Fun Escape - A Closer Look

The past couple of weeks have been a chance to get away, in more ways than one. I discovered that National Solo Album Month (NaSoAlMo) had started in November. In thirty days or less, participants are challenged to create an album from scratch with a minimum duration of thirty minutes. I figured it would be an excellent opportunity to work on an extended burst of creativity before settling on the obligations of my life. My compo experience probably prepped me for what I was about to do. I've made songs in an hour, so having a month to do about ten songs would be no sweat. Unlike the usual compo system, I was free to re-upload newer versions of my tracks as I saw fit via SoundCloud. Since the forum would be via Reddit, the social reach is potentially much wider than the usual compos I attended.

What tripped me up at first was the lack of something to unify the various compositions I would write. A week went by, and then another, but the launching point wasn't quite there. In the meantime I recorded riffs and things into my phone's voice memo app for later reference. Eventually I came across a 1947 anecdote about a bus operator who stole his own bus and drove off, escaping the grind. At that moment I remembered an older song I'd wrote called "Fun Escape" that carried the basic concept of that anecdote. A way to say goodbye to the drudgery of living -- and that happened to tie in to the fact that I was escaping life for a while by way of my creative outlets. All these things clicked together to become my concept album.

As a proof of concept, I re-produced the song "Fun Escape" and included it on the album as the launching point. After that is "Next Stop", in which the bus driver protagonist laments the futility of his existence. The stipulations of NaSoAlMo allow for one cover version of someone else’s song, so I used that opportunity to record "Mad World". Originally performed by Tears for Fears, the song complements the album concept I was going for. The minimal chord progression of "Mad World" also fit in with my style of pop songwriting. To nail the theme even further, I added a few lines to the existing lyrics. The accompanying brass and clarinet riff was originally part of an Optigan sample pack, which I chose to give the song a drunk-at-the-saloon vibe.

Breaking out of the doldrums is the turning point of the story, which is expressed in "Mile After Mile". The song's tone is intended to be optimistic and cheerful as the bus operator drives toward the setting sun with no particular destination. This continues with "Bus with Wings" as the protagonist imagines being able to fly around the world in his vehicle. In terms of arrangement, the idea was to get brighter and more fun in tone as the adventure goes on. The rock snare of the opening song gives way to sidestick action of the next, and later a brush kit. By the time the album reaches "Bus with Wings", the beat consists of a simple tambourine. Ideally this would create a sense of floating ever upward as the album progresses.

Eventually the narrative reaches the second turning point in "Lady Hitchhiker". I came up with the riff early in the month, and originally intended the song to be more of a subversive, sultry number. It wasn't until I was finalizing lyrics that I realized that the titular hitchhiker could serve as the catalyst for the bus driver's loneliness. To that end, I added Spanish guitar help give the track a more melancholy tone. The driver's turn of events causes him to want "To Go Home", as his initial road trip excitement has worn off. To make the singing sound as laid back as possible, I recorded at a slightly slower tempo, then time-squashed the vocals to the correct BPM. The unusual synth sound in this song came about as I was wracking my brain over what to add to the arrangement: somewhere outside my window a toy siren went off that swooped up and down in pitch. This inspired me add a Theremin-like instrument to the song.

Wrapping up the concept is a suite of tracks regarding the bus driver arriving home. "The Audience" shows the rush that comes with fame, as his fun escape made him a local celebrity. Soon afterward however, the protagonist realizes his fifteen minutes of fame are up in "Yesterday's News". The album ends with the bus driver reconciling with the people of his home town. "Passenger Stories" tells the tales of two characters: one is a generous elderly woman, the other a greedy politician. Both people end up as riders on the protagonist's bus. The song also reveals that if the driver had not returned to his everyday existence, he never would have ended up with the love of his life. As I look back at this completed album and head back to my day job, I wonder what may be waiting for me.

Live. Die. Remix.

