Forgery League

I figured it was time I wrote some freakin’ music. To that end I’ve started a “song-a-day” project (inspired by a similar thing I saw on someone’s web site).

Ground rules: A piece of about a minute in length, every day; more, if time allows. Anything goes, from pop song to noise collage. If unable to make quota, finish a song, or get to the studio, for that matter, don’t sweat it. Also, rehearsing or jamming with other musicians counts as points toward Song-a-day quota.

What I hope to do is combine the best things from all the other methods of composing that I’ve used in the past. In particular, I’m thinking of the Frequent Mutilations I did at the radio station where I volunteered - hour-long soundscapes for a weekly program; I was one of about five regular contributors. The combination of deadline, limited sound sources (I had next to no instruments and effects; my chief weapons were DAT feedback, tape delay, hand-spliced loops and playing things at half- and quarter-speed) and limited time in a dedicated environment (four-hour blocks reserved in the production studio) seemed to be a real boost for my resourcefulness. Yeah, there were plenty of pretty dull moments in my Mutes, but there were enough cool bits that I compiled a CD of ‘em.

Doing a song every day means I have to work fast, and toss out the rules I tend to set myself otherwise - no recognizable samples, synth patches must be original-sounding, avoid clichés at all costs, and so forth. It also just plain gets me off my duff and writing. Scouring my piles of field recordings, my MP3 collection, my vinyl, for sounds to use. Browsing through the Cubase plugins for things I haven’t yet tried. Sounding out song melodies the way I used to do, singing nonsense words as placeholders and then forming them into something more cohesive. Probably most important: Working in broad strokes and leaving the finicky detail work for later.