Notescast

Oldness

Oldness

Some instinctive genre policing thoughts from me.

Some instinctive genre policing thoughts from me.

This is called Europa, and it was mostly made on buses to and from the airport a…

This is called Europa, and it was mostly made on buses to and from the airport and on a grounded plane. I worked in samples recorded at my parents’ house. I mixed it with earbuds, so that might be rough. This is one of those things I didn’t have enough time to judge, but I’m glad I am keeping the composing part of the brain from rusting.

This was a good bus speech.

This was a good bus speech.

This song is called You Must Explain the Delta Variant to Your Parent and Resche…

This song is called You Must Explain the Delta Variant to Your Parent and Reschedule Your Flights. (I drew from life experience.) I wrote it in response to this Junto challenge , which asks you to play a theme as yourself, then as two other identities. I've been mostly making music by programming and clicking on piano rolls for the last few years, but I feel like that gets you very diverse sounds, and my stuff doesn't seem consistent enough for an identity yet. So, I played the "self" part on gu...

I made this altered soundscape, which I call "Closing" (you can see why in the m…

I made this altered soundscape, which I call "Closing" (you can see why in the middle of the piece), as part of this challenge , which asks that you add an imperceptible sound to a field recording, then make it become more obvious. I found the imperceptible part really hard because I know where the added sound came from, and therefore can always perceive it. I did run it by Katt, and it didn't jump out at her, so I counted it as good enough since I didn't have time to survey a whole bunch of peo...

Coming up with things sometimes sucks.

Coming up with things sometimes sucks.

Barbaric Silence is my entry for the Disquiet Junto <a href="https://llllllll.co…

Barbaric Silence is my entry for the Disquiet Junto Isolation Room challenge . It asks you to take something you made in the past, isolate one aspect of it, then build something new around it. I picked a primitive black metal song I made twenty years ago and used just the guitars. I tried to make something out of it with horns and strings, but it just wouldn’t mesh, and I only had a couple of hours a night out on vacation, so I had to pivot to something simpler. I decided to make it even more ba...

Trying to get back on the song-a-week horse. Here's Io Buggy, a stoner metal tun…

Trying to get back on the song-a-week horse. Here's Io Buggy, a stoner metal tune. It's a filled out version of this demo . The solos could be better, but I'd have to work for a minimum of weeks for them to be significantly better, so I'm just letting them go like this.

Wu-Tang is for the…dads, mostly.

Wu-Tang is for the…dads, mostly.

De-ambientizing

De-ambientizing

Observing objects in person

Observing objects in person

Here’s a Small Findings segment I tried to record while walking to the store. It…

Here’s a Small Findings segment I tried to record while walking to the store. It turns out A) I can’t think of what to say while walking and B) there are many noises outside.

On how expressing fan camaraderie can be awkward

On how expressing fan camaraderie can be awkward

I’m going to have to bail on this week’s song-a-week. Here is the demo I thought…

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…

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 an…

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

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.<br…

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 OK.

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

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 somethin…

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.)…

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 songs. They're jingles! So they can actually be 1-2 riffs with a lot of empty space, unlike what we gene...

While trying to come up with something, I played this. I know it’s some terrible…

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

Samorost labor relations

I'm going to try Ludum Dare this weekend, so I had to do my song a week early. I…

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.

No title

Sheep blast

Sheep blast

This is my first song-a-week entry, called Get Up Eat Breakfast Get Dressed Go t…

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 every day, no matter how short or simple. I did my best to comply…Later, at Juliard, I was shocked a...

I think I’m into these stacked half steps.

I think I’m into these stacked half steps.

On aggressive vs. natural podcast editing

On aggressive vs. natural podcast editing