03-01-2007

I was up until almost 4 this morning, but I finished the “album.” It’s such a hodgepodge of songs that don’t have much of a connection, but I did my best to make it flow.

My CD is Iro Iro (Japanese for “this and that”) and the opening track is “Hold On John.” (It has a slow fade-in, so be patient). It’s my proudest moment. I’ll hopefully get a whole album together of more songs like it, instead of the odd mix of soundtrack and ambient stuff I have now.

You can download the whole album as a zipped file. Right click or control-click on this link.

I ended up with about 40 minutes of music over eight tracks. Of those eight, I love three, a couple have potential and the rest are probably not worth revisiting.

In talking with other musicians who did the challenge, it’s clear it was ultimately about something much more than simply making music or putting together an album in record time. For some it was about reconnecting with old friends. For others it was a redemption of sorts, making up for all the creative laziness we’ve suffered from. For me it was a real confidence builder. In the past it was very easy to put off writing and recording, waiting for inspiration or the “right” time. Now it’ll be much easier to commit and produce more in the future.

Check out these other musicians I know who were doing the challenge:

Until Your Heart Goes Boom

Hello, Come In

Teeny Tiny Desk Unit

National Public Radio has a nice piece about the competition, including interviews with RPM publisher Dave Karlotski.

02-27-2007

One more day to finish up my “album” for the RPM Challenge (Well, two nights of work. The CD must be postmarked by noon March 1st). I’d hoped to make more regular postings here with new songs as they’re finished, but I’ve been spending all my time writing and recording. See songs below

The goal was 10 tracks or 35 mins in one month. I’ve put together an odd mix of stuff, from film soundtrack music to ambient rock and simple pop that clocks in at roughly 40 mins over eight tracks. There’s no real spine to the album, so a lot of it seems pretty random. But it works for the challenge.

This has been such a remarkable learning experience and I highly recommend similar challenges for anyone else working on something creative. Complete ten paintings in a month or write ten short stories or ten poems. If you’re like me, you’ll end up with mostly crap. But you’ll also likely get one or two pieces you can be really proud of.

I’ve been thinking a lot of my friend, Terry Rowlett. He’s a painter who’s able to live on what he gets by selling his work. I once asked him how he managed to do what so many other artists only dream about. His answer was simple: “A lot of practice.”

That’s certainly one thing I’ve really learned during this RPM Challenge. Making art is maybe about 5 percent inspiration. The rest is all just work. And you have to do it A LOT to get any good at it. You also have to be willing to make a lot of garbage before you get to the good stuff. Regardless, you have to stick with it and force yourself to keep working even when you’re sick of yourself and everything you’re producing.

I still have a couple of tracks to produce, but here are a few of the recent ones I’ve finished (or at least stopped working on):

“Trying to Move On These Days With Limited Success” This is probably the one I’m happiest with. There’s a lot of movement and chord change-ups.

“Hello, Dad? Can You Hear Me?” My father used to tape everything on a little cassette recorder back in the ’60s and ’70s. Not sure why, but I’m soooo glad he did. This track was inspired by a phone call he recorded in 1971 with his father. The song is kind of incomplete. Not sure what it needs. But I have to be done with it for now.

“Morning Tiger” This is one I co-wrote with a friend who’s also doing the RPM Challenge under the band name Hello Come In. He wrote the music, I wrote the lyrics and melody and sang. I can’t sing for crap. But I did a bunch of overdubs and processed the hell out of it to make it tolerable. This is the first time I’ve ever recorded myself singing. It was good to get that monkey off my back.

“Realizing You’re Not in Love Anymore While Riding the Train Through Languedoc” I think this one is largely incomplete. It has some nice things going on in it, but it’s not there yet. I like the beginning okay. And I do love the ending. If you want, skip ahead to about 4:50 in.

“Goodbye” I thought this song really needed something, too. But the friend I’ve been collaborating with convinced me to just leave it alone for now.

More to come. I see a couple of all-nighters ahead of me. You can hear more music being produced for the RPM Challenge at another friend’s site: Teeny Tiny Desk Unit.

02-14-2007

Happy Valentine’s Day and happy “halfway point for the RPM Challenge”. Basic math suggests I should have 5 songs or about 17 and a half minutes of music done by now. I do not. I made a list last night and I do have seven songs. Two are more or less done, at least for the sake of this challenge. All the others I’ve either started, or written but not recorded.

This one here is another direction I worked on for the Open Secret theme, or to at least accompany the trailer. We ultimately decided it’s also not what we want. I’m sure we’ll go in a lot of different directions with the music before we hit on what really strikes the right mood.

Anyway I left it largely unfinished. But for the sake of the ‘challenge’ I’ll say it’s “done” and ready to be track two. If I have time, I’ll flesh it out more later.

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02-07-2007

So I’m trying to write some music for Steve’s film (working title Open Secret ). I’ve been working on a number of possible directions the theme could take and pieced this song together. We ultimately decided it’s too, I don’t know, precious or tinkly. There’s a little bit of tension in it, but it’s really not what we’re looking for. No loss, though. It works just fine as a first track for my RPM Challenge CD. Actually, had it worked for the Open Secret theme, I would have done a lot more with it… added a different movement or two to it. But since we canned it, I decided to just wrap it up with the little effect and voices at the end.

By the way, I also use an amazing program called “Live” to mix and master my stuff. It’s from a German company called Ableton. They remind me a lot of Apple in that they’ve made an unbelievable product better than anything else on the market that does way more with the users always first in mind.

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02-01-2007

Editors for the RPM newspaper in New Hampshire first got the idea for the RPM Challenge last year (2006), issued an invitation to readers and got about 165 submissions from bands and solo artists. So far this year, their second year, they’ve heard from more than 15-hundred artists who say they’re up to the challenge. The idea is to write an entire album in one month. Why they had to pick the shortest month of the year is beyond me. But the bottom line is I’ve got to have 10 songs of any length, or 35 minutes of music completed, burned on a CD and mailed in to RPM, postmarked no later than Feb. 28. This isn’t a competition. There are no prizes or awards. Partly it’s climbing a mountain just because it’s there. But it’s also a way to inspire procrastinating musicians to quit fussing and fretting and second guessing themselves and just get something done.

I’ll be using a program called “Reason” from Propellerhead to produce my stuff. It’s a virtual music studio, all software, with “instruments,” a mixing board, mastering tools, etc. So when you hear my stuff — when you hear drums or strings or guitars, or anything else — know that it’s all created by my beautiful, beautiful Mac and this software.

You can listen to cuts from all the participating bands, both from last year, and from artists who put them on the RPM site as they finish them for this year’s challenge, at the RPM Web site.