Song Projects
My "official" sites are:
http://www.purevolume.com/ProjectProdigy
http://www.myspace.com/projectprodigysolo
I'm tired right now, just not tired enough, so i'll take this time to describe the main song projects i'm working on. This may bore you...
First of all, i performed "Fixation on the Darkness" by Killswitch Engage at a BandFair in Nashville to try to make connections, find a band, and just put myself out there. I met a few cool dudes, one was an energetic vocalist who sounded good all-around. We talked it up plenty and maybe he and i can find the time to hang out and write some metal material along the lines of Oh Sleeper (he sang a song by As Cities Burn). The other guy is a drummer who moved to Nashville from Missouri to try to get a music career going. He seemed really cool and killed his performance so i talked to him about potentially working together on some alternative / metal music. He digs it but i'm pretty sure he wants little to do with metal. Ironically, we still might get to work together through a totally different venture...
A guy in an up and coming band came up to me and asked me if i could recommend any drummers for him since he missed the performances. I definitely mentioned the guy i had talked to, but before he left to check the guy out, he mentioned his band could use another guitarist. He told me the band's name, said they were all Christians and their main influences are Evanescence, Linkin Park, and Red. He was just about the only guy who came up to me after my performance so i was thrilled enough to be asked to check it out, even if the music is a little different from what i normally throw down to. I checked out their myspace page and heard their only song...it actually sounded amazing! The music could use some work, which is where i come in, but the vocals were fantastic! It's a guy / girl vocal duo. The guy does more of a rap/rock style with some singing, and the girl honestly sounds angelic. I'm down with working in this band :-). To clarify about the "ironic" thing, the guy who said he could use me in the band later went up to the same drummer i talked to about working together. So, it may not be in the form i originally thought, but hopefully the drummer will accept and we'll get to know each other better -- he has crazy good credentials and i better get involved with anything he's in.
So. I better number off these projects.
1) I'm recording a song i helped co-write with my main music partner, Klugh, called "Your Mind." I've posted the video of our performance to both of my sites (and youtube), check it out. It's a hard rock song with a progressive influence. I'm recording every instrument, including drums, except for vocals which my friend will perform once i send the completed track to him. Look out for "Your Mind" to be posted to my purevolume and myspace pages soon. The song really just came to me and Klugh, but if we had to attribute influences we would say A Perfect Circle and Tool were the main ones.
2) I've started writing a song with a similar musical theme as "Your Mind" and should prove to be a solid partner track for the album. Along with alternative / hard rock and progressive elements, it also contains a bit of ambiance and nu-metal. Like the influences for the first song, i would have to list A Perfect Circle and Tool so far. Ideally, i think i would like to add Shinedown to that list, but i'm not sure what other influences should play a role because i haven't decided how heavy the song should be. Maybe Project 86? Maybe Mudvayne?
3) I'm in the middle of a predominately progressive hard rock song which, after a few lyrics were written, i've decided to name "The Edge." The main musical influence here is Tool, but (surprise surprise) you could say the main vocal influence is A Perfect Circle. Yep, this one has about a stanza of lyrics so far. I improvised and recorded the song one day, so the flow of the song thus far needs work. It also seems a little repetitive with just one instrument right now. I have added a little bass and some vocals, but the second guitar track will really thicken the sound i'm going for. If you go back a couple of posts to November or December '09, you'll see that the bridge for this song was influenced by a single track from Tool's Lateralus album. Opeth is another influence for this song.
4) I'm trying to develop my grindcore skills. Go listen to a mix of Impending Doom, Living Sacrifice, and Miseration to get an idea of what i'm going for here. My main focus for this song will be in the crunching riffs, explosive rhythms, and aggressive interludes that lead to massive breakdowns. Also check out The Famine. I'm looking for a beat-driven song with thick, low guitar tones with an occasional chainsaw effect :-D. At the end of most the riffs will be a little diddy that is bound to make you head bang. I want the music to growl and almost have this dark feel to it, but for the music and tone to be bright. I hope to express "chain link" musical ideas, each section unique to it's part in the song.
5) I wrote an instrumental track that could possibly serve as a transition track between songs. I simply need to decide where this hard rock instrumental can fit in, then i can create an ambiance at the beginning or end of the track to suit the flow of the album. I really got the idea from the last track to the Roadrunner United record, except i took the instrumental parts and left out the vocal parts. I guess i wanted the music to be able to connect with us emotionally without a mental theme being presented. This way i can focus on composition and not have to worry about the typical mainstream structures that include verse-prechorus-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-prechorus-chorus and so on.
