Write and record an album

I set a New Year’s goal in 2008 to write 52 Tracks in 52 Weeks. As of October 8, I’ve posted 39 to my music blog. I’ve got 13 more to go and there are 12 weeks left in the year.

Surprisingly, a staggering majority of the tracks are improvised ambient compositions at about 40 beats per minute. Creating these slow, lethargic, sleepy time pieces tunes my ear to mix issues that I wouldn’t notice if the tempo was higher. Plus, it gets me in the practice of trusting my musical skill enough to play music while the record button is on, with no idea where I’m going with this.

It also gives me the realization that not every track I write has to be great for me to let the world have it. Of the 36 ambient tracks I’ve written so far this year, I doubt very many of them are amazing. The point is that musical output often looks like a bell curve, with a small number of As, a bigger number of Bs, a great number of Cs, a few Ds, and a smattering of Fs. Even if your favorite artist can do no wrong, we never hear the army of turds they wrote to get to their greatest hits. Even some of the songs on Stevie Wonder’s albums are filler (Cs).

Onward!

I decided at the beginning of 2008 that this was my do-or-die year. This means that on January 2, 2009, if I don’t have an album ready, my gear goes on sale.

Since that decision, I’ve embarked on a project called “52 Tracks in 52 Weeks”. So far, I’m way ahead of schedule. I’ve written 19 tracks so far this year, which is nearly 2 per week. Most of them are ambient, but I’ve found the experience of blogging what I like about them and what I don’t like about them valuable.

Apollo Lee – 52 Tracks in 52 Weeks

1. Aug 31 – Ableton Live 5
2. Aug 12 – Yamaha WX5
3. Jul 13 – Logic Pro 7.2
4. Jul 08 – M-Audio Keystation Pro 88
5. Jul 08 – Korg padKontol

Unh. Now, bring on the beats!

I’ve resumed writing music, although it isn’t very good. The lack of quality is primarily due to lack of practice and the fact that I’m still building my chops in electronic composition with modern tools.

In the last year, I’ve built lots of what I call “stubs”, short eight-bar loops that may or may not end up being something. I’ve also stretched six of them out to full song length, but they’re still rough drafts. I’m in the process of devising a process by which “stubs” become “projects” with the possibility of becoming “finished.”

So, I’ve set a goal to make 52 of these stubs in 2006 - one a week - and 12 finished tracks—one for each month. So far, I’ve done three this year, including one full track-length rough draft. I haven’t decided whether the 12 tracks have to be brand new or can be final drafts of stubs from previous years. But, the 52 stubs (okay, 49 more) have to be new.

Let’s see how quickly this brings me to my goal.