noahglenn.com

You may have gathered from the lack of a new song for January, that I’m taking a short break from the monthly songs. You’d be correct. I’m hard at work finishing up my new album, Union, Reunion, which I hope to have ready for you this spring. Check back soon. I’ll be revealing the tracklist, album art, and other release information in the next few weeks.

I’m also planning a site redesign that I’m very excited about. In the mean time, if you didn’t hear my songs from 2011, here’s a handy link to download them all with a single click:

To download all my songs from 2011, click the image above.

Did you have a chance to hear all the monthly songs I released in 2011?

Click over to the new Downloads page and download anything you missed. All free! Although, if you like what you hear, consider making a donation so I can keep making music.

To download a free MP3, click the image above.

This song started as a rhythm that got stuck in my head for several days. When I found a melody that finally seemed to fit, the lyrics were written fairly quickly from there.

Once the song was written, I felt like the second verse seemed to be coming from two different viewpoints. It was like there were two people talking to each other, so I asked my wife, Lindsey, to sing a few of the lines. Lindsey has sung with me in the past, but hasn’t appeared on one of my recordings since my 2006 album, Lafayette & Luxia.

I also realized while mixing this song that it is the first time I have ever chosen to end a song with a fade-out.

The photo for the artwork was taken by my sister, Hannah, at our brother’s wedding in March. Don’t forget to check  out my other downloads! I’ve been doing this every month since January, so there’s a lot to hear. You can find them in the sidebar to the right.

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To download a free MP3, click the image above.

I wrote this song in January planning to release it as February’s download, but I decided it needed some violin (which I can’t play). So it sat on the back burner for most of the year. It finally got its violin part(s) courtesy of Damian Beltsmith (who has also recently played in my live band). I’m really proud of this song and I’m glad to finally post it!

A few years ago I recorded an EP for local Memphis band, Roger Mexico. They’re now releasing the recordings as an EP called The Noah Sessions.

The sessions were a part of my senior project for the recording technology program at the University of Memphis. We got together at the University of Memphis Recording Studio over several days during the summer of 2008 to record three songs. The band was finishing up a full length album that was somewhat electronic, and wanted to record a separate EP featuring some of the songs in more of a live band setting.

So we got the whole band together in one big room and recorded drums, bass, piano, and guitar all live. We later overdubbed the vocals and some additional guitar and keyboard parts. I even contributed some backing vocals to the song “Numan.” I finished mixing it that summer and my wife and I designed the cover art for it, using a photo she had taken. It has now sat waiting to be released for several years while the band pursued a few other projects, but I’m excited to see it finally released!

Visit their Bandcamp page to download the EP: http://rogermexico.bandcamp.com/album/the-noah-sessions

To download a free MP3, click the image above.

The music for this song has been sitting on a hard-drive for about 5 years. I recorded it as an instrumental piece just for fun, and I didn’t really have any other plans for it. Recently I was digging through some old music and got inspired to work on this piece a little more. I wrote lyrics and recorded them in an 8-part harmony. It feels good to recycle an old piece of music that otherwise may never have seen the light of day.

The cover art comes from a photo I took in downtown Memphis when the Mississippi River flooded last May.

If you like this song, be sure to download all my previous songs, which you can find listed on the right side of this page.

To download a free MP3, click the image above.

The artwork for this month’s song is a painting by my friend, Caleb Sparks. It was actually the inspiration for the song. I tried to arrange the music in a way that evoked the flight of birds. You’ll hear that the background vocals are based on the sounds “fa” and “szs,” which were intended to sound like the flapping of wings. The percussion also features the shaking of metal wire brushes for the same effect. The instrumental section is meant to simulate flying gradually higher. It builds up to an abrupt cutoff, and it wasn’t until I was finished mixing the song that I noticed the similarity between that and the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.”

Below is another view of Caleb’s painting without the text obscuring it.

Painting by Caleb Sparks

To download a free MP3, click the image above.

I hope you enjoyed your 4th of July weekend! Here’s a new song for you.

This song started out as something I was doing for work. A play that’s about to open was in need of some scene change music and I thought about writing some before deciding to go in a different direction. The first 26 seconds or so give you an idea of what that would have sounded like. While I decided not to use it for the play, I got the melody stuck in my head and words started coming naturally. Then I added the rest of the instrumentation, and it took on a new life. It starts pretty quietly, but don’t let that fool you – it gets LOUD by the end!

Additional vocals were contributed by my wife Lindsey, who also did this month’s artwork!

To download a free MP3, click the image above.

“The Night is Dead” was completely written and recorded during May. Thanks for listening! I’d love to hear what you think.

The rest of this post is for the recording geeks. I’ve been recording my music in some form for more than 10 years. When you’ve recorded yourself as much as I have it’s easy to get in the habit of using the same mics in the same positions on the same instruments. You know it worked in the past, so it’s easy to repeat.

So for “The Night is Dead” I wanted to intentionally record in ways I don’t usually. Typically I start with drums, then layer in all the other instruments, only adding vocals once everything else is done. So this time I started by playing guitar and singing (I don’t usually play while singing). I chose a different acoustic guitar than I usually use for recording – it’s a smaller, janglier sounding guitar. For the rest of the instruments I tried to use mics I wouldn’t usually choose in places I wouldn’t usually put them.

The drums were probably the most different. I limited myself to kick drum, snare, and hi-hats. That eliminates two toms and two cymbals compared to what I usually play. I only used two mics on the drums. One in front of the kick, and one about one or two feet above the snare slightly slanted toward the hi-hats. This is the first time time in about six years that I haven’t used a pair of overheads for a stereo image of the drums, and I may start recording drums in mono more often! I really like the way it came out.

To download a free MP3, click the image above.

Since I started offering monthly downloads, the is the first one that was completely written, recorded, and mixed specifically for the site. I started on it half way through April.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!