Friday night and things are pretty chill. Had a few beers yesterday while making the arpeggiate track and listening to NIN so don’t feel like repeating that performance today. It’s also end of week and I can’t hide that I’m feeling a bit drained. Early mornings and a job that is a bit repetitive can wear one out.
Was thinking what could be done for an instrumental, percussion seemed obvious. Planning and multiple instruments seemed like a great idea. But what did I feel like doing? Chilling out and playing guitar. Or, rather, playing guitar and chilling out.
This isn’t a professional guitar solo. This is a guy with an iPad and some time on his hands. Default values all around and there’s nothing too fancy in there. As a matter of fact, the real guitarists out there might say it’s complete crap with no proper progression or arrangement. They’d be right. I didn’t plan this at all, but I have often picked up the iPad and just sat down and played, be it the drums, guitar, piano or some of the world instruments provided, I really didn’t want to mess around with things too much.
I did a few takes but what you hear is the very first take I did. I’ve found that those are often the best and contain the most feeling and inspiration. Later takes tend to get cluttered with overthinking which shows through in missed notes or odd note choices as I try to find something new to say instead of just repeating myself.
I was going to add minimal drumming to the track but decided to leave it as is so the track can breathe. The second take has some light playing on cymbals and tom drums, very basic stuff and I tried to add some bass but I’d have to admit I know how to play bass less than I do guitar. I suppose I could’ve really simplified the bass with just quarter notes, but maybe another time.
It’s airy and I hope it’s not too disjointed. I don’t know chord progressions very well and I know I play the iPad like a drum, often using a triplet pattern by using my fourth and index finger on my left hand and either my thumb or index finger on my right hand. I realize, however, that I don’t think that could actually be played since it would require hitting one note, skipping down two or three strings, and then moving up a string again. If it can be played, it wouldn’t be played as a triplet.
I left everything as it is in the Mixer and didn’t put any new effects on. The instrument had some pre-set effects and so I left those as is.
I don’t think I could ever play this track again only because it is so spur of the moment. It is a guitar solo so it only very roughly fits the challenge of “instrumental”. I did start out with the Japanese kit on the iPad but decided that would require too much planning to get done in a reasonable amount of time.
Here are the project’s settings:
As you can see, it’s very simple and I’m fine with that. One thing I will need to learn more about is how guitar chord and note progressions actually work as I usually just go off of what sounds good. There is one part towards the end where I hit the top string of the B Flat minor and that really sticks out, could wake you up from the trance the rest of the track puts you in. I also could have edited it out but I don’t think it’s too distracting.
Overall, not displeased. It’s a chill track and reflective of what I do from time to time, which is just jam around on my own. Reminds me that I have a bunch of drum and snare solos I’ve recorded before, all on iPad, of course.
Fifteen days in, half way there!