Pretty Inspiring

So it seems a few people have seen the video for Pretty which has led to questions of… "What inspired that"? The first thing was the song in which the music was written by me jotting down some music chords on a piece of paper. I purposely used chords which were not in the same key as I wanted something that sounded different, jarring or quirky.

Ex. 1st chord is C with the 2nd chord being G#, then F# and then G. For anyone who knows music theory they can see right away that the G# and F# chords are both dissonant following the C chord, but then there's a resolution with the G chord.

The chorus was also jotted down with the intent of being different. I started with a two chord in one bar phrase, followed by single chords in a bar to help mess around with the phrasing. In most songs, you might have a phrasing which has a pattern of: 1 chord in a bar, 2 chords in a bar, then repeat, or perhaps the opposite. But the starting 2 chords in the 1st bar of Pretty moves the phrase forward by a bar.
The bridge is a typical jazzy type of section and is probably the most conventional section in the whole song.

Over all I ended up with quirky sounding music and had to think of some lyrics that would match. Singing about addictions, poverty, abuse, or the end of the world wasn't going to cut it. I needed something… quirky. I then thought of my "friend" (he really is a friend) who was at one time into cross dressing and drag and remembered some of the things he had told me. He also once showed me. The lyrics didn't take long to come.

When thinking of a video I knew it had to be s shorter pop length song which disqualified most of my material. I also wanted it to be a song which had a more streamlined structure, and more upbeat and… dare I say… fun. Again this disqualified the majority of my material. What was left was Pretty.
Shooting the video was quite fun for all of us. Director/Film Maker Ben Stacey (http://www.benstaceypictures.com) and his assistant helped keep things lively and light with wise cracks. At one point, they actually mentioned that I looked sexy, so how about that. Paddy Aldridge was also on hand and did the make up, wardrobe and lent us her store location "Take a Walk on the Wildside" (http://www.wildside.org). I had heard about Wildside from my "friend" and knew it would be the perfect place to shoot as it's a store which caters to men who are lumberjacks and are OK. (They cut down trees, they wear high heels Suspenders and a bra).
Talking to Paddy and being in her store was interesting as I got a glimps into what it might be like to be a man who cross dresses. Talk about walking a mile in someone else's shoes, how about in woman's heels.
"But what did your wife think?" has been a common question. She was there operating the audio play back for me to lip sync to, so she was all fine with everything.

This was my 1st time shooting a video and dressing up. I hope you all enjoy it, I hope it brings a smile to your face, and I hope it brings a little tolerance to the world.

Thanks
Wilton

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