January 3, 2025: Early Lessons – “Neither Barc Nor Bacharolle”
January 2nd brought a terrible track, so let’s quickly forget about that. It’s published on YouTube, as per the definition of the task – look it up on your own risk.
Today’s selection has more going for it, but this little chamber piece has some issues as well. If there’s anything to take away from the Ted Mountainé 2025 Challenge at this early stage, it’s that these sketches need more clarity. When there’s no deadline involved, we can chip away at details for weeks on end to carve out the essence of a track.
And, indeed, that’s often the way it’s done around here:
- Throw everything into the pot in a confusing hodgepodge of crossing wires and heavily stacked loose ends – nothing’s too complicated, nothing’s too silly, and, most importantly, nothing’s too much.
- Go treasure hunting for golden nuggets in these overloaded tracks.
A track a day requires a different strategy. The original idea needs to be solid and clear. The Jan 2 track was a mess because there was no scope, no recognizable form, arrangement, melody… or much of anything else for that matter.
The Jan 3 track has more form (the sonata), a framework (an expanded string quartet), and some recognizable stylistic elements. But it’s still too messy and complicated, with individual lines getting in the way of each other. And there’s harmonic exploration that was fun to play around with at the time, but it doesn’t have the support needed to make sense within the musical context – especially during the middle part.
So an important reminder for the future is to build a better foundation to support the load of the choices we make. Keep it simple from the start – no ornaments or spiral staircases until the load-bearing walls and floors are in place.
But it’s the weekend, so, to stay with the architectural vernacular, we’ll probably stick to building blocks for a few days, with focus on synth patches, sampling and rhythm beds. Results will be posted. Ted Mountainé out!