Presentation of the Musical Theme from W+M E-Magazine: Under the Clouds
Hello,
JM Musique, the new Audio Production House presents the song and video of Under the Clouds on the YouTube Channel on Thursday, August 1, 2024, at 12:30 PM.
Here is a report for the occasion. Let’s find out how about the production of the song and what happened in the studio during its creation, from composition to the mix!
New W+M Annual Partnership
Services W+M is pleased to announce an annual partnership agreement with JM Musique, which will handle the audio creation of W+M promotional and advertising design!
JM Musique, new annual W+M partner
JM Musique was founded on July 2, 2024, by artist and entrepreneur Jeff Maheux. It becomes the new sister company of Services W+M to offer audio creation to its services. The instrumental version of the song Under the Clouds is the musical theme of the virtual magazine, published monthly since January 2024.
JM Musique Mission
Produce local music without frontiers,
the score of our life taking us through our lives.
Under is a song written spontaneously. There were some innocuous words at that time to perform the melody on the music… A great pock rock piece! It’s totally W+M!
Jeff Maheux.
Since January 2024, a new music was subtly added to an ad on a video. This is a promotion for the publication of a magazine.
In the spring, a second part of this music appeared in the same promotional campaign on a larger audience. This is the part of the song from the guitar riff section. Both advertisements are running and the comments about the score are positive.
Alright, let’s go, it’s time to reveal the cat’s tune. A recorded track, Angelo Labatte’s guitars sublimely added to the mix, the final lyrics are written and we record the missing vocal tracks to finish the song. It’s time to let the cat out of the box! Meet the Cat!
But first, let’s take a five-minute break in the courtyard for a coffee! It’s a big day after all, everyone deserves a break, right?
Oh, watch the door, the cat will go… out!
…
Well, you met The Cat!
Here is the chorus from the song Under the Clouds:
Isn’t a part in everyone
Looking for the couch all around
We must rest on something to feel comfortable
With superior intelligence, this human race must be the best of all
And the cat smells the astray, thinking what is this for?
Meet the Cat
This text originally didn’t contain a cat story. It’s over time, while singing and practising the song, I introduced phrases about my cat to replace lines that weren’t very good.
At the time, I was living in the lower part of a duplex and chatting to my upstairs neighbour from our porch. Great times!
It was finally on June 8, 2024, I sat down to finish the text. In general, the song is about my bad habits, and the cat finds me ridiculous ;).
Under the Clouds
(Words and music by Jeff Maheux)
Well! A break and cigarette would be all right.
Still think this habit’s only for a while
And when you think it’s funny, it’s not, it’s not!
I haven’t seen perfection here so far
Isn’t a part in everyone
Looking for the couch all around
We must rest on something to feel comfortable
With superior intelligence, this human race must be the best of all
And the cat smells the astray, thinking what is this for?
Well! Hard to admit when you’re wrong.
Stubborn at heart, alone at home boy
People are doing strange things sometimes, sometimes
Finding excuses never rebuilt broken hearts!
Isn’t a part in everyone
Looking for the couch all around
We must rest on something to feel comfortable
With superior intelligence, this human race must be the best of all
And the cat smells the astray and push it on the floor!
This cat, what a bag of bones
And the neighbours laughing with me at the scene now
I guess the break is over! That’s fine. That’s fine.
At least there is some action right here, there’s no doubt!
At least there is some action right here! Under the clouds.
11 novembre 2000, édité 8 juin 2024.
The Composer Notes
After a search in a few binders, November 11, 2000, is the date of the music composition and the first lyrics version of a rock tune. Something I suddenly had in mind. I then took a classical guitar to find the chords. This song is titled Under the Clouds. It was completed during the evening. But I couldn’t play the guitar riff… It was too complex for me.
The following week, I decided to show it to Angelo, with whom I work in the studio to record my tracks and demos.
Usually, before presenting a song, I wait several weeks. I have too often worked in the studio on a song spontaneously that ended up not used; resulting in lost of money and time. But that’s not the case with Under the Clouds. This guitar riff and the chorus melody are looping in my head like a Spice Girls song!
Explaining what I have in mind, we record the music during the holiday season. Everything goes smoothly and quickly too, only a few sessions with this song. Angelo immediately caught the spirit of the song and recorded the lead guitar in the second session. I think he liked it too.
