Been out of it for a bit

Haven't been working on much.

However, recently, my sister asked me to make an ad for her book (I guess it's called a book trailer) and so I had to do some composing for that. That's got me back into it. So expect more updates soon. Meanwhile, here's the book trailer:

Some big changes

Added several new tunes. Cut some tunes (maybe temporary...still working it out). Rearranged the story and rethought it a LOT. No update to the script yet...but soon, but the songs are in different order.

I'm feeling pretty good about the direction. Here's some thoughts:

-Cabinet of the US gov will be part of the intro and will be worked into the plot
-Nick the cop will be the love lorn one and Danae will be resistant to it.
-Sam will be Donald's (Stealthman's) son.
-Susan will have more of a roll and we'll get to know her sooner in the show
-The two workers at the rest home will play a larger roll too.
-Might add a grandson for Donald

5 new tunes...but only 4 listed. The fourth doesn't have a place yet but can be heard in the PLAY ALL section

Tunes are: Intro, Susan Song, Fogey Fun, and the one in play all currently called Bible

Some more vocals

Recorded some quick temp vocals for Marvels of the Universe and Love Is Nothing But A Lie. Also put the vocals back on 'Til The End on the site.

I'm not spending much time on these vocals because they're just temporary quick placeholder stuff to show what it'll sound like and so I can hear myself what it's sounding like. So the recording isn't too great, I mess up the words sometimes and don't do second takes, etc., etc...

Anyhow, check it out: STEALTHMAN SITE

STEALTHMAN

Recorded a bit of vocal for the song Stealthman, just for fun.

Speak Easy

I worked the orchestrations a bit more for Speak Easy and then, kind of just for fun, recorded a few vocals for it. As usual lately, these were put in very quick and aren't a really great recording or sung too well or anything, but they show how the song will go, basically.

STEALTHMAN libretto available (sort of)

The libretto...as it stands...is available online now. See it under the WORDS catagory on the STEALTHMAN site or go to it directly here.

Keep in mind that it's a work in progress. (I start it with a big, red disclaimer.) The idea here is to share the development process. The libretto is very incomplete at this point. Some songs have full lyrics...but even those will likely change. Most songs have partial lyrics and many have no lyrics at all. The story is kind of told too...as it stands. I'm still working out the story, so there is some detail missing and things that don't make sense. Accordingly, feel free to leave comments on this blog about things that don't make sense or whatever because it may help me to fill out some of these points that I may have just forgotten to add to the libretto thusfar...or help me to realize that I need to make something up to fill out or fix an idea here or there.

Vocals on One Man Caring

So I recorded some temporary vocals for One Man Caring last night just because I wanted to. I didn't have the lyrics with me, so I just fumbled through and used the word "something" a lot. Not a great recording, but not horrible either. And it gives the basic idea of what it's meant to sound like.

ONE MAN CARING

One Man Caring

Okay, so I pulled another old song out of the archives and am renewing it for Stealthman. Don't know if it'll stick or not.

Basically, the chorus of this was written to be a Michael Jackson sound alike song. When I moved on past my Michael Jackson phase in the 80s, I sort of dropped it. Well, now, of course, with his death, I've been mindful of his stuff again and have a renewed interest. I thought of this song and then was struck with the idea that it could work really well for Stealthman. Basically, the thought was to use it as a strong and blatant MJ rip-off -- similar to the Elvis style song in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. But not a parody. The way it will work is thus: Our Stealthman character (Donald) has fantasies. He goes in and out of the strength of these fantasies. So my thought is this. After he meets Sam (his Sancho character), Sam asks him why he's so intent on saving the world, or something like this. This brings out a fantasy moment in Stealthman (Donald) where, in his explanation to Sam, he imagines himself to be an arena pop/rock star (akin to MJ) singing about making the world better, etc...

Anyhow, like I said - I'm not sure if this'll stick or not...but for now, it's in and there's a clip of it on the Stealthman site, so check it out.

Stealthman

Update to the song Stealthman.

First, I changed the tempo (made it significantly faster) so as to increase the intensity a bit. Also, changed the core sound from piano (which just wasn't working for me for some reason). I think it's working better for me now and heading in a direction that I'm happy with.

