#funnily enough i actually feel pressured to make taylor edits which makes me not want to make them

[daenerys-targaryen]

how is it anyone's business what you decide to post? it's your blog, if anon or anyone else don't like, there's this magical thing called the unfollow button. fucking morons.

Yeah it's not the first time I've gotten asks like that (and won't be the last) and that's exactly what I say, "unfollow!" It really is that simple. It's the entitlement for me. Demanding someone to do something on their own blog bitch you better be joking. It's partially my fault because for the longest time this blog was primarily a taylor swift blog when I first started it, so I gained a lot of my followers that way but I'm also no longer 18 and have more interests than Taylor now. Also I made this blog my primary blog (aka multi fandom) in 2019/2020 so it's been years since I've been purely 100% taylor lol. To say that all my other edits 'fall to the wayside' aka flop is so funny. I have shrek gifsets that have 50k LMAO

[lanasitra]

Honeymoon Notes | What’s It Like?

           Composed in the summer of 2013

             I wrote “What’s It Like?” when I was going through both the “I’m not happy with myself” phase and the “I think I’m going to die any day now” phase. In tandem with these two trains of thought, something that would become a recurring practice for me toward the end of my first year of university was the gross over-analysis of my contemporary situation, as well as those of my potential futures. At one point, I had a breakdown because I felt that, once I had found “the one” and settled down, there would come a day where nothing excited me anymore; I felt I would just be bored, scrolling through YouTube videos until I died. Another side of me thought these feelings may be symptomatic of the relationship I was in; maybe I wasn’t feeling stimulated because the relationship wasn’t good enough to stimulate me. Yet another part of me thought every single relationship would turn out this way (which is a problem in itself, because it indicates I put “finding a partner” on a pedestal and was neglecting the health of my internal world). These fears are significant factors in “What’s It Like?” The impetus to write began with me scrolling through Facebook, looking at photos of couples on their various summer trips, ostensibly happier than I had been in a long time. I wanted to ask these people, “what’s your secret?” or, “what’s it like to be that happy all the time?” And so it began.

           Despite what an inattentive audience might initially think (this piece has been called “depressing” – even labeled “dark pop” – by some of my peers), “What’s It Like?” is actually built on a theme of hopeful defiance. Despite my emotionally heavy questions that will never be answered in a satisfactory manner, “I am quite alright… One day, I’ll get it right, / But, for now, I’ll hold on tight.” “What’s It Like?” is about acceptance of the lows and faith in oneself that you’ll come out on top eventually. In the final chorus, I make the realization that the perfection I see in other people is just smoke and mirrors: “Everyone, hold on tight. / It’s all going to be alright. / I promise it’ll be alright.” We are all in the same boat and need reciprocal love and support.

           The album recording of “What’s It Like?” is built on a single, simultaneous take of both guitar and vocals, recorded backstage in the Roy Barnett Recital Hall of UBC in 2015. Because there is clear bleed in both the vocal track and guitar track, it was incredibly difficult to do much meaningful editing on either source without introducing notable artifacts. Though I added a number of vocal overdubs and the underlying pad, the main vocal and guitar remain relatively untouched, which ultimately led to what could be considered “squandered potential” on both fronts.

BUT TUHSWUHTUHMUS! WHY WOULDN’T YOU JUST RECORD THEM SEPARATELY?! Back in 2014 and early 2015, I had incredible difficulty recording these particular vocals separately from the guitar and actually have it sound good. I feel part of the reason is that there is an intensity in my voice when I sing and play simultaneously that just isn’t there when I sing separate takes. Secondly, my vocal intonation straight up sucked (more than usual) against a recording of just the guitar. After months of trying, I decided to just say, “f*** it, this is literally the only way I can get a passable recording of this piece.” I felt an enormous pressure to get “What’s It Like?” on Honeymoon because it was – and still is – obvious to me that, to an audience, it is one of the most “poppy,” accessible and engaging pieces in my oeuvre. I was therefore going to jump through any hoops necessary to release the piece.

