New Music Site!
My new site for music has now been inaugurated! This way I can post music on a professional site instead of as an offshoot of my personal blog. It’s still a work in progress, so any comments on how I can improve it would be welcome. For now I imported a lot of the music-related posts from here over to the blog located over there, and will post any music I write over there from now on.
http://parkesmusic.wordpress.com/
Check it out!
Hellish Red Sand
Since I’m still trying to get my equipment replaced before I can redo my more serious projects, such as the ABC Monsters album or commercial music, I did another remix from Clyde’s Revenge and wanted to share it with people. It’s based on this MIDI file:
I went more rock than synth this time. Take note: the strings would sound better if I had the sound library I’d been using this past year, but for what it is I think it’s fun. The title is based on the background of the level in the game. It repeats once and then fades out.
I’ve got no philosophical discussion or newsworthy happenings this post. Enjoy this remix anyway!
If you’re really bored, you can see what level this remix is from:
Or perhaps the level that the previous remix is from:
Though I’d just download the game if I were you. (Run it in DOSBox!)
Hey, it all sounds like video game music!
One of the most common comments I’ve had on music I’ve written in the past has been “Wow, that sounds like it’s right out of a video game!” or “It makes me think of Sonic the Hedgehog for some reason” or some variant thereof. This criticism has been one that I’ve actively tried to avoid (as most people tend to not take video game music seriously or hold it in high esteem), yet since I work in an electronic medium and have little access to real live instruments, it’s something that I’m basically going to have to live with until I can afford high-end sound libraries (I was using some of Nate Drew’s recently, but they all got stolen, so it’s going to be awhile).
In the meantime, I’ve resolved that, if I’m limited by funds and libraries and therefore can only write video game music, I might as well try to make it the best video game music it can be (for purposes of this post, when I refer to video game music I don’t mean the full orchestral scores you get out of Halo or whatever, but the more electronic sounds associated with games like, well, Sonic the Hedgehog). And even in that medium there is much that can be done to elevate music above the mediocre or utilitarian. Consider the following: back in the mid-90′s, there was a DOS game released called Clyde’s Revenge. It was a typical sidescroller of the time and the game itself, while fairly fun, was nothing particularly exciting or groundbreaking. The music was a general MIDI soundtrack done by a guy named Garret Thomson, and a typical track would sound like this:
It’s kind of funky, but nothing really to write home about. Now compare it to a remix I did in 30 minutes, using the same MIDI file:
Still video game music, still using virtually the same notes even, but the latter is something I’d put on a playlist and listen to on its own, while the former is fairly blah. And it’s that skill I can work on and even market: writing music that can both enhance a game and stand on its own.
In conclusion, I don’t really have a though-provoking or controversial point regarding the state of video game music or my skills as a composer. I just did this remix and liked it, so I wanted to share it. That is all. Enjoy the Magnets!
Oh, what have I unleashed? (Also, ABC Monsters)
(The above is a picture of the Cruncha from the ABC Monsters album, by Johnathan Whiting. For the music MP3′s, see the bottom of this post.)
Nearly a week ago, I made an infamous blog post. For me, it was just another one of those angsty posts I make on occasion, the kind where I get all my issues out so I can go on living, the kind that this blog used to be entirely comprised of, but in recent years tapered off after Facebook and such allowed people to find the blog more easily. This one was not really different. I’ve been going through some hard times recently, and needed a place to unload. At first I considered making it a private post, or keeping it public but deleting the Facebook notification that pops up due to my RSS feed (which I have done for this follow-up post). However, when enough time passed that the note popped up in Facebook, somebody had already “liked” it and another had made a comment, so I thought, “what the hey, let’s see where the chips fall.”
