名作記

For the last few days, I’ve been distracted by this idea for a composition.
Not a song — an composition of the classical music variety.
Something I’ve always wanted to write was a modular score much like the television score for the ’80s animated show, Robotech. When I was a kid, I loved how the show’s composers mixed a rock ensemble with an orchestra.
Electric guitars didn’t just play power chords — they were given some dischordant melodies. And the electric drums so emblematic of that time period mixed in well with timpani.
But the most fascinating part was how each piece of music could be repurposed and reused, as if they were interchangeable parts of a whole machine.
I always thought — actually, I still think something like that would work as a chamber piece.

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I have a really twisted idea.
I think I may just well go back and cannibalize A Ghost in My Shadow.
A few of the songs have religion as a theme, so I’m thinking of making … a religious album.
I was about to say a "Christian album", but given my reputation as a recovering Catholic, it wouldn’t be very nice about its subject matter.
Still, it’s an interesting creative challege — how to write about religion compassionately when my own views on religion aren’t compassionate at all.
And yes, I will set out to write about it compassionately. It’s too easy to go with the default action and bash.

1. "Promises" Already commandeered for Imprint
2. "Never Turn Back" Already comandeered for Imprint
3. "Silver Sting" Already comandeered for Imprint
4. "Five (Ambiguous Friendships)" Comandeer for ’80s-themed project. Paired with "The Nature of Things"
5. "Strivers for a Better Tomorrow" Comandeer for religious album (and write new lyrics?)
6. "Faith in Religion" Comandeer for religious album or for singer-songwriter follow-up to Restraint
7. "Offetorium " Comandeer for religious album. I actually have a few pieces from the Requiem I wrote in high school that could be used as a framing device for the album. Hmmm.
8. "Yesterday, Today, Tommorow" Comandeer for religious album and write new lyrics
9. "Beat of the Heart" Comandeer for singer-songwriter follow-up to Restraint
10. "No Exit" Comandeer for singer-songwriter follow-up to Restraint

Although first, I want to work on a project where I write the lyrics before the music.

Shinkyoku moratorium officially ended at the start of the year, but realistically, I won’t really have time start writing new material till after the semester ends.
I’ve trying to figure out what I want to do next.
I had a lot to do in 2005 because I was actually finishing stuff I had already begun a long while back. This time, I’m starting from scratch.
I’m not sure I’m the kind of songwriter who can just work on a bunch of songs without some compositional arc behind it. Imprint is my adult contemporary pop album. Restraint is my attempt to work with modes and unconventional chord progressions.
So what’s my gimmick for the next project?
I looked at these ideas and decided to write lyrics first. If the experience from the last few months reveal anything, it’s that lyrics are the toughest part of the process for me.
May as well get that out of the way first.
Now — when do I start?

I am watching too much Battlestar Galactica and Firefly.
On my morning drive to work, I thought, "What if there were a set of planets named after the modes in music? Kind of like how the 12 colonies in Battlestar Galactica are named after signs of the Zodiac?"
Then I tried to ascribe characteristics to each planet.

• Ionia — the major industrial planet, a bustling place.
• Doria — the misfit planet, the ghetto
• Phrygia — the exotic planet
• Lydia — the rural planet
• Mixolydia — Lydia’s twin, rural but trying to become industrial
• Aeolia — the capital of the 8 planets, dignified but corrupt
• Locria — rarely ventured but inhabited

I’m not sure whether to make the relationship between the planets more Firefly than BSG.

It’s been a long time since I’ve drummed up anything resembling a plot for a story. And I’m usually spurred into action when I develop crushes on people from TV.
My latest crushes are Jamie Bamber from Battlestar Galactica and Sean Maher from Firefly. They’re both very pretty — Maher more my type than Bamber, though Bamber has more muskels (ne, muscles) — but some slashy fantasies of the two of them together? Yum!
Of course, I’m not content with just the slash potential — I actually want to frame the hook-up in, you know, a story.
So here goes.
An American (Maher) heads to London for a student exchange where he meets an Englishman (Bamber), and they spend the short time they have together as an item. They promise to keep in touch, but a few technological glitches makes them both believe their romance was fleeting.
Of course, neither can forget the other.
Time passes, they both graduate from university, and they both head into their careers.
The Englishman moves to Los Angeles, where the American lives, and we follow both their lives over a period of time. They get their hearts broken and drama and la di dah, la di dah. The twist, of course, is that they’re always on the verge of crossing paths, but something always interferes.
Finally the Englishman decides he’s had enough of America and wants to return to England. He goes back to England for a visit, then returns to America to start preparing the move. At the airport, the American is seeing off a friend, who’s heading to New York. (I want this friend to be Phyllis, the same Phyllis from Gary Huang’s world. And maybe Crash makes a cameo, taking his band on tour.)
They bump into each other.
Once reunited, they fall for each other all over again. Part of the difficulty in their respective love lives is the fact each is the litmus for the other, and no other man has met that standard. Now together, they live happily from the end of the story.
It starts off as a rip-off of As Time Goes By, the British comedy, but then it turns rom-com. I like the idea, but I’m not sure I could pull it off myself — my writing style is too dark for a storyline this light-hearted.
But it does give me a chance to throw Jamie Bamber and Sean Maher together in my mind.

