New Song Diary: Inspiration!

I wasn't even planning to write another NSD post so soon, but when inspiration strikes, it strikes!

On the way to practice last night, I had my mp3 player on shuffle and a an Aerosmith song came on. The song was one of the 20-or-so specific songs I've been looking at for ideas, and I started getting tangible ideas as it played. Driving home, to karate, back home...I think I listened to it a good 20 times over the last 24 hours!

At first, the main pulse (lower beat, higher beat) gave me the kick of inspiration. Simple! Catchy! Soon after that, I got the idea to do the patterns on portable drums like okedo. There are horns in the song which had me thinking of using something high-pitched, like shime or hand percussion like chappa. I also hear a pattern that inspires the use of shekere. Musically, a lot of ideas are swimming about!

I also remembered a music video from Daft Punk that I've loved for years featuring repetitive group movement, and got more ideas from that! It's nothing fancy, but the motions are distinct and in sync and represent each of the different musical patterns in a visual form. I may not take it that far, but the basic idea really appeals.

Finally, before practice tonight I played a "music video" that I've saved to my desktop from late-night talk show host Craig Ferguson, who does hilarious no-production-value lip-sync music videos to open some of his shows. The start of this particular video has him "false starting" the music twice before the "big" opening. I can use that idea to start the song, even if I don't use the fake mustache he does. :)

So, what I have so far:

1. A song featuring portable instruments, both taiko and hand percussion.
2. Movement in groups, formations of groups.
3. "False starting" the song for a bit of fun.
   

Ordinarily, I'll get ideas like this and toy with them for weeks, maybe months, and then a new one will take its place. But because this ongoing series is to help motivate me to write a new piece, I'm going to run with this. Maybe it'll get written, or maybe I'll give up if it goes nowhere, but I'm going to give this my focus and see what happens!

Here are links to the videos/songs I mentioned above:

"Rag Doll", by Aerosmith
"Around the World" by Daft Punk
"White Lines" by Duran Duran as performed by Craig Ferguson