The Light of Day

Miracle

Multiplying the loaves and the fishes.

For those of you who like to keep current on the mundane aspects of my life, the consumable items pictured above (at least those on this side of the looking glass) have been the staples of my special “bread and tuna” diet, a practical survival strategy throughout my infamous eight-month “lost weekend” from the workforce in 2007. I have re-entered said force, but the diet remains prudent while I play catch-up. In addition to the pictured items, the diet is supplemented by water, vitamin pills, cereal, coffee, soda, and the occasional excursion into madness, in which I am defeated by the irresistible urge to eat out.

I am supposed to get my first paycheck this week.  (Please don’t let something go wonky with the deposit!) Until then, no such excursions into madness are permissible.

I’m currently reading a book about the history of animation (thanks, Santa!) and it’s helping to unclog my brainstorming pipes; even though I’m not lifting techniques directly from the pages, the mere fact that I’m reading about them helps my own ideas to swim around in my mind more freely.  Does that make sense?

In the meantime, be sure to chew something for a little longer than usual today… and while it’s smooshing around in your mouth, think about how awesome it is to eat.

Happy new year!

Brave new alternate world (version 1.0)

I have to come at this post from two separate introductions, and then merge them together. So bear with me.

Introduction #1:

(Cue theremin and other 1950s sci-fi sounds.)

The future! What will it be like? Will we have flying cars? Robotic dogs? Vacation spots on Mars? A tub of French onion dip that runs empty at the same time as the bag of chips we bought with it?

Nobody knows. But one thing we do know for sure, fixed media will die. There will no longer be such a thing as notable artists, or well-known works of art; just “art stuff” that hovers in a constantly evolving cloud-like state in the collective human consciousness, never defined, and never owned by anybody. Everyone who observes it will interact with it, and everyone who interacts with it will change it.

Oh, and if you happen to like working independently, or creating fixed pieces, forget it, kid; you’re yesterday’s news.

Introduction #2:

First, I showed you my whiteboard system.

Its purpose: to be a tactile, visible, easily updated reminder of what needs to be done next on each of my recordings. Simple, low tech.

Secondly, I talked about backup. In my case I’m using Amazon’s S3 service, although there are many options available. Because this is via the internet, and I don’t have infinite time to be uploading zillions of .wav files, I only back up mixdowns.

Which brings me to the third thing I talked about… actually running off listenable, decent-quality mixes of my work in progress on an ongoing basis, instead of leaving any song in a “guts hanging out” state. Beta mixes, in other words — a term I’ve used before, and want you to keep in mind.

So back to introduction #1, a loose parody of the common theme in today’s music futurism. We all want to be cutting edge, and I’m no exception. In fact, if there is a collective cloud like the one I described, I’d probably have fun playing with it now and then. But like any cutting edge tech, seeing it as a replacement for something, or the death of something, is where futurists traditionally overshoot their collective wads.

The meme of late is about how the internet has widened avenues for musical collaboration across the world. That’s wonderful — but what if collaboration is only a secondary interest for some of us? Collaboration isn’t the whole answer to music. As much as it can add to a piece to have a complete stranger have their way with it, it can also take quite a bit away from it, if someone doesn’t know what they are doing. If you’re inspired to collaborate with someone that you feel a kinship to and chemistry with, great. If you’re doing it just to try to get more exposure, not so great.

I would like to see a future in which a composer can continue to be a composer, maintaining control over his/her work, yet still take advantage of the interactivity of modern technology. The answer?

Look back at intro #2 again. Whiteboard, rough mix, backup.

Whiteboard… rough mix… backup… beta release?

Back to #1 again. The trends. The new ways of thinking. Where is some of the most groundbreaking innovation happening today, at least outside of research and development laboratories? In software. The “new way” of thinking in software isn’t that new anymore. Proprietary software still exists, but so does programming as a community effort, which has been around for a while now, and can be incredibly effective. Even under closed-source operating systems, and within closed-source frameworks, there are open, communal projects. The natural leap that people are making is, ideas that emerge in software can be applied to other things, so let’s make music and art more communal.

But what else is happening in software? What are some of the quiet trends, the ones that don’t evoke passion, don’t inspire news stories… but just plain make sense?

