Everyday soundtracks
When I was in high school I remember walking by my brother one day with a song in my head. I was oblivious to what was going on around me at the time and he said, “The music never stops for you, does it!” That memory has become a personal metaphor. It cued me into the realization that other people think about what I might be thinking and he was right of course. I often think in terms of song. I’ve always had ideas about creating personal soundtracks or soundtracks for everyday experiences like encounters with wildlife and the elements. I also remember playing in the living room on Saturdays and pausing to listen to the “Wide World of Sports” theme on the t.v. just prior to a sporting event. My first try at it came out as podcast theme songs. I still enjoy their uncanny way of inspiring us and psyching us up for action.
Some soundtracks can inspire deep reflection and contemplation. In “Woodpecker” and “When it Rains it Pours” I used video from where I live in Pennsylvania. My mother was an avid bird watcher and I used to enjoy learning about birds with her. I was surprised to find a pileated woodpecker on the tow path willing to give me to get a 2 minute video. I wasn’t sure how I would approach the music. It just so happened that I was working on my tremolo picking technique at the time. What a coincidence. I decided to focus on the woodpecker itself and not abstract much else out of the subject of the piece. At first I was stumped by capturing the rhythm. Woodpeckers don’t constantly peck. They don’t create an ostinato pattern of pecking that would make it easy. To accommodate, I used two drum samples of similar timbre but different rhythms and spread them out asymmetrically to capture a more natural woodpecker like pattern.
One of the most inspiring and challenging lessons I took away from my music professors was: to commit to learning music theory, beginning with it’s origins, realizing that throughout the history of music advances were made by breaking them. So, when I abandoned my assumptions about the rules of layering a beat under a melody and harmony I wasn’t too surprised that it could work. I enjoyed playing over the broken, asymmetrical beat. Now I enjoy listening to it and remembering being caught up in imagining what it must be like to be a woodpecker!
The scene from “When it Rains it Pours” is looking out from my studio deck into the forest on a rainy day. I decided to use a minor key and a very slow tempo to capture the dreariness of the rain dripping from the edge of the roof. There isn’t much action in the video, however, I like the contrast between the misty background and the drops of rain falling up close. It reminds me of the sonic distance of the bass, rhythm guitar, and lead guitar. Each has its own texture and volume that at times seems smeared together and others separates out into distinct tracks.
Another effect I like to use is to keep some of the sound from the video to create an intro/outro or to be mixed in with the music. Its like combining a soundscape with a soundtrack. In “Goodbye River” the birds and the wind add more realism to the piece. I was hoping to capture the woodpecker’s pecking sound, but I might not have come up with the out of the box rhythm idea if I had! If you’d like to support my work you can find all the videos featured in this series on my website. In the meantime, go watch some birds and stay inspired!