And fall they have. My most popular posts according to my site stats may still be the one with the picture of Frederic Chopin and Michael Jordan, and the one where Mickey Mouse tries to commit suicide, but this post has generated more feedback among people I actually know than any other post I’ve ever made, even more than the Glenn Beck post where I offended people. It’s probably due to the publicity that the robbery brought, as well as the reposting of it that Nate did on the robbery Facebook page, but for some reason everybody is giving their two cents, both in comments here and on Facebook, and in real life. I’ve never had so many people say to me, in person, “I read your blog post, and (etc.)” before. Frankly, it’s a bit surreal. I haven’t figured out quite how to respond to it all. So I’m going to do my best here, addressing a few points that seem to be common among comments and offering a little more insight into what I’m feeling and stuff.
First of all, as I said in the comments previously, it’s funny that so many people have complimented me on my courage to follow my dreams when I’ve felt like it’s just an inability to settle down. It’s rare that people follow their dreams to the bitter end, and apparently that’s impressive. But what people may fail to realize is that most people don’t follow their dreams to the end for a reason. That reason being, even though it’s inspiring and makes for a feel-good story, it’s really difficult and probably fairly stupid, and the failure rate is way higher than the success rate. Also, a whole lot of luck is required, luck which I seem to be running low on.
Secondly, just to address common responses to the robbery itself: we have no leads. Yes, it does sound like an inside job, or at least the work of somebody who had been into the office before. However, we have no method of figuring out who it could have been, since Nate and I can’t think of anyone we’ve offended recently that would do something so heinous. At this point we’ve pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that we may never figure it out and, barring a miracle, we’ll just have to rebuild. Donating would help a lot on that front. This stuff is expensive, man!
Thirdly, one of the more curious reactions I’ve personally had is the fact that suddenly there’s a lot more support than I thought I had at first, both in words and in donations (Thanks to those who have donated, by the way! We’re on our way to rebuilding, but Nate would appreciate some more). I really do appreciate the vocal support. It’s just that, at the end of the day, I’ve still got to deal with everything. I can’t monetize good intentions. Actually, my gut reaction makes me think of times like when a certain relation of mine said he was very proud of me, then turned around and refused to pay $10 for a CD of my music I was trying to sell. Experiences like that have turned me into a believer of the “talk is cheap” principle. And before I offend anyone, this is really my fault, not anybody else’s per se. It’s my inability to turn people’s good impressions of my work into something I can make a living off of that’s causing me a lot of my stress. Maybe I need an agent? Or at least a good marketing person? I apparently can’t do it myself. Of course, I also can’t afford to pay a marketing person right now, so damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
The sudden publicity and responses have been a little disconcerting. I’m really not used to getting any sort of emotional support from any quarter. I didn’t really grow up in a loving, huggy family, and my natural introversion has precluded large groups of friends. In fact, I get along best with people that also have kind of a cynical edge to them (like Johnathan, who wrote a long, awesome comment about our friendship on the last post and still called me a jerk). Because, like Johnathan said, a lot of the jerks of the world are really people who want to be kind and caring but don’t know quite how to pull off the good first impression. The world frowns upon such people, which dampens their enthusiasm to try to improve themselves. So I make it a point to befriend those types of people, because everybody needs somebody to believe in them. Because I know what it’s like to be there. I’m there almost all the time myself. And believing in someone isn’t just saying, “Hey, you’re great!” because talk is cheap. On the other hand, the people who have responded, both in word and in donations, are certainly doing what they feel they can, and it wouldn’t be fair for me to marginalize their contribution because I have a personal bias against perfunctory, superficial kindness. I truly am grateful for the thought. My point is, I’ve gotten a bunch of support, but I’m ambivalent about a lot of it. And, hard to hear or say as it might be, that’s the honest truth.
Also, basically everything I said in the previous post had been percolating for a while. The robbery just brought it to a head. As a result, I think people have assumed that all the opinions I expressed came about as a reaction to the robbery, which may be another reason I’m not quite sure how to deal with it all. This is stuff I’ve been dealing with for a loooong time (and even posted about on occasion) but now suddenly people are concerned? Intellectually I understand the external circumstances that garnered that post a lot more attention, but I’m just not used to people caring, so I probably come across as kind of a jerk about it simply because I don’t know how else to react. If I just say, “Thanks to everyone! I love you all!” I don’t feel true to myself. In a way, it’s the same problem that I posted about years ago, where I compared myself to Arnold J. Rimmer from Red Dwarf in a few ways, one of them being that my psyche just doesn’t know how to deal with people being kind to me.
