Hole in the Wall

Hello everyone, and happy new year! Last night I uploaded a song I wrote, “Hole in the Wall,” and recorded to YouTube so I thought it might be cool to talk about that process and also spread the word about it!

I’ve written songs (lyrics and piano) for a really long time, though I had never really shown them to anybody before. I had kicked the idea for this song around for a while towards the end of 11th grade, but the pieces didn’t come together until this past summer.

I used to go to this theatre camp called Stagedoor Manor over the summer, and last year I decided to take a class about popular songwriting. In this class, I finally finished the song and was satisfied with it, and anyone who got the OK from the two teachers could perform theirs at a student showcase. I was one out of probably two or three people in the class who could actually play an instrument with their song, and knew how to write music as well, so that put me at an advantage for the showcase, since I didn’t have to somehow dictate to one of the teachers what I wanted it to sound like.

I performed a shortened version of it at the showcase and was really nervous because no one had heard it before really, but I was pleased with the positive response I got from friends, directors, and random people. One of my teachers who works in music in London told me that I should record it when I get the chance, and I promised him I would. Well, I didn’t get around to it until this winter break, and here it is! I had my brother help me out and play the drums, and we recorded it over two days.

Specifically, this song was inspired by a particularly awkward and somewhat embarrasing story from my junior year of high school that I won’t elaborate on, but generally, it’s about that confusion that happens when you really like someone and you can’t tell what the heck they’re thinking. Some people would say the rule is that if they were interested, they would have done something about it. I think there are two possibilities: they could either care less, or they could just be horrible communicators. I like making my songs specific enough to me, but also something that people can relate to.

Recording the song was a huge hassle. I got a condenser microphone for Christmas to record with, but unfortunately I needed a power adapter with Phantom Power to make it actually work. So that postponed recording the vocals for a while. My brother and I also tried making a scratch track at first (where you record all the parts, just to have a reference) but that really messed with me when I was recording the piano part thanks to random jumps in the amp we were using. So we just decided to plug the electronic drumset and the piano in at once, and it made everything a whole lot easier. Then for the vocals, I recorded them in bits and pieces so that I could take the ones I liked, and re use them. Later, I had to do some equalizing to the tracks to make sure that they didn’t overpower one another. All of this took place somewhere between 12 AM to 2 AM. Recording is hard!

In any case, I hope you like the song, and share it with others if you do! There’s more to come, I’ll be recording other songs later!
Happy Tuesday!