I was scheduled to do a performance on a Sunday night in May 2012, and called my regular gig partner to see if he could do the date. Oops, should have checked with him first before saying "yes"! After making calls to others I've worked with, it began to look like I was going to have to do this one solo, which means using pre-recorded tracks, of my own making, for accompaniment.
And what tunes? I have started many songs, but have not finished most of them. I have a vast collection of riffs, choruses, entire song arcs with intros, verses, choruses, bridges, solo sections and outros, lots of grooves, good ideas, not so good ideas, and on and on.
I also have backing tracks that I've made from various popular songs I've found useful to do at these kinds of gigs -- "Why Can't We Live Together?", "Fragile", "What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding", etc. But I don't really like singing to canned tracks, both as a performer and as someone who has to listen to that. It's hard to duplicate the original tracks, karaoke style, especially with certain genres. A rocker like WSFAPLandU mentioned above sounds limp and lifeless and sad when done without guitar, even with the best MIDI gear, samples, and production capabilities.
Necessity being the mother of invention, I was forced to look at what I had that might be fit to the purpose. I have a lot of those unfinished grooves of mine on my iPod in their own playlist, so I can (and do) take them with me and work on them in the car, while working around the house, hitting balls, etc. (For another post, another time: how to capture and sweep forward your songs in progress, what to do with them while in gestation, using modern technology or not-modern technology or not technology while birthing them, etc., etc., etc.)
I grabbed one of my snippets in progress and began working up an idea for the lyrics. Once I had a title to the song I had the chorus and then I worked back from that to have verses, a solo, an intro and an outro, and then polished the heck out of it as quickly as I could in time for the gig.
, then performed it live with just the lead vocals out of the mix so I could sing it on top of the tracks. I'm happy with the way it came out! Maybe needs a little solo in the middle to finish it off, but it's close to done -- (yaaaay, from someone who does not always finish things he starts).
https://www.reverbnation.com/christopherfrenchfries/song/16297195-garden-of-love
