AW: coming up with titles

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

John Corbett wrote:

>How do you do it?  I think I put way to much
>importance on this.  Sometimes something just hits you
>and that's it but most of the time I listen to a piece
>over and over and draw a blank.

Sometimes, I try to keep a relationship between the music and the title
- sometimes I do not. Keeping a notebook of possible titles (as John
McIntyre suggested) is a great idea - and you can get titles from almost
everywhere. Of course, books are a great source, albeit one where other
artists might have salvaged already. Titles I took from fiction books
were "Amazing scenes" (an important line in "A House for Mr. Biswas" by
V.S. Naipaul) and "Chiba City Blues" (from Neuromancer, which of course
lots of other musicians already thought of), and "The Corrections". Then
there are titles hidden in non-fiction, even scientific texts. From a
book on monte carlo methods in quantum electrodynamics:
"turnabout.increment." and "Fractal Dimension". Computer games might be
a source ("Rangers lead the way"). Sometimes the place you play provides
a source for titles (a concert we played at a coctail bar resulted in
titles like "Blushin' Russian", "Swimming Pool" and "Flaming Blue
Fuck"). Then there's names of places ("Aqua Negra", a wholly unaesthetic
place near Lago di Garda, Italy, *hi Luca*), political texts (I played
this concert where I did the titles "Massive Retaliation" and "Flexible
Response"). Then there's funny things you might here about on TV or in
conversation. I once met this girl who worked as a "freelance clown"...

So just keep your ears/eyes open and think about writing down everything
that sounds interesting.

Then, of course, my strategy might seem unapt as most of my titles are
rather...childish...

        Rainer