DrewSwinburne

I was asked to make some music and sound effects for the play “The Story of Invention”, by Baltimore theatre troupe The Un Saddest Factory. I really like scoring for video, but there’s something really fun about the flexibility of working with live actors. Timing is obviously important in both mediums, but when you’re scoring for visuals that have already been shot, or if you’re editing visuals to fit to prerecorded music, you can easily hit a wall – the length of a scene can constrain musical phrases to an unnatural rhythm, or maybe the editor needs a little extra footage to make the scene work with the music she has. There’s always creative solutions to these problems – but when you’re doing it live every time, these problems don’t even exist.

I’d done some work in the past with The Missoula Oblongata, notably arrangement of the score by Bob O’Brien for “The Most Mysterious Day of the Year”. I lived on the other side of the country at the time, and our collaboration was limited to email. As they workshopped the play, the music (pre-recorded) needed frequent revisions before timing and mood were where they needed to be. While the experience was fun, it left me wishing I could just be there rehearsing with them, and arranging on the spot. I think there’s a notion that us computer music dorks aren’t as flexible as live musicians (which is kinda fair), but it really doesn’t have to take much time at all to make big changes to elaborate arrangements – cut out parts, change the timing, add instruments or sound effects – anything really. I’m hoping to do this more in the future, I imagine that directors could really get down with working with a composer with the same kind of flexibility they expect from their actors.

ANYWAY, tonight is the last night to see The Story of Invention, so if you’re in Baltimore, I hope you can make it to The Bell Foundry to see it. Here’s the info: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=192955354075345

And here’s what it’s about!:

“The Story of Invention follows an insomniac inventor as she attempts to build a machine that allows humans to experience more than one feeling simultaneously. Pressured by investors who want another profitable product, and by a color-blind botanist who studies dream plants and needs an invention of his own, she navigates what it means to make something new in a crowded world. Her only assistant may be imaginary and is definitely a puppet. The play was workshopped at Whartscape 2010 as well as the 2010 Delaware Fringe Festival.”

I’ve been working on a lot of stuff that I’d love to rap about here, but I’ve realized that  maybe I shouldn’t be chatting about things yet to be released, especially if they are projects for other people and they want to keep their project quiet for a while.  Updates on less ambitious endeavors (collecting cool samples, remixing a song) are probably more appropriate for this space.  Since I am working on a few things at once, I’ve also been ramping up my to do list/planning game.

I’ve always been a fan of to do lists.  It seems like I always have a handful of completely not related things to do at all times.  No good.  There’s no relishing the work you’re doing if you know you only have so much time to do it before you have to do something else.*   I realized that my lists had previously included tasks of varied importance and difficulty, I would focus on things that “needed” to get done sooner rather than later, and avoid things with vague, goal-less descriptions (“work on music”).  Separating to do lists into chores/tasks (boring, necessary) and goals (furthering a bigger plan) is my new style.  THEN, breaking down the important stuff into pieces helps to flesh out these bigger plans.  I realize without a serious list of all the songs that need work laid out in front of me, I’ll just end up re-checking things I’ve already checked out.

Check out this jacked-up page of notes I tried to scan

My friend Ryan has a studio diary where he writes down in a book what he got done that day, art-wise.  Each page is a day, and if he doesn’t do anything that day, it’s blank.  Too many blanks and you know your priorities are off.  I don’t think he has too many blank pages.  I’ve heard that Jerry Seinfeld has a similar system to stay on track.

*There’s a really good book called “The Miracle of Mindfulness” by Thich Nhat Hanh that really drives this point home.  He’s a strong advocate of doing one thing at a time and really appreciating it.  Ex: if you’re taking a walk to relax and you spend your walk worrying about work or thinking about what you’ll have for dinner later, you’re not really hearing the wind in the trees or feeling the ground on your feet, and you’re not really relaxing.

Projects have been fulminating at the HQ and there are now plenty of hot irons in the fire (brain).  This blog is intended to show what’s been goin’ on, but I’ve quickly made the obvious mistake of only working on projects instead of also blogging a clear path through them.  (Full disclosure: I’ve also been suffering from a lot of paranoia, and this makes it hard to focus on anything.)

This past week I’ve been making sound effects for a video project. Making sound effects is totally fun and I recommend it to anyone looking to sharpen their audio chops.  Making a neat sound by slamming other sounds together feels a little like alchemy and sculpture.  It’s one of those activities that can lead to a “flow” experience for me.

Most of the people I know would describe this phenomenon as being in “the zone”.  Same thing.  Despite it’s modern graphic design, this book was written over 15 years ago, and as such, all discussion of modern connectivity is absent.  Which is a shame, because I’d be interested to know how such experiences are affected by new social ideas.  Are kids today less likely to get lost in focused creative work for hours because they are so connected to each other with text messages and status updates?  I read that checking your email every 30 minutes is more disruptive to your cognitive abilities than smoking weed.*  Or is the broadening of knowledge and accessibility to powerful creative tools (photo, video, audio software and equipment) make it easier for us to find creative outlets?  Is this all pointless conjecture? We’ve had distractions like tv, records, comic books etc, for quite some time now.  Maybe the interactivity of dealing with actual friends on the internet is inherently more distracting than consuming pre-made entertainment.

One of my favorite flow experiences was the night before the last day of high school when I started and finished my thesis paper.  The 7 and a half hours between 10 pm and 5:30 am were spent in a flurry of lucid writing.  I’d come to the conclusion that a Nora Zeale Hurston book could be read as an allegory for the great debate between the philosophies of W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington.  It was a really rewarding experience.  And it was without help or hindrance from technology, so maybe those considerations are moot points.

Anyway, I’m very interested in the subject of motivation and “flow” and if there are other books out there on the subject I’d love to read them.  The human mind can focus thought and energy and emotion without the aid of chemicals, or in some cases without any external stimulus at all.  This is of course wonderful.  One of the other projects I’m working on is a long-form piece intended to induce a trance-like state.  I’ll have to read more on the subject, but so far it’s been an exciting exploration.

*Which sounds like a manipulated statistic – who could say what the rubric is for “cognitive abilities”?  Although now that I think about it, it does kind of make sense that email could easily take you out of “the zone”, and I’ve heard that smoking trees can definitely help you stay in said zone.