Why Redline?

Many have asked how The Redline Project came to be the title of this blog. Here is the answer:

Redline is a generic recording term. In an audio project, the levels of the tracks can be seen on a dynamic graph, often a series of LED lights. It is good if the recording illuminates the green lights and fine if the signal goes into the yellow ones, but if the red ones are lit, the sound is overloading the system and distorting. To redline also means to encounter an emotional experience greater than one knows how to handle.

There are many bands, recording studios, music projects, and sound-related ventures that use the term in their nomenclature. And yes, a search of the term will also land you in the domain of public transit systems as the name is a common indicator for subway lines.

Redline introudced itself as a possibility in a simple way: I am an avid mountain biker with passion for the sport that far exceeds my abilities as a rider. I pedal Redline bikes, and my favorite is the Monocog Flight 29er. It may have nothing to do with music, but I liked the sound of it well enough that it stuck in my head when I was looking for a name suited to a music project.

When I took my first office job five years ago, I was making a choice to quiet the music of my life. But there was a flame, somwhere down there, that kept it simmering. In recent months, more and more of those green LED lights flickered on, the levels creeping occasionally into the yellow. As I contemplated this project in the weeks leading up to the New Year, the red lamps lit, the pot boiled over. The music needed to come out.

So Redline Project it is. It is commonly held by many musicians, and artists of all types, that we were made to create. The Redline Project is an outpouring of that sentiment, an acknowledgement that my double-helixes have a loud voice in my pursuits.

I am shouting out to all of you poets, painters, potters, wordsmiths, sculptors, musicians, and the like. What are our struggles? How do the realities of life hinder us from creating? What do we do with the fear of failing? What do we dream may happen? I covet your input and will feature it, along with a link to you, on this blog.