Jaron's Journal
| September 24, 2012, 9:00 AM Recording The Song "The Fullest Picture" | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Hey everyone! "The Fullest Picture" is tied with "Dark Forest" and "The Owl" for my favorite song on the album. Gun to my head, I'd probably pick "Dark Forest" at this point, but I love this song. And this is amazing, because I used to think this was going to be the most boring song on the album. Or that it was going to be an utter failure. Honestly I didn't know what to think! I'll tell you why in a moment. Listen to the finished "The Fullest Picture" song
This song began on or before 8/19/2008 as an experiment. In the recording of the experimental album "Low," I'd heard that David Bowie and his backing band recorded vocals and instrumentals for the same song without hearing what the other was doing. This sounded like an intriguing idea, so I decided to give it a shot. The experiment was simply this: I'd create a chord progression and bang it out as simply as I could on the piano. Then I'd record simple instructions on the progressive mood of the song. I'd distribute this to different people, and they would record whatever they felt with their specific instrument, without hearing what anyone else was doing. So I set about creating and recording this on 8/19/2008 and initially sent it to David for drums and Jesse for electric guitar. Nothing happened until February 2010 (again, passing 2009). I went into the studio and decided to fulfill my end of the experiment. I attempted to come up with a melody. Three months later I had another pass at it. I came up with a rough melody that I was moderately pleased with. Then in August my friend David Hechler came down for a visit. He came up with a drum piece that followed the chords without hearing my melody. This was a great step forward for the song, but it also essentially locked me in from making any fundamental changes to my melody, due to the rules of the experiment. At this point the song sounded like this, and honestly I didn't hold out too much hope for it. Of all the songs I had so far, this one seemed to be one of the dullest. Still I'd press on with it to see what the other members of the experiment would do with it. Boy was I in for a surprise! In November 2011, I invited Jake Russell to participate in the experiment and use his acoustic guitar. I told him that he could do whatever he wanted and add as many layers as he wished. At first he played a relatively straightforward acoustic piece that followed the chords. Then he decided to layer another set of chords on top of this that complemented and added to the original chord structure. Not knowing what to expect, I listened to what he recorded. This shot the song through the sky for me! I fell in love with it for the first time. The harmonies Jake made gave the song such a beautiful, ethereal edge. These harmonies were later buried in the mix because of all of the other pieces that came after, but I'm going to mix a demo showcasing these so you can hear what I'm talking about. Here you go! Later that month, I had Jesse over for two days for a Dark Forest recording session. For starters I gave him the opportunity to add to this experiment. We spent the entire session on it. This was due to a few factors. Jesse is usually the type who likes to listen to a song in its current state and add complementary pieces to it, especially in regard to rhythm. So he was a bit like a fish out of water the entire time. Nonetheless he put on his best face and plowed through it, putting his all into it. He made the song his own, by adding bass guitar and layer upon layer of electric guitar, doing his best to fit the mood. Some of these electric guitar pieces were soft, subtle and introspective. Others were loud and distorted. In some parts of the song there were no less than four layers of electric guitar! And then he came to the solo. We worked on this for hours, but at the end of the day he knocked it out of the park. It was astoundingly awesome! After he was satisfied, he stopped and listened to the song with all of the other pieces. Ironically it wasn't quite what he expected, because the other pieces didn't fit the direction he was imagining. But I assured him that this was the beauty of the experiment, that I loved it, and that he might come to like it more with time. This proved true :) In January through March of 2012, I filled out the melody using new lyrics and doing my best to fit it into the structure of the old melody. I took a few liberties at the end by adding a harmony that didn't exist and by singing some lines that simply weren't there in the old version of the song, but I think at the end of the day I remained faithful to the original melody. Then came the whip cream on top of the cake. I invited Lisa to participate in the experiment. She added the "Ahh's" you hear in the background in about one or two takes, again without hearing what everyone else was doing. And in the end? I had a beautiful song and an immensely successful experiment. I may do this again! With different parameters, perhaps. Here's a missing link demo for you. Recording details are below. In my next post, I will discuss the immensely simple and creepy "Dark Forest: Part II."
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