I have another shadow entry this week. My two instruments (both sampled, obviously) are viola and something that's supposed to be a Hawaiian guitar but sounds more like a piano to me.
My first idea for the lyrics was to write about a guy who had been dating a vampire and then broke up with her, leaving her so disappointed that she had sworn off human blood and had to go after goats. However, the first two people who posted lyrics had similar ideas (minus the vampire), so I decided to change to something else, eventually settling on lyrics about a guy who believes, without evidence, that there is a chupacabra menacing his farm.
I ended up liking this one more than I thought I would during most of the time I was working on it. This challenge was interesting and made me do something outside my normal compositional process.
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 5:40 pm
by MicahSommer
My song is in Spanish. In the lyrics thread I have included an English translation along with the lyrics. My hope is that each judge, as much as they consider lyrics, will consider both the meaning as indicated by the translation (if they don't speak Spanish), and the sound/form/structure (rhyme scheme, alliteration, etc) of the original lyrics. I say all this in the full knowledge that I have absolutely no control over anything the judges do.
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 5:45 pm
by crumpart
In with another shadow.
I started out wanting to do something about pronunciation, which led me to Irish names, and then I got thinking about Irish language repression and Oliver Cromwell, who is like the Chupacabra of Ireland, except the goats were people (and all of the wolves). So I made a song about how upsetting Oliver Cromwell is as a human being, and how he was eventually killed by a blood sucking malaria mosquito that bit him in Ireland.
It doesn't look like I've actually used the word CHUPACABRA at all in the song, but I promise it's there three times if you look sideways and squint a bit.
My two instruments came in at a grand total of €29. One plastic soprano recorder and one cheap chromatic harmonica. As they're both instruments not highly suited to the playing of chords, I multi-tracked both, and pitch shifted one of the harmonica tracks by an octave.
Can I give my superfluous instrument to glennnny? Or should I just keep my instrument to myself like the Judge said?
I feel that this piece of smutty innuendo didn't get the attention it deserved. This is kind of content I come here for. That and the hygiene advice. You'll be glad to know I found the soap. It was under the pubes all along.
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 7:09 pm
by cathodeGirls
hi everyone, dee from glow worm here! i wish my first post here could come with some happier news, but unfortunately due to some unforeseen personal circumstances we were not able to complete a song this week. we only really were able to start working on something today, but nothing we were coming up with sounded good enough to submit and we decided we would rather make use of our immunity than submit some half-assed, unfinished idea for a song. we're really grateful that we had immunity this week, thank you all for your positive feedback and support! we'll be back next week with (we hope) a BIG banger.
-dee
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 8:36 pm
by mo
All the puns are always intended
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 8:50 pm
by Cybronica
Mandibles are in! Our two instruments are hammered dulcimer and guitar. I was going to distort some vocals this week, but they song didn't want it, so we went without it. Our song is inspired by Magic! the Gathering, specifically the ravenous Chupacabra card, which is basically an instakill. I'm really hoping that one of the judges is at least a little familiar with MTG, otherwise, Estaphonia did a lot of research for it all to go over our heads... She assures me the story is all cannon!
Our instruments are hammered dulcimer and acoustic guitar.
I started out wanting to do something about pronunciation, which led me to Irish names, and then I got thinking about Irish language repression and Oliver Cromwell...
Interesting that you also have an Irish inspiration! We decided to go for a celtic style in our music this week, mainly due to the dulcimer.
Our song is inspired by Magic! the Gathering, specifically the ravenous Chupacabra card...
I thought seriously about writing about that exact card! I'm glad I left that spotlight to you alone.
Great minds!
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 9:12 pm
by Lucky Spoon
I used upright bass and guitar. I haven't put a pick up on my new upright so I had some fun researching out to mic them and got some decent results. Sometimes you might hear a click and that's my ring slamming into the neck of the bass and the mic picking that up. Adds character. I'd venture to say the ring would not be considered a 3rd instrument.
The song itself is a fun little goofy tale. It has deeper context that might give spoilers to a TV show/Movie. Leaving under a spoiler tag in case you want to guess on your own or you like to avoid spoilers. What it's based on - potential spoiler
It's someone who watched the Mandalorian season 1 on Disney+, but didn't really understand it, doesn't do a good job explaining it.
He thinks baby yoda is a chupacabra -- I mean, he could be, right? -- and pretty much embellishes the rest. Individual references spoilers
Plays the Mandolin - Mandolin-ian? cause he plays the Mandolin I think, right? fun fact: Originally the main character was a minstrel as I thought that a good way to describe someone who plays music and also goes on adventures e.g. the minstrels following brave sir robin in monty python and the holy grail. It was brought to my attention that 'minstrel' also carries heavy racist connotations (the minstrel show) with it so I wrote around that name. I liked it better than straight up saying mandolin, but y'know.
