noahglenn.com

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.

While recording “The Night is Dead” for June’s download, I filmed the process. Finally got a chance to edit it together, and here it is!

“The Night is Dead” along with this month’s song, “If You Got It” and others going back to January are still available to download. Check the sidebar to the right to download any songs you haven’t heard.

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!

When my wife and I took a road trip on a recent weekend, I made a mix to listen to on the drive. As it happened, Kanye West’s song “Good Morning” was immediately followed by The Beach Boys’ “Surf’s Up.” As different as those two songs may seem, I almost didn’t notice when the track changed because they apparently have the same key and roughly the same tempo.

So, as any curious musician/audio engineer would do, I mashed the songs together. It only took some very slight nudging of the Beach Boys’ tempo (since the song wasn’t recorded to a click track) to produce the piece of music you’ll hear below:

“Good Morning” originally appeared on Kanye West’s 2007 album, Graduation.

This version of “Surf’s Up” appeared on The Beach Boys’ 1971 album, Surf’s Up.

Alex Chilton, best known as founding member of 1970s Memphis rock band Big Star, passed away a year ago today. I recorded a cover of his song “I’m In Love With a Girl” as a tribute.