All My Life

Added a few more orchestrations to the end of All My Life and also removed the vocals for now. I want to record them again... I wasn't really happy with the fact that I was stretching so badly to reach the high notes. Sounded really bad. As much as I'm only posting samples so folks can hear an approximation of what it's meant to be, it just bugged me that it was as bad as it was. I'm going to record it in a slightly lower key and then up-tune it to where it's meant to be. I think the actual singer will have to hit a Bb ultimately. My top note is a G on a good day. On a really, really good day I can hit an A...but not really.

A Busted Bust

A new song snippet on the site. A Busted Bust. I think I plan on using this melody (the little bit of it you actually hear) for A Busted Bust as well as for A Game With Guns...but it will be this tempo for A Game With Guns and faster for A Busted Bust. So I guess, really, this version will be A Game With Guns. But for now, it's under A Busted Bust.

I've been thinking about the story a lot the last few days too and decided that I really need to work in some more honest drama. Give it a bit meaning. I'll be posting the story within the next few weeks in its entirety.

More updates

Notorious and He's All I Have are now available on the site.

I don't think I'll reach my goal of having a clip of every song available though seeing as I was down with food poisoning for some of the weekend. (A wonderful experience, I might add.)

Glory and Gore

Updated Glory and Gore (though the date on the site doesn't reflect it yet).

Basically, I altered the ostinato so it would fit the lyric I have in mind. I also came up with a primary lyric for the 'chorus' (I put 'chorus' in quotes because it isn't much of a chorus.)

The ostinato will have a chant to it (Comic book geek mantra???) that goes:

Stories with more glory and gore
Stories with more glory and gore
Stories with more glory and gore
Stories with more glory and gore

The main 'chorus' lyrics are:

Stories with more glory and gore forever more!

The 'mantra' was taken from the 'chorus' and not the other way around, if anyone cares.

I also altered the intro to make it a bit more significant (though I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with it yet) and did a few changes to some of the other orchestrations.

I have a goal for this weekend to have at least a little snippet of music for ever song from the musical available on the site.

Song(s) and lyric update

A small update to Speak Easy orchestrations as well as a new snippet of the song Proverbs (which you may, or may not, note is previewed in the song Speak Easy).

Also, I've posted the first sample of lyrics (from Speak Easy) under the Words section of the site.

Song Updates

I Don't Want to be Here (new) and an update of Speak Easy now on the STEALTHMAN site.

More second guessing

So, after getting a bit of feedback I tried a different version of Speak Easy out.

Speak Easy is set as a fantasy of Stealthman's wherein he is in the 1920s/30s in a bustling and thriving city. In reality, he's in the slums of a contemporary city...but whereas we as the audience would see it from Stealthman's perspective, the scene is a 1920/30's city (think Metropolis a la Superman.)

In the spirit of trying new things out and genuinly considering quality feedback I put together this new version of Speak Easy with a Jazzier flavor. I like it, but really, I think for the scene it will work better with the original rhythms of the song, but perhaps with a different orchestration than what's on the web site. To compare this version against the original, go to the stealthman website.

SPEAK EASY NEW (BIG BAND/JAZZ)

Song Updates

New updates for the following songs on the Stealthman website.

Glory and Gore
Stealthman
Join the Heroes
Love Is Nothing But a Lie

Frustrations

So, when writing a musical, just like with any artistic development, there's a definite level of frustration that comes about sometime. I think it's particularly bad with a musical, if for nothing else than the sheer scope of the work. I think I also have more frustration because I truly understand quality when it comes to musical writing (at least I like to believe I do) and I don't always measure up to the quality I'm striving for.

Then, of course, I'm conflicted at the idea that I might be second-guessing myself into either changing something that was better originally, or just changing something that didn't need to be changed because the replacement is not better or worse--just different.

I struggle with some songs more than other in this regard...perhaps when I'm not 100% sure of the flavor I'm going for. I mean, a love song's a love song. Pretty easy to feel if it sounds like a love song (though not always). Even easier would be something like a fanfare. A fanfare either sounds like a fanfare or it doesn't.

But what about something like my opening. It's a comic book convention. There will be a bunch of people walking around in costumes checking out booths and singing about the 'Glory and Gore' of it all. So where do I go with this flavor? I mean, I could go hundreds of different ways. So what I usually do is I just start writing -- with no planning for style or thought as to flavor. Sometimes this works out great. Sometimes it doesn't. But sometimes, as in the current version of Glory and Gore, I'm just not sure. I ended up with something that sounds a bit Egyptian, and I just don't know if it has a flavor that works for the setting.

