The Irving Sessions // Vol. Four: Untitled #3
02.23.2009 / Minneapolis, MN

Video:

Untitled #3 (The Irving Sessions) from David Alan Wright on Vimeo.

Audio:

Hello, and happy Tuesday. And what a good Tuesday it is: The Cavs just beat the Grizzlies and the Buckeyes took care of Penn State a little earlier on ESPN. A good time to be a sports fan from Ohio. First, a few updates to the site…

One: I came across an awesome plugin for the blogging platform Tumblr called Streampad as I was browsing Aaron Jamison’s blog With A Shout. The plugin looks for MP3s within a site and references the links for collective playback at the bottom of the page. Thinking to myself, “how cool would it be if this were available for WordPress,” I soon discovered while reading their blog that, sure enough, a beta plugin was just released. So, I’m happy to say that you can now stream all of my music via the play button at the bottom of the screen, or, if you prefer, you can open the player – we’ll unofficially call it dWriTunes – in a new window while heading elsewhere on the Web (special thanks to Dan and Gregory for getting me all setup).

Two: You can now download MP3s of the songs for easy iPod listening here. Just right click on the links that say “MP3″, select “save link as”, and you should be good to go. Rock out to acoustic guitar-based tracks while working out! On the go! Or, while at work!

Three: I’ve added a page with some links to artists with whom I’ve either had the privilege of working or are friends of mine that you should definitely check out.

Four: I bought a new microphone and I’m pumped to see where my recordings can go as a result (recording these sessions live and trying to get together a basic mix on the same night can be a bit of a challenge, so every little step helps).

With our updates out of the way, that brings us to Vol. Four: Untitled #3, a song I wrote in late spring/early summer of 2006. It was written either shortly before or after an incredible three-week trip to Europe, and right around the time of my graduation from Belmont. Though I originally intended to add words to this composition, this song is special to me as is, as an instrumental piece. I wrote this song on a guitar that was given to me as a gift in remembrance of my grandmother (my dad’s mom), and shortly after it was written it turned into a song to celebrate the life of my grandpa (my mom’s dad) as I performed it for his Memorial on July 22nd, 2006. It’s the only performance during which I remember not being able to tell my hands what to do as they shakily made their way up and down the fretboard. It’s something I’ll never forget, and as a result, this song will always be special to me.

Two weeks later I sat down in Justin Saunders’ Nashville studio to record an acoustic version to send to my grandma (my mom’s mom; that version is below), and it hasn’t been recorded or performed live since. This song is about reconciliation to me. About paths that re-converge and the journey we take to reach that point. I also find the melody to hint at hope.

On a side note, the shirt I’m rocking in this video is from the company I helped start prior to joining Target, Speakerheart. Our invite code during our beta phase was “Orange” and you might see an artist or two sporting the same model out and about in Nashville.

Version 1 / Recorded 08.01.06, Nashville, TN

Version 2 / Recorded 02.23.09, Minneapolis, MN

The Irving Sessions // Vol. Two: Rhythm of Falling
01.22.2009 / Minneapolis, MN

Video:

Rhythm of Falling (Irving Sessions) from David Wright on Vimeo.

Audio:

I thought it would be fitting to follow “Divin’ In” with a song recorded exactly one year later, to the day, in Studio C at Belmont University.  Studio C is the smallest of the three main studios on campus, as the A-Z hierarchy tends to hold up in most complexes, and my friend Justin and I were just completing our Audio One course which granted us access to the studios for personal projects.  While this introduction was as far as I would attempt to take my hands-on engineering skills, Justin has gone on to work with artists like Mat Kearney, Rachael Yamagata, Sara Bareilles, Josh Kelley, Butterfly Boucher and Jeremy Lister.  Justin’s been through Minneapolis twice now since my transition to the cities in March, once with Bareilles and once with Yamagata, running lighting for the former and  rocking out with the latter (it was a few nights after his stop at the Fine Line he could be found holding down the back of stage left on Leno, singing BGVs and playing percussion and keyboard for Yamagata).  It’s friends like Justin and the joy they get out of their craft that push me to keep doing this in some capacity.

