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William Goode’s Journal – Bjork: Biophilia – Review

Posted on October 30, 2011
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According to Wikipedia Biophelia means this “love of life or living systems.”  ”It was first used by Erich Fromm to describe a psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital” again according to Wikipedia.

Biophilia is Bjork’s eighth album and what an album. From what I can gather parts of it were recorded on an iPad. It has taken four years for the project to surface and as with all Bjork albums there is a lot to be going on with, both in the making of the album and the concept of the whole accompanying project.

The album is promoted as the world’s first “app album”. It’s a multimedia extravaganza that apart from Apple iPad apps, includes the internet although how this relates to her live show I don’t know. I haven’t been lucky enough to see it yet.

This is an extract from Bjorks website where she describes what the album is all about.

“For me the project is a continuation of volta and whereas volta is more about anthropology, this is kind of without humans and both zooming out like the planets but also zooming in into the atoms and in that way aesthetically sympathising with sound and how sound moves and physics of sound and how notes in a room behave, how they bounce off walls and between objects and its kind of more similar to how planets and microscopic things work”.

bjork.com audio snippet, 2011

There is always a beauty in Bjorks work and the simplest sounding tune plus her vocal style can become almost an orchestral masterpiece.

Is she a singer in the pop world? Well I guess she is but to me her avant garde tendencies leave her pretty squarely at times in that more transient art world where anything can be experimented with.

She crosses the boundaries of folk, classical, electronic dance, jazz etc. It must be very liberating for her to be an artist that is accepted in these different worlds and you have to admire her forward thinking and freshness.

This album involved Bjork, Apple and National Geographic plus a multitude of other helpers. The album apparently is meant to be an educational experience as much as a musical one once you involve yourself with the apps.

The whole project involved so many people (David Attenborough for example) and reviewing this album as a piece of music is only part of the story. She enlisted scientists and musical enthusiasts that made unusual and new instruments for her, a large musical pendulum called a Gravity Harp and a Tesla Coil are just examples plus other very interesting from what I’ve researched instruments. Will they be used again, I hope so.

Bjork’s  Gameleste – a bespoke Gamelan-Celeste hybrid can be viewed from this site.

http://thecultureofme.com/2011/06/video-meet-bjorks-gameleste

The opening track “Moon” starts with a plucking sample, almost childlike in its simplicity, for me a folk element runs through this, is this one of the iPad recordings? certainly could be,

“Cosmogony” is a stand out track with its delicate vocal from Bjork and a lovely choir like backing, the intimacy with which the melody is handled here is typical of what Bjork is known for.

Hollow has a very strong orchestral feel to it, percussion builds and then drops, an adventurous attempt and one that like the whole album is pulled off with phonetic style.

Virus, I reckon has the Gameleste playing. This is a simple song with subtle builds, the song is delicate and at time masterful in its approach. It’s simplicity in structure evokes another world, another time, another place.

How many other acts will start to put out multimedia driven music albums as complex as Bjork’s project? Well only time will tell and not every artists style will lend itself to this form and how much does it all cost to deliver a project such as this? I would love to know some of the details.

Bjorks Biophilia is a wonderful example of her work, go listen and better still get hold of the iPad apps, as long as you have an iPad that is.

 

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William Goode’s Journal – 2 Things I Know About Song Writing

Posted on October 18, 2011
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Where do you start?  - Well where do you finish? That could be a better question. Do I have song writing tips? Not really, I know we all find our own way eventually but there are techniques that you find useful and these are worth passing on which I will do from time to time.

Is it easier to start with the lyrics or the music? Would you be better writing on your own or with someone else? If you are attempting to make a million writing the latest hit what style do you write in? Are you making it all so complicated that the enjoyment can disappear and you actually dry up?

Well as is with a lot of artistic endeavours in life there is the old, by now cliché, no rules.

I personally don’t write to sell a hit (although I have had my share of this type of writing, hitless though). For me it is an artistic endeavour that is quite a selfish act and if other people enjoy what I do then that is fine, I’m glad and humble. I do this because I have a need to write songs, I like to experiment with lyrics and music but not particularly following a set pattern.

I have had my share of writing -Verse-Chorus-Verse-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus type songs and a good majority of smash hits follow this formula if not close to it, there may be a key change towards the end to add more interest. Now when I’m writing I do not even consider the format of the song, I can’t remember when I last wrote a bridge, the chorus just comes and sometimes it doesn’t, that’s the way I enjoy it.

The interest for me is in the flow of what comes and a lot of what I do now would never fit into standard radio formats but they do fit into an album format, just no real singles (although I could pick the odd one out of my tunes if radio came a calling and it is quite easy these days to have your songs played at an online radio music station).

Now I’m not knocking top 40 hit songs because there is a lot of satisfaction to be gained from listening to that perfect little pop song and I love them, always have but writing them is not for me anymore, but never say never (another clichéd line, but true).

There are a lot of cheap books online that may give you a few pointers and I may review one or two of these at some stage. You may find a dictionary thesaurus online which can prompt you for a direction, but it’s something I rarely use. I found a thesaurus hindered my natural flow of words and made what I wrote seem stilted, but everyone to their own method.

