Categories
Bun' Ber E's third
Conferences
Data
Distractions
Funding
Genre Benders 1
Genre Benders 2
Gigs
Legals
Literature
Marketing
Music
People
Performative development
Process
The Question
Theory
Websites
What kind of thesis?

October 16, 2007

Sonicbids EPK

OK, so at long last I have signed up for a Sonicbids account so I can enter "12 Good Bars and True" into the International Songwriting Competition. At Big Sound I met Ford Englander, who is Sonicids' Director of Operations....
Posted by Hughie at 1:04 PM | Comments (0)

September 21, 2007

Songsalive

Today I have started to examine the benefits of being a member of Songsalive!, which I joined as an elite Australian member at the IMC conference in Philly. It looks good, though a little quiet in and around Brisbane. My...
Posted by Hughie at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

May 29, 2007

An awful realisation

I have been forced to confront the fact that I have no idea how to mix an album. I'm getting through the songs but they don't sound the way I want them to ... and I have no idea how...
Posted by Hughie at 12:19 PM | Comments (0)

May 9, 2007

Reason ... fun, fun

Yesterday I finished plaing with Autotune and started playing with Reason (adatped for Protools). That was great! It took me a while to getall the bits happening but once I did I was blown away by what I could do....
Posted by Hughie at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)

April 26, 2007

Widget development

Got a response from Zadar this morning, wanting a spec and offering to provide a detailed quote. I told them I'd decided to proceed with someone who responded more promptly. Mahmoud says he will begin work today (his time). I...
Posted by Hughie at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2007

Developments

Several things to report. 1) Response to my requests for a programmer were varied. Ian Pirrie from Advanced Database said the project was not really suited to them as they only use Access to migrate it to something larger and...
Posted by Hughie at 1:02 PM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2007

Developing my Access widget

OK, I am now in a position where I need to get serious about developing my accounting widget. This is an Access tool that stores the details of everyone involved and every product released. It will allow me to enter...
Posted by Hughie at 5:10 PM | Comments (0)

April 2, 2007

Songwriting Contests

For some time now I have been wondering about the virtue of entering/winning songwriting contests. There are plenty to choose from all over the world ... but in previous years I have felt that, even if I won something, I...
Posted by Hughie at 9:51 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2007

Developments

Couple of things to report before I hit the studio again. Played Steve the latest versions of 12 Good Bars and True, Mighty Fine Day, Heart's With You and So Far Away yesterday. He thought So Far Away was the...
Posted by Hughie at 9:56 AM | Comments (0)

March 6, 2007

Got it done (mostly)

Well, after two days of sweating in my living room with all of the doors and windows soundproofed in 30-degree heat, we got the drums down for 6 of the 7 songs - reasonably clean. We had time to record...
Posted by Hughie at 8:09 AM | Comments (0)

February 28, 2007

Damn guitar sounds!

The trouble with an instrument that can make so many different sounds is figuring out which one you want to use ... I've learned that now. I've been trying to get the right guitar sound for Dirty and it's very...
Posted by Hughie at 4:28 PM | Comments (0)

February 8, 2007

Moving ahead

Right, well the first draft of the confirmation document has been looked at and the only feedback is that although the exegesis looks fine, the performative aspect of the project needs to be more clearly defined and enunciated. This is...
Posted by Hughie at 8:25 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2007

Found the gap ...

Just been chewing though my literature/context review for confirmation. According to Steve, the main purpose of this at confirmation is to nominate the gap in the literature which the research will seek to fill. As of Tuesday, I have found...
Posted by Hughie at 8:48 AM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2006

Moving along

Several things to report, since I haven't blogged for a coupla days. Plenty of time, since there's guys lopping trees and grinding branches up the road ... The last two days have been spent re-working Heart's With You. The backing...
Posted by Hughie at 8:56 AM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2006

Re-assessing

Yesterday and today are devoted to figuring out the best approach to the next little while. I gave the Lullabye demo to Lucille for her to consider yesterday, and decided to re-do the Heart's With You chorus vocals - that...
Posted by Hughie at 9:56 AM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2006

Recovering and reinvigorated

OK, I've played in the Masters Games and taken posession of a 5-string Banjo. Today's mission is to recuperate and get my head around playing banjo. Essentially, I want it for the Heart's With You Hillbilly version, so it's not...
Posted by Hughie at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 9, 2006

Not quite where I wanted ...

Re-wrote the line yesterday with the help of Sammy Cahn's dictionary and the Macquarie Thesaurus. After about 5 or 6 suggestions that I bothered to write down and even more that I dismissed without recording, I settled on this "Find...
Posted by Hughie at 10:28 AM | Comments (0)

November 8, 2006

The cold light of day ...

