Adam Heath - Blog

Hello!

It has been a while since I’ve updated this blog, so I thought it might be a welcome break from my work towards my dissertation to write a post.

To that end, I’m going to write a post about an album released last Friday, 11th March – IMPERA. The Album is the 5th by Swedish band Ghost, and one I have eagerly anticipated since its announcement. It is said to be written about the “rise and fall of empires” and having listened several times already, I thoroughly enjoy it. I guess you could call it a review of sorts but it’s really more of a reflection on it. I’m going to go through the album track by track and write as I listen to it.

The album begins with an instrumental introduction track – Imperium. With a military-sounding march on the snare drum accompanied by soaring guitar harmonies, it introduces the theme of empires well and sets the atmosphere brilliantly for the album. It’s only 1 minute and 40 seconds long, so I don’t have time to write any more. Great intro. 8.5/10.

The first real song Kaisarion follows. It starts with an awesome harmonised guitar part and an insanely strong vocal scream before Papa’s first line of the album – “Kaisarion, a prophecy told, we’re building our empire from the ashes of an old. For me, the real highlight of this song is the pre chorus. The vocal line is incredibly catchy and the arpeggiated lead guitar and drumming is reminiscent of 80s metal bands such as Iron Maiden. Really brings in a high energy and gets you excited for the album. Both verses are strong and the vocal work is, as usual, impeccable by Tobias Forge. The choruses are powerful and will be sung passionately by thousands of fans during the live shows, probably opening the set as ghost usually open with the first track from whichever album cycle they are on. There’s a heavier breakdown/guitar solo section which ups the energy and anticipation again, before both the pre choruses play back to back, slowly building up to the final chorus. Overall, this is already one of my all-time favourite ghost songs. 10/10

Track 3 is entitled Spillways. My initial reaction to this was concern, as I heard the piano intro and thought “this isn’t really ghost.” But then the vocals start, outstanding backing vocals are a trend on this album and this song is no different. Then the chorus comes and this is an instant classic. “Its the cruel beast that you feed, its your burning yearning need to bleed”. The second verse is stronger than the first lyrically, but the highlight again is the backing vocals in “such a ride”. The arrangement is slightly different in the second chorus, which keeps the listener engaged, before a very traditional ghost guitar solo. Nothing too complex or shreddy, just brilliant melodies and harmonised guitars. It’s a shorter song, just over three minutes in runtime, but is overall a very good performance and could easily be a live staple for the band. 8.5/10

The second single for the album, Call Me Little Sunshine, follows. A slower tempo and drumming which is kept nice and simple set a great base that is sort of reminiscent of AC/DC tracks such as Hells Bells – The 80s influence on the album is clear again here. The best part of this song is the production. Every instrument sounds brilliant and they all gel together so well to create a cohesive, exciting sound for the whole song – every part of the song has a clear, well defined purpose. The clearly We Will Rock You – inspired drums work well towards the end of the song, especially with the outstandingly clean drum production. All of this alongside the eerie vocal harmonies and beautiful chord progression make for a brilliant song, which fits right in on the album. 9/10

The first single follows the second. Hunter’s Moon has been out for several months now and has impressed me since its release. From the goth-abba sounding pre chorus, to the catchy lead guitar lines and driving verses, with that outstanding guitar/drum fill at the end of the first line in the second verse. Halfway through the song, the listener is rewarded with exactly what you want, a heavy riff section with choral vocals in the background – a signature ghost sound – before a short guitar solo and the vocals return before we drop back into the chorus with just the vocals for a second and some great production, then everything comes back in to end the song superbly. It’s not a long song so I don’t have the time to go into detail before the next track, but it is brilliant. 9.5/10

Track 6 – Watcher In the Sky. This song is incredible. A great riff and four on the floor bass playing in the intro before a really properly Ghost-sounding verse reminiscent of their first album Opus Eponymous. The pre-chorus and chorus are more familiar to newer Ghost releases, but this is one of the few times it really feels like Tobias Forge starts to push his force, the strained sound in “Communication is Key” is something you don’t hear much in Ghost’s music and is a welcome change. The chorus is simple and easy to sing along to, yet still is brilliantly entertaining. The vocal production throughout is top-notch again, and is really highlighted in the bridge. The guitar solo serves the song beautifully and this line continues into the chorus really nicely. This song would be one of Ghost’s best to date if it wasn’t for the fade out at the end, which is disappointing – a song like this deserves a proper ending, so this loses the song marks. 8/10 (would’ve been 9 without the fadeout)

