The Album Creation Process
It's impossible to say how long I've been making my latest record. The handful I've made under the moniker "Randy's Got a Playdough Face" never had a clear starting mark. My last album, Ours, came out in 2020 and is the work I'm most proud of in life.
When I pick up the guitar, I sometimes stumble upon a progression or melody and try to take the idea as far as I can. Good ideas are quickly captured as a voice memo. After a few of those, I'm seemingly at the beginning of an album.
Each release demonstrates growth. The process always leaves me a better musician with a more refined ear. However, that hasn't made subsequent releases easier. The experience uncovers the endless ignorance, the fact that we will never have all the information at the beginning, we learn by doing and making mistakes, and it will take as long as it's going to take.
I'll never write a song that I can play without rehearsal. My stubborn perfectionism paired with repeatedly trying to find a shortcut always ends up making projects take twice as long. And the biting temptation to continuously add quantity and complexity to the original goal is a pitch I'll always swing at. Ahh, it's fun being the boss of myself.
Rough timeline:
The original intent of this record was to make something with limited production that I could use as a portfolio piece to help meet other musicians, showcasing my current skills as a musician, performer, and songwriter. I also thought there would be two versions of this record: one that was just me and a guitar, and another with extra instrumentation and production.
2023
After the opening act for my friend's show dropped on short notice, they offered the spot to me. The only post-covid performances I had done were a few gigs for a cover band.
I didn't want to play any of the "old 2020" material (most of that music was geared towards a full band performance). I had some newer material I referred to as "the original six" – fully formed structures of songs that didn't have lyrics. I had loose ideas about what these songs could be about, and I knew how they made me feel, but not much else existed past the guitar parts.
After agreeing to play the show, I stayed up till 1am for two nights writing lyrics and trying to memorize said lyrics. I threw in a cover and one old song I was workshopping and called it a set.
Having a deadline and a low stress show taught me three things:
- Perfectionism was not an option. I had to define done and get it done.
- I knew lyrics and parts didn't have to be finalized. I took more chances and moved quickly.
- 80% of the lyrics written in those two nights ended up staying. Sometimes you just need to show up.
2024
"The record will just happen."
That's not exactly what I said, but I figured it would be easy enough to complete six songs in a year. I was fine with a smaller release to make this more achievable (something past-Dan wouldn't do – the album format is too precious!)
But even so, without a plan to make a record, nothing happened. I didn't know where to start, so I focused on a lot of painfully unimportant details. I...
- made an aspirational "sonic mood board" playlist for the album's sound
- organized a hypothetical tracking sheet in Notion
- imagined which musician I might want to play on a song
By the middle of the summer, I realized I hadn't recorded a single note. But a lot of useless planning occurred. I thought back to the performance nearly a year ago from that day. In those two nights before the show, I made more substantial progress on these songs than I had made in over half a year.
What the hell was I working on?
At this rate, I knew that the record would not come out this year, unless I started recording. Why was I putting off that crucial part of the process?
I had a trip planned in a month and made it a goal to record phone voice memos of the "original six" before I left. I figured having a timeline worked for me before, so I could create a fake one. Plus, it'd be nice to listen to these tracks while I was traveling in case I got ideas for them.
But this goal was not easy. Turns out I hadn't even been practicing the songs, I just assumed I could play them all perfectly when the time came (I mean I wrote the songs, why wouldn't I know how to play them?)
So even doing the bare minimum of recording this album was difficult. But I had an end date in sight! I just had to be consistent and not stress over perfectionism (which was pretty painful for me). I practiced when I didn't want to, recorded endless takes, and got fine with "good enough".
And guess what? It worked. I now had six songs to reference outside of my head. They were something in the world now, even if I didn't share it with anyone. I could see it from a new perspective (maybe a certain part went on longer than it should, maybe there was a better lyric for the verse, maybe another counter-melody could exist).
After returning from the trip, I made a fully fleshed plan to complete final demo versions, with all the additional parts written and tracked. I gave myself a three month deadline, because those helped me before, right?
That ended up being way too aggressive. I forgot that it takes time to find the right part, practice the part, discover its sound, etc. Plus, since I was playing more guitar, I ended up writing more on the side and wanting to just "include" those in the album. The goalposts were moving by all sorts of measures.
2025
Good thing I learned from all my mistakes in 2024. 2025 should be where it all goes right.
I built another plan on a more reasonable schedule: complete demos by the summer and complete tracking by the end of the year. I got to work and made a decent amount of progress on new parts, lyric rewrites, and even wrote another new song (there are eight songs for those keeping score at home). When May came around, I sent the tracks to a few friends for feedback.
I wish I had reached out sooner. There was a ton of great advice that came in that I hadn't considered or was too scared to try. A good pal of mine, who's an incredible musician and songwriter, offered to help produce my vocals. We spent a long weekend workshopping all of my vocal delivery, correcting my pitch, and writing harmonies (all places where I lack instinct). The songs were coming together in ways I couldn't've done alone. I also realized that I needed to practice singing these new parts (ugh, more practice). Recording was taking longer than I thought, again.
The rest of the year was spent trying to write more parts of existing songs, writing even more songs that I wanted to include on the record (song count = 10), and just feeling overburdened by making the record in isolation. I started taking longer breaks from the record because the end goal felt too hard to ever complete. At this point, some songs sounded like there was too much going on while others felt undercooked.
2026
New year, no record. How could I make this album as easily as possible?
I outlined the main problems:
- I was making the record alone (making music alone is not fun).
- The album had become too big and daunting.
- I kept writing new songs I wanted to include in the project.
- I hadn't played a gig since 2023.
- I still couldn't play these songs all the way through (I'll explain below).
It was hard to admit, but I couldn't really play any of these pieces all the way through without several glaring mistakes every time. This may sound shocking, especially after spending three plus years on these tunes. But since the project grew in size, I never focused on nailing the core performances. I'd either try hundreds of takes to hopefully get one I was satisfied with keeping, or I could stitch together multiple takes to make it sound like one perfect playthrough (but I never really liked doing that kind of studio magic, and it doesn't translate to a live setting).
I thought back to the original intent of the record: a low production portfolio of my current skillset. Time to make a new plan, one that was realistic, free of scope creep, and as frictionless as possible.
I had to practice all ten songs for the next three months. Like really practice them. Use metronome at painfully slow speeds when I hit a sticky point, internalize lyrics, write out the vocal melodies, etc. Then, when I felt like I could do a full playthrough, I would quickly record phone voice memos and listen to where the performances felt flat. When most of the kinks were worked out, I would try them out at an open mic.
This part's important for a few reasons. I can meet musicians in the wild (skip the need for a portfolio – just start connecting with people on the journey) and I get to battle test these songs under the hot lights with a little audience pressure. If I can do that, I can play with strangers, I can record more easily – lots of wins all around.
I'm at the start of these three months. By the end, I will have given at least 10 live performances and have the album in a super raw state, one that I would feel comfortable calling "done". I can practice and refine forever, but I'm willing to greet the world in my current state. Here's to imperfection, not having complete information, and the courage to act.