Just Breathe - Kara Langer

I just realized I finished this song a while ago and never put it up here. Written by Kara Langer, recorded in my living room.

Kara Langer - Piano and Vocals
Matt Powers - Bass
Me - Drums and mixing

Vocalist Needed

Ok, I know it's a long shot, but I figure it couldn't hurt. I've been working with Austin Lewis on an album for the past few months, and we really desperately need someone to sing. Not just anyone, but someone good. I'd say someone amazingly good. We've been looking forever and have come across some really awful singers. Sometimes you just find the right person in the place you would least expect it (like my wife's blog).

So here it is. Below are three of the songs we have. We have about 10 songs and are going through and re-recording all of them now, so they should all sound good in the end, but these should give you an idea of what they will sound like.

If you can sing, or know someone who can sing, or know someone who knows someone who can sing please please please let me know. If you live in the Bay Area, then great, you can record at Austin's house. If you live in Fresno/Clovis area, then great, you can record at my house. If you don't live anywhere near those areas, then you'll have to invest $100 in a microphone and I can teach you how to record.

What we want:

• Strong powerful melodic vocals. Not too hard, not too soft, just raw power.
• Some one who can write good melodies and good lyrics. This is harder than it sounds.
  
• A recorded sample of you singing. Doesn't have to be high quality, but I just need to hear what you sound like. You can even just sing into the microphone on your laptop.
  

What we don't want:

• Cookie Monster or whiny Blink 182 style vocals. There's a high school right around the corner where I can find plenty of that.
• An explanation of how good you are with no recording to back it up. There's a reason why the American Idol judges have to go through 3000 people to find 20 good singers.
  

I will even accept ugly people.

So what do you have to lose? Nothing. The worst that can happen is you send a terrible audition, I post it here for all to make fun of, and we all go our separate ways (I'm kidding by the way). What do you have to gain? The possibility of singing in the greatest metal band that ever lived. Seems like a low risk venture to me (no longer kidding).

So, if you are interested, or know someone who is, send a sample recording to apatheticinterest@bozrecords.com.

Recording Class - Take 2

Wow, first off, I have to make a public apology. My previous post is probably the most boring thing I have ever written. If any of you actually made it past the first sentence, then I double apologize for putting you through that. I think my elementary school book reports were more exciting than that.

So let's try this again.

Starting on September 29th, I'll be teaching a home recording studio class at Sequoia Adult School. It will be every Tuesday night from 7:00-8:30 at Little House in Menlo Park.

So what will you learn in this class? You will learn how to make professional sounding recordings in your living room. The great thing about it is that it doesn't require expensive gear. It's all about knowing how to use it. Not to mention your significant other will find you irresistibly attractive after seeing all the cables running through your living room.

The class will start from the ground up, so you don't need any prior recording experience. It's probably a good idea that you at least play some sort of instrument or sing, otherwise there is nothing really to record, which might make the class seem a bit pointless.

I'm recruiting people to sign up for the class. If you're interested, or you know someone who is, you can visit http://www.adultedreg.com/sequoia/index.cfm?processtype=department&deptid=941#ac_126524 to register for the class. If the amazing clip art doesn't convince you to sign up, then I don't know what will.

Here are some links to a couple of songs that I have recorded in my home studio so that you can get an idea of the kind of quality you can get from a home recording studio.

Piano and Vocals
Heavy rock
Piano, Cello and Violin

If you have any questions about it, you can email me at seq@bozrecords.com.

New song inspired by the Simpsons and lazyness

I was supposed to work on one of my Kara or Austin songs tonight and I was also supposed to do the dishes, but I was feeling a bit uninspired, so I watched the Simpsons instead. As the Ogdonvillians were leaving their town after they could no longer sell their barley, a song played that, for whatever reason, made me want to record. Here's what I came up with.

Music Projects

So I've been trying to figure out lately how to do something useful with music recording. For the past few years, I've just been writing music and recording it myself, trying to get a feel for how to record music from home and get it to sound good. I feel like I'm finally to the point where I know the ins and outs of recording and how to actually get a professional sound. Now, what to do with that.

