Sound Art Experiment number 10

bloody hell!

well, according to my soundcloud profile, it has been 7 whole months since i graced you good people with any new music, and over a year has passed since the last SoundArt was completed.

considering that the SoundArt project was supposed to be completed within just one year, twelve tracks, one a month since december 2008, this is extremely bad form on my part...

regardless, it is here now, and it almost wasn't here now since i had considered mucking around with it a little longer, but enough is enough, it is ready (to some degree) and therefore i saw fit to debut it over at the byford family blog along with our other creative outputs




when i was given the artwork to create a track for, i originally intended to compose it in the ipad that i had not yet purchased yet had been planning to as soon as the latest model launched, i think it may eventually been march when they finally chose to launch the new model, and then a handful more weeks until i got hold of it, and then a few months where i pretty much messed aroud with it and read comics off it and only glanced at the music apps once in a while to make a little bit of noise and then return to facebook or twitter

the plan was that the ipad would be my idea station, a one stop shop where i could plot out and compose my music and elevate myself to the level of Labrynth and Calvin Harris, heck, things ain't over yet, but so far... so quiet

and yes, the SoundArt that i thought would be composed entirely on an ipad turned out to be an entirely different first for me, it certainly was entirely mixed on an ipad, but only the violin sound that opens the track is courtesy of garageband, the rest is entirely me, albeit recorded into garageband and then manipulated

it is infact the first track that i have ever composed on guitar (yes, i realise it is probably out of tune), played by myself, with lyrics written by myself, and consequently sung by myself (not very well, hence the massive amount of effects layered upon it) and although i originally believed 'Teenaging' to be my first ever song, and although i sung on my cover of the xx's 'VCR' i think i may actually have to retroactivelly adjust my own history to consider SoundArt10 my first ever song, heck, it features me playin three chords on a guitar, so it's gotta be.... right

good!

the first thought when i saw the art provided by my brother was to write something poetic on needing a sidekick, and from there the idea developed to be influenced by that famous little bit of writing about God and the footsteps in the sand, and then went on to be something slightly less religious, yet remaining completely true to my original inspirations depending on how you choose to hear it

and here it is, to hear, whether there is someone by your side or not.....

the recording studio

working on the next installment in the much delayed SoundArt series, that is thankfully now taking shape and hopefully shouldn't keep you waiting too much longer

originally shared on Byford365

Posted via DraftCraft app

waiting

here we go again

save me

#firstworldproblems

one of my favourite twitter hashtags, detailing the hardships in life that many of us have to deal with in developed counties

my own contributions have included jabbing non-touchscreen devices in confusion and the glare from sunshine making it difficult to read my gizmo in the garden

and now I have a new pet peeve to add to this list, for today I am suffering a great loss...

today I lost the preferences I had been building up on Zite

for those that do not know of Zite, it is like a magical oracle that gathers suitable reading material from all over the interwebnets, basing it's selection on tags that you approve, websites that you favour or block, and simply choosing whether you like or disliked an article you have just read.

in its early days it may throw up plenty of crap that you have no real interest in, and it is your prerogative to exclaim your disdain in such useless information, but given time it will adapt to your tastes and very rarely throw up a dud, ever

mine almost always displayed plenty of comic and superhero news, a smattering of music and film, with a side portion of interior design.

so of course I would want this tailor made reading experience to also be present on my sinister phone

I'll just download the app, sign into my profile and the magic will now also be in my pocket all of the time.

except it seems that I have never actually activated a saved profile, and in my haste to sign up and register my perfect fit Zite, I seem to have deleted all that I once held dear

and now I am back where I started months ago, mercilessly dipping in and out of articles in order to express my likes and dislikes and to block anything vaguely political or too America focused.

while there are clearly bigger issues facing the world right now, this is my own personal current crisis and my latest first world problem.

a busy mind

I lay in bed while my girlfriend is snoring next to me.

I'm cursing the alarm that I thought that I had turned off last night, yet still went off at half eight this morning, I curse that I cannot now get back to sleep

it has been a while since I have actually managed to get a really good lay in, to wake up later than intended feeling rejuvenated and harbouring no real guilt over the hours of daylight missed. it is an affliction, that my mind is too busy, and once it has been turned on it is hard to turn off again.

I wake up. and then I think.

I've thought about the comic that I didn't finish reading in bed last night, I thought about how my girlfriend told me that recently she has been counting herself to sleep and has rarely made it past 60 seconds (and I can certainly attest to this), indeed, this morning she has stirred a handful of times already and just rolls back over to sleep, whilst I have laid there hoping that I may succumb to sleep yet again, just til half ten or 11, have a real lazy morning.

I have thought about a couple of music apps that I downloaded last night, and how I might hope to record them and incorporate the Be Bot into my own compositions, I have thought about the lamp shade I want to buy from B&Q and that I probably need some screws to put the boards up in the geek room so I can get a move on decorating the final wall, I have thought about upshire car boot sale, and putting the washing out in the garden, and about writing a blog about thinking too much.

and sometimes, I wake up, and I do.

springing out of bed, leaving it unmade as I launch myself into the first task of the day, be it painting, loading or unloading the washing machine, washing up, tidying up, sweeping up.