I found this lyric in a paper journal I kept some years back. It doesn’t have a melody yet. It looks interesting. It’s my first attempt to incorporate Japanese into lyrics, in the same way Japanese artists incorporate English non-sequiters in their music.
「光がない」
All the feeling is gone
There’s no incentive
Another day and it’s done
Are you invested?
Not a care in the world
I do believe you
頭の中に
光がない
All the knowledge you know
It’s nothing useful
Who cares if I don’t agree?
I’m sure that you don’t
I don’t have much else to say
話さないで
I have no reason to stay
忘れないで
What’s to stop the world from ending?
What’s to stop your life from beginning?
What’s to stop my eyes from seeing?
What’s to stop my heart from believing?
光がない
光がない
光がない
頭の中
光がない
光がない
光がない
悪い夢
Who are you to say you want me?
Who are you to say you need me?
Who am I to question your judgment?
Who am I to make up excuses?

So now that I’ve got Revulsion out of the way, I’m pretty much caught up with everything unfinished. Aside from an untapped archive of old and rather wonky songs, I’ve got nothing left to offer.
It’s both exciting and scary. I’m starting from scratch, which means I can go anywhere I wish. But I’m starting from scratch, and I don’t if I even have any ideas to fashion anymore.
So why not just jot down a bunch of random things to try? The overused term is brainstorm, I believe. I’ll try not to censor myself, a difficult task given my natural tendency to edit en route.

• A classical album, in which I play the only four pieces I know how to play.
• Instead of writing music first, write all the lyrics first. Because I procrastinate with lyrics way too much.
• A heavy metal musical titled War.
• An album of continuous music, or my own version of Sigur Rós’ Takk … or Madonna’s Confessions on a Dance Floor.
• A Japanese cover album titled Shinkyoku Moratorium.
• Dig through the college composition pieces and see what’s salvagable.
• Something dissonant.
• Something live.
• Something spoken.
• Erotica.
• What? Like gay pr0n?
• Sexy music of some sort? That would be challenging.
• Collaborative piece with davidnunez.
• A weird country album with Jason Grote. in Seattle.
• Lyrics in Japanese
• Violin music or more string quartet stuff
• Solo piano album
• Write stuff for Dreama’s Too Cool for Our Shoes. If she will let me.
• A capella album(?)(!)
• 8-bit music
• Tuneful techno
• Mimic Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand album
• No song more than a minute long (although Songs To Wear Pants To already does that.)
• Game music for an imaginary game.
• Space Monkeys, the Philip Glass performance art piece.
• Shiina Ringo cover album
• Urban music
• Fuck the Postal Service. (Disclaimer: I like the Postal Service — I’m just wondering what the sound of fucking the Postal Service would be like.)
• Duran Duran cover album
• Variations on themes by Duran Duran
• Duran Duran songs reimagined and recontextualized
• No introspective songs!
• Nothing slower than 120bps

I bet I’m going to look back on this list and throw much of it out. What would you make book on what remains?

November is National Novel Writing Month. And some hangers-on have dubbed it National Solo Album Month. I’m participating in neither.
Shinkyoku moratorium is still in effect, and I really don’t want to do any more recording until the current batch in progress gets a bit more finished. As for NaNoWriMo — I’ve got a lot of plot lines floating in my head but nothing clear enough to fashion into a narrative.
And honestly — I don’t want to shop around the only novel I’ve finished, when I can’t even demonstrate to myself I can finish a second one.
That doesn’t mean I’m not floating ideas in my head.

