Creativity process for Gundtvision activity
It was at the beginning of this course, when the meeting in Catania was approaching, with the Project focused on musical topics. We had to look for representative musical composers/compositions from the countries that are members of the Project. Then, the idea came to us; we saw it as a difficult challenge from the beginning: to record a musical video clip with the collaboration of both students and teachers.
The first step was the choice of the song. After lengthy discussions, we selected “A quién le importa”, a song composed by Carlos Berlanga that came out on the LP by Alaska y Dinarama entitled “Deseo carnal” (1984). Over time this song has become a gay hymn, both in Spain and in many South American countries, especially in Mexico. It seemed to us very representative of the sort of music that was composed in the 80s in Spain and that, far from being out of fashion, it continues to be relevant nowadays due in part to its versions.
Once the choice was made, we started to work on it: we had to record the music. I got directly involved in this part of the project and, although I am very fond of electronic music, I had never faced creating a pop music composition like this. For the recording, I used software called Ableton Live, which allows you to splice analogical and digital sounds in different tracks. After several afternoons working in my small personal recording studio at home, I practically finished the final version. The achieved sound was enriched with a drums basis that I got with another software very well-known by electronic musicians: Propellerhead Reason. You can listen to the final product we got here.
We only needed a vocalist to complete our recording and then our co-ordinator Esther came into play. She recorded the song in our working place, recording only twice the song until we got the final version for the History of the IEDA, of our Grundtvig Project, for the History of Music.
Since we started this process, some weeks had passed by and we had no more time. But we hadn’t begun with the recording of the video yet! It was then when we asked for the help of all our colleagues by means of our platform, offering the music to all those who would like to take part by recording themselves at any situation with the song in the background. It was a pity we didn’t have more time to receive the videos, and even some students said the were interested in it when it was too late, but, at least, we can highlight the recordings by Javi Reina and Inma Caparrós, who were in time to send their recordings. We specially thank to them for it. The following scenes were filmed in our working place, the IEDA offices (with the complaint of the workers of the first floor). All the teachers of this project –and some more- worked on it. Despite the effort to get time when we were very busy, we finally got enough recorded material to get the product. There was only one thing still to be done: the edition of the video.
At this step, we had the essential help of our new colleague Carmen Soler. She had both the knowledge and ability to make sense with all this material and she made a great work:This is the result.
And, of course, I don’t think we will win the Grammy Award to the best videoclip of the year, but at least, we’ve done it with all our heart. We specially dedicate it to the other European members of this group: Italy, Iceland, Poland and Turkey. If we have managed to attract your attention to learn more about our culture and our music, we have succeeded.
Translation made by Mª Isabel Gil