I love this band and this song. Honestly - if you don't listen to Spoon, start listening to them now, because they are definitely one of the best bands of the last decade (and before that and RIGHT NOW).

Hopefully this is decent. I didn't really mean to post a song today. Obligatory "just-in-case-there's-something-you-dont-like-about-my-cover-of-this": I need to work on my damn mic technique and falsetto and a bunch of other stuff. Yay. It's been a while, but I've been working. I also have no fucking idea what I'm doing when it comes to making a recording sound good, but I'm reading up on it :D 

Black Like Me Cover (Spoon)

This was fun to do - I even played the tambourine in it! The falsetto in the chorus felt really silly but turned out to be more important than I thought (I wasn't planning on doing it, but then did it just to see how it sounded and kept it in). 

I edited out all the bad things I said about this recording. There are flaws, but that's okay. Bad habits and constant self-deprecation need to die. 


Lonely Boy Cover (The Black Keys)

(Had to repost this since it was painfully loud - I am still pretty awful at mixing and recording, but am learning slowly)

 I haven't posted a song in about 18 months I think. I've written so many since I last posted one so I'm not sure why this is the one I have chosen to put out after so long. I'm actually not sure how I feel about it - it's so different from many of the other things I was writing previously. I guess that I have been trying to do things differently from the usual. Unfortunately it is still acoustic, which is a sound that I'm not too happy with, but I feel that if I can write a song that sounds half decent just using acoustic guitars, that's a good foundation for more developed songs with fancy effects and drums and things.

I'll put up some more soon - including ones that I wrote last year.

All That Remains

I originally wrote and recorded this in September 2012 (the old version is lower down), but felt like recording something today and didn't really have anything new and completed to record so I went back to my old songs that I used to record with a broken gaming headset and re-did it. I played around with some effects and just had fun with this since I don't feel particularly attached to it since it is quite old. It's interesting to hear the difference between the two versions...even though I still don't have a massive amount of confidence in my writing and singing, I can say without a doubt that I have improved in the last couple of years! That's what really matters to me at this stage. 

Oh well, enjoy. 

What Was Plan A? (2014)

I wrote this quite a while ago but only recorded it last week and played around with the mix today. I feel like I'm definitely getting better with the mixing but there's still an absolutely massive amount to learn. I struggled with getting to get it sound bright, but not tinny, but the alternative was a more muddy sound so I chose this instead. One step at a time, I suppose. All that matters is that it's an improvement and I feel that I'm on the right track. Hopefully the song is good too! 

Oh and I checked this against another song for reference so it shouldn't be too loud, but I'm always terrified of blowing out people's ears with horrible mixing and loudness. Let me know if there's a problem and you are now deaf as a result! Thanks :)

PS. Lyrics are hard. These lyrics are all over the place, but since it's an old song I didn't revisit them before recording; it's definitely something to look at in future and I have been working on it.

Goldbrick

I wrote and recorded this sometime in July last year but never re-recorded it, wrote lyrics for it or mixed it properly. I feel less attached to it now, so here it is in all its poorly mixed, lyric-less anti-glory. 

This was intended to be a rough draft to be re-recorded with things in tune, on time and on note. And the harmonies at the end suddenly became SUPER loud when I mixed this file down so I don't even know what the hell is going on anymore. Game is hard. 

As usual, I did what I can, but fear damaging peoples' ears when they listen to my songs because I don't know how to mix properly, so be careful. It gets louder in parts, so be wary. 

Please Say Something (Super Rough Old Song)

Is this ridiculously loud or are my headphones just loud? 

A song in development. I just need to borrow a microphone for a day to record the vocals properly (I recorded these vocals on a gaming headset which is why they sound all weird). Hopefully the full song along with another one will be up on Thursday. 

A Teaser? (Might be loud, as usual)

Another song for the competition last year that ended up getting me knocked out near the end. I didn't quite finish this one and went very far out of my comfort zone, which led to my downfall. It was still fun making it, even if I didn't ever write lyrics for it and overall felt like it ended up quite lost and muddled up...I like the guitar solo bit though.

NGADM 2017

It Will Blow Over

This was a song I wrote for a competition around the middle of last year.

Kids

A cheesy little song I wrote for a competition last year. I realised later that the title and lyrics are a little misleading, being a bleeding heart libtard myself.

Typical Liberal

Another song for another competition! I plan on re-recording it this year, using a real bass with a better tone and a real drum kit!

Jealousy

I actually really like this one. I also plan on recording proper drums and writing actual lyrics for this one.

I ventured into the world of MIDI for the very first time at the very end of 2016 and realised I beginning a journey down an endless rabbit hole. I wrote and recorded this in early 2017 with probably about 6 months of experience using synths and the like. It isn't as easy as it sounds to make this sort of thing and I developed massive respect for, and became interested in, a lot of music that I had previously dismissed when I was younger.

Hidden Tension

This is just a super quick, rough cover! A second take, without warmups, which is why my voice goes all freaky when I sing "brutes in the HAaaaawwwhWWLLS" (annoyingly, I nailed that line in the first take, but the rest was bad so I had to do it again. Damn you, voice)

It's flat in other places too, but who gives a shit? I think that's a better attitude to have than "OMG MUST BE PERFECTTTTTT!!!!11111"

Though, it definitely could be better if I had more time! But I'm trying to be less critical of myself instead of putting up stuff that I deem to be acceptable. 

