Album making choices in the world of mp3s.
Hey everyone! I hope your Labor Day weekend was good. It always means end of summer for me, and I love the coming of autumn and the changes. I am not heat boy; bring on the falling leaves, the cocoa, school and sweater weather. But first a few days of sun and cool - enough to get the yard put away. I guess we'll finish the patio next year.
I've been thinking a bit about how the changes in how we listen to music affects how I write it. I'm not sure if a majority of people listen to their music yet on mp3s, but it's been a couple of years since MP3 has been the most purchased format.
That means that most of us hear music as part of a playlist - so in a sense, it's a "singles" market. Which means I should make each song interesting as a single song.
One of my goals in the overall arc of the songwriting within an album is to communicate a kind of abstract story with the songs - the now old fashioned "concept album." Think Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper," Jethro Tull's "Thick As a Brick" - but how do we make something that people will listen to that way in this new format? You might notice that in past albums we've made some compromises - the transitions sometimes end in bad places, because it "rings" into the next tune. (Turtles All the Way Down, Cry Freedom, Change the Way Things Are)
So I'm brainstorming ways to have my cake and eat it too. Why not release the album recorded as "singles" without the transitions AND include the whole album as one track WITH the transitions? Space on the disc is cheap, unless we need another disc for all the songs to fit. I need to do some research, but I've read that we might actually have about an hour and 53 minutes of cd quality time on a cd, which means the songs and transitions can't be more than 56.5 minutes long.
That's about a good set of music actually, so why not?
This idea also liberates me from other restrictions. If I want people to put the cd on at a party, I want the first tune to really catch people's attention - loud, catchy, in your face. Subtlety is for later when you have people really listening - but what if I'd like to start slow and build? ("Dark Side of the Moon" starts with how many seconds of VERY quiet heartbeat?) With releasing the cd in both formats, I can DO that. So I'm kind of excited about where I can go with this album. I'm a "transitions freak" - I genuflect in Kate Bush's direction every time I listen to "The 9th Wave" side of "Hounds of Love" or laugh when Ian Anderson moves from all the frenetic panic into the Marleybone Road of "Crash Barrier Waltzer" - from the hilarious to the dead serious in 60 measures. Remember the old days when you'd sit back and experience the little movie in your head while listening to the music? I want to make music that does that.
On another note, I'm opening up the "In Progress" page http://www.bonepoets.com/inprogresspublic.html to everyone, in the hopes that more of you will find the process interesting. I'm doing a bit of soul baring here - I've added a line to the grid called "Seed" that will have the sometimes really silly and small riffs and ideas that start the song going.
This is the stuff I do at 2 am when I'm dog tired but want to remember that idea when I get back to it. The "demo" line is what I share with the band - which these days has sometimes been very incomplete until a couple of days before rehearsal.
Sometimes I'm writing the last lyric line on my way to the studio to record it. ("Stoke the pounding dark with the fire of stars all cast in shadow.."
was one I remember doing that way...)
All this, of course, depends on you - our dear supporters. Most of you know that you guys make it happen by donating to the project, through the Adopt-A-Song idea. I know it's really rough times for many of us, but if you don't have to hurt yourself and would like to see this music happen, you can be part of it by helping us buy studio time, or pay for some of the amazing musicians that help us get the sounds you like. Please go to http://www.bonepoets.com/adopt.html to see how to help out and get your name in the liner notes. Neither Sue or I get a dime of what you donate; EVERY penny goes to getting sounds onto disc. We're proud to do everything we can to live up to your generosity.
Love to all
I've been thinking a bit about how the changes in how we listen to music affects how I write it. I'm not sure if a majority of people listen to their music yet on mp3s, but it's been a couple of years since MP3 has been the most purchased format.
That means that most of us hear music as part of a playlist - so in a sense, it's a "singles" market. Which means I should make each song interesting as a single song.
One of my goals in the overall arc of the songwriting within an album is to communicate a kind of abstract story with the songs - the now old fashioned "concept album." Think Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper," Jethro Tull's "Thick As a Brick" - but how do we make something that people will listen to that way in this new format? You might notice that in past albums we've made some compromises - the transitions sometimes end in bad places, because it "rings" into the next tune. (Turtles All the Way Down, Cry Freedom, Change the Way Things Are)
So I'm brainstorming ways to have my cake and eat it too. Why not release the album recorded as "singles" without the transitions AND include the whole album as one track WITH the transitions? Space on the disc is cheap, unless we need another disc for all the songs to fit. I need to do some research, but I've read that we might actually have about an hour and 53 minutes of cd quality time on a cd, which means the songs and transitions can't be more than 56.5 minutes long.
That's about a good set of music actually, so why not?
This idea also liberates me from other restrictions. If I want people to put the cd on at a party, I want the first tune to really catch people's attention - loud, catchy, in your face. Subtlety is for later when you have people really listening - but what if I'd like to start slow and build? ("Dark Side of the Moon" starts with how many seconds of VERY quiet heartbeat?) With releasing the cd in both formats, I can DO that. So I'm kind of excited about where I can go with this album. I'm a "transitions freak" - I genuflect in Kate Bush's direction every time I listen to "The 9th Wave" side of "Hounds of Love" or laugh when Ian Anderson moves from all the frenetic panic into the Marleybone Road of "Crash Barrier Waltzer" - from the hilarious to the dead serious in 60 measures. Remember the old days when you'd sit back and experience the little movie in your head while listening to the music? I want to make music that does that.
On another note, I'm opening up the "In Progress" page http://www.bonepoets.com/inprogresspublic.html to everyone, in the hopes that more of you will find the process interesting. I'm doing a bit of soul baring here - I've added a line to the grid called "Seed" that will have the sometimes really silly and small riffs and ideas that start the song going.
This is the stuff I do at 2 am when I'm dog tired but want to remember that idea when I get back to it. The "demo" line is what I share with the band - which these days has sometimes been very incomplete until a couple of days before rehearsal.
Sometimes I'm writing the last lyric line on my way to the studio to record it. ("Stoke the pounding dark with the fire of stars all cast in shadow.."
was one I remember doing that way...)
All this, of course, depends on you - our dear supporters. Most of you know that you guys make it happen by donating to the project, through the Adopt-A-Song idea. I know it's really rough times for many of us, but if you don't have to hurt yourself and would like to see this music happen, you can be part of it by helping us buy studio time, or pay for some of the amazing musicians that help us get the sounds you like. Please go to http://www.bonepoets.com/adopt.html to see how to help out and get your name in the liner notes. Neither Sue or I get a dime of what you donate; EVERY penny goes to getting sounds onto disc. We're proud to do everything we can to live up to your generosity.
Love to all