30 days hath November

For the last year or more I've been toying with the idea of creating an album of lullabies. I very much like the idea of conception albums, those that carry a theme or tell a story through the words of their songs. A lullaby album seemed like something that I would do eventually, after I put out my first CD and established the kind of artist I'm going to be.

Well, I've decided to reverse the order of those events. For one thing, I'm still pretty unclear about the kind of artist I'm going to be. A dozen or more people asked me, in the days preceding my recent gig, "What kind of music do you perform?" I didn't know what to tell them. I finally started responding, "Come to my show and then tell me afterward what kind of music you think I perform, because I really don't know." Even my dad, after much deliberation, couldn't come up with a genre in which to stick me. Granted, those songs were born of collaboration, and influenced as much by Vernon as they were by me; they may not represent the type of music that I'll create on my own. But even so, I think they proved tough to categorize.

Now, trying to ride the wave of momentum that our show produced, I still don't know what the hell I'm doing. I do know that I need to write more, and I'm open to all ideas that fall in my lap. Vernon and I will certainly keep collaborating, and we're planning to record some of the tunes that we just debuted. But I'd also like to begin a project of my own, something that has a theme. A theme will keep me focused, and an end date will keep me motivated. And given the 39 friends in my life who've become (or will become) new parents this year, the lullaby theme seems entirely appropriate.

So for my November writing project, I'm going to write an album of lullabies. Fifteen lullabies, to be precise. I'll aim to keep them simple, so that recording them won't prove impossible.

Fifteen lullabies in thirty days. That should be doable.

Right?

In session

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Music is going lo-tech. Any schmoe with a laptop can record a demo these days. Case in point:

After fooling around with a broken microphone for half an hour, we finally decided to sing directly into the computer. Vernon insisted that I had to lean right over the mic pad for my voice to pick up.

But I'm starting to think he was screwing with me.

After several back-breaking takes, we finally cranked out a few passable rehearsal tracks. Passable in the sense that they are complete. Because I will tell you something, it is not easy to sing well bent over double like that. But it's actually a bit of an ab workout.

I'm thinking next time I might lie on my back on the floor and hold the laptop directly over my face. Might as well get some arm work in.