So I wrote a HDM-inspired song...

[cjp]

Seeing as other people have posted things they've created, many of which contain levels of talent that I could only dream of, I thought it fair to share with you a song what I did wrote.

Brief background because I love waffling: Years ago when I felt young and naive, I thought a 'concept' song about HDM would be cool; it could be in 3 parts that linked together; one for each book. Then I realised this was ridiculous. How could you condense 1000+ pages into 12-15 minutes? Plus there was another bit that I wanted to write about: the emotional aftermath of the whole thing. Anyway, I soon forgot all about this crazy idea.

Until I remembered it having re-read just the ending of TAS a couple of months back , which brought me back to BTTS. Since this time I'd fallen in love with The Decemberists' concept album The Hazards of Love, which re-kindled this idea again... perhaps it could be a whole album? Nice thinking, but I have not the time, patience, skill, talent or expertise to do such a thing. Hell, I've struggled to write more than half a dozen full songs in the last 5 years (damn you real world), so this wasn't ever going to work.

So I decided to just go for that 'final part'; the emotional aftermath to the conclusion of The Amper Spyglass. In fact it sat for weeks as just the first line, because I couldn't 'face' thinking about it. It's written as a duet, but it turns out that doing both parts yourself is hard and a bad idea. I had to go to the opposite ends of my singing range (which is pretty poor at the best of times) in order to try and have two distinct voices. So apologies for the singing.

ANYWAY, here it is: http://www.myspace.com/thepheasantsrevo ... a-84175151.

It went through several name changes before I settled on the simple 'Will & Lyra'. Let me know what you think, and if you want to accuse me of sacrilege, that's cool too.

Chris

[darren]

gosh.

i noticed your post a couple of evenings ago, shortly after you posted it, whilst led in bed and trawling the pub of heaven on my ipod. i opened your myspace but my headphones weren't within reach, and nicola was asleep, and i was tired... so i didn't listen to your song then.

and i forgot all about it. and i've just noticed your post again now, whilst i was actually searching for something else on this forum.

and wow, man, that is awesome. you are seriously talented. i am going back to listen to it again.

edited to add:
and i've just listened to your version of springsteen's dancing in the dark. i love this stuff so much. how long have you been singing/song-writing for?

-- darren

[cjp]

Thanks Darren, I really appreciate it! Dancing in the Dark was really fun to do too; I wanted to do Born to Run originally, but this was much easier to learn, and has the advantages of having less sax solos.

I've been messing around with songs since I was about 16/17; I was in some awful generic pop-punk band when I was in sixth-form that I wrote a couple of songs for, and kind of kept it up as a hobby throughout uni. I started to get into home recording (well, a little 4-track tape recorder initially) too, though it was all for my own amusement; I never really showed any of it to anyone else. Then last year I decided I'd better make use of the bits of equipment I'd been amassing by actually getting back into the recording thing again, and those 6 songs on the myspace page are the sum of those efforts so far titled under a vague pseudonym. The sound quality is now at a level that I'm not embarrased by, so I'm happy with them being 'public'. I've still not really shown them to friends or anything, so people of BTTS: consider yourselves guinea pigs!

I was more serious about getting W&L 'right' than I've been about any of the other songs, especially as I wanted to post it on here, so in a way that's the one I'm most proud of at the moment. The end is my favourite thing about it!

Chris

[Peter]

What technology did you use? It sounds better than a portastudio.

[darren]

you should be proud! i've listened to all six songs and i'm really impressed -- and they sound so professional.

i liked the end too: it reminds me of bowie's life on mars with the ringing telephone as the music dies away.

we are willing guinea pigs; please continue to experiment upon us :p

--darren

[cjp]

I appreciate the chance to show off a little, though given my rate of production, it may be a while until new things appear! I'll let you all know if and when though. Oh, and I'm taking that as a group consent for being guinea pigs in general. Men in white suits will be round shortly...

What technology did you use? It sounds better than a portastudio.

Forgive me while I nerd out. At the base of it I have an outdated, slow 8 year old PC with a pretty cheap soundcard just for recording music, and some old software that I 'acquired' when I was at uni. None of that has changed for years, but the bits going into it have. I have a couple of microphones (one condenser for vocals/acoustics, one for micing amps), and these go into a small 4-channel mixer that I bought off ebay a few years ago. This is the bit that really helps I think; the mixer acts a a pre-amp and cleans up the sounds going in. The mixer is then connected to the soundcard both in and out, so I can listen back through headphones whilst recording other parts, so each individual track stays as clean as possible.

Nerding over! I love talking about this stuff

[Peter]

Nerding over! I love talking about this stuff

Nerding is positively encouraged here

[darren]

yep, nerds are cool. they're so the 'in' thing this year.

um. or is that geeks?

[cjp]

Oh I can't even remember the 'difference' any more. I have friends who would be most upset at being called the 'wrong' one. All the more reason to not bother distinguishing I say...

Regarding the song, if anyone (presumably female) would like to step forward and sing (and has the means to record it) the female parts, I'd be honoured! Not exactly expecting a stampede here :p