Kara-Moon Forum

I'm sorry I've been absent again lately, but I finally got around to making a recording of a song that was composed by myself and three friends in 1990.

This song is for all the children abandoned in the Romanian orphanages, and for those friends that I have now lost. It has taken me a very long time to manage to sing it, as well as make a recording that I think is somewhere near acceptable.

Somewhere in the world this kind of abandonment is still going on, so the song is also full of love for the current sufferers.


Corridors Of Shame

Take my hand and walk with me,
through the corridors of shame.
See the untold horrors,
of misery and pain.
Hungry, frightened children,
cramped five to a tiny bed.
Haunted eyes that see nothing,
of what may lay ahead.

-- Chorus

See the tiny faces,
eyes so full of pain.
All along the stark,
corridors of shame.
Tell me, oh! Please tell me,
Do I really have a name?
Or was I born to live and die,
in corridors of shame?

--

No one really wants them,
to the world, they are not there.
They don't exist, have no names,
in the corridors of shame.
There's no one there to hold them,
or hear them when they cry.
No one really has a care,
if they live or die.

-- Chorus --

For them there is no Christmas,
no way of playing games.
All they do is stare at walls,
of the corridors of shame.
So let's all sing together,
to give these kids their names, and
take them all within our hearts,
from corridors of shame.

--  Chorus --

This is the understatement of the century.

This is absolutely freaking fantastic :; :; :;

Great soundscape that fits your vox perfectly, I could feel the pain in your voice.

You have out done yourself Will   :-  AN OUTSTANDING PIECE OF MUSIC :; :; :;

Excelent song Will
Very strong text !

It's the first time I hear you sing I think ? I immediatly had an image of Lee Marvin in my head, and that's good  8)

k

Ideally, musicians (and artists in general) serve as the conscience of society. Ginger Baker adopted the cause of the natives of East Timor, subsequently joined by a crew of famous players in making an album called "20" - http://www.hamline.edu/apakabar/basisdata/1996/07/16/0049.html

This song is an example of that idea in action.

Good work, Will!

Thank you very much for such encouraging comments guys.

This is a song I should have recorded long ago. After most of Wednesday and several evenings, I spent the whole of Saturday (and the wee hours of today!) to get it complete while the ideas were flowing.

In a day or two I'll do a few bits of tidying - I know, I'm never satisfied ::)

Will,

I listened to this song last night & decided to allow it to fester in my mind a bit,before I commented.I just listened to it intently again & firstly,the lyrics are extremely touching and very well thought out.
I found your vocals to be shy & weak and I know your amply capable of stronger vocals,being that All Of My Sunsets and the song you did for KVR not too long ago,had great vocals.

As for the composition,it's very pretty & has some wonderful changes,but it's a bit chaotic & lacks quite a bit organization.I really think you should take advantage of the pattern sequencing & quantizing in your DAW(assuming you have these features).

This really sounds like just a frantic,hurried sketch with some great ideas....but I think that with some computer corrections,this song would really be a classic and playing your guitar along with a more organized sequence would really improve your axe work,I think.

This song has enormous potential & I think it deserves a sizable investment of time & effort to iron out the wrinkles.


-Thom

Thanks for your comments Thom.

I've had another listen after taking a break and can agree that there needs to be some work done. Timing is rather messy near the start and things get a bit out of sync in a couple of places later on. Also there are a few clashes between one of the synth lines and the bass.

I'm working at home today (makes a nice change) so I'll probably have time to look at this and have a tidied version up this evening.

I was a bit surprised at your comment about the vocal. I thought that tonally it fitted rather well ???

About your vocals....it's sort of down to a whisper...almost like singing under your breath...just needs to be more pronounced,is all.


-Thom

 8)
Will ...
as I said to you privately ... I did exactly the same as Thom ... I needed further listens to be able to comment on this rather special and beautiful song.
I actually agree with everything he said in his post.