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That’s it. No more.
I am putting a moratorium on new songwriting from now till the end of the year.
I have recorded about 40 songs since the start of the year, and now they must be polished and fine-tuned. Some of them need to be finished.
If I write any more, I will be inundated, and things that are half-finished will remain as such.
No new writing will commence until after the start of the new year. More specifically, no new recording will be made until after the start of the new year.
Sketches are acceptable. (I wouldn’t want to get too neglectful.) But no new recordings.
None. Zip.
I’m actually starting to feel weighed down by the number of songs that need to be thoroughly mixed and edited before vocals can be laid down. I don’t want to add anything more to it.
So I am declaring a moratorium on new studio work.
What is up on Eponymous4.com is all that there will be for now.
End of line.

I’ve already updated the song inventory, I may as well update the project inventory.
The list has been expanded to include projects already completed.

• enigmatics
  A tribute to an artist of whom I’m not much of a fan.
  This one was done a long time ago.

• Voodoo
  This was a working title of what eventually became Imprint.
  All that needs to happen now is fine tuning and vocals. The music and lyrics for these songs are pretty much set. I’m even getting used to the very non-sensical lyrics of “Choices”.

• 「風の歌を聴け」
  I’m calling this my Wayne Horvitz rip-off EP. Three-fifths of it is already done, and I’ve got a good idea of the fourth song. The fifth is a complete blank. But I feel I’m close.
  In reality, this EP ended up ripping off Craig Armstrong more than Wayne Horvitz, but I like how all the songs are just off-kilter with each other and on the whole.

• Shift Your Paradigm
  Seven sketches for this project have been sitting around, so I would like to try to finish it. It’ll be more introspective than Imprint but not as bugfuck crazy as 「風の歌を聴け」.
  This project will eventually become Restraint, after having gone through the working title Speechless. I’ll make the switch after I’ve written lyrics for the new songs I’ve finished. I’m not sure why I’m convinced the songs on this album work together. They’re all really different.

• A Ghost in My Shadow
  The original project. Problem, though — I’ve been cannibalizing it. Four songs from it have already been reassigned to Imprint, and another two form the basis of 「風の歌を聴け」. So really, I’m not sure whether this project will exist by this time next year.
  I decided not to cannibalize this project, and in fact, reinstate the track listing from the original demo tape, A Loss for Words. That means the three songs that open Imprint also open A Ghost in My Shadow — in the same order.

• Revulsion (formerly, Stylish Number Girl)
  I haven’t done much with this one, but then again, I haven’t been writing with a guitar. And that will be my gimmick for this project — to write with an instrument I’m not skilled at playing. I do have about six sketches, which is a lot by comparrison.
  I decided to scale down this project from a full album to an EP, and I concentrated on the sketches I already had. The results sound pretty good, even if I had to mimic the guitar parts on a keyboard.

• 8.0s
  Ha! I keep thinking I’m joking about writing a full-on new wave project, but I’ve got a narrow window of opportunity here — the 80s are fashionable again, what with the Killers and Franz Ferdinand and the like. And honestly? I actually have songs written in the style, more closer to Duran Duran than anything. So this may still happen yet. But probably not in time before the Killers and Franz Ferdinand go out of style.

• Chronology Protection Conjecture
  This idea so didn’t stick, I didn’t realize I had it till I read my archive. But one of my other hair-brained ideas was writing a song cycle about string theory. You know — The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene … Maybe.
  If I do anything with project it will be along the lines of The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene.

• Shinkyoku Moratorium
  This entry mentioned covers I wouldn’t mine doing, but I don’t have enough material to perform the kind of transformations I want to do. An album of Japanese cover songs, though, has a lot more potential — I’d be hard-pressed to narrow it down. I already know I want to try some Quruli, Supercar, Shiina Ringo, maybe Number Girl and perhaps “Count Down” by Cocco … Oh, and I’m going to use the moniker Deathcake Yumi.
  UPDATE 12/15/05: Inspired by my own paraphrasing of Shiina Ringo’s Muzai Moratorium, I figure Shinkyoku Moratorium would be as good a title as any.

• Secular
  I never think of this project till Christmas comes around. And maybe this year with my studio built, I may finally tackle it. The idea was to make a Christmas album entirely of sacred songs. Calling it Secular is sarcastic on my part.

• Stigmata and Chess
  I just like the idea of using these as titles. But now that I think of it, I could probably rename 8.0s to Chess and give the untitled Japanese cover record the code name Stigmata.