Song: Ordinary Day

Greg Whitehead - Ordinary Day by GWGumby

I've finally finished my next song, "Ordinary Day" which is probably my least synth-y song I've done yet. This song is also unique in that it features guitar for the first time played by my brother, Jeffrey.

I actually wrote and started recording this song before my last two that I've published. I believe I started working on it in August. The melody came into my head in church, of all places. (Though I have often found creative inspiration whilst sitting on a pew.) Unfortunately I couldn't do anything about it other than repeat it in my head until I could get home and start playing it on the piano.

I have two initial tests/trials that a new song must pass before I start working on it seriously. The first is that it needs to be memorable. If a song idea comes to me and then I can't recall it later, it probably wasn't good enough to keep. Second, the melody/idea has to hold up to some type of basic instrument accompaniment. I've had plenty of song ideas that seem great in my head, but then when I work out the chords and basic structure on the piano it ends up much less interesting. I have several songs that exist in my head that I have yet to find an interesting accompaniment for, so they stop there.

Needless to say, this one passed both initial trials. I was able to remember the melody well enough to recall it to mind after church and the next day as well. Then playing it on the piano made it even more interesting. The next step was writing some lyrics.

I hate writing lyrics. I'm much more interested in the music--in melody and harmony and taking all these sounds and putting them together like a jigsaw puzzle until a nice picture emerges. Great instrumentals exist, but a song is much more memorable if it is sung.

The opening line came to me first "On an ordinary day..." but then what? I played with a few things until this idea came to mind of a guy who decides to stay home and watch life happen on his HDTV since it's just as good if not better than real life. I was inspired by artists such as Ben Folds, Blur, and ELO all of which often wrote song-stories about quirky people (see "Zak and Sara", "Country House", or "Horace Wimp").

Now I had some words and a melody. Time to start working out the arrangement. The song is a very power pop-style piece, inspired by some of my favorite bands like Jellyfish and Queen. I also had wanted to do something some day with my brother who is an amazingly talented guitarist. So I worked out some piano, drums, and vocals and then I emailed everything to him and asked if he would add some nice Brian May harmony guitars to it.

Jeffrey took it and then disappeared. He sent me one rough draft in September that sounded great. Then a final version in December. In the meantime I wrote four more songs (published two, recording two more at the moment).

After getting the guitar parts, I added them into the mix, added a bassline and a couple extra musical bits, mixed it all up and then poured out what you hear now.

I used my Roland digital piano for the piano parts. The Roland JV-1080 was used for the bass part. The Korg R3 was used for vocoder and minor string/synth flourishes. A VST was used for the drums. Any other non-vocal noise comes from my brother's guitar of which I have no information about to provide here.

Here's another static-image YouTube video with the song:


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