Defibrillator for your internets
KeithHandy posted in Composing, Producing on May 31st, 2007
This is going to be less of a “cool post”, and more of an electric shock to my blog’s heart to make sure it keeps beating. Thanks for sticking with me and being a faithful reader. I actually started getting notices about exceeding bandwidth, so that’s a good sign.
I can’t wake up today. I leave my old iPod playing all night as a soundtrack for my subconscious. It’s beautiful how the old ones can actually drive a pair of speakers, since they were made before anybody demanded that headphone users be protected from their own inability to operate a volume control. For all the loud and raucous songs on there, the first thing that startled me awake is the extra 30 seconds of soloing before the fade out on the remastered No Way. (”Those notes aren’t supposed to be there!”)
Then there was the actual alarm. I hit “snooze” a bunch of times, finally forced myself to get it together in time for my mandatory and mercifully brief unemployment orientation, waited half an hour for Wendy’s to open and grabbed a burger — no, I’m not really doing the pescetarianism thing yet (I have to learn to pronounce it first) — and went back to bed, this time to be startled awake in the early afternoon by thoughts about the true nature of color, and about how we can’t escape perception.
Since I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here yet, I’m now doing my first score for a live action film, A Voice from the Lantern (I’ll link to it when a public site is up), which is considerably longer than the average short. As I’ve said to Tony (the director), if I resort to my usual methods of composing music, it will never get finished. So I’m going to have to stop thinking like a songwriter, and do more improvisation and “soundscaping”.
In the between times, I’m trying to do work on an album, and I’m having my usual moments of doubt. First of all, I don’t know who my target audience is. Forget that I’m getting close to 40, because I still look like I’m in my 20s (see above self portrait) and nobody has to know. But the music itself swings a wide, almost schizophrenic range, from very soft and gentle to very loud and in your face, and I don’t think that makes for an album most people can just put on while going about their business. I mean, I can do that, but I’ve had years of practice. Generally, people want to pick a mood and stick with it, not get thrashed about on the wild seas of melodrama.
I know I’m going to read this post someday from another perspective and think “how sweet and honest, he has self-doubt just like any other authentic artist”. It’s just kind of icky when you actually feel it.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Try inescapably perceiving piscetarianism instead. It’s the same thing, just as difficult to stick to, though marginally easier to pronounce. (but, yes, you WILL experience persistent nightmares involving BBQed summer sausage foreverandever, sohelpyouhotdog imeangod…amen).
The Not-Really-All-That-Short-Actually, Short Film sounds like it’ll be a fun, ‘Let’s see what happens when i do *this*’ kind of experience.
but hey bro, don’t lose sleep over any of those ‘going about their business’ people out there. Sometimes we *need* to be sonically jarred off our lazy axises by completely unforseen musical circumstances. Just make the album (funny, how we still say that) that YOU want to hear. Your destined audience will soon get over its own identity crisis and make its inherently pushy way towards your stage, regardless of what your PA spits forth. May the Hand Of Handy guide you. i’m sure, for example, that it’s in only the rarest of his darkest moments of self-doubt that Professor Fripp ever thinks how things could’ve been different if only he hadn’t turned down Marilyn McCoo’s invitation to do Solid Gold that one time….and hey, he did all right for himself. (though, come to think of it, he did produce & co-write that album with Daryl Hall). Sooooo…okay. i admit it. my examples suck. Maybe get Brooke to hypnotize you into forgetting i said anything here.
Keep us posted on your progress, Keith.
Shine On, bro.
May 31st, 2007 at 11:14 pm
Hey Keith, I feel your pain about the self-doubt. I’m self-doubting all over the place, and it doesn’t help that this spans not only the musical but all other areas of my life at present.
Boo’s right though, you can’t pander to a ‘target audience’ and make a truthful, authentic album. And come on, most of the best albums fluctuate all over the spectrum. It will all be tied together by the underlying essence of You, if you are putting You into every bit of it. Right? :)
June 1st, 2007 at 7:47 am
Boo: any example involving Fripp does not suck, no matter what it’s an example of or how it’s put forth. This is my new law. Please disseminate it to the “little people”.
Brooke: can’t I have a moment of self-doubt without somebody *copying* me? ;) Anyway I left some hopefully helpful comments about that over on your site. Or maybe I was just imagining the “helpful” part…