February Songs

 
 

February

My One Day One Song project “February” is available on various outlets:
See Bandcamp for purchase of individual songs or the whole catalogue..
Listen to my song-blogposts on my homepage
Subscribe to my “February” YouTube playlist.

It all started when…

…one of my favorite artists released a new album after many many years of personal hiatus. Denison Witmer’s American Foursquare is an absolute masterpiece of contemporary folk. I can listen to it for hours and hours. On his Bandcamp page, Denison had published an exercise in songwriting, writing and releasing one song a day during the month of January 2020. Folky tunes in his own personal style, musings, free associations, a gem of songwriting craft. He quite didn’t make it to 31 songs but still a great achievement.

Inspiration struck.

“February Songs” is my own personal exercise to bring back my own long lost songwriter skills. During my late teens and early twenties, I wrote songs almost daily. All styles, some band-recorded live in rehearsal basements or professional studio settings, some home-recorded on my old trusted Fostex A8 reel 8-track.

In late 2020 I upgraded my home-recording capabilities, bought an adequate microphone, a good keyboard with weighted keys, and invested in a Logic Pro X license. From February 1st to 28th (thankfully there is no 29th this year), I created one song a day. I started out with a blank piece of paper on my piano or behind my guitar. The songs appeared, were fleshed out, lyrics written, structured. I got some inspirations for arrangement, recorded the song, mixed, mastered, and uploaded it to my bandcamp page.

New day, repeat.

In these strange times, a Corona-lockdown going on where I live right now, many civil rights suspended by politicians as clueless as ourselves, stuck in a seemingly endless loop, “February Songs” was my distraction, my own pure escapism into creativity. My own personal loop.