These days new music is a tough
item to sell. Who wants to hear it? Sometimes beautiful, rich textures just
don’t cut it for the average listener. We have a lot of that. What should it
sound like then? There is just so much variety that everything meshes together and starts to sound
similar. We have an endless supply of popular music in various different
formats. I don’t want to hear
that. I want to hear something
that’s never been done before. Robots playing the James Bond Theme song are
cool, but I've heard that song before. I always find myself wanting, and drifting towards, music that makes me thing critically.
Over the past couple years no one
has caught my attention more than Alexander Chen. Chen works at the Google
Creative Lab in Brooklyn, NY. If you don’t know who he is you only have to
think back about a year when Google had the Les Paul doodle on their search
page and they allowed you to click and record your own songs. You could play
chords by typing on your keypad and using your mouse to strum the strings. It
was a huge hit. So big that Google kept it live on their page
for an extra 24 hours, which is the only time they’ve ever done that. If you
don’t know what I’m talking about you can view it here:
He has a few other projects that
you can view at his website (http://www.chenalexander.com). Perhaps the most impressive is
this one:
This one of a kind project takes the busiest subway system in
the world, New York City, and makes it one giant plucked instrument. The system
is based on the real time movement of each train. Each subway line is
essentially one note and as the lines cross between each other you will hear a
“ping” at various pitches. Time is sped up and slowed
down at random to get a completely random layer of sound. 20 seconds in to the
grid and you get a feel for what’s ahead. Keep it on for 2 hours and you'll be totally hooked
What Chen has done is extremely
creative, but what is it really? It's an artist who found inspiration in something and followed through with it. Musicians can draw inspiration
from a lot of crazy things. We all struggle so hard to be original that sometimes we forget
that all we have to do look around. Maybe the chance to do
something new and different will present itself right in front of our eyes or maybe we have to look a little deeper. Taking the MBTA map and making music out of it doesn't seem so original anymore. Right now I’m looking at a
guitar, I hear a ticking clock and cars are flying up my street at an ungodly pace.
Maybe I can somehow…. Anyway, try not to forget that you can do something like this to. You just look around.
1 comment:
I love the message you are sending with this post. I agree; inspiration must be taken from our daily lives. Only in that way do we have a chance at sharing an experience.
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