Project 1: The Kara Langer Project

About a month ago, I decided that it would be fun to find a singer/songwriter in the area and record/produce and album. Not only would it give me some good practice in recording a style of music that I normally don't do, but I'd actually get to have some finished songs, which is something that has been harder than I expected. A quick ad post on craigslist offering to record and produce an album for free got some surprisingly good responses.

To make a short story short, I'm recording a CD for Kara Langer. It's kind of an ideal recording situation for me. She has a pile of songs written waiting to be recorded. She comes in, records the piano and vocals, then I get to add whatever I want to the song. It leaves a lot of room for trial and error for me, and it's good for me to get a bit of a wider range of styles that I can say I've worked on.

Here's the first song we recorded. I didn't get too experimental with this one. I think I was most concerned with trying to not make the song worse with the stuff I added.



Project 2: The Boztin Project

If anyone can melt your face with a guitar, it's Austin Lewis. Right now we're working on an album with the shreddingest guitars you've ever heard. Once we find a singer, I can quit my job and become a professional shred master. Our biggest issue is figuring out how to get 10 songs to fit on 1 CD.

This project is also ideal because I get to do all my writing and recording from home. No schedules, no deadlines, no stress, and blazing guitars. What more do I need?



So hopefully in the next year or so I will be able to have two full length albums to my name. We'll see how long it really takes.

New song

It's been quite some time since I put a song up here. That is because it's been quite some time since I've recorded a new song. Well, this week the wife and wads were out of town, so I pretty much parked myself in front of the computer and recorded this song all weekend. It will eventually be completely re-recorded, but I think the recording quality of this is good enough to show. Oh well, at least I was proud of the fact that starting from scratch, I got the song done in four days. I don't expect that to happen again for a while.

There is one spot where the guitars and bass just stop for a couple measures and the drums play on their lonesome. I couldn't for the life of me think of a good riff to put there, so I'll fill it in later if something good ever comes to me.

Now to find someone who can sing. Hmmmm.

Download Here: http://www.bozrecords.com/mp3s/riffs/megaBoz6.mp3

Now for some strings

I added violin and cello tracks to the version of Come Come Ye Saints I recorded a few months ago to see if I could get a decent sounding arrangement with a violin/cello/piano trio thing.

I think it turned out ok, although I think I'll take a different approach next time. Not sure if this makes sense, but I don't think the violin and cello have enough room to breath in this one. Oh well, I guess next time I'll work on that. For a first attempt at this kind of song, it's good enough for me.

Come Come Ye Saints

Starting a new song

I started this song today to try out a present that santa brought me, so I figured I'd post what I got done so far. It's far from being done (hence the length), but I think it has potential to be kind of a cool song.

Suggestions/comments welcome.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/122815/orchTestMixdown5.mp3

P.S. To the "Christmas Music"

By the way, since Boz didn't say so in his post "Christmas Music", I'll brag for him :). When he says he "put together a few Christmas songs", he means he played and recorded piano arrangements of his own creation. A simple task for him. He's got skills, what can I say!

Christmas Music

I'm bunching up six songs of the week into one. I put together a few Christmas songs on the piano, so I put them up here for all to listen to for the next couple weeks. You can stream them directly from here, or you can download them and stick them on your ipod and listen to them over and over again. You even have my permission to listen to them after Christmas is over.

Here are the links to download the songs:

Little Drummer Boy

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Oh Come All Ye Faithful

What Child is This?

Do You See What I See?

The First Noel

How Great Thou Art

I've been playing the guitar a lot lately and ignoring the piano, and I think I started getting bored of it, so I thought I'd throw in another piano song. How Great Thou Art.

When is it ok to start doing Christmas songs?

Song 16 Again

I've been messing with this mix for the last few days now, and I think I'm to the point where I'm not making it any better, I'm just making it different. So here it is. I'm making it my goal to not touch it again until I put vocals to it, which may be a very long time from now.

I also added a guitar solo. I'm not too sure how I feel about it, but again, I think I'm just going leave it as is. You can listen to that here so that you don't have to listen to the whole song just to hear the added guitar solo.

Time to move on to a new song. Yippie.

