After the presentation I gave them my card and suggested that they interview me about TWT. Very forward, I know. Later that month Gino and Kishwer invited me over to talk about the Tendrils.
Then on May 27th, I received this request:
What is your song idea?
We'd love a jingle for our weekly podcast, Talkadelphia :)
describe your song in one word
jingle
I absolutely love writing Jingles and I was so happy to get this request from Talkadelphia. I wanted it to be up beat and short --not a full song. Just a teaser. Something they could play during the podcast in its entirety.
Day 1 - Saturday: I began by improvising on my uke. I settled on a short chromatic riff and recorded it using one of my Rhode NT5s. Then I double tracked it and looped it. After settling on the intro riff, I worked out some simple chords to play under it. I used the uke again, but this time I ran it through NI's Guitar Rig so that it sounded more like a weird electric guitar... I threw some drums under the track and recorded 3 vocal tracks of chanting "talk talk talk talk..." Then I went to bed.
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| Video has taught me that naps are an important part of the creative process. |
Day 2 - Sunday: I woke up and deleted the chanting. I worked out a new melody and wrote most of the lyrics. I recorded a scratch vocal track and then turned my attention back to the music. Up to this point it was all ukulele and drums. Kind of a weird combination. I decided to record a bass part on electric piano. After listening to it a few times, I decided I had no idea what to do next so I took a nap. I woke up, deleted the electric piano part and recorded a synth bass instead then called it quits for the day.
Day 3 - Monday: I woke up and decided that while I wasn't that far off, it was getting way too crowded. I deleted most of the ukulele riff from the first day and almost all of the strumming, leaving the Uke only at the beginning and end of the song. I changed the lyrics and rerecorded the vocals with the new line "terry gross says that" and then dropping in the terry gross sample. Originally I was looking for a very short sample that fit my rhyming scheme, but then I gave up on that idea and instead went with a longer sample from an interview Terry did with Jon Stewart. I tightened things up a bit structurally deleting measures here and there until I got it to 30seconds. I listened to it a few more times and decided it was done.
3 days = 30 seconds. I think it turned out well though. I'm happy with it.