So, imagine a chilly but manageable early winter season in Nashville.  Two-thousand-and-three was winding down, and me, a sophomore this go-round, coming off a busy fall of writing, rehearsing, performing and chasing girls to the best of my abilities, (and having just written and recorded a few songs about such activity), “Rhythm of Falling” sort of came out of nowhere.  A concise song by my standards (I tend to want to state and then restate my point multiple times for emphasis), “Rhythm of Falling” originally clocked in at just under 3 minutes in telling of youthful romance as the air is beginning to turn (“When the breeze is like this / defense stands no chance”).  It was sort of the song I didn’t try to write, coming after a number of songs that included many revisions, many hours in the studio in effort to polish.  Here, instead, we did the song in just a few takes and kept the instrumentation straightforward with vocals and guitar, leaving with the final mix on CD that night.

I particularly like the cadence of the chorus:

Rhythm of Fall / Falling in Love

I didn’t intend for this lyric to mean anything more than simply “falling in love”.  You know, a short and sweet hook that doesn’t have to include a rhyme.  However, 5 years later, I feel the timing attempts to bring in undertones of the Fall season: the changing color of leaves, hooded sweatshirts, cold fingers trying to compose outdoors and feelings of love either starting to actualize or, in contrast, hibernating until greener pastures arrive with thawing weather.  There’s that rush to find someone with whom you can enjoy wearing pea coats and scarves around town while looking at Christmas lights or navigating office dynamics at the obligatory party.  This song is about that part of the early Holiday season.

I think this song might make its way onto the actual album that comes (fingers crossed) from these sessions.  I definitely hear piano, cello, slight percussion and BGVs on the re-re-make.

Version 1 / Recorded 12.03.03, Nashville, TN

Version 2 / Recorded 01.22.09, Minneapolis, MN

The Irving Sessions // Vol. One: Divin’ In
01.12.2009 / Minneapolis, MN

Video:

Divin’ In (The Irving Sessions) from David Wright on Vimeo.

Audio:

Why “Divin’ In” first?  I don’t have a great answer other than I always felt this song was strong.  I liked the guitar melody on the intro the night I wrote it and I always felt great singing it.  I think every songwriter has a song that while playing and singing they actually transcend into the song itself, the performance.  “Divin’ In” is often that song for me.  It was also an easy place for me to start as far as polishing very rusty Pro Tools skills.

Original Notebook with lyrics dated 11/13/02 resting on my new M-Audio BX-5a Deluxe stacked on a handful of GOOD magazines.

I wrote “Divin’ In” during the late fall of my freshman year of college at Belmont University in Nashville, TN.  I arrived in Nashville with the intention of writing music for a living.  I arranged to get a business degree at Belmont partly as a backup plan should my aspirations not pan out.  It was also a way for me to surround myself with talented musicians without having to formally study music.

I remember hitting quite a dry spell as far as composing goes that fall.  I wrote and recorded a song entitled “Tomorrow” in early September of ’02, shortly after arriving in Music City, and though it had its moments, it lacked the type of hook that provides more than five seconds of a pitch in Nashville.  Next I tried my hands at writing and, gasp, singing two country songs – “Paradise” & “Nashville Lights” – both decent, but I remember thinking at the time they lacked the polish of the songs I had written for my high school band 5 Seconds Late.  Then came a creative streak of sorts which turned into a recording session on 12.03.02 at the studios on campus.  First, I wrote “Until Then”.  Ten days later I wrote “Divin’ In”, and between the two songs I thought I was slowly clearing a path toward a publishing deal, just months into my “career”.

I think I was surprised actually when those two songs didn’t receive the type of response I was anticipating.  And I don’t think I really ever understood why until I went to record the ’09 version for The Irving Sessions last night.

The pace and delivery were never right, not for the original recording and not for the live recording that followed in the summer of ’03.  So, for this rendition, six years later, I decided to take it much slower.  I told my girlfriend Jenn after hearing John Mayer sing his cover of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” that it was the first time I actually stopped to listen to the lyrics.  And the lyrics are fantastic.  But it took Mayer’s tempo and delivery for the song to have context.  She told me she felt the same way about “Divin’ In” post-six years vs. the youth of my performance at 18.

And though it pains the perfectionist inside of me to do this, here are the archives for comparison’s sake.  I guess this is what these sessions are all about.  I would love your feedback:

Version 1 / Recorded 12.03.02, Nashville, TN

Version 2 / Recorded 07.12.03, Canton, OH

Version 3 / Recorded 01.12.09, Minneapolis, MN