The third instrumental – Dominion comes next. It’s eerie and introduces the second half of the album, it hints towards a change in mood after the majestic Watcher in the Sky and there’s not really much else to say about it. 7/10

The final single, Twenties, is both very dark but also sounds weirdly uplifting. With thrash-metal sound, the 80s influence on the album is again clear, and the lyrical content is interesting, clearly referencing facism/nazism in the 1920s, but also a clear reference to Forge’s opinions on certain leaders in the modern day – “We’ll be grabbing them all by the hoo-has.” Musically, its a great track and another clear sing-along which you’d expect the band to play live. With soaring guitar lines once again and a catchy, fun chorus, its a great song. 8.5/10.

Darkness at the Heart of my Love is a break from the intensity you experience in the rest of the album. Beautiful guitar and vocal melodies throughout are thoroughly enjoyable, and the chorus is powerful and uplifting, it almost sound like a love song. The triplet guitar riff is great throughout – a great layer for the rest of the song to exist around. I don’t really know what else to say about this song. It’s a good break from the intensity of the rest of the album and probably one that people unfamiliar with Ghost’s distinctive style would really be able to enjoy. Although it’s a great song, it is unfortunately overshadowed by what follows. 8/10

Griftwood is a brilliant song, and it being over 5 minutes long is probably the only thing that stopped it from being a single. The song is unapologetically Ghost in nature and this album’s outstandingly strong backing vocals are once again a highlight. The chorus is once again brilliant and can be instantly sung along to. It really sounds like a future arena-rock classic. The guitar solo starts with an awesome run before sitting back into classic Ghost guitar harmonies with just a hint of shred. The solo is kept fairly short, with just enough before bringing the listener back into the pre chorus and chorus – the clear highlight of the track. The stereotypical pop key change of going up in the final chorus isn’t something I always enjoy but it works to perfection here, giving the song a great culmination. 10/10

Bite of Passage is the final instrumental track. Only 31 seconds long but sets an eerie tone for the finale of the album with its guitar lines and has a lovely transition into the final track. 8/10

Respite on the Spitalfields closes IMPERA. The pre chorus is really good and the chorus is pretty good too, however this song remains the weakest on the album. The playing is great and the production is outstanding once again, but for me the level of song writing just doesn’t quite match up to the rest of the album. The song has great elements to it but isn’t quite cohesive enough to be one of IMPERA’s stand-out cuts. The lyrical content is interesting too – clearly about Jack the Ripper and the line “One day he will come back from the bowels of hell” is an eerily satanic statement – possibly about the next ghost release being a return to the darker nature of the first two albums. The fact it has a fade out is disappointing again, but one thing about this song that is great is the return to the guitar motif from Imperium, the first track. It reminds the listener of the journey you have been on throughout the album and provokes thought about it as a whole, while being a sort of glue that holds the album together. This idea of bringing back motifs at the end of the album is not new to Ghost. They did the same thing on their last album, Prequelle, Bringing back an organ part from towards the front of the album as a vocal melody in the final track Life Eternal. Overall, its a good song, but still the weakest on the album. 6.5/10

So there you have it, my thoughts on Ghost’s fifth album, IMPERA. Overall, I think its a great album and I’m really looking forward to seeing how its incorporated into their live shows in the upcoming UK tour. Well worth a listen, with outstanding production and moments of genius dotted throughout. Overall rating – 9.5/10

It’s so easy to get distracted.

Sometimes as a music student you can really hyper focus and become obsessed with a piece of work, working through the night without realising it, but sometimes it’s impossible to write a sentence without going off on at least 3 tangents. In fact, I’m meant to be working while writing this but I couldn’t stop thinking about this.