I am proud of my aptitude to wake up and start achieving things on my day off, but some days, like today, I really would just like a lay-in.

the rebirth of Hunchbakk

in a way I suppose at least.

I offer my apologies for the barren month that has passed, but it was not without good reason.

life decided to intervene and in the time since me and my blog last conversed, I have witnessed marriages, a funeral, birthday celebrations and a holiday.


i am also adapting to a new way of life, a thoroughly 21st century way of life as this brief outing is brought to you courtesy of my new gizmo, one of those fancy little touch screen doo-dahs that a company named after a fruit seem extremely proud of, and not the smaller doo-dah, the bigger one, with more room for my girlfriend to squiggle on when she is playing 'draw something' on facebook.

But my gizmo was not bought for facebook (although i do tend to tweet from it somewhat) and it was not bought for angry birds and doodle jumps and cutting ropes and running temples and all that other rubbish.

my gizmo is a powerful (and wonderful) little machine that is capable of so much more than these frivolous endevours, and so I intend to put it to use getting creative musically, and have just spent a week away toying with Garage Band and a couple of other little musical gadgets, and how very apt that on Easter Sunday I chose to download Propellerhead's Rebirth and have since been playing around with an 808.

now I do hope these little musical experiments shall be worthy of listening to in the near future.....

interesting times indeed

better man - part 2

it is so often the case that the sequel is never as good as the original, but let's see if we can help to re-balance the theory as i sit around at work, with not much work to be done, and plenty of time to ponder over yesterday's blog post and what i intend to do with my life...

it is common for me to live in daydreams

and despite trying to do otherwise, i still spend more time thinking then i ever spend doing

but i am daydreaming in those moments that happen between moments, the moments that are of little consequence, bus journeys, walking to work and other occasions where you are in a transitional state, waiting, or moving, but not fixed and not dedicated to fulfilling a purpose, those are the times when my mind wanders and the fantasy life plays out

i put belief into these desires, that they could be true, that it will happen someday, that something is holding me back but, in time, i will make good on these flights of fancy


i have some more music to make, my Giles Babel persona has not been as prolific as i had wished, but when i do find the time to mess around for a bit i do start dabbling, because that is what Giles Babel does, he does not merely make music, he makes experiments and projects and tests without placing too much fear in the fact that it is not 'music'

and i hope to push myself and push boundaries a bit more when i eventually get my hands on a fancy little iPad and load it up with useful apps, i have played around with the ridiculously simple garageband while idling in an apple store, and researched a few other useful looking programmes that do not look beyond my own capabilities

the intuitive nature of the touch screen pitches the iPad and the desired music apps somewhere between a toy and a portable music creation tool, making learned skills look easy at the touch of a button and hopefully encouraging a playfulness in my own machinations and a freedom from restriction.

before then tho, i need to focus some energies on wrapping up that which i have already started, drawing a close on what should have been the debut Hunchbakk album that is long delayed, cracking on with this latest collection of Giles Babel sounds, and, as my brother reminded me and his followers, maybe i should be looking to finish up the SoundArt collaborative project that we started in december 2008 with the intention of creating a 12 track album over the following 12 months, but is still stalled on the 9th track that i have barely made a start on.


i shan't go making any wild claims that 2012 will be my year, a grand exclamation like that sets me up for too big a fall for my liking, but lets just take it as it comes and see what happens regardless.




credit where it's due:


that slightly bizarre image up there was half inched from a seemingly unrelated article and was stumbled upon when i searched for the term 'better man' in google images

the best jobs in the world...

like most of my days off, i did not have the telly on this morning

i simply got up and got on with things

i fixed myself a bit of toast, fetched my bike out of the shed and grabbed my i-pod off the dock in the kitchen.

i scrolled through, and stuck on Dizzee Rascal's Boy In Da Corner to listen to whilst i cycled to my Dad's.

when i got there, he stuck on the kettle, and i told my brother about a website he might be interested in.

we fired up my Dad's apple mac and i proceeded to retrieve the link from twitter.

it was only then that i saw the trending news

RIPSteveJobs

i was shocked

in a strange way

i knew he had health complications

but Steve Jobs just seemed to be a constant in this world


i don't know if i can truly say that i am deeply saddened by the news, not personally, but in some way, i do know that this existence has just lost someone that changed so much about our modern lives

with no thought about it at all i had already used two of Steve Jobs apple products that very morning, almost by instinct, they are so ingrained in our lifestyle

all those people walking around with their i-phones, all the music i keep on i-tunes, and my plans to pick up an i-pad in the not too distant future

all these measurable technological stepping stones that have transcended the realm of 'gadget' to become thoroughly mainstream and unquestionably accepted

and we have lost the man that made this happen

and if that weren't a startling enough thought, here is another

without Steve Jobs, we would never have had Toy Story.