrow. I’m still kinda hoping for a chorus, but now I kinda think that it doesn’t need one. The title is probably also gonna be Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing. I just made that up right now.

See ya.

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Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 2)

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Arrangement Week

Next installment. Banjo. As you can tell I’m a really below-average banjo player, but I tried real hard and that’s half the battle.

I got the second verse of the song done today. I started it last night, but it came together nicely this afternoon. I’ll thank the Canadians for that. Them of the “if there’s no sign saying you can then you can’t.” As opposed to us Americans of the “if there’s no sign saying you can’t then you can.” I’m not saying one’s better then the other, I just needed one today more than the other.

So the second verse is done. I sung it over banjo. I rarely play banjo other than to pull it off the wall and strum it. I have no idea how to claw-hammer and I’ve never been to good at fingerpicking even on the guitar. But I gave it a whirl and I think it turned out okay.

I’m getting closer to a title. Maybe something like Oughta be like. But that feels unfinished. There’s definitely a repeating line, sort of, now. Maybe tomorrow a chorus will spring up.

I think probably on Friday I’ll put the whole song together, all the parts…layered…and I’ll post that.

Anyway, here’s a picture for all of ya that might be strugglin with gettin that next bit of creation out.

A wall oughta not stand in your way when creating.

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Nothing Oughta Be Like Nothing (Part 1)

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Arrangement Week

Okay. Here’s the deal. I’ve got a song in the works. It ain’t one of those that can just be written and done in 5 minutes. The first verse came out tonight like a dream and then the second verse kinda stalled and wiggled and wouldn’t break. So, this week, I’m gonna do a new verse each day, to this new song, which also does not yet have a title. I’ll call it Untitled Song Number 1.

I was also planning on changing instruments each day of this week, hence the week being called Arrangement Week. I’ll still attempt to do this. Maybe the challenge of a different thing in my hands each day will rattle some words out of me.

This new one is kinda shapin up to be like a lot of other new one’s I’ve written recently with a similar (or exact) repeating line instead of a good old chorus. The melody isn’t stolen from anything that I know of and I’m just apickin on the guitar.

I also don’t have any image to go with this post. This song is too new and too unfinished to have any idea what it’s about. So I’ll just go with this, it’s unfinished too:

Nothing is ever finished.

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New Orleans

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Songs About America Week

Last song of the week. This one is called New Orleans, or I was born in New Orleans. Either way, it’s a pretty close approximation of the song Portland Town, which I first heard done by Derroll Adams on the record The Ramblin’ Boys, which he recorded with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

Map of New Orleans

New Orleans was written and recorded way back in 2006. I was really into imitating Ramblin’ Jack as close as I could back then. But Ramblin’ Jack is still alive and there’s not many people that could imitate him exactly. Bob Dylan tried and couldn’t. I tried too and couldn’t. I don’t talk that much.

So I changed the words of that Derroll Adams song because Portland just ain’t what it used to be when that song was first recorded and New Orleans ain’t what it used to be when I recorded this song.

I’m pretty sure I only ever played this out live one time. Probably at the Grafton open mic that I was frequenting back then. When I was still figuring out how to sing and how to play and how to make sense up on stage. I’m slowly getting back to that point now. Went to Gallery Cabaret again on Thursday night to try out 3 more new songs: Lawd Almighty, Mister Mayor Says, and Pray to your Lord. Went pretty well. Lawd Almighty I’d never played out before and it went a lot better than I ever thought it could’ve. But I was in a religious way that night.

Anyway…on to next week. I got a song to write for Monday and a theme to come up with. See ya…