Anatomy of a hit

Time for a new years resolution... well a new financial year resolution (I'm from Australia and our tax year finishes June 30.)

For those that know me well, you would be aware that some time ago I dabbled in music.

While I never learned to play an instrument... nor could I play or write music in the traditional sense... I was able however to produce programmed music (usually of the dance genre, though not always) using my computer.

This was a time consuming process of shuffling around notes, instruments and effects using digital music software (mainly Logic Audio by eMagic if memory serves) until I liked what I had produced.

I didn't always work alone... in fact one of the people I wrote a lot of music with at the time (including Deuce by Cleva Cleva from 1993... image and audio included below*) has gone on to bigger and better things... writing one of the biggest hits of 2007 back in Australia actually.

Deuce (7In Plutonium Mix) by Cleva Cleva  
(download)

I also wrote a lot of songs with a very good friend of mine Richard Mataska whom is an extremely talented pianist/musician.

This partnership was a lot of fun combining my skills as a writer (of sorts) and producer with his as an expert muso. (Will try and dig up some of our joint compositions for a future post.)

Your probably asking 'what is the point'... that is... this blog post is titled 'Anatomy of a hit' and so far all I have done is ramble on about my dabbling in computer music during the mid 90's...?

Well I have decided to get back into music...

My intention... to write/produce a hit song over the next 12 months.

A couple of things drove me to this... a change in life circumstances and most importantly... an actual song that has been forming in my head for the past several weeks... the lyrics, melody and most of the music is there... the problem now given my limited musicianship... is to get this song out of my head and into the computer.

I've made a start of sorts... I've purchased Logic Express, iDrum (virtual drum machine)... and have ordered one of those Rollup keyboards so I can write on the road (I travel a lot.)

* No... thats not me singing... :)

*** UPDATE ***

A friend just let me know that the original video clip for this track has just been posted on Youtube. Here it is in all its glory.