The Mixing
So everything is recorded except the vocals. Then I don’t know why, I put this work on the side and forgot about it for a while.
Subsequently, around 2006, the arrangements and mixing were redone, removing the high notes and orchestration to open the possibility of becoming a musical score for clips and video. The introduction of the piece, with the bass, keyboards and synth percussion, was also brought to the front of the song in the introduction, rather than only in the bridge (the middle of the song before the last verse). Despite this new mix, there was something still wrong… Despite everything, the piece is put aside again until I find what I don’t like about it… It’s the length…
There are some songs in life we love, that I love, and are good, but we don’t always like to listen. Because they’re too long! They never end!
2024 - Back to the mix, one less verse slowing the pace cuts the song from 4.50 to around 4 minutes. This version is punchier. This also gives more room and action for the interpretation and signing. I believe I have this pop rock mission done with this final mix of Under the Clouds. Third time’s the charm, right?
A video without a cat!
And so in July 2024, in the middle of the night of a hot and humid week, projectors were turned on to film a presentation video. Even though the lead's vocal track was not to my taste; but who likes to hear themselves sing, right? After several years of hesitation, I decided to give it a go anyways.
This is the version used for the musical theme of the Monthly W+M. From this variant were added the voices for the clip which will be online soon on the JM Musique YouTube channel!
W+M and the choice of a musical theme
Choosing a musical theme for a program, podcast or virtual magazine isn’t a simple thing. The length of 10 to 15 seconds of the piece, to meet industry and advertising standards, requires a punchy melody in this limited time, but with the possibility of having a longer version for the endings of programs with the display of credits of 30 to 45 seconds, which can go up to one minute.
Also, you always need to think about the instrumentation of the theme. The orchestration shouldn’t be imposing, as spoken voices are often added during promotional recordings of the client. Since when recording the music, you don’t know whether the speaking voice will be male or female, I don’t take any chances and forget all the orchestrations with brass or keyboards in the high notes. So we have a drum kit, a base and a guitar left. No problem, everything is under control with the cat song!
Pop Rock Style! Under the Clouds’ mission to introduce the W+M Monthly Ticket, a virtual information magazine on digital marketing tools, is a success!
Conclusion
Like the lyrics, producing the song was an adventure. I hope you enjoy listening to it and singing it. Maybe even your cat will love it!
Finally, although the song talks about smoking a cigarette, this isn’t an encouraged habit of life, on the contrary!!! This song is about the bad habits of human beings. Health above all, all the time!
Thank you for reading
Jeff
Cr Images : JM Musique
Production et rédaction : Services W+M
The Exclusive Music Reports from W+M, it’s a A+ of Rock!
Excerpt from the Editorial of the August Monthly Ticket
JM Musique
For several years I was looking to integrate my passion for music creation to my professional career as a marketing writer and editor.
An evening and weekend passion
For a long time, I was in front of the screen during the day and in the evening doing two separate things. Marketing work in the daylight and music, mixing, composing and singing at night. I always practised performing and phrasing in parks and fields, so as not to drive my neighbour’s crazy. Especially the rehearsal for performing the lyrics, once the diction and articulation have been done, where a line can be repeated for 10 minutes on 60 different ways to sing it. We go down the entire text of the song all afternoon. It’s annoying, even for myself.
You now understand I did this part-time, sometimes putting music projects aside for months or years, particularly during the pandemic. I have songs dating from 1998 to 2006 that haven’t yet been worked in the studio and others without mixing and vocals.
JM Musique
I have since moved to the City of Québec with all this baggage, and it’s truly the case to say it. With the audio trends being in demand in the marketing and branding of businesses with clips, video and balado’s, it was natural to start an Audio Production House and offer musical soundtracks of all kinds. So now, we have Québec tracks entirely produced by and for local industries to embellish marketing promos, corporate videos and podcast jingles and even personal Story and Reels on Socials!
So here we’re now. The audio production house JM Musique was founded on July 2, 2024, and the website was online 12 days later at www.jmmusique.com.
I invite you to visit the site and the new social media to continue the adventure of #demoTalkMusicArt, the musical project already started, and future compositions.
Thank you,
Jeff Maheux, founder W+M and JM Musique.
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