Where do the titles come from? This title popped into my head on my way back from Canada although it doesn’t refer to any particular person. I then searched my hard drive for the friendliest musical fragments I could find.
I have no idea if the girls in this picture are friendly but, they are Canadian - or, at least that’s where they were when I took this picture as they sold lemonade from inside a lemon shaped lemonade stand - and that’s a pretty friendly thing to do.
In addition to being the friendliest song I’ve done for this site, it might also be the longest, easily cracking the 4 minute mark and tempting boredom in the listener although I tried to avoid that.
One of the biggest problems I had with this project was the drums. I set this song up with a ridiculously slow BPM: 95. It sounded OK for the live tracks, but the drums - forget it. Not being a drummer I like to use loops and at 95 bpm, all my loops sounded lethargic. So I had to edit drums a lot.
This song was done entirely within Sonar 7 (Producer Edition). I was tempted to bring in Project5 or Reason but I resisted, as I do, and I don’t know why. Like it’s more pure if I stay in one tool - or I think things will get too messy. And then I spend more time doing things these other tools are good at. Maybe I’ll start each of the next few projects with all the tools up and running to get over that.
So here it is, a friendly song for a friendly new year.
Happy Listening: The Friendliest Girl in all of Canada
Jim | 05-Jan-08 at 7:07 am | Permalink
I usually listen to your tunes before I read the commentary.
After hearing this one I thought, wow Dave really puts a lot of care into the drum work. That’s a compliment… I usually let a drum loop just go on and on and…
dave | 27-Jan-08 at 8:05 pm | Permalink
Cool! I’m glad that all the drum tinkering paid off. I mean I usually spend hours messing with the drums which I wouldn’t have expected, being a guitar player and not a drummer, but maybe that’s naive. Perhaps I need to work on the drums so much precisely because I am percussively illiterate.
Dan Fritz | 24-Feb-08 at 9:21 am | Permalink
I just got done listening to this track. Immediately added it to Itunes. In a word….AWESOME.
dave | 24-Feb-08 at 5:44 pm | Permalink
Thanks. After I’m done with a piece I’ve usually listened to it to death so I don’t listen to it for a while. I remember listening to this one after a few weeks and being surprised how much I liked it.
BTW, in case you couldn’t tell, that was Brenda on the vocals.
Dan Fritz | 26-Feb-08 at 8:28 am | Permalink
Yeah…..I could tell that was Miss Brenda (but maybe that was because you had stated she was on some of your tracks). I played this track for several of my friends and they loved it. I think what I like most is how the tempo change with guitar track (45 seconds or so into the tune)doesn’t change when you think it is going to. In other words, it carries a bit longer and adds a cool dimension. Plays out well. It is just an all around catchy piece of work.
By the way… e-mail me an address that I can reach you at for non-music related stuff.