Well, I listened back to the recording of Lullabye last night and it was played as beautifully as I thought - though perhaps not edited as well as I would have liked. Have to revisit that today, and re-write one...
Posted by Hughie at 8:46 AM | Comments (0)

November 6, 2006

Better than expected

Spent today recording string parts for Lullabye with Focksy. After a great deal of stuffing about and getting close, it's one of those rare pleasures when you listen back to what has been done and it's BETTER than you imagined...
Posted by Hughie at 4:54 PM | Comments (0)

November 3, 2006

The torment of suburban recording

Well, I've redone the guitar part and the shaker, cleaned up the triangle and started to tuen them into something a bit nice. However, I have had to content with a cement truck across the street first thing this morning,...
Posted by Hughie at 1:36 PM | Comments (0)

Nope, not good enough.

Try as I might, I just couldn't get the guitar part I had recorded for Lullabye (MP3, 1.8 MB) to sound close enough to in time yesterday. It's not horrible, my wife said she didn't even notice, but it's not...
Posted by Hughie at 8:12 AM | Comments (0)

November 2, 2006

Writing as a distraction?

Spent all day yesterday working on a new song. It came to me via the indicator (turn left) in my car as I was returning home from St Lucia the evening before. First a rythm, then a bass progression, then...
Posted by Hughie at 9:31 AM | Comments (0)

October 30, 2006

News of the morning

Just got a call from Andrew Brown at ACID saying that his letter of support for my funding pplication is writtn and will be left with my supervisor, Steve Dillon to pick upand use. That leaves the only missing link...
Posted by Hughie at 8:58 AM | Comments (0)

September 11, 2006

Practice and perfection.

Amazing how after a month of not playing Bunnies tunes I can get rusty on them. Yesterday I played our monthly gig at Dicey Reilly's and was struggling to remember some of the words and chords. I guess the focus...
Posted by Hughie at 10:24 AM | Comments (0)

September 5, 2006

Wasted effort?

Spent most of the weekend and all of yesterday preparing an application for the Q-Music Big Sound Artist Showcase gigs. This involved a 5-track demo CD, band biography and artwork submitted on a CD with paper versions. The songs I...
Posted by Hughie at 8:54 AM | Comments (0)

July 20, 2006

A first time for everything

Well, today's the first day I've gotten up and not felt like working on the music. That could be because I've just spent two days talking to various peple about funding, legal implications, organisation of stuff ... or it could...
Posted by Hughie at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)

June 29, 2006

Paring down

Working on the Bunnies' Third CD, the setlist now looks like this (in no particular order): Roaring Jelly set - all instrumental Pat Horgan Set - instrumental (disco) Devil Among the Tailors set- instrumental (techno) Green Cockade (Swing set) -...
Posted by Hughie at 3:44 PM | Comments (0)

June 19, 2006

How things happen

Jimmy Webb's book is a source of all sorts of revelation. Last night I got to the bit that discussed the way sleep can assist the creative process. Although I have always been sort of aware of this phenomenon, knowing...
Posted by Hughie at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2006

Leaps forward

Got all but one of the Bunnies' guitars done now - at least the first draft. Had a frustrating day with lots of nothing quite working but at least the guitars are mostly down. Also got the invoice from UQ...
Posted by Hughie at 10:10 AM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2006

Productivity

Got lots of Bunnies' guitar parts down yesterday - but they were the easy ones. Got a few more to do today that will be harder. With a bit of luck I'll get around to doing more of the vocal...
Posted by Hughie at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

June 12, 2006

Great investment ...

Spent the end of last week recording away. Just getting the parts down as cleanly as possible. Mostly on the Bunnies' album. Progress is steady but I'll have to speed it up to meet deadlines. I have chosen October 1...
Posted by Hughie at 12:31 PM | Comments (0)

June 7, 2006

Contrasting fortunes

Yestrday went brilliantly. Everything I tried worked (eventually) and I made great progress with Bunnies' Roaring Jelly set and With Dancing with the Stones. Also met a guy who heard me on Triple M, got more money from CDBaby Digital...
Posted by Hughie at 9:32 AM | Comments (0)

June 6, 2006

Deficient software

Had a frustrating day yesterday. Managed to learn a lot about the need to keep an eye on software upgrades and updates. Also spent a lot of time reading the Pro Tools manual thoroughly, which gave me some nifty tips...
Posted by Hughie at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

June 1, 2006

What a day!

Yesterday was one of those truly developmental days. Many things progressed in my head and towards the completion of my thesis. 1) Gave the final presentation of the project for my classmates. This was not exactly satisfying because I (once...
Posted by Hughie at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)