1m4s Day 7: Zoom Zoom

A week into this project I have lots of ideas but not much to show for it yet. It’s all very well coming up with concepts and inspirations, but eventually I actually have to take them somewhere. The next step is probably to come up with some different chord progressions and begin experimenting with vocal melodies.

However, I didn’t do that today. Instead, I finally got a new toy out of its box for a few simple experiments. The toy in question is the Zoom H5 portable audio recorder. I’m ashamed to say I bought it about five months ago, and only now have I finally got around to making any use of it. I’m hoping it will improve the sound quality of my videos, and perhaps ultimately provide me with the means to produce some lo-fi records. For the time being it will also be helpful demoing some of the songs for this project.

Much of today’s planned ‘songwriting time’ was actually spent fiddling with the Zoom and working out how it functioned, but I did spend some time developing a little piece of music. This was a fast fingerpicking pattern over three chords using a lot of open strings.  I made two recordings of it which are collated on the track below. The first is the arrangement as it was initially composed. I then tried it out alongside the different drum tracks I put together on Friday. The second recording is with the drum track that seemed to complement the music best. By playing LMMS through a Bluetooth speaker and recording with the Zoom, I was able to crudely layer them together.

It’s very early to say, but going back to the song titles I listed on Day 1, I’d say this little piece of music might be Pass Without Trace.

So all in all, not a lot to present from today’s endeavours, but a useful piece of experimentation which has helped me understand how the Zoom and the drum tracks I came up with might aid in the compositions as they come to life.