My Trials & Tribulations of SpinTunes Round 2 (Part3)
I woke up on Monday wondering what would happen if I tried switching to 6/8 for the verses and 4/4 for the choruses, and thinking it might be nice prosody even to have the solid, dependable, always on the mark, 4/4 in the chorus part about the bullseye.
I tried it, and it was sooooooooo much better fitting to the lyrics, but I had to leave for work. While out and about, my dad called to say that he had not left town as he thought he was going to, and he would be happy to pick up my brother from the airport. I hadn’t even asked if that was possible and here he was offering it!
So with 4 more hours than I thought I would have suddenly free that night, I was pretty sure I would get somewhere with the recording. My voice was approaching more of the husky, smoky stage so I was pretty sure I’d be able to sing the basic concept of the melody without having to drag my friend into it.
I found a twangy electric country guitar effect that I liked but after several takes, I thought it sounded weird to have the acoustic guitar pushing through the effect, so lugged out my dad’s electric (that I seem to have borrowed fairly long term but haven’t played in years) and laid down the guitar part yet again. I plunked out the simplest of simple bass lines and finally got everything done except for the vocals. At that point I asked my husband to come listen because I wanted to know if I should leave the two contrasting drum tracks, use the (badly done, but at least the same sounding) shaker track I’d made, or just take out the drums altogether. His vote was to keep the drums and then I kicked him out so I could work on the vocals.
I made it through with some cough drops, and a lot of water and the throat potion. I kept an eye on the submission time clock and prioritized what was most important to focus on and stopped in decent time to convert and email my files. There were also some parts that I was hearing better/differently/wished I had hit better but at that point I knew I had to just let go and get it in.
So, it’s in! I’m so proud of myself for sticking through it and turning something in. There were several moments in the past week and a half where I considered not turning something in, or where I was worried I’d run out of time before I got it to a place where I wasn’t completely mortified of sharing it.
I’m grateful I got to push myself way out of my comfort zone and write something I never would have on my own. I’m thankful to all the friends and family, online and offline, who believed in me even when I didn’t. I’m curious to hear the feedback from the judges. I’d love to make it to the next round so I have one more chance to enter a song. I know I could shadow all the way, but I’m worried with everything on my plate, I’d drop the ball if I didn’t have that added pressure of competition to do it.
I want to write more about what a cool community this is that is hosting and participating in this songwriting contest but this beyond too long already! I’ll say for now in short that I’ve been so overwhelmed and impressed with how generous, kind, honest and fair everyone is and I’m so grateful that it exists! I’m sure I’ll get into more details sometime soon, because there is so much good stuff to say. :-)
