Some gimmicks ...

• After considering whether the Sequentia from the Requiem mass could serve as a separate piece, I thought the kind of music possibly best suited for the fire and brimstone text would be post-rock. I'm talking Explosions in the Sky, mono, Eluvium, whoever is on the Temporary Residence label. Most of that music is instrumental, so it'll be interesting for me to adapt vocals to it.

• Remember the idea for a religious album? That's what Requiem is going to be. (Odd that I titled that entry "Christian Burial Music".) I also took baby steps in the pillaging of A Ghost In My Shadow. I created a folder in my Cakewalk working directory for A Ghost In My Shadow 2.0. I'm still working out what will go where.

• I wrote a lyric this morning -- which I've posted -- and I didn't feel like giving it an English title. So I went with Japanese instead. It occurred to me a common practice with Japanese songwriters is to use English titles, even when they're singing in Japanese. Why can't it work the other way around? As such, I'll title songs for this lyrics-first project in Japanese. I can't seem to find a really appropriate translation for "What I Deserve", but "The Speed of Light" is now 「光速」, while 「光がない」 remains 「光がない」.

The first line of this lyric came about because I was bored at work and thought, "Hey, maybe I'll work on my lyrics here at the office." I immediately dismissed the idea and put it in the form of a lyric.

Then I took it from there.

今
May 29, 2006

This is not the place for me to write my feelings down
This is not the time for me to say unspoken thoughts
This is not the moment when I tell you what I think
This is not the way I'd tell you why

When is the right time?

I don't owe you anything, not even simple truths
I won't mention anything you don't already know
I can't tell you how to feel about what's there inside
I don't even know what's there myself

Is this the right time?
Tell me the right time

This will never be the place for me to tell the truth
This will never be the time for me to say the word
So what's the point in waiting for a moment that won't come?
Now is just a good a time as any

When is the right time?
Now is the right time
Is this right time?
This is the right time

I think I may have managed to write music for "What I Deserve", officially making it the first new song I've written in 2006.

This small but significant development makes me think I could pull off this notion of writing lyrics first before music. I must, however, confess to "borrowing" a melodic lick from Damien Jurado and Gathered in Song for this track.

And just because I have this thing for titles starting with "Re-", I'm fishing out the pop music requiem mass I wrote back in high school and updating it. Oh, please -- don't make me talk about it. It's embarrassing. Let's just say I did it in the throes of my Enya and Andrew Lloyd Webber fascination.

So Requiem is going to be a future Eponymous 4 project. The original Introit and Kyrie was modeled too closely to Enya's "Portrait", so I bashed something out last night. My post-college writing is vastly different from my pre-college writing. I wouldn't have had the sense to pluck out a chord progression on a chromatically descending bass line in my junior year of high school. For the revised Introit, that was my first instinct.

I will have to trash the Offertorium. I fit the syllables of the Latin text to the melody pf a rock tune without any concern for the actual cadence of the phrases, so it all sounds really awkward. What the hell did I know at the time? I didn't even perform a Requiem till college.

I'm thinking the music for the Offertorium that's already written could use some nice Japanese lyrics.

I originally modeled the high school-era requiem after the Andrew Lloyd Webber text, which includes a Dies Irae. The updated requiem will be modeled after the ones written by Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé. No Dies Irae. But I wonder if the Dies Irae could make a feasible separate piece?

It'll be interesting to see how I can resolve writing from 20 years ago with writing today.

First, a declaration -- I have no plans to write any of the plots I describe in this entry.

I am going to concentrate on songwriting, since it's something I've done for far longer than fiction writing. I'm also formally trained to write music, whereas I can barely read novels nowadays.

I've put a lid on my literary aspirations. I'll pursue them when the songwriting well runs dry. (Although, chances are, if that well dries up, so would the literary well.)

Regardless, I still want to update this entry. A few weeks ago, I thought I don't have any new stories in me, no new plots to develop. That's not quite the case.

Most of these ideas are embryonic, but at least they're there. I'd be in worse shape if I had no ideas at all.

I'm copying directly from the old entry. Onward ...

MORE ...

The "gay twist" in television crime dramas isn't the scandal it was as recently as 15 years ago. (Check out some of the gay-themed Law & Order episodes from the early seasons.)