In many ways I just wish I could go back a month or two, where my concerns were my own and nobody else really knew or cared. It may have been hard, and a canker on my soul, but at least I knew how to deal with it. However, at least now I feel like I may have turned a corner. I can’t wallow in misery knowing that people out there do care, no matter how easy that may be. People need a reason to get up in the morning, and for a long time I haven’t had a compelling one, but now there may be a sliver of light. Come the day when I finally do get organized to start selling professional-quality work, I may have a base.
To conclude, I apologize to anyone who might feel marginalized by my lukewarm response. This has been a rather rambly post, and perhaps not the kindest way to respond to people, but at least it’s been honest. And the world needs more honesty. That way love becomes love unfeigned.
And truthfully, thanks for the support!
—–
On a different topic, since all the work from the ABC Monsters album Johnathan and I were working on got stolen, we are going to have to do the whole album from scratch. Therefore, so you can at least get a taste of what could have been (and at least partly of what is to come), I’m posting all the demo tracks we had made up to this point. Most of these tracks just have my non-polished vocal tracks with MIDI accompaniment, but I still like ‘em! Please leave feedback!
(Links have been temporarily removed. Sorry for the inconvenience!)
Music from each month!
This year has been a super busy year for me, both in general and especially in the music-writing field. In January I signed on as an intern at a company called the Visual Marketing Group, which produces various film, TV, and video projects. This internship turned into an actual job once I graduated from BYU in August. Also, I have continued writing music for Poison Ivy Mysteries this year. We’ve written a total of three more shows this year; combined with the four from last year, that makes seven shows, each with from four to seven songs in them. Even taking into account that Nate Drew (who is also my boss/co-worker/guy who got me the job at the VM Group) wrote about half of that music, that still means I’ve written nineteen songs for them so far (nine in 2010). In addition, Johnathan Whiting and I have been working on an ABC Monster album, with a track for every single letter of the alphabet. Although the final version is not yet ready, all the songs have been written (at least first drafts), so that adds another twenty-six songs I’ve done this year. I also did a Travels Megamix for Mrs. Fields’s retirement thing back in April, in which I took twenty songs from Travels and techno-ized them into a ten-minute long dance remix. Plus, working at the VM Group has given me the opportunity to do tons of little and big TV and film projects, including commercials for companies like Fris coffee and Check City, some MLM videos, industrial trade-show kiosk videos, as well as some music for a documentary about the life of David O. McKay that airs on BYU TV every so often. Probably the biggest project on that front has been working on a show called Xtreme Tourist that actually isn’t out yet, but should be next year. Nate and I have been working recently on the first season: twelve half-hour episodes, which adds up to dozens of cues that we’ve been writing in the past two months or so.
Add to all this the random songs that I write anyway for practice, experimentation, or simple stress relief, and I’ve probably written more pieces of music this year than I can count. So, to show you, my faithful blogketeers, some of what I’ve been up to, I’ve decided to upload some stuff I’ve written in the past year; at least one thing from each month.
January
January didn’t start too busy, as I didn’t get the internship until near the end of the month. However, I did begin writing music for the PIM sci-fi show, even before the show itself was written (I was reeeeally excited for this show).
- Death: The Final Frontier Opening: A fairly transparent rip-off of the opening of Space Quest I (which was itself kind of a parody anyway), but it works.
February
In February we spent most of our time working on the David O. McKay documentary. For some reason I don’t actually have the music tracks I wrote for that separately (I was using a different computer then), so in order to hear it you’ll have to go watch the actual documentary (found on BYU TV’s website here). Nate did most of this, but a few specific points where my music shows up are 00:29:40, 00:55:01 (actually an arrangement), and the part with the Nazis that I can’t find right now. That’s right, Nazis. Also, the first draft of the android song came about during February.
- Harp: But so I don’t leave you high and dry with no MP3, here’s some random harp thing I did when I was bored during February. It doesn’t go anywhere and is obviously unfinished, but here it is anyway.