At the moment I’ve got 3 modules on the go at uni; Acoustics, Music Technology Research and Developing a Professional Profile. The first two involve a lot of reading about studio design, acoustics in materials, different types of technology developed for music etc. etc. and there’s ALWAYS some reference which takes you elsewhere. It could be argued this is a good thing but I often have about 20 tabs open because of it. It’ll reference and artist or a song and I’ll go and listen to that, then listen to loads of other similar stuff, which will give me loads of ideas and inspiration to go and write my own music, then I’ll start writing music, then get caught up perfecting guitar tones and the next thing you know 3 hours has passed and you haven’t really achieved anything.

I guess when you work/study in music it’s all part of the process. You can’t get anywhere without doing something else first, and you can’t write music without being inspired in some way by other music. I guess that means nothing’s truly original? who knows, it’s not time for a tangent now. Back to work for me.

Today is Tuesday 23rd March 2021. This marks exactly one year since the UK first went into national lockdown, and here we are in the third one. COVID-19 has changed all of our lives, and we’ve had to develop a new way of living – especially within the world of music. But what does this mean?

Firstly, we are all having to stay at home, and most of us are not fortunate enough to live in studios or with other musicians, I am one of that unlucky 99%. However, I am lucky in other respects. I have the necessary equipment to be able to make music from home, with a laptop with several DAWs installed (Pro Tools, Logic Pro X, Ableton Live, Cubase), a Focusrite Scarlett interface and Presonus mic given to me by Coventry University. Along with my Behringer monitors these items on my desk have become a makeshift studio for the past year, and its surprising how much you can achieve. I found myself very motivated sitting at home in the various lockdown and got down to writing a lot of instrumental music. There are 2 or 3 songs on my Soundcloud profile and I’m thinking about how to distribute the rest of them at a later date. I’m sat with 42 songs, with various levels of completion, from 5 or 6 basic ideas through to 6 or 7 completed instrumental pieces, and my hard drive is a mess of awful song titles (below)

However, after a year, writing the same sort of stuff over and over again with 40 odd guitar dominated songs can become frustrating, especially when barely anyone wants to listen to music without vocals these days.

This is why I’ve decided I want to learn to sing. I’ve never been able to and it’s always been frustrating while trying to get ideas across. I tried practicing a few times and could never really control my voice and the notes it was singing well enough so decided to take more of a scientific approach. I’ve been recording all the singing I’ve been doing recently, and always practicing with headphones and a mic rather than acoustically. I’ve found this helps, and the added help of being able to load my voice into a program like Melodyne and really see exactly what I’m doing and where improvement is needed is almost like having a singing teacher, which is fun. (Although I’m not convinced my housemates think it’s enjoyable.) I’m a long way from singing well in front of people or releasing anything but we’re closer than where I started… I even managed to sing a G for my housemate yesterday without any reference, like some discount version of perfect pitch with only one note (safe to say he didn’t seem impressed).

On a somewhat related note, my colleagues and I have been providing online sessions and content in the form of zoom calls and youtube videos for the children we work with, and I’m currently working on a video on how music is made, which I’m sure some of them will find interesting, in my spare time. In the video I’m making a cover of the song Real Gone from the soundtrack of the Pixar movie cars. I’m playing every instrument (except drums, I’m using MIDI drums) and also singing, so it’s great to have a purpose to all this, and I’m sure their feedback will be nothing if not honest! If anyone’s reading this and has any tips for me please DM me on twitter @adamheathmusic , it would be much appreciated!

Stay frosty!

I’m back somehow for a third consecutive week of talking about some of my favourite music at the moment. I’ve been listening to a lot of the same stuff recently so I’m gonna try and focus on some different styles/artists next week, but some more familiar stuff this week, most of which is fairly heavy, corresponding with the music I’ve been writing this week

The first song of the week is Before I Forget by Slipknot:

There’s a lot of good things about this song. The drums, bass and guitars in the verses are very tight, but with some great tonal separation to help identify each of the parts. My favourite elements of the song however are in the pre-chorus and chorus. The pre-chorus incorporates some pinch-harmonics on the guitars, which have different harmonics in each speaker, and varying amounts of vibrato on them. This is a technique which Slipknot use a lot and really helps those harmonics to sound thick, rather than weaker than the riffs.

