Heystephen.com - Stephen Hay music and more

Greetings! I’ve finished (for now at least) the song I’ve been writing. It’s still unnamed, but it’s about dealing with uncertainty in life, learning to let go of the things I have no control over. It’s pretty much the story of my life over the last few months - leaving London, waiting for my visa to come through, (it came through!) and I guess now sorting out the minor details of my return to London i.e. where to live etc. Small stuff really. Anyway it feels a little different to my previous music in that it’s got this kinda slow rock chorus, with a groovy or funky verse. If you can’t see the video below, just go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xthOHoo530 to see it on youtube.

I’m still experimenting with my sound and getting loads of inspiration with my new Spotify subscription - why didn’t I do this earlier? I’ve been listening to heaps of Neo-Soul, nu-Jazz and everything in between. Lovely. Discovered John Legend, Erykah Badu, James Taylor Quartet, all very inspiring. If you’re into soul or jazz I’d definitely recommend them.

Also I’ve been reading up a lot on music industry people’s advice for people like me, starting a career in music. One thing I think I need to work on is songwriting - I’m so darn fussy (and lazy) it takes me months to write a song - I need to start churning out a song a week, even if it’s rubbish, to give me heaps more practice. I can always bin them or re-use the good bits, but I think my perfectionist writing style is slowing me down. I give you full permission to hold me accountable to this!

Hope you enjoy the track, the lyrics are on the youtube link.

Until next time…

Stephen

PS Tickets are selling fast for my Kerikeri gig, make sure you grab yours soon before they sell out. Here’s the Facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=140115529332793

Hey world - so yeah I’m in New Zealand. You probably know already, but just in case you didn’t. I came back about a month ago to attend some weddings, say hi to the family, hang out with some mates and renew my visa (not necessarily in that order). In September I fly back to London (after ten days in Japan, woohoo!) to start my guitar course and get back into the swing of things music-wise. I have been busy though, in more ways than one - I’ve almost finished a brand new song just for you so hopefully I’ll be able to record that soon. I’ve also been planning a gig here in Kerikeri where I used to live - It’s on the 20th of August if you’re on this side of the planet, details here or on Facebook.

It’s been great being home - flip, New Zealand is stunning! I had the privilege of taking some photos for my mates wedding recently, and although I’ve seen it all before, the scenery here is crazy-pretty. Seriously. You don’t appreciate it till you leave it and come back. Oh and stars! On a clear night they look incredible.

I want to rant a bit about songwriting, I apologise in advance for the following spiel. I guess I’ve been thinking a lot about my music and where it fits - like if you were to give it a genre or put it in a box, what would it be? I like to think I’m kinda jazz-influenced pop, but there’s bits of funk in there, some kinda-R&B grooves, some soul maybe? What is soul? What is pop? Is pop a dirty word? What is a dirty word? Who am I?!? I’ve been thinking, and probably too much.

It has been interesting analysing some different musical styles, and I’ve learnt a bit - for example, I don’t HAVE to change to chord sequence in the chorus! (or the key signature, but I’ll need some serious rehab to work that one out of my system). Some recent revelations: I don’t HAVE to limit the length of vocal phrases to keep it “catchy”, I don’t HAVE to stick to the ABABCB structure (although I probably will) - in fact I don’t HAVE to do anything! Ah, that feels nice to write.

I think I just matured slightly, artistically speaking. Wow, that sounded vain. Oh well. I’m gonna write music that I like, and if I’m lucky, other people might like it too. Screw genres. Where’s my guitar/notepad? I’m gonna work on this chord progression that changes key twice every bar…

So… I set myself a target to record my song “Busy Life”  by the end of this week. I started and finished it on Monday. Great! But just before I uploaded it, I thought: “I should make these into an album”.

It’s funny, just by calling it an “album”, it instantly increases the official-ness and coolness factor. It’s no longer: “Oh, yeah I’ve got some tracks online”; it’s: “I’m recording a free acoustic album from home, it’s not finished yet but you can download what I’ve got so far”. Told you it sounds cooler. And it has a name too, Future Reflections. I quite like the idea - I write a song, play it live, then record it and start a new one - people can watch the process unfold over the months and really be a part of it. I can even sell half-finished albums (at cost) at any gigs I play… kinda quirky. You can download the part-album for yourself from my music page.  I’ve remixed the older tracks at a higher bitrate too, so they sound a little nicer if you’re using headphones.

