"Land or Sea" & how it was made.

"land or sea" is the 14th "yearbook" song, the middle track of the "february" ep.

this song was born on the ukulele. that very first melody that starts the song off is actually exactly where this song originated from. the entire song stemmed from that very simple ukulele melody. usually in the songwriting process, the direction and individual parts bend and change so much from the original thought that there is rarely much trace of its origins left when the song is finished. so i like that this song starts exactly as it was first written.

i recorded this my favorite ukulele - my KALA "Mango" tenor. love. it.

this song was incredibly fun to layer (musical) ideas on. some songs are very particular in what musical additions will "fit" ... some songs are a bit snobbish in that way. and other songs are very friendly and play nice with many ideas. this one played very nice with others.. so it was a lot of fun to work on, kind of like an ice cream sundae bar... you know, with all of the toppings to add... sprinkles, oreos, hot fudge, etc... it all just "works" together... and now I'm hungry.

anyway, I asked my pal aaron mortenson in nashville to play drums on this sucker and he did a lovely job. his pal and very talented engineer, chad brown did a fantastic job capturing aaron's performances. great sounds for sure. I knew I wanted a "snappier" rhythm section for this song and I'm very fond of how it turned out. the drums and percussion are always sort of morphing into something new. endless variations was the idea. really pleased with how it turned out.

when aaron and chad sent me the drum tracks over the web, we intially had some serious syncing issues. the drums sounded "off" and out of time with the song... but it wasn't extremely off, just enough to make me worried that it wasn't played well. ha. so after an awkward conversation on the phone, me asking "um... these drums are great sounding, but the performance feels... loose"... translation: "what happened?!" - after some trouble-shooting, we realized that the files had just been moved every so slightly. so they resent the drum recordings and low and behold, it was dead on and quite nice sounding.

my best pal, dan perdue did an incredible job on bass, with a bass line that entirely compliments the evolving drum beat. dan also contributed some great keyboard/synth sounds that give the recording some really nice "space" and depth - my favorite little bit is the synth horn section in the end of the song... it's subtle, but I love how it swings and has a bit of gruffness to it.

i played around with a bunch of mellotron layers (always a fan of mellotron... one of my all time favorite sounds) and a bit of electric guitar throughout.

i really enjoyed piecing the lyrics together on this one. as always, there were lines that didn't come easily, but overall i remember this one being an enjoyable song to write.

this song is very much about trust, and the fears that holds us back from trusting. it's about the challenges of faith in a life of no guarantees. that meant all sorts of things to me when i was writing this, and in the months since it was released, it has been even more applicable to my life.

the line "we've got no stakes in the ground" has particularly special meaning to me... in a sort of "eureka" moment in my life last year, i realized that after so many years of tension, hurt and struggle within certain relationships (family and otherwise) and countless life transitions, there is this point where a clean slate happens, a light at the end of the tunnel, where life takes on new shape - sometimes that is only possible when there are no more stakes in the ground. so that phrase was something of a mantra to me. it was so opposit of my intentions and sometimes it felt so terrifying, but eventually it became freeing, like some sort of undo button.

a fun fact: it's not super obvious, but in the beginning few lines I use the lyrics (and melody structure) to subtly count to 4, almost as if the lyrics are 4 steps "to make a difference" in life...

"One (as in 1) day we'll wake up and realize
To (as in 2) make any difference one must simply try
Try (as in "tri" = 3) to use words less than our hands
For (as in 4) change is a direct result of our plans?"

get it?

anyway, thank you for reading!

love, ryan

lyrics:

LAND OR SEA

one day we’ll wake up and realize-
to make any difference one must simply try.
try to use words less than our hands,
for change is a direct result of our plans.

we’ve got no stakes in the ground.
we’ve got no anchors tied down.
land or sea, there are no guarantees here, we know,
there is nothing but our fears of being free.

it feels deeper than any ocean floor,
our lungs no longer believe in any shore.

so let’s dry out our clothes and catch our breath.
our process implies our progress.

we’ve got no stakes in the ground.
we’ve got no anchors tied down.
land or sea, there are no guarantees here, God knows,
there is nothing but our fears of being free.

finally, there’s a mountain beneath us.
but up here our lungs fight against us.
land or sea, there are no guarantees here.
God knows there is nothing but our fears.

