When we set out on our video/song project last year we had no idea what we were doing. In fact, we didn’t even admit to ourselves we were taking on such a huge project until we were almost a month into it. There were several motivations behind the undertaking that we would like to share with you, especially since one of them requires your help.

We’ve said before that for ourselves, we wanted to create more material, experiment and take off some of the pressure of constantly promoting our music.  But in addition to that, and just as important, we were really curious to see what our audience (that’s you) responds to. What kind of songs do you like? What do you dislike? What speaks to you and what’s a flop?

Well we’ve watched the videos, listened to the songs, tallied the numbers, and the results are in: we haven’t a clue! We cannot find any pattern, rhyme or reason to which songs got more views, or comments, or didn’t. We’re too curious to let it go, so we thought, why not just ask?

We want to know which are your favorites of our fifty-two 2011 songs of the week. Any feedback you have would be appreciated, but here are a few guidelines to help if you’re inclined to follow them:

1)   No more than 10(ish) selections please. Saying you like all of the songs is really flattering, but we’re really wondering about your specific, *favorite* favorites.

2)   Give some reason. This doesn’t need to be a long explanation, we’re just curious about why this particular song and/or video appealed to you.

3)   Send your response to us. You can email, post to the blog, comment on the videos in YouTube, write us on Facebook… send us a message by carrier pigeon, write it in the sky, purchase some local cable channel time and host your own show about it… or any other way you might think of

You may be asking yourself right about now, “What will they do with this information? Record an album? Write a musical and/or opera? Develop a sitcom with the best songs as its soundtrack? Create an elaborate video game where you have to listen to the worst songs when you lose?”

First of all, we will satisfy our curiosity. After that, one idea we have floated is collecting the best songs from this project in some manner—still very undecided on how exactly. Your votes will help us pick those best songs, and get us moving on the next project and chapter for Sound Semantics.

We’d like to thank you in advance for helping us out with this. We’re really excited to hear your opinions.

Peace, love and happy New Year,
Eran & Allie

And, to be blunt, we are pretty damn happy, and proud of ourselves. And we deeply and sincerely hope that you’ve enjoyed sharing in our process, creativity, and plain old fun.

This song, The Last Song, tries to capture some of our exuberance. Not only are we thrilled and lucky to have had this project all year, but we are quite pleased to have made it to the end (and to a break)! It also, quite literally, looks back on everything we’ve made in this last year. Hope you enjoy the trip down memory lane.

There were two especially great things about making this last song and video. One was we were able to invite our friends over one last time (for this project, anyway) to share their talents and creativity with us. We are, as always, grateful to everyone who’s been involved this year–and especially this week to Ari, Aaron, Jessie, Jonathan, Emily, Chris, and Gina.

The second was going through all our old videos to choose what images we would feature from each one. It was great fun to remember songs we’d forgotten, get a fresh look at some of the different things we tried, and simply go back to watch and listen for the fun of it. I hope you’ll do the same whenever you need your Sound Semantics fix. If you’re reading this blog… then you know where to find us

With gratitude and happiness, we sign off now for a few weeks of vacation before the next chapter.

Peace,

Allie & Eran

PS. Happy New Year!

Sounds like a downer, right? Well, I see this song now as a turning point. Out of feeling drained and dead creatively, we managed to reinvigorate our spirits into this video/song project. So, we approached this song (and encourage you to listen and view it) as a look back on how we’ve grown over the last year. In that spirit, I shot this song like our first few, just sitting in front of a camera…with a few recording improvements

Peace,
Eran

PS. Lest you think we’d forgotten… Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! And an early Happy New Year! We hope that all our readers are safe and enjoying the season with friends and family. -Allie

PPS. Our very last post in the 2011 Song of the Week series will come on the very first day of 2012. Stay tuned…

We’ve been in a bit of a motown phase and some of the sounds we’re experimenting with in this song pay homage to the greats of that era. We make no claims to replicate their sounds of course, but we’ve been feeling inspired and wanted to throw some of that into the mix.

As we recorded this song, I was reminded of how fun it is to play with background vocal parts. I love just experimenting in the moment and seeing what we come up with. I think you’ll be hearing more of that in the remaining few songs…

Allie

As I was writing this song, I was aiming for a vulnerable yet not whiny sound and feel. The song is supposed to feel very intimate and close. This way when the bridge comes it opens everything, which I personally think makes for an exciting dynamic arc. But that’s enough of my babble, I hope you enjoy this song as much as I do.

