As a few of you might have heard, I am currently working on a full length album entitled “In the Hearts of Seeds.”  It’s a collaboration between myself and  one of my best friends Madam Roar, a talented singer/songwriter with a bent well towards the experimental side of her craft.  This album is fully avant-garde, a balance between acoustic and electronic, between waking life and dreamscape.

A few weeks ago, we recorded Ms Roar’s sister Jamie singing some parts on a few of the songs.  It was her first time ever being recorded and she was a tad nervous.  It took her a few takes to get into it and find her pace, but when she did the raw beauty of her voice totally blew me away.

At 52 seconds into the song (listen below) Jamie sings “I’m letting go” a few different times.  I was so inspired by these few seconds of singing that it ended up being the pivot point around which I built and balanced the production and mix for the whole song.  I was compelled to carefully frame her in this way.

I’m coming away from this experience with a renewed understanding of how inspiration builds on inspiration.  This methodology is the life blood of truly uncompromised art and innovation.

Thanks Jamie, this wouldn’t be half the album without you!

02 Easy Way by olivergiving

I went to a great party this past weekend in Victoria.  I’m fairly new to this city and have been having a hard time sometimes integrating socially.  I’m the type of person who makes a definite effort to reach out to other people, but I had been finding that the same spirit wasn’t fully being returned to me by others.

Then I went to this event where a number of people reached out in small ways to me.  And I am very grateful for this.  One sparkly young woman walked up to me and presented me with a small mesh bag, indicating that I was to reach inside and take the little piece of paper.  This paper contained some beautiful words that were warming to my heart (see picture above).

This little piece of paper and the action behind it got me to thinking about intentional dance culture and what it means to me.  I realized that it is the first culture with any meaning and depth to it that I have been a part of.

I first discovered this culture at age 15 and before that the only culture that had ever been offered to me was the culture of mainstream North America where meaning is supposed to be found in television, fast food, competition, etc.  I think this is a big part of why I continue to be drawn to intentional dance culture: because it played a major role in me discovering what’s important to me.  I am very grateful for this and I strive to give back to the community.

Especially for the fully conscious youth in the parts of the world where this culture can be found, I think it is vital.  It is vital to those young people like myself who otherwise would not know a culture with any true depth to it.

A month or two ago, I thought that I would investigate the idea of becoming a member of 1% For the Planet.  I think they have a cool thing going on.

So I sent them an email and got a reply back with details on how to join.  Apparently, the minimum membership fee is $200 per year.  This is for companies with annual revenues of $0-$200 000.

I thought that $200 was quite steep, so I expressed this and asked if there was another, less expensive, bracket for individuals.  I never heard anything back…  That’s a shame because I would have joined had there been a more reasonable membership fee.  I think these folks could perhaps make their movement much bigger by offering memberships for individuals.

It’s all good though because later I thought that 1% is chinsy anyways.  I decided that I will be giving 5% of my EP, album and live performance profits to environmental non-profit groups.  For 2009, I will be giving this 5% to Ecojustice.

Last week I began taking an entrepreneurship course at EMBERS in the downtown eastside of Vanouver.  My goal with taking this course is to improve my business skills so I can make a full time living with my music and audio skills.  So far, I am very impressed by the course.  EMBERS is a non-profit and they offer 60 hours of instruction over 10 weeks for a meager $250.  It’s a fantastic value!

My first homework assignment was to create a vision of my business.  This is what I came up with, using Google image search and Photoshop Elements.  I had a lot of fun doing this and it’s helping me stay focused on my goals and on what I want to have be at the root of my work with sound.

I won’t bore you and go into too much detail about what the piece above represents, but basically my involvement with sound is a spiritual practise for me and I want to be able to give back to other people and to the environment both with my time and with some of the money I make.  I do this through producing and releasing my own tracks, through DJing with Ableton Live, through film scoring and through teaching others these things as well.

It’s taken me a while to figure everything out, but olivergiving.com is finally up and running! I’m not going to have the big launch party quite yet though. I want to do some artwork for the site and complete my first EP. Then I will have a launch party =)

I chose to use free, open source software called WordPress to make this site. I have been very impressed with my experience thusfar. I have had no experience with website building, yet I was able to put this decent site together. It didn’t cost me anything either, except for the hosting through Dreamhost. They have been great so far as well. I have emailed a number of times for support and my questions have always been answered quickly and politely.

Until next time, I will leave you with a very inspiring video of Lawrence Lessig talking about creativity, copyright and the law.