Sufjan Stevens Sings The Innocence Mission

This is a pretty little video of Sufjan Steven singing on the rooftops...

#50.2 - Sufjan Stevens (MusicNow) - The lakes of Canada
Uploaded by lablogotheque

He makes banjo so indie rock.

Pro Tools for the Complete Idiot

I'm not really a complete idiot, only a partial one. I've been experimenting more and more with my ProTools set up with a recently purchased book called ProTools for Musicians and Songwriters by Gina Fant-Saez. It's colorful and has lots of pictures, so I felt less intimidated by a program that can seem very intimidating. It's very well written and only once so far in the book (and I'm about halfway through) did something not match up on my screen with what she wrote and illustrated. Everything else has been spot on.

I wish I had purchased this book earlier and straight from Amazon, but I made an impulse buy at my local Barnes and Noble. Be wise and use Amazon...at least for purchasing specialty books that are expensive.

Enough of my mistakes in purchasing, buying this book was definitely NOT a mistake. This book is sort of like taking a class. It works step-by-step through the process of using ProTools LE 7 and M-Powered 7, giving equal airtime to Mac and Windows controls and nuances. Even though the author is obviously MAC biased, she never bashes the Windows version and does a great job of simply explaining the program.

One of the activities in the book was to make your own drum loop from scratch using samples. You can even download those samples to try on your own computer! Here's her website: www.protoolsformusicians.com


The advantage of using drum loops to record with rather than a click track is that you are working with an actual groove. It brings out different ideas and makes you play differently than if you just strummed along to a click track. As far as songwriting goes, it's a great way to take your song in a different direction.

By the way, I can't hype this website enough:

Looperman.com

Free drum and percussion loops (and tons of other things). It tends to lean more toward the techno crowd, but I've found it extremely useful in creating music on the fly without having to worry about creating a drum track.

U2 in 3D

What will these guys NOT do? I love them and they can do no wrong.
Here's a link or three:

U2 in 3D

Unicorn: The Other White Meat

As I have proven in the past, I am capable of truly cheesy, wacky songs.
This is one of those songs. (And it balances all of those overly serious, heavy songs I write on the flip side).

This song was inspired by THIS t-shirt. I own it. I wear it proudly.
My students either don't get it, think I'm a freak, or laugh quietly so as not to draw attention to themselves.

The opening acoustic guitar solo was inspired by Metallica's song "One".
The double bass drumming was provided by Looperman.
I think all the songs like this are inspired either by Adam Sandler's songs, Homestar Runner's SB Emails, or lack of sleep.

I don't care. I must create. And this is what I created.
I had fun with a program called Audacity in the creation process. It's free and has effects and everything. I use it to create Mp3s as well.

Unicorn MP3 Link
Unicorn: The Other White Meat
by Steven Wesley Guiles

Unicorn the other white meat
Unicorn the other white meat
Unicorn the other white meat...yeah!

Don't taste like chicken, don't taste like frog
it don't taste like chicken, man, it's not dog.

it don't taste like monkeys
it don't taste like elephant
elephants don't taste like chicken and they don't taste like monkeys either...

Chickens and monkeys and elephants don't taste like unicorn
(Unicorn the other white meat, unicorn the other white meat)
Unicorn tastes like..."not chicken"

La La La La Laaaa
I like chicken.



My brother Dave made a video for the song. It's here.

If for some reason, the song is not linked here, you can check out my brother and I's secret Ninja Rock Band, The Shirken Furies. We posted it there as one of our own.

I'm An American Idol...Songwriting Contestant...Sort Of

Well, I WAS. It all started like this...

I have a friend who I've known was a songwriter. I hadn't seen him doing much, but a few months earlier at church he'd mentioned that he and his wife watch American Idol and that this year Simon and Co. were looking for the "hit single" that the star would sing at the end of the show. The American people would choose the song through a voting process.

Well, my friend started the song, but couldn't finish it. I had a few songs I wanted to work on and suggested that we get together and work them out. Eventually we got to his Idol song which was about 2/3 done. He really only needed an end to his verses and a bridge. I sang something off of the top of my head and he thought it was really cool, so it stayed in the song. After an hour or so we had thrown together enough parts to get the song to an almost finished place. He took it home and worked out a bridge the next day and we reconvened to record it and then upload it to the Songwriting Idols portion of the AI website.

I wish I could find the original instructions, but they wanted something that related to the "journey that the Idol contestants went through", that was upbeat, blah, blah.

We didn't make the top 20. It was sad. The production value of our song was really low compared to those selected. From what I've heard, the ones selected weren't so great either (sonically nice, but lyrically melodically just ok). Is it sour grapes on my part or are ALL the songs sort of cheesy? They did ASK for cheesy.

Ok. I'm over it now. But when they first posted the songs I clicked through all of them hoping that I would somehow glide to the top, get the $10,000 signing bonus, and be world famous. I wasn't.

It was fun to see how quickly we could bring a song together, and I couldn't have done it without the help of the Songwriting Apples website that has kicked my butt into gear as far as writing is concerned.

Thanks Apples. We don't fall far from the tree do we?

Summer Creativity

April is past and May is quickly moving along. The robin's eggs outside my bedroom window tell me that warm summer temperatures are just around the corner. Before you know it the leaves will be turning... wait, let's not get too far ahead of things here.

The past month or two have been slow around the Songwriting Apples Blog. We've had a few wonderful songs posted though! Be sure to give them a listen.

Personally, I've found that I have been spending a little less time with the six string and with the lyric notebook lately. Spring has sprung and I've been outside as much as possible. Family duties and outings are taking priority. This is all as it should be. Having said all that, I still plan on trying to write a song a month or so over the summer. Some worthy musical ideas are coming out of that new Martin and I look forward to finishing one of the new tunes soon.

Hope that you are enjoying the spring season wherever you are! Keep checking in and keep writing!
John