I don't watch Without a Trace, but I have caught about three episodes of the show in the past few years. In one episode, I could see the gay twist coming from a mile away. A Korean store clerk went missing, and the cops look at the ex-fiance, who turns out to be gay.

This past weekend, I saw another episode in which teenagers in a suburb have orgies without their parents' knowledge. I thought I could see a gay twist coming, but it didn't arrive. The subtext could have been played that way, though.

Still, it got me thinking about a teen drama. Here's my pitch.

MORE ...

I won't go into what inspired this lyric because it's silly. But if you're a regular reader of the journal, I can tell you the background because you'll have known about it.

I said I was going to write lyrics before I write music for my next project, so I better start making good on that.

I'm ripping off Kelley Willis' title, but the sentiment of my song is vastly different from hers.

MORE ...

For the last few days, I've been distracted by this idea for a composition.

Not a song -- an composition of the classical music variety.

Something I've always wanted to write was a modular score much like the television score for the '80s animated show, Robotech. When I was a kid, I loved how the show's composers mixed a rock ensemble with an orchestra.

Electric guitars didn't just play power chords -- they were given some dischordant melodies. And the electric drums so emblematic of that time period mixed in well with timpani.

But the most fascinating part was how each piece of music could be repurposed and reused, as if they were interchangeable parts of a whole machine.

I always thought -- actually, I still think something like that would work as a chamber piece.

MORE ...

I have a really twisted idea.

I think I may just well go back and cannibalize A Ghost in My Shadow.

A few of the songs have religion as a theme, so I'm thinking of making ... a religious album.

I was about to say a "Christian album", but given my reputation as a recovering Catholic, it wouldn't be very nice about its subject matter.

Still, it's an interesting creative challege -- how to write about religion compassionately when my own views on religion aren't compassionate at all.

And yes, I will set out to write about it compassionately. It's too easy to go with the default action and bash.

Were I to cannibalize A Ghost in My Shadow, I think here's the direction I'd go:

1. "Promises" Already commandeered for Imprint
2. "Never Turn Back" Already comandeered for Imprint
3. "Silver Sting" Already comandeered for Imprint
4. "Five (Ambiguous Friendships)" Comandeer for '80s-themed project. Paired with "The Nature of Things"
5. "Strivers for a Better Tomorrow" Comandeer for religious album (and write new lyrics?)
6. "Faith in Religion" Comandeer for religious album or for singer-songwriter follow-up to Restraint
7. "Offetorium " Comandeer for religious album. I actually have a few pieces from the Requiem I wrote in high school that could be used as a framing device for the album. Hmmm.
8. "Yesterday, Today, Tommorow" Comandeer for religious album and write new lyrics
9. "Beat of the Heart" Comandeer for singer-songwriter follow-up to Restraint
10. "No Exit" Comandeer for singer-songwriter follow-up to Restraint

Although first, I want to work on a project where I write the lyrics before the music.

Shinkyoku moratorium officially ended at the start of the year, but realistically, I won't really have time start writing new material till after the semester ends.

I've trying to figure out what I want to do next.

I had a lot to do in 2005 because I was actually finishing stuff I had already begun a long while back. This time, I'm starting from scratch.

I'm not sure I'm the kind of songwriter who can just work on a bunch of songs without some compositional arc behind it. Imprint is my adult contemporary pop album. Restraint is my attempt to work with modes and unconventional chord progressions.

So what's my gimmick for the next project?

I looked at these ideas and decided to write lyrics first. If the experience from the last few months reveal anything, it's that lyrics are the toughest part of the process for me.

May as well get that out of the way first.

Now -- when do I start?

I am watching too much Battlestar Galactica and Firefly.

On my morning drive to work, I thought, "What if there were a set of planets named after the modes in music? Kind of like how the 12 colonies in Battlestar Galactica are named after signs of the Zodiac?"

Then I tried to ascribe characteristics to each planet.

• Ionia -- the major industrial planet, a bustling place.
• Doria -- the misfit planet, the ghetto
• Phrygia -- the exotic planet
• Lydia -- the rural planet
• Mixolydia -- Lydia's twin, rural but trying to become industrial
• Aeolia -- the capital of the 8 planets, dignified but corrupt
• Locria -- rarely ventured but inhabited

I'm not sure whether to make the relationship between the planets more Firefly than BSG.