This is the video I mentioned in the last post. Something about the way that this video lined up with the track I produced the other night was eerie. I really, really like the tension. I’m not a filmmaker, but a little technology and 15 minutes can produce something compelling (I think). It really does look better at fullscreen, but the three or four people who might want to see it can ask for it in full size if they’d like. Here’s to more happy accidents.
discovery through ignorance
Posted by j.c.w.
on March 15, 2010
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On “Ask This Old House” there is a semi-regular segment where one of the hosts brings in an odd looking tool and has the others guess what it is. The first is always the joke option. The second is something closer to useful. When the intended use is revealed it’s usually pretty cool but the other ideas, including the ones we armchair contractors come up with, were pretty neat too. When the question isn’t “how do I use this?” and is restated as “how might I use this?” everything changes. It gets interesting.
When digital audio first became available to me I had a great time opening up an editor and beating up sounds. Playing them backwards. Speeding them up. Slowing them down well below their sample rate. Running a reverb and removing the source (dry) component from the output. In all of these operations there were unpredictable outcomes. While one might guess that forcing the program to stretch a sample out would distort it, the way in which it was finally broken and sounded was up to the combination of the signal itself and other factors that weren’t easy to chart – especially for me at that time. In each session I found something new.
As my understanding increased and I had a chance to write some software of my own, I noticed that I was less and less excited. I knew how things were “supposed” to be used and as a result I started only using them in that way. But every now and then, something happens that illuminates that path of blissfully ignorant discovery again.
Over the weekend I used my iPhone to capture a video of my son playing in the water at the beach. It was just over a minute long. I tossed it into iMovie and put a song I just finished over top of it. The song was about 3:30. So I told iMovie to make the video as long as the audio. Then I told it to stabilize the picture. I had no idea what that would do. It turns out that it analyzes the video and drops out frames where the camera jerks around in an effort to make things appear smoother. With the video already slowed, these dropped frames stylized the movie in a beautiful way. Having clicked my way around an application I’ve used maybe five times, I sat back and watched my work in action. The way that the picture lined up with the music was wonderful. The simple actions and the tension of the music seemed to blend and almost look as though it had been choreographed.
The point? Had I really wanted to stabilize the video, I’m sure I would have felt that it didn’t quite do the job. I might have reshot it entirely. I might have edited it in some way. I certainly would have redone the music to match better with the action. But because none of it was intended and I wasn’t predicting an output, I got something that was aesthetically pleasing.
Ignorance is usually a bad or dangerous thing. Yet being able to access that part of the mind that is a novice filled with curiosity and the willingness to play is essential. I’m anxious to beat up some sounds. To plan a little less. To play a lot more.
accidental goodness
Posted by j.c.w.
on March 11, 2010
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Wednesday night I went into the studio, sat down, and started recording. The best part of having a studio in my house is the ability to keep things set just so and when I’m ready to work, get right down to the working of the mojo. I had my guitar in a silly tuning and I don’t remember why. It’s not important to the rest of the world, but to my fingers it was just right. I started playing and before I knew it I had three tracks that weren’t bad. In fact, they were pretty good. I don’t think that I would have been embarrassed to have been in front of a group of people while I was playing that stuff despite the fact that I’d never heard it before, much less played it.
As is my custom, I took my lunch hour at the ye olde coffee shoppe to evaluate what I did the night before. I was still quite pleased. I added some EQ and a touch of reverb so that it wouldn’t sound like it was recorded in a spare bedroom and bounced it down. Last night, I tossed it on the iPod and got a good listen on the drive in this morning. Still not bad! It’s fairly rare that I’m still pleased with an improvisation so far after the fact. Better yet, it suggests a them and variations if only due to the tuning of the instrument and proximity of performance.
On the same playlist, by chance rather than design, were the pieces I’ve been working on that are processed alterations of some improvisations. They are a delicate counterpoint to the variations. Something tells me that this is a chocolate and peanut butter moment. It has me very excited by the possibilities.