I feel that the two 'very slight' problems .. which should both be easily overcome .. are vocal and guitar related.
Thom's observation on the vocal is spot on (IMHO).  A wee while ago I was accused of the same thing. It is all down to insecurity and lack of confidence.  My remedy for this is for you to forget about the fact that you are 'recording' and take deep breaths and project, as if into a large hall, towards the back of the room. Adjust your levels to compensate so that you don't blow the top off your inputs, then tame it back in the mix. Tweak the EQ's and reverbs afterwards ... but the 'personal projection' is the attitude to go for.

The guitar is another matter.
In simplistic terms ... from a 'non-strummer' ... is that you have introduced the 'wrong' strum here.

Think in terms of .. this strum is ...
dum-chick-a-dum-chick-a-dum-chick-a-

to my ear it should be more of a ...
dum-chick-dum-chick
 ::) :-X :-*
I hope this explanation can help  :-*

 ;)
James

Good advice on both counts, Longhair!

...although there are a few feminists who may have issue with your turn of phrase... ;D

Hmmm. I'll have another go at the vocal. Not easy. I have to do it in bits.

Disagree about the guitar. That's how I started and hated it :(

Ho Hum - won't be recording the vocal again for a while. Dropped the mic and it now rattles :(

However, here is a version with various clean-ups and the existing vocal put through a 4:1 compressor.

(http://planetsmilies.net/happy-smiley-575.gif) (http://planetsmilies.net)   ;D  ;D  ;D

Your backing tracks benefited from these latest efforts.

However, that compressor has tended to emphasize the mid-range overmuch, so that your vocal is sounding like it was performed through an old-school megaphone. :o
If you would care to post the original vocal track here as a FLAC file, I'd be happy to tweak it to breathtaking proportions, as it were...

Great and excellent. Fine voice.
Sing and sing again, Folderol, you have a voice. :;

Daniel

Very good work, folderol.

Well things are looking up :)

A friend took pity on me so now have access to a Shure PG58 plus a proper mic stand. Wednesdays I don't work, so I had plenty of time to try a new vocal, which went much better than I expected. I passed the plain recording on to Oren who did some EQ and Compression magic with it and sent it back toot sweet. This went straight into my Audacity project.

So here is the all new version.

 :o
This is quite an improvement, Will.

 ??? The strange thing about it is that, ... don't really know how to describe this ... I always do my recording and listening on headphones. When I listened to this new version I thought that the vocal was 'improved' but still a bit 'back, in the mix'.  I switched from 'phones to speakers and it was perfect  :o  It usually works the other way round, for me  ::)
The other strange thing, whether planned or not I'm not sure, is that ... on 'phones' the position of the guitar player can be placed exactly.  The singer is sitting at the front of stage and the picker is about five feet to his left. I can almost see it  :o
I still think you could do a more natural 'strum' however  8) (JMHO)
 ;)
James

Your vocal performance is the focal point of this production - I think your new vocal track deserves at least one extra decibel in the mix. :-*

Oren nailed it square on the head,as I agree 100% on his assessment! 8)


-Thom

Once again, thanks for your comments. Hopefully I've got it right this time and this will be the definitive version. As well as lifting the vocal, I also 'narrowed' the piano sound and positioned it more precisely.

@James
That guitar position is exactly what I wanted. I'm glad that worked :)
Incidentally, I do tend to swap about between phones and speakers quite a lot as I know they can sound very different.

Some nice renovations Will. :) Perhaps this is a bit nit-picky of me,but I think the guitar track could be raised by at least a couple of decibels.


-Thom

Premium mix! :-

Thom may be right about boosting you guitar a bit.
...my inclination, as a guitarist, is to pull the guitar back in the mix, as you have - to the avoid that "six-string overkill syndrome"... ;D

Sounds good here  8)

k

Once again thanks for your support and suggestions guys.

The version on my website has now been updated and has just a bit more on the guitar, but I really think this is time to stop now and move on to other things.