I've been doing February Album Writing Month ever since 2010. (I set up a new profile this year, so the dates may not corroborate that.) Technically, I've completed the challenge every year, but I feel that I earned that distinction only for the last two years because it was only for the last two years that I actually recorded versions of most of the songs - each song had an actual musical component rather than melody-less lyrics, which was the case for most of 2010 and much of 2011.
Last year, my FAWM songs all had a common theme - 19th century criminals. Concept albums and common themes are suggested for FAWM, so for this year, I had the idea to constrict my instrumentation. Originally, I had planned to use only keyboard instruments, but I eventually widened that and just outlawed string instruments. By now, I've been playing guitar for four years, so I felt that having to be without it would help me grow musically. I'm not sure if it did or not.
Within the next few months, I'm planning to revamp a few of these songs and completely re-record some others. I'll then put the album on Bandcamp. My Bandcamp page looks a little bare, since the only thing I currently have on there is the album that I wrote during FAWM 2012. I'm considering putting no minimum price on this one, but I'm not sure about that yet. The most expensive I would make it is $1.
Within the next few months, I'm planning to revamp a few of these songs and completely re-record some others. I'll then put the album on Bandcamp. My Bandcamp page looks a little bare, since the only thing I currently have on there is the album that I wrote during FAWM 2012. I'm considering putting no minimum price on this one, but I'm not sure about that yet. The most expensive I would make it is $1.
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"I"
I'd been playing around with the core of this since the end of December. I think this was the first time I recorded something with harmonica since 50/90 in 2011.
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"II"
I took the idea of the octaves in the left hand from Graham Nash's "Simple Man," which I had either recently learned or was in the process of learning (though I realise it's fairly common). I tried to make it more interesting than just octaves in the one hand and chords in the other, so I included Esus2 and Esus4 instead of just a straight E major (though they're all partial chords because I didn't play the B note in any of them).
The second part of this (beginning around 1:13) became one of my favourite things that I wrote during February. I had just written this piece shortly before I recorded it, and since then I've become much better at playing it. Here, it's a bit slow because it's new.
Notice at the end how I don't just go from A to D. I hit the A note, and then play the A and D simultaneously. I did that because I wanted all of the songs to flow to-gether (see my Note Continuity project), and the next one starts on an A note.
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"III"
I actually wrote the first part of this on guitar. About a month before, I'd restrung my old electric guitar and tuned it in open D. In playing around with that, I wrote this opening part, which - without my realising it until after I'd recorded this - somehow transferred over to electric piano.
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"IV"
I hadn't planned on this one at all. But since I had moved myself to a Bb note, I took advantage of the freedom that FAWM allows and dug out my trombone, which I haven't really played for ten years, because trombones and Bb go well to-gether. Or at least they would if my playing hadn't deteriorated so much.
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"V"
This is a melody I'd been working on for a really long time. I recorded a guitar version way back on 15 October 2011. (I came up with the chords during FAWM though.) If I remember correctly, we had talked about Rudyard Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" in my history class, and I inadvertently wrote a melody that fit his poem. What I had written sounded vaguely hymn-like, so I thought it would transfer well to a keyboard instrument. I think the organ settings sounded too heavy though, so I went with the electric piano again.
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"VI"
This exemplifies one of the few things I remember from the piano class I took in spring 2011 - inversions. This is the longest of all of the pieces I wrote for FAWM, simply because I could combine the chords and the melody in so many different ways.
Again, note the end, where I manipulate the notes so I could get to a C.
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"VII"
This turned out better than I thought it would, but I think I was more surprised that I made it through the harmonica parts than anything else. When I first started learning harmonica, I figured out that the only two chords you can really get are C major and G major, so I had to figure out a melody that sounded OK with just those two chords and that had no accidentals.
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"VIII"
I first started playing around with the origins of this in July 2012. I may have had thoughts about developing it into a song for 50/90, but instead it languished until FAWM, when I remembered that I had a few keyboard-based pieces that I could expand.
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"IX"
I had started working on some organ overdubs for this, but I had fallen behind because of school work, so I didn't finish those.
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"X"
I really went all-out with the inversions on this one. Also parallel motion, which I'm always surprised I can still do. I'd intended on using trombone in this one too, but it was too low. And because I don't have a trumpet, I used melodica instead. I'm not particularly happy with the ending of this one. I think I go from A major to C# minor too much, just because that chord change is in the Zombies' "This Will Be Our Year," which is one of the few piano songs that I know (though only until the key change).
Also, for what it's worth, I wrote this while watching an episode of Bones.
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"XI"
This is almost certainly the best thing that I wrote during FAWM. I'd become tired of the paradigm that I'd used almost without exception to this point - chords in the left hand and melody in the right. I wanted to do something more complex.
I'm not sure if it's evident, but I was thinking of the organ parts in Argent's "Rejoice" while writing this.
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"XII"
Since I'd written such a (at least comparatively) complex piece, I wanted to stay at that level, but I guess I just didn't have the ideas because this one saw me revert to the octave-in-the-left-hand convention. The other parts come in too abruptly, which is something I'll have to fix.
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"XIII"
The structure of this is really similar to "VI" - there're the same two chords (one played as an inversion), but just different melodies on top of them. It's also similar to "VII" since the two chords are C major and G major.
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"XIV"
The first part of this is too fast. It's supposed to be up-beat, but I overdid it. The second part is pretty similar to the second part of "II," though it also has some similarities with "Mandeville" - the only solo keyboard piece I'd written before FAWM.
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I still don't think I'm that proficient at keyboards, but I'm certainly a lot better than I was before FAWM. I'm not sure if it's true for every song, but I feel that these melodies are a lot more chromatic than mine usually are. Since 50/90 last year, I've been paying more attention to what keys my songs are in, but even aside from that, I think these melodies are more chromatic because I used keyboard instruments. One of the things I learned in piano class was the five-fingered position, and I think that may have had an effect on my writing.
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