Notescast

Screened Pastoral In response to this prompt , I came up with a pastoral-ish horn chord progression. Then, to represent the horizontal fibers of the window screen, I wrote a set of notch filters . To represent the vertical fibers, I turned them on and off on a fixed interval. By then, it was 11:30 PM on Monday. I improvised a bass part, but only had time for two takes, then had to mix. So, there i...

I still don’t have a third riff to go with these two riffs, so I thought I’d try to improvise one out. I think maybe I have the direction right at least.

FLFLAASSHFFLLAASSFHLFALS Per this prompt , I "remixed" the original Flash Gordon title track, which apparently was derived from a Liszt piece. I picked three pairs of loops from the track. (And a few others which didn't work out.) Each pair is a loop and a slightly truncated version of that loop so that they're all out-of-phase. Then, I terraced their entrances and put in a double time section.

Puzzle Lurching I found a couple of half-finished tracks from a few years ago. The first was labeled “Murk” and had horns and a kettledrum. I think it was meant to be some kind of swamp-marching music. The second was named “The Puzzle-2” and was supposed to be music for a puzzle game. It had a recorder, harp, and synth bass. The bass fit right in with the horns, which was a pleasant surprise. My s...

Expect Delays, Karts For this one , I created a variation of Trying Your Best Grand Prix! . It’s both a simulation of a race that has lots of stops and delays and of a band that can’t get it together. I had a good time, and I hope it’s not too painful to listen to.

Expect Delays, Karts For this one , I created a variation of Trying Your Best Grand Prix! . It’s both a simulation of a race that has lots of stops and delays and of a band that can’t get it together. I had a good time, and I hope it’s not too painful to listen to.

Michael Barone's (the host of Pipedreams ) voice has changed a lot in 40 years. Here's an intro from a show in 1986 and one from this week in 2026.

Save Time Online For a wacky prompt to make hold music for cars outside of a tunnel, I did the whole thing with the safe chord progression, mid-slow tempo, and announcements about how you should hang up (in this case leave the car line). There's a tension between making something really sound like hold music and making something you don't want to hang up on. In order to avoid hard decisions, I wen...

Onyx's Shut 'Em Down has almost the same chorus as Public Enemy's Shut 'Em Down. I wonder if this was acknowledged.

I did end up getting my Voice Memos off of my phone (let me know if you actually want to know how), and I found this jam! The guy when he was five is on harmonica, I'm on guitar, and Katt is on triangle.

Fanfare for the Slug Made last week in response to a prompt about making a soundtrack for a slug documentary . I went for something descending and textured.

I came up with one of these fantasy quest riffs.

The second piece was a lot harder. The piano had a high ring on a low C#, but he didn't let it bother him. The real challenge was that he decide to improvise the middle section. Let me tell you, even improvising at home with no one listening is rough. I've never improvised live, myself. The guy got stuck a few times, but he never bailed. Incidentally, I remember Pantera jamming at a show. They got...

The piano recital went pretty well. I didn't record it well, but I at least recorded it OK. This is Dance Intermezzo. I thought he got a lot of feeling out of the high parts.

Intro This week's prompt was to make something epic. I made an intro track, of the sort that '80s albums used to open with, but with just-intonation-based harmonies that went well off the 12-TET grid. Several things went wrong: - I wrote a program to make the synth harmonies and thought I might be able to play them on the fretless guitar. Ha! It was like trying to stand up inside a rotating ice or...

And to show they’re not snobs, the high school orchestra does a solid Indiana Jone.

Even the 7th and 8th graders played an adult-level Entrance of the Queen of Sheba.

There was also a performance of a Vivaldi concerto for two cellos. At least one of them was a freshman. They nailed it. No one in my high school was anywhere close to this.

I went to the middle school and high school orchestra and was a genuinely blown away. There was a high school quartet that played this Ravel piece without a conductor. The rhythms are really tricky, and there’s tempo changes all over. This recording is shitty, but they sounded great.

Organ Engine The Junto prompt was music for takeoff. I was just on a plane this Saturday, and I noticed that it’s an experience packed with low pitches and noise. So, instead of taking the pitch of this pipe organ sample upward, I had it drop as the piece went on. (Pitch up is the usual metaphor for elevation up.) I made the chords bigger as it goes along, too, once again, using the tonality diamo...

This was a very cool-sounding bird.

Complete Digestion This Junto prompt was to do something you do too much even more. So, I came up with a Slayer-type riff and then improvised a half-time breakdown after it. Then, I dropped to a half-time of that for a quarter-time feel. I repeated the process until things got really slow. Now, that I think about it, though, while I always try a half-time breakdown after a fast riff, I don't think...

I had to go through a big crowd of business guys, so I said “A.I.” repeatedly. I think it helped to create the kind of ambience that helps them thrive.

Kepler Kola For Junto prompt , I tried to create the sound of the opening of a can of Kepler Kola, keeping in mind the vibe of the Video Cola channel on Blippo+. To do this, I put together a small software instrument that plays the sample pitched up at various intervals. The higher you move the slider, the more intervals it plays. I improvised a few takes with it, then I used a filter in Bitwig to...

I’ve had these three riffs for a song for about a while (maybe a year?) and a lot of half-formed ideas for a bridge that I keep picking up then putting away. So, for the latest Junto challenge , I pushed out a new riff, said I'm going with that, then recorded the song on my phone (with some possibly ill-advised improvisation). Now, I can see what I think of it later, then iterate.