In the chorus, the full band stabs at the start of each line are ever so slightly held back, just emphasising them that bit more and keeping the chorus super-heavy, this is especially impactful when considering the complete stops that precede them. The bridge has some create elements too, the multi-tracked vocals have a great sound to them, and the slightly looser doubles in the vocals really help the chorus sound tight and punchy following it, as well as this being helped by the breathiness of the vocals.

The double kick drum usage in the final chorus is awesome too.

Another heavy song I really like is Raise Your Horns by Amon Amarth.

Probably my favourite aspect of Raise Your Horns is the very start of the song, an already big and powerful sounding riff is made to feel huge by a massive, dense reverb; something I haven’t often notice on heavy riffy guitars. The scooped tone allows this reverb to play out and be really audible in the mix too.

This is a great example of distorted vocals, especially when the backing vocals come in at the start of each line in the verse, again these are thickened by a shorter, but still dense and great sounding reverb. The bass is very bright and prominent, especially in this part of the song and really fills out the guitar sound.

The other really great part of this song in my opinion is in the chorus, where the vocal melody is doubled on guitar, it just gives it much more of a melodic, chorus-like feel and helps to bring out that melody which can sometimes be hard to really hear clearly on this type of heavy vocal.

The bridge has a great dark-gospel like feel in the vocals and becomes anthemic as the guitar returns with the chorus melody, and the drummer rides the low tom, introducing a crash as the vocals reappear before hearing the full power of the chorus, where the guitar melody is slightly varied, just keeping the listener fully engaged towards the end of the song.

The finishing chord is awesome too.

Coming Home by Alter Bridge is this weeks final song.

It opens with a great chordal guitar part, which is swiftly torn apart by the heavy chugging rhythm section playing in a 6/8 feel. Once the full band comes in, the combination of riffs and melodic lines in the guitars is really something to behold, and as usual an outstanding vocal performance from Myles Kennedy, a highlight of which is the lo-fi backing vocals which move from ear to hear when listening in stereo. The vocals have a great double on them too.

In the chorus, the guitar chords moving syllable by syllable with the vocals is very powerful and gives the song a feel slightly different to the rest of the album (all of which is outstanding by the way). The riffs building into the chorus with those lo-fi vocals before the big hits really give the song a feeling of arrival, matching the lyrics.

Finally, I’d Just like to mention I’m adding all the songs from this into a Spotify playlist, which you can see below.

Thanks for reading.

This is the second edition of the weekly music post – I have been mostly listening to the same stuff this week but a few songs I haven’t heard in a while which were great to hear again, as well as a song I wasn’t familiar with before, which I’ll start with.

I’ve been watching a lot of Rick Beato on YouTube this week, and he does a great series called “What Makes this Song Great?” You can find his channel here. The first song I would like to mention is “Clocks” by Coldplay.

Beato’s video on this is fascinating and highlights lots of aspects of the song, including the clock-like consistency of the bass and drums which really provides a great foundation for the song, and something I’ll look into improving in my music in the future. Additionally, he talks about the chord progression, and how it doesn’t really change throughout the song, yet the song changes key in terms of feel, sometimes simply due to the register that the bass is playing in, which is fascinating.

One of the most interesting parts of the song is the vocal harmonies and how they add to the songs atmosphere, especially when they go into slightly dissonant-sounding thirds but eventually resolve themselves to essentially being a double track.

The second Beato video I watched was on a song I know very well, “The Pretender” by Foo Fighters.

One of the best features of this song is the vocals. They have an extremely tight double track, creating a great chorus effect, especially in the intro before the bass and drums come in. In the final chorus, the three vocal parts, along with the bass, make an inversion of the same chord that the guitar is playing, which puts great emphasis and feel into the chorus.

The song also has a very interesting drum part, with some great fills and changing parts throughout, keeping the song fresh. The drums go into a half-time kind of groove at one point building to a chorus and this allows the chorus to hit harder. The idea of emphasising the 4th beat in a bar isn’t really something I’ve explored before but definitely will do after noticing the great effect it has in this song.