Adding to that problem, I really like what I've written...if I didn't it would be easy to cut. However, I like it, but am not sure it's right for the scene, and worried that my thinking it might not be right for the scene is second guessing myself.

Then, of course, because I worry that all the work I've done is perhaps going to go to waste if I decide to cut it, I get frustrated because of the potential wasted work and that makes me not want to work on it anymore...so instead of spending more time trying to tweak it and make it just right, I move on to a different piece or else just quit writing altogether.

This happens more often than I'd like it to.

I think being able to be self critical and cut things that don't work or tweak them until they're just perfect is very important. One cannot be blind to bad writing, poor setting, lame lyrics, etc... I have to be judgemental of my work and remove any artistic naivety. But I've seen artist kill their work by betraying their original vision due to this judgemental second guessing until all the glory and wonder that made the original idea beautiful has been sucked from it by marketing numbers and cooperate beauracracy...er...okay...I went a bit off there. But you get my point.

I still haven't come to a solid approach to dealing with this balance between trusting my artistic vision and being self critical.

All clips up on stealthman webpage

So I've decided to approach this a bit differently. Recording and posting daily clips on the blog was too much work and was taking away from actually writing. So, I've now posted all music as it stands IN FULL on the STEALTHMAN website.

As I do work, I will replace the sound clips there and will indicate it here. Meanwhile, I will continue to post here about my writing experience, thoughts, ideas, lyrics, whatever, etc...so this is still a 'making of' blog.

Stealthman website

New Stealthman website is up.

Check it out!

I should start getting back into daily posts again now that I'm getting back into writing for it.

Old Songs Made New

SPIRITUAL

Over the last weekend I ended up working with my brother, doing a demo recording of a song he had written. I ended up really liking his song - and also, it reminded me of a song I had written many, many years ago.

The original song was written for a musical. Then I adapted the song to be a pop song, and added a verse to it. Now I'm taking the verse from that song and adapting it for a musical (but leaving out the original tune entirely). So it has a bit of an odd history in that regard.

The other thing about this song is that it doesn't currently fit into the musical anywhere - and very well may not be a part of it at all. But I'd really like to fit it in if I can - but won't unless it strengthens the show. I'm not interested in just forcing it in as random filler. However, I already have an idea of how I can get it in - basically replacing one of the other songs with it and then using the other song in a different place instead - because the other song fits in well into another place whereas this one wouldn't. And the other song (All My Life) was originally written for the character Nick - then was moved to the character Sam. So Sam would now sing this song and Nick would get his solo back (which will help to develop and strengthen Nick's character if it works out).

Anyhow, here it is. The title is a place-holder (coming from the original musical where the unused original chorus was written) until lyrics are developed.

SPIRITUAL

Song Titles

So the basic story is finished and the song titles are mostly in place. Keep in mind that this is all subject to change. In fact, a few of them are more than subject to change -- a few are likely to change as the lyrics are written.

Act I
1. Glory and Gore
2. Dr. Nemesis
3. Marvels of the Universe
4. A Busted Bust
5. Twenty Guns
6. Speak Easy
7. Minds in the Gutter
8. Notorious
9. A Game with Guns
10. Never Before
11. Apology
12. The Silver Lining
13. I Don’t Want To Be Here
14. Into the Night
15. Destined to Be
16. Stealthman

Act II
1. Fogey Fun
2. Join the Heroes
3. Adventure
4. The Power
5. Revenge
6. Proverbs
7. All My Life
8. He's All I Have
9. Love Is Nothing But A Lie
10. I Need You Every Night
11. Kidnapped
12. 'Til The End
13. The Elixir of Life
14. All It Takes Is One
15. The Plight Of The Planet
16. Stealthman's Sacrifice
17. Finale

Another demo

A NEW MAN

Firstly, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I've been on vacation and whatnot (typical Christmas stuff) so haven't been updating for a bit.

I have developed another demo based on a request to do something in the style of Thomas Newman. Funny thing is, I did this one before looking into Thomas Newman's stuff (I'm not directly familiar with his stuff) with a presumption of what it would be. Then I picked up the two soundtracks recommended to me (In The Bedroom and Road To Perdition) and I think I got the style pretty darned close. So I submitted this as the demo and I'll see if it's liked or not. If not, I may be doing another one shooting for the Newman-esque style.

A NEW MAN