Being Human-Friendly While Becoming More Digital

With all the analytical power currently used by large businesses to segment customers, automate personalized messages ("missed you!"), and spy on the shopping and decision making habits of site visitors, it's more important than ever to be human-friendly. We cannot forget that customers are real people and not just stats on a spreadsheet. Things can go wrong very quickly if we don't remember this, thanks in no small part to the powerful digital systems available to our human customers (Twitter, etc).

John Winsor explores this and cites recent examples in his latest post on the HBR blog, Being Digital Demands You Be More Human.

"As new digital marketing tools and systems are implemented they must be balanced by even more analogue systems than before. The ability to reach out, in a human way...can quickly create either positive or negative momentum for your brand. That makes human interaction more important than ever."

The challenge--how can analogue systems keep up with the large scale made possible by digital systems?

Remembering Matt Brown

On Wednesday April 25th, I received the devastating news that I had lost my close friend and longtime bandmate Matt Brown. For the better part of a decade, we played and toured together in the Two Dollar Pistols, worked studio sessions and performed in various groups. Though our musical lives had taken different turns in the last few years, it was always a joy to see him and we would pick up where we left off like no time had passed. He was like a brother to me.

Since his passing, not a day goes by that I don't think about the music and laughs we shared over the years. I think about all of the crazy gigs we played (that community center in rural Holland with the fog machine?), the long hours spent traveling in the van made much more than bearable by his company, and the occasional harmless prank to pass the time either waiting to play or return home to our loved ones.

I think about that time Matt nearly got thrown off of an international flight for accidentally ringing the service bell too many times. I think about that time he was introduced at the Grand Ole Opry as Matt "Baby" Brown, which made his new nickname official. I think of that smile he'd give you across the stage just before he'd kick off a tune. And, of course, I think about the absolute power and dynamic precision of his drumming following that 4-count--you could feel it right through the stage like you just hopped on a freight train.

Most of all, I think about how unwaveringly SOLID he was--as a drummer, absolutely, but also as a friend, husband and father. Matt was the anchor. He would not let you down and he always brought his best.

I cherish the time that I spent with Matt and all the music we made. I'm going to miss him terribly.

Soundtracks For Your Dressing Room

Dressing rooms are always too quiet and vanilla, or is that just where I shop? Here is some cool work from DDB Singapore for StarHub Music Store in Singapore--sort of like iTunes. It combines music and fashion, making use of RFID chips on clothing in a store to trigger songs in the dressing rooms that work as a unique soundtracks to that garments. 10,000 songs were used, from 16 genres, for 8 clothing brands in 42 stores. Texts were sent to the customers with an offer to download the song playing. Songs weren't just given away--this work actually boosted paid music downloads at Starhub by 21%.

I wonder how they dealt with all the songs being triggered at once in a busy suite of dressing rooms?

What if a sound logo or piece of branded audio could DO something?

What if a sound logo or piece of branded audio could DO something? Of course, I mean doing something in addition to connecting people to a brand via sound--the power of audio branding.

I read about Sonic Notify by Densebrain here and I think it may be a game changer for creative use of sound with mobile, primarily because a user does not have to actively switch on an app to listen to a coded sound. Sonic Notify is based on bus tracking technology and you could see it as a kind of “audio QR code” that delivers some relevant content to a user via their smartphone. However, QR codes are too much work and require action on the user’s part.

This is what differentiates it from sound apps like Shazam, which the must consciously turn app on for it to hear and identify a sound code and follow through with content delivery. With an auto-playing audio "code" instead of a picture you must photograph, your smartphone can pick up nearby sound that you may not be able to hear and you receive branded content on your phone. It works with sound outside of the human frequency range, but that doesn’t mean it cannot be combined with a sound logo, or any audio for that matter. Plus, content can be location specific due to the inherent properties of sound coming from a speaker source.

Consider the possibilities for creative use of sound to deliver content via mobile and how that could enhance someone's experience with a brand.

The Radioactive Orchestra

With 2011 wrapping up, this year's best-of lists are starting to make the rounds. In terms of creating a fun and stimulating sound experience, the Radioactive Orchestra from this summer is one of the year's interactive sonic highlights.

