February Album Writing Month - FAWM.ORG

To Journey Over Ice

Bruce H. McCosar

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Tagged As:

instrumental synth hammond acoustic guitar

Liner Notes:

My eighth song of FAWM 2010 was written in the dark.

Two days ago, during the big snow storm that has so dominated my FAWM experience this year, the power went out for about 4 hours. Of course, participating in FAWM, it helps to have things like a computer, an internet connection . . . not to mention the ability to record.

But when the power went out, I had more pressing concerns. First was heat. The night was expected to go down to 8°F.

So my wife and I were sitting on the 1st floor (we have ground floor, 1st floor, and 2nd floor, so the second one up). She was quilting, I was practicing guitar. I do this game sometimes -- I have a deck of 12 cards, on which I've written the 12 possible chromatic notes. What I do is turn over a card, and play something from that starting point.

In this case, I turned over F# (or Gb). I improvised the rest of the song.

Well, no way to go record it. So I practiced it, played a few variations, then went on to something else.

That evening, when the power came back on, I was busy finishing my recording of song #6. And yesterday, I already had set up the room to play congas, so went ahead on song #7.

Then, today -- I remembered the song fairly well! So I've finally recorded it, 48 hours after first writing it, pretty much pulling it right out of memory.

OK, the instruments:

Breedlove Classical (Nylon String) guitar.

ESP Ltd Bass.

Hammond Organ. (Subtle work with it this time, playing high for an atmospheric effect.)

Nord Rack 2X (the two synth voices).

--

This song was composed and performed using natural rhythm only -- without a metronome, click track, or drum machine. "No Robots Allowed" is my theme, and here are the rules I'm following:

http://bmccosar.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/the-robot-rules/

Lyrics:

(instrumental)

Feedback:

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Tim Fatchen 2 weeks ago

Beautiful ambient sound. What i needed to hear right now. Change at 2:00 keeps the interest running; then the return at 2:48...I'll just shut up and listen to the rest.
orinoco 2 weeks ago

This is really beautiful, you've captured the guitar sound well. Really like the blend of classical guitar and synths, and the organ is great! Enjoyed listening to this.
Corvisier JM 1 month ago

Tranquilité est le mot qui me vient à l'esprit ... superbe !
Tranquility is the word that comes to mind ... very nice !
G Slade 1 month ago

maybe you should shut down your power more often...this is a really cool track...interesting technique you have there with the card deck...i pretty much either start my songs with F or C every time..lol...guess I need to change that up...heh
caterwauler 1 month ago

I love the cards thing
This is beautiful. I think the context influenced the mood in a very meaningful way.
This track reminds me of the shadows dancing on the walls when the room is lit by candles and the cold is threatening the house (I experienced this a few times too).
Very nicely done.
The Velvet Drone 1 month ago

good stuff. love the organ.......reminds me of Pink FLoyds 'Dark Side' material.....I hope you keep it up you're going on my watch list
The Velvet Drone 1 month ago

good stuff. love the organ.......reminds me of Pink FLoyds 'Dark Side' material.....I hope you keep it up you're going on my watch list
Candle 1 month ago

You say instrumental, but I swear I heard some very distant words in there somewhere… or maybe I'm imagining things…

Beuatiful and very relaxing. As a northerner myself (I live in snowy NW Ontario not far from Winterpeg - what we locals call Winnipeg), I can appreciate a song about the cold, written when the power goes out on a cold night. But, it took me a moment to figure out how cold 8°F was, as I'm a celcius sort of guy

I'm loving all your songs so far. I want more!
roddy 1 month ago

This is good. The quality of the production is very high. It has a Pink Floyd feel to it - I half expected drums to come in at one point followed by a big guitar solo and some English voices singing about how hard it is to be English. The modulations are very interesting, is this the deck of cards at work?