I arrived at work today and felt a bid odd. I had some tea during the morning break and felt a bit better, but by lunchtime, I felt unpleasant enough that I went back home. I've caught some bug. Tea and honey, and I'll be ok. A bit of rest.
A friend of mine had a few years ago written a poem. Or, as she described it, it just dawned upon her in a moment of sudden clarity. She wrote it down, and drew a comic to go with it. That comic is lost to time, but both of us still remember the poem.
Yesterday, while I was visiting her, through some twists and turns of memory and discussion, I ended up deciding that I should write a song to go with that poem. Bring it back to life, as it were.
When I came to work in the morning, my teammate and I set up the machine for the day's tasks, and by that time, I had already a scrap of melody for one of the poem's lines in my head. I want it to be a jazzy little tune, and that melody scrap hit me that it would make a fun twist.
When I realised I'm getting ill and went home, I actually got around to writing that melody scrap down, and trying to build other parts of the song based on it it. The scrap I have is where I want it to go, but I needed it to start from somewhere too. Fiddling around on the guitar, I found a candidate melody, and to ensure I won't forget it, I wrote it down in a DAW, just to keep it safe. And keep a reference if I want to change it. I'm rather good at having ideas and then never getting anywhere with them. This one though, this one isn't just for me. It's for my friend too. She makes wonderful art, and I want to make something for her.
Since the poem is short, I elected to cut it up, one phrase at a time, and sprinkle around some guitar jingles between each phrase. Maybe also piano, a bit. Whatever sounds nice.
The day turned to evening. I had a nap, had some dinner, and figured that this disease is progressing pretty slowly. It seems like an ordinary cold, we'll see where it's at tomorrow. The uncomfortable feeling didn't go away, but at least the kind of half nauseous feeling I had after the lunch break at work is gone.
My composing is also going slow, but that's how it is.
Some cymbals and fingersnaps to the percussion, I'm thinking, and I want to work on a bassline too, get some use out of my bass guitar. If only I had a device to record my guitar and bass playing, I need to figure out what kind of a device that would be and where to get one. (The music store would be that place, and I can just ask the staff about it.) Until that, my instruments will play out into my living room, but their sound will never stay.
I'm very, very glad that I do have a bass guitar in the first place. I'm hopelessly left-handed, so just finding a guitar was a challenge in itself too. People on the lessons talk a lot about what models are better than others, but as a lefty, I find that I can ignore those discussions altogether. The best lefty guitar I can buy is the one (1) model the music store actually has in their inventory. I don't need to compare models all that much, lol. I did get to pick between a nylon string and a steel string, so there's that. The steel one is nice, and I can connect it to an amp.
The bass guitar, meanwhile, finding it was something else. Not only that my friend and I chanced upon it at the music store, while we were there to buy something else, but the price was a bargain for the ages. An all around well-regarded model of electric bass guitar, left-handed, going for 150 €. The music store allows people to sell their old instruments in their store, and whoever owned this one before was willing to let it go for cheap. Uusally, 150 € is just the lefty markup that you have to pay on top of the actual price of the instrument. But here it was, tempting me. Of course I bought it. And I'm very glad I did. It's great.
Anyway, the song. I should perhaps concentrate on doing the melody first for the whole poem, and build the chords, bassline and percussion later. I'm a quarter of the way there with the melody. For now, the it's in E, and the chord progression could be something like I Imaj7 IVsus2, unless I figure something else out in working on this. My friend wondered what I meant by "for now" in regards to the key, but it's just the key I started out in. I might change it, depending on how well my voice handles it, but I don't want to mess around with my voice too much when I'm getting ill, so I'll deal with the key later. E should be fine for my voice though. Once I have the melody, all can be adjusted.
Tea and honey. Rest. I can't forget the rest.
I'll miss my guitar lessons this week. I suppose this composing could count for homework. If I figure out fun jazzy jingles, I can repurpose them in the blues class too. And I'll have a little more idea about what's going on in music in general.
Also, syncopating stuff makes it difficult to write into a DAW. I'm a noob to the computer side of music making, but it annoys me how easily I can play a melody myself, in contrast to how much trouble I have describing that melody to the computer to replicate exactly. Skill issue, I know. But if I had another person here, they could do it by ear and pick it up without problems. The layer of abstraction is gone.
I guess my sick leave will now be dedicated to the creative pursuit of composition. And in some quiterer moments, I should try to draw again.
(My friend's poem is a silly rhyme about a chicken and a bean who go to the market.)
I want to make art, and I want to make nice things. I want to get my creative visions out into the world.
I haven't written a song before. This'll be my first attempt doing so. I've stumbled around trying to figure out what I want to say with my music, and getting stuck on not having lyrics to make a melody for. But once my friend's poem came up, I could cast that all aside and just get down to work. It's a bit like getting the first tattoo, I kept hesitating about designs and meanings, but once my sister came along with a suggestion, I was very quickly convinced, and now I've started out on that.
Tea and honey. It'll warm and soothe.
Others have been before where I am now, trying to learn their own art. They figured it out, one way or another. So can I.
But now, good night. I'll continue tomorrow.