Give people something fun to do, and they might stay to play, create and share. The Radioactive Orchestra, an interactive sound project created by a Swedish nuclear safety team in collaboration with composer Axel Boman and musician Kristofer Hagbard, demonstrates the fun and the potential power of utilizing sound and music for active engagement. I love the way this project creatively uses sound to demonstrate the relatively heady concept of radioactive decay, inviting site visitors to create their own music based on the unique decay patterns of isotopes. This project is primarily education and awareness focused (awareness of the concept, not necessarily the KSU brand), but imagine the potential for active sonic engagement with commercial brands and products. This year's Google Les Paul doodle comes to mind as a successful example in this vein.

If this were a brand with an existing sonic identity, reigning in the options and offering a curated palette of sounds and options could reinforce or help build that identity. Also, I would have loved to see the option of a simplified design for a broad target in order to quickly get non-musicians creating and sharing. The interface is fairly advanced and you’d have to know a bit about music to really have fun. Perhaps taking a cue from the Google Les Paul doodle and simplifying the interface and sharing functionality would make for a friendlier experience and a broader appeal.

I’m still impressed. Check it out and start playing by choosing isotopes from the blue cloud.

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Music for a Rainy Morning

Fog. Rain. Trench coats. Raw deals. Dredging the river for evidence of the crime... Well, maybe not that dark. But, there's definitely a noir-ish feel to this one that resonates with me.

Now that the touring and live shows have slowed down, I'm getting taste for loud electric guitars again (it never really goes away). I put this one down on a recent rainy morning.

Paper Lamps

I've been busy lately with the demands of the advertising world, recording sessions and non-electronic music, but I've been working on a few bits and pieces in the spare moments. I've been enjoying pushing the envelope with the gnarly side of FM synthesis and cross modulation, finding the nasty sounds with instruments traditionally associated with the slick, bell-like tones ubiquitous in the pop and soundtrack music of the 1980's. It's more fun when you find something a little scary and try to make it into something beautiful than when you start with a well-groomed and presentable palette.

For some reason, I see glowing paper lamps when I hear this number. Don't ask me why...I have no idea.

Color Field

I had a conversation recently about synesthesia as it relates to music. Synesthesia, according to Wikipedia, is "a neurologically based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway." People who experience synesthesia with music often associate or "see" certain colors with certain sounds, pitches or keys.

I imagine that, at some level, people associate stimulation of one sense with another. I'm not certain where this comes from--could it be from associations we make from our everyday experiences? For example, parsley always smells green to me, but is that because I know that parsley is the color green and my mind creates an association? Does this happen for you? Do just-baked chocolate chip cookies smell light brown to you?

I'm not sure if I am officially a synesthete, but I have always associated musical textures with hues of color and shapes, and this is part of the language I use when working with other musicians to describe ideas or direction. When I make ambient soundscapes, working with pure sound and texture is the main focus. Light and shade, bright and dark, hot and cold, sharp and dull.

For this piece, I wanted to play up the rich, glowing hues and saturation I love in the work of Mark Rothko. I deliberately dialed back the detail and played on the "colors" of the tones and, particularly, how the frequencies blended and created new colors when stacked together. I hope you enjoy.

Gettin' Ready for the Kumite - A Tribute to the Martial Arts Training Montage

Is it just me, or they're always showing that Jean-Claude Van Damme movie "Bloodsport" on the dark depths of nighttime basic cable? Like so many martial arts movies, it's heavy on the flashbacks, especially the training montage where the lead actor overcomes intense pain and rigor at the hands of a stern martial arts master living alone in the country to ultimately become a badass (well, actually, in "Bloodsport," the master is a family man who takes the troubled young Van Damme in as his son--also a common theme).

Also, like so many fine action movie soundtracks from the 1980's, there's some pulsing suspense to build tension and some faux-Asian synth stylings to make sure you know it's Eastern tension. Here is my tribute to the training montage of the 1980's. As it builds, see the pieces of a young, troubled man's training come together to meet some long sought goal...
becoming a badass.

Pure Analog Syrup - A Remix

I rode my bike this morning and the trails were beautiful. The weather has been cooling down and I'm noticing that some of leaves are just starting to change. I wrote Green Relief at the start of this year when winter was starting and I was itching for the warm Spring weather to come. Thinking about the weather swinging the other direction and the amount of precious daylight getting smaller and smaller, I listened back to it for the sake of nostalgia and I wanted to make a few changes. I took out the percussion and the piano, opting for smooth, purely electronic sounds to play up the element of "rich analog syrup" that I love in the older synths. Hope you enjoy the subtle changes.

