I’ve collected my last 7 tracks into an EP called “Chirpy Wheels/Cheater EP”, which is now available from CD Baby as well as from some download stores (it is currently available on Amazon.com and is being added to iTunes and a few others).

The track list is as follows:
1 Chirpy Wheels
2 Cheater
3 Geek Got the Blues
4 Closer to You
5 Partners in Fun
6 The Whole Way
7 When You Smile (Feat. Sian White)

The video was shot in one take yesterday afternoon, using my microphone stand as a tripod so I was able to film looking down on the desk.

Yesterday’s song is taking shape and I have written a set of lyrics for it - so far, I’m sticking to the title Life on discount .

At the moment, I envision a pop-ish production for the track and getting someone else to sing it (Sian White hopefully).

I’m planning on recording a rough version of it tomorrow and letting it settle for a week or two. It’s always difficult to be objective as the writing process is so exciting, sometimes you can confuse where the energy comes from…

After a period of writing songs on keyboard - believe it or not, Cheater was written on a keyboard even though it ended up being a guitar driven song - I decided to have a go at writing a song on acoustic guitar and it felt very liberating!

I wouldn’t say it’s more exciting to write on acoustic guitar per se, I think the energy was coming from the fact I had been writing on the same instrument for too long.

It’s too easy to get stuck into habits when writing songs and it’s good to break those habits by constantly switching your songwriting instrument - at least, this is my current belief!

For all I know, this new song (currently titled Life on discount) might end up being a song with no guitar on it at the end!

I’ve spent my morning recording synths parts for “leftover”, building up the track. But there is no escaping it, I cannot pull off that song. So for now, it will languish in the “abandoned” folder on my hard drive.

It’s disappointing because I really, really like the song for many things, including it’s 5/4 beat, its structure and the lyrics for the bridge section. Maybe one day, I’ll tackle it again but for now, I feel I have given my best and my best just isn’t enough.

Roll on the next song…!

This morning, I recorded the vocals and the alto recorder parts for “leftover” and I have no idea whether they are good or not. My brain is in a daze right now, I’ve heard the song way too many times over the last 3 hours and I can’t make any decision about it so I’m leaving it off until tomorrow morning, where I can listen to it with fresh ears.

I’m sure my neighbours will be pleased to know that I’m done until tomorrow because let’s just say that I had to play those recorder parts quite a few times before getting them right! Damn, almost 20 years without playing the thing, it shows!

I’ve been recording the bass part for “leftover” as well as practicing the acoustic guitar part for the same track and jeez, do my fingers hurt!

The bass is now nailed down and I’m happy with it but I haven’t started recording the guitar yet, as I’m struggling to play the part, I need more practise! I think that once again, I wrote a part I can’t play so easily, but hey, it’s good isn’t it, it pushes me to raise my game.

In other news, I’m waiting for the delivery of a small threaded thingy which will allow me to use my microphone stand as a tripod for my camera. I need this to film the video for “Cheater” so it seems like the video won’t be ready for the 20th anymore, but I reckon that I will have finished recording “leftover” by then so I can release it then and postpone the video until 4th May.

The recorder is one of these instruments often taught in music class at school, but for me, I came across it aged 7, when my mother decided I should take some music lessons and we didn’t have enough space for a piano in our home (and keyboards didn’t really exist back then, at least my mother didn’t know about them).

I took lessons for 7 years, then I switched to classical guitar, which I studied for 2 years, then I dropped the lessons and bought a keyboard and an electric guitar.

Anyway, as most other kids, I hated the recorder, until I started playing the alto recorder. While the regular recorder (soprano) can be quite nasal and doesn’t produce a very nice sound, the alto recorder is quite nice and soft.

I stored away both my soprano and alto recorders when I was 14 and haven’t really touched them since. But a couple of weeks ago, for some weird reason, I decided that the sound of the alto recorder would suit the mood of this new song I’m writing.

The song is called “leftover” and is quite sad and melancholic. So I took my alto recorder out of its box and checked it still sounded OK - it did - and I wrote melodies to accompany the song.

I haven’t actually recorded the alto recorder parts yet but I am planning on doing this at the week-end, even though I’m a bit worried at my ability to play it now (my fingers felt quite rusty on it when I tried it) and also, how it will sound through the microphone I have.

However, I think it is a good way to reappropriate an instrument I’ve had a love/hate relationship with, and an instrument that is often seen as boring by kids who are forced to learn it at school.

I’ve uploaded a new track called “partners in fun”. The song started life as a r’n'b track for a teenage girl! Read more about it…

As usual, you can listen to the song in the music player on the right side of the page (scroll down if you can’t see the music player, as I’ve been told that the sidebar doesn’t display properly with some browsers - I’m working on a fix).

I’ve always liked unusual time signatures and many of my songs do not follow the usual 4/4 rock/pop/punk time signature. For example, “Closer to you” is in 7/4 and the verse for “Chirpy Wheels” is in 9/4.

However, over the last few months, as a direct result from reading and studying a couple of songwriting books, I’ve found myself writing more songs in 4/4. This is a habit I want to get myself out of.

Earlier this week, I came up with a melody idea that fitted a 15/8 rhythm (with notes grouped as follows: 3, 2, 2, 3, 3, 2) and I decided to expand it into a song (tentatively named “my first grey hair”). I’m not sure if the song will come together but I’m pretty excited about it right now. It is going to be a challenge to program the drums for it but I can hear it in my head!

I also wrote a song called “leftover” last week, and the time signature is 5/4. This is a slow sad song (with a hopeful ending) and I am hoping to record it this month.

My love for unusual time signatures is weird, considering that I mostly listen to music in 4/4 and I seldom listen to jazz, the type of music most often associated with unusual time signatures. I guess I just dance in a funny way! Perhaps it expresses a kind of meeting between my love of mathematics and my love for the unexpected.