Raining Autumn

I feel like writing about my song "Raining Autumn" today.

I think it was about 2001 when I wrote "Raining Autumn." I was studying Music at Utah State University in Logan and I lived in an apartment complex called Old Main View Apartments. There was a window in our kitchen that faced West and outside, in the yards around my apartment, were these really tall skinny trees that had a lot of leaves. I don't know what they were called but they were really tall.

It was fall and I was sitting at my kitchen table that was right next to the window. The wind was blowing outside and I notice that there were leaves falling past the window, like rain. I couldn't see the trees from my window so it literally looked like it was raining leaves outside! As I was enjoying the leaves falling past my window the words "Raining Autumn" popped into my head. I grabbed my guitar and notebook and started writing.

I figured out the chords and used a pretty simple pick pattern, but there was something missing in the guitar part. There was a certain note that I kept hearing in my head with the pick pattern but the note was in a weird place, hard to get a finger to while playing the rest of the chord and pick pattern. So I tuned the high E string down  to a D, and then I was able to get the note in my head into the pick pattern! This was the first time I had ever changed the tuning on any strings for one of my songs, so I was feeling pretty awesome about it. :)

Thinking about the colors of Autumn, the sky, the trees, the wind and the leaves falling past my window helped to inspire the lyrics for the song. If you would like to read the lyrics you can go to http://www.kattingey.com/raining_autumn/2-raining_autumn.html. I think the song starts playing if you are in that screen, or you can click on the title of the song on the left side of the screen and it should start playing. If you can't get the song to play there you can go to http://www.kattingey.com/music.html. Or, if none of these links are working for you just go to www.kattingey.com and click on music. Raining Autumn is the name of the Album that the song is on.

In the beginning of this entry I mention that I was studying music at Utah State. I was in the Guitar Program studying under Michael Christiansen. In 2005 I had to do my senior recital where I played several songs that I learned throughout the years in the guitar program. As Mike and I were choosing songs for the recital he let me put a few of my own songs in. I chose Raining Autumns as one of my originals. My lessons that semester consisted of playing through and tweaking the songs that were on the recital. When I played Raining Autumn for him he liked it, but he felt like something needed to be added to the climax of the song to make it, well,  more of a climax. :) It was good advice and I took it! So I changed a little part at the end of the song to make it a little more climactic, and I really like the way it turned out. Nothing to big and crazy, I just made one part a little more intense so you could feel the climax better.

Sadly I made this change after I recorded the song and put it on my CD. So the version that is available is the old version, which I still think is good, however, if you get the chance to see me play Raining Autumn live, then you will get to hear the small changes that I made because of a good critique from my Guitar Professor at Utah State. :)