Oh, no. I need to name something.

The situation: An idea, concept, or event is currently in limbo, with either no name or a temporary one that’s incredibly generic and/or automatically generated. It now needs some official nomenclature. It needs a name.

Names are a crazy thing. Lots of people who are not me probably have no problem with coming up with names. They just pull some magical title out of that place in their brain where such things lie dormant, waiting to be called upon. They probably don’t even think much about it. It’s not a process. It’s not a…well, a thing. Definitely not a thang.

You gotta name your kid. You gotta name your pet. You gotta name your computer, both internally and colloquially. You gotta name your RPG character. You gotta name your “New Folder” or “Untitled Document”. You gotta name “IMGFROMCAMERA923423.JPG” to something more useful. There are other things that don’t necessarily need names, but you might think they do, like your car,  your plant, your musical instrument, or your condition where you do something clumsily or endearingly (someone else’s probably got that for you, though).

For the things that really need a name, we use them as shorthand for reference, and they’re really useful, but they’re also a double-edged sword. On one hand, they’re a necessary and efficient tool that will become indelibly linked to the entity attached to it, and on the other hand they’re a necessary and efficient tool that will become indelibly linked to the entity attached to it. Gah!

OK, I’m not really that emotionally unstable about naming things, worrying that the wrong choice is going to create cataclysmic chaos and the downfall of man. That’s just silly. However, I can definitely get caught up in the act of naming, losing some minor amount of sleep and otherwise productive time going over the myriad avenues of titleship. Once you name something you gotta stick with it. Whether it’s a good name or not, I believe you should stick with it in the long run to maintain consistency and integrity. No one wants to have to relearn the name of something once learned if they can avoid it.

So, what do I need to name? As a musician, this comes up all the time: either a song or album. Yep. I may have entitled my latest production A Nebyoolaeous Experience, but I’m thinking I need to not rely so heavily on my creative and online namesake for lasting musical roadmarks. Not that I’m planning on abandoning my handle, but I’d like my songs and collections of songs to have a more personality-neutral bent. They blend better in the greater sonic soundscape that is the Internet. However, I also don’t want to go too far in the other direction where there be beige dragons and faceless NPCs walking from coordinate to coordinate in a loop, spewing the same lifeless line over and over.

Some previous album titles and how I came up with them:

• Clocks Striking 13 – I thought it sounded cool, in an edgy, dystopic future. Little did I remember that I was essentially stealing straight from the maw of Orwell with that one.
• Music Unsolicitedly Started Idiosyncratically for Karma, or M.U.S.I.K. - /deep breath. I really like to overthink things, don’t I?
• Ebben Flow - RPG music that massages a typical water-related characteristic (“Ebb and Flow”, get it?). Most RPGs aren’t much more creative.
• Majicking - My initials, MJC, as a gerund.
• Scraps - Short odds and ends from my mind.
• The Matic - Collection of themes. Yeeeeah.
• Gamey Mixture - A collection, or mixture, of video game remixes
• Adversapolis - A made-up Greek word that mixes “adversity” and “polis”, as it described the personal difficulties sung about on the album. I think I used the Internet to come up with this one.

As you can tell, I like to be clever, but often end up being cheesy. When your music largely consists of wordless instrumentals, the underlying theme to things can be hard to ascertain.

Thus, I’m on the prowl for a new moniker to go with Album #12. Inspiration can come from anywhere…I just need to find it.

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No matter the instrumentation or style, good music is good music. This means I usually like just about anything that can be reasonably groked (and even some that can’t). However, more and more I find that the kind of music more-easily created using a computer and sequencer, using synths and samples, is the kind I like the most. It’s like a mix of my childhood (video games) and my current abilities (Logic) rolled into one. When I hear it, it almost immediately puts me in a good, head-bobbin’ mood.

Big Giant Circles, the musical persona of Jimmy Hinson, just released his debut album. After listening to 1.2 tracks, I knew I had to have it. Bought, downloaded, and playing. It’s got contributions from everyone to Minecraft composer C418, to VVVVVVV maestro souleye, to my personal favorite songcrafter Disasterpeace.

Get it.

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There is now an unofficial tracklisting for Nebyoolaeous Experience!

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THE ANNOUNCEMENT

So…I’m working on a new album. The working title is Nebyoolaeous Experience, because I am a conceited pedant. I started tracking one piece, and then another, and then another…and now it’s starting to look like I might have a full-on collection of pieces to tie some rope around and call it an album. Hell yeah.

Yes, it’s going to have guitar, bass, and drums. It’s also going to have samples and synths. The genre is, as usual, instrumental rock and/or quirky electronica. In short, it’s going to have what I love about music, and what I am fairly proficient in. No vocals will be recorded, as that is something I’ve tried in the past and never been really satisfied with, and I’m OK with that. I like making music that I like listening to, which contains vocal stuff, is not lead by it.