Again, the rhythm section in this is brilliantly tight, and allows the harmonies mentioned above to really shine through the mix, really proving the belief that capturing a great performance is more important than anything you can do in post production.

The third song for this week is “Blackbird” by Alter Bridge.

As always, the guitar work from Mark Tremonti and Myles Kennedy is extremely powerful, with great tone and amazing performance, and the clean guitar especially, with the swells behind it really conveys a great feeling of the performance in my opinion. The guitar solo is wonderful, a perfect example of showing how playing fewer notes can really say a lot more, whereas the second half contrasts this, as the band gets heavier and the solo becomes more technically complex, but loses no fluency in the playing it serves the song perfectly.

Although the instrumental work on this song is brilliant, I feel that the real highlight is the vocal performance. You can tell the confidence Myles Kennedy has in his ability, in the loud, full sounding chorus, with some great, strong high notes and really beautiful vibrato. This is one of the songs I think of when it comes to emotional vocal performances – there are lots of different vocal sounds across the song, and the quieter, almost whisper-y sound where you can really hear the breaths in the voice is one of my personal favourites.

Please do check out these songs and let me know what you think 🙂

I didn’t plan to write this post but was just finishing up some work on a song I’ve been writing for the day and saw the arrangement window of my session – thought this is something that I could write about that might be interesting.

In this instance, I’m writing in Logic Pro X. My go to DAW for recording or working on projects would usually be Pro Tools, because it’s vastly more powerful and just better, as well as being the standard DAW so projects can more easily be shared between people. However, Logic has a very intuitive UI, and although it is slightly limited in features, for writing I find it best, as its simple UI means that the writing process isn’t held back by trying to get certain things to be how you want, which can be a problem in Pro Tools due to its complexity.

With the amount of time I’ve spent writing during this lockdown period, I’ve worked on building a workflow, especially considering that I never had any sort of template before now for working in, and would spent loads of time setting up tracks, inputs/outputs and mix-buses in my session before I ever got anything done. Because of this I created a “Home Writing” template in Logic, which looks like this:

What this essentially consists of is 4 track stacks, for Drums, Bass, Guitar and Synths. The drum stack is a stock logic one – using the “SoCal+” preset, which is essentially Logic’s standard drum kit sound but in the form of what Logic calls a “Producer Kit,” creating a track stack with separate tracks for each drum and various others like Room mics and a leak track. This just gives me a lot more control over the drum sound than one of the standard non-producer kits, which just sum all of this into one track and does all the processing for you using presets. The reason I use this is because I don’t play drums, nor own a MIDI controller or drum kit, so this is the best way for me to write drum parts, giving me the most control. I input notes in the piano roll after working out what I want essentially through air drumming at my desk.

Next is the Bass stack. This consists of just two tracks – the first of which is a software instrument of a bass guitar. I don’t really play bass nor do I own one, so this is the best way for me to get a bass sound and understand what it sounds like in the song. The second track is an Audio track with the input set to the mono output from my Line 6 Helix, which I get all of my guitar and bass sounds from. This means that once the bass part is written, there is a track ready for me or someone else to record the part on a real bass.

The guitar stack just has two audio tracks, one for the left output of my Helix, and one for the right meaning I can record stereo guitar parts. In most of my projects, this stack is duplicated a number of times because, with guitar as my primary instrument, music I write often has four or more guitar parts, all of which I’ll record in stereo.

Finally, there is a stack called Synths. This is just 2 empty software instrument channel strips, ready for me to choose a synth sound I like, or any other software for instrument for that matter. It means I can quickly get sounds to put in organ or piano parts, and I’ve put a string quartet in a recent composition in this part of the session.

This template rarely ever stays the same in structure – it evolves as I work through the song and becomes more suited to the composition. Below is an example, a screenshot from the end of my writing session tonight on an instrumental song which has the working title “Wind”.

The biggest difference between this particular project and the template is the quantity of guitar parts. The guitar stack has been duplicated a number of times, to a total of 6 guitar parts which are named as follows:

• GUITAR 1
• GUITAR 2 01C T
• GUITAR 2 02D S
• GUITAR 3.1
• GUITAR 3.2
• GUITAR 4

“GUITAR 1” is the lead guitar part, so takes the first spot and is situated uppermost out of the 6 parts.

