Happy Return

I nicked the blog-post title from Steven Wilson's new (unreleased) song, which I heard live in Leipzig. It sounds awesome ; it's got an amazing 'real' vibe and I loved Steven's voice and the vocal harmonies involved. and I am really looking forward to hearing it in in recorded form. I just got back from a 16-day conference leave/vacation. While it was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it, I am also glad to be back in Singapore. I am travel-lagged and am looking forward to some good old monotony to spice things up. On the long flight home, I recorded this song on Garage band titled 'Page 16'.

Page 16 by aytida88

It reminds me of the last few awesome days and the amazing peeps I met and hung out with. If I was active on Facebook, I'd have uploaded this tune there with a status containing the phrase 'feeling blessed'. And while I was at it, I'd crush some of your candy. Let me know what you think of it.

Pretend - Nat King Cole Cover

I attempted a different type of song to cover this time. A classic from Nat King Cole called "Pretend".

Pretend you're happy when you're blue, It isn't very hard to do,
And you'll find happiness without an end, whenever you pretend.


Pretend Nat King Cole Cover by aytida88

I hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

Reflection

I felt like being creative today. I started off trying to write a short story, but soon deflected to this. It's about the kind of enlightening talk you have with yourself, reflecting on where you are and wondering which way you are headed. Let me know what you guys think :) Edited using GarageBand, Audacity and Ableton. I'm sure there's an easier way to do it, but I ended up using a hybrid of the three because I like different features in each of them (The instruments in Ableton, the recording and mixing in Audacity and the "Warming Waves" pad in Garage Band)

   Reflection by aytida88

Lyrics:

Hello there, you look out of sorts.

Living someone else's dream, are you not?

There's no shame in turning back,

Pause and think about where you at.

Gutten Abundance

Something I came up with while I was supposed to be working on some presentation. That's always the best time for ideas I suppose :P

   Abundance by aytida88

Props to Garage-band again..

Trains Porcupine Tree - Cover

Train set and match spied.

   Trains Mixed by aytida88

Love this song by PT. I was just getting the hang of Garage band, so decided to do this. Recording time : an hour or less. Fun! Fun! Fun! Fun. Apparently I had recorded the guitar one bar too short so had to skip some parts of the vocals.

Be kind, rewind.

I recorded this song today. Most of the layers were done in Ableton and I added a couple of vocal layers in the end. (I removed these in the final version, which is purely instrumental) Hearing it kind of made me feel nostalgic. Let me know what you guys think of it.

 Nostalgia Instrumental by aytida88

Parasite

Here's the demo of a song I wrote and composed yesterday. It's called Parasite.


   Parasite by aytida88
 
Lyrics

Strip this symphony into it's component notes,
Tear me down and figure out why I do so.
Split my mind and redefine the person i know,
Re-wire my brain, again and make it your home.

Yellow Cover

This is my first non-Porcupine tree cover for the blog. I love the old-school Coldplay tunes, they seem to exude a lot of personality, whilst having simple sing-along lyrics. I hope the follow-up to MX is more unique. This one is a classic tune,so I thought I'd give it a shot. Did it over 2-3 days because of my other pending work. If you say it isn't really faithful to the original, I agree, because I didn't see the point of doing a watered down take of the original (which I can't even hope to do justice to), so I just went for my own interpretation, in places. Recording this was kind of cathartic, I'm not too sure how to explain. I guess, the act of harmonizing with someone, is a source of unbridled joy, even if it is with yourself. I dedicate this to my sister, because it's her birthday today. I can't do a Bartesque 'Lisa it's your Birthday', so this will have to do.

   Yellow Cover Version by aytida88

Feel so Low revamped

I had a discussion with a friend , that sparked off this blog. Upon hearing one of my recently recorded songs, he said something to the effect of 'Why don't you come over to my place and record it, we can mix it better and put in some effects'. (He's got a sweet studio!). That got me thinking , if I could select a song I'd recorded earlier , knowing what I now know , could I record and mix a better version really fast? I set myself a goal of one hour to re-record my cover version of Feel so low. The first one was recorded after a night-out with my friends, I was quite sleepy , had a terrible mike and it was kind of my first attempt at recording a song. Here's version 2.0 of the song of which I'm quite proud. The guitar and the vocals were finished in a couple of hours and the Strings in Ableton and final mixing took me an hour more. Please do comment if you like it :)

   Feel so Low 2.0 by aytida88

Starch Dye

This is my cover of Stars Die by Porcupine Tree. I just love this song. For some reason, I imagine an alien life-form trying to reach out to earth, when I hear it. Here's my cover. It's not the complete song. Just part of the original.

   Stars Die Final by aytida88

Guitar-less

I bust my guitar nut. The one in the low E-string tuning peg. I was a little bummed, but is isn't all bad news. I finally got around to using Ableton. It seems like a really good software. Came up with this after a few rounds of messing about, I thought it sounded pretty decent :)

Thoughtscape by aytida88

Don't be so Farmal

The members of Night Jammers met up yesterday after a long hiatus. During our typical strumming and jamming, we came up with a piece that sounded good to us. We call it 'The Farm'.

The Farm- Night Jammers by aytida88

Sound Check

Was trying to come up with something I really wanted to say. Get my message out to the world, if you will.

Nothing to say by aytida88

Lyrics

This is an exercise in futility
Maybe I haven't been trying too hard,
But the more I think about,
I really have nothing to say.

Where we would be - PT Cover

For me, it's one of the the best sounding tracks from the 'Lightbulb Sun' album by Porcupine tree. The guitar solo (on the live version from Warszawa, as well as, the studio version) blows my mind every single time. It's just one of those songs that stirs up classic memories. This is my attempt at an acoustic guitar cover of "Where we would be".

Where we would be acoustic guitar cover by aytida88

The Lost Chance

This morning I was feeling a little under the weather due to nostalgia. So I took out my guitar and strummed around for a while. I liked the random nature of the sound. This is based on just 10 minutes of playing. It is a little patchy in places and hastily mixed but overall I'm quite happy with it. Please let me know what you think. It's called the 'Lost Chance'. It's basically about when you see an opportunity and are so engaged in considering it, that it passes you by , before you notice.

Lost Chance by aytida88

T.H.O.Z.A.N.S Theme

I was having a bad headache. I should have slept. But instead , a friend and I came up with this. I feel better cause the headache has been shared with the world. T.H.O.Z.A.N.S is , you guessed it, a Tamil Acoustic Cover of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.So take your seats, pop in an extra-strong Panadol and get ready to hear a classic tune get ruined by 2 blokes :)

T.H.O.Z.A.N.S Theme by aytida88

Feel so low

Not really. I feel great. But yesterday, I felt inspired enough to try recording this song. Thanks to KC for introducing me to the simple pattern , back in the day. It's quite jarring at some points and the recording quality isn't at its best. Enough excuses. No wait, one more. This is my first attempt, so be nice :P Please leave your comments :)

Again3 by adityanitt