"Emphasis" Music Video (& how it was made)

When my good friend, Bob Davidson and I talked about doing a music video together, we both went away and thought through the 36 songs of "Yearbook" and came to the same conclusion: "Emphasis" would be a good fit for a video.

Bob, the director of this video, put together a fantastic team of people to make this possible. Production was handled by Wonderkind Studios: Brian MacDonald, who did incredible job as director of photography, while Jose Rivera edited the final video with precision. It was produced by the inspired folks at Rule29.

Although we discussed several different concepts for the video, we decided on a couple key elements right off the bat - we wanted the performance portion to be filmed at Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago (Side note: all 3 of my previous records were recorded at this gorgeous studio) - the exposed brick, gorgeous wood work and amazing selection of instruments were an immediate selling point.

Another aspect Bob and I both agreed on right away, was to film this in a very close-up, intimate fashion. Macro style as much as possible throughout. For a simple song that tackles such large questions about life, we loved the idea of filming this with limited perspective. In the grand scheme of life, we are perhaps much to close to the world and all of its mystery, to fully understand it. Like standing an inch away from a Georges Seurat painting. So the macro-style filming felt right for this little song about big questions.

We thought some of the outside-of-the-studio footage would be great to tie into various specific lyrics throughout - the first idea being to film bees in their hive, correlating to the first lyric of the song. We all liked this idea enough that Bob and his incredible team arranged to visit and film at a local Bee Keeper's Farm last Fall. Filming bees is no minor task, mind you. The team suited up in full on bee-suit attire and filmed quite a bit of these incredible creature's world.

With film, you never quite know what you have, and if what you have will fit together until you begin the editing process. Shortly after filming all of the planned shots, the team put together a rough edit. The footage all looked absolutely fantastic, but Bob and I felt that the two elements of the video (performance and static shots) weren't quite fitting like the glove we had imagined. So, being the incredibly dedicated team that they are, we decided to shift gears. Bob and I bounced some new ideas off of each other to replace the bees and other static shots, when Bob told me he had a random idea - perhaps we could film a small narrative, maybe of a little kid? I loved the idea and after a bit more brainstorming back and fourth, we landed on the idea of a little boy piecing a puzzle together. And that felt like the perfect visual representation of what this song is about.

bob and i piecing the puzzle shot togetherThe absolutely adorable little boy in the video is Phineas Davidson, the director's amazing 5 year-old son! He did SUCH a fantastic job on this video... took direction like a trained pro (as long as he received mini snack breaks every 20 minutes or so, of course... :)

Oh by the way, I've had a few folks ask if the little boy is meant to be me, i a flash-back or something... the answer is: nope. Phineas is far cuter kid than I ever was. ;)

The jigsaw puzzle was ordered entirely custom from a puzzle-making company in Wisconsin - so it is the only one exactly like it in existence. Neat! The puzzle came right when I was leaving for a trip to California, so my amazing manager was left all to herself to put this puzzle together. It was 200+ pieces, which isn't all that many, BUT due to the nature of the image on it, it's essentially like having to piece together 200+ blank pieces together, because the map colors are very monochromatic. But she did a great job and finished up right in the nick of time to film.

The lovely cellist performing with me, is Melissa Bach. Melissa did such a lovely job playing cello on the recording of this song, that I had to have her be part of the video as well. She's a truly gifted musician from Chicago and I always love working with her! (She was the cellist on my "Storyboards" album as well)

melissa bachI'm very proud of how this video turned out - and cannot thank the team enough for their hard, incredible work! If you or someone you know is in need of incredible creative assistance (video and otherwise!) be sure to check out Rule29 and Wonderkind Studios!

Thanks for reading!! I hope you enjoy the video...

... and here's a great behind-the-scenes video created by Brian MacDonald!

and if you missed it a while back, here's a link to the "how it was made" blog post about writing and recording the song, "emphasis."

"Dear True Love" & how it was made.

