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The Making of "The Life on Mars" by Bob Baran
There were five influences which inspired this album. First, was an album I heard in the late eighties by Amin Bhatia, "The Interstellar Suite." This pioneering work was a synthesizer based movie score without a movie. It started me thinking about the possibility of scoring a science fiction movie myself.
The second influence was listening to Art Bell's radio show in the early nineties and hearing Richard C. Hoagland talk about his discovery of the face on Mars. That started me thinking about who we as humans really were and where we truly may have come from. Hoagland's ongoing discussion of hyper-dimensional physics expanded my thinking about sound, music, and interrelationship between vibration and what we perceive as time and matter.
After all, music is really the manipulation of matter (sound) in time. This line of thinking fathered my own "stream of consciousness" approach to musical composition. The cornerstone of "The Life on Mars."
The third influence was a piece I composed in 1994, "The Probe." "The Life on Mars" actually debuted at the Montana Addy Awards and the original version of the album was being distributed by the end of 1994. To say "ten years in the making" is not an exageration. Due to my compositional evolution, "The Probe," and the other pieces on the original version are not on this, the fourth and final version of this album. (If you happen to have a copy of the original 1994 version of "The Life on Mars" let me know.)
The fourth and probably most powerful influence was my wife, Gwen. After all, she is my Muse, and as she continued to react so positively to the compositions, I naturally invested that joyful energy into the completion of the final version. Her wonderful cover design also captured the real essence of "The Life on Mars."
The fifth influence was the amazing results I was having with my quantum consciousness music process. The approach I use to creating music was evolving so fast that each piece on "The Life On Mars" was becoming it's own benchmark. For the first time in my career I was able to take an unlimited approach to what the music could sound like and feel like. As I became more unleashed from the confines of my left-brain musical training the results were nothing short of astonishing!
In this, the final version of "The Life on Mars" I used everything I had available to me (sounds, instruments and recording technology) to create a holographic, immersive sound stage that would let you "see with your ears." This album sounds good on a home theater system, in a car or truck, through a set of headphones or even on a cheap boom box. No matter how you listen to it, just close your eyes and "watch the movie" on the big screen of your imagination.
When you listen to "The Life on Mars" you will be transported into another world of musical ideas and possibilities...I know I was. That's how "The Martian Experience" evolved into "Martian Wonders", "Martian Sunset" and a series of exciting live concert performances combining stream of consciousness piano with other musical styles including ambient, space, and orchestral.
Do I have a special relationship with Mars? Yes. But maybe I should have that discussion on late night radio.
Click here to listen to sound bites from each track on the album.
If you have any other questions about the making of "The Life on Mars" please feel free to email me at: contact@thelifeonmars.com.
For details behind the making of Bob Baran's other CDs, go to
http://www.gatheringwave.com/making.html