12 Notes
I just read a so-so interview with Eddie Van Halen and he had one interesting response to a question that I think really sums up his entire approach to music:
“You only have 12 notes. Do what you want with them.”
I love that notion.
In my college band days, I never wrote the lyrics but loved writing music. One night in my apartment, I was trying to write some new stuff. I became annoyed after a little while because I kept starting with chords that I already knew so I grabbed a 20 sided die that I had laying around in a junk drawer.
I started to roll the die and write down each number in the order they were rolled and tried to make a song from it.
Here’s the result of that night. This track was recorded in a studio in one take: