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.