Return to Songwriting

Today was a day of music, friendship and optimism. I've managed to start writing a long considered song, and I'm off to a decent start.

I've been feeling the itch to get back to songwriting, and SteveM challenging me to collaborate with him today started me thinking more concretely about it.

A hint that a long promised song was still to be written got me moving on a specific tune. I started by picking a mood. I find I can't begin lyrics or specific music without deciding on the "feeling" of the song. Once I have that, I can express the feeling in words and music. Today song's feeling is a medium slow ballad, affectionate but not gushing. Acoustic primarily - guitar and piano, but with some fill stuff TBD once I get to the arranging of it. Baritone male range (me) with female backup singers.

At the same time I cruised a whole stack of virtual instrument sites. When I stared with virtual instruments about seven years ago, there were only a handful of decent ones. Now there's a plethora of high end virtual instruments. I had thought I was going to have to learn how to play a strat and buy a new acoustic, but not so.

It's a relief - with my limited time, I won't be able to work back my guitar and keyboard chops both (and I played both today, and I've got work to do) Keyboards it is thanks to instruments like Music Lab's RealStrat.

So now I'm saving my pennies to buy a whack of new interface hardware, recording software upgrades and virtual instruments.

It's good to be enthused, and enthused about something with a bit of lasting value. Something that will create joy in others. Of course, I've got photo shoots to book and code to write, so it would appear my schedule is destined to be packed for some time to come.