Putting Together the Tighty Whitey Project

More than you probably wanted to know about how my little 2:54 song came to be.

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As many of you know, I've had this general disdain for electronica for about as long as I can remember. I play guitar. I have calloused fingertips, and I've spent years just eeking along, trying to get better. I always felt that making new songs out of parts of other songs isn't musicianship.

I've got software called Garage Band, and it allows me to make that sort of music. I thought I'd give it a stab, just to see if I'd learn anything, maybe change my opinion.

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Tighty Whitey is a name that MOBB suggested at the start of this. Works for me. I called it the Silk Stocking Row project because it started one night just before graduation when I stayed in a B&B by that name.

There I fiddled with the software, trying to find interesting bits to put in a song. Most of that work was wasted, though learning the software a bit was valuable. I did end up making some cool drum samples, one of which, a piece from Black Sabbath's "The Wizard," did end up in the song.

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And the song is based around an a cappella Library of Congress recording. It's called "Another Man Done Gone," and it was recorded in 1940 (if I recall correctly) by a woman named Vera Hall.

She had a lovely voice, but her tempo and pitch changed, which proved to be a challenge.

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I wanted a funky thing, and I was pleased when I found a drum loop in Garage Band that was almost exactly what I had in mind. It's sort of a funky, modified march. I had to adjust it to about 95bpm, which is a bit slow for an actual dance song, but it's a good groove nevertheless.

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But Friday night when I found the bass loop, THAT'S when it started to sound like a song. It happened to be the right progression in the right key--I got lucky.

After that I started cutting it up, making a little bridge, trying to stretch this short vocal piece into something interesting. I dropped in some samples of James Brown saying "Funky" (from the intro to the song "Make It Funky"). In the bridge I put this wow-wow sounding techno bass loop that I now wish I'd mixed a little louder. The two screams (in left channel and right) are dUg Pinnick from King's X, singing the intro to "Over My Head" at Woodstock '94.

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The synth pastiche was another sample from the software, and I had some fun with that. At the end I did a lot of manual cutting to get some hard pans from left to right. I think it sounds really good, and it's quite seamless. I also dropped in an organ sample from the software.

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The guitar stuff was the most difficult part. I originally imagined a loud, aggressive, really processed Les Paul thing. It was all coming out way too bluesy though. Didn't Miles Davis once instruct one of his guitarists to play like he didn't know how to play? I kept trying to break out of my rut and do that, but to no avail. It wasn't happening.

I dragged the Stratocaster out and tuned it down a whole step. The song is in D minor, a key I've never liked playing in position-wise. By tuning down a whole step I could do my thing much more comfortably.

I set my little Fender Cyber Deluxe amp on a sweeping wah wah/tube amp sound I made, put the Strat in neck position and started messing with some tones. Oh, and I coaxed my old Ibanez Tube Screamer to work for a little while. Voila, I had some good sounds at my fingertips! I recorded a few takes. On the one I kept, I discovered that with the wah pedal in full "treble" position I got some sweet, dissonant microphonic feedback. I left that in. I bashed a rather ugly D minor at the 7th fret, then started milking sounds out of 2 or 3 notes, spanking one twangy low D in the middle of it. It's not perfect, but it's the best take, and I decided not to murder myself over it.

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I'm a bit disappointed that I couldn't find any decent brass stuff to put in. There's some solo horn stuff in Garage Band, but I was hoping to get a chance to really punch it up with that sound. I might poke around some more and see if there are options I overlooked.

Generally I'm pleased with it. There's an artistry in doing this, sure. I probably spent a total of about 40 hours working on this one song. Of course, that included giving myself the crash course in running the software. I still say that it's not nearly as difficult as playing a real, honest-to-God instrument. In one evening of pushing buttons I could make something musical sounding with Garage Band, with no real application of theory or time signatures. You can't fake it that quickly with an instrument.

Still, it wasn't easy, and it did give me some new respect for that method of creating music. And I'm glad it's being done, even if it doesn't speak to me. It's like hip hop; it doesn't do much for me, but I'm glad someone's out there pushing that particular boundary.

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So it's available to download on my Myspace page. If you don't have access or capability and want it, uh, I guess I could email you the sound file or something.

Maybe I'll do more. Who knows?