The Perfect Sound Samples

This video is the final installment in the 3-part series on Glacial Speed, the 2nd track on the album, M.E. VI (a requiem).

Full Video Transcript

Hi,  I’m Rob Teplansky, and this is part 3 of the story of the making of Glacial Speed, the 2nd track on the album, M.E. VI (a requiem).

So, I had rewritten a truly awful version of Glacial Speed and was feeling really good about it. But there was still one thing in the song that I needed to address, and that was the break.

Originally, the break had a sort of lazy guitar solo that wasn’t really interesting. I was trying to get at that old concept of “glacial speed”. The really, kind of glacial pace, slow, steady movement… But, I really wasn’t liking how this was coming out.

And so I came up with the idea, you know, what if I found some old recording of a scientist talking about glaciers? (Clip of the segment from the Glacial Speed official video.) You know, so it kind of tied in with that old concept of “glacial speed”.

So I went to this wonderful online resource, the Internet Archive. It’s an incredible repository of old books, old movies, old TV shows, old recordings, albums…literally everything you can think of – it’s brilliant.

So I went to this Internet Archive, and started looking up old videos, or old films, using the search term “glaciers”. And I came across this funny little television series called, Science in Action, that was created by the California Academy of Sciences. And there was one episode, “Rivers of Ice”, that had the perfect segments!

I immediately downloaded the segments and placed the segments that I wanted into the song. (Plays in the background.) It sounded great!

Now, I had no idea if the California Academy of Sciences even still existed or not, and who would own the copyright for this. But I did find the organization, and I wrote to them. And I sent them a copy of the recording that I had – a rough mix of the recording I had at that time, and asked them if I could have the rights to use this in this specific way for this song. And luckily, they were kind enough to grant me a license to use these segments in the song, and they really make the song. 

So, in three parts, that’s the story of Glacial Speed. If you missed the first two, look through my past posts. I hope this has added to your experience with the album. You can purchase the digital download on Bandcamp at strong-t.bandcamp.com. And it’s available for streaming everywhere.

So, no matter how you enjoy your music, please look up M.E. VI (a requiem), and take a listen. Thanks for your support and for listening, and until next time, peace.