“03 21 of 2022” is the second track of my debut supersingle The Books. It was named just to mark the date of the release to make that visible on platforms that don’t show it. In hindsight I probably should have given it an actual name. It’s sort of a bonus track on the release – a fairly short instrumental track.
The Books Release Page
(More info and streaming/download links)
03 21 of 2022
I was intrigued by epic rock songs that moved between different styles throughout the piece. Songs that might start out as a ballad but end up as a real driving hard rock tune later on. I wanted to learn how to do this and decided to start work on it when listening to a particular example – Mistral Wind by Heart.
So I started working on a song inspired by Mistral Wind but I was never happy with anything after the initial acoustic section. I also never wrote any words for it. This becomes the song 03 21 of 2022.
I held onto the material for a while (years) and thought I might one day make it into a full song. Instead I came into a situation where a small instrumental track was what I was looking for to round out The Books. I thought this track worked well with the other two so I decided to leave it as is and release it.
Slide Riff
I think at the time I didn’t have a guitar slide. Actually I think I may have had one I was given at Christmas. It was a poor size for me and got stuck on my finger on Christmas day. I tucked that one away and never used it again. I only had a fear of it getting stuck again whenever to tried it.
So I built myself a slide using a piece of metal off old earphones and a bit of kind of coiled wire from a spiral notebook. This wire acted as the ring component to go around my finger. With wire I could set the size and it wouldn’t be able to get stuck. It was inspired by the Slidewinder which I thought was an interesting design. They seemed a bit expensive for me though. There are magnets in those to lift the guitar strings up slightly to play without the strings buzzing. I glued a refrigerator magnet to mine. The metal from the earphones didn’t really carry much of the magnetism, though. Only the smallest amount. It was with this slide that I played the main riff for 03 21 of 2022.
I played it on a Rogue acoustic guitar. It was the only acoustic I had then. I first tried to learn guitar of one of those (my parents bought three) when I was around ten years old. I didn’t stick with it. But I guess it did end up being the guitar I’d eventually learn on years later. So the secret to the tone of this track is my beginner’s acoustic guitar (probably with a nut replacement) and an earbud slide.