There are two things I would recommend if you wish to become a songwriter:

1.Write about what you know.

A songs lyric should mean something even if it is a 3 minute pop tune. I am however partial to progressive rock bands and who knows what those lyrics mean at times, but they have a feel and intention that goes with the music and because of this they are an important style of writing.

Read a lot of books, talk to a lot of people and as you go through life the stories will come, they will almost jump out at you at times. Find a relaxing spot, or write about your teen/middle aged angst but it has to mean something to you. You can’t expect someone else to connect with your lyric if you don’t find your own connection within what you are writing, write genuinely with purpose.

2.Give yourself time.

My best lyrics come at all times of the day, when I’m tired, when I’m wide awake, when I least feel like writing a song. I guess what I’m saying is if you sit down to write a song and nothing comes then the time is possibly not right. Don’t lose sleep, hey even in the middle of the night, things can come (keep that writing pad and pen by the side of the bed)

Learn guitar chords,as many new ones as possible, tune your guitar differently, there are endless ways to stimulate the brain, try them all.

I very rarely sit down to especially write a song anymore but I still write many songs. When the words present themselves the music quite often follows close behind, or it may be the other way around however I write when it comes, unforced.

Try writing poetry, write in a different way, make the mind twist a little and you’ll be surprised at the results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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William Goode’s Journal – Headphone mix or just an earache?

Posted on October 3, 2011
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You may have set up baffles to help with soundproofing and are able to mix in a reasonably acoustically dead room that doesn’t have too many reflections bouncing back at you from the walls, but  it is still difficult to create the perfect room at home for your mix. Many people have to compromise and this requires getting to know what those sounds coming out of your monitors actually mean. More on this later.

So I’ll mix with headphones you say to yourself? Well I personally use my standard monitors, headphones, little old stereo cd players, car stereo and headphones. I guess what I’m attempting is to ensure my recording will sound good under as many conditions as possible.

For people living in flats or for those that record and mix late at night headphones are a necessary item. We all use headphones at some stage for overdubbing, hearing back one track while you record your second track, but will using headphones alone give you an accurate picture of the true sound that you need? Well at the end of the day no, but!

As I say I combine a number of ways of listening to my mixes but I must say a good pair of headphones can go a long way to reaching that final mix the one you will be happy with so yes headphones can be part of your mix but I wouldn’t rely on them totally.

If you mix using headphones for too long your hearing becomes coloured (or is that discoloured?) the tonal niceties of your music are not quite as apparent anymore. To avoid this when using headphones I listen at a low volume and not for too long. This also goes without saying, but listening to loud music on headphones for long periods of time will damage your ears and may even a few years down the track prevent you from ever mixing well.

Another problem I found in using headphones was getting a good stereo mix. What you hear is sound coming to the right ear and another sound to the left ear. Whilst listening to speakers you are hearing a really different form of that stereo mix as both ears are picking up the right and left at the same time.

I quite like using my headphones for working on tone, for equing, checking some of the subtleties in the sound but as I say not for too long as it becomes a little pointless if your ears are no longer able to pick up the tonal accuracies.

It’s also important, and this will come to you the more mixes you do in your particular environment, to understand what your headphones and speakers are really telling you. What I mean by this is that you learn as you go along in a not so perfect acoustic environment to double check for example the accuracy of your bass frequencies. They may sound perfect in your current environment but muddy on other speakers (your cd player for example).

It may be a compromise to work like this but when I have had a less than perfect environment to mix in, learning what my speakers are really telling me has been the only way I could be sure of a true sounding mix, that and the comparisons on other speakers, in the car, cd player etc.

It’s almost as if nothing is giving me the perfect mix but my brain is memorising what each system tells me and eventually giving me the combined answer. A fiddly way of doing things but it is surprising how well you get to know the accuracy of the sounds coming from your monitors.

So what are the best headphones to use? Well there are basically two types, closed back and open back. The closed back encloses the speaker (transducer) into the headphone, the sound doesn’t escape. These are good for overdubbing but for me the overall sound tends to come across as quite dull, not perfect for mixing. With open back headphones you can hear the sound coming from them whilst you are wearing them and therefore these are not the best when you are overdubbing as you will generally end up with the mix from your headphones being recorded along with your vocal for example. Open backed headphones I have found are generally nicer /more accurate in tone. You may find some of the more expensive closed back headphones adequate, up to the individual I guess, but I prefer the open backed headphones for mixing.

You may get fooled when using headphones into thinking your songs eq levels are tonally accurate and be disappointed when you hear the song back on your speakers. This gets back to learning what the headphones / speakers are telling you and adjusting the stereo mix / equing accordingly. I find the mid range in a headphones mix the least accurate and I spend a fair amount of time getting this right.

One more thing I would say is don’t scrimp on money when it comes to buying speakers or headphones. After your synthsesiser, sampler, guitar, other outboard gear etc monitors should be figured in as one of the major costs. You do really get what you pay for and although you may not be able to afford top of the range solutions there are plenty of brands in the mid price range that will serve you well.

The stereo mix is where it all comes together or disappears, it’s one of the toughest areas in the studio process to come to grips with and can be quite frustrating but a good set of speakers and headphones will take a little of the sting away as you while away the hours getting that sound just right.

 

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