Mama We Got a Baby (Jo Ishida)

Its funny how making songs has become more like trying to hit a target in the future and estimating how much time each part will take in order to finish something within the 7 day limit (which I really should speed up). 


With every song I've come up with, the process always ultimately turns downhill toward: Is this even a decent song anymore?  Will anyone even like this?  Do I even like it anymore?  The mistakes always honk out to me, and I always wrestle with re-recording, which would take up time but to be honest they're never gonna be perfect and really I'm just fooling around on a bunch of instruments and posting the results on the internet.  The goal is to insert different sounds like organ, or piano, or bass, or drum into a song and hopefully internalize the effect and understanding how much a sound or instrument can disrupt the balance of a song.  Then hopefully down the road, if I do figure out how to come up with great great text and melodies, then my memory will be there to call on what instruments would be best to deliver the complete package.  I don't really have a lofty goal other than just trying to extract as much intel from completing each post whether its a cover or original. 
 

Takeaways
 - I probably shouldn't have put space in for mini-drum solos.  I foolishly thought I could just come up with something or imitate something, but as I should have expected, its really difficult.  Drumming is difficult because being even slightly off just sounds sloppy...  In the end I just said fuck it and had to move on w/ tackling the new video software. 

 - Johnny Cash's guitar picker was Luther Perkins who really contributed significantly to JC's signature style.  At first I wanted to scrap the song because I didn't think there was enough to learn from attempting this style, but I was wrong.  When you play bass, you're super exposed because if your timing is off, everyone can tell instantly - perhaps because there are no other frequencies down there to obscure if you're on time or not.  Well I think this guitar picking is even tougher because you have to try and be exactly on time and the shrill sound honks out even more if you're late or too early on the beat. 

 - I copied Johnny Cash's own guitar style of strumming on an unmic'd acoustic.  On youtube he's always singing and strumming along on a guitar, but you can't hear it because theres no microphone picking it up.  I used to wonder why he'd even bother - but I guess it would look pretty strange if he were just standing there and singing. 


Ishida