Brite Winter 2012 Curation Mixtape

Borrowed lyrics and motifs from songs already written, what’s wrong with that? Well, nothing honestly, as long as you aren’t trying to claim that a song that isn’t yours is yours like that kid from squid and the whale. Tip the hap, have some fun, but give credit where credit is due. Sometimes it happens though, that without even realizing it you’ve pulled something already written into what you think is an original work. This happens, it’s ok, the chances of discovering a song exactly the same way as another previously written song is highly unlikely, but how does it happen. I mean, that melody was just swimming around in your head and you played it out, It has to be completely original, right?

This has to do with the concept of “Inspiration boards” … a practice a lot of visual artists use to inspire themselves. lines, shapes, colors and patterns you place around yourself that you find interesting. You do this so that when you find yourself in front of a blank canvas there is imagery in your head to mix and pull from to fill the space… or maybe leave it blank, if that’s what you see.

The same goes for musicians, or other sonic artists. The sounds and words that fill your ears on a daily basis serve as inspiration, subconsciously, whether you mean it to or not. When you’re sitting in a silent room, ready to make some noise… you grab onto that sound swimming in your head, then make it so.

To get to my point. It isn’t wrong to be unknowing of what inspires you, But in my opinion, it is better to be deliberate and knowledgeable about your inspiration. If you know why you like something and where it came from it gives you the power to direct your own work without unknowingly, or unintentionally copying something else. To me, the ability to make these deliberate choices are one of the things that set good, experienced artisans apart from others, across any discipline.

When planning for Brite Winter 2012, I made myself an inspiration board in the form of a playlist of indie songs. I was only curating musicians for the festival, not writing or composing anything new, but I believe that curators need inspiration just as much any other artist. For a couple months I listened to new music the same as always, music from bands coming in and out of the studio, music on pandora, music from friends, but I also played a 33 song playlist which I deliberately wanted to influence my choices when selecting artists to play the festival. Whether it helped make the lineup come together differently, better or worse, I don’t know, but this is what made sense to do.

I’ve shared this with a few people, now I share it with you. It’s pretty fun. I hope you enjoy. I’ll put out a playlist of bands actually playing the festival in a few days so Follow Brite Winter’s Twitter and Facebook pages to get at that.

Brite Winter 2012 Curation Mixtape

Pre Brite Winter 2012 Playlist from TommyLovesSoup on 8tracks.