Soon-to-be-released: My 2012 Creative Commons project: post-rock themed digital music album

My band mates, with a guest collaborator, started working on a few tracks around Jan this year. Through the usual (for us) way of passing ideas and MP3 files over email.

Last month, when it sunk in that 2012 would be the 10th global birthday celebrations for Creative Commons, we wanted our album to be a gift to the movement.

Our DIY digital album will be published over this weekend.

This evening, we completed the final piece of the musical project: the album cover.

Here are the designs I developed over two evenings:

1. "deca"


2. "TEN"


3. "DEKA"


A few hours ago, the band -- with our guest collaborator, urmymuse, who is from halfway around the globe -- have agreed on a majority vote on design No. 3, "DEKA".

The album has 10 tracks, for CC's 10th birthday this year, slated for October.

A 10-10-10 combo.

So what's with the title and "tens"?

The Backstory
My first album design looked like this (created two nights ago):


It was passable as a symbol or logo. But somehow it didn't quite cut it as an album cover. Looked too cold; too detached. The opposite of what our music represented.

So I wondered about the etymology for "decade". That led to my discovering the term "deca", which was Latin for "the combining form for 'Ten'": "decapod", "decasyllabic", "decathlon", "decametre"...

Multiples of ten.

Bingo!

But I wondered if it might be too subtle or indirect for people to catch on.

No harm in posting the question in Facebook. Kind of expecting zero comments, so I was really surprised to get plenty of good ideas and useful comments from my Facebook contacts. Thanks folks!


All things considered, "deca" was quite appropriate.

I used Keynote on my iPad to piece together a few ideas. Ended up using Keynote as my "photoshop"!

Within hours of the Facebook comments and doodling in the iPad, I managed to churn out design No. 1.

Emailed that off to Adrian, I-Ling and urmymuse. Explained the concept to them. And hoped they would agree. Or at least, no violent objections from them.

Adrian was first to give "deca" his approval. Next was urmymuse, who added that the Greek spelling (deka) was preferred but it wouldn't be something to "die in a ditch" for (LOL).

By that time, I also preferred DEKA over DECA. Particularly after considering the Facebook comments. For one, "deca" might lead to some people subconsciously associating it with "decay" or "decadence" -- unrelated words, no doubt but still might prove distracting rather than adding to the album's intrigued.

I churned out designs no.s 2 and 3, and emailed to the band. Promised this would be the last iteration (any more options and it would be counterproductive).

Our vocalist, I-Ling, liked DEKA too.

So that was that.

All ten tracks have been mastered, bounced; the uncompressed files sitting in my hard disk (backed up, for sure) waiting to be prepped with metadata (I use iTunes for that).

It'll be a public holiday this Friday. That would give me time to publish the album this weekend.

Musical Musings
The album will be pretty niche. Limited audience etc.

It's perhaps best described as "almost progressive meditative pop post-rock".

Whatever it might be called, it's our labour of love.

A musician friend once asked me if I composed music for others or for myself. I guessed as much that it was his polite way of saying my musical compositions didn't quite fit a certain accepted standard or norm.

It was an excellent question that he'd asked.

Made me reflect.

It reinforced in my mind that I choose to create music for myself.

That's not to say I'll refuse to learn and improve or accept constructive criticisms. For sure I'd like to perfect this particular craft.

But I don't have to set undue pressure for myself, on when I should "reach perfection". When much younger, I used to think that. For instance, I felt I needed to be able to reach a certain level of technical prowess on the guitar.

Decades later, my views have shifted. It's less about what I can make the guitar do.

It's not about one particular instrument anymore.

I'm interested in making music, using whatever skills and abilities (and equipment) that I have incrementally gained from each musical project; from creating each musical track.

If the world cares to listen to what I share, that's a bonus.

What would be the 50 objects that represent Singapore to you?

Back in September, a friend pointed me to this NYT article about a project in New York City that asked historians and museum curators to name 50 objects that could "embody the narrative of New York".



Top of the New York list was a Mastodon tusk. The 50th item was something called a "Meng Political Sign, 2012".

The former referred to the first recorded discovery of mastodon remains in 1858, in a borough in New York city.

The latter turned out to be a political campaign poster of a Ms Grace Meng. She won the Democratic Congressional nomination in Queens borough. That tidbit was a segway to how the city's residents of Asian origin exceeded one million for the first time, as recorded in the 2010 Census.


Inspired by the British Museum's 100 Objects
That project in New York was inspired by the British Museum’s BBC radio series and book, “A History of the World in 100 Objects".

Item One on the British Museum's list was the Mummy of Hornedjitef. The 100th item was a Solar Powered Lamp and Charger.



Detractors might say that was rather presumptuous of any institution to claim that their collections definitively represented "The World's" history. Equally arguable would be that the 100th item should have been a MP3 player or Xbox (dare I say, iPhone?) rather than a solar-powered lamp and charger.

BUT...

I found the concept of a "100 objects" listing -- one that symbolically represent a certain perspective of the world -- a refreshing one. Got to give it to the Brits for such a simple and innovative way to curate and present items from their Museum's collection (notwithstanding the joke about Colonial British plundering and shipping back treasures from all around the globe).

