More Music Stuff

Being home for a few days has given me some extra time to work on my music, and I've finally decided to start putting together something I've wanted to do for quite a while.

I'm writing something of an epic song called "The Messenger." It's based on "Action News," the script I wrote in my screenwriting class last year (here's a copy in RTF format if you haven't read it).

The song is divided into three parts, each based on one act of the script. In addition, each part has a few individual sections. It's actually more of a suite than a single song, since it's essentially three songs covering the same theme. The full piece will probably be about 12-15 minutes long.

Stylistically, it's in the same vein as a lot of other stuff I write (grunge-metal), but it's a bit more complex than the basic "intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus" structure that I use for most of my songs. The guitar parts are a little more technical (or at least what seems technical to me and my 10 months of experience), and it contains a few time signature/tempo changes. I also plan to record live drums at some point, since I actually have some talent on those.

I don't know if there will be bass guitar, since the only way I can play that convincingly is by artificially tuning down my regular guitar. Also, I haven't written the lyrics yet, but since I can't sing anyway, they're going to be more of a guide than anything.

In any case, a lot of the song hasn't been written yet, but I've recorded and posted some samples of what I have in mind so far. Obviously, these aren't the complete parts, but it's enough that you can get an idea of where the song is going.

The first sample is what I plan to use as the intro to the whole thing. It's a basic A-E-D chord progression (with a few twists) that I came up with while I was messing around with the "Jazz Clean" POD amp a couple days ago. Like all these recordings, it's rather flawed in some spots, but the final version will be better:

Part I Intro

The next sample is actually something that I wrote a month ago, but it fit so well with the clean intro that I decided to incorporate it into the song. As things stand right now, this part will immediately follow the first intro thing:

Part I Heavy

The third sample is the beginning of Part II. There will be some other stuff in between this and the intro sections, but I haven't written it yet. This entire section is based on "Echo Chamber," which I wrote almost a year ago and posted at some point in both MIDI and GarageBand form. Like the last part, it fit so well that I decided to use it in The Messenger rather than making it a separate song. I'm really proud of the second half of this, incidentally:

Part II

Finally, here's a quick sample of what I plan to use for the beginning of Part III. It's a thrash thing that I started writing a couple weeks ago:

Part III

Comments? Suggestions? Does anyone actually listen to this crap I post?