"I will take up my muff and walk on" (I)
Doctor Lightsinger - Song 2 - ((MisStereo))
This song is the second in a series of collaborations with Anatoly Davydov. Anatoly is a composer, musician, and nuclear scientist who lives in Visaginas, Lithuania. He works at the Ignalina power plant, which has recently shut down the first of its two operational reactors. The second will follow suit as a stipulation of Lithuania joining the E.U. The reactors have the unfortunate distinction of being the same design as Chernobyl’s. The Lithuanian government has put a great deal of money into safeguarding Ignalina but, apparently, the connection proved too much to bear.
Visaginas is full of highly skilled people from all over the former Soviet Union who were enlisted to run the plant. They began arriving in 1975 and slowly a town grew up (literally, up) amongst the tall pines, in the form of apartment complexes, to house the ever growing community. The streetlamps and official buildings boast an outdated vision of modernity. The extensively used playgrounds are comprised of spaceships and spheres. This visual projection has one inherent problem: the materials used to construct it all were of a very low quality. The real money had been spent on the power plant. 30 years ago the soviet founders set out to build a town of the future and now, as if by internal clock, the town is crumbling.
Anatoly and I sat in his small studio drinking Utenos beer. He is a genuine man in smile and style; and we carried on a conversation about music thru a Russian – English translation program. He told me he would like to attempt to write music for some of my songs. Two months after I arrived home, I received his first effort thru email. Anatoly had painstakingly divided each line (sometimes down to the syllable) of the song “Add 1 2 Each 5 4 2” and then re-assembled them into a new timing. Around this, he had built music which was big and bold but left room for a singer.
“Add 1 “is a song about the significance of numbers. I wrote it after wondering if the date September 11th or 9/11 had been chosen for its psychological connection to the emergency telephone number - 911. It made sense to me that someone who wanted to attack the psyche of a nation would play off this symbol of alarm which is drilled into its children when they are very young. I was glad Anatoly had chosen this song.
I invested in an upgrade for my multi-tracking software and re-recorded the vocal. The resulting mp3 is here.
Tolia’s second choice was “I will take up my muff and walk on”. The original is a cryptic dirge which took its pace from the “Tock” of a travel alarm clock. Anatoly’s version is far more upbeat and even danceable. This exemplifies a very cool thing about collaborating with someone who does not speak your language. I believe Tolia relies more on tune than lyrical content, so he is free to take that tune anywhere. In both instances I have been excited and challenged by what he has brought to the table.
The vocal I am working on is a composite of five tracks, all recorded in the same session. In college, my voice instructor told me, “It sounds as if your voice is coming from behind a curtain”.* For this song, I think, that would be a good thing.
((newstereo))
* She also said:
(A) “You have to stop singing rock music! “
(B) “I find it interesting that you play the harmonica. The harmonica is such a lonely instrument…”
This song is the second in a series of collaborations with Anatoly Davydov. Anatoly is a composer, musician, and nuclear scientist who lives in Visaginas, Lithuania. He works at the Ignalina power plant, which has recently shut down the first of its two operational reactors. The second will follow suit as a stipulation of Lithuania joining the E.U. The reactors have the unfortunate distinction of being the same design as Chernobyl’s. The Lithuanian government has put a great deal of money into safeguarding Ignalina but, apparently, the connection proved too much to bear.
Visaginas is full of highly skilled people from all over the former Soviet Union who were enlisted to run the plant. They began arriving in 1975 and slowly a town grew up (literally, up) amongst the tall pines, in the form of apartment complexes, to house the ever growing community. The streetlamps and official buildings boast an outdated vision of modernity. The extensively used playgrounds are comprised of spaceships and spheres. This visual projection has one inherent problem: the materials used to construct it all were of a very low quality. The real money had been spent on the power plant. 30 years ago the soviet founders set out to build a town of the future and now, as if by internal clock, the town is crumbling.
Anatoly and I sat in his small studio drinking Utenos beer. He is a genuine man in smile and style; and we carried on a conversation about music thru a Russian – English translation program. He told me he would like to attempt to write music for some of my songs. Two months after I arrived home, I received his first effort thru email. Anatoly had painstakingly divided each line (sometimes down to the syllable) of the song “Add 1 2 Each 5 4 2” and then re-assembled them into a new timing. Around this, he had built music which was big and bold but left room for a singer.
“Add 1 “is a song about the significance of numbers. I wrote it after wondering if the date September 11th or 9/11 had been chosen for its psychological connection to the emergency telephone number - 911. It made sense to me that someone who wanted to attack the psyche of a nation would play off this symbol of alarm which is drilled into its children when they are very young. I was glad Anatoly had chosen this song.
I invested in an upgrade for my multi-tracking software and re-recorded the vocal. The resulting mp3 is here.
Tolia’s second choice was “I will take up my muff and walk on”. The original is a cryptic dirge which took its pace from the “Tock” of a travel alarm clock. Anatoly’s version is far more upbeat and even danceable. This exemplifies a very cool thing about collaborating with someone who does not speak your language. I believe Tolia relies more on tune than lyrical content, so he is free to take that tune anywhere. In both instances I have been excited and challenged by what he has brought to the table.
The vocal I am working on is a composite of five tracks, all recorded in the same session. In college, my voice instructor told me, “It sounds as if your voice is coming from behind a curtain”.* For this song, I think, that would be a good thing.
((newstereo))
* She also said:
(A) “You have to stop singing rock music! “
(B) “I find it interesting that you play the harmonica. The harmonica is such a lonely instrument…”
