Jun 16, 2009
Technology Is Changing My Songwriting
I have had my Mac for two years. And I have been playing guitar and bass for fifteen. And while I’m not a programmer or a professional musician, I certainly think about music and technology a lot. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how my own playing and rudimentary songwriting has been influenced by technology. I’m not talking about electronic music here. I’m just talking about how different musical technologies have changed the types of music I write even though I’ve never done more than write guitar and bass parts for very straightforward rock songs. Here are three songs – in the order that I wrote them – that provide a visceral illustration of how my exploration of Apple’s Garageband has evolved my songwriting. Keep in mind that these are more sketches of songs than real complete works. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
1. This brief snippet is a simple chord progression with a few different parts all recorded with the same guitar. None of them have any loops nor any effects. Total simplicity.
2. This song shows me learning how to add electronic sounds to approximate other instruments that I didn’t have laying around, such as drums and organs. However, all the guitar sounds I used had no effects on them.
3. This song snippet is me going nuts. It’s very layered with weird sounds but every single sound (except for the drum loop) was created by an acoustic guitar and then sent through some sort of effect processor.
I can only imagine the strange sounds and songs I’ll be writing in the coming months.
