Weather [week 2]

Well well well well well…

It’s been a great week overall but haven’t worked as much on Weather as I wanted to. No really good excuses. Just got busy with other projects and/or living my life. This past week I ended up writing a birthday card song for Dad’s 56th birthday. He’d been asking me (jokingly I think) to finish a song for his birthday so I figured I’d put something together. Took the melody from an old song I’d been working on and added some extra elements. Also added a few vocals and a birthday message at the end [I took the message out here because it’s private—in case ANYONE ever ends up reading this blog. So far I’ve only told my brother but I’m not sure he even reads it haha. It’s ok I write not for the reads but for the LOVE OF THE GAME].

Anyways here’s the instrumental version of the birthday card song I made:

Beyond that I also really tried to cram in my submission for HER’s songwriting competition but I didn’t get have enough time. I was so sleep deprived towards the end of it so I decided to just relax.

Besides the music ended up biking a lot this week. Saturday I rode from Red Hook to DUMBO. That ride was super nice. By the water—going through Brooklyn Bridge park. DUMBO was crazy packed. You’d think there wasn’t a pandemic going on. My friend and I ended up just weaving through the crowd as fast as we could and got tacos at the end of the ride at Los Tacos. I ended up getting the corn there. Pretty good. I think it was elotes inspired. Had a lot of similar flavors. They basically threw some corn kernels in a cup, topped it with this citrusy sour cream(?) and cheese and some spices. Super refreshing and a taste I’m not that familiar with. 10/10 would definitely try again.

Today I ended up riding from Park Slope to Chinatown to Chelsea to hang at my friends’ apartment. We ended up getting Wah Fung (which I always confused with Nom Wah). Wasn’t super in the mood to eat that much meat but damn the pork over rice I got was great. They stack on a pile of Chinese barbecued pork on some fried cabbage atop rice and they drizzle some of the pork fat sauce on top of the rice. ooooooh wheee. After we ate we played some Throw Throw Burrito and played an escape room game (pretty much an escape room experience out of a box).

At this point I wonder if I’m writing too much about my day to day. Is this a music blog? Is it a blog about my life? Well guess what bud. It’s both.

Oh last piece of news is I’m going on a date this coming Saturday. Romance in Autumn in New York. The DREAM.

Ok back to the music. I didn’t make many production changes but I did end up rethinking the score of the song. Kind of taking inspiration from my acting days where we’d score out each scene. Where great scenes were comprised of very specific individual beats where every beat was designed to fulfill a larger movement and would be imbued with some essential action. The more specific you made your actions, the more nuanced you designed your scene the better it’d become. That crosses over kind of nicely to music right?

So I wanted every beat in the song to be imbued with some meaning/context/action. And I realized that I wanted to rework the opening verse specifically. I originally designed it for danceability. I wanted to get the heads bobbing right away (mostly carried by the kick). But the intention there didn’t seem to fit. The intro (which I’m happy with) plays with a gentle piano with a lot of reverb. Kind of dreamy, willowy. And then it immediately drops into the kick drum? No way jose.

So I reworked the verse so it’s a bit gentler. I wanted to evoke a kind of wistful tenderness. You’re kind of searching around. I thought that’d juxtapose well with the brighter passion of the next section.

Also added some more high end to the prechorus (“what else could I do”). Not sure if that’s enough but I’m planning on adding more vocals to fill out the rest.

Also played around with the lyrics for the second verse. That is still tbd.

Here’s this week’s version:

Yes not the biggest update but I promise next week’s update will be beefier.