Vocals, strings, fills, and my email address

I keep redoing the vocals, and it's helping, but more practice is still in order.

I brought the strings back. The decidedly-non-guitar sound helps keep it interesting. Comments?

Notice the guitar fills and extra rhythms in the background. The song was feeling a little plain (and predictable) without them. I'm particularly happy with the texture added by the single-note guitar rhythm in the left channel under the chorus.

This is all in the new .mp3 Alpha20070722c.mp3.

You can always help out by downloading the mp3 and recording yourself singing or playing your instrument while listening to the mp3 through your headphones. You can email me at msongmsong__AT__gmail.com

Thanks for listening!

Laptop Back == More music

The MacBook is back and as good as new -- they even replaced the scratched, dented case!

In the sidebar is the latest version of the song. I rerecorded everything, used fewer tracks, killed the shaker dead, kept the volumes and effects more consistent in the mixdown, and, imho, gave a better performance. There's still room for improvement. Happily, there's still time for it.

Feedback's always appreciated. Thanks to those who commented and sent email.

Next: Tune the voice, replay the solo

Thanks for listening!

Lyrics

Laptop, smoke, out of warranty. But the Geniuses are kind and helpful.

While I wait for my MacBook's triumphant return, please be inspiried by the lyrics to The Marriage Song:


Sonetimes when we're alone
I look up and see you
50 years from now all gray and
Wrinkling, still everything to
Me

And I imagine a love
That could only come from 50 years of hoping through un-
Certainty, through better worse and
You and me
And I can't wait

Now, I don't know just what's got into me
In love like this I thought I'd never be
She's changed my mind, and through
All this time
I've known I'd always want her
In my life

Say, old man,
After all your
Time, why are you still smiling?
What have you done? What do you know?

For 50 years, as far as I re-
Member, every day I've
Seen here smiling back at me
And she's still the cutest girl I know

She makes it feel
Like autumn all the time
And she's the little girl
Who loved a little boy
In his dream

Now, I don't know just what's got into me
In love like this I thought I'd never be
She's changed my mind, and through
All this time
I've known I'd always want her
In my life

Sometimes when we're alone
I reach up and take your sweet face in my
Hand; that's how it goes and we both know
That we'll be in this 'till the end.



Thanks for the feedback so far. New, improved vocals are on the way!

Mechanics of Collaboration

Free File Hosting

GarageBand source files are huge. The first released version of this song is 50MB after compression. This could make transferring files difficult, but here's how we can do it.

You can get an account with a free file hosting service and upload your file there. They will give you a public URL that anyone can use to download the file. For example, I uploaded Alpha20070627.m4a to my account at OmniDrive and they gave me the URL

http://web.omnidrive.com/APIServer/public/BrV82xxczp2mcofVu5pfVaRD/Alpha20070627.m4a

which I used as the hyperlink "Alpha20070627.m4a" in this blog's first post. When you click on it you'll get the file from OmniDrive, not from Blogger.

If you want to post a new mp3/m4a or GarageBand source file, upload the file to your free file hosting service and post the public URL here in the comments.

How does that sound? Cheap and easy? That's what I was going for.

Creative Commons

Do I need to bother? Sure, why not. You are welcome -- indeed, encouraged -- to take the mp3/m4a and GarageBand files that I post here and modify and redistribute them, provided you let anyone else do the same. See the Creative Commons box in the sidebar on the right for complete details.

Contributors will be credited on this website and at my reception.

Introduction

On August 25, 2007 I will marry a sweet girl who would like to hear a sweet song, The Marriage Song, played for her at our reception.  For that to happen, I need to get it out of my head and onto a iPod.  My first effort is Alpha20070627.m4a.  It sounds more or less like the song I have in mind, but for a recording to be of high enough quality to be played at our wedding in front of our family and friends I'm going to need your help.

Interested?  You can download the mixed-down m4a and/or the source GarageBand file and submit your comments on and suggestions for the song.  Even better, I encourage you to rework, replay, remix, reword, sing, comp, fill, percuss -- to do whatever you can do -- and share the results with me and anyone else who's listening.

I can't do it all alone, and I won't stop doing what I can until The Day.  The current version has live guitar and vocals and some software instruments in it.  I'll keep rehearsing and re-performing tracks, testing fills and harmonies, and posting revisions.

Man, it could really use some percussion to replace that shaker.