Over more than twenty years of participating in February Album Writing Month (FAWM), I’ve settled into a workflow that lets me capture a solid recording almost as soon as a new song exists. Everything begins with a guitar progression and a melody I’m humming into place. Once a few words surface, the actual songwriting kicks in. Even with all the digital tools available today, I prefer to keep things grounded by playing real instruments.
I print the lyrics in large type, hang the sheet above a camera, and run through the song a few times. Usually the fourth or fifth take is the one I keep. FAWM taught me early on not to get stuck chasing “perfect.” After recording, I pull the audio from the video and drop it into a mixing program. Most of my effect settings are locked in beforehand. Then I add extra vocals and additional instruments like guitar, banjo, piano, keyboard. Once the mix sounds clean enough, I sync it back to the video. Every year I pick a new two-tone color theme for these recordings.
If a song is captured this way during FAWM, it’s considered finished. After the month ends, I usually have three or four keepers that I test live on stage. Performing them helps the songs develop, but I never rerecord them. Around ninety percent of everything I’ve written in the last two decades began during FAWM: simple, consistent, effective.
These days I use ChatGPT to check my lyrics for grammar and spelling and to offer suggestions; before that, I leaned on native-speaking FAWMers. The audio mix I upload to Bandcamp is identical to the one in the videos. My style is defined by single-mic, one-take recordings with a handful of added layers.
What I cherish most is the simple magic of shaping something out of nothing. I’m not a poet in the strict sense; I just piece songs together with a kind of easygoing, slacker charm. As long as the music still manages to surprise me, I’m happy with what I create.