So speaking of writing an album, I’ve foolishly decided to write a brand new song before my next gig at Proud (which, I might add, will be amazing). So far I have one chord, a likely tempo, and some ideas but that’s about it. Still haven’t committed to a lyrical theme yet, I’m tossing up between “I’m pretty big in Japan”, “Those awkward moments that make us cringe but are actually enjoyed by some weird people like myself”, and “No-one understands me when I speak”. All working titles, of course. I better get writing - I love setting myself deadlines like this, it really works!

So hopefully see you at Proud Galleries in Camden on the 17th of February, and don’t forget to download my “album”!

Peace

Stephen

Good afternoon people, enjoying the beautiful weather? (The sarcasm will probably be lost to my southern-hemisphere subscribers). It’s snowing outside, and it makes me smile every time I notice.

I just posted another video blog, you can watch it by clicking that link or directly in this post if you’re reading this on my site:

I’m working on my new song called “Future wife”, it’s what I’m calling a “hypothetical love-song”. I’ve played part of it for you on that video, check it out if you haven’t already. Disclaimer: the audio sync is all messed up, and I can’t be bothered spending any more time on it. I have to find a better way to do these, I think it’s the built-in webcam on my laptop, it’s just not that flash…

Anyway I hope you like the song, make sure you come down to the Troubadour next Tuesday to hear it in full. Details here, here and here. £6 on the door, 8pm start, closest tube Earls Court.

In other news, I’m thinking of writing an awkward song, you know, about all those painful social situations. Like when you take a joke or something a little too far, and then it’s awkward. I do this quite a bit. Hmm. Think of some examples and reply to this by email or on facebook with some ideas - I’ll probably end up including some in the final version. 100 points for the best example, and 500 points if it’s something you’ve actually done yourself!

Take care everyone, and hopefully see you soon

S

Seasons greetings to you all!

It’s only one day to go, and I’m rather excited. I was really late thinking about Christmas cards this year, so I thought I’d write a Christmas song instead. It was refreshing to break out of the jazz/groove thing for a day and just write a normal guitar song. It was also cool to think I could write a song for a purpose like this, record it and post it online in time for Christmas. Technology these days.

Speaking of which, I’ve started a youtube video blog, where I can post my song ideas, talk about random music stuff and basically mumble too much, along with a healthy amount of new music. If you’re interested, you’ll find it here: www.youtube.com/stephenhaymusic.

And here is my first video blog post, with My Christmas Song:

Sorry if you received this via email, it probably won’t work… just go to my youtube channel to view it in your browser.

And so merry Christmas everyone, and wishing you all an amazing 2010. I’ve got some exciting gigs coming up next year so stay tuned - the best way to find out where and when is to follow me via email, facebook, myspace or last.fm, or just check the homepage of this site. I’m also recording at the moment, I’m excited to get some new and old stuff online so you don’t have to keep looping the same three tracks! (You know who you are)

Take care everyone

Stephen

So I’ve finished my new song “Busy Life” - awesome! I’m pretty happy with it, the first part is on my previous post and the rest - well you’ll just have to come along to one of my gigs and hear it! Sounding great with Doug’s accompaniment too.

I also wrote a final verse to a song I started  (and thought I finished) in February 2008, so it’s the longest it’s taken me to write a song yet - almost 23 months in the making! It’s called “You got me”, some of you might have heard it already (it’s the valentine one). So it’s nice to have some closure on that, in more ways than one, so now I’m ready to record it for you all to hear.

So here I am, feeling good about myself for finishing a couple of songs. I’ve got some great gigs coming up, so it will be good to gauge the response to my new stuff. BUT I can’t stop here! I have to keep writing, keep the momentum, and give people more reasons to come and see me. So the next question is: What is my next song going to be about?

One idea was to write about my complete inability to speak clearly - I tend to speak really fast, with a mumble, and of course in a kiwi accent. So basically, no one understands me. E-NUN-CI-ATE, Stephen… So could be kinda funny, do you think?

