The horror of your own works...

Have you ever done something that has really horrified you? Such as doing a drawing that was just SO awful that you find it hard to believe that YOU actually made it. I have done this kind of thing many times. My horrible works, however, tend to be pieces of music that I have written. Take, for example, the story of Tricky Tortoise.

My cousin, Sarah, is a first and second grade teacher and while she was still studying she asked me to help her with an assignment. She had been given a book and had been instructed by her lecturers to make an audio recording of the book complete with appropriate music and sound effects, a-la Disney read-along book-and-tapes. I, for those who don't know, mix and create my own music. So, I was hauled in to write some appropriate music for her to use for her audio recording.

The story itself was one of those African folk tales, along the lines of 'How the lion got his mane' and that sort of thing. For non-South African readers, these are a particular type of folk-tale that usually involves animals form the savanna talking to each other, one outwitting the other, and an animal aquiring a particular characteristic as a result. There's always a moral thrown in there somewhere and they usually don't make for very good reading beyond the age of 5.

This story was different in that no animal aquired a characteristic, nor was there any moral involved...but this is beside the point.

Anyway, I wrote this piece of music (aptly named 'Tricky Totoise') for my cousin. It was a guitar piece which was meant to sound particularly African and in the style of Johnny Clegg (Google him if you have no clue who he is). What I ended up with was one of the most catchy and ANNOYING pieces of music in the universe!!!

If blogger will allow me, I shall post it to share the misery with you all :)

It was a song that haunted all who heard it for weeks afterward, like the indigestion of a bad beans curry...

And last night, while at Duncan's house, I was composing the musical score for another movie that we filmed earlier this year. Duncan and David have been hounding me all year to compose the music so that Duncan could finish it all off and burn it to DVD (he keeps threatening to post the movie on YouTube, so there is a good chance that you bloggers may just get to see the sheer embarrasment of all of our work. Fun times!). While I was listening to some of the music, I realised that it was another 'Tricky Tortoise'. It is meant to sound really awful as the film is an intentionally terrible action movie (we can't really do better than intentionally terrible with a cast of three), but it still doesn't subtract form the fact that the music is still HORRID!!

I suppose it really does work with the film, adding to the humour, but I can't help writhing in horror on the inside every time I hear it...

Here are some pictures that Duncan took and edited of me. He's in an Andy Warhol phase at the moment... :)

Hmm...I appear to have misplaced the Tricky Tortoise song...you are very lucky bloggers...very lucky indeed...