I’m on the train back home to Berlin. It’s still dark outside as I’m writing this on my iPad. I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions because most of the time you end up giving up trying after a couple of weeks. Yet, this time I’ve got one. One I’m intending to stick with because it’s nothing to do with the new year, but with a necessity.
I’ve actually sat down and made a yearly plan. I want to release an EP and an album. Considering that I already work part time in tech support at Ableton and how many things an independent musician has to do these days… I dearly need a plan or I’ll forget stuff or don’t manage deadlines. And I want to do it right.
I’ve been looking into different project management softwares, but they all seem to lack one thing or another. I tried iProcrastinate, but it gets cluttered too fast and lacks an overview. Projector looked the most promising, but there’s no recurring tasks available. So Wunderlist will have to be my guide in keeping all the small pieces of the puzzle held firmly together.
I must admit that seeing all the work laid out in front of me was pretty daunting at first. Yet I know not planning ahead doesn’t work too well. The toughest part is keeping the rule of scheduling things in a way that you only plan out 50% of the time as there’s always unexpected extra things to take care of or things simply take longer. I always have so many ideas I want to get done as much as possible and end up overwhelmed or overworked.
So Janunary is the test month where I’ll see how good I’m planning things timewise. It will serve as the blueprint for the other months. The most important thing with it is to be honest. To admit that if I tried to achieve too much in too little time I need to make adjustments.
I had the idea last Christmas when I recorded the little message with the SoundCloud app. I love using field recordings, so I thought why not let others take part? SoundCloud makes it possible and very easy. Let me introduce you to…
For each song of the new album I will collect sound contributions from anyone who wants to join in. I like translating the lyrics into the music so I usually use sounds associated with the theme or the words of the song. So for each song I will ask for a specific sound or a sound to a motif. Who knows, maybe even a melody to create an internet choir?
I will play a bit of the song live at tomorrow’s first livestream ‘Notes from the Ivory Tower’. For this song I would like you to record one word. I’m gonna give you a few lines of the lyrics to set the mood:
Your words all mangled and broken
You don’t really make sense
Stop motion sentences that hang in the air
Unvoiced, incomplete
Be creative, continue to story in your mind and think of one word that would fit the mood. Anything goes as long as it’s just one word. You can choose whatever language you want. I will take the sounds of those words and make the beats for ‘Patchwork’ out of them. I’ll be updating you in the upcoming livestreams.
There are always people asking what sound is what somewhere in my songs. So how about a little making of blog post for each new song here? For now written, maybe later as little video blogs. Enough, let’s dive right in:
I don’t think I have to say anything about the subject matter. We’ve all been there and even though I don’t spell it out in the lyrics I think it’s quite obvious.
The piano part of In Time has been around for quite some time. Whenever I have time for it I just sit down and play and when something nice emerges I quickly record the idea (yes, I have quite lot of those sketches and hopefully some of them will turn into fully fleshed out songs in the (near) future). I also already had a vocal melody (they usually come all by themselves), but if I don’t have matching lyrics songs tend to be tough to work out. It’s synergetic thing for me.
The dark – or as a friend called them – psycho sounds at the beginning and end (in between as well) and the cello-like bits are me playing my Epiphone Les Paul (electric guitar) with a violin bow, partly pitched down an octave (don’t have a bass which would have been better). All the small ‘electronic’ sounds are actually made from array mbira or piano. Then of course there’s the mbira. I didn’t use it much on Minutia, because by the time I had the money together and got it, most songs were already more or less finished. You can expect quite a lot more mbira on the next EP or album from me though. I just adore this instrument. The darker sounding beats are made by stomping on my wooden floorboards. The ones that sound like brushes are eggbeaters on a canvas bag filled with paper strips, very closely micced.
So apart from the piano (I don’t own one yet) everything on In Time is made with real instruments or field recordings. I’m planning to re-record the piano parts once I have enough new songs with piano passages and found a good one to record them on. An idea I’m having for the next release is using no MIDI instruments on it as the real thing always sounds warmer. If a song asks for a full orchestra though I won’t be able to make that happen. We’ll see.
I don’t know when I’ll have the next release finished. If I do it the usual way – release it as one body of work – I seriously doubt it will come out this year. A possibility I’m toying with is to do a subsciption-based release. Different packages starting from 10€. Subscribers would get a new song each month. Even then I’d have to have a few finished before the whole thing could start as it takes me about 2 weeks from start to finish for a song and there’s always so much else to do as it’s just me. What do you think (comments here are welcome as are tweets or emails)?
I started the Minutia Remix Project already in October, that’s over half a year ago (where did the time go?) So I decided it might be time to set a deadline for it. Don’t fret… it’s not tomorrow.
Deadline: July 31, 2010.
That’s 12 weeks from now. It should give you plenty of time to work on the remixes and/or the artwork, methinks. Of course the project is still open until then. So if you’d like to contribute to it with a remix or artwork, you can read up on it and get in touch with me.
I want to give a big shoutout to all the contributors. You’ve done an amazing job. Thank you so so much! You have no idea how often you’ve saved my day when I was feeling down.
The remixes that are finished at this point can be downloaded at bandcamp. The artwork contributions are up on flickr.
I haven’t been feeling much like blogging for some time, because tweeting seemed the perfect form for what I wanted to express. Lately I’ve gotten a lot of very positive and uplifting tweets, emails and facebook posts. They’ve given me so much to think about as well as new ideas I feel the need to share in a longer format again. Thanks to all you guys (you know who you are I hope!) for that! You’re the fuel that keeps me going.
It seems most of the people that have discovered my music are very creative in various ways and art forms.
I’ve recently received the first remix of one of my songs. Bobby Starrr made his little dub version of ‘A Little’. I’ll let you hear it in a little while (Puns intended). There’s a couple of people working on remixes and more and more seem to get interested. So why not start a proper remix project?
Anyone can participate and I’m gonna choose my favourites (6-20?) and offer them as a free download on bandcamp. I’m gonna design a nice PDF booklet to go with it. Maybe with artwork contributions from as many (hobby)designers/artists as remixers. How about that?
So if you would like to join in… drop me an email… to be found on my website. You can listen to 6 of the 12 songs that will be on my debut album ‘Minutia. on myspace or my website.Choose a song and tell me if you only want vocal tracks or also bits from the instruments, beats, sounds. If you can’t wait till November 27 to hear the rest and don’t mind spoiling the surprise… then go ahead and listen to it on last.fm (spoiler alert).
Or if you would like to contribute something visual for the artwork, drop me a line, too. I’ve opened a group on flickr where you can post your stuff after joining it. If it’s photos, sketches, drawings, paintings, graphic design… just get inspired!
Back soon,
Madeleine
*Update March 8, 2010*
By now I’ve received 5 finished remixes and roughly about as many are in the making. So I thought it was time to give the baby a proper name. I’ve decided to call – what’s now shaping up to be an album – Mingle. Mingle because my musical ideas are getting remixed or mixed up with those of other people’s and I also closeness to Minutia letterwise. Today another remix will come out and so forth each Monday when I’ve got a new one waiting to be released.
I’ve also made a cover design because sadly no one seems to be interested in providing visuals of any kind for the project. In case you are interested it’s not too late. The same goes for remixes. Visual entries are open indefintely for now. The files should preferably be best quality JPEGs of at least 12 x 12cm at 300 dpi… that’s 1417 x 1417 pixels.
Songs not yet remixed:
Hearts First
Unspoken
Paperheart
Breathing Underwater
Scaredy Cat’s Lullaby