It doesn’t have a theme…yet. For something like Average Town or Ebben Flow, there is a definite unifying theme, be it “make only chiptune music” or “write an RPG soundtrack”. Other times, I just have a bunch of ideas in my head at around the same time and those eventually, hopefully, get packaged together in that time-honored package of music called the album. This project may gain a theme later, but most likely it will just be a collection of tunes I think work together in sequence. Even if there’s no theme, the sequence of tracks is definitely important.

 THE PROCESS

It’s entirely possible I’ve gone through this before, but every time I do, I feel like I’m getting closer and closer to formalizing it. There’s even a nice list for you to reference!

For this album, much like all the rest, the beginning of the first song from it was a riff I’ve played for years, but never got it into its canonical release state. Until now, it’s just been a demo, otherwise known as a “song that never was”. The process of going from initial spark of idea to a demo to canon is lengthy and requires investment. As most artists probably can agree, ideas (at least when feeling creative) are plentiful, but finished concepts are not. Getting an idea to be regarded as canon in the Nebyooverse is not always the goal, but is definitely the dream.

What does it mean for a song to be in its canonical release state? Consult the following list:

1. It has been fully tracked in a sequencer. That means all live recordings are done and in their correct spot, and all synth/sampled instruments have been either programmed or played/recorded. It also means that the piece is at a consistent tempo and key signature, and that any changes to either of those two values are tracked appropriately. Ideas can start free-form and organic, but I like finished pieces to be like code: precise and modular.
2. It has been mixed to the best of my ability (this has always been a struggle).
3. It has been bounced to an MP3.
4. If it’s a single, it goes in the Singles directory, which has existed forever and contains any non-album track I deigned good enough to exist in perpetuity. If it’s part of an album, then it’s in the Name of Album directory, and has the track number prepended to its name.
5. If it’s a single, it can now be uploaded to a public website (nebyoolae.com, soundcloud.com, or maybe even bandcamp.com in the future). If it’s an album, I’ll wait until all tracks are canon, and then upload all individual tracks (as well as a package of them as a zip file for downloading from nebyoolae.com).
6. The song then gets archived away in a different directory, and then put into iTunes for listening. Initially, it will be synced to my iPhone so that I can listen to it in the car or wherever, but as with all music I will eventually get sick of hearing it and unsync until a future time when I miss hearing it.

Before any of that happens, however, a riff or idea that gets stuck in my head will most likely get a one-off recording using a portable audio recorder (iPod/iPhone), and/or a demo project in Logic as a synthy/sampley edition. A demo project that doesn’t use live recording will instead use a synth or sampled instrument to get the notes down so I don’t forget how the music goes. Most of the time, this is where an idea will stall. It may produce multiple demos, but none of those demos may actually ever become canon.

In the good cases, if I find I still want to explore/expand/finish it after some time has passed and several listens go by, I’ll flesh out things by doing a live recording, or just add more to the synth/sample lines, especially if it’s not meant to have live guitar/bass. In the awesome cases this leads to the list above and a true member of the Nebyooverse gets added. Whether the idea comes to fruition or not, I’m still happy. The act of creation is really satisfying, pushed to a zen state by the realization of these canon pieces.

FOR THE ROAD

I have four or five rough demos done so far. My favorite is the first track, which is heavily modeled after a session with drummer Russ and I jamming it to high heaven. It’s called “The Jam Bridge”, is a 12-bar blues piece in B, and I love it. Everyone else could deem it a colossal piece of crap and I’d still love it to bits. I will eventually feel this way about the rest of the album, and that’s when I know it’s done.

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Something I used to do everyday for hours without even thinking about it now is something I have to consciously schedule time for. Yes, I’ve been playing guitar for about 15 years now, and yes I’m married and own a home. None of those are excuses to not practice, though. No, the boring truth is that my talent peaked a while ago, and my creative ideas are more sparse and are often funneled elsewhere. Instead of something I initially binged on, losing myself in the art, playing the guitar is just something I do occasionally now, and I’m really just largely known for having played it more than actively plucking the strings.

This makes me sad.

However,  a training stint at work a couple weeks ago allowed me to go into the office later than usual. With about an hour each morning of consciousness that wasn’t filled with watching Let’s Play videos while eating yogurt and drinking coffee, I turned to my trusty first acoustic guitar, Big Red, and the iPhone’s Voice Memos app. At one point, I even broke out my electric guitar and amp and noodled around, just like the old days. The former made my hands hurt more than I remember them doing in the past, but the latter felt free and easy. I’ve had roughly the same instruments, amps, and effects for over a decade, so I get sick of the same ol’ sound as it ends up existing on a recording, but when I’m playing live, it’s all good.

It felt good to just play, man.

I played old Nebyoolae songs. I played Pure Yellow Colour. I played pop and rock songs I’ve played countless times before. I just played. The physical act of strumming a guitar continues to calm the savage beast. It gets my mind going and makes me wish I had actually written something in the last 8 months. Maybe I will. Who knows? I’m fickle and I jump from creative project to creative project much too often, so it’s impossible to tell.

Regardless of when the next time I actually release some new music, I’m going to try to play at least a few times a week. I may be pushing 31 now, but I’m gonna keep the rock alive.

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