The 7 Days Project

Every once in a while, I love a good challenge, or good set of rules to force myself out of my comfort zone and stimulate my creativity.

7 Days is a recording project that took place from February, 2nd to February 9th 2012. 7 Days to write and record a new album. Prior to the 7 Days, from January 1st - January 31st, 2012, listeners, family, and friends sent sounds from anywhere, of anything. During the 7 Days, all of the sounds were incorporated into the project. 

The 7 Days of composing and recording have officially come and gone, and the post-production process is underway. Stay tuned for the release of the music in Spring, 2012 on Morning Bird Records!

Here’s how the idea came about:

“I want to leave for a week to let you record, and see what you create.”

Abi was lying on the couch. I stood in doorway of our kitchen and, as usual, we were discussing music. “But that’s all the time you get,” she said. “One week to write and record, and whatever it is when that week is over, that’s what it is.” I was already hooked.

“What about mixing and mastering?” I asked. “Would I have to do that during that week too?”

“Yeah, if you wanted to do it yourself,” she replied. “Otherwise I think you’d have to give it to someone else to do that. You’d only get seven days to work on it.”

“I can do it,” I said. “I want to do it.”

Two weeks later I was lying on the floor in the bathroom, curled up in ball. I had gotten out of bed a couple of hours earlier with a stomachache that was shaping up to be a formidable bout with some type of flu virus. I’d only been sick like that a handful of times, the last one during our cross country tour in the summer of 2010, and just like before I  couldn’t imagine feeling any worse.

I pushed my fist onto the floor to turn myself onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.

“There’s a reason I’m here, lying on the floor, feeling terrible,” I said to myself. “I’m going to come up with an idea that makes this worth it.” I started thinking the seven day project, and about how it would differ from work that I’d done in the past. I found myself thinking about I Always Went with the Energy, the album I recorded during my senior year in college. While I’ve always had a couple other people adding instrumentation to my albums, never since that one has the collaboration with other musicians been such a big part of the process. And never have I put so much trust into the other musicians.

“I would love to be able to do that again, but with only 7 days there’s no way to fit that in. Especially not if I’m writing all of the music during that time,” I thought. “Unless people recorded things ahead of time…” I loved the idea immediately. “What if people recorded sounds and instruments before the seven days began and sent them to me? Then, I could have a big palette of sounds to work with during those seven days!”

I started feeling sick again, but I had my idea and it was worth it…