Writing a song in 15 minutes (with SARAH LONGFIELD)

Recorded at Thomann’s Gearhead University #tgu18

Sarah Longfield is a badass, check out her youtubes.

(this is just the tune without this video attached if you just want to listen to it.)

I did a thing with her where we played the lick over and over again while we were in Germany. It is stupid, but click it anyway so the search algorithm puts her videos in the sidebar, and thats a good thing because she is cool.

Compose Something New a Day PLAYLIST (from January 2011)

☀︎ THE 15 MINUTE TUNE ☀︎

Sarah Longfield - Guitar
Me - Bass

Other Jabronis I got to play over the tune

Zac Zinger - Shakhuachi
Luke Markham - Drum synth
Andrew Miramonti - Slide Guitar
C-Bass (Sebastian Chiriboga) - Djembe
Chien Chien (魯千千) - Vibraphone
Josh Plotner - Alto Flute, Bari Sax

OTHER BADASSES WHO PLAYED ON THE TUNE

Zac Zinger - Shakuhachi (the cool japanese flute thing in Times Square)
Luke Markham - Drum synth
Andrew Miramonti - Slide Guitar
C-Bass (Sebastian Chiriboga) - Djembe
Chien Chien (魯千千) - Vibraphone
Josh Plotner - Alto Flute, Bari Sax
Brian Plautz - Flute

(⌐■_■)

⦿ Adam Neely T-shirts! (what I’m wearing in the vid) ⦿

⦿ SUPPORT ME ON PATREON ⦿

⦿ FOLLOW ME ON THE INTERNETS ⦿

⦿ Check out some of my music ⦿

Peace,
Adam

[AdamNeely]

Tons of questions on recording the Shakhuachi! Zac has a really super directional headpiece talkback mic, and it provides incredibly clean audio for recording shakhuachi. You can hear how it works with the human voice in the outro gag - just compare how the audio on that sounds to the audio on the camera. I recorded that into a Zoom H6. So actually, no post-processing on the Shak was necessary! iZotope is wonderful, but not even needed in this case. I did do some pretty hardcore hi-pass filtering to the sound, however.

The hardest one to record was actually the guitar, I miced his amp with an SM7-B, which is crazy directional, but you can still hear a fair amount of background noise (the drums in the background on that break at 8:13).

[emmanieuwenhuis]

3:55 "Drums are too loud. Well, shut up" is one of my favorite quotes.

[CheeseLord]

a one, a two, a you-know-what-to-do HUH!

[DoJazz]

Or "how to write a a song in 15 minutes, in a 10 minute video".

[LeviClay]

"The hardest part of composition is the application of ass to seat" - Scott Henderson

[peterbrooke]

I actually love the ending song, it was amazing, especialy the flute 👌

[ToasterPizzaFun]

I've never been this early. Might as well use this opportunity to present a question for your next Q&A:

How smooth is your songwriting or composition workflow? I'm a VERY amateur musician and I find myself starting on a bunch of melodic ideas, then scrapping some of them because I don't think they work very well. I also try and associate musical ideas with some sort of real world imagery, like an overcast sky, or a computer lab, etc, and try to make the music speak of these settings. I'm trying to develop this way of writing and I'm interested in your thoughts on writing music in general and any obstructions or mental blocks you may have encountered.

Thanks for making awesome content!

[zbitykieliszek]

Two things
1) you look good with hair
2) why dont you upload that livestream back? I know you think the music's bad but I enjoyed watching it and maybe even learned from it a bit

[mattdoesstuff]

"Infinity War is the biggest crossover ever."

Me, an intellectual:

[lysergicserpent]

I love it. The mix sounds great, esp considering the sound sources. I'm particularly impressed with the clarity and fidelity of the lead flute track recorded in Time Square of all places! Incidentally, how did you work around the background noise in your field recordings? I'm guessing you did your best with a bit of editing and EQ, then hoped the rest would be buried in the mix, but I was wondering if you might have some insight into working with messy samples/recordings, or some special techniques for dealing the sort of challenges they provide. I'm also curious what make/model of handheld recorder you used for these purposes, and if you had any thoughts on what to look for when pricing/purchasing one and getting the most bang per buck. TIA

[djguydan]

The drums are TOO loud...oh wait I love percussion, the drums AREN'T loud enough.

[davidfuller]

Can we get an Adam Neely+Sarah Longfield album? That would be so sick

[brucekentallen]

I remember some odd 15 years ago dream theater (always them) wrote some very vague descriptions of their songs structures on a sheet of paper in studio so they'd remember and organize stuff when writing together. Then they took pictures of these papers and released to us and made a challenge regarding what other fans-musicians would think it sounded like, before DT released the track. It was a blast, some pretty good songs came out of it.

[yitzharos]

Genius. I love the Timbre of everything. I just love this.

[omahasamman]

so when are all of the youtube musician going to get together and make a "we are the world" album?

[AllForgottenMemories]

The shakuhachi really transports the song to a different dimension. Love it :)

[evil-is-hot]

How does that wooden flute recording sound so clean in the middle of Times Square? I can't even record in my own room because of the sound of the cars outside.

[michaellarsen]

I like all this info on top of the challenge. People that think about themself that they suck at writing songs needs to understand that nothing comes easy, and the saying about writing 100 songs - that's absolutely something people should do more. Just don't care if it's weird and not perfect or not even good. "There will come some amazing things out of it!" Great track btw. :)

[AntilopeDisecado]

Man, your last bunch of videos are really increasing the bar! Awesome video and really interesting insights!

[yattasuccess]

I honestly think that the best part of these Song Making challenges is that, i get to watch it, and as a learning Musician and Producer, these videos have been very significant in my practical learning, i don't have these instruments and many of the production tools you guys have, but i get to watch how you guys handle it, and then further learn from observation and then research.

I think it's a very valuable challenge we have here and not just for the musicians themselves, but for the viewers too!