lördag 19 oktober 2013

Hello and welcome to this my first real blog post! The intention of this blog is simply for me to be able to share, in some length, thoughts on the process of artistic creation in general, and about music making in particular. It is of course also a means of keeping those interested updated about my current whereabouts with Desiderii Marginis. Here I’m also open to questions, discussions and your own ideas on this and related topics.

Well, enough about that. At the moment I’m busy adding the final touches to the next 2CD album ‘Hypnosis’ which is planned to be out before 2013 becomes 2014… As some of you may know already, I have asked people to send me their dreams which then has served as material for musical interpretation and inspiration. I must say this has been a truly great experience for me, and I’m most grateful to all who contributed to this project. I belive one’s dreams (and nightmares) are some of the most personal aspects of oneself, and it’s a humbling and precious thing to be able to put music to them, albeit it’s just my take on it.

It’s a new experience to me to draw inspiration from outside myself in this way, but it has proved to be a very rewarding one. Of course not every dream lends itself easily to musical interpretation, some on the other had do that almost by themselves. They most challenging part of this has been how to capture the mood of each dream, whether it be frightening, detached, confused, or peaceful… My ambition has been to try to convey the feeling and imagery of each dream, so the listener can in some way relate to it and picture it in their mind (since many dream elements are common to most persons). At the same time I didn’t want to make the elements obvious to a point where they turn a cliché – which has required a bit of extra concideration indeed.

Just to give an example there was one part of a nightmarish dream about a person being dragged through a dense jungle, to the sound of increasingly intense drumming. So, how does one make music to that? First thing I tried adding jungle sounds, which turned out most unsuccessful, as it instantly sounded like a spa or beauty parlor soundtrack… Goes to show that the most obvious approach is by no means the best one. I took it back to the drawing board and after some lenghty experimenting with various sounds found something quite unrelated that still perfectly captured the scary feeling of the dream and it’s setting.

To be continued…

/ Johan
[Photo by Birthe Klementowski]

2 kommentarer:

  1. Welcome to the blogosphere, Johan. Your music verges on the narcotic: May you never see the light!

    SvaraRadera