Between work ramping up, moving house and various other projects, this hasn't left me much time for my own music. There’s been a lot of great things happening, but unfortunately not much to write about.
Thankfully it’s all calmed down a bit and I'm back with a vengeance! I've started working on my original live set and set out on doing more covers shows as well. Most exciting for me is that I've started getting back into the recording of my first original EP.
Locky Beresford’s first EP
It’s been a while since i’ve mentioned it, but this isn't the forefront of my mind in my creative endeavours. This is my main goal that I've set myself for the year and I get excited thinking about it.
Basically I've set out the make a 5 track EP that’s been entirely written, recorded, mixed and mastered by me. I’m even going to be doing the artwork for it and overseeing every little bit of the process.
The reason that this is so exciting for me is that I’ve never released anything that I've written myself… Or even been the main writer in. I'm usually on the other side of the glass recording the artist, or just playing guitar parts.
This one is all me, I'm going to be picking the sounds, arranging the parts, playing, programming, and trying to create something that I can be really proud of.
The writing of this EP started late last year and you can find my blogs on my writing process here:
An Overview Of The Writing Process
If you can’t be bothered clicking those links, I’ll give you an overview of how I went about the writing process and how I got to where I am now.
Back when I started getting serious about writing some originals, I was fairly out of practice when it came to writing. As a result, I would often be a small way through writing a song and give up on it when it wasn't good enough. As a result of this, many good ideas were lost forever as I forgot them.
So, I decided I had to force myself to write and, more importantly, finish some songs. So I set myself a challenge of writing 7 songs in 7 days. I gave myself an hour each day to write a song and have it recorded on my computer (just single guitar and Vox).
As a result, I very quickly got better and faster at writing songs. Things got a lot easier, I think the songs were better and it was heaps of fun.
When I finished this project I decided it was time to start work on a recording project and get some songs together. This new way of writing songs meant that I could really get my material compiled quickly.
So I started my process by writing 20 songs. Once finished, I listened back to the recordings and culled half of the tracks that I didn't feel were strong enough. I took the remaining tracks and spent another hour on each one, refining lyrics, melody and chords and recorded them again.
Once I finished this process, I listened to all the new recordings I, again, culled half the tracks again, leaving me with 5 songs that I felt were quite strong and cohesive.
So, What’s Next?
Now I'm getting back into it. I’ve started plans on getting deep into the recording phase of this EP. There’s going to be a lot of experimentation and a lot of different techniques that i’ll be trying out during this recording.
Throughout the process in going to be keeping up to date with these blogs, trying to give you guys an insight into the process. I know quite a few tricks and tips that I want to share, however I'll also be learning quite a bit as I go, and hopefully you can learn something too.
I've already started recording and I've already got some information to throw your way. So keep your eyes open for much more from me.