Tin man fights a horse - Mandalorian fights the Mudhorn
Powers from a universal source - Could it be the force? of course!
McGruff - Kuiil
breakin’ out of jail - prison ship episode
helping the country folk work out some issues with the neighbors - When he helps the villagers kill off the band of Klatoonian raiders
burning hot with gout - lava
decepticons - storm troopers
Tiny Timmy Tinkertoys - IG-11
omited from lyrics (other friends along the way):
Lady Lorian - Cara Dune (because the main character is Mando Lorian so this is Lady Lorian)
Billy Burr - Mayfeld
Credit to my brother for the idea.
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 9:26 pm
by grumpymike
My song is about a chupacabra. While I had the idea all week, it barely came together due to various difficulties, so it's a tad rushed. I ended up scrapping the project multiple times and doing something thinner at the end.
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 9:40 pm
by owl
I wrote and recorded a shadow today--I can tell you right now the production sucks, I ran out of time, d'oh! Maybe I should have started before 3 PM the day the songs were due. 1 track electric guitar, 1 track bass, 2 vocal tracks.
Apparently the appearance of the chupacabra was heavily based on the monster from the movie Species, which the first eyewitness had seen shortly before the original sighting. So I thought about what anxieties and fears the chupacabra legend reflects, and then ended up basically writing about Species, which in the end is a movie about a gal who just really wants a baby, and her struggles along the way before finding Mr. Right. Oh and btw you should check out the pictures of the sweet HR Giger train from the movie!
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Sun May 24, 2020 10:37 pm
by glennny
The Cavedwellers take you back to that 1993 coffee shop sound. It’s like you’re back in Claremont and Ben Harper just played last night at Nicks Cafe.
We went old school and played two acoustic guitars.
Mandibles are in! Our two instruments are hammered dulcimer and guitar. I was going to distort some vocals this week, but they song didn't want it, so we went without it. Our song is inspired by Magic! the Gathering, specifically the ravenous Chupacabra card, which is basically an instakill. I'm really hoping that one of the judges is at least a little familiar with MTG, otherwise, Estaphonia did a lot of research for it all to go over our heads... She assures me the story is all cannon!
Our instruments are hammered dulcimer and acoustic guitar.
I started out wanting to do something about pronunciation, which led me to Irish names, and then I got thinking about Irish language repression and Oliver Cromwell...
Interesting that you also have an Irish inspiration! We decided to go for a celtic style in our music this week, mainly due to the dulcimer.
Cool! I’m not Irish, but I have lived here for three years. My ancestry is mostly Irish, with dad’s side hailing from Clare. They survived here through Cromwell and through the famine, then upped sticks when the Australian gold rush took off. When we can finally go places again, we plan to go for a drive to the town they came from. My English ancestors also did not like Cromwell to the point that they hid Charles II in an oak tree to protect him from the Roundheads, and that is why there are ten million pubs called the Royal Oak now.
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Mon May 25, 2020 12:30 am
by Adam!
Liner notes. Come watch me make questionable decisions:
And here's my extremely questionable cover art for this round:
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Mon May 25, 2020 3:29 am
by sailingmagpie
I feel like I should stop being lazy and actually write some liner notes this week. I thought my songs for rounds 0 and 1 were a bit sub par. They're the sort of stuff I would've posted on FAWM six or seven years ago, so I wanted to up my game a bit.
Firstly, let me say, I really enjoyed this week's challenge. I found the limitation of two instruments to actually be quite liberating. I played around for a bit and finally settled on drums and bass (through a fuzz pedal). I don't have a drum kit and, even if I did, I'm rubbish at drums. Therefore, I programmed a beat that a proper human drummer could actually play, were they so inclined.
It took me quite a while to find the lyrical idea for the song. I thought about writing spooky lyrics about stalking through the moonlight etc but I started thinking that, just because we see something as a monster, that's not how it would see itself. As far as Mr Chupacabra is concerned, he's just getting on with life and absolutely no good whatsoever would come from human contact.
Liner notes. Come watch me make questionable decisions:
I'm addicted to watching your videos now. I hope you're happy.
Re: Nur Ein XV Round Two "Chupacabra"
Posted: Mon May 25, 2020 5:25 am
by furrypedro
It's time for...
Balance Lost liner notes
The song contains two identical copies of the same synth+patch (the second one can be heard adding some twinkly bits in the chorus) and the drum machine. I could probably have programmed the synths to be played all on one module, but since the judges have said we can make multiple tracks with one instrument I decided to split them for panning purposes. As well as my singing there is also the goat sample which I believe comes under the "vocals" umbrella.
My mind was blown during the writing of this song when I finally realised that Chupa Chups are so called because "chuper" is Spanish for suck, and of course the founder, Enric Bernat, was from Barcelona #lollyfacts (don't ask me what "suck" is in Catalunian).
