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Westy

About Westy

https://www.craigwestwood.co.uk

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First recording session

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Finally got in touch with Andrew last Tuesday, who texted me to say that he and Matthew were starting to record the tracks the next day… “Hang on a minute…” I thought, “…where do I fit into all this?” Turns out they were planning to do the session without me. Anyway, I promptly texted back to voice my desire to be included in the process, after all, these are my songs, and I want to be involved in the sessions. So it was then re-scheduled for Friday morning. I have to say that I’m used to having complete creative control, and “letting go” is very difficult.

Once I arrived on the Friday morning, it was revealed that some of their ‘artists’ don’t actually get involved in the recording side of things at all, they just turn up and sing, and let Matthew and Andrew sort out the rest. Now I’m not that kind of person at all: I’m a very ‘hands-on’ guy, and especially since to date I have recorded all my own instrumentation. Still, I have asked for them to tell me when they are next scheduling in sessions, and to invite me along.

So – We started with the track I had sent across to Matthew: Watching the Rain. He has put all of the audio tracks I’ve exported into Cubase, and roughly mixed them. Then he had Andrew, with his steel strung acoustic, playing layered guitar over my backing track.

First impressions: I must say, Andrew’s style of playing is more than a little different to mine. I just got the impression that he felt restricted with me being there, listening to him playing along to my DI (direct input) guitar. It sounded a little awkward with Andrew trying to emulate my style of finger-picking. At one point Matthew asked me to record my guitar part again over the top of Andrew’s parts using his steel guitar, but he faded this low into the mix, so I’m not sure if he really wanted to use this, but perhaps it was an attempt to include me in on the session. I really felt that they just wanted to record all of the session themselves, and I was in the way.

Anyway, with several layers guitar parts recorded, strummed, some flourishes added, a few other textured guitar playing, mostly double-tracked, and with time running out (I think they’d only scheduled in and hour and a half, and this was running to two hours), Andrew started to play cajon over the guitar, quite a vigorous pattern of playing that, to me, didn’t suit the ‘feel’ of the piece. All the time in the session I found myself saying “Keep this gentle… Keep this simple…” as it’s a gentle song. Again I feel they have other ideas for this. 

Anyway, to save us clashing here, I have concluded that I will let them run with this one. How else am I going to find out what they’re capable of? At the end of the day though, I’m here to learn the processes, and to pick up the recording and mixing side of things for myself. The recordings then are a bonus. I guess if I want to record my music in my own way, then I can still do this at home.

Further to this session, Andrew has asked me if I want to work on my live performance. My task for this week is to come up with some covers that I might want to play at an ‘open mic’ night… I told them that my last stage performance (some 30 years ago) was pretty disastrous, and this put me off performance. I said I wanted to work on building some confidence first.

Neither Matthew nor Andrew are very much about prompting students to book sessions, I’m starting to learn that it’s very much you having to chase them, rather than the other way around… 

Addendum to this entry is that I’ve contacted Andrew and now booked a couple of lessons, to work on stage performance coaching, and I have an open mic to visit and watch next Monday evening… I guess it pays to not be afraid to chase people up!

More Songs

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Well, it’s been a couple of weeks since my first singing lesson, and I’ve had to rest the throat a bit, swallow more than a bottle of Manuka Honey (a spoonful at a time, in intervals) and generally wait until the voice has returned and the coughing and soreness has stopped. Meanwhile I’ve been editing some of the tracks down and have successfully got most of them down to around 4 minutes, except Daytime, which even with severe chopping is still 4:35. I’m not sure I even like it as short as this, but it may grow on me…. We’ll see.

Matthew contacted me just over a week ago (28th April) to ask me to send over my first song. We’d agreed on Watching the Rain last time we met.  I have exported my audio tracks from Logic Pro (they use Cubase over at 360AD) and supplied the MIDI tracks as well if they want to use them. Matthew also asked me for a lyric and chord sheet (although I had to admit the chords were in my head, so I had to go away and write them down….!).

Dropbox came in very handy here for file transportation… It is definitely the best way to send large files like this, and has proven invaluable already. Anyway, all is now quiet. I have no idea what they are doing with the track now… Guess I will have to prompt for feedback soon…

The creativity never stops though… I’ve just written and recorded two new songs at home: ‘Lost and Found‘, a bit of a war story, and a catchy tune called ‘Only the Good Ones Go First‘, which is a quirky but slightly upbeat song (!) inspired by all the recent celebrity deaths, as well as the passing of a friend, rather in the vein of Loudon Wainwright III or Billy Joel’s ‘Only the Good Die Young‘. The latter song I may submit up to Matthew as an alternative to Daytime, but we’ll see what he does with Watching the Rain in the meantime…

First Lesson

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Had my first singing lesson today… Didn’t get off to a good start, as basically I have the beginnings of a cold and a bit of a sore throat. So – bad decision even to turn up and try singing!

Anyway, after a talk on how to look after the voice, Matthew got me learning to do some warm-up exercises. he was also testing my music knowledge along the way I think. I realise I have a lot to learn about music theory, but that’s why I’m here!

To finish up with, we went through Matthew and Andrew’s top 5 of my songs. Of the 13 I gave them, they like:

  • The Nonsense Song
  • Get Out of This
  • Watching the Rain
  • Golden Mean
  • Daytime

Quite a surprise to me, as there was only one present of the initial five I submitted. Along with that, they want me to cut Daytime down to 3-4 minutes, as it is currently 6m 13s, and much too long to be commercial. As it’s a story (and a very deliberately heavy and laboured one, a murder story), I can’t see how I can succeed with such a drastic cut. I asked if they had picked a ‘reserve’, as I’m not sure I want to cut it down by that much.

