Hello again, my friends!
Another Michigan winter is over at last. Now we find ourselves in that ambivalent, transitional period where one day it's almost eighty degrees and the next it's in the fifties...where basically the weather can't make up its mind (if in fact it had a mind to make up).
I just realized this is the first time I've blogged since January! I didn't mean to stay out of touch for so long - I just got caught up in writing and programming sounds and recording music, not to mention the kind of day-to-day stuff we all deal with. You know how that goes! So, let's get back up to speed...
A New Song Preview - "Piston"I now have a new song preview, "Piston," loaded up for you to check out in my Myspace player. I'm thinking that this will likely be the last sneak preview I share from the new album before its release - best to keep the rest of it to myself for now, so as to leave some "newness" and surprises for when the album comes out.
"Piston" was a fun song to put together. I kind of went back to my "roots" again with this one, basing most of the arrangement around piano, which is where my musical journey began all those years ago. Spicing things up, we have plenty of electronic sounds in the mix, as well as an almost hip hop kind of strut happening with the drum tracks. I used an interesting new tool in mixing this one (well, new to me), a distortion effects plugin called Izotope Trash. Just the ticket for adding a little bit of grit and extra coloration where needed.
"Who is John Galt?"The lyrics on "Piston" also show a more explicitly positive and individualistic mindset that I'm deliberately gravitating back towards of late. For a while there, I was touching on some at least midly depressing and tragic subject matter and, as is usually the case with art, it reflected my own state of mind. I had allowed myself to sink into a mild depression, I guess, focusing a bit too much on negative things...disappointments, unfulfilled dreams, feelings of being trapped in a mundane existence, missing those close to me who are no longer here. Maybe just a touch of "midlife crisis." At any rate, I feel as if the clouds are lifting and warm sunlight is poking through again.
One thing which, in the past, had often been a source of inspiration and "spirit fuel" for me is the writings of Ayn Rand, author of
The Fountainhead and
Atlas Shrugged, as well as
Anthem, the novella which inspired "2112," the 18-minute opus by Canadian rock group, Rush. I used to read a few pages from
Atlas Shrugged almost every day, and Rand's depictions of fiercely individualistic characters fighting to achieve their goals always bolstered my own stubborn determination to keep going after mine. It was like a periodic reminder of what's really essential in life. Or, as Rand put it, "It was as if normal existence were a photograph of shapeless things in badly printed colors, but this was a sketch done in a few sharp strokes that made things seem clean, important - and worth doing." I've been rekindling my interest in Rand's novels and philosophy, because the sense of life they project makes me feel more centered and focused.
By the way, for those who don't know, John Galt is the central character in
Atlas Shrugged. "Who is John Galt?" is the first sentence in the book, and is spoken at various times as a sort of popular slang phrase in reference to a person who is assumed by most to be just an urban myth. Said phrase also graces the shirt I'm wearing in my most recent profile pic (courtesy of www.JohnGaltGifts.com).
"A Few Sharp Strokes" - Adventures in CGIYou might have noticed the computer rendering of a futuristic city that starts off this blog entry. I just started playing around with Blender, an open source CGI modeling/animation program, and the render above is my first, flawed attempt at putting a scene together. I had toyed a little bit with rendering software about ten years ago on my old Macintosh, so I had a very small jump on the whole thing, but I'm still a complete amateur at it. I'm really fascinated by the process of creating your own little pocket of "alternate reality" on the computer, being able to move around through it and light it and "photograph" it as if it was real.
I don't have the skill to create the kind of extreme realism you see with the CGI in feature films - people devote years to mastering the techniques required. All I can do for now is create a very simple, stylized, surreal kind of look, but I actually kind of dig "surreal." If I can get a little more adept at it, I think it could be cool to create CGI renderings for album graphics and my websites, and possibly even do a little bit of CGI animation for use in videos. We'll see...I know by now that I tend to have way more ideas than I actually have time to implement (don't we all!).
Well, now that we're at least somewhat caught up on the last two or three months, I guess I'll finish my coffee and try to tidy up the house a little (which looks like the result of a tornado strike, LOL), get in a quick mile on the treadclimber, and sit down to relax with a movie. I hope this finds all of you doing well. Have a nice weekend and, as always, drop me a line anytime. My "door" is always open!
Talk to you soon,
DV