6) An acoustic song inspired by the music from the film August Rush. I think i'll call it "Under The Canopy of Night." This one happened in a strange way. I was playing my acoustic guitar when i played something that sounded familiar. I realized it was the same chords used in one the soundtrack songs, but strangely i had never learned it. I simply felt it one day and it happened to be something i had already heard. I wonder if i had never heard it in that movie if i would've still come up with it on guitar that day. Anyway, this song is basically a simple chord progression that is easy to create melodies and sing to. It's more about the words and emotions.
7) Another acoustic song i've been working on is called "Breathe In The Day," which you can find on my music sites. I found a few chords i thought went well together and improvised and recorded it one night. I went back and added a melodic acoustic lead and it really brought the piece together. I have about 10 minutes worth of material which is probably too long, so i'll have to go back and re-structure everything to make sure i don't repeat too much. Of course, i initially "wrote" the song for emotional musical purposes but i do think adding vocals would be appropriate.
8) Laying in bed i thought of a good idea for a suspenseful yet aggressive alt/metal song based off the influences of Oh Sleeper, Opeth, and Katatonia. It's called "Architect." By suspenseful i mean that there is a building crescendo of a repeating theme. Opeth can do this very well. I decided i had better add an Oh Sleeper fingerwork element to keep the piece energized and interesting.
9) I had better start working on the alternative rap/rock style that the band i talked to likes. Hopefully i can bring some material to the table, when/if we meet. I'm super impressed with the female vocalist, and it would be great if the drummer i talked to joined the band too. Of course i will have to look to influences like Evanescence, Linkin Park, Red, Skillet, Pillar, P.O.D., and others. The male vocalist i talked to said he digs Killswitch Engage and that the band was looking to take a more metal approach, which is really my area of "expertise" if there is one. With that in mind, i could add the influences of Flaw and Three Days Grace, and so on.
These are a list of bands i have and/or will draw main influences from:
Living Sacrifice
Impending Doom
Oh Sleeper
Opeth
Tool
A Perfect Circle
Flaw
Miseration
The Famine
Jason Truby
For Today
A Plea For Purging
Katatonia
Disturbed
Killswitch Engage
Jesse Leach
Alice In Chains
Goo Goo Dolls
Thy Will Be Done
(i'll list more later)
Good daynight.
http://www.purevolume.com/ProjectProdigy
http://www.myspace.com/projectprodigysolo
I'm tired right now, just not tired enough, so i'll take this time to describe the main song projects i'm working on. This may bore you...
First of all, i performed "Fixation on the Darkness" by Killswitch Engage at a BandFair in Nashville to try to make connections, find a band, and just put myself out there. I met a few cool dudes, one was an energetic vocalist who sounded good all-around. We talked it up plenty and maybe he and i can find the time to hang out and write some metal material along the lines of Oh Sleeper (he sang a song by As Cities Burn). The other guy is a drummer who moved to Nashville from Missouri to try to get a music career going. He seemed really cool and killed his performance so i talked to him about potentially working together on some alternative / metal music. He digs it but i'm pretty sure he wants little to do with metal. Ironically, we still might get to work together through a totally different venture...
A guy in an up and coming band came up to me and asked me if i could recommend any drummers for him since he missed the performances. I definitely mentioned the guy i had talked to, but before he left to check the guy out, he mentioned his band could use another guitarist. He told me the band's name, said they were all Christians and their main influences are Evanescence, Linkin Park, and Red. He was just about the only guy who came up to me after my performance so i was thrilled enough to be asked to check it out, even if the music is a little different from what i normally throw down to. I checked out their myspace page and heard their only song...it actually sounded amazing! The music could use some work, which is where i come in, but the vocals were fantastic! It's a guy / girl vocal duo. The guy does more of a rap/rock style with some singing, and the girl honestly sounds angelic. I'm down with working in this band :-). To clarify about the "ironic" thing, the guy who said he could use me in the band later went up to the same drummer i talked to about working together. So, it may not be in the form i originally thought, but hopefully the drummer will accept and we'll get to know each other better -- he has crazy good credentials and i better get involved with anything he's in.
So. I better number off these projects.
1) I'm recording a song i helped co-write with my main music partner, Klugh, called "Your Mind." I've posted the video of our performance to both of my sites (and youtube), check it out. It's a hard rock song with a progressive influence. I'm recording every instrument, including drums, except for vocals which my friend will perform once i send the completed track to him. Look out for "Your Mind" to be posted to my purevolume and myspace pages soon. The song really just came to me and Klugh, but if we had to attribute influences we would say A Perfect Circle and Tool were the main ones.
