Land of Plenty



An "androginous" Leonard Cohen cover, as I did both the male and female voices -- I wonder what would Leo think about that :p.

As i was looking for the guitar tablature, I stumbled upon a couple of other people's covers of the song that helped me choose the arrangements. For example, at first I was going for a simple strumming (rang-a-ranga-rang-a-ranga-rang...), but then I found this cover by a lady where she used arpegios instead, which is a great way to underline the bass riff that is the foundation of the song. I also disagreed with a couple of her choices: for example, the singing style she chose was soul-like, and she had a great voice, with technique and feeling, but this song to me has a confessional tone, like something you wishper to someone in a private conversation (a vibe common perhaps to the whole "Ten New Songs"), and that's the feeling I went for in my voice.

Also, she reinterpreted the chords from the bridge ("For the innermost decissions..."). I like that cadence a lot and to me was essential to stick to it.

All of this, of course, is not to say that her version was "wrong" and mine was "right". I just find interesting that, even when you cover other people's stuff, your style and formation come through in your choices, in what you keep and what you take out of the picture.

I love the fact that the arpegio arrangement makes the song something that could have been in one of the first Cohen's records...

Regarding my flow: there might seem that there is a certain unevenness, as I launched a sonic product only yesterday. "One sonic product a week" is a minimum rate I established for myself, and I "saved the week" by launching yesterday's "quickie". Besides those quick impromptus, there are these other songs that take longer and ship when they are ripe enough. My future plans include removing more and more quickies and adding more and more proper songs in the mix, but let's get to February first.

My premise also spoke of "one proper song from here to February". This one does not count as it is a cover; I was rather thinking in "one original song, properly produced at my current quality standards". The production here is limited to solve a couple of quick problems (low pass filter to remove sibilance in voice, compression to smoothen two upsetting volume peaks, and a bit of reverb glue). I'm more focused here in getting in the habit of releasing stuff, and the pure pleasure of being a musician, letting out my human emotions getting out of the way as much as possible.

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