songs Archives - CRAIG WESTWOOD

Released…!

Craig — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 16:39:00 +0000

So… finally, they’re out there!

At least three songs released so far:

Only the Good Ones Go First, made sense to me to release it first, despite my initial reservations. Although the root of the song is about loss, it’s bouncy and it’s positive, and it sends a message that – more than anything – the people close to you are the most important. Click the image to view.

Watching the Rain, is a moodier song. It’s about many things: about living in your head; about the struggle to communicate outside of that; about losing someone because of the breakdown of communication and being able to explain your actions. Select the image if you haven’t seen it yet.

On the Rise, is getting more positive. It’s typical me I suppose, always there’s an aside questioning the good stuff, always; but it’s also projecting the positive above the negative. On the Rise is literally about manifesting a good future in your mind, and if there only was a bit more ‘light’ in everybody, then things would be better…. wouldn’t they? Click the image to see and hear it.

It’s been a lot of work: the videos, the graphics, the ads, contacting playlist curators, radio, media… some bits worked, some didn’t… I had the intention of getting one song released per month. This was too much. I still have a day job as such, so I’ve settled at aiming for one song every two months. If I can get the marketing periphery more streamlined, then I’ll get them out quicker.

I’m surprised as to the response – all of it is positive – and in the most unusual places. Brazil likes it a lot (way to go, Brazil!); then the UK, then France, U.S. and then… Israel, are the top 5 countries. Quite an unusual spread. The numbers are growing track by track – that’s positive I think – and I assume this trend is continuing upward as people get to know who I am, and my music. Huge gratitude to each and every one of you who have played my songs and especially those who have liked them, shared them, and saved them to your playlists.

There’s more to come.

Craig x

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Mixing

Craig — Mon, 30 Apr 2018 13:12:00 +0000

Since getting my files back from Matthew I find myself back to the solo act of mixing my own music.

This is versus the frustration of trying to communicate to an engineer what I want from a mix, which just proved to be less productive than I thought it was going to be. Everyone has their own version of what they want to achieve musically, and Matthew’s was obviously very different from mine. As I’ve said before, I’m very much a hands-on kind of guy, and now the responsibility comes back on me. This, I have to say, I very much prefer, despite the extra work involved.

The 360 AD experience, despite it’s obvious disappointments (see previous blogs), has taught me a few things: one of which is how to get a better mix, and how to better prepare my music for mastering, which is the part that I was less aware of before beginning this journey 2 years back.

This last weekend I’ve spent some time on getting Wry Smile and Only the Good Ones Go First to a good level where they can be mastered. I’m still thinking about whether to add some backing vocals to the bridge of Wry Smile, and whether to re-do the main vocal on Good Ones, to add the tiny tweaks to the verse that I now sing in the live set. I was so happy with the performance of the Guide vocal on Good Ones that I’m reluctant to bin it just yet. The beauty of digital recording is that it can be cloned, so we may have two versions to contend with eventually.

Anyway, I left this decision until Sunday where I started coming down with cold/flu shivers and a chesty cough (again… thought I’d got rid of that a fortnight ago!), which put paid to the whole session. For the moment, I’ll have to stick with the old vocal.

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Songs and Instrumentals

Craig — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 13:57:00 +0000

I decided I’d have a count-up of all my demo recordings, past and present, that have some potential:

Songs: 77
(and there are some more unrecorded songs in development, potentially another 10-12).

Instrumentals: 102.

More songs than I thought I had… Fewer instrumentals. Enough to keep me going for a while though, don’t you think?

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More Songs

Craig — Sat, 07 May 2016 11:22:00 +0000

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…

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