Okay, a lot’s happened.
Since my last Process Journal, I’ve made some progress on actually making songs. But almost immediately, plans changed. To begin on my first song, “The Resonance Hotel,” I took my poem of the same name and booked the recording booth at the Campbell Library. Alone with myself and my voice, I recorded the poem and attempted recording some lyrics for the second song on the project, “Going Down.” I quickly learned that I am good at neither singing nor lyric writing. Doing the necessary research and practice to make decent lyrics and record decent vocals would be cannibalizing the time I needed to actually make the instrumental for my tracks, which, at that point, were nonexistent. So I quit singing altogether.
It was a crushing blow, to say the least. My initial conception of the project had gone sideways, and it took me a few days to really recover.
To shrug it off, I dove headfirst into production. I tried to use the recordings I had but at my current skill level and knowledge, vocals were more of an obstacle than anything. I intend on using the ad libs I recorded for “Going Down,” the jazzy elevator music track, but otherwise, I won’t be attempting anymore vocals.
Nevertheless, I toiled away on “The Resonance Hotel.” I buckled down and worked on it a little bit everyday, making incremental progress. I didn’t make it far. I struggled with how I wanted the song to sound, spending more time in menus and testing out instruments than actually putting anything. After a few days of that, I jumped ship to work on a song that I know the particular sound for: the third track, a techno song.
I’m unsure of the title I’m going for, but in my head, I’m calling it “Compressor.” Dance, house, and techno are the genres I typically listen to, so I had a good idea of its sound profile going in. I tried my hand at making my own drum part, resisting the urge to find a pre-made loop, but eventually caved. Instead of resisting the tool on offer, I started to make it work for me. Why waste time finding the right kick drum when I could search for a perfectly decent loop? The bulk “Compressor” was cobbled together from the first draft of “The Resonance Hotel,” which fit a faster tempo dance track better than the slow, gothic composition was failing at previously. At this present moment, I’m pleased to say that “Club Luna” is my first completed song.
Its rough around the edges, hardly a complete song, but nevertheless, its my baby. My main inspirations for this track were the “Challengers: Match Point” off the Challengers (2024) soundtrack and New Order’s “Blue Monday.” Above all else, I think it's danceable, which is the priority for any song of this kind. Initially, I conceived of the song as “Techno Inferno,” but after making the song, I found that the cold, electronic sounds evoked moonlight more than fire. I also kicked around a few other names, like “Lunar Techno” and “Compressor: Lunar Techno,” which I was particularly smitten with before changing. “Club Luna” was the better fit since I felt that it represented a space inside the hotel, a club that the residents could visit. I could keep my original dream of storytelling alive with just a simple, clever title.
The journey I went on with this song is a long and wild one. For a while, I couldn’t seem to put anything together. I’d make interesting, ear-pleasing tunes but couldn’t fit them into one another properly. I couldn't get into a groove with how the song took shape or how I wanted it to sound. Only when I started from scratch could I get anywhere. I took the good stuff I had and started from a new place, free of the mistakes I made previously. When I thought I was in another dead end, I took a few days off, and when I returned, things just seemed to fall into place. I could better see where I wanted my notes, where the song was getting repetitive, and what exactly I needed to use to fix the problems I was seeing. Actually completing a song possessed me with the spirit of a mad scientist, lighting shooting from my fingertips. Honestly, it's a relief to know that it's possible.
Working in reverse, “Going Down” is my next goal, which I hope will be a quicker, easier process with the amount of knowledge and practice I’ve accrued. Now that I know that I can do it, that makes me want to try even harder and deliver an even more full-sounding track. On one hand, it was disheartening to see my ambitions get slowly hacked down by the reality of my skill level, but on the other, I enjoy the clarity of focus it's given me. All that remains is actually doing the work and making the songs real.
After "Going Down," I mean to take another meaningful crack at nailing the project's title track, "The Resonance Hotel."
