Category Archives: Original Songs

Original songs from songwriter Jim Fusco!

“Tuning In” (Original Song by Jim Fusco)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome to another edition of the Laptop Sessions with me, Jim Fusco!  Tonight, I bring you an original song that first appeared on my 2009 album, “Halfway There”.  Let’s get the promo stuff out of the way first: You can buy the album “Halfway There” with 12 original songs on my website at http://jimfusco.com/albums/halfway-there.html.  I play all of the instruments on the album and sing all the vocal parts, though there are a couple of guest appearances throughout.  The album, which you can buy on iTunes as well as on CD, features a beautiful album cover painting from Ben Quesnel.  I made him a website for his original artwork at http://bqartstudio.com.  The album cover ties the whole album together- the feeling of being only “halfway there” in life.

“Tuning In”, tonight’s original song music video, is about two people that are having a tough time finding time for each other.  As we all grow up and start to work for a living (after graduating school, hopefully), we find it hard to fit in all of the things we were accustomed to doing.  I know I found it difficult.  All of a sudden, your days are completely filled.  Plus, when you get home, there are chores to do around the house, plus cleaning, cooking, and the laundry.  No time is left over for anything fun anymore!  My future wife and I were in that situation for a while.  We eventually made everything work, but for a time, we would barely ever see each other.

I can recall the exact moment when I came up with the idea for this song, “Tuning In’.  Every week, we would get together and watch the TV show “Boston Legal”.  But, during this time period, we were both very busy, as I mentioned earlier.  I recall seeing a pattern: the ONLY time we’d see each other was to watch this one-hour long TV show!  Thus the line, “I’m tuning you in an hour a week…”  Of course, looking back on it all, I’m sure I was exaggerating a bit.  But, like I said, it was tough getting used to being so busy all of the time.  We went from spending every waking moment together to only seeing each other when all the chores, homework, and day jobs were done…hardly ever.

I chose to do “Tuning In” tonight for a few reasons:

First, I like the song!  Of course I do- I wrote it, right?  But, this one always gets me because I love the style.  I came up with that interesting strumming pattern (kind of start-stop thing I do with the guitar) and it’s got some cool chords thrown in there.  Plus, I think it’s one of my best choruses up to that point in my musical career.  It’s got a good hook and in the recording, I was able to use a neat vocal effect, too.  I got three vocal background parts and recorded each of them twice.  The result was a nice full effect that I borrowed from Bareknaked Ladies- they used the technique on their “Barenaked Ladies Are Me” album (specifically the song, “Bank Job”).

The second reason I chose “Tuning In” as my original song of the night was because I’m not quite ready to debut a new song from my upcoming album, “Those Around Us”.  Yes, all of the songs are recorded, mixed, and mastered.  But, I’m waiting for the album cover (again painted by Ben Quesnel- and it’s AMAZING) so I can produce the discs.  I’m so excited, but I want to debut Laptop Sessions acoustic music videos of the new songs once I have a release date set for the new album.  I’ll keep you posted- it’s going to be soon!

I hope you enjoy my original song, “Tuning In”, another step forward (in my opinion) as a songwriter and producer.  And I hope you’ll check out the album “Halfway There”, as well- it would mean the world to me if you listened (and bought, of course) the album.  Let me know what you think of “Tuning In” in the comments section!

“All I Have To Be” (Acoustic Guitar Music)

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By Jeff Copperthite:

Back for another installment of “Original Wednesday” is a tune that I haven’t written, but I have a lot of experience with.

This song is by my bandmate Scott Poglitsch (of Quilt, as read about on Fusco-Moore Productions). It is a very upbeat and positive song that I like to play a lot. It has a catchy chord progression that I instantly liked when I first heard it.

I did this one on Windows Movie Maker, complete with a web page splash and title effects. Too bad the program couldn’t improve my singing voice 🙂

Enjoy this one please. I hope to do another cover Friday.

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and original music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!

“No Lights, No Sound” (Original Wednesday)

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By Chris Moore:

Well, it’s been a while since I posted a music video, so I figured I’d better make certain my YouTube account was still functional…

This week, instead of recording a cover song, I felt that it was time to kick off The 2010 Project music video series I’ve been planning for a while.  You may be wondering, what exactly is The 2010 Project?  It is the working title — and, based on a recent conversation, very possibly the official title — of my forthcoming album.

Thus far, as of April break, I’ve chosen the thirteen songs that I plan to record and completed the writing of both music and lyrics.  Since then, I’ve recorded acoustic demos of each song and begun listening them in order to help me think of and decide on arrangements and various aspects of how I’d like the final products to sound.  I’ve been experimenting with GarageBand drum loops, and I’ve been practicing the songs quite a bit since April.  Every weekend since then, I’ve taken an hour to sit down and play through the album in order.

As with any big project like recording an album’s worth of material, anything’s liable to change by the time the final product is ready to be heard.  That being said, I plan to string together thirteen installments in this music video series, each featuring one of the aforementioned songs.  And, understanding that anything can change, I’ll be releasing them here on the blog in the order I plan to sequence them on the album.

The first song up is “No Lights, No Sound.”  Laptop Sessions regulars may recognize this as a video I’ve already recorded and posted over a year ago.  However, this is the finalized version, with some slight lyric changes and additional verses.  This song is a rare case of old lyrics re-emerging on a new song.  The story here is that, a few months ago, I came across the lyrics for an old song that I never really committed to, but had always liked a few lines from.  I thought they might fit nicely into this song, and with a few alterations, I think they do.

In a lot of ways, this is one of the simplest songs on the list, a tune that started as I walked around my room in the dark almost two years ago.  I was home alone, my capo on the second fret from having played another song (which I’ve since forgotten), and the first line sort of came to me: “The lights are off; there’s no one around…”  I wrote this and the first chorus, but that was it for a while.  It wasn’t until months later that I added the middle section and new verses.  Then, this past April, I deleted a verse and added two more in.

“No Lights, No Sound” is a song that has weathered several phases in my recent life, a track that has been conceived, shaped, and reshaped by these phases and survives in its current form with a scheduled slot as the opening track of The 2010 Project.

I hope you like this one.  For some reason, even though my allergies haven’t been hitting me as hard as they probably will soon, my voice wasn’t at its peak today.  That being said, I feel that worked for this solo acoustic performance.

So, without further ado, here is the first installment in the series — hurry back every day this week and both days of the weekend for new posts!

See you next session!

“Marissa” (New Music from Indie Music Band MoU)

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By Chris Moore:

It’s my honor to present my first original, non-yuletide tune for today’s edition of the Laptop Sessions. At first, I wasn’t sure what song I should play, as “Original Wednesday” comes but once every three weeks. I chose “Marissa,” a song from my 2003 album Something They Thought It Should Be, since it has always been one of my favorite songs to play on guitar. For over a year, it was instinctively the first song I would play whenever I picked up the guitar. Now, I’m playing it for you and hoping you’ll enjoy it!

If you like it, check out the album at the Fusco-Moore Store…

A session a day rolls on at guitarbucketlist.com, and I hope you come back tomorrow for another great session from Jeff!