If you visited this blog from my main site, you've noticed I do quite a few different things. I run an online radio show, and make music videos to help get that music out there. I push out remixes, arrangements, cover versions, and sample-based music. For fun and exercise I also record original songwriting, which has mostly been localized to a specific compos; the music I do there is kept separate from my other outlets. Years before settling into music, I did a little bit of fan fiction. Like most fan fiction, the stuff I wrote is not very good. In a sense I've also done visual fan art by way of crossovers in my webcomic, in which the outside artist was merely emulated and not actually participating in my strips.

Along the way I've become part of various remix-based communities. Early on, I shared my self-hosted music files on message forums like the ones on OverClocked ReMix. Branching out from that, I focused on on putting things out through SoundCloud and YouTube. My albums are on BandCamp, and my webcomic is published through Tumblr. I've gained peers who do the kind of stuff I do, and we've kept in contact and met up in person. I avidly look out for remix-related events, and have gained acquaintances there. Most of the remixing events I attend happen online; in-person events happen less often and are usually simple meet-and-greets or festivals.

Where does copyright fit into all this output and sharing? I think about copyright the way I think about pickpocketers: it affects me more after the fact, when someone takes action against me. So it might linger in the back of my head when I'm working on a remix, the way a recent mugging might, but I don't think it influences the creative output itself. In an example of my own sample-based work, I'll take a short clip, maybe just a brief vocal from an existing recording, then loop it, add drums from some other recording, and blend them to make a beat. On top of that I might layer in some new chords or a bassline, and the result is a new song, remix, or mashup. A lot of it depends on context. If I had to clear a remix idea with the copyright holder before I even started working on it, I'd hardly remix anything. I mix and match before I even decide what I want to do, so asking beforehand would just limit my palette.

As far as actually selling remixed work, it's definitely a murky grey area. If someone is selling remixes, that person should at least try to contact the original authors. A while back I was asked if my "Finality" re-arrangement could be used for a student project with a possible cash incentive, and it made me take pause. The composer of that piece is Masato Nakamura, whom I assume is rarely, if ever, contacted for permission on anything. Ethics is another thing that depends on context. I definitely do not believe that a remix or sample-based work is plagiarism. If you're making something out of something, it's different than simply taking an existing work and renaming it as your own work, or making it look like it has no past iterations. The remixers I consider my friends tend to have the same values I do regarding this. After all, I follow and enjoy their work. It would be weird if my friends were straight-up plagiarizing.

Probably the most egregious thing a remixer can do is not credit the remix sources. In mashups, sometimes it's easier to publish a track as "Jon Doe - My New Mashup" rather than listing the 23 different source tracks to make that one mashup. It's not that they're hiding anything or taking credit for other people's recordings; sometimes it's just cumbersome to list all of that. That's an example of good intention. Bad intention is plagiarism, where the artist claims he recorded everything himself, or is hiding stuff deliberately. I recall there being a minor kerfuffle on Wikipedia regarding an album entry of Girl Talk: He neglected to make a definitive list of samples for his liner notes, which led to an ongoing edit war regarding a user-generated list on the wiki page. Another musical act I've been a longtime fan of also neglected to mention a bunch of samples in their albums, and it's made my hobby of Wikipedia editing feel like a chore.

Websites have recently worked to meet copyright holders halfway in an attempt to please everyone. YouTube in particular has licenses that in some cases can cover the copyrighted material, and allows content creators to generate revenue with cover versions. Loudr is another example of a site essentially including a lawyering service to clear covers versions. Sample-based remixes can be sold legally through Legitmix, provided the sources are available through iTunes. It wasn't too long ago when putting up anything even remotely resembling copyrighted material on YouTube led to rapid removal, regardless of intention from the uploader. Things have changed a bit since then. Depending on who you ask, we're either moving into an new age of creativity, or a mindless pit of regurgitation. Either way, it's an interesting time to remix.

Composer Spotlight on Clockwerk

I had the chance to speak with Clockwerk, who has been involved in music production for roughly a decade and made his mark in various creative competition communities. He is best known for his ambient and electronic music once described by a listener as “braindance”. His online output is largely channeled into his SoundCloud page. More recently he has elected to further his education and delve into a variety of areas, possibly including audio production. Clockwerk shared with me his influences, his compo experience and the problem with putting a laptop on a stage.

