Demoing a new song

About this time last month, I had finished working on and recording a new song. I felt that I was out of ideas and that I'd never write another song (this happens quite frequently). After a few days of nothing, I remember sitting down one evening at the end of December with a guitar and absent-mindedly fingering chords, until something began to crystallise. I took this snippet and made a brief sequence - just the chords and a tune. A few days later the chords to a complete verse emerged; don't ask me what key this is in because the key changes every four bars (G Dm G Dm E Bm E Bm C BbM7 C BbM7 Em A Em A).

So: at the beginning of January I had the semblance of a new song. Every few days I would sit down and add another bit to the sequence, be it a second verse, an instrumental link, a third verse, another link, a solo, a bridge and a coda. Of course, at the same time as I was adding sections, I was also working on the instrumentation, for example beefing up the bass part in the second verse, etc. I spent a few interesting hours trying to figure out how I could return from the instrumental to the verse; this was because the bridge started in C# after a link in Dm; the instrumental was alternating four bar phrases of C#m and Bm. In the end, I realised that I could turn a Bm into a B diminished (by changing one note) and thence to A that would lead cleanly to Dm, the instrumental link prior to the final verse.

By Saturday morning, I had a version that was complete (or almost so: there were still a few tweaks to be made in the evening); during the day I eked out the words (these had eluded me during the month). On Sunday I thought that I would add a petite reprise to the final verse, so I inserted an extra four bars with changing instrumentation.

Yesterday evening I decided to make a demo of the song: this was primarily intended to check that the song was singable. I didn't mention this in the previous paragraph, but the tune changed about three times during the month and I wanted a vocal version that I could 'fix' in my mind. Singing the song aloud for a recording for the first time went very well: I remembered the tune (with all its variations) and sang it in tune without stumbling anywhere. I should confess that I made two musical versions of the song: one complete arrangement without tune, and one with tune but without certain instrumentation. I sang along to the version with the tune which might explain why there were no mistakes.

I view this version as a pilot test: to find where the problems are. I intend to lower the song by a tone to make it slightly easier to sing. I intend to remove the petite reprise and revert to the original instrumentation for this part. I intend to change some instrumental fills in the second verse so that they don't clash with the singing.