On the other hand, my friend Naomi was saying I should write more love songs. Yuck, love? But everyone has had enough of love songs, surely! And like I’ve said, I don’t have an awful lot of inspiration right now. But should that stop me? At risk of completely ripping off John Mayer’s “Love song for no one”, I could write a song from the perspective of “when I meet you, this is what it’ll feel like”. Hmm. I guess the genre(s) of music I write tend to suit love-lyrics, and let’s be honest, we can all relate to this kind of stuff in one way or another. I’m not sure yet, what do you reckon?

Stephen

I thought I’d just share an insight of my new song, which at the moment I’m calling “Busy Life”. It has probably the lamest title so far, so don’t be upset if I change it later.

Basically, something I’d always wanted to write about was the busyness of London -  those that live here I’m sure will agree that it’s a very fast-paced lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving it. I love that there is always something to do, a party to go to or another concert or festival in the city. But I found that with my music especially, it was hard to “find time” to sit down and work on another song or email some promoters. It also reminded me of my life back in Kerikeri - that was pretty busy too! So is it London, or is it just me… Do I make me busy? Either way, something had to happen, because I wasn’t getting where I wanted with my music, and months were sneaking past me without asking.

Is this a busy city? Or is it just me? My weeks just seem to fly past, like that crazy london cab passing me in a flash of black - when’s it going to hit me? Those weeks add up so quickly, it kinda scares me; now winters here, another year. So then where did that time go, and did I spend it wisely? If not, why not?

So with time rushing past at the speed of, well, time, the question really is how do we use it? The focus moves from “gotta find time” to “gotta make time” for the things that are important. Like songwriting in this case, which makes for an ironic prechorus.

Gotta find some time, near impossible in this busy life, I can’t forget I’ve still got this song to write, and it wont happen ’till I make some time in this busy life.

Since writing that verse and pre-chorus I’ve stopped working full-time, so now have truckloads of time. But somehow I still find it hard to put aside time for songwriting, and end up spending lots of time on other stuff, some of which is important and some really isn’t. So the second verse (which I wont write here ’cause it’s not done!) is talking about the reality that no matter how much time you have, it will all be used up somehow, and it’s still up to us to be diligent and use it for what’s important. Cheesy? I’m sorry.

Ok, I’m not that sorry. See you soon!

S

Two friends asked me recently (on separate  occasions) what my songwriting process is. Now I’m still quite new to this stuff so I’m certainly no expert, but it was interesting to analyse my writing patterns and see trends coming through with each of my songs. Well I thought it was interesting, feel free to stop reading at any stage.

I  always have a whole bunch of little guitar bits and harmony ideas floating around in my head, so it’s hard to define the starting point. By the time I finish, a song is likely to have guitar parts from three completely different concepts, matched to a common key and kinda welded at the edges. So maybe I’ll have a fun little guitar riff, realise that with a bit of subtle modulation I can get to a chord progression I came up with last year, and then slice in groove I dug up from the voice recordings on my phone from ages ago.

Once I’ve got a basic structure, I’ll start just writing stuff about a topic I’ve been thinking about. As an aside, you’ll notice “love” isn’t a common one for me. I feel like there’s probably more than enough of the usual “I love you” songs, and I think I can do something hopefully more original and thoughtful. Ok, and also I don’t have a whole lot to write about in that department either.  Once I’ve got a few pages of scribbled ideas and phrases I’ll start laboriously going through and trying to match phrases to music - this is a frustratingly long process, and I haven’t found a shortcut yet. I’m extremely fussy, I think I’m averaging about two lines per hour…

The last part is probably the most fun, arranging the parts and finalising the structure. Although no matter what all my songs end up following the ABABCB pattern - oh well. See if you can tell, I’ve recorded two songs so far and now working on a third, they all end up on my music page so check them out here.

I hope you’ve tolerated this music-related post alright, if your on facebook please comment with your thoughts on the topic - whats your songwriting process? Am I weird for struggling to keep to one key for an entire song? Does anyone else find it so hard to write lyrics? Do tell.

Take it easy folks, and stay tuned for “Singledom”, I’m hoping to nail the vocals this weekend.

S