Making of an Album Episode 3: Alternative Writing Techniques

 Hello friends, 

Cosmic Bos march onwards with the third episode in the Making of an Album series, this time discussing alternative music creating/writing techniques.

Welcome to Episode 3 of our Making of an Album series

For this episode, Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) take you through a selection of alternative writing techniques, discussing The Beatles contribution to the world of songwriting, in particular their later more experimental work, to the general explosion of alternative techniques of music creation that came about in the 1960's.

After that, Cosmic Bos turn their attention to their own writing techniques, breaking down the
improvisation process, following the trajectory of 'Rainbow Appearing', a song improvised last year in the 3rd full improvisation session (Summadelica), through to it's development for live performance and preparing the song to be an album contender. 

After improvisation comes improv-revisation, the basis of the first two seasons of Cosmic Bos Improv Music Podcast, where the music was improvised and then revised in the edit. The boys discuss this and play an example song 'Hold Me in Slow Motion'.

After Improv-revisation comes Improv Squared, Cosmic Bos's current alternative writing technique, essentially a mash up of improvisation and improv-revisation. Nick and Andy talk you through this with an example song 'Badder Decisions' from their Improv Squared album - Petit Champignon de Lumiere 

https://cosmicbos.bandcamp.com/album/improv-squared-petite-champignon-de-lumiere

To conclude the episode, Nick and Andy put together a brand new improv squared song called 'The More You Learn, The Less You Know', a video for which will be available in the another blog.

The Instrumental version of 'The More You Learn, The Less You Know' will be available on bandcamp for you to come up with you own vocals to if you so please.

If you wish to participate in future Improv Squared shenanigans please email us at cosmicbos@gmail.com 

Please like, share, comment and subscribe

Peace and Infinite Love

Cosmic Bos

P.S - Here is the YouTube link to the episode, should you not like the above direct podcast link.

Making of an Album Episode 2: Traditional Writing Techniques (Cosmic Bos Improv Music Podcast Season 4)

 Well hello dear friends,

Welcome to episode 2 of our Making of an Album series, this time (as you already know from having read the title of this blog) we tackle song writing, in particular, traditional song writing techniques.

Subscribe to our podcast on your preferred podcast platform Direct Podcast Page

Album artwork by Dayne Howcroft

Nick and Andy (Cosmic Bos) collectively have several hundred songs to their names, and here they breakdown the fundamentals of songwriting, examining structure and form, before writing a song in front of your very ears.

Visited several times throughout the episode, Nick and Andy sat over two sessions and wrote a song from start to finish. Here we try to show you the creative process in its raw state.

Nick and Andy also talk about the history of songwriting, as well as their own personal histories of songwriting, including several examples from their songbooks.

The first proper song you hear in this episode is Astral Underwear, a song that Cosmic Bos created using their new musical construction method, Improv Squared (More on this in the next episode).

In the middle of the episode you are treated to two songs from Andy and Nicks songbooks.

Love Defined is by Andy Jackson and is about his wife

Spontaneous Plan is by Nick Jackson and is about his wife

Both songs are available on Cosmic Bos From the Songbook (2020), and right here in youtube form too

Email cosmicbos@gmail.com with your favourite wife

The episode concludes with our other double A side single 'Forever Bruised', which is acoustically written music by Andy and Nick over a haunting poem by Dayne Howcroft.

This was a rollercoaster ride to make, and we loved it, hopefully there is something useful and insightful about our ramblings about writing songs, and we also hope that we have demystified the process a bit, and shown how really anyone could write songs if it was what they wanted to do. 

If you want to get involved in our musical shenanigans drop us an email at cosmicbos@gmail.com 

We also really appreciate feedback, and would love to hear your own songwriting stories, comment on this post or better yet, comment on the youtube video version of this episode so we can all share the musical love. 

Peace and infinite love

Cosmic Bos