#3. Rendered Skinny is a shorty, coming in at just a little over 2 minutes of music. I came up with the title for RENDERED SKINNY before I had any idea what the music would be like. But I knew what the scene looked and felt like, so I hoped the music would come fairly quickly. Fortunately it did.
I love Scot’s illustration for this. Quirky and odd. A factory with fatties on the left. Skinnies emerging on the right. Feral cat on the roof keeping an eye on things.
A few months ago, I played RENDERED SKINNY for some musicians that I sometimes workshop new material with. They’re a sounding board that often points to things I’ve missed. When you’re composing and producing something you’ve heard 49 gazillion times, your brain can fill in parts that no one else but you hears. (“Ooops, I forgot to put in the drums. I’ve been filling in those drum parts in my head for the last week, but I guess I should actually record them.”)
After playing it, one of the guys said, “Love it, now you just need to finish it. Add another minute or two, and then clean it up, you got some pretty noticeably clams in there.” I wasn’t too worried about either fixing the clams or extending the piece. That is until I actually started. Clean it up? How clean should RENDERED SKINNY be, I wondered? And what parts do I even clean up? There’s a dirtiness or corrosion embedded in the root of all this. Behind those cheerful colors, I have no idea what is happening inside that factory, but I’d like to know. Or maybe I don’t want to know.
So I put the tune away for a couple of months and then listened to it with fresh ears. Hearing it then, I felt my initial instincts were probably right. I didn’t want to clean it up or change its length. So I opted to leave all the warts. Consider yourself warned.
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It’s the third of ten tracks released on YouTube and Tumblr for the album, TUNE, by composer Myles Marlow. TUNE is the first album to be released completely, and solely by means of Social Media only, with no physical, digital, or buyable product. Every Monday for ten weeks, a subsequent track, including a new Scot Howard illustration, will be released here.
There’s nothing to buy here, so if you enjoy it, please share it with your friends and link to it on your web pages. We appreciate the support. Here’s a link to cut and paste for the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9Vh6FENNrU
The fourth track will be released at here next Monday, February 14, 2011.
Illustration by Scot Howard, The Digital Butterfly Project, http://DigitalButterfly.com
(c) 2011, Myles Marlow, All Rights Reserved