Will definitely do this one again upon owning of a new microphone! No point in spending an hour on it  to get it "perfect" when the microphone keeps fucking up and prevents said "perfection" from ever being realised! 

PS. I hope you like my awesome harmonica solo

Pink Bullets cover (The Shins)

Oh em gee. Adam added drums to my song with some crazy program called Mixcraft. It sounds pretty cool! What do you think? It goes a bit out of time in parts, but that's my fault because I am a shit musician. Lol jokes. I just wasn't expecting to have to play this to drums. Yay

Black Like You (Demo)

This is super sloppy, but I have learned that you can never record while playing along to a song. I did that for the rhythm and it made everything else sound out of time, like an anus. :( Would like to do this one again too when I get a nice microphone! :D

Vocal phrases are wrong and I think the bridge in this song is weird and I sang it badly. D: Whatever. The one part that annoys me a lot is "...is a ghetto". I don't know why I paused. I was probably looking at the lyrics and got distracted. Either that or my computer spazzdd out and lagged. I wouldn't be surprised. I'll get better.

Walcott cover (Vampire Weekend)

Arctic Monkeys is one of my all time favourite bands. While I certainly prefer their older stuff, I love the new stuff too. Hopefully I did this one justice.

I've also realised that my mic has limitations in terms of recording loud sounds, so the guitar doesn't sound great. It also lags! I found this out when the one guitar part suddenly went out of time - I then deleted a tiny millisecond of the track and it went back perfectly into time. If I had fucked up, deleting a section would've put the rest out of time, but it turns out that the mic lags. 

Also had to work out the solo because other people are bad at tabbing. 

Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair cover (Arctic Monkeys)

This is just some song I wrote today. It's super rough and I think I could spend a lot more time on it to make it better. It feels like it needs another part, but I'll leave it on the backburner for a while so I can see if I find another good part for it. Any good? Or total bullshit? 

I just figured out that Audacity has a leveller function. I'm such an idiot. From now on, now more abrupt ear-bleeds from screechingly high choruses! Yay!

Crime versus Culture (Demo) - Original

Here's a song, rough but it's up. The holidays haven't been very recording-friendly, thus the silence.

Also, I just spend the last two hours trying to work out why the hell every time I exported this file, it sounded different to how it sounded in the program I was recording it in. I still can't work it out, but now I have a headache so I'm posting it anyway. It's so incredibly frustrating when software inexplicably doesn't work how it is supposed to. Argggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!! I hope it isn't too loud. 

Consider It Inconsiderate

Didn't plan this at all which is why I recorded it on my phone, but hope it sounds half-decent :D Sorry bout the loudness. I'll try to turn it down if it's too crazy loud. 

Sorry bout the lack of uploads! Still been writing, but haven't recorded for a while, but I haven't stopped the music :)

Mardy Bum Cover - Arctic Monkeys

12 March 2018

I made a dedicated Soundcloud for my synth stuff. Check it out here: https://soundcloud.com/softbody

07 March 2018

Thinking I'm going to start a separate Soundcloud for all of this synth stuff I'm doing lately. I just need a name and a few tracks to upload once I've figured all that sort of thing out!

26 January 2018

Oh my. I forgot about this page! I still make music but didn't upload any for quite a while before doing so again last year. I just uploaded a few that I made in 2017, but I'm considering recording a few nice old ones that I wrote between in late 2015/2016 too! I hope that no one is too titillated after awaiting the follow up to my "teaser" after two and a half years of waiting. Maybe I'll actually record that one...hmmm! I should also probably hire a designer instead of using a gross image that I created in about two minutes in MS Paint. Maybe someone will think that it's cute.

Listening to my old songs that I haven't heard in years is amazing! I know I still have SO much to learn but it's encouraging to hear how far I've come in five years. 

01 Sept 2015

Caught a brutal cold a couple of days after I said I was going to record vocals on those songs so I haven't uploaded them yet. Will get a mic tomorrow and do that. :) 

08 May 2015

I've finally managed to record drums and electric guitars that sound half-decent. The mixes will still sound amateurish, but I'll be posting some new songs hopefully by next week. :)


27 May 2014

I'll be adding new songs shortly. I've been struggling to record things and have them sound nice. I'm not too familiar with the process of production and mixing so it's taking quite a while to get things together. I do have quite a few things that I'd like to put up shortly though :)

I didn't really upload any songs in 2013 but wrote dozens and feel like I've improved. I hope that the next thing I upload will reflect that. I think that failing at adding and mixing more that two guitar parts and vocals has been to blame for the slow uploads. :( 


*Previously this page was called Scared-To-Sing*

Old Bio from 2012

Hey, everybody. I'm 21 and started writing songs a little over a year ago after spending a long time playing the piano and guitar. For some reason, I always assumed that some people were inherently capable of writing songs, while others were not. Of course, I decided from a young age that I was in the latter category and just never spent very long trying to write my own music, often getting frustrated at the feeble attempts at songs I would conjure up (of course I was comparing everything I wrote with The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, so the few things I did write seemed totally terrible). Only later did I realise that songwriting is both a craft and artform, and certain skills can be developed to assist in the process. Approaching songwriting from this angle, I no longer immediately disgargarded everything I wrote as being completely wretched, but instead saw all the songs that I did write, good or bad, as a step in the process toward writing better music.

 I recently had the courage to post some of my own songs and singing here so that others could hear it. Thanks to Sky and everyone else who has been extremely nice and kind and supportive so far :) You've helped make this more fun than scary, which is a big step.

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