March 20, 2025

let’s start making an album

This January, I participated in “jamuary,” a challenge in which a musician tries to make some kind of music every single day. Somehow, I succeeded, and blogged about it.

I haven’t gone back to those pieces of music, really, since the month ended. But I knew that I would eventually want to revisit them and use them as a jumping-off point for a more complete album.

It was exciting to force myself to write something every day, because I couldn’t overthink things. I always overthink things. Or, with music, I always ascribe meaning to music as I’m writing it. If I can’t find the meaning, I don’t finish the song. This was different. I just wrote stuff.

Now, nearly two months after writing the last piece, I’m diving back into those 31 songs and figuring out what the hell I was doing. What worked, and what didn’t? What feels good? What feels rote? Was there meaning in some of these tracks, even if I didn’t know it at the time?

If jamuary turns out to be a jumping-off point for an album, I’d like to blog about the process of creating it, just like I blogged about the process of jamuary itself. So I went through the Soundcloud playlist I made and listened to all 31 songs, with the goal of sorting through the styles, figuring out what sounds good, and determining what the next steps should be. I went through each track, tagged it by moods, and determined if I wanted to leave it behind, use it, or gather bits and pieces from it.

My notes are below, or you can just skip to what I learned.

Track Analysis

jamuary 1, 2025 - piano, mysterious, light

Pay special attention to 2:50 - on, when things quiet down and we’re left with a silky piano and granular chops. This could be the beginning of something. Additionally, the last few seconds of looping granular stuff could be a loop. Gather that.

jamuary 2, 2025 - western, mysterious, dark

The main tone here is a strained guitar sound that sounds unnatural, but not in a very good way. However, the drone that appears around a minute in is interesting and could be worth exploring. Otherwise, not much here.

jamuary 3, 2025 - distorted, noise, drone

This is one of the really nasty waveshape/distortion pieces. The way it pulls itself apart into something more melodic, or like the THX sound logo, around 1:50 is really interesting. I wonder if some EQ could make the beginning a little less abrasive. If so, this might be worth turning into a full song on its own. The mid-song tension is nice. The calm around 2:30 could be moved around during an arrangement.

jamuary 4, 2025 - post-rock, noise, piano, distorted, drums

I remember this one feeling great as I wrote it. Take this one into Bitwig and start adding guitars — tremolo, rhythm, ebow, octave — to complement the big climb and climax. Maybe turn the kick into a full drum kit around 4:30, before the song takes off.

jamuary 5, 2025 - “eurorack ambient”, light

This is nice, but feels like a Rings -> Clouds piece. Keep it in mind if that vibe is necessary at some point, but don’t focus on it.

jamuary 6, 2025 - DNU

jamuary 7, 2025 - one week in - “eurorack ambient”, light, mysterious

I don’t find much of interest here. Synths bouncing around in a lovely, milquetoast way. Next.

jamuary 8, 2025 - DNU

jamuary 9, 2025 - “eurorack ambient”, piano

At first glance, this feels inoffensive, but there’s some really curious things going on below the drifty ambient nonsense — sample chops and wavy filter movements. Wonder if this could actually be really good with a nasty bass underneath it, maybe even drums?

jamuary 10, 2025 - piano, olafur, light, post-rock

I’m surprised by how much I like this. It feels like an Olafur Arnalds piece, kinda, though pushed towards repetitiveness and ambient. The strings are really surprising and emotional. I wonder if adding a real violin melody on top could send this to another level. Additionally, I could see ebow here. Kind of a piece with jamuary 4, 2025. It should be shorter than 6 minutes, or have a B section. Cut the piano, add something new?

jamuary 11, 2025 - drone, drums, mysterious, distorted

This one’s interesting and is the first with drums. I like the usage here — it’s a beat that doesn’t draw too much attention to itself. I’m not sure how this fits in to the other tracks here yet, but I think there’s something very listenable here. This could be a build-off, but it needs friends. Could it work alongside jamuary 4, 2025?

jamuary 12, 2025 - “eurorack ambient”, light, piano

This one isn’t doing anything for me.

jamuary 13, 2025 - drone, dark

I really like this. I believe this was a piece whose master went through a pitched-down tape machine, and I think there are more of those later in the month. Very listenable, smooth, but dark. I like this, either as a complement to the post-rock songs or as its own thing.

jamuary 14, 2025 - light, “eurorack ambient”

Nah. Cool string stuff at the end, but feels overdone.

