what i have and heaven-held

  • Submitted on time! Feb 25, 2024
Caleb
Dream Weaver

what I have and heaven-held

you cried and I came

I’ll swallow it all

burning stills I’ve lost the frames

cold sweats and head high

I see you and I sigh (I see you and I sigh)

 

how long the trial? I’ve sparred the suitors

erased a dreamy future

oh, why don’t I (oh, why don’t I?)

have a child, I’ve nearly tried

scared to face the call of it all

oh, why am I? (oh, why am I?)

 

I can’t believe she left me on the land (I can’t believe she left on the land)

unseen / unsight (unseen / unsight)

I wake up in the early night (I wake up in the early night)

I see you and I sigh (I see you and I sigh)

 

I wanted to create that ambiguous and hazy feeling that dreams have, cutting between moments of memory and premonition without necessarily making it always a narrative through line. I feel a little limited right now in the sense that I’m not confident in my *technological* abilities, so I record everything live with my one voice and one instrument into voice memos. I tried to incorporate the interweaving by opting for travis picking the guitar part as opposed to straight chords, as well as some lyrical interweaving of chorus lyrics into the verses and vice versa. For improvisation, I only planned out the vocals of the first stanza of lines, the second and third I improvised every time I took a pass at the song, and eventually landed on this version here.



Looking for feedback on

1. Any advice on recording tools or software to use that has helped you to branch out artistically and layer multiple vocals or instruments on top of each other at once? 2. Does this song have any emotional resonance for you, as a listener?

Discussion

  • 8 Comments
Rmal March 4, 2024 8:17pm

Love the stripped down recording. Read from your comments, it seems you’re feeling limited by recording tech, but I think it’s an honest take – picked notes and a clear smooth vocal. Love it.

alechutson March 2, 2024 7:08pm

This feels like such a pure acoustic piece/recording that I almost don’t want to comment on adding more instruments so that you don’t lose this quality.

However, there’s so many options with recording DAWs that I would just suggest using something that is readily available, learning it’s limitations concerning what you want to accomplish, and then researching which programs would be best suited for that. Personally I use Ableton and I love it, but I started on Audacity and then transitioned to Reason essentials (with a brief trial on ProTools) before landing where I am.

Ryan March 2, 2024 12:47pm

So many great vocalizations in this track. Little moments like at the end of “I’ll swallow it all”. This whole thing has a warm melancholy to it that is just lovely.

Love that everyone is encouraging you to jump into Logic. I couldn’t possibly recommend it more. Really opened up music-making for me. That being said, I think this exact recording, for this song, is perfect. So once you do make the plunge into multi-tracking, try not to lose the ability to bail on it or use it sparingly when it’s best for the song. Because this is special.

nick March 2, 2024 9:52am

This definitely has some emotional resonance, especially I wake up in the early night // I see you and I sigh. Also, your performance is strong. Those nice crisp vocal walkdowns on things like “s-i-igh” are wonderful.

Glad you’re committing to the assignments despite the recording setup, kudos to you. And hey, I know you, you’re a pretty smart guy. Wouldn’t be long before you had a useful understanding of the fundamentals in GarageBand. Do you have mac? While there are a lot of tools and options that you can eventually familiarize yourself with, those can wait! With a simple youtube tutorial on getting started, it’s pretty easy to get in there and utilize the basics. Good luck, cowboy!

EliasSZ February 29, 2024 7:30pm

I’m certainly not an expert at recording and all that, but I find Logic pretty intuitive to use. I’ve messed around in a bunch of DAWs at this point, and Garageband is definitely a great place to just get started. I found ProTools harder than Logic, fwiw. As @@Carseatsaod. I don’t regret plunging into the rabbit hole, even though I still can’t really mix/produce/record full on tunes like some of the other folks here – even just a bit of comfort helped me make (still basic) but more complex tunes.

I really love the line “I wake up in the early night” in a song about dreams – feels kinda like waking up into a dream. This song feels evocative to me, but I’m not sure of what. Reading back to the lyrics while listening again, it gave me the feeling of trying to fill a hole inside myself with a person or a memory.

Ryan March 2, 2024 12:43pm

Logic for life. Make the plunge! Get in there!

Carseat February 26, 2024 11:31am

Ouuuughhh. I love this. You dug into the dynamics at the perfect moments; I could so see you digging into it more and creating a deeper rift in some spots.

As for working in software, I started in Garageband and made my way over to Pro Tools — they’re both a little intimidating at first, but the more you create and mess around in them, the more comfy you get. Definitely don’t regret plunging into that rabbit hole!

stonewindow February 26, 2024 5:29pm

Nice feel to the song. Dreamy. That was the assignment right.

‘impressive that you improvised lyrics

When I joined this lovely group recently I figured out the very basics of GarageBand. I looked at some YouTube videos. I can only record live, haven’t figured out how to multitrack yet, but GB is better than the other music memo apps I was using. It’s been good to dig into the aforementioned rabbit hole.