March
March saw me working mostly on the Travels megamix, which I’ll post under April’s section. Also, work for the rest of the PIM sci-fi show was finished during March. And I think the Fris coffee ad that I did the music for happened during March, though I don’t actually remember. That ad, though, led to one of the funniest, most random, and probably most sacrilegious moments I’ve had this year, when Nate opened a project he was working on (a documentary on LDS painter Del Parsons) but somehow got the voiceover for the coffee ad attached to the beginning of it. When it was played, a slideshow of beautiful paintings of the Savior was shown, along with Cuban music and a deep, seductive Latin voice asking something to the effect of, “Why do you drink coffee? Is it the rich, warm taste? The dark, flavorful aroma?” We couldn’t stop laughing for about ten minutes, and I still can’t look at a Del Parsons painting without wondering about the dark, flavorful aroma of coffee.
- Lockdown: I’ve posted the android song already, so allow me to post what was definitely my favorite song for the show, even more so than said android song. Lyrics are by both me and Johnathan Whiting. Listen for references to both Super Metroid and Doctor Who.
- Different: This song has no real name, but I wrote it a day or two after the Fifths song I’ve already posted, and I actually enjoy it more.
April
Finishing the Travels megamix wasn’t the only project on the table in April. Work for Club Mystique, the next PIM show, was begun. Also, some random VMGroup projects were worked on during this time, including music for a Check City ad (which they didn’t end up using). In addition, I helped Randy McNair with his senior project Monster in the Woods, though I mostly supervised fellow composer Kristina Austin as she actually wrote the score, so I can’t post any of that as my stuff.
- Travels Megamix: When we did this in April at Mrs. Fields’s retirement show, we actually got all of the main cast back to sing it, save Josh Ludvigson and Stephen Dunn (though he came to rehearsals, he wasn’t able to come to the actual performance). I never got them all in for recording, though, so the only version I have has me singing all the songs. Also there was a slideshow/video that went along with it, which I uploaded to YouTube.
May
May was when most of the work for Club Mystique was done. However, it was during this month that I started taking classes again to finish up my bachelor’s, so my internship work lessened quite a bit (also, the whole company moved from Provo to Salt Lake during the next month, so there wasn’t a whole ton of music needed at this point anyway).
Also, this happened. MOVING ON.
- The Heist: From Club Mystique. Part of the premise of the show is that a group of mobsters is meeting to decide who the successor will be, as the boss is retiring and moving to Mexico, and to prove their worth, three mobsters (really just random audience members) are going to pull three offstage heists. In the end all of them backfire, but whatever; it’s good fun. This song is proof that it’s difficult to write MIDI jazz songs without them sounding horrible (though the sax part sounds OK, thanks to Mickey Murphy coming in to record on an actual instrument). There exists somewhere a version with Criss Rosenlof singing, who played the part in the actual show, but I have no idea where it is (somewhere on Nate’s computer), so instead you get to listen to my temp track. Lucky you.
- Preston’s game music: My former roommate Preston Cowley, was working on a video game with some fellow students at BYU for their final project for some class, and he got me to do the music for it. I don’t actually remember what the game is called, but it involved exploring caves and using light to create holes or something (it made more sense in context). Anyway, the music is basically just mysterious ambience, kind of a cross between the Protoss themes from Starcraft and some incidental music from the Lucasarts game The Dig.
June
June, along with January, was probably my driest month when it came to music. I was going to school and working full-time, and since the VM Group had moved their offices to Salt Lake and I was still living in Provo, I rarely came in to work on anything.
- Rachel – No joke, this is the only thing I could find that I did in June. It was to be for a video on mormon.org, but I have no idea if it actually got posted (I can’t find it). It’s just as well, since this version isn’t complete, most glaringly in the mix.