jamuary 15, 2025 - piano, “eurorack ambient”, drums

The drums and second half is kind of silly. The looping, tape-y underpinning might be worth grabbing and using somewhere else. It’s cool.

jamuary 16, 2025 - drone, mysterious

This feels like another still drone, not unlike jamuary 13, 2025, and it may have been made the same way. Where underneath this layer of darkness there’s some lovelier bits of melody strewn about. This one’s good, if long. There is a sound that doesn’t sound unlike an e-bow in there; could be good to add an actual one. Or maybe it’s done.

jamuary 17, 2025 - “eurorack ambient”, piano

This shudders and moves a bit too much. It gets in the way and isn’t super pleasing. I don’t think I want to follow up on this one.

jamuary 18, 2025 - “eurorack ambient”, dark

Same as above. It’s out of control and not worth salvaging.

jamuary 19, 2025 - dark, drone, distorted, noise

I’m not sure. I like the overall vibe here, as well as the dynamic drone. I think the second half is better, where sounds come crashing in as waves. I’m not sure that’s enough for a song, though, so maybe it’s salvage. Also, lots of clicks that would need to go away (maybe a re-record here).

jamuary 20, 2025 - drums, light

Happy I made this, but it has no place in this project.

jamuary 21, 2025 - light, dark, piano

Light AND dark? There’s a weird uncanniness to this, but the piano gives it a weightlessness. I would like to send this through a tape machine, pitched down, to see what it becomes; I wonder if I set the mix to something like 97% I’ll get a dark, smooth exterior with bits of prettiness below, like some of the earlier month’s entries.

jamuary 22, 2025 - light, olafur, piano, drums, post-rock(?)

I really like the main lines here. Cut the drums and build a B section — maybe even build to a post-rock climax, and there’s something.

jamuary 23, 2025 - piano, mysterious

I remember this piece getting a good reaction on Lines. It kind of ambles along at its own slow pace, an atmosphere punctured by lone piano and glockenspiel notes… but it just doesn’t do much for me.

jamuary 24, 2025 - piano

Nice experiment, not my style. Pass.

jamuary 25, 2025 - drone, dark, mysterious

This begins with a high drone that’s a bit challenging; I’d love to pitch it down and play with it. Then, in the second half, a really arresting (and naked) choir comes in. I’d like to pitch down the entire thing, then perhaps layer just the vocals on top, way more effected. This could be some arranging away from a complete track.

jamuary 26, 2025 - piano, noise, drums

Some weird downtempo piano jazz? It’s interesting but not something I want to explore further.

Jamuary 27, 2025 - mysterious, “eurorack ambient”

No issues with this, not inspiring in the least. Onward.

jamuary 28, 2025 - drone

It’s a nice little drone. Worth pitching down to see if anything comes out; if not, skip.

jamuary 29, 2025 - “eurorack ambient”, olafur

Nothing doing here.

jamuary 30, 2025 - drums

This is so much nothing. Too far along to do anything with, not far along enough to keep.

jamuary 31, 2025 - it’s done - drone, dark, noise

Another instance of the melody-peeking-through-the-noise track, and another one I quite like. Keep it.

Pieces to Build Off

What Did I Learn

Putting aside the silly experiments (the jamuary 6, 2025 fugue, the LOST cover on jamuary 8, 2025) and a couple of tracks that I just don’t like in retrospect, I think I have three types of songs here:

And, in order, here’s how they feel to me:

If I want to make an album, I need to start making an album. Right? No overthinking things. Bullet point one is the starting point. Let’s go.

What’s Next

First things first — grab jamuary 13, 2025, jamuary 16, 2025, and jamuary 31, 2025 - it’s done. Determine the files I have available — project files in Bitwig, on the iPad, and so on. Determine what I want to change in any of the songs. Do I want to add more layers? Do I want to do a few more takes? Do I want to just mix and finish it?

From there, if things are still feeling good, grab the other drones — jamuary 21, 2025, jamuary 25, 2025, and jamuary 28, 2025 — and put them through the same processing chain that worked for the previous three.

After that, I might have anywhere from three to six songs that all work together. The ever-elusive “meaning” can grow from there. I can already feel my brain tickling the edges of why I was attracted to writing music that sounds like this. I can’t articulate it yet. But the more I stack these songs on top of each other, the close I might get.

So that’s what it will be, for as long as I’m inspired by it. Songs that drone, but superficially, because underneath the smooth, tar-thick muck there’s an ocean of beautiful life.

Afterward, I’m going to explore the post-rock tracks. But I think I have enough to lock into something else first, and I want to follow that inspiration.


// tags: making music
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