"dear true love" is the 13th track in the yearbook series.

when the idea for yearbook was just starting to develop in my head, i knew there was a thin line between writing songs that naturally "fit" each month's feel/mood and songs that were directly about each month (ie. a st. patrick's day song... or an independence day song.. etc.) obviously i become very intent on yearbook documenting my year, my creative process... by writing whatever felt right as i wrote it. NOT writing a series of holiday songs. BUT on occasion, i felt like it would be fun to write something that was directly related to the month of its release (ie. "snow," from the "december" EP, "january white" from the "january" EP, etc.) so when the EP for "february" rolled around, i could help myself but write a love song in honor of valentine's day.

i knew right off the bat that i wanted this to be a very simple love song on its surface. but i thought it would be super fun to hide within it another completely unrelated theme. pretty much for my own amusement... and i suppose to challenge myself a bit.

if you've ever read the blog before, you've probably gathered that i adore movies. i really do. so when i was writing this song in january (to be released on feb. 1st) me and my pal dan decided to write blog posts of our top 10 movies of 2010. so as i was writing this song, i decided it would be interesting to incorporate each of my top 10 movies of the year within the lyrics of this simple love song, as stealthily as possible. the challenge of course was to do so without it being obvious at all. i think i managed to do it! it was tough, but i'm really proud of how it turned out... and it amuses me every time i hear it and remember my favorite movies of that year. ha.

so here are the lyrics and the movies they secretly allude to:

dear true love,
i’m a writer without any words, (THE SECRET OF KELLS)
i’m a story that nobody heard (GET LOW)
when i’m without you.

i am a voice,
i am a voice without any sound. (THE KING'S SPEECH)
i’m a treasure map that nobody found
when i’m without you.

dear true love,
i'm a lantern without any light, (TANGLED)
i’m a boxer much too afraid to fight (THE FIGHTER)
when i’m without you.

so with this ring
may you always know one thing:
what little that i have to give,
i will give it all to you.
you’re my one true love.

i am a memory,
i'm a memory bent out of shape, (INCEPTION)
a childhood already bruised with age (TOY STORY 3)
when i’m without you.

dear true love,
i’m an artist without any paint, (EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP)
i’m the deal that everyone breaks (TRUE GRIT & THE SOCIAL NETWORK)
when i’m without you.

so with this ring,
may you always know one thing:
what little that i have to give,
i will give it all to you.

you’re my one true love.

i am a whisper,
i’m a secret that nobody keeps. (HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON)
i'm a dreamer of someone else's dreams (INCEPTION... again!)
when i’m without you.

dear true love,
i'm a farewell that came all too soon. (TOY STORY 3... again!)
i’m a hand-me-down that dreams of being new (TOY STORY 3 ... yet again!)
when i’m without you.

there's actually 11 movies there... because i had a tie between my top 2... toy story 3 and inception. (hence the reason they were referenced a few times throughout the song!)

anyway, check out my original top 10 blog post here... to see the list that inspired this silly challenge.

onto the music - so this song was written on a guitar that my wife gave me for Christmas just a month before i wrote it. it was a taylor mini and i like it quite a lot! i recorded that guitar for this song as well... it only felt right! a love song being played on the guitar that my wife gave me. aww romance.

i asked a few pals to be guests on this track and they did an INCREDIBLE job. first up is the brilliant Eva Holbrook, who played mandolin so so so beautifully on this song. couldn't have been happier with her contribution! she played on the song "101010" as well and i knew that i wanted to make sure she was a repeat guest on yearbook, if she'd do me the honor. such a talented and sweet person!

then, i asked my pal Ryan Francesconi to be a guest. ryan is also a musical mastermind... i'd even say he's one of my favorite musicians of all time. i met him a couple years ago, after seeing him perform in joanna newsom's band. i'm a huge fan of joanna's and was blown away by ryan's contributions to her music... ryan has since become not only a member of joanna's band, but her bandleader as well. such incredibly talented folks, they are! anyway, ryan had contributed to a few songs on the "storyboards" record and i was very much looking forward to inviting him to be a guest on yearbook. try played a bit of banjo and slide guitar on dear true love and i absolutely loved it. he was running off to tour w miss newsom right after he was able to record this, but i'm so grateful that was able to make it work!

lastly my best mate, dan perdue added some super tasteful organs and a touch of bass. lovely!

there are some recordings that come together without much hassle and struggle... and when that rare time comes, i'm always grateful. dear true love is one of those songs. it was a lot of fun to create!

thanks for reading..

much love, ryan

here are the lyrics without distracting movie reference notes...

DEAR TRUE LOVE

dear true love,
i’m a writer without any words,
i’m a story that nobody heard
when i’m without you.

i am a voice,
i am a voice without any sound.
i’m a treasure map that nobody found
when i’m without you.

dear true love,
i'm a lantern without any light,
i’m a boxer much too afraid to fight
when i’m without you.

so with this ring
may you always know one thing:
what little that i have to give,
i will give it all to you.
you’re my one true love.

i am a memory,
i'm a memory bent out of shape,
a childhood already bruised with age
when i’m without you.

dear true love,
i’m an artist without any paint,
i’m the deal that everyone breaks
when i’m without you.

so with this ring,
may you always know one thing:
what little that i have to give,
i will give it all to you.

you’re my one true love.

i am a whisper,
i’m a secret that nobody keeps.
i'm a dreamer of someone else's dreams
when i’m without you.

dear true love,
i'm a farewell that came all too soon.
i’m a hand-me-down that dreams of being new
when i’m without you.

"Wires" & how it was made

it's no secret that i love my apple gadgets. "wires," which is the 12th song in the "yearbook" series, definitely plays into my adoration for technology.

ever since the iphone was released, and the proceeding birth of the "app store," i've been a bit obsessed with mobile music applications. everything from instruments, sequencers, drum machines, to tuners and metronomes. i really don't know what it is, but i have enjoyed small gadgets ever since i can remember. probably started with my first gameboy...

anyway, after diving into practically every music app for the iphone i could find, i stumbled upon a few apps that inspired the music for this song. i decided i want to build a song from the iphone up, so that is what i did.

the first sound you hear is something i wrote on an ultra simple iphone app i love called "melodica." the idea was the keep that instrument/sound as the core, always underneath, supporting, and always changing a little bit throughout the song. even if it's a note or two different, it is always evolving over the course of the song. it was a lot of fun to write a song in that fashion.

throughout the song, you'll hear an almost organ-like sound, playing chords, with an occasional "sparkle" of notes (that's what i guess i call it when something trills in a beautiful and melodic fashion). that is my all time favorite iphone/ipad music app: SoundPrism. i've blogged/tweeted and beyond about my love for this app and the folks behind it (audanka software). full disclosure: since falling in love with SoundPrism, i've been privileged to have gotten to know the team behind it and have since been, in a way, endorsed by them. with that said, i only talk about their instrument so often, because i love it so.

anyway... there's some other iphone instruments sprinkled throughout this song, especially in the micro-electronic drum department. had a lot of fun working on percussion in that way. my pal dan perdue and myself enjoyed programming and layering different percussion ideas from iphone world.

there's a layer of the percussion that i was pretty excited about that did not come from the iphone... it starts at about 1:04.. oddly enough, it sounds very digital, but in fact it was extremely acoustic. it's the sound of me just playing jazz wire brushes onto more jazz wire brushes. (and yes "wire" brushes is quite appropriate for a song titled "wires"...) i was quite pleased with how that sound layered into the "digital" aspect of the song.

i was very happy with the ending of this song. i wanted the song to essentially overload and explode in the final seconds, so dan and i just kept laying things - keyboards, drums, iphone feedback and loops...until it felt like there wasn't any sonic room left in those final seconds for anything else.

the title "wires" has two meanings:

1. because of the digital nature of the song, i thought it felt like a fitting title.

2. just about every lyric in this song refers to a "wire" of sorts... here's a few examples:

"Carefully cut the wire and wait."

"A loose thread that we must pull."

"Time is the string in between
The arrow and the bow."

"We're shifting our weight
In this tightrope ballet."

and lastly...

"We're down to the wire."

i had a lot of fun writing those lyrics within that theme...

(side note, the lyric "we're down the wire." definitely, definitely was inspired by the intense deadlines that yearbook presented. i thought it was fun to put a little of that stress into the lyrics. :)

a few months after "wires" was released, the ABC television show "Private Practice" ended an episode with this song. another sleeping at last song, "emphasis" was in the same episode as well, right before "wires" played. it was truly a privilege to have two songs in the same episode! so fun to hear my iphone beeps and blips on the TV too.. :)

thanks so much for reading! i have fun writing these little "how it was made" posts and remembering the process of each of these songs. thanks for listening!

much love, ryan

lyrics:

WIRES

Carefully cut the wire and wait.
Life is a series of narrow escapes.

