Sunday, January 27, 2008

Paraclete

I'm thinking of this episode as the last in a series. A lot is not likely to change in terms of the overall sound, because I've been very happy with the final products over the past few months, but I do feel a need to focus on melody some more than I have been doing.

Generally, the way a tune comes together is I play around on the guitar until the background idea comes together, then I start recording and build the rest of the parts through improvisation. Because I'm intent on keeping a certain vibe going and not distracting too much from the spaciousness, I tend to end up with these very pretty but very repetitive pieces. Many of the episodes have benefitted from that approach, and this one may be the best of them - I like it a lot, but beginning with the next episode (whenever that happens!), I'm going to reverse the process and try starting with melody and building from there.

Another thing I like about this episode is the bowed banjo. I've been hearing a lot of bowed guitar lately and I decided to give it a try. So the last few minutes here are given to my first attempt at a bowed banjo loop, and it's definitely something I want to develop further. In any case, thanks again to everyone who listens for hanging in with the reduced output - subscribers and download counts are both up, so it looks like a good idea to keep going with a quality-over-quantity approach.

The beat is still courtesy of SBaGen, coming in at 6Hz this week for a relaxation trip.

Paraclete