girlsong - (note: contains a blunt word)

[jabney]

Here's the lyrics (scroll down to message six) http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=34693 and here's the link to the mp3: http://www.johnabney.com/Download.html

My co-writer and I hope to add a Hammond M-3 part soon. I'd appreciate your comments and suggestions.

thanks,

John

[jabney]

bump

The song has gotten some good reviews on tunesmith.net, but I'd like the slutz' viewpoint also.

The planned Hammond part may actually be done on a Roland VK-8.

[eyesore]

I'm surprised you didn't get any replies - there is so much to be said
about this... I take it you want comments about all aspects of the song. Since I am primarily a songwriter I may have a lot to say here.

I read the linked thread as well as the one on Tunesmith.

As the song began, I thought I was listening to a cover of "Zombie" by the Cranberries. However, I know that after 30 years of 'punk', every 4 chord pattern like that has been used countless times in various songs.

Then I was pretty shocked when the guy got to the line '...for a girl like me...'. I thought, well maybe she's just got a strange voice but it sounded like a guy to me. I guess it should have hit me before that. Then I thought well maybe I'm stupid and was missing the point of the song... ..maybe it's not a song about how hard it is to be a woman after all. Maybe it's about a guy getting in touch with his feminine side or unsure about his identity. Maybe it's about a transvestite. Maybe it's about a homosexual transvestite(no discrimination intended here) who contracts AIDS or some disease (probably not even symptoms of AIDS and I know heterosexuals can contract it too). I was trying to make sense of the thing. I know being a writer that often times it's there in the lyric but it's just the listener who is missing it, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't. So I went to Tunesmith and searched out the thread and read it. From that I gathered that it was indeed about a woman.

In that case my recommendation is get a woman to sing it! I am sure you know some women and can find someone to do it. I even know people who can do it online.

Also I thought the singing was pretty bad and went off quite a bit, though I know you and most people did not seem bothered by it. I do like how he says 'suicide' though.

Even still the song seems vague to me, but again, maybe it's just me. I wasn't sure if it was about the hardships of being a woman in general as I originally thought or about a wh***... Either way, I don't think a woman needs to put 'blue sh** on her eyes as I don't find it attractive, but that line is funny and and one of the highlights of the song and I think you should leave the expletive - I don't talk that way, but most people do... What is that end part about? First I thought it was about just getting old maybe, or is it a disease that I should be able to name from the rest of the song? I'm deciding to go with the hardships of being a woman and the end is getting old, but I'm not certain. So the question is, is it me who just doesn't get it(very possible) or is the thing not really clear...

As for the recording, there are bad spots in the guitar track most notably a stray sound at about :29 and then some buzzy spots at the end of the second verse and various others throughout the track.

Honestly, to me this sounds like a sketch track that I would have made of a song to get the idea down and not really wanted to show to the general public.

As far as the loudness question:

Originally Posted by Rinny Tin

No song comprised of acoustic guitar and vocals will
ever seem as loud as songs on the radio

Actually, the opposite is true. The less you have in the same space,
the more of each you can have. Imagine standing alone in your room.
You probably have a couple feet to spare above you and could even stand
on something to increase the level you reach to. Now imagine
someone else needs to come and occupy that same area of the room... If
you come down off the stool, you can probably get one person on your
shoulders without hitting the ceiling, and the parts of your bodies
that overlap can represent frequencies that aren't common to both
instruments. You can bend down more and add another person at the
expense of more of your own level. Eventually you are on your
knees..

If your main concern is volume, then I'd say don't bother with the
organ, as it will only force you to bring the overall level at the
second verse down some.

Then again, don't use a simple arrangement for the song simply to get volume, but use it because it's the way you really want it. I personally would like to hear more going on, but I was never one for really sparse arrangements. But yeah, you should be able to get maximum volume with a guitar/vocal.

You should be happy to know that I compared your song to "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" off that Greenday CD that there is a thread about on Gearslutz concerning it's extreme limiting for achieving the high volume you seek, and the loud part of yours has a higher rms than the part in the middle of the other song where it is also just vocal and guitar! The major difference between yours and theirs is that you have excessive low end below about 60 HZ or so and theirs is brighter from about 2000 up to around 13k or so. Rolling off above 13k some may help too. Do all this and you should be able to get it louder and especially apparently louder on smaller systems. Maybe a little magneto on top of that or other type of compression if you really want more level.

Honestly, I found myself turning this down rather than up as I listened... That's the case for many things I listen to though...

Maybe I'll post a file tomorrow or something as I need to get to bed. This took a while to do for you and I hope you appreciate it and don't blow it all off just because it wasn't a big pat on the back like those at tunesmith were giving you. I wouldn't be of any help to you if I did that.

Thanks.

[jabney]

hi eyesore,

Thanks for the listen and the critique.

Before I say anything else, please be aware of a decision that both writers: Ian McCarthy and I, have made, and that is to not explain lyrics - usually :-). Having said that, I definitely appreciate it when a critique points out areas where the listener has questions. This allows us to make changes in either the lyrics or the presentation of the lyrics. In the case of "girlsong" I don't anticipate making any lyrical changes.

Several people have suggested that a woman sing the song. Unfortunately, nobody who has suggested that has gone on to suggest any particular woman. In fact, nobody has suggested a particular style of female voice. I could go with a modern version of Eleanor Steber ala "Knoxville Summer of 1915" or a willing-to-do-covers Iris DeMent or Gillian Welch or any number of singers in-between. I'm sure that someone having an active career and plans to release on a major label would make just about any female singer's voice sound sweet to Ian and me :-) However, a singer with integrity would be strongly preferred.

As I said over on "tunesmith.net' we will probably re-track the song. But vocal refinement - in fact refinement period - was not the goal in this recording. Getting the song itself out on tunesmith was the main goal. Posting it here seemed like it might be worth a shot, just to see what the engineers thought.

As for any issues with the production and performance, blame me - if blame is to be assigned - as the engineer and mixer. I chose to go with a first take and see how far I could go with it. I did not use any limiting during tracking, and although the meters don't show it, I think that may have resulted in overloading during one of the verses.

Each verse was addressed separately in post-production, with - I feel - differing levels of success. (Specifically, the whole song received three different treatments and mute groups were used during the mix-down.) I'm not going into specifics because I still want to collect more feedback without biasing the listener ahead of time.

The only places the song has been posted have been a few songwriting and production-related websites. My own site is still so obscure I do not consider that "General public" by any means :-)

I especially appreciate you pointing out the guitar buzz in the first verse, and the appreciable amount of low-frequency energy. As for the buzz, no excuse for that. I was concentrating on other things and had probably just gotten used to it. The post-production was done without using subs as was the mix. I had not had the benefit of reading your thread on the "Silent Night' recording, and - frankly - I had forgotten just how much low frequency energy there can be with just a guitar. The live sound equipment I use has high-pass filters and those are so effective that I don't worry about mud. However, that gear was not used here. Good lesson for me.

Whether "girlsong" gets re-mixed or re-tracked, it will still hopefully have a raw sort of sound. But not so raw that a listener feels compelled to turn it down.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

best,

John

[eyesore]

John, I'm glad you're a good sport .

I guess I missed the part on Tunesmith about you planning to retrack the song, and I apologize.

Originally Posted by jabney

please be aware of a decision that both writers: Ian McCarthy and I, have made, and that is to not explain lyrics

I agree that is a good policy and I don't like to explain mine either. I used to think that if people didn't get it, that the lyric had failed but it's not always the case, and I wrote one of my more well received songs about that fact, and there was a thread about that song, "Maybe It's You" on Tunesmith before... Many people just listen casually to a song and can miss the point when it's quite clear. Some people are used to certain types of songs and mistakenly think others have the same thing to say, etc.. Also your point about using people's incorrect interpretations to fine tune a lyric is well taken, and it ties into what you say later, which I will get to. ...There's just one thing I gots to know - am I an idiot or not??!!

I was kinda disappointed to not see any lyric discussion by the Tunesmith members though. I used to get into it with a lot of them about such things...

Originally Posted by jabney

I'm not going into specifics because I still want to collect more feedback without biasing the listener ahead of time

This is the other point I was referring to. I do it all the time and I think people get upset sometimes when I don't want to describe what gear was used on a recording until they tell me how it sounds for instance. It's human nature I think to let such knowledge influence one's opinion. No matter how objective someone thinks they are, they can be influenced by such facts. It's why I recommend people not to tell their age and other useless facts as well, because it gives a listener a preconception. I'm glad to see someone knows where I am coming from.

Originally Posted by jabney

The only places the song has been posted have been a few songwriting and production-related websites. My own site is still so obscure I do not consider that "General public" by any means :-)

I'm sorry. What I was refering to is that I thought this mix, with some additional 'mastering' was what you intended to release on a CD or as a demo or whatever.

Originally Posted by jabney

I especially appreciate you pointing out the guitar buzz in the first verse, and the appreciable amount of low-frequency energy. As for the buzz, no excuse for that. I was concentrating on other things and had probably just gotten used to it

Glad my 'book' was good for something...

Hopefully you get some more replies. I'll PM you or email in regards to the vocalist question.

Thanks.