Diary
Making a CD is hard work, so you have to keep a diary in order to stay sane. This is it.
Project - Diary
april 9th, 2008
Opening track - first draft
This piece of music will probably act as the introduction to the album. It's a first try, and it will be finetuned and polished a lot, but I think it gets the idea across what direction the music will take.
I wrote the main melody on an acoustic guitar during our honeymoon in Italy, near Lake Garda. This theme will be used on a piece called "Honingmaan". Here, it simply acts as an atmospheric opening leading into the next piece on the album. I recorded all parts in one go, so there are a lot of mistakes and imperfections, but that is the way I always work in the studio. I make these "sound sketches", which I will redo with much more accuracy later on in the recording process.
april 2nd, 2008
Sleeve (first concept)
Last month I've been toying around with some ideas for the sleeve. I wanted something stylish, a bit dark, and reflecting the atmosphere of the music. The music will be based on structural, almost mathematical themes, but will be arranged and performed as organically as possible. Then I remembered something cool I'd seen a couple of years ago. During one of our stays in Italy, I had photographed the ceiling of a dining hall in an old castle. The patterns on the ceiling were very baroque and lively, but at the same time looked like an abstract fractal drawing. And in some way, this is a perfect visualization of the music I'm currently making.
So here it is: the first concept of the front sleeve:
Front sleeve - first concept
I quite like it this way, so it's probably here to stay. Small things like the font and orientation of the text, or maybe a small white border around the photograph, are still negotiable.
march 9th, 2008
What to tell and what not?
When you work on a project like this, it's difficult to decide what information to share with others and what information to keep for yourself.
On the one hand, it's cool to keep everything to yourself, and then present the CD with a big "Tadaa...." feeling.
On the other hand, it's also fun to keep those who are interested up to date of everything that's going on in my head and in the studio. Also, writing down thoughts and doubt is a great way to organize your own feelings.
So that's what I have decided to do... Artwork, sound clips, you name it, you get it.
But there's no guarantee, of course, that all of this will represent the finished product.
One thing is sure: when it is released, there will be plenty of surprises left in store!!! Enjoy!
Making noises
While I'm a guitar player at heart, I've always had a soft spot for electronic music.
During my teenage years, say from 12 to 20, I was completely obsessed with synthesizer-music, and dreamt about owning my very own synthesizer.
In my head I composed all these wild and adventurous sound-scapes, but alas, I never had the money to actually buy one. And by the time I had the money, my mind had switches to guitar playing, and electronics had become a bit of a taboo.
Times have changed of course, and synthesizers have become way more available, either as hardware or as software.
I own both now: a KORG MS 2000, and three virtual synthesizers in Reason (Substractor, Malström, and Thor).
Here they are...
Korg MS2000 - lots of buttons and sliders means lots of sounds
Subtractor - ideal for old school analogue sounds
Malström - best suited for crazy sounds and effects
Thor - one synth to rule them all
Toying around with them is every bit as fun as I imagined it would be way back when I was a teenager.
And although my musical tastes have changed, I'm still picturing this wild and adventurous music in my head. And I'm determined to let it out now.
For the last couple of days, I have been sculpting all sorts of sounds using Substractor, and most of them sound very good to my ears. I try not to decide yet where and how to use them: I'm just creating these wonderful sounds and textures, and only time will tell which once I will use for the project. But use them I will...
Naming the project
The CD will be called "Eclectcism".
Let me explain: I always enjoyed music that is all over the place. Good examples of this are Queen, Mike Oldfield, and Steve Vai. And the decision to throw away all rules in this project was already made, so the music will contain many influences and styles. Hopefully all mixed into one cohesive piece of music. More or less.
So the pieces will be varied in style and structure, and the best word discribing this is "Eclectic".
I concidered using this as the tile, but that felt a bit too much like a Björk title. The derived word "Eclecticism" is my current favourite.
january 29th, 2008
Shocking news
Today is my birthday, so I can do whatever I want!!! And so I made an important decision: the new album will primarily be an electronic album. I still expect it will contain some guitar, voices and other instruments and/or samples, but most of it will be done in a virtual studio environment. This deserves some explanation. It all boils down to the fact that I said everything I can say as a guitarist on "12 Significant Others". A lot of what I want to say musically at this point in my life can't be put into guitar music. The guitar will always be my main instrument, and if I have to define what I am, I would still say "I'm a guitar player". But I have dreamt of making electronic music ever since I heard Klaus Schulze's "Timewind" en Jean-Michel Jarre's "Equinoxe" somewhere back in the late 70s, and now is the time to make this dream a reality. And if there's something that Vangelis, my number one favourite musician in the world, has tought me, it's that it's totally irrelevant how a piece of music is made: it's the result that counts. And I want to make a dark, moving, intense and emotional piece of music with the next album, full of atmosphere, adventure and surprises. To me, that calls for a totally different approach than before: so why not change it all? Having toyed around with the brilliant piece of software that is Reason, I have become more and more convinced that this is the way to go for me. I have been re-listening my collection of electronic music a lot lately, and that has only made me stronger in my decision. So now it's out in the open: the new album will be an album containing intrusmental electronic music. I've learned to live with it. Now it's your turn.
january 1st, 2008
Restart
Well, it appears that nothing much has happened during the last year regarding the CD. Not true! While I haven't made any recordings, ideas keep coming and going in my head and the project is shaping up very well. It's all still in my head, that's all. But that's going to change now! The new studio is almost up and running, and when it is, music will be pouring out. I hope.
december 26th, 2006
Singing bowls
The first instruments to appear on the new album have arrived! Two beautiful sounding singing bowls, one with a medium pitch and one with a higher pitch. Plans are to add a third one, with a low pitch, so that together they will provide for a wide range of sounds.
Recorder
And that's two... The second non-guitar instrument is in! It's a recorder, tuned in F. It belonged to my sister who doesn't play it at all, so she brought it with her when she visited the studio, in return of a copy of the new album once it's out.
december 8th, 2006
And off we go!
Nearly two and a half years after the release of "12 Significant Others" I finally got the guts to start working on a new CD. I got to admit it's a tiny bit scary, because I remember all too well how consuming the process of making a CD can get. But I decided not to let that hold me back.
The rules of the game
Not a lot is known about the CD as yet, except for a few things:
The first one contained only acoustic guitars. This time I will use any instrument that the music calls for.
On the first CD, if you heard me play something, it was 100% guaranteed that I could play it "live". In other words, I didn't use studio trickery to create something that can't exist outside of the studio. Well, all I can say for this CD is that those days are truly over. The first CD was a very personal statement about who I am on the guitar. Now it's time to go wild and have fun with the music itself.
On the first CD, every single note you hear is me. This time, I'm planning to let guest musicians in on the project.
And last but not least, and some will be shocked, this CD will contain... are you ready?... vocals. Maybe my own, definitely by others. Some vocals will have words, others won't. Some words will be spoken, others will be sung.
So you see, I try to impose as little rules as possible on myself during this project. But it will be a *lot* of hard work. Please stay with me during this journey, and I promise I will keep you up to speed on the CD as much as possible.