jwh - rendered into rubble (w/ emily_Napear_Orange Drink_Tone Matrix)
By Tone Matrix on July 28, 2024 11:22 pm
someone once said……
“WOW WEE WOW!”
That sums up my feelings for this awesome week of music making.
I was inspired from everyone’s Week 29 output. Orange Drink’s awesome head-nodder of “Desecrate” had me instantly jumping on the piano to just enjoy and learn the progression. That is one of my fav things to do when I’m discovering everyone’s new track. Just sitting in with the song for a bit and edu-ma-cating myself with everyone’s different influences and styles.
But nope the inspiration didn’t end there.
Josh of the famed jwh and I were reminiscing and before I knew it I was listening to a new chord progression that was inspired from Napear’s beautiful track “Rewards”. A cinematic mood changer!
The first day I attempted to squish my piano in I knew I was hearing something but couldn’t quite get anything down. I finally gave up around 1am, closed ableton, fed my sorrows in the fridge with snacks and returned to my room to put the computer to sleep. Only there was a big ol CRASH notification from Ableton. Not the kinda crash that deletes thankfully but it had that big ol REOPEN button staring at me in the middle of the screen. I was ready for sleep but Ableton apparently was telling me otherwise. So I figured ok I’ll try once more. I ended up trying twice more and the second time it clicked! Sloppily… but it kicked. I had something. Recorded it and sent it away and slept like a bay bay. When I got the seal of approval from Josh that’s when all the ideas came together even more.
Adding piano and some rhodes (not an actual rhodes but from the Roland RD700GX) was my original goal.
Josh had also been in touch with Drew of Orange Drink (my fav drank on WB) to chime in possibly with some Trumpet, Drums and/or Vox Harms. Oooooh wee did he ever. In fact his contribution took the track in a slightly different much more complete direction. The trumpet takes on a theme that I can’t get enough of. The drums have his feel to it and gave it a groove that played with the bassline so well. Then his vocal harms inspired me to do something I have never ever attempted to do. SING! Ok not so much as sing but try and hit the harmony I was hearing. The chorus had this “We Are The World” sorta of feeling to it. Like I was seeing all of us with headphones on around one mic just swaying. So I did what any nerdy noodler would do, I took an empty jar, an empty beer glass and two boxes that just happened to be the right size and made a makeshift mic stand on my desk to screech into my iPhone a few lines from the chorus in my bassy gravely voice. I did about 12 awful takes and dumped them into Ableton to see what might work. I narrowed it down to 4 and created the ultimate QUAD_GINGE vox group. Yay i didn’t break all the windows in Josh’s house upon listening and I was a part of my first ever vocal harmony. After hearing the chorus so many times this week. It was an ear worm for me. A good one. But then hearing Drew’s vocals I felt like I could sorta support or give a lil more bass in there with just some simple sangin. Then! Then! to complete the first ever WB_Intramural_Basketball_Squad, Emily joined in and added her awesome vocals.
Hearing the first mix of everyone together just made me grin from ear to ear. I felt like the grinch going from 
to 
!
Most of what I did on this track was a happy accident. But I also have to thank Josh for being so understanding and good at getting his ideas across to me. He sent over a guitar line giving me an idea and that made the Rhodes line come together so much better and quicker.
I feel like I’m forgetting something, to thank someone even more. It’s been a weird week. I was so focused on the fun and creativity of working on this. I didn’t realize I was also in the middle of a Blood Pressure/Atrial Fibrillation episode for the past few weeks. Meds did not help me at first. Working on this helped me not think about what I was going thru. This is why I love music and exist for music. That feeling of time not existing.. Hours go by you keep working at it. You keep editing, trying things out etc. I skipped a meal here and there fueled by my trusty cup o joe. Didn’t notice that I technically probably should have gone to the ER Saturday. When I realized it was too late for urgent care, stubborn me decided to wait til Sunday morning. Long story short, I’m ok atm. They gave me clonidine which lowered it real quick. So much that I laid back on the urgentcare bed and put on my EarPods and drifted away for a bit to this and Elliott Smith on random. 
I’m writing way too much. But that is because this is prob one of my proudest favoritest moments in my music life.
I’ve never sung, I’ve never sung with others and gosh I’m just so proud of how this track sounds.
Thank you Emily, Josh, Napear and Orange Drink and the WB community for making this such a welcoming supportive experience.
sing along with me…. “Loooooooove…..”
Audio works licensed by author under:
CC Attribution Noncommercial No Derivative Works (BY-NC-ND)
but i would love a roger-rabbitt-esque animated video of said singing 