A Song A Day For A Year - END OF YEAR EXTRAVAGANZA!

Friday 30th December 2011 - Black Box, 18 - 22 Hill Street, Belfast.

Martin Byrne & Friends Present...

A Song A Day For A Year - END OF YEAR EXTRAVAGANZA!

Full sets from...

Hexxed
Window Seats
Uber Glitterati

Plus
Special guest performances & songs from throughout the year.

Also, at the stroke of midnight on 30th December 2011, writing for the final song of the year can begin. So come along, see some great bands, hear some brilliant music and contribute some noise to S.A.D.F.A.Y 365.

Doors 8pm
£5

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Hi folks,

Since January 1st 2011, I have been writing and recording an original piece of music every day. Each day I have shared these songs with the world via my blog: http://songadayforayear.blogspot.com/ my bandcamp page: http://sadfay.bandcamp.com/and my official website: www.songadayforayear.com

Throughout the year I've had the chance to collaborate with incredibly talented musicians and songwriters, such as: Rachel Austin, Justin Yang, Duke Special, Tony Wright, Robyn G. Sheils, Niall Kelly, Dominic Coyle, Rory Nellis, Adam Mc Causland, Owen Duff, Jim Hollands, Dan Leith, Ruaidhri Mannion, Caroline Pugh, Conor Barry, Stevie Mac, Ursula Burns, Steve Mc Cann, Owen Boden, Dominic O'Neill, and many more...

The End of Year Extraganza concert in the Black Box, on 30th December is taking place on Day 364 of the project and so this gives us all a chance to contribute something to the very last song of the year, once the clock strikes midnight!

2011 has been an amazing, unforgettable and creative year for me, so I hope you will all join me in celebration of the end of the project and make the last song of the year very special.

Hope to see you there!

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PRESS:

Culture Northern Ireland
http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/4593/sadfay/0/0/1/martin-byrne-writes-a-song-a-day

All Gone Pop
http://www.allgonepop.com/?p=5356

Belfast Telegraph
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/303275_275768669132619_191671290875691_853189_914292531_n.jpg

The Big List
http://photos-d.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/314356_275769802465839_191671290875691_853190_1409110191_a.jpg

Imprint This On Your Mind
http://www.imprintthisonyourmind.co.uk/blog/imprintthisonyourmind-podcast-22-feat-sadfay/

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 4.0

Hey y'all, I'm in lovely Galway at the moment. I'm here until Monday!

So, we made every effort to book a hotel with a wi-fi connection, but after an hour of upload FAIL, it's pretty obvious, I'm not going to be able to get the SADFAY tracks online here.

I'll keep trying, but the connection is pretty ropey...

Tonight's song is done though. And I'm going to get up early tomorrow to get SADFAY 162 finished, so that I can enjoy a bit of this trip away! Sunday's track will be the same.

Anyway, the point is: Internet FAIL = I'll upload SADFAY's 161, 162 and 163 on Monday when I get back to Belfast!

Sorry everyone, but I'm sure you can hold your breath for a weekend!!

:D

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 3.0

OK, so the weather is lovely and it's possibly the only chance I'm going to get to Holiday this side of Summer, so ...

I'm off to Mullaghmore, County Sligo tomorrow for a couple of days.

Internet access there will probably be non-existent.

I am going to bring my laptop, microphone, midi keyboard and maybe a guitar. So I will continue making my SADFAY songs while there.

They'll just have to be uploaded when I get back on Tuesday 26th April.

Of course the other way to do it, is to write the songs before I go away and have someone else upload them for me here. Or something like that.

BUT NO!!!

I have to stick to my rules: A new song EVERY DAY. No writing songs one day to use for a future day. To me that's a cop out. That's not committing to creating something new and original each day.

Anyway, enough ranting. I'm off to make a lot of noise at band practice, then hopefully stuff my face with lots of MEAAAAAAAAAATTTTT!!!

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 2.0

"Themed Weeks"

Back before the beginning of this project I made a list of rules. Here they are:

• The 24 period per song can only be between 00:00 and 23:59.

• The piece of music can be any length (so jingles and short music motifs are OK, provided they are complete and not just "the beginnings of bigger songs")

• The music can be in any style / genre of music.

• Other people can collaborate on a piece, but it has to be completely original and not a reworking of previous song ideas / re-hashing of old riffs.

• No covers. No remixes.

From here.

However, I also decided that each new day had to be a completely new idea and song. I.e. There can be no preparing tomorrow's or next week's songs today. The process has to be spontaneous and about spare of the moment creativity. It has to be about working to a strict deadline and seeing what you can pull out of the bag.

There is one issue with this though: Back before this project started (and while it has been going on) I've been talking to people about the idea of having "themed weeks", where a week would be dedicated to writing songs in a specific style. I really love this idea, because it really opens up the potential for all sorts of craziness! Some themes I've thought of so far include:

• A week of noise pieces (electronics / broken machines etc)
• A week of a capella pieces (no rules on any style of music, just that they must ALL be made solely with voice)
• A week of METAL / FOLK / ROCK / JAZZ, (delete as necessary: i.e. genre themed weeks!)

More abstracted themes could include:

• Only use analogue gear (no laptop for a week, this would be really tough actually, but I do have an old cassette four track here)
• No drums
• Only drums / percussion
• Themes based on films / books / tv series / games
• Write based on a particular era of music (60s, 70s, 80s etc)
• A week of very quiet pieces
• A week of very loud pieces
• A week without any reverb or delay plugins ( I use them a lot!!)

Anyway, you probably get the idea. So I felt I should make people aware that this will happen soon: Occasional "Themed Weeks" for the SADFAY Project. I do apologise if, to some of you, it seems like I'm suddenly bending the rules or cheating, but I had discussed the idea of "Themed Weeks" long before January 2011. I think occasional Themed Weeks (and it's important to remember I would only do themes occasionally) would make for more interesting and enjoyable output and would involve more interesting creative experiences with collaborators.

I promise I will still stay true to not writing (or premeditating) anything for each song before each day, but obviously using Themed Weeks has implications for how original each day's new work is. That's the only thing I am a little concerned about: Themed Weeks slightly breach the rule about not premeditating any of the song before each new day. But this seems a petty thing to get in the way of what is essentially going to bring a lot more life to this project.

I believe it's still possible to write a completely original song every day, even if you already have some idea of a certain set of genres or rules you are going to work within. And I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that I'm not going to cheat or premeditate the songs that are part of these "Themed Weeks".

I'd very interested to hear any feedback on this from the followers of this project. If enough people say they don't like it, then I'll scrap the idea, but otherwise I think it's going to be a good way forward.

Cheers!

IMPORTANT UPDATE: 1.0

OK folks, I'm off to Brighton tomorrow until Sunday. Song A Day For A Year might not be about for the next 4 days.

Hold onto your hats though! I will be making new pieces of music everyday while out there, I'm bringing my laptop and other recording devices with me. The pieces might be quite abstract, stripped back affairs. Possibly some ambient, "soundscape" stuff and that sort of thing. But wait! As is the rules of SADFAY: I am not allowed to plan or compose any ideas now. I have to create something original each day. No getting a head start, that would be cheating. So I'll just see what happens when I get there.

If I get access to a decent internet connection (one that allows me to upload about 60MB of data quite quickly, each day) then you might see the wonderful little SADFAY nuggets appear, otherwise I'll hopefully have them all uploaded by Monday 17th.

That's all for now. Catch y'all soon!

Cheers ^_^