2) I've started writing a song with a similar musical theme as "Your Mind" and should prove to be a solid partner track for the album. Along with alternative / hard rock and progressive elements, it also contains a bit of ambiance and nu-metal. Like the influences for the first song, i would have to list A Perfect Circle and Tool so far. Ideally, i think i would like to add Shinedown to that list, but i'm not sure what other influences should play a role because i haven't decided how heavy the song should be. Maybe Project 86? Maybe Mudvayne?
3) I'm in the middle of a predominately progressive hard rock song which, after a few lyrics were written, i've decided to name "The Edge." The main musical influence here is Tool, but (surprise surprise) you could say the main vocal influence is A Perfect Circle. Yep, this one has about a stanza of lyrics so far. I improvised and recorded the song one day, so the flow of the song thus far needs work. It also seems a little repetitive with just one instrument right now. I have added a little bass and some vocals, but the second guitar track will really thicken the sound i'm going for. If you go back a couple of posts to November or December '09, you'll see that the bridge for this song was influenced by a single track from Tool's Lateralus album. Opeth is another influence for this song.
4) I'm trying to develop my grindcore skills. Go listen to a mix of Impending Doom, Living Sacrifice, and Miseration to get an idea of what i'm going for here. My main focus for this song will be in the crunching riffs, explosive rhythms, and aggressive interludes that lead to massive breakdowns. Also check out The Famine. I'm looking for a beat-driven song with thick, low guitar tones with an occasional chainsaw effect :-D. At the end of most the riffs will be a little diddy that is bound to make you head bang. I want the music to growl and almost have this dark feel to it, but for the music and tone to be bright. I hope to express "chain link" musical ideas, each section unique to it's part in the song.
5) I wrote an instrumental track that could possibly serve as a transition track between songs. I simply need to decide where this hard rock instrumental can fit in, then i can create an ambiance at the beginning or end of the track to suit the flow of the album. I really got the idea from the last track to the Roadrunner United record, except i took the instrumental parts and left out the vocal parts. I guess i wanted the music to be able to connect with us emotionally without a mental theme being presented. This way i can focus on composition and not have to worry about the typical mainstream structures that include verse-prechorus-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-prechorus-chorus and so on.
6) An acoustic song inspired by the music from the film August Rush. I think i'll call it "Under The Canopy of Night." This one happened in a strange way. I was playing my acoustic guitar when i played something that sounded familiar. I realized it was the same chords used in one the soundtrack songs, but strangely i had never learned it. I simply felt it one day and it happened to be something i had already heard. I wonder if i had never heard it in that movie if i would've still come up with it on guitar that day. Anyway, this song is basically a simple chord progression that is easy to create melodies and sing to. It's more about the words and emotions.
7) Another acoustic song i've been working on is called "Breathe In The Day," which you can find on my music sites. I found a few chords i thought went well together and improvised and recorded it one night. I went back and added a melodic acoustic lead and it really brought the piece together. I have about 10 minutes worth of material which is probably too long, so i'll have to go back and re-structure everything to make sure i don't repeat too much. Of course, i initially "wrote" the song for emotional musical purposes but i do think adding vocals would be appropriate.
8) Laying in bed i thought of a good idea for a suspenseful yet aggressive alt/metal song based off the influences of Oh Sleeper, Opeth, and Katatonia. It's called "Architect." By suspenseful i mean that there is a building crescendo of a repeating theme. Opeth can do this very well. I decided i had better add an Oh Sleeper fingerwork element to keep the piece energized and interesting.
9) I had better start working on the alternative rap/rock style that the band i talked to likes. Hopefully i can bring some material to the table, when/if we meet. I'm super impressed with the female vocalist, and it would be great if the drummer i talked to joined the band too. Of course i will have to look to influences like Evanescence, Linkin Park, Red, Skillet, Pillar, P.O.D., and others. The male vocalist i talked to said he digs Killswitch Engage and that the band was looking to take a more metal approach, which is really my area of "expertise" if there is one. With that in mind, i could add the influences of Flaw and Three Days Grace, and so on.
These are a list of bands i have and/or will draw main influences from:
Living Sacrifice
Impending Doom
Oh Sleeper
Opeth
Tool
A Perfect Circle
Flaw
Miseration
The Famine
Jason Truby
For Today
A Plea For Purging
Katatonia
Disturbed
Killswitch Engage
Jesse Leach
Alice In Chains
Goo Goo Dolls
Thy Will Be Done
(i'll list more later)
Good daynight.