Saturday, June 19, 2004

Dear Friends,

It is my distinct pleasure to welcome you all back to the site, and to introduce the first of five sets of Web Exclusive music postings to BenSchorMusic.com.

The first two titles, "Not Stirred" and "Washed Out," are instrumental pieces which I wrote as part of an ongoing project with my filmmaker friend, Ethan Shaftel, while finishing up at USC and in my first year post-college. Ethan, while being an immensely talented director and film student, worked for several years in creating a series of promotional videos for Kansas University Business and Abroad programs. Having partnered with Ethan on a few narrative Student Films at SC, I had the excellent fortune to create some pieces of mood music for his promo projects for four years in a row. Both "Not Stirred" and "Washed Out" come from our third year of collaboration.

Having the chance to collaborate with Ethan for the promo videos was a real treat for me. "Not Stirred" and "Washed Out" are two of my favorites, not only from the third year, but from all of my film pieces. I was able to explore my sound in a new way, out of the confines of much of what I had written as a songwriter, and to work on my programming skills. Aside from the guitars, all of the instruments in both pieces are programmed. Working with Ethan forced me to think and build music in different structural terms, and that was very rewarding and very freeing for me.

The third recording is an acoustic demo of "Bad Credit," which was recorded in the summer of 2000 in Seattle, not long after having finished the writing of the song. It was during this time that I began to think about doing an EP recording on a small scale, having recorded three demos in Seattle the previous summer. My good friend, Joe Crnko (who I know from my days of singing with Vocalpoint Seattle), helped to record the songs. This particular vocal performance was captured on a day while I was sick, and what I thought might have been a hindrance to the recording ended up being the very reason I enjoy it so much. There is a bit of bite in the way I sang that day, and I really love how the vocal plays with the blues in its tuning, inflection and pitch accuracy. In many ways, I prefer this vocal to the version on Nowhere On My Own, but both performances offer varied shades of the story.

After July Fourth, the second wave of new BenSchorMusic will be posted, but be sure to download these tunes in the coming weeks because they are exclusive, and they will only be up and available for a short time. Happy listening, and thanks for sticking in there, guys. Enjoy.

Cheers,
Ben Schor