My 14-year-old’s song for Max Konyi’s “The Sound of Heaven” Challenge. She chose the title and created the entire song after I ran around the house trying to put something together. I had voted for the darn challenge, but she didn’t want to participate. I asked her for help with my own because I was about to REALLY embarrass myself (see audio below). She ended up creating this instead. Thank GOD!!!
Below is my horrible attempt at singing and mixing part of Sleep Token’s “Levitate.” LMAO. This version is incomplete. It’s missing a lot of things and is a mess. I’ll share another version later, after it’s closer to being finished. The challenge was to create a song less than 90 seconds that sounded like going through a tunnel to Heaven. The sounds were supposed to be familiar but strange and displaced.
Perfectly Human 
5 responses to “This week’s musical adventures”
Both sound great. Different styles.
Is your daughter using prefab loops to enhance her songwriting? That’s not a criticism (I’ve done it myself for an album I made in the early 00s, slice, tweaking and dicing until they were unrecognizable as such), I’m mostly curious. That may have helped her with the speed at which she produced it. Or, she’s just that quick (I used to be quicker at such things when I first got into digital recording). Anyway, I like her take on the challenge.
Yours is a more minimalist approach, which you explain is because it is draft — but I don’t know that I’d do anything too much more overt with it. I can see some sub-bass helping and light textures added. Think some of Fever Ray’s music (like “If I Had a Heart”). They do a great job of playing to minimalist soundscapes. I think a few production tweaks, making some adjustment with what sounds like a flange/delay/chorus/echo chain and adding some low profile elements could make an interesting piece.
Great job, both of you.
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A link to the Fever Ray song I mention: https://youtu.be/EBAzlNJonO8?si=PHws8k4dLrsecjef
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Yes, my daughter uses a DAW with a lot of prerecorded stuff. She uses it to create her music. The local school district introduced her to the DAW when she was in 6th grade. She’s now in 8th grade but learning chords and their progression. I don’t know ENOUGH to actually teach her, so I have to learn along the way too.
My recording on the other hand, I learned how to sing as best as I could without back up. I was working on supporting my own voice. That’s why I’m working with my low and mid registers first. My thought is, If I can create my own base tracks with low notes, I can go up in register comfortably, without help. I won’t do that with this one, I am making it so each section of the verses I cut up and smashed together pan to the ear the verse goes to. If that makes sense. Then the chorus is both ears. I still have more to add up to the chorus.
Thanks for the feedback!
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Cool! Hope she learns what she needs to make it happen. She’ll have a ton of fun, I expect, once she sees the relationships and can make new sounds on her own.
You have the bigger challenge (live recordings), which is why it takes you longer, but you have far more control over the finished product (which can be as much a pain as a blessing, believe me). Looking forward to what comes out of it.
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Thanks Michael.
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