This is the official art track video for Steven Conklin's "Naptime" from the "Auditory Hallucinations" album.
Naptime features Steven playing multiple acoustic guitars over an unorthodox four bar progression. In the key of A minor, it's a measure of 4/4 followed by a measure of 5/4, then those two repeat seven times. After a brief bar of 6/4 the same 4/4 to 5/4 repeats again four times but with the focus shifted to the iv chord (D minor). After another 4 measure cadence the beginnings of the solos start.
Not “solos” in the traditional sense, but rather solos in a mood sense.
The first solo consists of ten measures however, only the first five measures are harmonized. This sets up the first four measure tension and release part.
The next six measures are built on an Am9 – Fmaj7 – Gadd9 progression with a very open drum beat. Over which one electric lead plays a very loose and keeping with the theme, somewhat dreamy line.
All that gives way to a repeat of the main melody again, this time handled by distorted electric guitars.
The leads are very free flowing although they still follow the tension and release theme that roams the song. The acoustic rhythm and leads re-enter again to close out the track.
As far as the recording of Naptime goes all the acoustic guitars and bass were recorded direct. Steven wanted a really up front squeaky clean sound as the basis. There was a few parts where the acoustics were routed through a delay plugin and brought up in the mix for effect, and effect alone.
All the drums were close miked and the overheads were heavily filtered to provide mostly the cymbals rather than a blend of room/kit.
For the electric leads it was one guitar into one amp and cab, miked with an SM57. Very simple and effective. The extra harmony bits and oddball fills here and there were the same setup.
Often asked about the title Naptime Steven explains: “The title Naptime is a joke. I didn't have a title for the main melody when I first wrote it. After playing it over and over the word naptime just kinda popped out. I thought that was rather funny because the part was about 180 beats per minute. Thing is it really set the mood of the rest of the track – with all the falling asleep to nightmare sections.
So the title stayed. Good times.”
A complete transcription to Naptime can be purchased at
www.sheetmusicplus.com (or by going to our merch section.)
To make a video for an instrumental song is quite the challenge. Naptime was no different. To try and keep things interesting and give the listener (or viewer) something to watch Steven came up with the idea of adding the bits of relevant information throughout the art track clip. He liked it so much that he decided to do one for every song on Auditory Hallucinations.
Track: Naptime
Album: Auditory Hallucinations
Track Run Time: 2:50
Track Producer: Steven Conklin
Video Director: Steven Conklin
Keys: A Minor
Copyright 2016 Steven Conklin (BMI)