Song 16

Song of the Week

Well, two weeks have gone by, and I haven't really touched the piano. Instead, I picked up the guitar, dropped my E to a D and turned the distortion up, so my song of the week is not a hymn, in fact far from it.

I recorded this song this weekend. It's not a finished mix, so it may sound a bit weak when compared to other songs of its nature, but I think you get the point. Of course it's vocal-less, but I doubt I'm going to have any luck getting vocals for this that I will like.

I present to you song 16.

And of course, don't forget to read the post before this one.

MP Idol II

Well it looks like we got another MP Idol contestant. I think I like this one even better. Same song, different singer.

True Love

MP Idol

Background: I like to play the guitar. I like to play the drums. I like to play the piano. I play the bass because I have to, but I'm learning to like that too. I like to write and record music.

Problem: I can't sing very well. Not only can I not sing, but I can't write good lyrics nor melodies. This leaves me recording a bunch of unfinished songs, hoping that someday I will actually be able to sing to these and finish them.

Solution: I found a music collaboration website. Here you can get help from other musicians who specialize in various instruments, bringing the power of the internets together to create more perfect music. I figured I would stick one of my songs up there and see if I could get someone to record a vocal track so that I could finally have a finished song. I wasn't expecting much, but I figured it was worth a shot.

Outcome: Wow. Someone submitted a vocal audition for my song. The results? Hi-larious. Inspired by all the contestants on the first six episodes of American Idol, I bring you Arlington. The song pretty much speaks for itself. You may have to fast forward about 40 seconds to get to the good part.

Future: Bleak and dismal. Is it possible that I will never finish a song? That is for you to decide. For all you singer/songwriters out there - finish my songs. The worst that could happen is you record a horrible vocal track, and I will post it here so that everyone will make fun of you. What's the best thing that can happen? I don't know. Try fortune, fame, riches and happiness?

Arlington

PS. I know I shouldn't be making fun of other people's singing, especially when I myself am not a singer, but I thought this song should be shared with the world.

And I'm cointing this as my song of the week.

Come Come Ye Saints

Alright, I missed last week. I'll blame it on my computer crashing, but frankly, I probably wouldn't have done it even if it didn't crash.

Here's another song of the week. I thought this one would be easy, but it took my longer than I expected to make it through the song without screwing up. For those of you don't listen to church music unless it's Sunday, I'm sorry I got this done so late today. Maybe you can listen to it next week.

Come Come Ye Saints

I kind of started pounding on the keys as hard as I could by the end of this one. Probably not the best approach, but I'm doing everything I can to make my songs not all sound exactly the same, hence the purpose of the song of the week. Happy sundaying.

Song of the Week

Here's the song of the week. I am a Child of God.

I am open for suggestions. Anything I do sound annoying? Too machinish? Not machinish enough? Everything sounds the same? Sound like I'm trying too hard? My breath stinks?

Piano sessions

I've reached a point in my life where I realized that I'm not getting any better at the piano. I'm not sure why. I figured that in order to get better, I'd have to practice and play in front of people. Since I don't really like doing that, I'll do the next best thing. I'll record some songs and stick them up here for the world to laugh at. That should make me practice and get better. Plus it helps me to hear what I sound like from another perspective.

So here it is. I'm going to make it my goal to add one song a week to this blog. That way I can see if I'm improving, and people can tell me what I can do to sound better.

Song 1: A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief

Layered Guitar

I made this song last night screwing around while Maegan watched some Jane Austen movie. Actually, it's more of an experiment than a song. I wanted to see how many guitars I could layer on top of each other before it became obnoxious. It starts to fall apart after about seven guitars.

The playing is sloppy and I didn't put any real work into getting the mix to sound good, but the more I listened to it, the more I thought it sounded kind of cool, so I figured why not stick it up here. At least I'm getting some ideas now of how to turn it into a real song.

Layered Guitar

New Song

Ok, I just finished a new song. Actually, it's not a new song, it's an old song, just rearranged and re-recorded. Hence the name.

Sorry, no lyrics, because I'm quite bad at the lyric/melody/singing thing. I know it's a bit long. The final version will have one chorus and part of one of the verses taken out. Enjoy.

Song 6 Redo