FAWM 2011 Recap.

It’s nearly 5pm on March 1st and I’m wiped out. But I feel like saying some stuff about FAWM, before I forget it.

I am grateful to FAWM this year for being a welcome distraction from the emotional stresses I was under at the beginning of the month. Even though I do write and play in the “off season,” it had been a long time since I had done either.

And it was satisfying enough to be writing again in a focused way. But I was feeling quite lonely in my FAWM. And then I called Errol on the radio show. We had a grand ole time talking, and I also got a taste of all the great music I hadn’t had the time/mental space to start checking out. Things turned around for me at that point, when I remembered my place in the community.

Any FAWMlings reading this, this is the best I can tell you: Sure, writing on your own is important, getting to 14 is (kind of, if you want it to be) important, but the heart of FAWM is in these things:
Forum,
Chat Room,
Radio Show,
Skirmishes,
Commenting on other people’s songs.

Acknowledge yourself, a sparkling droplet of water in an ocean of musical brilliance. Dive into the community and it WILL hold you up.

I ended up with 16 songs, the highest number of songs I’ve achieved since I started FAWMing in 2007. (I think.) Got to do a most excellent collaboration with The Cow Exchange, one of my favorite humans. In an unexpected bit of awesome, a supremely talented, first-rate, large-hearted person donated to give me my rock hand. With me in my current precarious work situation, his generosity was more appreciated than I’ll ever be able to tell him in words.

The FAWM shenanigans were fantastic as usual, including the metal take on the whole boy/girl-band explosion from a couple of years ago. There was also a country song about a guy coming on to a dentist, a burst of lyrical cleverness. Fun. And: Sleepient Napwork wins the whole Internet. (A brilliant collective effort; FawmToronto is not messing around.)

So how did I do on my personal goals?

Shall I take them one by one?:

*********Overall, I’m looking to simplify. Musically, lyrically, process-wise, all of it.
Did I manage to do this? Heck, I don’t know.

The time from turning-on-the-computer to recording-the-song seems to have been minimized. There weren’t many technical issues once I got everything up and running, but I also know for a fact that I’m not using my equipment as fully as I could…And, my live guitar sounds feel muddier this year. Grr. Need to figure that out. (someone told me I have noisy preamps…) Could also learn a little more about EQing. In the past it was customary for me to boost low end on EVERYTHING, because that makes the sound louder in my headphones. But, I’m thinking it also makes the signal muddier, so I stopped doing that about a week ago.

*********I’d like to record at least two songs that feature piano. The piano freaks me out. Would like to get over that a bit.
This did not happen.
I did write a song on piano that didn’t end up making it (see below).
And I did end up adding piano to one of the songs.
Need to work on this goal.

*********Participate in at least two skirmishes, and do what I need to do in the allotted time. The shortest amount of time I’ve been able to manage thus far is two hours.
I am becoming a big believer in skirmishes. I never thought this would happen.

Skirmishes make me physically queasy. I’m in a high state of insecurity/anxiety for the whole hour, and this has a weird physical effect on me. But skirmishes do something beautiful by removing the time I usually spend hemming and hawing over songs. There’s no time to question my decisions.

I stayed away from them for most of the month. Saw the titles chosen and thought “I’d never be able to do anything with that…” But I threw myself into the breach in the last couple of days and did end up participating in two. I did, pretty much, stay within the hour time allotment. That feels huge. And you know what? I don’t hate the songs!

*********I’d also like to write a I - V - vi – IV song, just ‘cause.
I’ll tell you a secret: I did this. Gave myself the goal of writing the easiest, cheesiest thing I could think of, using the Four Chords to Rule the World (that’s Jodes’ terminology). And, I wrote a song. On piano, even. It was SO cheesy that there was no way I could inflict that song upon my FAWM compatriots in good conscience.

*********And for extra credit, I’d like to demo the three songs from last year that I finished writing, but did not post recordings for.
No dice. Couldn’t even get near it.
And that’s a lesson for me: From here on out, all FAWM songs will be recorded during FAWM. There’s very little chance I’ll get back to it later.

Key Takeaway 1: Leave Room For The Unexpected And The Unknown.
I’m a listmaker, a planner in the extreme. I’d made several lists of the exact FAWM songs I wanted to achieve for the month. About a week in, I realized that that kind of micromanagement is not going to do for February anymore. Case in point: my final FAWM song, “Folly.”

When the Week 4 “Through-Composed” challenge was issued, I was interested right away. Had an entirely different (complete, old) lyric slated, and a different, ready made musical bed. But I felt a little dead inside, just carrying out (my own) orders. I wanted to feel a little more inspired. Threw the old ideas away on the morning of the last day, and started from scratch, keeping the challenge goal in mind.

“Folly” was born entirely in the last 20 or so hours of FAWM. Nearly blew a fuse shuffling lyric lines around, figuring out different guitar bits. Harmonically, this song is more varied than anything I usually do under my own steam. I think it contains my highest recorded vocal notes. (I mostly sing in my head while I’m writing, so when I went to sing “Folly” into a mic, I realized the part was WAY too high for me to deliver comfortably. So I delivered it uncomfortably.) Mentally, I did more work on that last day than any day I can remember. And I like the way it turned out.

Creating something from nothing (no thing) is important. And necessary. It reminds me that 1, I can do that, and 2, Occasionally, good things result.

Key Takeaway 2: The Lyrics Are Always Worth One More Look.
Normally, I put a lot of stock in my words. Earlier in the month I wrote that FAWM songs generally feel throwaway to me. Because of how quickly one has to work, I’ve been okay with putting down first-off lyric ideas. But I figured out this month that there’s always lyric sweetening that can be done. And the sweetening makes the songs feel less disposable.

So I got things still to work on: Playing piano. Getting better sounds. I also need new guitar chords – I fall back too much on E minor. It would be great to collect some new instruments (including a ukulele, apparently).

Don’t want to dwell on that stuff, though. There's a higher proportion of songs I wrote in February that I'm getting enjoyment out of listening to, even now. That's unusual.

It was a great FAWM, yes indeed. I’ll be on the site listening daily, at least through March.

Right now I want a nap.