Here’s one: SOFTWARE THAT UPDATES ITSELF. Or at least informs you when it can be updated.

Think. Think. Think. Think. Think.

Have you come up with the same idea that I have yet?

Okay, try this on: self-updating music.

A listener’s audio player would routinely scan the associated download sites for newer versions of whatever songs that he has already downloaded. He could set his preferences to download updates automatically, or to be prompted first. There could also be a user preference to always keep older versions when downloading the newer versions, always replace (delete) the older file, or only keep the old file if the new version is radically different.

Incomplete mixes could be released as version “zero point something” — beta mixes, as I said previously. The first time an artist deems a mix to be “officially done”, he could say it’s version 1.0. The first minor tweak after that could be called 1.01. The next major overhaul could be called 2.0, and so on. Just like software.

The site hosting the music could also host text information about the changes, just like with software, outlining any new overdubs, edits, etc., which could automatically show up in a display on the user’s media software, so he could choose not to accept a version with, say, added cowbell. Or, if he has it set to download new versions automatically, he can see whether the changes look interesting enough to merit listening right away, or minor enough to wait until it the next time it comes up randomly.

This system would probably be less useful for big name acts who only release one official version of a song. But I’m sure there are other low profile recording artists like myself who would love to dynamically share a song’s ongoing transformation with their faithful listeners, without needing to send out mass emails to the effect of, “hey everybody, please download my song again, because I tweaked the EQ on the hi hat!”.

The technology already exists for software updates. It’s a matter of incorporating it into media players, and providing artists with the tools to create a public database where they can continually upload their revised mixes.

Question: isn’t this sort of like a podcast?

I don’t know that much about podcasts. All I know is they reside in a totally different place within iTunes, and don’t show up alongside songs in the library playlist. Whenever I back up a newer mix, I wish I was updating it for everyone that’s already downloaded an older version. Instead of just having a song, people would be subscribing to it (I suppose this could be either paid or free), so in that sense, yes, like a podcast. If there’s a logical way to set up each song as its own individual podcast, and a convenient way for people to take advantage of that without completely messing up their listening routines, somebody let me know. My guess is that the podcasting paradigm would only partially provide the means, and that ultimately, new code would have to be written.

This could work for other media besides music, too. It would probably take a long time to generate enough interest in it (because media players would have to facilitate it), but it’s worth thinking about as a possible future model for releasing creative work without the pressure of committing to a “final version”.

Please, let me know any thoughts or ideas you have about this, because I’ll admit I have little actual practical knowledge about these things.

Insertable bits #1: Crutches, puzzles, and originality

Originality. It comes out of nowhere. You’re happily living a normal life, and suddenly, one day, bang, you write your first song. From that day on, you’re never the same again.

You probably realized this immediately, but just to be safe, I’ll clue you in: it doesn’t work that way. The road to originality is long, incremental, and fraught with subconscious plagiarism. It’s possible that the reason some of us fear “going all the way” with our originality is not that we’re afraid we won’t be good enough in the end, but rather that we don’t want to cross all the legal land mines on the way there.

The familiar phrase, “good artists copy, great artists steal” is too cynical for my liking. I don’t buy it. But I’ll tell you what I do think: all artists use crutches. And crutches, despite having a bad name, are not a problem.

For some reason we tend to think that if we could only rid ourselves of all our needs and dependencies, then and only then we can pursue the great art, and the highest levels of consciousness, and blah blah blah. In other words, take off all your clothes, jump out of a high window, and improvise your song a capella on the way down. Anything else you do would not be “pure”.

There is no absolute definition of “pure art”. Many people think you’re selling out or crossing a line when you rely on certain technology (and this line falls in any and every place you can possibly think of along the technological spectrum, depending on who you talk to). For others the line of purity may have to do with style of performance, or choosing between improvisation and composition (which are the same thing, just spread differently over the dimension of time).

In a similar manner, people will pass moral judgement based on how “original” you are. Like any other aspect of your skill, though, you get there gradually, in small steps. Some of those steps may seem impure to armchair critics looking for a reason to stigmatize you, but remember, as with any other skill, we learn to walk before we learn to run.

