Hi. It's been an intensive few months in the studio, but things are really starting to look good now. When I started the recording process, I still hadn't written enough songs but I knew that was all going to be taken care of, as I knew that new material would come at the right time. To be honest, the process of getting the recordings done of the stuff I already had was a huge task, and very time-consuming (but also extremely rewarding), so I was never worried about the fact that I didn't quite have enough material (only 7 songs).
The whole recording thing has been a solo affair (not intentionally), and it's been a real labour of love. I've had to really get to grips with building songs from scratch and piecing all the parts together like Lego. As I'm not a very good drummer, I begin each track with laying down a drum machine so that I've got something to play along to (and make sure I keep in time). I then record the principal instrument, usually either the keyboard or acoustic guitar, depending on which instrument leads the song. My next step is then to record the lead vocal, which is surprisingly difficult to keep in tune and time, and often takes me several attempts to get it right. Once I've done this, that's the difficult bit complete, and then I spend lots of time adding additional tracks and additional vocals to fill-out the song. Some of the songs have loads of vocal parts, and it's really challenging to make sure each part sounds correct when added to the mix (Your name is higher has 9 vocal parts)! Once I'm happy with the mix, I then send it off to Dez at Broadwater Studios, who then carries out the impressive task of mixing it all together to make it sound a lot better than what I can. The final job once we're happy with all the tracks is that it gets mastered (which I've had explained to me, but sounds far too complicated for me to cope with).
Anyway, the last 3 songs.
I ended-up one day a number of weeks ago just randomly playing on the piano. I was so immersed in the music that I really felt I needed to hit the record button and see what happened. As a result I ended-up recording a very chilled-out piano version of 'A child of Yours', which was totally unplanned. A couple of weeks later I had a song in a dream. I woke up singing the song, and I'm really sad to say that I ended-up staying in bed because I was so tired. Once I woke up again, I'd forgotten it. 3 weeks ago the same thing happened, a different song this time, and I made no hesitation in getting straight out of bed and recording a very rough draft on my phone. That song has now become 'All the glory', and you won't have heard it yet, but will do very soon! The third song is the title track of the album, and it's called Waterfalls. I wrote the music to it over 2 years ago, but never had any inspiration for lyrics until a couple of months ago. I really felt that the lyrics were being drip-fed to me, with particular focus on Psalm 42:7 (no surprises there)! That one is now complete, and again you'll be hearing that one soon.
So, I have 10 songs written, 9 are recorded and I'm halfway through the 10th. I think I am only now a few weeks away from having the finished article, so I'm now getting really excited. Watch this space!
Thanks for reading,
Leighton
The whole recording thing has been a solo affair (not intentionally), and it's been a real labour of love. I've had to really get to grips with building songs from scratch and piecing all the parts together like Lego. As I'm not a very good drummer, I begin each track with laying down a drum machine so that I've got something to play along to (and make sure I keep in time). I then record the principal instrument, usually either the keyboard or acoustic guitar, depending on which instrument leads the song. My next step is then to record the lead vocal, which is surprisingly difficult to keep in tune and time, and often takes me several attempts to get it right. Once I've done this, that's the difficult bit complete, and then I spend lots of time adding additional tracks and additional vocals to fill-out the song. Some of the songs have loads of vocal parts, and it's really challenging to make sure each part sounds correct when added to the mix (Your name is higher has 9 vocal parts)! Once I'm happy with the mix, I then send it off to Dez at Broadwater Studios, who then carries out the impressive task of mixing it all together to make it sound a lot better than what I can. The final job once we're happy with all the tracks is that it gets mastered (which I've had explained to me, but sounds far too complicated for me to cope with).
Anyway, the last 3 songs.
I ended-up one day a number of weeks ago just randomly playing on the piano. I was so immersed in the music that I really felt I needed to hit the record button and see what happened. As a result I ended-up recording a very chilled-out piano version of 'A child of Yours', which was totally unplanned. A couple of weeks later I had a song in a dream. I woke up singing the song, and I'm really sad to say that I ended-up staying in bed because I was so tired. Once I woke up again, I'd forgotten it. 3 weeks ago the same thing happened, a different song this time, and I made no hesitation in getting straight out of bed and recording a very rough draft on my phone. That song has now become 'All the glory', and you won't have heard it yet, but will do very soon! The third song is the title track of the album, and it's called Waterfalls. I wrote the music to it over 2 years ago, but never had any inspiration for lyrics until a couple of months ago. I really felt that the lyrics were being drip-fed to me, with particular focus on Psalm 42:7 (no surprises there)! That one is now complete, and again you'll be hearing that one soon.
So, I have 10 songs written, 9 are recorded and I'm halfway through the 10th. I think I am only now a few weeks away from having the finished article, so I'm now getting really excited. Watch this space!
Thanks for reading,
Leighton
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