Alien Aristocrat (2024)

Original title: Midnight Wanderor (2019)

Status: Instrumental - Mixed & MASTERED, Vocals - Ongoing

I started this song in 2019, in some state of heartbreak. I documented some of the initial process on Instagram at the time, which can be seen below.

In 2020, I had experienced more youthful angst and started writing songs in the middle of the night.

I began to find a few songs that captured different times/stages of the night, and thought to center some sort of EP around that concept. I left it as a proof-of-concept as i grew out of that stage in life, but i feel it is important to show what it was originally meant to be a part of, in contrast to where the song is now.

9pm - Weariness, Wistful
12pm - Solitude, Confusion, Darkness <— Midnight Wanderor
4am - Quiet, Ambiguity, Silver lining (The night is darkest before dawn)
7am - Optimism, Hope, Reward (At last! Light at the end of the Tunnel)

Back then, I'd still only be experimenting with 4-chord loops while using vocals of established artists to make skeletons of songs that described my emotional state.

In Midnight Wanderor (Track 2), I’d used D'angelo (Brown Sugar) and Kendrick Lamar's (Swimming Pools) vocals to give the track some structure. In Track 4, T-Pain (Buy U a Drank) and Daft Punk (Something About Us) were used for that purpose.

You can listen to that project here. I'm glad i didn't go on to finish it. It's too corny, not exactly the me I want to share with the world or build my career of.

2024 - Mayer Hawthorne, B-sections, hooks, and structure.

When I started learning about B-sections and song structure earlier this year, I was listening to a lot of Mayer Hawthorne's work. His 2008 song “Shiny & New”, 2016 song "Lingerie & Candlewax" and 2020's "Over" inspired me to try and revisit Midnight Wanderor. I wrote a B section to it, and then I copied his vocal melodies and his lyric structure while writing my own lyrics.

I've hated the sound of my voice since forever. I've never liked it. But here is the awful first version of the sung chorus. You can hear the same melody and rhythm from the verses of “Shiny & New”, and the chorus of "Lingerie & Candlewax". It sounds awful.

After I submitted it for the capstone in June this year, I listened to it with my friends and parents with the intention of releasing it. I'd decided that the songwriting and vocal production was just not there yet. In fact, it still isn't there yet.

In September, I started The songwriting specialization on Coursera. There are a lot of techniques and rules to good songwriting. I decided to scrap my original lyrics and re-write the song after learning the Pat Pattison method. I bought a thesaurus, rhyming dictionary, and started writing worksheets in his way.

I have a good idea of the general lyrics but I still have no idea how to sing them, or how I want my voice to sound. It's only been a few weeks since I started really trying to get to the bottom of it. I finally got auto-tune and spent weeks fiddling around with aux sends to try and get the sound right, but i'm still at this stage.

Nevertheless, This is an attempt at sharing my soul, so I want to make sure I get this one right so that I can look back at it in a decade's time and not cringe.

I still believe this is a better project to accurately share my stage in the musical journey than more complete projects, such as the ones on my spotify.

I think i will be needing some guidance and patience as I continue. I’ve attached my notes and re-write of the lyrics using the songwriting techniques learned from the Songwriting Courses.