“GUITAR 2” is split into 2 parts – both being called GUITAR 2 means to me that they are playing the same, or very similar, thing but with tonal difference. Here, the second part of the track name relates to a preset code on the Line 6 Helix, so I know which tone I am using for that part when I come back to it and the T and S relate to which of my guitars is being played for this part. T means Telecaster and S means Stratocaster.

“GUITAR 3” has a similar situation of 2 separate guitars playing the same part, so they are named 3.1 and 3.2, as I haven’t yet made the final decision on tonal aspects of the part.

“GUITAR 4” also lacks detail of which preset and guitar are being used, and this is the last part as it is mostly embellishments and harmonies, not really crucial to the song.

All of these track stacks are also summed into an additional mix bus to adjust the overall level of the guitars in relation to the rest of the mix and add any processing that I want to be consistent across all guitar parts.

Something which I find very useful and if very important to my process is the takes system. I’m not actually sure what Logic calls it but in Pro Tools it is called Playlists. Keeping several guitar takes in the same track makes it extremely easy to go between different takes to listen to variants of parts in order to finalise how the part is played, as well as choosing parts from different takes to make sure I get the best overall performance. This is most useful for recording guitar solos, which I always improvise. This means I can play the solo a number of times without stopping and go back and choose my favourite at a later point.

I hope this has been an interesting read, and do get in touch via twitter, @adamheathmusic or by emailing me – adamheathmusic@outlook.com

Cheers

This is the start of what I hope to be something I can write weekly to document what I’ve been listening to in terms of taking inspiration from songs and just learning more about music. I’m gonna start with 3 songs per week then see where it evolves from there. Hopefully this will be the sort of thing where readers can learn about new artists/songs they haven’t heard before and over time I hope to have suggestions coming in so please comment or tweet me with any suggestions of music to listen to. If people are interested, I might review some music too.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time listening to Shinedown’s album Threat to Survival. It’s always been an album I’ve enjoyed since I first heard it around early 2016 I think.

One of the best tracks from the album is Oblivion:

This is a song which starts with a sort of gospel feel with the piano intro, but quickly evolves into a hard hitting rock song, with an impressive smoothness that says a lot for the band’s songwriting skills. Although the change is sudden, it feels right, and the pulsating rhythm of the guitars in the verse is brilliantly composed with the muted notes and the energy in the chords. I’m trying to work on these sorts of transitions in my own music, and taking notes from both that change and the build into the chorus in this song is proving very helpful.

On a side note, the drum sound on this track is incredible

One of my favourite bands ever is Queen’s of the Stone Age, and although nothing in their discography really challenges to Songs for the Deaf, there is still some amazing songs (which just shows the lengths of how good their most iconic album is really). One I’ve been listening to recently is Make It Wit Chu:

There’s a lot to take note of in this song. It’s always impressive when a song can remain engaging al the way through while maintaining the same chords. at 4:50, and keeping the C, A, E chord progression the whole way through, Make It Wit Chu is a great example of this. It keeps a relaxed, almost lazy feel throughout, and the slightly crunchy lead guitar sitting just below the vocals in the verses does a lot for this, as well as the subtle addition of piano helps to create a great atmosphere. This has inspired me to experiment with instrumentation in my own music to change or create the feel of a song, and I think it’s taken a lot of my composition to a new level above where it was, when I would only ever consider guitar bass and drums. It also led me to think more about the drum parts, rather than just keep it consistent, adding small changes every now and then just to keep the listener engaged.

I think Mark Tremonti is one of the best guitar players currently making music. His technique is outstanding and his solos are always interesting and I enjoy him both in Alter Bridge and as a frontman in Tremonti.

One of his Tremonti songs, Throw Them to the Lions is an outstanding guitar performance.

There are two specific things I really like about his playing in this track. The first is in the choruses. He plays in a way in which I feel serves the song really well, especially in the first two choruses. It has a feel of the guitar and the vocal taking turns, this may be due to the nature of him performing both the lead vocals and lead guitar in the band but it’s done in a way that just sounds slightly different to how most people do it. I the emphasis seems to comfortably flow back and forth between the band and the vocals and I feel it just lifts the energy of the chorus overall.