Peace,
Eran

A couple more firsts this week. Eran played the cello for the first time! Our good friend is loaning us a cello and it’s been good fun playing around with yet another new sound.  In terms of video, this is the first time we’ve gone with an idea that is so ‘simple’ in concept. Just a face. Well, four of them, overlapping and interacting. But at its core the video is just a face, which leaves a lot of room for little expressive details as well as your own interpretation while you watch.

And, it’s the first time I’ve been a zombie!

Enjoy, and always be prepared for the zombie apocalypse,

Allie

In this week’s song and video we wanted to try out a couple of things that we’ve been interested in, but haven’t gotten around to yet this year. For one, Eran worked with a mix of animation and video. Although we have done this before, the interactive element of the video and animation in “Colors of the Wind” was new. We had lots of fun experimenting. Not surprisingly, it’s tricky to interact with things that aren’t really there, in an empty room, along to musical cues. But it tested my on-screen capabilities. Plus, I’m glad to have had a chance to work with a wolf and a bobcat.

In terms of music, Eran has been thinking about playing around with a bossa nova for some time, but it just hadn’t come together. So we thought, what better way than to apply a familiar form to a familiar song, and make each one stand out in a new and unique way?

Hope you enjoy this week’s song, and a happy belated Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Allie

This song was born of the catchy riff you hear between the verses, and all other sections grew out from there. We got to play with another new sound this week as we just acquired (thanks Gina P!) our very own electric organ.  We also did a bit of voice-as-instrument on that riff, which was a fun experiment.

And for the recording and awesome dancing, we would like to extend a very special thanks to Brandon, Aaron, Kyle, Gina E, Brittany, Gina P, and Jessie. You guys are great, and we so appreciate your help!

Allie

Here’s our song “My Strong Suit” and the video, which we’re both really proud of. What follows is my tired mind’s attempt at giving you the context of its birth.

So here are the little stories that make up that 4 minute one you just heard and watched. About the song: I was recently looking through scraps of paper, hoping for some lyrical gold that I’d somehow forgotten. Eran was working on this harmonic idea and I paired some old stream-of-consciousness ramblings with it, which was the beginning of this song’s lyrics. Eran was struck by the dichotomy of clear vivid images (blue ink, red pain, porcelain limbs) paired with all those dull and boring words (humdrum, ordinary, bland). After we filled out the rest of the song with simliar pairings, that strangeness took on new life in the video.

Each verse shows you some relatively normal, typical scene, but there is something a little strange, unusual about each one. We took each phrase and did our best, with somewhat limited resources, to evoke its strangeness and sharpness. Instead of working toward a story, we worked toward a few scenes, living paintings maybe, to give you colors, a mood, a feeling… and then depart. And let me just say, we had a great time doing so.  I don’t know when I will next have the opportunity to put my feet in the Willamette in mid-November, or lay down on the grass, in the pouring rain, singing. I’m glad I got those chances this weekend.

One last bit about the video. There’s still the bridge section, entirely separate from everything I’ve described so far. It’s an empty room. A lonely girl. And no way out. It might be that that this room is her emptiness, loneliness, in the video. The room is all the regular, mundane, dull things in life, keeping her trapped, keeping her from the strange, vivid, vibrant colors out there in the world. And, when you find yourself wrapped in dull normalcy, without the right imagination, it really can be impossible to escape it. Often the only way out is to fold into your own mind, let go of what you see, what you’re trapped in.

Or it might be that we’ve got an empty room in our house for a week, and didn’t have any better ideas for what to do with that bridge.

I’ll let you decide.

Thanks for taking this stream of consciousness journey with us this week. If you enjoy the song, the video, the stories or anything else we do here, you can share this post with your friends and subscribe for email updates.

Allie

PS – We have fewer than 10 videos remaining in our 2011 challenge. And we have every intention of going out strong. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for more great songs and great stories!

This week’s song is not particularly flashy, but it has something going for it that we haven’t really done since our early sit-in-front-of-the-computer days: a live band. We’ve been layering parts one by one for so many weeks that I nearly forgot how much fun it can be (and how much quicker also) to record with a band. Also, the recording just comes out feeling totally different. So with that, a special thanks to Brandon and Aaron for coming over and laying down a tasty groove.

Peace,
Eran