July
In July I began what is probably the most ambitious project I’ve done in a while. Earlier in the year Johnathan had shown me some drawings of some fun monsters he had done for letters of the alphabet, along with some fun little rhymes to go along with them, like a children’s book. Then, in June, to give me something to do until I graduated and could work for him fulltime, Nate asked me to start working on an album of some sort, and left what kind of album it was up to me. For some reason I thought of Johnathan’s little monster drawings and thought it would be fun to do an album about them: a song for each letter monster. So we began collaborating on it, Johnathan on the art and lyrics, and me on the music, and soon I began pumping out the songs, a project which is still ongoing. This was basically all I worked on musically, as I was still taking classes.
- D – Can You Dig the Digg? – This was the first song I worked on. All I did was write the opening bit (mellow guitar), but then Johnathan sent me a message saying he pictured it more as a hip-hop thing. So I did both. It’s funky!
- Z – The Zither goes Hither and Thither – Even with all the other ABC monster songs that came afterward, this is still my favorite one. It may change somewhat, however, because it’s got the controversial phone call bit. That was added more as a reference to a remix of the Gato theme from Chrono Trigger that is way too silly for words. The epilogue at the end isn’t quite up to par with the beginning, but is still pretty good.
August
In August the most monumental event in years occurred: I graduated from college! Hooray! With my new degree and newfound time, I was ready to dive headlong into the career I had been preparing for for so long, and fortunately, I had a place in which to do it. Working fulltime at the VM Group gave me a lot more opportunities to not only write music, but do it on a professional level, and my output increased dramatically at this point. This was to be fully realized starting in September, however, as most of this month was spent with finals, graduation, moving, etc. What work was done during this month was mostly done on refining existing music rather than creating new stuff.
- G – Oh, Gee! Look at the Gigant! – Apparently I can’t find anything that I started in August, as this ABC Monster song was written on July 30 and the next one wasn’t started until September 3. Oh, well; it’s close enough. Between the steamy Zither and now the Barry White-esque Gigant it’s clear that I need to start dating more.
September
Like I said before, fulltime work at the VM Group provided quite a bit of opportunities. And, like every month for the rest of this year, work on the ABC album continued.
- Precorp – This was my first big project for the VM Group, and my first paying job since graduating. It’s basically an industrial video for a kiosk for some trade show for the manufacturing company Precorp, which for some reason YouTube doesn’t want me to upload (not due to copyright issues or anything; it just keeps timing out) so you’ll just have to imagine ten minutes of people putting screwdrivers into things. Keep listening, as there are actually seven different cues, so if you don’t like one, wait a minute and another will soon fade in. My favorite is probably the third one, because it kind of sounds like U2. Part of the penultimate one ended up making it into an ABC monster song that I haven’t posted anywhere yet (you’ll have to get the album when it comes out!) Keep your ears open during the fourth one for a Poison Ivy Mysteries reference to “Testin’ the Mic!”
- M – Mea is a Monster! – I got into some trouble over this one. Johnathan had written this for his niece, who’s barely over toddler age, but apparently she got scared by it. I still really like it, but we haven’t hashed out if it just needs a little less scariness or a complete redo (or whether we should just leave it, as I think that most kids over, say, three years old would probably be fine with it). The final version will have an actual little girl sing the non-monster lines, but for now, it’s just me.
October
Continuing work for the VM Group, October was the first month we worked on music for Xtreme Tourist (XT for short), a new show about a guy who goes on vacation to random places and films how awesome it is. Also, during October we wrote the stuff for the newest Poison Ivy Mysteries show Shadow of the King. I also wrote a bit for another Check City commercial, which they actually used this time!
- The Wizard Song – Written for Shadow of the King. The actual name for this song should be “Wobblety Bobblety” or “Hibbety Jibbety” or some other such nonsense, but meh. This song was obviously based on The Sword in the Stone, though it gets very different about halfway through, and the ending was both inspired by Gustav Holst’s “Mars: The Bringer of War” and the music at the end of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Best of Both Worlds, pt. 1″. And hey, this one actually has Criss singing it, as opposed to “The Heist”!
- Pirates! – For an XT episode about Cancun. This type of track is actually atypical of the type of music that we usually put in the show (we usually try to do more metal/alternative stuff), but it’s probably the most interesting to listen to.
