I’m really bad at updating this blog, But that’s changing now that I’m gearing up for this year’s Christmas project!

In case you missed the last one

This year, I’m planning on recording a medley of 3-4 Christmas carols (and i bet there’s going to be a lot of head scratching considering the demos thus far are in different tempos and keys). My plan is to have a more soul/funk vibe, something i have little experience with! I’m really a rocker/progger, i like things to be melodic with a full, lush sound-scape, so this may prove to be a challenge. My first impulse is always to lay down some heavy guitars and sprinkle everything with lush synths, not this time! It may also feature less people, I’m torn between having a more “compact” band sound (essentially one vocalist, bass, drums, guitar, keys) or full band, horns and a choir!

Thus far, I have a couple snippets figured out, since all are based on classical/psalm-y harmony and usually played on organ, i find it hard to fit some of then into a new genre and sound. On almost every one i have worked on so far, i seem to want to thicken the chords more and make it sound more like Neo-gospel (contemporary gospel, really). I’ve noticed that i have always favored more lush and “complex” chords than straight major/minor chords, and as far as i can tell, that is very prominent in neo-gospel. The sound instrumentally is also pretty big and thick, with organ, keyboards/piano, guitars, horns etc. It’s based more on jazz than classical theory, so they often make crazy turns and go all over the place, but still having nice melodies (meaning not too “out there”) and a strong groove.

So my intention is to take these nice, quiet carols and take them to new places, change chords, tweak melodies and hopefully make something interesting!

I’ll try to film some of the arranging/recording process and upload as things progress!