Meteor Shower

Nature puts on the best shows, sometimes. A few weeks ago, there was a late night meteor shower visible from my house. I was working late in the studio and recorded this ambient environment with the mysteries of space in my thoughts. I'd recommend headphones to get the full benefit of floating in an extraterrestrial vacuum.

Saucer Rise

I've made straight ahead rock/roots/pop/folk/? music for a long time. I love the pure perfection of a 2-3 minute pop or honky tonk classic where everything just clicks into place so well that you are compelled to play it a few times in succession. From the Everly Bros to the early Who singles to a fat southern soul slice of O.V. Wright, hitting the listener hard and getting out before they know it is the name of the game.

These potent little pre-wrapped gems are great-- they take all of your attention, elevate your blood pressure and pretty much obliterate your troubles with their intoxicating mojo, at least temporarily. However, I've always found them to be a bit distracting if you're trying to do something like concentrate at work, read a magazine or follow a complicated recipe when cooking a big dinner (ok, maybe that's a stretch).

My workdays consist of computer oriented tasks like writing, editing, web stuff, research, emails--basically, communicating thoughts or soaking them up. For this sort of thing, listening to prime songwriting doesn't work for me because it completely breaks my concentration. I listened to jazz and classical music for years, but I really got into ambient and dub music a few years back and really grew to love it both in and out of work. Ambient music is not designed to grab you like a killer song, but it can alter your perception of your environment, encourage a productive and contemplative state or provide great "sonic design" for your surroundings, like an Eames chair in a home office with superior Feng Shui.

I'm not claiming that this ambient piece will do all of those things, but feel free to listen to it when you're concentrating on something else. The piece unfolds over 5 minutes, and I was thinking about a slowly evolving event, like perhaps a sunrise. I used a vaguely similar sonic palette to Evening Porch Bugs, and I'm still exploring that space with this one.

I've included some beautiful images that my wife took of the bridge that connects East Nashville to downtown. The light of the sun looks otherworldly on the rough metal structure.

Happy Father's Day!

Well, the first official day of summer is here for 2009. It's smoking hot down here in NC, and it's Father's Day. This one is just a single guitar track (the background pad is just a tweaked reverb), because much needed yard work and the riding of bicycles took precedence over indoor activities. I wish I had an easy to upload pic from my childhood with my dear old dad, but maybe it's best in this case to use your imagination and create your own personal image of childhood nostalgia.

PCH 1

Last April, my wife Ellen and I had the pleasure of driving the Pacific Coast Highway. I was on tour on the West coast, and we rented a car to drive between shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The road was closed due to a brush fire about 2 hours south of Monterrey, so we were able to enjoy Big Sur from both directions.

A phenomenal photographer, my wife documented our trip with her Diana camera. Unfortunately, much of the film was damaged in processing--camera places just don't do much film anymore, I guess. These are some of the few surviving shots.

You can see much more of her wonderful work on her flickr page.

click to see the full size images

If the trip had a soundtrack, it might have sounded something like this:

Evening Porch Bugs

I'm happy to be recording music again, thanks to my new studio setup. A spent computer monitor pushed me to do what I've been meaning to do for a while, which is completely rethink and replace much of my gear. It's not a decision to be rushed. So now, I'm staying busy scaling a new learning curve for my new software (Apple Logic) and getting used to using a Mac again, and I love it.

I've been hanging out on the porch a lot lately in the evenings, enjoying the noises of the forest. If you close your eyes on a quiet evening, it's amazing the music you'll hear. So much great textural complexity and ambience is created on a deep and wide "stereo field."

Here's a sonic collage inspired by porch music that I've recorded using entirely electronic means--primarily synths and samplers (from Reason software) treated and "played" with various effects. It's meant to evoke an environment, with an emphasis on ambience over structure. I recommend headphones for the full effect.