Why do some of us perceive a need to “jump out the window naked”, metaphorically — the feeling that we must somehow magically conjure up pure originality right out of the gate, in a total vacuum? If you think other artists do this, then they have done a good job of tricking you, just as you will do a good job of tricking your audience. (The audience only ever hears your end result, never your path; although bootlegs, interviews, or “making of” extras can give them a peek.) Artists who develop their own voice and style have essentially accumulated a vocabulary or “tool box” of elements they’ve come to associate with themselves — and which their fans, as a result, associate with them as well. Most of this vocabulary is picked up in bits and pieces from other artists; and what little isn’t, is usually acquired by happy accident.

The idea of a crutch is that you use an existing song as a reference point for your own. It can be on any level where you’re lacking experience, apart from the lyrics and melody. You may, for example, associate a song you wrote with a popular song that’s already out there in the world, and try to “steal” the popular song’s production style — the instrumentation, how it’s mixed, and so on. In your naive attempt to copy the sound of another song, you won’t quite succeed, but be sure to keep your ears open for serendipity. It’s a pretty good accomplishment to copy a sound decently, but it’s an even better accomplishment to notice when you’ve accidentally found a piece of your own unique sonic puzzle.

I’m in danger of making overcooked metaphor soup here, but bear with me — your toolbox, or vocabulary, starts out as a fully-assembled puzzle which you “stole” or copied from someone else. As you discover new tools, you replace the other person’s puzzle pieces with your own (or at least mix in pieces from another puzzle, so that at least the combination is unique). Sometimes you will replace a puzzle piece more than once, and sometimes a fan of yours will adopt the intermediate orphaned puzzle piece and run with it in their own way. Sometimes you shake things up by going avant-garde, which means you replace as many pieces as possible, in the strangest way possible. (You can always change back the ones that don’t work.) It’s also likely there will still be some pieces that never get replaced. (You might, for example, be perfectly happy with 4/4 beats where the snare drum is always hit on beats two and four. Hey, it’s a perfectly good beat, so why mess with it?)

All the pieces that have not been replaced yet — or never will be — are your crutches. The object is to ultimately use few enough crutches that your music has its own identity. Listen to albums by your favorite artists in chronological order, and pay attention to how their puzzle evolved over time. The earliest albums are generally easy to categorize as examples of a particular style that was popular at the time, and most of the puzzle pieces are easy to cross-reference with other artists; the later albums are more identity-focused. Even an artist who has achieved some transcendent and definitive height may continue to play with new ways of reconfiguring the puzzle, hoping to achieve the same or greater height in a fresh way.

Summing this up: supreme, transcendent originality is an awesome thing to strive for; but if you demand too much of it too soon, you won’t permit yourself the necessary baby steps to actually get there. So don’t be afraid to get your feet wet by, initially, being only somewhat original.

It worked for everyone else. ;)

Something more imaginative than “Update”.

The reason I’ve been so non-prolific in my posting lately is that I have a bad habit of flirting with the lower levels on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs from time to time. I usually mis-manage the levels, by trying to focus on something a level or two higher than I’m actually at, and letting something go unattended on a level or two below me. This is all one fancy-schmancy way of saying my unemployment ran out a few weeks ago and I’ve been in too much of a panic to write coherently.

Then again, occasionally writing about something unrelated to my rent would help to assuage the panic and refresh my mind. I’ve intermittently done some work on recording projects in the interim, both to take a breather from the mental tension, and to make some actual progress. (It’s important to remain creatively productive in less-than-ideal circumstances, even if you can’t realistically expect to be at your peak. If nothing else, this keeps the whirlpool going, and it tells the universe you haven’t given up.)

In these periods, where I allow myself to “forget my troubles” (as they would have crooned back in the great depression), here’s what I’ve done lately:

Current stuff

I’ve put the main vocal down for Rival Big Bang. This is a big leap for me. It still needs harmonies on parts of it, because I intend for it to have a sort of CSN sound to it. I don’t know exactly why I’m so sure of this; I just am. There’s a video on YouTube of me working on the part that’s done so far. I was teaching myself the song as I went along, so I was a little nervous about posting it… but who cares.

