If you fancy a listen, check out www.soundcloud.com/liam-ab-callaghan
I’ve just finished recording another song, first one I’ve done in about 3yrs. I’m not a fan of my vocal performance, and the two live performances were woefully under-rehearsed, but I stand by the written articles.
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Congratulations on getting the song recorded.
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Nice! I listened to a couple of them and “Thank you for the Memory” is my favorite among them. 
You have a very good voice and you are able to maintain control over it even when hitting the high notes on this particular song. That’s something not everyone can do! So kudos for that. :thumbsup
Did you play the backing piano on these songs as well?
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That’s the one I finished yesterday. Curiously enough, I was having dinner last night with the girl it was written about, and we put it on, and I didn’t say upfront where it came from, but halfway through the middle verse, she realised it was about her. Fortunately she loved it - phew! That could have been really awkward!
You have a very good voice and you are able to maintain control over it even when hitting the high notes on this particular song. That’s something not everyone can do! So kudos for that. :thumbsup
Thanks. I really don’t like the sound of my own recorded voice, but I seem to be in a very exclusive minority here!
Did you play the backing piano on these songs as well?
Every instrumental part on these recordings was played by me on my keyboard. All the guitar/bass/horn/string sounds were created on that keyboard.
On “Thank-You For The Memory” I recorded the left and right hand piano parts separately for a number of reasons. Firstly, it meant that if I fluffed a take I didn’t have to redo the whole thing. Secondly it enabled me to mix them separately. And thirdly, because I actually played two different left hand parts for the piano, one static one arpeggio, I have technically created something that is impossible for a single person to perform!
I really ought to go back and do proper recordings of “Love Has Passed Me By” and “The Second Time Around”, but I’ll get round to that in due course. I have other songs that I’ve not recorded that I want to set down. “Thank You For The Memory” was the first song I’d recorded in about 3yrs.
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As I said earlier today your piano playing and song writing is great. You really should be writing and recording a lot more to get your work out there.
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Very nicely done! Your songs are very nice but somehow I feel the background music seems a bit “lonely”. I think if you add some more instruments it would sound even better. A lot of professional singers do that these days. I think ABBA were the ones who pioneered this “wall of sound” technique, using just one of each musician and then multiplying their tracks to give a sense of a full orchestra playing.
I was sorely tempted to do a big buildup-type arrangement on that song, but decided against it, as I felt it might distract from the emotion of it. Maybe that’s just me being a little blinkered, as “Thank You For The Memory” is the most personal song I’ve ever written . . . however, when I do a “proper” recording of “The Second Time Around”, that one definitely will have that proper power ballad arrangement.
Btw - that technique of arranging that you’re talking about was in evidence before ABBA. Just listen to “Let It Be” - that is the song that all modern power ballads try to imitate. Starts off simply just piano & vocals, and ends up absolutely epic.
I’ll be looking forward to listening to that!
You are right! I did a bit of research and it was indeed Phil Spector who developed this technique.
I think Phil Spector’s idea was to have the whole “wall of sound” thing right there from the get-go, rather than build it up subtly a bit at a time. Take a listen to “The Long And Winding Road” - that’s got it all there right away. And to be fair, it does work, but it’s more interesting when a song starts off simply and has bits added gradually. That’s why I said “Let It Be” - if you look at all the standard power ballads from the last four decades, that is the song they are all trying to emulate. You could argue “Hey Jude” did something similar, but not to quite the same extent. But whichever way you look at it, the epic power ballad form that we know and love was invented by Paul McCartney.
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I recall a documentary about Nirvana and the producer…I think it was Butch Vig? said that he suggested the wall of sound to Kurt Cobain. And Kurt was originally against the idea but when he said that The Beetles did it he was all for the idea.
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Well, I’m finally working on another song again. Technically, I started recording this one something like three years ago, but life got in the way. I dug up the old session files this morning and everything is still in the right place, so I’m continuing with it at last! I’ll let you know when it’s finished.
Awesome.
And the new one has just been uploaded. This one is a rocker in the same vein as Throwaway World and Flash Tan Businessman. I started recording this, I discovered, back in october 2012 - even further back than I realised. Then life got in the way (lots of different things), and I finally got back to it last month. I’ve just spent the last couple of hours mixing and overdubbing a couple of parts. Glad to have it finished!
www.soundcloud.com/liam-ab-callaghan
Congrats on finishing it. 
I’ve just recorded another song this morning. It’s the quickest I’ve ever taken from start to finish, a mere 90min. It’s just piano & vocals - nothing to distract from the lyrical point. It’s the first song of mine I ever performed live (albeit in a more form, I rewrote it a couple of years later). Lyrically, the situation described could be anything. It’s not “a political song”, although it can apply just as well in that area - it works just as well on social disagreements, and indeed, it was quite a trivial argument that inspired me to write this back in 2001.
The song is called “Truth?” and it’s in the usual place:
I will have a listen later.
I must say Liam I think this is one of your best.
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It’s also going to be the last for a while. My recording software has stopped working on the old desktop PC, and it’s not recognised on the laptop. I’m going to need to get some new software if I want to record more. (Also typical, I was halfway through recording another song, a good’un too, I called it a night, and the next morning it wouldn’t load the session!)
Hope you can get your recording software sorted.
Well, it may just have been the session for that one song, as it loaded up an old recording session OK this afternoon. Although to be on the safe side, I have made enquiries about alternate software that I could install on my laptop. Still, the old desktop PC is working for the moment. I’ll start up a new session for the song I started recording at the weekend maybe this coming weekend. But to be on the safe side, I’ll see if I can record it all in a single sitting!