Space abstinence

For the first time ever with the IML I'm going to not listen to any of the other instrumental entries until the album has been mastered. I've always listened to everything as it was submitted in the past but at the same time, regretted it once the finished album has been delivered. I'm adding a few extra drums (which Jim bashed out for me the other night) to my track this evening then its done. Definitely time to upload and be done with it. And for when we get to the lyric writing stage, I've just written a little lyric writing application (for Dan W's Record Time IV project) which assists with automated lyric writing, so no excuses for a lack of interesting words. And now it's time to say goodnight at the end of a lovely day. Goodnight.

One Small Step

Looks like I'm the first to get my instrumental track in! As some of you may have heard, an event called Record Time IV starts tomorrow. The goal of Record Time is to write and record an album in a week. As RT4 will be ending on March 1st, I realized I had to get my IML recording done as soon as possible!

So...the frustrating part: I actually recorded two songs for the IML. The first one was very, very spacey. It was also a rather terrible song. It was only piano, and about 12 tracks of synth pads, and it took me far too long to realize no one was going to be able to sing over it, and it would probably be skipped within the first 15 seconds of listening.

Eventually I scrapped it and wrote something that literally could not be more different. While I love the first 2 IML albums, there seems to be an abundance of slow and mid-tempo songs...I thought something very upbeat might be appreciated. What I came up with was a 3-minute pop-punk song that, while not spacey whatsoever, has a high potential for catchiness. And plus, I think it's time we stop equating space with synth pads. Obviously, the spaciness of this track will have to come from the lyrics.

Also, I decided not to pick a theme for my track...I'd like to say there was a good reason for this, but honestly I just couldn't think of anything in space that's really happy or fun, which this track seems to call for...but I'm sure my vocalist will think of something.

I'm a little worried my track will disrupt the flow of the album, but hopefully it will fit somehow. If not, I suppose I could always do something else!

Shameless plug: if you want to make an album in a week, starting tomorrow, join Record Time! Search for it on Facebook, or if you don't have one of those, e-mail me at djwaldkirch@bsu.edu

Later!
Dan

What does space sound like?

A noisy vacuum (not cleaner mind). I'm jumping off the Hubble tip and am now going to write (or have nearly finished writing) some music around the theme of Space Junk. For this I want to incorporate some found sounds and stumbled across this site.

I've checked with Sven who runs the site and he says that providing we name check the individuals that contributed the samples, we can use them. What a nice man. I'll use one or two so our credits list for the album doesn't run too long.

I hope everyone else is having fun with the Space theme. I'm having a ball, and also getting quite nostalgic thinking back to the previous 2 albums we've put together. So nostalgic in fact that I'm going to incorporate aspects of our previous recordings into this one. OOOOOOH, how exciting. I will however, in doing so, be clearly violating our strict Creative Commons Licence which says no derivative works. I hope the masters of the IML won't sue me. Please don't. Please don't sue me.

Finally, thanks to my dad for showing me the composite photo above which depicts the known space junk currently orbiting Earth. This is what inspired me to switch themes.

10...9...8...yadda yadda

So the space and military thing didn't really pan out. Jammed some chords over some military sounding beats but it wasn't working (and sounded a little too reminiscent of Ian Brown's fabulous 'My Star') so I am now exploring the vast emptiness of space through the medium of acapella choir and cowboy harmonica which, perhaps suprisingly, is working out very well. From chats I've had with some of the participants the theme seems to be inspiring an even more experimental approach from the IML this time around. I'm already excited about this and can't wait to start hearing the tracks pour in over the next 10 days (that went quickly didn't it?!).

At the IML rehearsals for the science gig we were discussing the possibility of haranguing a celebrity guest onto the Space album. A Moore or a Hawking might go down a treat (Carol Vorderman is on stage before us but I guess she can wait until we record Superheroes of Maths) We will use the science festival gig to network further...

In unrelated news, half of me is so excited that my daughter has just put up her first music poster in her bedroom. The other half of me is aghast that it's the Jonas Brothers.

Vox B4 Notez = Bzzt

I just read an article in a recent issue of New Scientist explaining in very poetic language what may happen when our Solar System does or doesn't collapse (I've Decided To Capitalise Our Solar System). The words are beautiful and would make a lovely song. I'd like it to be the lyrics to the song I've got to write for Superheroes of Space, but they can't be. That's the thing, when we write our albums, we sometimes hear the finished track, but have to make do with knocking out half of it (the backing track), only to pass it on for completion elsewhere. I think there's a good challenge in there, maybe I'll just have to write a track which sounds like the end of out Solar System as depicted in New Scientist so the lyricist will have to go in that direction for inspiration. So it's a toss up between Hubble and the end of our Solar System for me. There's only one way to decide this, invent some kind of quantum device which helps me select the correct theme based on whether it does or doesn't teleport a photon.