Guided By Violins

I just wanted to write up another music post since I haven’t done one lately. As I’ve stated before, I take a lot of my inspiration from the music I listen to. This evening I was seeking out a song by the band Guided By Voices on Youtube when I discovered this cover version of the song I was looking for by a guy named Owen Pallett. I found his style fascinating, I can’t believe how full he is able to make the violin sound. Sure he’s using loops, but it really works well with this song. If you don’t want to hear all of the lead up conversation, just start at 1:40 to get to the music.

After watching this video I got a little curious and decided to check out some of the other cover songs in the series, which is entitled “A.V. Undercover“. This is originating from a subsidiary of The Onion called The A.V. Club. There are some of my favorite songs and some of my favorite artists interpreting them. For instance, Superchunk covers the Cure, Alkaline Trio covers Archers Of Loaf, and Ben Folds covers Elliott Smith.

I love the idea of this because it sets up limits for the artists to work with – they have to perform live in this little round room and they have to choose from a dwindling list of songs that was thought up of by someone else. Its within these kinds of constraints that you can separate the true artists from the fakers. A true artist has a sound work ethic and can make something spectacular even with limited resources, while a hack will complain about not having the right widget, and how that person did this, and they will slam you with an endless barrage of excuses. Sure the artists out there have their gripes and feel those same pains, but they produce none-the-less.

When was the last time you thought you couldn’t do something photographically because you didn’t have the right lens, or you left your good camera at home, or you forgot your tripod? So what! Most of us have a camera of some form with us at all time. I shot this photo with my iPhone. I was in North Carolina and we were walking into a Mexican restaurant named “El Cancun” when I saw this colorful fence behind the building. I took a closer look and loved the colors, the loose nails, and the diminishing light in the background. I saw the picture with my eyes and then quickly pulled out my phone to capture what I saw.

You can make positive things happen in just about any situation. You just have to open your eyes, identify your limitations, and then exploit what you do have at your disposal.