Howdy!
One night about a year and a half ago I was sitting in my rehearsal room, playing through my old sketchbooks. I have piles of those music sheets with small phrases, ideas, tunes, and I’ve basically written down this music stuff since I was a teenager. I found a lot of stuff I had forgotten I had worked on, and that started some kind of process that I’m in the middle of right now.
So here I am, going to studio next week to record a solo piano album. The thought of doing that was pretty scary at first. Doing something just by myself, all original compositions, just me having the power of making whatever music I decided to. Scary, but very inspiring.
It turned out I had lots of new and old ideas that would work with solo piano, and now I’ve cut down the material to about 20 “tunes”. That’s still too much and I’m ny trying to focus on a bigger picture, an album as a whole, tunes that work well together.
The music will partly be just plain solo piano: “one man, one piano” kind of stuff. I will also use some prepared piano tecniques, where different objects are placed on or in between the strings to produce different sounds, and this will be combined with some overdubs, so the piano will actually sound like several different instruments. I’ve decided to only use “natural” sounds, and by that I mean I won’t be modifying the recorded signal other than adjusting levels and reverb. I won’t be playing secret messages backwards or anything like that.
I’ve also documented some of this process through the camera lens, and found some interesting, abstract angles in the grand piano.
And one more thing: I’m really struggeling with tune titles. I have some 30+ solo piano tunes wihtout titles and I don’t want to call them just “untitled 1”, “untitled 2b” and so on. Suggestions? I know, you will say you need to hear the music first, but you won’t! If any of these end up on the album I’ll send a free copy to the title “author” and of course thanks in the credits 🙂
Now back to work…
1. Tasa raha 2. Heavy skies 3. Unforgotten memories 4. Hide and weep 5. Hard times – hard strings 6. Unfiled 7. Moulded from age 8. Theme of Joona 9. A hymn to Frida 10. Joel is the greatest man and creature alive in this world today
There is ten fabulous (spelling?) titles for ya’!
//J
And of you add the titles from the eight photos above, you probably have enough titles for the album!
Great shots, man, and I really look forward to hearing the album!
Joel´s title nr 10 is obviously a winner.
Otherwise I agree with Joel that you have some pretty good titles on those pics.
“Wearing suits”, for example. Solid gold!
Here are three title suggestions; Rooks , Enamel , Little Gang. Good luck with the recording, it’s the best part. +1 for the picture titles also!
1. New Friends; 2. Dust; 3. Spring; 4. Time; 5. A Night Out; 6. A Freezy Breeze; 7. Pogo Sticks; 8. Stream Magic; 9. Here After; 10. Gone and Done.
Ahh! Great suggestions! Keep them coming! Joel’s no. 10 is a strong candidate for an epic power ballad.
1: Fear, 2: I´m sleeping with a trout, 3: Goodbye, dear koski, 4: bear and beer, 5: Trout beer, 6: Logotype, 7: What a beautiful horse, 8: I´m afraid of pikes, 9: flawless bear, 10: Party time
Great titles, Fred! If Joona doesn´t want them for his solo album, we now have some pretty good titles for upcoming JFF projects. 7, 9 and 3 are my favourites.