What’s a Tuneback?

Every Tuesday, Midnight.Haulkerton creates a Tuneback. The Tuneback is a concept song that captures the primal essence of an idea in a short format (we’ve written Tunebacks that play for less than two minutes), and while our listeners love getting something new each week, it’s great for keeping us on our creative toes. We set up a few rules for doing this:

1. The Tuneback must be written, composed and recorded all in less than an hour.

No exceptions. If you’re at the 50 minute mark and still incomplete, try and hack together what you’ve got so far and make it sound cohesive. Part of the fun is in the primal, rough nature of the Tuneback; almost like a sketch is to a painting.

2. The Tuneback needs to reference some idea or issue that is in popular press or, better still, the blogosphere.

We’ve cheated a few times when life was tough or we weren’t online enough to find the best topic, but whenever possible we stick to this rule. Save the songs with real substance for your studio time, because Tunebacks are often forgotten a couple of weeks later. Of course, some Tunebacks have substance based on the topic, like our Principles of Profit.

3. If the Tuneback was inspired by something going on in the blogosphere or a site, let the blog/site owner know by email.

They are usually amazed they’ve inspired a song and it can bring some nice exposure to your music if they link to you.

4. Don’t write a contrived song.

If there’s nothing going on, online or off, don’t do it. Ever. Skip a week if you have to. There’s nothing worse than a song put together out of some sense of duty or deadlines. It might work for news bulletins and assignments, but it sure isn’t appropriate for a song.

If you’ve started following these guidelines to produce a weekly Tuneback, let us know and we’ll link back to you.

FIND OUT why the Tuneback is in trouble, and what you can do to help.