In other news, I recorded a new video of my song “Falling out of love” and put it up on YouTube. I started recording it several days ago, but because of a stubborn cold my voice sounded pretty funky, so I had to wait a few days before I could record the vocals and finish it. You can see me playing my new guitar in this video. I even forgot to remove the sticker on the pick guard… Check it out!



Now, I probably should have been studying psychology instead of recording this video, but oh well… The book is not going anywhere…

Here’s the video. I hope you’ll enjoy it!

And so, here it is. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Rainhat – The first dozen

The files come in a .zip file about 90 Mb in size. You can also download individual songs from my Music page. If you don’t have a program that you can unpack .zip files with, I suggest you google “7-zip”. It’s an open source program that works fine.

If you like it, you can share the music with anyone you like, online or otherwise, but you may not use the music for any kind of commercial purpose without permission from me.

Recording the album took a whole lot longer than I thought because of many things. Since I did everything myself, basically starting from nothing, I had to make sure I had the equipment and instruments I needed, the software to record and edit with, and I had to learn how to use all these things well enough. The whole process was also dependant on other things, like the house being quiet enough for me to record without getting a bunch of noise on the recording as well. This house is not soundproof. It’s just a regular house, so if the other people in the house were watching TV, doing laundry, taking a shower or anything like that, my microphones would pick it up straight through the walls. So progress was a bit slow, but piece by piece I managed to record all of it. I’m pretty happy with the result! Sure, it would probably sound better if the whole thing was done in a professional studio that had all the right equipment and with a bunch of experts behind the controls, but for being an album that I recorded in my basement all on my own, I think the quality is not bad at all. Whether the actual music is any good, I leave for you to decide. So download the album and let me know what you think!

If you feel like supporting me, the album is also available on my Bandcamp page. There you can buy the album and download it in a range of different file formats. You can also use the Paypal button on the right if you want to help me out. You name the price, even if it’s only $2, it helps.

On top of this cold I managed to find out the hard way that those red glowing things inside ovens, you know those metal bars at the top, are actually quite hot. Slapping the back of your hand into one of them is not a great idea. I’m now the not-so-proud owner of a rather nasty red gash on my hand. Yeah, that’s gonna leave a scar, methinks… All in all, it hasn’t been the greatest week.

But I did a bunch of recording today, and I can finally say that the countdown has started for real! Pretty much everything is done except for the vocals for the last song, so as soon as my voice gets back to normal, I’m going to record the vocals, and then my album will finally be done! Woohoo!

I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m studying part time right now, a course called “How to survive as a musician” at the Malmö Academy of Music. I’m learning about all kinds of useful stuff, like how and where to find gigs, marketing, what to keep in mind about contracts with concert venues, etc. Good stuff!

Now, I started out recording the songs in the living room, but since it was hard to get the house to myself and get a quiet moment to record, I carried all the gear down into the basement and started recording there instead. The acoustics are quite different, and I started using different kinds of headphones as well to reduce the amount of sound bleeding through the headphones into the microphones when I was recording. All these things probably made a difference, but I think most of all, I’m just being picky. I get the impression that I could probably keep re-recording these songs for the rest of the year without ever being completely happy with them. I’m not the greatest singer in the world, and I’m definitely not the greatest guitar player in the world, so I guess the flaws I spot in my own playing and singing bother me because I know I could do it better, given enough time to improve my singing and playing. But when is it good enough? I could keep taking guitar lessons for a decade, and while I would definitely improve, would I ever be “done” with it? No, I think not. It’s a hard thing to do, to just call it good enough and leave it at that, but I think I’m going to.

I finished re-recording two songs, Falling out of love, and Desert City, and I’m going to re-record at least parts of two more, but after that I’m going to call it good. I need to finish this collection sometime. It’s not going to be the perfect album, and I never expected it to be, but I think it’s going to be good enough for a first album.

The next album is going to be better, and I’m going to improve a few things for it. That’s part of the challenge in being a musician, I guess. To never stagnate and to always keep improving and evolving.