Just finished, “A Secret Hidden” today, and thought I was happy with how it came out, so I decided to upload it here. The more I make this music in Garageband, the more it makes me want to form a real band.

Hear the song, here.

“A Secret Hidden”

I got words stuck in my brain.

Can’t figure out what they are.

Why is it such a pain.

It can only go so far.

CHORUS: I’m stuck in my mind, can’t believe what I will find. A secret hidden, a secret to tell.

Please tell me what you know.

You don’t have to hold it in.

You have something to show.

You just keep it for yourself.

REPEAT CHORUS

Bridge: Don’t be ridiculous. Show it to me now. You’re hiding something. Don’t have to be afraid.

I got words stuck in my brain.

Can’t get them out of my mouth.

It began to rain.

Take a trip down south.

Repeat chorus 2x’s.

Kev

I had a conversation with a musician today and he said, if I want to get better at rhythm guitar playing, I should just find a human drummer to jam with. Which is not a bad idea after all, and I might actually do it. One way of becoming a better guitarist and improving your musicianship is playing with other musicians as much as possible. Musicians that are real and human. Not jamming with a computer, lol.

I do want to play more professionally and trying to improve. I might start looking for a drummer after all. Trying to become an actual musician is hard work and I’m getting there. If I want to be respected as an actual musician and prove people, that I do know what I’m doing, I feel this is what I need to do. Step up and try to improve my guitar playing chops.

Kev

My new tune, “It’s a Miracle”, is clearly sending out a positive message that you don’t need to feel down or depressed during these tough economic times. Instead of going into depression or even suicidal, the song wants to let people know you can still live a happy and positive life, even if you’re having financial problems. You hear about people all the time, complaining how they can’t get a job or having tight budgets at their home. You don’t have to be like that. The song wants you to feel strong and feel good about yourself. Look at the lyrics from where I’m coming from….

“It’s a Miracle”

Just hang in there, keep your chin up. Our country will get better, oh yes, it will.

We need a new President, to fix our home. Just give it time, oh yes, it will.

CHORUS: It’s a Miracle, that we’re still alive. It’s a Miracle, there’s nothing to fear.

Just enjoy life, and be happy. Just stay real strong and be positive.

We will get more money. We will get more jobs. Our economy will improve, oh yes, it will.

We have a broken goverment, that needs some cleaning. We need the right man for the job, oh yes, we do.

REPEAT CHORUS

Bridge: Please calm down, no need to yell. Lower your voice, we will get heard.

REPEAT CHORUS (2x’s).

Kev

I thought it would be cool if I had an Mp3 version of the song, that way you can download it for your Ipods or whatever Mp3 player you have.

ItsAMiracle

A lot of people accused me of not being able to do the full band thing, well I think I just proved them wrong. I DO KNOW WHAT I’M DOING MUSICALLY!

I’m planning on working on, “Mr. Tough Guy” and, “A Secret Hidden”, next.

Kev

I won’t bother buying an Irig Mic or a USB Mic for the Ipad. What I did for the latest recording, was, I just recorded the music in Garageband. So I brought the music over to this computer, and just recorded the vocals on “Music Creator 5” on the PC. It worked better that way. So I’ll record the music on Garageband, and then record the vocals on the PC, that’s how I’ll do this from now on.

I’ll try to write a couple of heavy rock songs next time. I’m thinking of turning “Mr. Tough Guy”, into a full band track next. An older song I wrote back in 2006, but I would like a full band version of that song. I’ll be making some of my older songs into full band and I’ll be writing new ones too.

Yep, Garageband is definitely better than ProTools. ProTools is all complicated stuff, Garageband is really easy.

Kev

I took my time and worked on it pretty hard. Fixed it up a lot. I think it sounds good enough.

Enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think.

Listen to it, here.

I think it’s one of my favorite tunes I’ve ever written, I’m real proud of it!

Kev

The feedback for “It’s a Miracle” song, is starting to come in by actual musicians. This is HOW you give feedback in a more positive and respectful way:

“Kev,

I know that “It’s a Miracle” song needs a little work, it’s not perfect, but I’ll make the song a little better tomorrow and will re-upload it. I did play the song in time as you can hear, but the drums were played by the virtual drums, in other words, I played the drums myself on it. There is a drum machine on there where you can put drums in automatically, so I’ll do that instead ’cause that’ll make the timing of the drums better. Plus, I’ll make the fade out a little shorter. I’ll do all that tomorrow.

I got feedback from a musician about all of this. He said it was pretty good, just needs a little more work. Just the drums and shorten the fade out, the song will be fine!

This is why I suggested, I would have human drummers to record drums for me ’cause I know nothing about drums. The virtual drummer on garageband, was just me messing around with it just for fun. The track was just a song idea, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously, I told people this in facebook too.

Kev

Yeah, I’m going to work with Garageband on Ipad a lot more often. Garageband is a fun little toy. It makes you feel like you’re playing RockBand or GuitarHero, but with GarageBand, you’re being an actual musician.

However, I shouldn’t use my SM58 microphone with a USB interface hooked into the Ipad ’cause it uses too much power. The microphone works well, and records well, but I shouldn’t use a regular microphone.

I think I would need a USB microphone. I’ve been looking into getting an IRig Microphone, the one that you hook directly into the Ipad and it won’t use too much power.

I’m a newbie to the Ipad and the Apple gadgets, and I’m just getting the hang of learning it all. Like I said before, you can’t just hook a regular studio microphone into the Ipad with it being too much power, you need a special USB mic.

Garageband is nice though. They finally added a string ensemble to the instruments section (cello, violin, viola, etc.). Which is cool, ’cause when I do acoustic songs, I could add a cello or a violin along with it. I would like to see Apple add a horn ensemble though, they probably will sometime ’cause I would like to have a horn section in some of my stuff (like the sax, trumpet, oboe, trombone, etc.)

Garageband has been around a long time, but they keep updating the software and keep adding more cool stuff to it.

If I ever get a real band going someday, this would help give the band members an idea of what I would like my songs to sound like and this is one reason I’m doing this for.

Kev