There was just one thing missing. The bass line. It needed some low-end action. So I took my bass and did my best to work it alongside the banjo track. But after about 10 takes I decided that keeping time is not really my forte so I just opened the Scarbee Pre-Bass Amped library in Kontakt and got to work. Half an hour later I had my bass line. I threw in a few more low piano keys toward the end of the track to give it that Johnny Cash feel that the ladies love, then I tweaked it a little bit with some filters, equalizers, and a couple of transient processors here and there – just enough to make it sound decent while still keeping it raw, and it was done. Gave it a listen, then another one, then I just left it on repeat for a couple of hours. I love the way this song turned out. I’m really happy with it, and as far as Romanian funeral songs go, I guarantee this one’s top-shelf material.

Now that I had all these elements working together so well, I needed something to really glue them together and give the track a little bit of dramatic dynamics let’s say. I inserted a few synth effects here and there but it didn’t really do the trick. The mix was still asking for another element. Maybe 30 seconds after that though I gave myself the answer, it was obvious – what’s the one thing that always sounds amazing next to a banjo no matter what? Yes, the harmonica. And I happened to have the perfect harmonicas for the job, one in the key of G and another one in D natural minor. I recorded about half an hour’s worth of harmonica licks, spent another two hours sorting through the recordings and picking, and once I threw them into the mix I felt that I finally had my song.

It took me at least 40 takes, I’m not joking, to get it right. I always find that simple riffs are always the hardest to record right. It’s basically just a couple of chords that I had to record but it did prove to be a challenge. Always dragging or rushing, or skipping a third of a beat, one time I almost got it right but got excited and giggled like a schoolgirl. It wasn’t easy but I managed to bag it in the end. I loaded the banjo track into my DAW twice. I turned one of the duplicate tracks’ pitch down to -12 semitones and ran it on top of the other to make the banjo sound a little larger, and a bit roomier. Almost done.

I was getting closer. I now had the drum track, the rhythm piano, and the vocals. I put everything together in DAW and it sounded great but somewhat hollow. it needed another instrument on top, something with a bite, something that wouldn’t clash with the traditional feel of the lyrics. I tried a few riffs on guitar and lap steel but wasn’t satisfied. The next in line was the banjo. I plucked a few strings and realized that yes, that is what the song was looking for. I needed to keep it simple so I played around with some variations of a D minor chord and a G major. It sounded really good, so I put my earbuds in, started the metronome, and got to work.

I started recording the lyrics. I did a couple of takes on my microphone but it kept picking up sounds from my downstairs neighbors who I believe were moving furniture around. I had a choice between waiting for my neighbors to finish or getting really creative. I chose to get really creative, so instead of using my microphone, I used my phone’s mic instead which is pretty decent as far as mono mics go. I went with my phone’s mic because it would prove to be less of a pain recording on it in the makeshift tent I’d construct for this session. What I did was I took a metal walking stick and carefully placed it in the middle of my bed and covered it with a comforter blanket – the perfect soundproof system. I got in there and did 5 takes just to make sure. Got a little hot towards the end but it got the job done.

I now have the piano loop that’s going to act as the backbone for my track as well as the lyrics, so can begin pulling the song out of my head and into existence, as I like to envision the process. Thread by thread. I begin by putting the drum track together. I do it using a drum library for Kontakt called Legacy Drums. I love this library, it sounds great and it gives me instant access to each drum element’s velocity and transients. I come up with a simple 4/4 drum beat to accompany the piano’s hypnotic mantra. So far so good.

I’m done writing the lyrics. Being Romanian I only write Romanian lyrics. It’s a natural process, I never try to force it, and I feel that writing in any other language would kill the spontaneity, and would somehow taint the writing process. So I’ll just post them here along with a rough translation:

Groapa

Când m-or aduce la groapă
De oamenii drepți săpată
6 femei să-mi bocească
Frații mei să mă jelească

Sfântul Duh să mă privească
Şi toată cohorta cerească
Frica din suflet să-mi citească
De veşnica pedeapsă

Când m-or lăsa jos în groapă
Bocitoarele să tacă
Inima de lacrimi secată
De lacrima cea deşartă

Groparii pământul să-ntorcă
Mormântul meu să le-amintească
Să le-arate încă o dată
Că nimeni de groapă nu scapă

Cei ce-au câştigat îndrazneală
În fața lui Hristos să ceară
Sufletul să-mi mântuiască
Vrednic de-aş fi de-aşa pomană

Când m-oi afla la Judecată
Cu capul plecat şi cu spaimă
În fața Tatăului cer milă
Dar e prea târziu pentru tocmeală

The Hole in the Ground

When they’ll carry me to my grave
Dug by righteous men
May 6 women wail for me
May my brothers mourn me

May the Holy Spirit look upon me
And the entire Heavenly cohort
May they read the fear inside my heart
The fear of eternal punishment

When they’ll lay me into the ground
May the wailers stand silent
Their hearts dried up for tears
The futile tears

As gravediggers throw dirt on my coffin
May my resting place remind them
Show them one more time
That no one avoids the grave

Those who earned to speak before Christ
May they ask Him on my behalf
To save my soul
If only I was worthy of such alms

When I’ll find facing Judgement
My head bowed, body trembling with fear
Before the Father I ask for mercy
But it’s too late to bargain

I was messing around with a piano library connected to my midi controller while working on the lyrics and I found the core melody. The backbone of the whole song. It’s basically the D minor chord, I’m playing its individual notes ascending and descending, on a 4/4 loop, D F A F – D F A F, really slow about 75bpm. Now that I found its rhythm, I can finish writing the lyrics. This simple hypnotic piano loop is going to go a long way.

I began working on the lyrics and it’s coming along nicely. I plan on having the story go back and forward between what goes on at my funeral service and the journey my soul takes on its way to Judgement. I’m drawing inspiration from my book of prayers as well as from memories of the many funerals I attended. Amongst the traditional elements that cannot go unmentioned are the wailers and the gravediggers. The wailers in Romanian tradition, essentially professional mourners, are women who are hired to attend funerals to cry and, well, to wail. Having more than a few present at one’s funeral, say 6 of them, is seen (in some corners of Romania) as a status symbol of the deceased. It is imperative that incorporate this theme into my funeral song.

For my creative sound work, I decided to write and record a funeral song. Its lyrics are going to be based on a few Christian Orthodox prayers as well as contain traditional Romanian funeral themes. It will make a great audio companion to my essay, Exploring the Role of Music in Christian Worship. I will record it at my home studio and will try to keep it as simple as possible. So far I’ve got the tile, “Groapa” which is Romanian for “Hole in the Ground”. It will portray my own funeral. This’ll be fun.