(Similarly, when I do the vocal for Bemoaning Moments, that will be another big leap. It’s been starving for that vocal to go down, and it’s a fantastic bit of music.)

After a few months of “existing somewhere out there in the Rochester area”, trumpet player Paul Gaspar finally got in contact with me, so I invited him to try his hand (or, rather, his horn) at filling the void in the instrumental break of Curtis’ Classic Collection of Comforts. I posted highlights from that session on YouTube as well, featuring two differently approached takes out of a total of approximately ten. For the video I of course left his sound natural and organic, but for the final mix I may run it through a resonant filter and/or octaver to make it sound more like a synthesizer. Not to “fix” anything, mind you, just as an artistic choice.

Old junk

Because discussion is underway for the film version of Through Forbidden Black Doors (where I think it stands a better chance of being “gotten” by an audience than as just a recording), I do have to continue tying up loose ends on my remix. Said remix got way out of hand, and I may have put more hours into that than into the original recording project itself, if that’s even possible. Most recently I’ve been bringing things close to the home stretch on the “fourth quarter” of the rock opera (”side four” in vinyl lingo), which would mean This Is Your Chance, Almost Outside, The Operation, The Thing That Happens Next, and Nicole’s Thoughts.

I backed up one song prior to those and put a significant amount of work into Do You Remember? as well, which mostly consisted of manipulating Kim’s vocal — pitch correction (without flattening vibrato or other inflections), timing adjustments on certain phrases, and evening out the volume overall. Since it’s such a long and vocal-dominated song, with no instrumental “relief”, the more pleasing I can get that vocal to sound, the better the chance that people can endure it happily. I’m not saying this is a tough one to like, since a lot of people singled it out as one of their favorites back in the day. But my lyrics oscillate between brilliant and cringe-worthy, and like all of my recordings that go back that far, there’s a tendency for the whole thing to sound like a demo to my 2007 ears. The goal here isn’t to eliminate the “oldness” altogether, though; just to present it as charmingly as possible.

Oh yes, I almost forgot that I checked out and ran off a mix of Smile!, which is just before that (and didn’t really need much work). So that will (soon) put the last seven out of twenty tracks at a point where I don’t need to touch them anymore. Being able to put a whole string of tracks out of my mind like that is always a stress reliever, because look at how much smaller it makes the potential “to do” list for the remainder of the project.

The Operation has been a tough one to produce right, because I keep doing too much with it. Every time I remove something, and “hollow it out”, making it cleaner, I wind up liking it better. For some reason, I’ve always assumed it needed to have distorted rhythm guitars through the whole thing, because it’s supposed to be evil. Well, the fact of the matter is, the song is so fucking evil that it doesn’t need distorted rhythm guitars. It can be a keyboard dominant song, and the evil still shines through. One thing it does need, though, and finally has, is a real bass guitar. Once again, you’re invited to my studio to watch. My rhythm isn’t consistently tight on up-tempo music like this, but that’s what editing is for. I forget exactly what’s in the video version of the mix, but in the actual working version I think I can finish tightening the bass part, add a new hi-hat, and I’m good to go.

Overall, the rock opera is a restoration project, and will never be a “current” project. Making the film will be like making a tribute film; I want to produce it well, and creatively, as a respectful send-off, but I don’t want to immerse myself in the dystopian view that it presents.

Back to reality

Just to show you an example of things I need soon, but I’m putting off buying, because I’m that tight right now:

• Soda (!!!)
• Coffee filters (using paper towels)
• Athlete’s foot spray (just don’t scratch)
• Fingernail and toenail clippers (using scissors)
• Replacement window for passenger door of car (saran wrap)
• Rubbing alcohol (to clean scrolly ball in mouse)
• Dandruff shampoo (soap)
• Facial cleanser (soap)

…and of course, on the upside, I can’t afford cigarettes. I should use this time to come up with something better to do while standing outside for a few minutes, because I’m in danger of being able to afford them again soon. The thing is, if a stranger walks by and you make eye contact with them while taking a drag, it’s normal. If you’re just standing there, though, doing nothing, and you make eye contact with people, you look suspicious.

I suppose I could start taking “apple breaks”.