CLCmusic

As my time at Berklee comes to an end, it is more than appropriate that I have a final piece of work that encompasses the last three years of my life. I can confidently say that today I am a bass player, a producer, and now... a songwriter.

Like so many musicians, I always have had chord progressions and melodies in my head. Maybe I played one for a friend once and they told me they liked it. I never took it beyond that though. That said, for my final production project here at Berklee, I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to make something that was as much a representation of my personal, creative-self as possible. So, I started with what was in my head and nothing else knowing that by the end of the semester I would need to present 3 complete songs. I just took it step-by-step and today, they are done.

I started out recording all 3 songs in a 4-hour session in September with a makeshift band. I proceeded to develop those recordings as much as possible by mixing them and recording overdubs. I scheduled lyric writing sessions with others and we sat and wrote lyrics together while listening to these demos. I had a session in my apartment with Álvaro to come up with guitar parts to the songs (a few of the "sounds" we recorded that day actually made it into one of the final tracks). We had a similar session during which time we crafted the solo for "Sea Miner". I had additional sessions with Jack to come up with keyboard parts for all the songs. I recorded myself singing the vocals and added the effects I wanted in the final versions. I showed Tom these as a reference for what I wanted it to eventually sound like.

We began tracking the final versions in mid-October starting with a 6-hour session to record the drums for all three songs. I had one rehearsal with Steve and Tom before the session. Other than that and listening to the demos on his own, Steve really delivered in this session on drums. Jack and I played along while Steve recorded his drums; I even mumbled some words where the vocal would one day be. All the while, Maio was there making everything sound great.

Once the drums were tracked, I scheduled individual sessions with Jack and Al to record the keyboard and guitar parts respectively. All-in-all, these sessions totaled about 20 hours. The vocals were done in 3 separate sessions with Tom, two of which were in a tiny control room with me engineering and Tom and I both wearing headphones.

While this was going on from October right up until the final mix session in early December, I tried to mix the songs as best I could on my own on my laptop. These mixes acted as references for the final mix sessions with Martin who listened to what I was trying to do on my computer and realized them in a fully equipped studio.

Throughout this entire process, my fellow classmates and professor for the final production class constantly gave me feedback and helped to shape the songs. Today I played the final mixes in class, made a few adjustments afterwards, and now it's done.

This has been an incredible journey. I can now say I'm a songwriter; I am better equipped at asking for help; I have gained more experience working with musicians, vocalists, engineers, and mixers to collectively move towards a similar goal; I have had a lot of fun simply creating a piece of art to share with you.

Please let me know what you think in the comments. I hope you like it. :)

For lyrics and full credits, visit the CLCmusic Bandcamp page.