Notescast

I’m going to have to bail on this week’s song-a-week. Here is the demo I thought I could quickly develop, but the GI-20 has trouble recording the slurs in the main riff, and it’s going to take too long to come up with the other parts. I did get in plenty is composition time on working on a longer, older programmatic piece, so I don’t think this too bad as long as I get back in the game next week.

The guy wrote a song today. (My song for the week started a couple hours ago and is like a third done, optimistically.) He has no piano technique, so the execution isn’t there, but the concept and the overall approach is something I wish I though of. Here is The Storm.

This week's song is called Advice and Healing. I used Animal Crossing samples and samples from a Jorge Luis Borges lecture to create custom "drum kits" (like those old Flash soundboards). At one point, I had a solo in there that I played on the guy's toy clarinet, but it was too terrible, even to be funny.

Effort required by song-a-week: More like two songs a week, amirite

I made a dungeon synth song for this week's song. It's called Village's Edge. I tried to do some extreme mood changing, and I wanted to do it without crossfades, which felt cheap. I exploited a riff that has some key ambiguity, and maybe a week later, I'll know if it worked. There is also a trumpet solo which feels very Western, but dungeon synth rules aren't written in stone yet, so I think I'm O...

Lego planning, one of the problems with last-minute composition

This song-a-week song is Sky Ghost Farewell Fugue. I was trying to make something with loose timing instead of the strict lockstep I usually use. I also wanted to shoot for something ambient and got about halfway there. I don't know if I'm going to say this every week, but again, this was a struggle. Never challenge yourself!

The Adventure of Getting a Donut is this week's song-a-week. (The guy named it.) I tried to stretch myself by avoiding making the song build in intensity, which I do with pretty much everything I write, and sticking to a major key. I had trouble coming up with riffs, and digging for them unsuccessfully cost way too much time. I also realized that my inspiration, game show jingles, aren't full song...

While trying to come up with something, I played this. I know it’s some terrible vocal melody from the ‘70s or ‘80s, but I can’t place it.

Samorost labor relations

I'm going to try Ludum Dare this weekend, so I had to do my song a week early. It is called Rumor of Robot in Town. I was going for a YMO/SNES JRPG kind of song.

Sheep blast

This is my first song-a-week entry, called Get Up Eat Breakfast Get Dressed Go to School. I decided to mess around with low horns. As a result, it's not easy to mix as the instruments all operate in more or less the same range. It's not Professional Mix-a-Week, anyway. I was reading something Laurie Spiegel said about being at a conservatory: [John Duarte said] I should practice by writing a piece...

I think I’m into these stacked half steps.

On aggressive vs. natural podcast editing

Narrating my street crossings with unclear ethical advice.

I was messing around with Deezer's source separator, and I made this mash-up of Green Machine by Apples in Stereo and Buddy Holly by Weezer. I find it incredibly hilarious for reasons I can't articulate.

Trying out some organs.

I got my old GI-20 working with my phone. I can now use a guitar to create MIDI. Way back in the ‘00s, there weren’t that many interesting synths I could get my hands on, so I forgot about it. Now, I have a ton of synths from NanoStudio that are actually worth using. This test isn’t a great performance, but A) it’s not quantized and B) it’s around 150 notes of varying length and intensity which we...

Here’s a riff I imagine going along with some Ninja Gaiden cut scene involving running while thinking about some mystery.

Having to make your code uglier

fstab, over committing.

A bit of a musical car crash: Tried to play Altar of Sacrifice and a little of Jesus Saves played on an unplugged electric guitar. Turns out I don’t remember all the riffs and definitely can’t play them without slowing down.

A bit of a musical car crash: Tried to play Altar of Sacrifice and a little of Jesus Saves played on an unplugged electric guitar. Turns out I don’t remember all the riffs and definitely can’t play them without slowing down.