24 Hour Comics Day, And An Idea

[filkertom]

Today. I'm not doing anything for it; I thought about it, but a little too much is going on right now with projects I need to finish. huskiebear made a suggestion, though, and I really like it -- both in the spirit of 24HCD and the RPM Challenge:

24 Hour Music Day.

Write, record, release as much music as you can in a single day. A thirty-second commercial jingle, a ten-minute chamber piece, a half-hour of ambient, three or four soft-rock love songs, a couple of original barbershop quartet numbers, a six-minute gangsta rap, whatever you can manage.

My intention would be to publicize the heck out of it, and see how many people we could get to sign up. I'm thinkin' a day in April, when peoples' schedules are not crunched by holidays or lots of conventions, and it doesn't conflict with RPM. Also, sign-ups could start on New Year's Day

Does this seem like a good idea? And who among you might be interested? Any thoughts you have to contribute on the matter will be greatly appreciated.

ETA: Just to help those of you who aren't comfortable making music with your computers yet, here are some resource pages I think you'll find useful:

• the Wikipedia page on Digital Audio Workstations, including lists of both free and commercial programs
• KVR Audio
• the KVRwiki
• Home Recording .com
• Making Music, in particular their free software section
• Musician Tutorials

I posted this in comments, and it made sense to put it here.

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Sign me up!

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Anything that gets me more Tom Smith music is fine by me.

Go for it!

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

It's hard to get something like this going. Generally it involves doing it for many years on the same day and then it still may not catch on. Casey Sorrow's Monkey Day Comics, for example, has been going on for 4 or 5 years and hasn't caught on yet, even though it's a good idea. There are a lot of such good ideas out there now, and there's no telling which ones will catch on. So be prepared for it to go on in obscurity for a long time, without necessarily thinking "oh, it was a bad idea." Could be a very good idea for the participants. I would try to participate.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

I kind of thought you'd already pioneered 24 Hour Music Day when you wrote the Greatest Superhero opera?

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested - this sounds like a great idea.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Not quite. The idea here is to have finished work, ready for release -- or at least download -- at the end of the day. Yeah, I wrote Last Hero in a day, but it took months to record and mix.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well. Gotta start somewhere.

[hms42]

I hope to suggest ideas to you THIS time... (I missed the previous attempts.)

As for a date suggestion, please try to avoid -
FKO/I-CON (NY weekend) so more of us can participate. :)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

And, besides: the Baldbox album was right in line with this. You guys showed it can be done. Maybe it should be a weekend.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reminding me of those. I would've checked, but I'll definitely keep them in mind.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I thought your "Badgers and Gophers" album was based on this concept?

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

Tom, to that end I'd suggest putting a flyer together and setting it out at the cons you go to for those few of us that aren't on the tubes yet (and those who just like flyers).

[banjoplayinnerd.livejournal.com]

I like the idea. Hopefully the muse will be In that day.

[wingus.livejournal.com]

I'm no musician, but I like the idea, and eagerly await to hear whatever comes out of your mind that day, good sir. :D

[hanabishirecca.livejournal.com]

A friend and I have been talking about doing a bunch of Wheel of Time filk for a while now. We have a bunch of ideas but have yet to sit down and write them. This would be a great, great way to motivate us. The only thing I would ask is that if something like this is going to be put together, there needs to be some sort of webpage or something that offers advice for music writers. I often feel in the dark in how to go from lyrics to music files.

[ebenbrooks.livejournal.com]

I am so there, man!

Oh, by the bye, I know you don't read my journal, but you might want to check out my most recent entry: http://ebenbrooks.livejournal.com/293896.html

[hms42]

While FKO is the priority of the two, I-CON just announced a date change (two weeks earlier than previously known.) Which means they are not opposite FKO (for a change.) They however are a week past Lunacon (again.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

It was basically an instant adaptation of the 24HCD concept, combined with a little Whose Line Is It Anyway. I've got something different in mind, although whatever inspiration people get is fine with me.

[bridgeweaver.livejournal.com]

I'd be up for trying this idea. It sounds like the very thing to jump-start my currently dormant music production muscles.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

I am in the middle of an agile software project at work, where you design, code, test, and rest a piece of software within the same two week time period. This sounds like exterme agile song development :-) I like the idea but have no talent to create my own music (this is why for text I am an editor, not a writer). If I hit the lottery, learning keyboard so I can be more creative is high on the list.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested; month is unimportant to me though...April would work, so would December (that just leaves you little lead time.)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

And if you don't have the equipment to record, then what?

I'm sorry, I'm really pissed right now because a fellow filker just lost her job after decades of sterling service, because her new boss doesn't like working with women and fired her on a paper-thin excuse - after using her connections to get landed in his current cushy position. I'm sure HE's got all the high-tech toys he needs, and he can afford them right now...

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I like this idea a lot, though not everyone is set up to record, much less mix.

But maybe as a community we can do more than we can as separate people.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'm very sorry -- that truly does suck.

Re: recording, it might help to think of the deliberately vague phrase "making music". If you want to do vocals, a $10 computer mic will get 'em into the computer. You can use Audacity or Acid Xpress or Reaper or any of a number of free or low-cost recording solutions. You can make nonvocal music with midi, or samples/loops, or stringing together sound effects. There are lots of options.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

If I go through with it, there will be a rather large resource section. We'll get people set up.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Good plan. I'll have decided by OVFF, so that might be a good place to start.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Oooh, sounds like a lot of fun. Sometime in April would probably be a good time for most people. Passover will start on March 30 & Easter will be April 4.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

It sounds like a fantastic idea, even though I'm not sure I could cotnribute.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

One resource that would be good is to have reviews of the free recording software, with notes as to which systems they run well (or poorly) on. What runs well on different versions of Windows, for instance, is, well, different.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Very true. And also which ones are relatively easy. One of the nice things is that many of the cheap or free programs are out there specifically because the Big Guns, e.g., Cubase, Sonar, Pro Tools, are too much for beginning users.

Let's start the resourcing now, in fact, with this Wikipedia page on Digital Audio Workstations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation), including lists of both free and commercial programs. The other sources I think folks will find most useful are:

• KVR Audio (http://www.kvraudio.com/)
• the KVRwiki (http://www.kvraudio.com/wiki/)
• Home Recording .com (http://homerecording.com/index.html)
• Making Music (http://making-music.blogspot.com/), in particular their free software section (http://making-music.blogspot.com/2007/10/all-about-free-music-making-software.html)
• Musician Tutorials (http://www.musiciantutorials.com/)

[lizziecrowe.livejournal.com]

I love this! I want to be a part of it! :)

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

(I'm just catching up after an at-con weekend.) Assuming the event doesn't collide with FilKONtario, I would be very interested in taking part in something of that kind. Unconditionally, I would be fascinated by what might come out of it.

[singingpatient.livejournal.com]

it would take me a year to learn all the software for this 24-hour project... :)

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I suspect you would need to learn only one--or partner with some other(s) who already know useful software. I'm thinking learning one is a good idea, I just don't know which one to try!