John Gillespie Project, Day 1

Last summer, I recorded an EP of new John Gillespie songs called The Siren Child. Yesterday, John and I began work on a follow-up of sorts to that very fun, very fulfilling studio project.

John approached me about the possibility of recording a larger, lengthier project than just a 6 song EP, which was what the Siren Child ended up being. He's making a conceptual, song-book style album that has a great theme to it. His theme is so original, I'd rather not elaborate on it too much. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise.

This project began yesterday with a potential track listing of 16 songs. We recorded one of the songs last summer as a part of The Siren Child. Another of the songs, "Running to the River," was tracked a few Sunday's ago and posted to John's myspace page. That left 14 songs to hear, contemplate, and plan for.

The real trick with making a singer/songwriter based album is variety. Because the central elements of any singer/songwriter album are 1) the singer and 2) the singer's main instrument, those are the two key things to feature in every song on the album. Maybe on one or two of the tracks, you could have the singer perform an alternate instrument (like a mandolin or piano), but most of the time it's a good idea to capture what it is the artist does in a live context. From there, dressing up the each song in a way that's different from the others that surround it is the best path to making a balanced album.

Also, if you're going to feature a songwriter with some form of accompaniment, it's best to commit to what that accompaniment is going to be from an early stage. For example, if you're going to have a loop or drum kit accompany a song, it's best to incorporate that loop into the initial tracking sessions. It's much harder to integrate a new, different groove after the initial groove is established; it's next to impossible.

Yesterday, I asked John to play me the 14 songs. As he played them, I made notes and calculated an average tempo of the songs. After that, we both agreed on a groove, loop, or percussion part that would be appropriate to track the acoustic guitar to. We managed to get basic acoustic guitar tracks and song maps made for 12 of the 14 songs. We did this in about 10.5 hours over a 12 hour period. Studio days can be long ones some times.

The next step in this project is for John to sing the lead vocals on these songs. I figured that we would work in batches of 4 at a time. After the lead vocal take is constructed, it would be best to fully realize the drum patterns (as in add fills, make sure the parts are right for the song sections, etc...) and add bass guitar. I anticipate this stage taking about three days, but John is an incredibly competent studio singer. He usually can complete a master take after just a few passes of the song. It may take as little as two days to complete this stage.

This is an incredibly fun project. I can't wait to get back to work on it.