           I don’t remember exactly when I decided to include the foley-pad in “What’s It Like,” but I recall 2014 and 2015 being a time period in which I became privy to a handful of techniques used to make a chorus jump out at a listener. Based on my experiences and opinions, the best choruses tend to be held up by pads prolonging the tonic or a progression of the most harmonically relevant notes. The pads don’t need to be in the listener’s face, but they’re usually there to fill the space. Again, it was clear to me and to others that “What’s It Like” had incredible potential, so I wanted to try anything to make it hit hard.

           The spring of 2015 saw me give a presentation to my “History of Music Since 1900” class about the work of my close friend Kjel Sidloski. His album, Ad viger, had fascinated me due to its ability to move in and out of a multitude of styles without ever feeling incoherent (an impressive balancing act at a time when some people still put pieces and artists in little boxes and create personal expectations based on those boxes). Part of my presentation’s thesis was that Kjel is able to create cohesion across Ad viger by making the album gapless and using foley as a bridging mechanism between each piece. Ad viger presents a world to its audience; a world I dive deeply into with every listen. This immersive quality is an aspect I desired for Honeymoon, so I began collecting my own field recordings to act as gaps and help coalesce the project.

           Some time down the road, I managed to get an audio recording of my friends Ava, Taylor and Laura conversing in a taxi following a particularly heavy night out. While the content of this conversation will remain confidential, I found it intense enough to find a place at the back end of Honeymoon – but not, as we can hear, as a gap. While tinkering with the audio file, I created a pad by applying a mixture of reverbs, EQ and auto-tune. “What’s It Like?” has been taken to the next level by this pad, and I’m fairly proud of the fact that it’s not some b***s*** midi string section or synth; the pad is unique to “What’s It Like” (and “Sunrise,” for that matter), as well as to me as an artist.

           The addition of the floor tom only made sense; it compliments the growing intensity of the piece and highlights the rhythmic syncopation of the harmonic progression. I feel as though the idea was in my head from the get-go, but my desire to add percussion was clear by September of 2014.

           (Regarding the Remaster) I did try to retake the vocals for “What’s It Like?” prior to releasing the Honeymoon remaster on iTunes. However, while my pitch accuracy was notably better in some spots, my delivery was sterile. In all honesty, I just don’t sing “What’s It Like?” quite the same way anymore, even with a guitar; my performance no longer has such gritty, pleading intensity. Once in a blue moon, I can recapture that grit and retain good intonation, but, for now, a consistent balance eludes me.

I was tearing myself up about these vocals until I read a Facebook status posted by my friend Heather Gunn. In this status, she says:

“Because of how rooted our culture is in capitalism and consumerism, people think they can't make music if the music they make wouldn't be ‘worth buying’… if there's one other thing I can say for sure, it's that making music makes people happy… since I'm someone who ‘does music’, I hold myself to pretty ridiculous standards - I can't let anyone hear me if I'm less than perfect, I can't make any music if it's not ‘worth buying’. Anyway. I want to change that way of thinking” (15 March 2016)

           Funnily enough, I had this very same struggle with “What’s It Like?” upon Honeymoon’s initial release eight months earlier. It took hearing the perspective of others to sit back and say, “no, this is the most honest version of the piece. I am willing to accept an imperfection or two if it means retaining emotional integrity.” Here I am again – same song, same struggle. However, Heather’s status came at the perfect time. Once again, I was able to say, “no, this is the song’s pure essence, and this is what I need it to be.” I am a perfectionist elsewhere on Honeymoon, but I savor the fact that I am mentally and emotionally capable of letting go for a few moments here and there. I feel this approach gives the Honeymoon recordings realism and personality, thereby setting them apart – even in the tiniest capacity – from their pop contemporaries. Furthermore, I just remain a little saner, as opposed to obsessing over cent deviations in pitch and rubati that shift the rhythm by less than an eighth of a second.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying here for the same complacency that led to me sucking as a songwriter in mid-2014 (see “Honeymoon Notes | Canadian Summer”). I still hold myself to a high standard, much like Heather. However, as with Heather, I am beginning to see where to draw the line between just enough and too much.

 Namaste

-       t s w t m s