You attract what you put out in the world
By horatiuromantic on January 1, 2024 12:01 am
UPDATE: I released this track on my album 2!
https://horatiuromantic.bandcamp.com/album/2
Original post:
I made a long composition around some poetry I wrote a while ago. It's great to be back to WB for the second time and I'm very proud of this track (let's see how I feel when I listen after a good sleep).
I hand-wrote the lyrics, from the heart, as a bit of a therapeutical journal, and when browsing in my old notebook they resonated with me because I grew a lot since then, and I think the things I wrote in there helped with my growth, so that's a very nice thing to know about the piece of writing.
I composed and improvised the music this week, and I had the final theme (at ~11min heheh) stuck in my head for the whole week, but I only really made real progress on the track today (sunday).
Here are the lyrics if you want to follow along while listening, and if you do listen to the whole thing let me know how you liked it!
› Lyrics
‹ Lyrics
[F# Fm]
I was afraid to hear my thoughts
in complete silence
out of the excuse of boredom
I filled my head with enough noise
until it could not quiet down fast enough
before I fell asleep
when the late morning dreams started fading away
making room for my waking mind
I would rush to fill it with noise
because its silence was fearsome,
unknown and I thought could consume me
Yet I would talk about freedom
and happiness, and introspection
for years
talking to people is a great way to reduce the noise just a little bit
so it felt good
but the noise grew and consumed my silent self instead, unnoticed
I came up with a clever realization
that maybe instead of truly understanding one another,
people are just really good at saying
what they think other people like to hear,
or rather getting a response that they want.
Or maybe that's just me.
...
you truly attract that which you put out into the world
...
[D11, B11, C#11, Eb11 ]
I had to make a change
it was a long time coming
but I didn't know how, or where, or what
I cut off the noise and sought the silence
I started abruptly, replaced the noise
that was otherwise first thing in the morning
with a walk outside, finding a spot in the grass, or by the lake, and
sitting in the quiet
is this that thing they call meditation?
I thought to hell with it,
if it consumes me, let it consume me
and banished every thought that came to mind
all the noise, I asked to please quiet down
I was afraid I'd become so empty
that my darkest thoughts would be
unbearable and I would go insane
or that I'd be truly empty and simply
forget myself,
and never recover from my trance
[Fm11]
I figured,
someone will find me
and put me on the machines
so I kept on emptying my mind
the first thing I noticed
was that no dark evil was lurking inside me
[F#M11]
unsurprisingly, as I'm just some guy
I found I'm not quite so empty
the noise runs deep and it bubbles
but there is power in stillness
[Fm11]
all things tend to reach a balance
delta S equals zero
as they say in physics
and so tend I
[B11]
perhaps the noise I was eating so hungrily
was my reaction to something
trying to reach a balance with my then world
[C#11]
but without the noise I feel free
the noise may be a feedback loop
that feeds itself to a point of destruction
like any addiction
a tried and true way out is
going cold turkey
[Eb bass, the figure on right hand]
...
now I have more time
I'm still afraid
I'll become somehow less
without my noise
I am aware now, what it does to me
and how hungry it is
like I'm the one it feeds on
anyway fuck that
it will die without my attention
good riddance
now to cultivating love
first thing to note is I'm already
under the personal impression
that I love myself
at least in theory
I can hear myself
I can be by myself
I can ... somewhat see myself
tho I'm working on that until I'm 100%
but generally I love myself
and trust myself
I am the people I love
they are why I go on
I'm not sure what I do for them
honestly
I'm scared they don't think the same
that I'm them and they're me
it could be a one way street
most of the time I'm ok with that
I drown it in noise
but now without noise
I must question it, I must approach it
I'm kind of afraid
Am I a good friend?
I ask them, in my head
I love you!
I tell them silently, for myself.
I smile. That comes through
usually has the right effect
am I doing it genuinely
or because I'm a well trained monkey?
Sitting in my silence lets me try a new thing
saying and thinking things I like to hear
tricking myself into
acceptance, peace, love
what is real understanding?
how much more can I do than
think the "right" things,
say the right things,
provoke the good reactions
be the perfect robot?
am I on a quest to automate myself
in that way?
can I truly truly truly
trust myself to know the difference?
...
you can change as a person if you want to
but it can't be overnight
you can plant ideas
and let them live in your head until they push the old ones out
or die from lack of nutrition
you can expose the ideas in your mind to a healthy kind of fertilizer
or just shit. and they'll grow by whatever you feed them.
you can become a totally different person
intentionally or without realizing
once those ideas grow they will get out
like invasive spores
affecting everyone around
the journey to knowing yourself is dangerous
because you don't know what you will find
you attract what you put out into the world
...
you attract what you put out into the world
...
› Process and instruments
‹ Process and instruments
I played a new year's eve mini concert jam with an old friend, and a part of that gave the first inspiration for the track. Specifically what we played on the 1st jan morning, which was the acoustic piano loop, drums, and bassline pivoting on the Ab.
My friend played guitar, and I played piano, but we also had Levi the drummer (which is just the auto-drummer in Logic) provide sick beats. Levi is also the one you can hear in the track. He will def be back in my tracks, Levi is awesome!
After hearing the simple loop over and over I created the catchy end melody, and I was reading through my old writing to find some inspiration when I found the text and one line stood out as the title. The melody is a harmonization of how the title sounds when you speak it out loud.
But from that loop with melody to the final track it was a bit hard. I knew the best way was to create a buildup to it, because that's how it happened naturally at the jam. So I figured I might as well speak the lyrics rather than try to rewrite and rhyme and stuff, because actually I think this writing was at the root of another track from last year, Fear X Love, so I'd just be recreating that hehe.
Other instruments: the UA Spark electric piano plugin (awesome to play btw, it has such expressiveness compared to any electric piano I played except a real rhodes), the UA Spark Ravel acoustic piano plugin, Levi on the drums, the UA Spark Moog is the bass, then I have the logic horn section at the end (it doesn't sound so realistic so I kept its use to a minimum but I really wanted to have some happy funky horns in there), my harmonica in G but adjusted up a semitone in post, to be in Ab. Funny story: I took down the midi of the recorded tracks to be in G, recorded the harmonica, then took everything up a semitone. Totally works! Oh and finally the UA Spark Hammond B3 plugin. If UA Spark added a horns plugin I would probably use those too.
There was not much time for mixing and mastering, but I added the basics: compression, tape on the output bus, some preamps and minor work on EQing but could def be done a bit better to highlight and glue some instruments even more. I added the UA spark galaxy tape echo to a bus that received the drums and a bit of the vocals, and I wanted to perform it so it created more crazy feedback near that line with the feedback, but it's not easy to perform it without a physical interface, and also I didn't manage to route it and bounce it and so on, so I gave up in the end.
Then I did a bunch of takes on the solos to get a good version, but because the composition was only done around 20-21, I had very little time to do takes and I was a bit tired from playing all day - so I think I could have gotten some better takes if I was well rested and had an extra day with the full composition. I'm not so happy with the electric piano solo because it's a bit unhinged, but maybe it's ok for this track because it's all about noise and dealing with personal issues, so the hectic electric piano kinda symbolizes that. the acoustic solo however I'm very happy with. I discovered the trick is to start the solo by doing a phrase going up. that tied it all together.
And also the transition to the D11 after the ac piano solo is soooo cool, I'm v happy with it, it's a weird F chord that I have to learn in other contexts. Edit: According to Logic it's a Db7#9#11 and indeed it has a Db in the bass. It resolves to a D7/9sus4 which is a fancy way of saying Am7/D or I just say D11.
