Monday, February 04, 2008

RPM Challenge - the first few days [updated again]


The 2008 RPM Challenge has begun! I've been busy since Friday night and have already produced 2 tracks.

The first track is tentatively called "Perfect". It's built around a whole-tone scale (made obvious by running up the scale early in the song). I'll say this - it's hard to write melodies in whole-tone when you're not used to it. It really sounds weird. But that's OK by me - I'm looking for something a little outside what I'd normally do here. I need to finish the words and I'm not thrilled with the vocal performance yet, but the rest of the track seems promising. I spent Friday night and most of Saturday working on this one.
Perfect (rough mix 05)

Saturday night I started in on a new piece. I was thinking about how easy it's been for me to fall asleep on airplanes (and how difficult to sleep anywhere else lately). I wanted something that would convey the dream state and flying. I built this song out of noise and drones, and did a very low vocal reminiscent of a track I recorded 10 years ago called "LEM". An appropriate homage. Working title for this song is "Home is where the hum is". More or less finished after a second mix pass - lots of low-end energy made for an overly muddy mix the first time around.
Home is where the hum is (rough mix 04a)

Between these 2 songs I already have nearly 8 minutes done. Seems almost too easy so far!
Today I was researching some of the physical problems I've been having - apparently magnesium deficiencies can produce some of the symptoms I've been having. After doing some poking around on the Internet, I realized that the quest for completely balancing one's body chemistry is good grist for a song. Maybe I'll call it "Magnesium and other metals" or something to do with the periodic table.

Updated: Apparently the Chill server cares about capitalization of filenames. Sorry the links weren't working. Fixed now, and as a consolation prize I put up a newer, more complete mix of "Perfect".

Would love to hear what people think of the tracks.

Updated again: Goose player installed, links updated, mixes updated.

2 comments:

Trott said...

The links to the mp3s are broken...bummer! I want to hear them both!

Brad said...

Anu, you could edit your post to change your links so that the first letter in the name of the mp3 file is capitalized. (that worked for me). They sound quite good! Let me know if you need any guitar ringing... :-)