Thursday 18 February 2010

Song 8 - " If Love Is"

This should have been the point at which I was telling you about the next number from me - but as previously explained, Rob sent through 2 songs within a day of one another, the second one being this one "If Love Is".

He called it my early Christmas present and said it was one for me to work on over the holiday. Little did he know that it was the day before my birthday that it arrived and I liked it so much, it turned into my birthday present as I worked on it during that day - 19th December.

Rob had left this one wide open for me to experiment with. His comment was that he was not sure it was one for the album but wanted to wait and see what I did with it first. To go alongside the opening acoustic guitar chords, I chose a rock organ sound that I could put a lot of tremelo on whenever I wanted (thats where the note starts in a straight line, but then begins to waver - very effective. I had that on the intro and on the first instrumental.

I then found a lovely flute sound on the keyboard which I tacked on to the end of the song as it faded out. Otherwise, it was just piano chords in addition to the guitar, bass and drums Rob had recorded. It was then on to some harmony vocals. I decided to just add an answering line of lyric for the last line before the final chorus and then sing 3-part harmony on the final chorus. As Rob had also harmonised with himself on each chorus, the last one was going to have a lot of voices going on, but it turned out better than I could have hoped - sounded really full and not jumbled at all (which can sometimes happen).

Sent all my additions through on 21st December. Rob replied overnight stating how much he loved what I had added. So much so that he wanted more flute on the second instrumental break instead of the intended guitar. I managed to get this done after Christmas, and sent through the results on 2nd January 2010 which were received very well by the New Zealand half of this partnership.

A clip of this song features on Rob's website (which is www.myspace.com/robsmithmuso)

Here is another

1 comment:

  1. I like this song because, for me as a writer, it is something different to anything I've done before by way of the overall style of the song.

    Of course the additons by Paul really make the song, I love the organ, and also the flute is brilliant and adds just the right haunting sound to the song which is great! The lyric is simple but I do really like it, and even my father asked me who wrote the lyrics as he also thought they were good. Actually my Dad heard several of these songs while he stayed with me for a few days, and he had nothing but compliments for the songs which is great, as he doesn't give out compliments willy nilly I can tell you!

    I did wonder what Paul would make of this track as it was very sparse in demo form, but you really brought it to life Paul, well done!

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