Playing With Yourself

In the main, playing in a band just isn’t going to happen. For a start, most of us have incipient artistic differences with our friends  - in the normal run of things it’s OK that your best chum secretly likes Scouting for Girls, but when they start suggesting that you open your set with a cover of “She’s So Lovely” things could get ugly. That problem aside, time for regular rehearsals is often a thing of fantasy. Most musical experiences round this way are grabbed moments, spontaneous capitalisation on insomnia. All of which is fine, until you write a song, or perfect a cover version that just cries out for several instruments, vocal harmonies and percussion, and you find yourself unable to do it all at once. Mention this problem to friends and nine times out of ten they will hilariously suggest something like this. And always with the cymbal between the knees.

But there are other ways to build music all by yourself! I guess it initially all depends on whether you want to create a track in the form of a recorded finished article, or if you’d like to be able to actually construct the song in real-time as part of a live performance. If you are interested in the former, home-recording technology is increasingly affordable and easy to use, and so laying tracks of different instruments and vocal lines together has never been more possible.  In 2007 Adam Young, a singer-songwriter and insomnia sufferer from Minnesota, worked with multiple instruments in his parents’ basement. He called the project Owl City.  The songs grew rapidly in popularity via the internet, until Young’s third album was signed, spawning the hit single Fireflies. So whether you are using GarageBand with a Mac, or a soundcard and software such as ProTools, home-recording could be the way to immortalize your creativity, and indeed share it with others.

If you want to build a song while people watch, you’re going to need a looping pedal. On Later with Jools Holland this week Ed Sheeran performed a cover of Jamie Woon’s Wayfaring Stranger. He used looping techniques to build the song, laying several vocal harmonies over beat-boxed rhythms.  The powerful and complex result was constructed entirely by his voice. You can hear it here.

To my mind though, the best agent of looping technology is David Ford. He leaps between instruments…but let him explain it. He describes and demonstrates his expertise with a looping pedal here, in this brilliant clip (parental advisory on his lyrics I’m afraid, you have been warned)

I’ve seen David Ford live a few times (most recently on Monday night, at the Borderline in London) and every time I’m blown away by the way he rapidly constructs the elaborate sound. It’s a bit like watching a man on the edge of a creative abyss….teetering, but somehow pulling it off. Blinding.
Here at Westmount Music we are poised and ready to provide you with everything you need. Whether it be a looping pedal, a guitar, a piano or a hat, get in touch.

Katy, Westmount Music