The British Museum has also created an interactive visual browse page (Flash-based), based on time and filtering by other facets.




People's History
The New York example wanted to make their's "a people’s history", to allow for individual perspectives rather than form a definitive list (as implied by the British example):

The “History of the World” was limited to objects in the British Museum’s collection. Like that list, ours “can only be a history” and “not the history.” And because it is a people’s history, we are inviting participation. Tell us what objects represent New York City to you in the comments section.

The New Yorkers invited public comments after an initial list from historians and museum curators. The British Museum didn't solicit public contributions it seemed.

I think to truly make it a "people's list", everyone should be given a chance to create their own right from the start.


A Singapore "100 objects" list?
The article instantly captured my imagination, since the Singapore Memory Project occupied a large part of my work time (and maybe off work too).

I wondered what a "50 objects that represent Singapore's History" would look like. I posted this on Facebook, inviting FB contacts to also name 50 objects they consider to be representative of Singapore's history.



Didn't get very far with that. For what it's worth here's the list, thanks to the contributions from some FB friends (objects are not in any order of importance):

1. Ivan Chew - Rubber seed (I'm thinking of Sir Henry Nicholas Ridley)
2. Walter Lim - A pair of spectacles since we're the most bespectacled nation in the world.
3. Chon Hsing Ng - Air conditioner to symbolise how SG has had to artificially creates my things eg beach, jungle, water, etc
4. Low Hei Chin - Four stones.
5. Hikaru Teo - the rediffusion tabletop radio
6. Dex Khor - A rotan.
7. Bernadette Daly-Swanson - Definitely Pierre Balmain's iconic kebaya and sarong for SIA... Had one made when I was there in 2009. I need to come back for IFLA!
8. Ivan Chew - Adrian Tan's Teenage Textbook
9. Adrian Tan - Chicken rice
10. Dex Khor - The Ultimax 100 SAW. Sold to Bosnia with pride!
11. Alec Ng - Add the merlion...
12. (Alec Ng)... newater
13. (Alec Ng)... and the document on the proclamation of independence for Singapore.
14. Bernadette Daly-Swanson - National Library Board Singapore
15. Ivan Chew - Sintercom
16. Low Hei Chin - ... Stamps and coins from that represent significant events / moments in our history? First day covers? I can only think of dinky toys or toy soldiers (Deetail) that depict WWII.
17. Hikaru Teo - Well the banana note would be a notable representation of life during the Japanese Occupation.
18. Ivan Chew - The POSB logo!
19. Regina De Rozario - I've just gotten into reading excerpts and commentaries on the correspondence between Raffles and Farquhar and I would add the letter written by Farquhar after he was dismissed by Raffles (for not following the latter's town plan and vision to a T).
20. Low Hei Chin - Our national flower!
21. Ivan Chew - The Tembusu tree. Cos it appears on our $5 note.
22. Ivan Chew - Teamy the Productivity Bee.
23. Ivan Chew - Singa the Courtesy Lion.
24. Ivan Chew - The SAF Reservist Booklet (now defunct).
25. Low Hei Chin - Singapore Sling

Ok, 25 items isn't bad. Some items were totally off my consciousness until others mentioned it. Like the Singapore-made Ultimax 100 Section Assault Weapon (SAW).

Some objects -- like the 'rotan' (i.e. cane) -- encapsulates so many things past and present: parental methods in bringing up children, school discipline, criminal code and the penal system, a national event (remember Michael Fay?).

I'm sure each of us can come up with our own list of 50 items. Or at least 20 items easily.

New items would make it to the list, as per recent events. I can think of Amy Cheong. Ok, technically not an "object" (I'm sure you know I didn't mean to say she's an object) but what the heck, it's a 'people's list'. We could flexibly cover Events, People, Places in the same list or separately if we choose.

If there's a representative number of people creating such a list, what I'm really, really interested is to analyse the choice of items on the combined list. The list could reflect the success of certain national brands or campaigns. Missing items might shed light on what else we might need to do (e.g. what if no artwork or artist make it to anyone's list?)

Analysing an aggregation of lists might reveal the psyche of individual citizens. And quite likely our psyche as a nation.

***
Update - New items to the list:

[18 Oct 2012, items 26-29]
26. Low Hei Chin - Meant to write this earlier but did not get around to doing it. How about those khong Guan biscuits with a colorful icing sugar on top?

27. Adrian Tan - I wanted to say, "Kelong!" I think it is unique to Singapore.

28. Peter Pak - Interesting read- can I add Singapore Chinese girls school as an one. It was the first girl school at a time when more forward looking men wanted to reform the social education of girls beyond being home bound

29. @JustinZhuang - Anti-Littering man!

[19 Oct 2012, items 30-32]
30. Dave Chua - I think it's also important to pick out items that show key moments of Singapore in transition. The last copy of the original New Nation newspaper...

31. ...A citizen pass for the casinos.

32. ... WP 2012 flag.

(Folks, feel free to add to the list by commenting. Even if it exceeds 50)