A common question asked of Clockwerk is the origin of his name. He explained that, “It’s basically not influenced at all by Kraftwerk… Not in the least, really. It was simply about making good moments and times last and all about drawing a comparison between that of losing time and gaining it. Whether that be chilling out to some of the music, or being productive and preferably doing something with your time, and having it there as a soundtrack to your productivity. It’s a rather simple idea: chill out and have fun.” Aside from his electronic work, he is also a self-taught guitarist. He elaborated on this point, and summarized how his current style came about: “I put that down to my nature of kind of isolating myself. I have this quirk where I like to work things out for myself most of the time. However a lot of parts can be put down to monkey-see-monkey-do. Mostly, it’s improvisational stuff.”

Clockwerk discovered tracker software in the early 2000s and became interested in electronic music. “I love it myself, more so the mixing between IDM genres and ambient styles, which is eventually where I’m finding a lot of my music fits now. Somewhere between chillout and ambient; artists like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, U-Ziq, and some underground artists like Nifflas Nygren, Lackluster interested me. This is before the days of the Internet where social networking sites like SoundCloud were around, and underground MP3 labels were around throwing together compilations of IDM styles. I listened to music from those and I was inspired by it. Ever since then I’ve been composing and I find all these artists quite inspiring because they all seem to have such diverse styles within music. I like music that has a lot of layers and textures going on and, needless to say, drew upon a lot of inspiration from those areas.”

He later discovered composition competitions and enjoyed what they had to offer. “I find they are a really good place to express ideas and show them with other artists. Listening to their compositions, it’s nice to hear others work and get praise and feedback from other artists. These sorts of things also help to better the artistic community as a whole I’ve found, and I welcome any opportunity to join online in a friendly workshop of creative minds. It’s far too easy to lose yourself in isolated places artistically and socially when it comes to a free flow of ideas from other artists. It’s great to have some place to go that is like a welcomed cup of coffee and conversation with these people. Also I certainly wish these competitions were available more frequently as well. It seems to be something I want to do more and more these days.” 

Outside of compos, SoundCloud remains the center of Clockwerk’s web presence. He shared his thoughts about connecting with online circles: “Sure I have a social network and stuff, but if I could release an album in the future with a label without having to worry about that pesky live performance stuff I would be more than happy. I was talking to a friend James Shain about releasing on his label Cold Fiction Music in the future. From most places I’m getting a lot of positive feedback. I really like the idea of people just chilling out in their homes and listening to this music or any music. Musicians have their place in society regardless of the pressure they might have from their families and friends or even loved ones. Where I’m living at the moment, job opportunities simply aren’t there, but in all honesty the way things are with the music industry I think everyone’s finding it tough. Many people end up getting screwed by people who want to make a cheap buck from people’s artistic works.” 

Clockwerk also elaborated about conventional stage performance versus the use of a laptop. “It might be time society takes a good look at itself and reevaluates, you know, the laptop musician thing: people are all like “this isn’t a live performance!” It is one thing I simply do not get. People might not like the live performance artists with their laptops on stage, but people sure as hell aren’t stopping themselves from downloading MP3s or jumping on SoundCloud to consume all this music.” He noted the unlikely prospect of his own live show by saying, “I wouldn’t, simply because I like writing music in my own time in my own space. I exist almost totally as a completely online artist aside from the occasional jam session with a friend when I play some guitar.”

Regarding his experiences with both Internet people and real-life peers, he concluded: “The people online are far more interesting. It’s just a shame the locality is all wrong when you step away from the laptop and you realize you’ve been talking to people from all over the world and you’re like oh yeah… and then life comes back and you’ve got friends in your home town. Certain things in life can’t be avoided, and it’s a bit of a problem when you meet someone you totally dig and they are over the other side of the world or something.” Sometime after this interview occurred, Clockwerk enrolled at a university to further his studies. As a result, he might have to put his online adventures aside and devote his laptop to homework.