A chain reaction,
A loose thread that we must pull.

The birth of religion
In the challenge of the unknown.

But all desperation
Leads to a fork in the road -
We live for understanding
Or for control.

So very carefully we'll cut the wire and wait.

With one eye closed,
We'll draw back,
Catch our breath and let go...
Time is the string in between
The arrow and the bow.
If there's one thing we've learned
As our pulse returns -
Timing is everything.

If life is a series of narrow escapes,
We're shifting our weight
In this tightrope ballet.

We're down to the wire.

"The Ash is In Our Clothes" & how it was made

"The Ash is in Our Clothes" & how it was made.

"the ash is in our clothes" was the 11th track in the "yearbook" collection (part of the "january" ep.) not only is it the first instrumental released within yearbook, but it is the first instrumental piece of music that sleeping at last has released in over a decade.

several years ago, i purchased "kontakt," which is a software sampler. (for those of you that don't already know, it's essentially an enormous library of virtual instruments, all of which are stored onto a hard drive and can be played via a midi keyboard.) whenever i get a new "instrument" i usually end up writing something on it right away, since i'm excited about it like a new toy. the heart of this song was the result of me messing around with "kontakt" for the very first time.

most of this piece was written sometime in between the "keep no score" album and the "storyboards" album. i had so much fun putting this one together and was really excited with where it was all heading, but when i was writing "storyboards" - it didn't quite feel like the right home stylistically for this piece of music. so, i kept it locked away.

as i mentioned in the "how it was made" blog post for the song "from the ground up," i contributed a few pieces of music for a project that a friend of mine was putting together (pre-yearbook). my pal's name is samantha lamb. she's a fantastic artist/photographer from oklahoma. this song felt right at home within her project, so i carved the song out a bit further for her lovely art installation. and then when the idea for yearbook popped up, i knew right away that this was a song i wanted to include and expand upon even further. the title for this song, was a lyric i had written a long, long while ago - it felt fitting for this song, and for miss lamb's art installation.

let's talk about some of the sounds that make up this song:

the piano that you hear in the beginning and in the end, they were recorded a bit differently than most of the piano on yearbook. rather than recording my upright with my usual mic/settings into pro tools, i recorded these sections with a small handheld recorder just resting on top of my upright. i added heaps of reverb and was very excited with how it turned out... there is almost a "quiver" in the reverb that i like a lot.

the string-like droning is a sound you can hear all over the place throughout yearbook. it's called "bowed piano" and was played via kontakt... it is exactly as it sounds, piano strings that were played with a bow. it's one of my favorite sounds and i really enjoyed its texture in this song. i feel like it gives the right balance between tension and string-like beauty.

there is a children's toy instrument called a "tronichord" that was released in the mid 80's. it makes a pretty great sound (example here) and i've tried and tried and tried for several years now to fit it into a song, but it never quite "works." but FINALLY in this song, it fit like a glove. you can hear it begin at about 1:45... it's a digital trill/harp-ish sound. i love it and hope to find more songs that'll suit it in the future. glad it worked on this one!

my pal jeremy larson recorded a cello line i wrote, that replaced a mellotron cello beautifully. the tron cello felt like the right idea, but it needed the movement of a real cello. mr. larson did a great job playing it.

towards the end of the song, you'll hear a little "strumstick" briefly, which is the instrument that is prominently featured in "next to me." it's a fun instrument... like the "tronichord" instrument, it has limited use. a very strong presence that only works in the right setting. i liked the idea of having it in the end, as a sort of lift in the mood.

i approached the arrangement of the song sort of like a story. it begins with a very sorrowful piece of music, gradually turning into a determined, motivated, maybe a feeling of courage-out-of-the-ashes type of sound (the middle), ending with a lighter, but serious tone - a time of repair. in the end you can hear, just barely, a recording of some birds singing. i liked the idea of what that means in the scope of this little "story." almost like proof that there is peace ahead.

all in all, this was a really fun piece of music to work on. it was so fun to tap into my love and appreciation of film scoring, and to give my voice a bit of a break in the process.

thanks for reading!

much love, ryan