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Capturing Spontaneous Musical Ideas On Recordings - Music Documentary (Part 2)

A short clip from my music documentary.

Part 2 of a music documentary I've been working on for my band

In a previous post, I mentioned that the song "Slippery friction" by my band Lorenzo's Music started out as part of a library of loops that we were creating.

(Related post: Collaborating to Create Music During the Global Shutdown - Music Documentary - Part 1)

This song started out as part of a library of loops that we were creating

picture of hand pointing at person holding a guitar
I just asked Cliff to play that idea again in the studio

I began arranging a particular loop into more of a song structure that would eventually become the song "Slippery friction". 

But as I arranged them it just kind of sounded like backing tracks. It didn't sound like a song. 

It needed something more.

Brainstorming ideas for the new song arrangement in the studio

two people playing guitars in a recording studio
My bandmates Rob and Cliff thinking of guitar parts in our studio

I played what I had so far for my bandmates Rob and Cliff. 

As they were listening to it both of them were holding guitars and they were just kind of noodling and playing along as they listened. 

And I kind of heard something from what both of them were doing.

Orchestrating two guitar parts together

picture of 3 people playing instruments in a recording studio
Me with Rob and Cliff in our studio 

I tried to have them recreate what they had done but since they were just kind of messing around as they were listening to the song, they didn't really remember what they had played.

So as I had the click-track running I tried to steer them in the right direction as to what I thought they had played before.

More happy musical accidents

picture of person at the computer while another person plays guitar
What was that guitar part I just heard?

Even as we were listening back to what they just recorded Rob still continued to kind of play along and I heard him do something that was yet another line that might be kind of cool to add to it. 

So I hit record again and we laid down this new idea that Rob had just come up with.

Trying to come up with a lead part

picture of person playing guitar
Eric riffing on guitar ideas in our studio

The next time we got together Eric was there listening to the song and we had him just lay down ideas for a lead part.

We just had him play along with it, playing anything, just whatever came to mind and we recorded the entire time. 

We would just listen for things that he would do from here to there and point out anything that sounded interesting.

And it didn't matter where in the song he was playing, it was the ideas that we were trying to capture.

Our process became all about experimentation

picture of person playing synth in a recording studio
Playing keys in our studio

One of the things that we really enjoyed while we were working on these songs remotely over the past few years was experimenting with the recordings that we had.

Playing anything. Cutting them up and putting them in different places in the song.

So that was kind of what we were looking for while Eric was trying out these different guitar parts. 

We would just cut up different parts of the riffs, even sometimes just notes, and place them in different places to see what it would do.

We would actually arrange these into new lines that weren't even played.

Watch part 2 of the documentary


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Location: Madison, WI, USA

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