Overcoming fear in any situation surely feels like an overwhelming storm of doubts, critical thoughts and a generous dollop of anxiety on top of that. Coming from the advice of Susan Jeffers, I’m trying to silence the voice of fear in my head by doing maybe not most professional work I am capable of, but doing it anyway!
Last couple of months I spent making my first recorded song. The process wasn’t quite new to me because I made a song on a piano before, but all the things I learned were quite new. And so, I learned: how to structure a song in different genres, some rhythm theory and how to record vocals. It turned out to be a mix of my anxiety to publish and 8 years of music school that weren’t quite forgotten yet.
When I started [I think it was February] my inspiration for it was ‘Pretty Girl’ by Clairo. A bedroom pop or dream pop genre of which was completely new to me. I also love Victor Coi (Виктор Цой) a popular Russian singer back in the days of soviet union but also very respected for his activist nature still to this day. I was trying to make something in between Pretty Girl and Packet of Cigarettes of Victor Coi, but then I got sidetracked [really badly].
So I analysed structures of an ordinary pop song, lofi music [good easy genre for people starting to songwrite], and jazz. Then I tried to take some elements of each and put them together. What I came up with in the end I can call something like ‘bedroom lofi’ [don’t quote me on that!].
Lyrics: It was very hard to find something that I can pull off with my vocal skills and it will sound good enough. In the structure I’ve came up I had to have a chorus. For a long time ‘Please, never stop smiling’ was the dialogue no. 2 as its shown in my structure above. But it turned out to be a convenient line to throw everywhere in the song, so that became the chorus.
I give my sincere gratitude to my friend I met at university for the poem she wrote and that really inspired to make the song [check her our, she is really good!]:
I planned to publish this song on 17th April no matter how good/ bad or developed/raw it is. And what that action did was to inspire and empower me to make more. Even though I can look back and see how much headache it gave me, I feel like making something and giving it to someone is so worth all of that. My partner, to whom I dedicated this song, loved it and it is all I can ask for.
Finally, I think that the process of making and recording a song may take a little quicker next time. I might record more this summer, but I’m thinking maybe I should pick up classic piano again and try to do something with that. Tell me in the comments if you would like to hear more of my piano [and less of my cracked voice haha]!
Life Is Acid And Sweet 