“The Widow of Cumberland Glen” 

Written/Recorded on June 29th, 2018. 

Today I wanted to do something; something musical other than practising (that is important, but I wanted a change). I’ve been meaning to re-start my YouTube channel, so I thought I’d record a video for that, but I wanted more (I’m greedy). 

I set myself a challenge: write and record a full song in a day AND make an accompanying video for YouTube and Facebook (as I need to be better at that, it’s been 2 years since I’ve done a solo video!). I had a strict deadline – 9 hours; I had a gig this evening and I couldn’t be late. This is what I came up with, I hope you enjoy it! 

The process for those who are interested: 

I sat with a blank piece of paper, a full pot of coffee, and got started. A couple of ideas came, and I started fleshing them out, but this is the one that developed the quickest so I went with it. After writing the lyrics and chords, I ran it a few times to firm up the vocal melody and got to thinking about instrumentation. 

As the song is written like an Irish ballad, I decided banjo, mandolin, bass, and bodhran would be most fitting.  

I set up to record in my studio and I recorded the guitar and vocal simultaneously (after a few runs off camera). From there I ran each instrument I wanted to record about 3-4 times to figure out the parts and chord voicings. I didn’t give myself too much time to be nit-picky about it, then hit record and did I in one* take (*there were a couple of instances where it was 2 or 3, once the camera fell over, the other I totally forgot how to make a banjo chord!)  

One piece of advice I learned is “make a decision and stick to it, commit to the sound”. I believe it was Joe Walsh who said “If we had ProTools when [The Eagles] were recording Hotel California, we’d still be recording Hotel California”.  With that in mind I didn’t agonise over details and instead recorded what came to me in the moment. 

By run 5, I hit record in my DAW and on my camera and let ‘er rip. 

I mixed the audio in my DAW and made the song whole. Afterwards, I popped into my video software and, well, you’re seeing it. 

For those who are curious – the electronic pad on the bottom right is a bass drum played on the “one” in 6/8 time, the EQ is aggressively bass driven and it’s soaked in Echo Chamber reverb. Depending on how you’re listening in might not come through much, but that’s kind of the point, it’s a little colour – but it warrants a mention as all of the other instruments are acoustic based.

Pieces

The Widow Of Cumberland Glen

The Devil's Due

Bad Man

To Know Me More Is To Love Me Less

As I Roved Out

Raggle Taggle Gypsy

Star Of The County Down

Finnigan's Wake

Cod Liver Oil

Wild Mountain Thyme

travishatcher

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