Ahhh, summer is almost here :)

Joe Romeo and the Orange County Volunteers: a Shout Out

The Joe Romeo and the Orange County Volunteers self-titled release is officially out this week. I realize this post could easily be filed in the shameless self promotion category, as I played lead guitar and helped with the arrangements and sounds for the sessions, in addition to supporting the songs as an Orange County Volunteer. However, the unmastered roughs have been in regular rotation at my house for nearly a year (hey, I've got to check my work!), and I'm still excited about the songs and performances. The music still sounds fresh and cohesive to me after numerous listens.

Joe gets a lot of comparisons to Springsteen and Hawks-era Dylan, and rightfully so, but my personal perspective on his music--and the way that I've always approached it--is that it is a combination of a mid to late 60's West Coast sound crossed with a New York raw simplicity. Essentially, I find it to be a nice marriage of Arthur Lee's Love and NYC's Television. I had a lot of fun recording with the great band--Rock Forbes on the drums, Alex Bowers on the keys, and Mitch Rothrock and Anthony Lener taking turns on the bass. The whole recording was tracked and mixed in 6 full days by the tasteful yet sonically sleazy Rick Miller (Southern Culture on the Skids) at my favorite local studio, Kudzu Ranch. Dave Harris from Studio B did the mastering.

Give it a listen on Joe's website.

Myrtle Lane

It's nice to have a quiet weekend to relax and make some music. This piece is pretty simple and might have been inspired by the low register twang of Tom Verlaine's Warm and Cool, which I was listening to this morning. I love my baritone Danelectro guitar, and I reach for it when I'm looking to create a certain down-by-the-foggy-dockside mood.

Change Comes Knocking Soundtrack, Revisited

Change Comes Knocking, a documentary released in Spring 2008, is the story of the North Carolina Fund.

From the promotional literature:

Change Comes Knocking is a fascinating and tumultuous story of a bi-racial anti poverty organization called the North Carolina Fund (NCF) that boldly confronted the explosive issues of race, class and politics during the turbulent 1960's in an attempt to stop the "Cycle of Poverty."

I collaborated with my friend and musical director Daryl White for the film's music, contributing a few of my own compositions as well as working on several pieces together. I wrote this particular piece, and it was used as the background for footage of civil rights-era protests in Durham. It was meant to be a mixture of roots (lap slide guitar) and modern (CR78 drum machine). When remixing it, I added a clanging, generative Moog loop as well as some treated mellotron strings to give it an epic and off-kilter Kung Fu soundtrack flavor and to keep the piece evolving.

Check out the documentary--it's a fascinating story.

Giving Music a Sense of Place

Lately, I've been fascinated by music creating a "sense of place"--a concept Brian Eno brings up in the liner notes to his ambient work, On Land. Ambient or small group instrumental music seems to do this more readily than vocal music, but I think that the concept can and should be applied to all sorts of music to gain the benefit of a consistency of vision. For example, the best Brian Wilson music always seems firmly rooted in a more innocent and idealized Southern California, a unique and special place you can visit every time you listen to Pet Sounds.

I've always appreciated the ways in which the best film music assists the filmmaker in creating a unique space for the film to exist. This last week in North Carolina has been a cold one (despite my best musical efforts to encourage an early onset of Spring weather), and I've been watching some good films. One of the films I've seen is Transsiberian, a moody thriller set primarily on a train trekking across the the Siberian plains. The claustrophobic warmth of the cramped train car is the sole respite from the foreign and bitter cold just outside the windows, the bleak setting contributing to the tension between the characters.

I composed the following ambient piece with this forbidding situation in mind, attempting to capture the quiet desolation of a foreign train car skittering across an expansive, unfriendly terrain.

Creator's Hands (a Collaboration with Able Parris)

My last post was about collaboration among musicians. For this post, I wanted to feature a mini-series of collages on the theme of Creation from my friend Able Parris for a cross-medium collaboration. Able posted these two collages (along with links to several of his thematically related poems) on his excellent blog the other day, and suggested off-hand that I drum up a little ditty in response. This sounded like a lot of fun to me, as I'm always looking for a unique inspirational focus. I attempted to answer his visual collage with an "audio collage" of 3 basic elements, and I tried to avoid a straight rhythmic structure and chord form. After 2 late-night gigs and a rehearsal yesterday, this approach was a good fit for my morning mind-fog.

Thanks Able--I hope you dig it!