17: 'Widetrack III' (Part 1)
"The soul that flies is on the lam..."
-'Burning the Sun' (from 'Widetrack III')
When 'Widetrack II' was released in December 2009, I had a group of musicians assembled who played some shows around the Detroit area on and off till late 2011, at which time I started writing songs for the third album...
Over the previous couple years, the experience of playing live on a more frequent basis had really paid off in terms of inspiring ideas for the direction I wanted to go this time around... The writing started taking off... Things were moving along nicely...
Then life happened...
Lo and behold, my 10-year marriage had come to an end... My wife and I sat down and discussed the logistics and feelings of this realization... Fortunately, we were pretty much on the same page - especially in terms of how to make it work as best as possible for our son... Thankfully, we've remained close, and still even regard one another as family...
But obviously, this life change put everything else in a secondary-priority perspective for a while... In many ways, it was a completely new beginning, and it took some time to get on solid ground again...
Divorce can be a humbling experience, to say the least... Coming back from it all can really show you what you're made of... It brought into sharp focus all the divorces I saw going on around me during that time when I, too, found myself on the flip side of the 50/50 statistical coin...
All at once, I began seeing how many of my family and friends were going through the same thing... It seemed like every time I turned around, there was somebody telling me that they were getting a divorce... It was almost like an epidemic...
Many of the separations I heard about were not quite so cooperative as mine ended up being, though... People were angry, hurt, bitter, confused, scared...
Then there were the friends of the formerly-married... I would hear stories of abandonment... Stories of judgmental opinions showered on the newly-separated...The loss of long-cherished support from those who didn't approve of their friends' decisions to/methods of, divorce...
And so it came to be that these stories, combined with my own personal experience, started creeping their way into the themes of the new songs I was writing...
A concept was emerging...
With a strong theme developing, the task was now to come up with the best music possible... I already had about 10 songs written, but something told me this wasn't going to cut it... I needed to find a way to raise the bar to a whole new level...
With the debut Widetrack album, I learned that writing songs on acoustic guitar didn't always convey the intensity of energy I wished to put out once it came to performing those songs in a live setting with a full band...
And so, when I started writing songs for the second album, I made a conscious effort to go for a higher energy level, generating many initial ideas through intense drumming workouts, followed by the subsequent addition of electric guitars through Marshall amplifiers, etc...
Applying these lessons really paid off in terms of the overall energy and electricity of the second album; especially in a live setting... So once I started coming up with rough ideas for the third album, I kept these things in mind...
But there was one other lesson that going through this process twice now had taught me, and that was:
Raise the songwriting bar...
So this time around, I decided that my M.O. would be to take advantage of my newly-found "downtime" and come up with as many songs as I could... Then I could choose only the ones that were "hell yes" songs as prospects for the new album...
I started putting the ideas down, naming the songs by their respective numbers: "Song 1"... "Song 11"... "Song 39"... Etc...
Once again, aided by the healing ritual of songwriting, I continued piecing my new life together... Meanwhile, the years passed... 2012... 2014... 2016...
By the time I was finished, I had over 50 songs... out of which, 12 were chosen for the new album... A slow, time-consuming process, to be sure... but hopefully you will find that it was worth it... Time will tell! :)
Speaking of which, as you may or may not already be aware, we have one song from the new album completely finished and posted to YouTube and Soundcloud...
Consider it our "Gift" to you...
As of this writing, we plan to resume mixing the album in April, in the hopes that we will have it finished and released by mid-summer...
In the meantime, don't forget to mark your calendar for the house concert we're having on March 24, which we will also be broadcasting on Facebook Live for those who can't attend in person...
Well, that's about it for now... As always, I really appreciate your support and ask that you will let me know what you're up to as well... I hope you're pursuing things that please you and make you feel alive... Please don't hesitate to reach out if you think there may some way I can help...
As stated in a previous blog entry, this is not just a band; it is also a means to connect with kindred spirits, in the effort to build a network of true friendships, cooperating towards spreading the influence of excellent things - whether it be music, art, movies, writing, coaching, learning, etc. - and thereby do our part in helping make the world a better place...
Thank you for being here, my friend.
Look forward to catching up soon!
Ron
Always love hearing from you! Feel free to respond below or at:
Ron@WidetrackMusic.com
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