Secondly, the guitar part in the second verse is brilliant. It’s very dynamic and the way it changes twice during the chorus of the verse helps build anticipation for the chorus. I’m going to try and implement this style of changing guitar parts mid-section more into my playing.

This concludes the first of these (hopefully) weekly posts and I hope you’ve found it worthwhile. If you want to , do get in touch via twitter or other social medias and suggest to me some music you’ve found inspiring. 

Cheers

Being in lockdown for the past two months having nowhere to go has left me with a lot of time – especially with my workplace closed & the fact that I can’t work from home.

I’ve put a lot of this time towards taking care writing my own music – something I’ve never really done seriously on my own, having written in a band and always really focused on that. It’s been a very different experience coming up with everything myself and making all the decisions but has also felt liberating, being able to take the songs wherever I want and not have to worry about the playing styles or technical limitations of others – just my own boundaries which I can push with all this time.

Considering this, I’ve ended up writing things in styles and using techniques I wouldn’t have considered before. The first song I wrote was actually my first time ever writing outside of common time (4/4) and is mainly in 6/8 time, and slower than what I’d usually write, although the chorus is in 4/4. I don’t have a name for this song yet and also feel that I need to find a singer to add some vocals to it because, although I have written two guitar solos it doesn’t feel like an instrumental song to me. If you’re a singer reading this and interested in working with me, get in contact through the links at the top of the page!

The next composition was a track called Concrete. It is named after the genre which it is based around – Musique concrète. This is a genre based around using raw recorded sounds and modifying them to create a composition in the form of a sort of montage, these songs often have no consistent pulse so lack a real sense of tempo and just sound interesting. I kept mine short at just under a minute long and its certainly an interesting listen – I think it will be the intro to any compilation of these songs. It can be found on my website.

The third song I wrote is called Rain. It was also my final composition for my first year of uni and you can hear an early version of it on my main website. It originally only had MIDI instruments as this was the mandate for the composition and was written in Steinberg Cubase, a software I am not familiar with, nor did really enjoy using, but this presented an entertaining challenge and resulted in a different song than I perhaps would have written in more familiar software. I have now transferred it to Pro Tools, my preferred DAW and am going to re record the guitars and bass with real instruments to start then see where it goes.

The next song does not have a title yet, but I am using the working title “wind” just because I couldn’t think of anything and it keeps to a theme with Rain. It came about from a guitar loop I made while playing around with a looper and learning hybrid picking. Improvising over the loop I wrote a melody I quite like and have since expanded the song to around the 4 minute mark adding choruses and a couple of other different sections. I’m yet to decide whether to put vocals on it. The recording of the initial improvisation can be found on my website under “Idea 21-4-19 (Wind V1). This is currently my favourite of the songs I have written.

I have four more songs currently in the works, although these ones are much less complete than the songs I’ve written about above. The first is currently titled “Seven” simply because it is in 7/4 time. The drum part for this song is almost entirely written, but there are only ideas as far as melody and other parts go. This is a new approach for me as I’m not a drummer but using MIDI drums in a DAW is very fun and certainly a challenge to make them sound convincing. I have one more song out of common time, this is in 3/4 and has more of a ballad vibe, currently just bass drums and piano and just a verse so far.

The remaining two songs are the most rocky ones I am working on. “Beat” is the working title for a rock song based on a drum beat that popped into my head one night when I couldn’t sleep and I whispered into voice notes on my phone to work on the following day. The final song is a song based around bass and guitars moving in different directions melodically and tying to create interesting harmonies, which I’ve not really done too much of before.

If you’ve made it to here – thanks for reading 🙂 if you’re a musician and would be interested in collaborating or need someone to produce/engineer some songs then get in touch and we’ll see what happens.

Don’t forget to follow me on twitter – @adamheathmusic – I am going to try and be more active on there.

I hope everyone stays safe & happy during this difficult time.

Hi,

This is my blog, part of my online portfolio and I plan to post on here regarding what I’m doing with my time musically.

You can visit my main website at adamheath.coventry.domains or find my on social media through the links at the top of the page.