However, reading between the lines here, I have come away from this session already feeling that a great many of my songs are too long. Many are approaching 5 minutes or even over this, and many have long intros. To make them more suitable commercially I’m going to have to edit them down.

Signing Up

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Went over to Matthew’s place at 360 today. Basically I’ve signed up for a year of artistic development, beginning with some singing coaching, which starts next week. He said that they are excited to be working with me, and that they were very impressed with the demos I’d played them so far.

I handed over a full 13 of my home-spun tracks on a data stick to Matthew, and they will hopefully get chance to listen to them over the next week and let me know which they think are the strongest candidates to develop into the “top five” as part of the programme.

I also told Matthew (to some surprise I think) I’d got another 12 or so tracks waiting in the wings to develop at home. For the moment, the ones I gave him are the strongest, to my mind, so far. But there are more waiting…

Why Westy?

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Ended up having a bit of a Dave Gorman moment here…. This first happened around 10-11 years ago when I went searching for the domain craigwestwood.com, for my freelance design business, only to find it had already gone…. It already belongs to a guitarist in Australia (and a good one, too…!), so I just had to settle for .co.uk in the end.

So – how then do you set up as Craig Westwood Music UK? Well, if you want to avoid any confusion, not a chance. So I decided to revert to my nickname, hence ‘Westy’. WestyMusic then, is the beginnings of a publishing name, or a brand, if you like.

I also discovered in the middle of this process that there is a bass player in the Midlands called Craig Westwood (another fine musician…!) … I thought at one point it might be a good idea to start a band… 

How the self-doubts creep in…

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When you reach the age I am, it’s not without plenty of soul-searching and tons of self-doubt do you get to a point when you ask yourself: “Well, just who have I been writing this music for?” Is it all just self indulgence, is it just going to be a hobby, or should it be something more than this?

You know, some people paint, some draw, some people fix up their house, some people do gardening, some people play computer games, some tinker with their cars, and all of this is fine, whatever is your thing; it was just my boyhood choice that I wanted to write songs and record my own music, and ultimately it becomes a medium that is either shared, or shelved.

I’ve been fortunate enough along the way to have people close to me who’ve been encouraging and supportive with that, and they’re the ones who have been saying: “This is good…you should do something with this stuff.”

I’ve now got to a point where I have produced some near-professional level music (I believe), and I’ve sent it out to studios who’ve listened to it, but then promptly rejected it. I’m talking about the instrumental stuff here so far, not the songs. From those polite enough to have given me feedback, they’ve said that my stuff is ok, but the production values are ‘naive.’ It is a shame that in this climate of digital home studio recording, there aren’t record companies anymore that are prepared to invest in growing and nurturing new talent (putting age aside here), that they have to be at the right level already, and that is sad, and very off-putting.

So – just how do you take it to the next level?

It was at this point that I realised I needed some help getting to this next stage, and, despite all of the will in the world, learning to produce your own music in isolation can only get you so far. Learning to produce music to a professional level is going to mean learning from professionals.

Joining the Musician’s Union was a good starting point for me. Once I’d got over the personal stigma, you know, that little voice inside that says: “well, you’re not actually musically trained – so how can you even call yourself a musician?” I signed up. That was a year ago. Originally I signed up from the perspective that I wanted some kind of legal protection should the tracks that I was sending out to production music companies be pinched. But it is much more than that: it is a great initial source of contacts within the music industry, and a way of finding other musicians too, if that’s what you need, as well as being a source of knowledge of some of the red-tape and legalistic elements of the music industry, that any newbie should be aware of.

Anyway, it was from the MU website that I found 360 Artist Development. They seem to be quite a unique organisation, there aren’t many other companies like this, and, relatively speaking, they’re right on my doorstep. I did look at some others, but 360 really does seem like a suitable match for me right now.

Visit to 360

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Following a telephone conversation and several emails setting this up at the beginning of last week, I had a great meeting today with the guys from 360 Artist Development, based in Leeds. Matthew and Andrew seem great guys, easy to talk to, and had a lot to offer in terms of developing my songs as a ‘product’, as well as developing me as a recording artist.

Today we’ve discussed their one-year programme, which they’re offering to tailor to my needs; plus what they can do for my songs, and what my commitments will need to be in terms of my time, effort, and of course, money! I’m encouraged about many aspects of this: that they are offering to help me develop as an artist; that they can help me develop my own recording skills and setup; and that they can help me improve my mixing technique.

In the hour that we had, they had time to listen to a couple of full songs from the demo that I sent them, namely Chasing It Down and Watching The Rain, and they’ve made some encouraging suggestions as to what can be done in terms of recording the instrumentation and the production on these. I have some T&C’s to read, accept and sign, and then it all begins! Guess I’d better tell Claire, my wife, first…

Here We Go!

Well, it’s my first entry on this new website.

I’m going to try and document the whole process, as I think it’s a way of showing others what I’ve done to try and get my music played to a wider audience. I hope in starting this it might inspire others to give it a try too. You’re never too old if you have the enthusiasm!

I’ve been a guitarist and songwriter, and composer/music-maker for about 30 years. To date, it always remained my hobby, and something I never ever really took seriously enough. Often I’d play a track or two to friends and they’d say: “You really should do something with these songs…” and I’d always respond by saying: “Yea, maybe, one day.”

I’m now the wrong side of 50 years old, and it really should have been something that I did sooner.

So – armed with some worldly wisdom (!) but with a complete lack of knowledge of the modern music industry, I’m setting out to try and get an album produced, and sell it to the public…

Here’s my story.