Feb 10, 2011

What is Trace Element?


At the beginning of the year I made some new year's resolutions. One of them was to start a project that has been on my mind since I started listening to music: Trace Element.


What is it?

Trace Element is a way for me to share my appreciation of music with others. It is also a creative outlet that allows me to express and explore my creative and technical aptitude in the fields of multimedia design & development.


No, really, what is it?

At its simplest form, Trace Element is a playlist. Actually, many years ago, it started out as a CD compilation (mix tape if you are a little older). Before Mp3 players, Ipods, and USB sticks, there was good old compact disc (sorry, I'm not old enough for tapes and vinyl records). As I discover music, I started to compile CDs with my favorite songs. Then I started to name the CDs, creating cover art, and inventing stories which are told through each of the songs in the compilation. From this humble beginning Trace Element was born.

The idea is to create and share thoughts and other things that makes up the person that is me; to show people who I am, through music and through my interpretation of songs and lyrics. Trace elements are these pieces. As I evolve and grow, my taste in music changes and my story, whatever it may be at the time, changes...so do my trace elements.

These trace elements are what I leave behind, not only for others, but also for myself. To others, they represent who I am. To me, they are bookmarks to remind me of who I am at the time and how I have changed through the years.


Vision & Structure

My original vision was to create a multimedia interface that allows people to play each song, view the album artwork and the associated story/interpretation/mulling/whatever I feel describe the song. It was originally supposed to be developed in Flash but Flash is becoming heavy and...obsolete. However, it's the only tool I know that will allow me to bring this vision to fruition.


OK, let's stop before we get ahead of ourselves. In order to get something started and actually have a chance to get it out there, I decided to break the project into phases. The first phase is to create the bare bone structure: the playlist.


Each Trace Element will have a total of 7 songs. As I go along, I will update the post with more songs as well as more descriptive interpretation for each song.
ZEROSVN Tech Enthusiast