I notice I've tended to write late night entries. Well, right now doesn't feel very late, as I've only been awake for a few hours. The night shifts at work are over. Inventory was yesterday... or day before?.... Tuesday night. Whatever.
I ended up working Saturday, Sunday, and Monday nights, 9pm-5am. Then Tuesday afternoon from 1 pm until 11pm. Then Wednesday morning at 6am. I did not sleep at all on Tuesday, but that's my own fault. I was offered the opportunity to not work overnight Monday or to come in later on Tuesday, but frankly, my department was so behind on doing the prep for inventory that I volunteered to stay on. I have no regrets, because I got a lot or work done on that extra shift and we ended up just finishing in time. If I hadn't shown up, we would have been short a forklift driver and gotten even further behind. Plus, I managed to work out a couple of songs!
I spent most of my time overnight either mindlessly stocking items or driving a lift. Well, I had to actually concentrate on driving the lift safely, but I was able to leave a bit of my brain working on music in the background. I believe in one my posts I mentioned that I like letting songs simmer in the back of my head? Over the night shifts, I figured out what to do with the phrase "When the bells of Stormwind ring" and I wrote a ballad about Lordearon.
"When the Bells of Stormwind Ring" is now a bouncy little song about how cheerful the bells are. I hear it as a piece for a children's choir. I haven't written it out yet, it's still all in my head.
The ballad, though, is the reason I never slept on Tuesday.
I couldn't get it out of my head once I started it. When I got home at 6 am, instead of trying to get in a few hour's sleep, I turned on my computer and started to jot down the music. Next thing I know, it's three hours later, and I'm somehow managed to switch to Garageband to play with the instrumentation and tweak the dynamics. At that point I knew I wasn't going to sleep until I had finished.
(...and of course I didn't waste 45 minutes on Brewfest dailies. That would be silly...)
The title is "Lady by the Lake." It characterizes Lordaeron as a haunted woman who dreams of the days past, and the singer longs to return home to her arms.
The audio file I made could probably be better. One of my college regrets was that my school had a petty bad music tech course. I really don't know anything about synthesizers, or how to mix audio, or how to produce a recording. The only thing I really learned in that class was how to use iMovie, and I figured that out pretty much on my own. I don't have any real equipment except a cheap microphone and a several-years-old version of Garageband to work with. I don't want to invest in any more equipment until I can learn more about what I actually need. And I probably will need a new computer, too, since Garageband has difficulty running on mine. I definitely want to buy a better midi controller; my good one broke, and my older one doesn't have pitchbend or velocity controls.
The only thing missing is the vocal track. Ugh. I haven't properly studied voice, or even practiced, in years. I tried recording myself, but my voice sounded very hoarse and I my tone was awful. I need to add daily vocal practice back into my routine, or find someone willing to sing for me.
I'm tempted to make a video if I ever get the audio file completed. I have some ideas for visuals. Unfortunately, my computer barely handles audio- I don't want to think of how poor it will do in game recoding and video editing. The couple of game videos I've done for fun has a terrible resolution and frame rate. It would not work for public release.
I should probably write a non-WoW song in the near future. But it's nice to finally have some inspiration, and I'm not writing anything yet that requires knowledge about the game to enjoy. No gamer jokes, no in-depth lore. I showed my mother the lyrics for the ballad and she loved the song just fine even without knowing the history of Lordearon. Of course, being my mother, she's biased, but I actually had to tell her it was about WoW.
The good news is: hey, the blog is working!
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