Since I’m likely to tailor and tweak the variations, I think I’ll clean up the few booms that are in the recording and release the three of them more or less raw because it’s been forever since I put anything out for folks to hear and that makes me crazy. Watch this space for tunage in the near future. Maybe a special Friday release.
reading
Posted by j.c.w.
on March 8, 2010
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We gave up cable years ago. We tallied it up and realized that the only shows we watched were on the weekend, on PBS, and came in nicely with rabbit ears. The exception was BSG but that was available on iTunes and was all good. When we removed TV, there was more time for other stuff. That other stuff led to productivity and more enjoyment. But perhaps strangely, it led to less reading for me. Which is odd.
The nook has cured this. In a big way.
I notice when I’m not reading something. I’m not as rested and I get edgy. My mind needs input of all kinds and books are as necessary as sunshine. Though I’m a big non-fiction reader, I’ve been putting in a lot of time with literary fiction lately. Well, I would say that it’s a 4:1 ratio of memoir/biography/manifesto/non-fiction to fiction anyway. The difference is clear.
Reading has an effect on the lens. Ideas that weren’t there before twist the light and change the angles. Things that were certain, or unexamined, take on new meaning. Reading leads to illumination. Illumination that guides the way we live.
I don’t go a day without reading something. Along those lines I’d wager that perhaps the eReader is the first piece of technology in a long, long while that has changed the life I live for the better. Being able to carry all of the books I’m reading with me and having them in a form that enables me to read as much as I like within the lifestyle I lead is brilliant. The increased reading is showing up in my music and creative work. It’s inspiring. What I would have given for this piece of tech in college!
Speaking of improvements in creative output, I think that an EP will be out in short order. Things took a seriously sharp turn and I’m not making what I thought I was making, but that’s OK. Snippets and sketches soon!
what’s new?
Posted by j.c.w.
on March 4, 2010
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Over the past few days the primary question, creatively, that has haunted me is “what’s the way forward?” Part of me wants to say “the question for this generation of artists is…” but in truth, I don’t really care about the generation. They’re not in my head. I am. So my question is: what is truly new?
The leap that music made when electronics and computers created all of the new timbres and possibilities in the early 20th century seems all but spent now. It’s no longer enough to come up with a beautiful tone or a perfect simulation. It’s expected. The context of the tone is the thing. It always has been, but for a long time a composer could get away with quite a bit as long as the sounds were interesting or created via a new method. In some cases the same old sounds made a new way was enough to attract attention.
Please note: There are no deep insights here.
Years ago, when I was stuck and looking for a guidepost, I would go to the EMF’s web site and look up a new CD by a composer I’d never heard of before. That’s how I found Hildegard Westerkamp and her wonderful soundscapes. My Larry Austin collection started there as well. Today it feels like there’s less that I haven’t heard and I wonder if my listening is simply not deep enough for the music being produced today (do I get it?). Or perhaps it’s that the magnitude of available music is so great that there isn’t time to spend on deep listening. And with so much available, there’s no reason to work at a piece that doesn’t instantly connect. If the web in 1996 looked the way it does today I wonder if I would have had the guts to spend time with the work of Austin or Westerkamp. I might not have taken the time because there would always have been something else that fit my existing palette right at my fingertips.
This speaks volumes about how I feel about my music today. If it doesn’t connect with the listener the first time, what chance do I have? With the constant communication and connection brought to us today, it’s hard to imagine not trying to please the audience. The days of “who cares if they listen” (google it for a giggle) are long gone and the time of the retweet and page rank is here. What is a composer to do?
Well, I dig deeper. I listen to the things that inspire me. I follow twisting paths of references from recording to recording and trace the life of different composers hoping to pick up the scent of something that I missed. I really do wonder if I’m not part of a lost generation of composers. Creative minds lost to the media that surround them and unable to create a new message because the methods are all so novel that they beg investigation.
What a wonderful problem to have, on the surface. And if the problem were only on the surface, I’d be fine.