[LAU] Paul Hindemith says hello

[shane richards]

>i remember eno describing the hundreds or thousands of demo tapes he
>would get at one point in his career, and noting that people didn't
>seem to realize that for every piece he ever released, he worked on
>"hundreds or a thousand" other pieces that he discarded because they
>were crap. his allusion was clearly that most of what we all produce
>is crap, but that shouldn't stop anyone from engaging in the process.
>we just have to find a way to get people to understand how the
>difference between making music for others and making it for yourself.
>there is no shame in either.

So true, that part.

Writing for others is a mix of inspiration and damned hard work, and
requires a strange combination of humility (listening to others), and
enough bravado to follow your muse.

Started this time last year with 8 songs.
Cut back to 4.
Wrote another 12.
Cut back to 9.
Sent demos of 9 songs to musos/engineers whose opinions matter to me.
Cut down to 3 songs. (Which have all been re-recorded/arranged)
Recorded another 10 songs.
Keeping critiques of aforementioned friends in mind - back to 9 songs.
Wrote another 5.
Played and played and played those tracks to many people, noting what
seemed to please and what didn´t.
Down to 7 songs, in the process of writing one last piece, then call it
a day and unleash my crap on the world.

So that will be 35 odd full-recordings, many rerecordings and
rearrangements to produce 8 tracks. That of course doesn´t include all
the stuff I wrote and forgot about, or pieces that just don´t fit.
Now that doesn't mean that the other pieces are necessarily "crap" -
wrote a lovely Ben Fold's Five-style ballad for my gf - but she's the
only one that will hear that.
I believe, that after 35 years composing, 7 albums and thousands of
performances with various long-haired groups that shall go unnamed,
that only experience can really tell you if it's personal or public.

And most of what I released when young should have never been let out
of the rehearsal studio. (thus "unnamed groups")

I remember Peter Gabriel saying something similar, but I can't find the
interview in question. He was far more eloquent, though.


- shane