Writing

Unexpected.

This guy came to me on Facebook with a basket full of compliments. About my pictures, about how I look. Oh, some lonely soul in search of exotic company, I thought. I politely wrote replies to his messages until it turned out that he was a friend’s friend. A common thing on Facebook. The concept of friend doesn’t mean anything anymore. One would better talk about clickers and clickees…

When the conversation started to gear to more personal matters I learned that he was a Swiss film director. A web link was given to me and I had a look. I half jokingly told him that if ever he needed a composer, I could be the one. One thing leads to another. He needed one for his new feature film. Violent Tears, a story about two Thai boxers and their descent into drug. He had used lots of Isaan music from Northern Thailand for the soundtrack and needed someone to write an original score and give a sense of unity to the whole thing. He was thinking of asking a Thai composer for the task. He showed me the images which I found beautiful. I told him, this time seriously,  that I would really like to supervise and compose the music for that film. He showed lots of enthusiasm after a visit to my website. The magic of the internet. It allows so much spontaneity!

Now, it’s too early to jump for joy and cry for victory. They will send me a scene and I will score it so they can know what I can do. It’s another challenge since I have only written music for short films and documentaries. But the first steps were very positive!

We shall meet when I come back to Paris. One good thing to look forward to.

 

December already.

December already!

December… mid December! 

One month, long time for some but that flies by in a wink for me. The days go by faster as more and more friends come by.  The peak will be reached for the year end celebration as Taipei will apparently become the meeting point for many party-goers.

The past few weeks have been totally devoted to writing the lyrics of the songs. Totally….? Well not exactly, since I still had to deal with a few distractions, the main one being that I had to go to Hong Kong.

However I have nearly completed all the song lyrics. I can’t believe it. It’s finally done! All words on paper! There was no method. The lines just kept flowing out of my head and I would just write them down. 

Patience, patience. It had been months, if not a couple of years since I had started conceiving, thinking of and honing these songs in my head. The next step is to adjust the melodic line before recording the songs.

Bibbe finally sent me her beautiful poems again. She told me to chop, edit, paste and change them as I please. Which I did for this one last song: Battle of Wits. The result is quite amazing. I love the way she writes. I feel like a primary school children. But when you consider that she’s the daughter of Al Hansen and the mother of Beck, there’s not wonder. The wonder is that she remains so modest about her writing. I’m happy we have this song together. I sent the lyrics to her and she replied enthusiastically.

The new songs: Battle of the wits, Bear me Safely Over, Pop!, Son Shine, I aim, Who we Be, Don’t be Koi, Pandemonium, Nothing comes to Light and Running Wild, which add to the formerly written songs: Butterfly Rider, Halcyon and The Blessing.  The album is now complete.

How and where I will record the music is still a big question mark. As for the everything in my life now, all I can do is to remain confident that everything will go well. I reached the aim to finish the lyrics during my stay in Hong Kong - there is still some retouching to do, but I won’t have to pull my hair to find out what to write about. What a relief!