I'll give it to you straight...
The Aqua Path Just Might Control Your Mind.
First, a little background about me:
My name is Kate, and I'm a commercial electronic musician and sound designer.
On the surface, I have a cool, but perfectly normal job. I create music for commercial multimedia works, like video games, Flash sites, ads, and trade show demos.
I studied commercial music composition in college. In fact, one of my teachers freelanced for Disney and wrote backgrounds for TV commercials when I was still at school! I graduated, shopped my resume around, got some jobs, etc. Even though I am quite good at my job and it's really fun, it is still just an ordinary career. I never imagined that I would end up controlling people's minds with music!
Here is what happened.
I never intended for the CD to become the "Mind Control Music" that it is. When I was between video game jobs, I thought of doing a small studio project just for fun. I didn't really have any ideas, I just wanted to blow off creative steam (because creating weapon and inventory sounds for a FPS all day can get pretty monotonous!) What followed was the strangest 4 months of my life.
A gift from my "inner genius"?
As soon as I sat down in my studio chair, I was struck with the odd idea of writing classical/ambient fusion with a water theme. I had never, ever written or even heard of this kind of music before! It was like something had put the idea right into my head. I know it seems weird, but I'm not making this up. The entire 60 minutes of music was there, fully formed, inside my imagination, and all I did was follow the recipe.
For 4 months, I practically lived in the studio. The songs wrote themselves from the ground up. Some people experience this for a short period of time – just imagine living that way for weeks and months!
For the two vocal songs, I dashed off the lyrics *and* melody in 20 minutes. And these are people's favorite songs on the CD! Harmonies would pour into my head when I needed them. When it came time to mix and master a song, I would sit down - totally focused - and work until the song was finished. I was constantly thinking about music, mixing, sound design and could not get free, not even in my dreams.