“NEW” SONG
6,574
ZAYNE THOMPSON
On the 24th of July, 2024, I wrote and recorded a nearly six minute instrumental track, originally under the working title “Seventeen”. The idea came to me around 11:00 in the morning when I was bored and decided to play some piano. Conscious that it was the last day before I turned eighteen, the idea came to me to come up with something in… 17/8 time? Could this be done? I ended up using two bars of 5/4 and one bar of 7/4 to create a mixed meter of 17, and before long I was inspired to try to make a whole song in that time signature, and to do it all in one day to mark my last day of being seventeen. I wasn’t sure that it could be done, or if so, what it would even sound like.
I fiddled around, recording drums, piano, various guitar tracks, and bass parts, and mixed the song the next morning, to share with family and friends. More about the process on my Bandcamp page!
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Last month (December 2024), I opened up the session for the first time since July, hoping to re-export the mix to upload it here, and after not hearing it for so long, I was able to hear a bunch of inadequacies with my original mix that I thought I could improve, so over the past month I've been working on and off to make a new and improved mix, that hopefully stands up better over time.
It's not perfect, but it's probably my favorite work of mine to date. I hope you enjoy!
-Zayne Thompson // 2 January, 2025
So, who is Zayne Thompson?
I’m a self-taught musician from the midwest US who has been playing drums since 2015, guitar since 2019, and bass & piano since 2020. Drums are still the instrument I feel most closely connected with, which is good considering my drum kit takes up the overwhelming majority of my room. I play my instruments daily, learning my favorite songs and constantly working towards improvement.
I have been making recordings of myself as long as I can remember - using blank cassette tapes in a CD player, or little handheld voice recorders, or whatever means I had at my disposal. In 2020, I received a desktop computer and an audio interface as a gift from my family for Christmas, and this prompted me to immediately begin experimenting with creating multi-tracked recordings and mixing them. Listening back to some of those early experiments is similar to looking in the mirror after getting a very regrettable haircut - but I see that as proof of personal growth — it’s a good thing I’ve kept with it, even when I fall short of the consistently unreasonably high standards I set for myself (working on that!).
Anyway, I make weird little songs that take inspiration from my ever-expanding music taste. I have spent hundreds of hours of tinkering around and recording cover songs, and have begun to focus on improving my songwriting this year. I have a wealth of ideas scattered about within a maze of folders, aptly named “SONGSSSSSSSSS”; I just need to dig through them and piece the right ones together, I hope! I plan to make songs at least somewhat regularly, which will debut early here on my website, and on my Bandcamp page (and if I’m satisfied with them enough, they’ll make their way to streaming services soon after).
Outside the realm of audio, I am also an amateur artist and photographer - the photos on this site (aside from the two portraits in this section) were all taken by me while on drives or walks, whilst listening to music. From time to time, I might share a collection of photos or drawings if I think they’re interesting enough to warrant looking at. Speaking of music listening though, I listen to a lot of music. I’m a big enthusiast of albums, and a chronic CD collector (my collection currently stands at nearly 500 CDs - I’ve long since run out of shelf space…) Anyways, I hope that you find something I’ve made interesting!
-Zayne Thompson, December 2024