- Commercial Bumper – This was a bit I wrote for the very first XT episode I worked on (Hawaii), and just for some continuity I try to work it into every show I do, usually as a shorter version for a commercial bumper.
- P – The Paw Paw’s Poem – This ABC monster song’s got a bit of a Johnny Cash vibe. That’s all I got on this one.
November
November saw us working hard on XT, since the first season was due to be finished by December 1 (it later got moved back a little bit). I was writing perhaps two or three cues a day at the beginning of this month, stepping up to four by the middle. Due to some family emergencies the end of the month wasn’t as productive, but it soon picked up again.
- Kite Surfing – From the Belize episode. This is much more typical of the stuff we wrote for the show. We were writing a lot of these types of track each day, so musically it isn’t all that groundbreaking, but it’s not supposed to be artsy or deep. Instead it’s just supposed to build up excitement and make you want to go kite surfing in Belize.
- Oh, Wendy – From another Cancun episode (yes, there are two for some reason). This accompanies footage of the host’s wife and how he’s grateful that she could accompany him on that particular trip.
- U – The Undergator Lives Underwater – Obviously a bit of a Jaws reference. Once again, too scary? I mean, these are monsters, after all. We’re not doing an album about ABC fairies or ABC ponies. If kids can take Coraline, this stuff ought to be a piece of cake.
December
This month obviously isn’t over, since we’re only eight days into it, but already I have written quite a bit of stuff (most of it for XT).
- Hang-gliding – From the Rio de Janeiro episode. It’s kind of like kite surfing. Both the activity and the music, I mean.
- Song 4 – After a while Nate and I realized we couldn’t score every single episode, so we started reusing tracks. To that end, I wrote a few that didn’t actually fit with any footage but that we could just plunk in anywhere. This is one of those tracks. Oddly enough, I don’t think we’ve actually used it in an episode yet, but we’re not done with the series! Actually, I don’t know if it will ever be used in XT (it’s a little too muddy) but I like it anyway so I’m posting it.
Well, there you have it. A smattering of what I’ve been doing all year, especially the latter half.
Happy Anniversary, Blog! A day late!
Well, I missed making a post yesterday, on the actual five-year anniversary of this blog’s grand opening. But I’ve got a good reason: I was writing/arranging some sort of circus parade music for Johnathan! It’s part of an “Alphabet Monsters” kids’ album we’re working on.
So, to properly take everyone’s comments and turn them into a post, I’ll combine them all! Using linkbaitgenerator.com, I’ll answer some questions, then tell a (hopefully) funny story!
Also, you know, monkeys.
1. 8 Jeff’s blog-themed Halloween costumes
- A giant chicken at a wedding
- A wizard, Luigi, a Starfleet officer, or possibly Hitler
- A choir member singing “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”
- An Australian wedding singer
- A mashup of Michael Jordan and Frederic Chopin
- Mickey Mouse trying to kill himself
- A young Spanish raven-haired beauty
- Josh Reese
2. The 10 commandments of Jeff’s blog
- Thou shalt write more about thy own music than anyone ever wanted to know.
- Thou shalt blog about how thy siblings are responsible for many of thy shortcomings, even if it’s not quite true.
- Thou shalt derive thy blog’s popularity from only three posts.
- Thou shalt start a “52 Weeks” project and promptly abandon it at some future point.
- Thou shalt obey the previous commandment on at least two occasions.
- Thou shalt not give links to certain posts to potential girlfriends.
- Thou shalt write random posts about Kim Isom instead of, thou knowest, contacting her, until she gets married. (Or got married, actually.)
- Thou shalt offend people by posting old journal entries fifteen or so years later.
- Thou shalt occasionally take different personality tests, with differing results.
- Thou shalt post about angsty relationship issues, like every non-political, non-photo journal blog out there.
3. If Jeff’s blog had a love child with a unicorn, it would look like this:
Oh heavens. I think I’m done with the Linkbait generator.
4. The Story of Jeff’s Blog
(Note: This story was created by taking the URL of the blog, adding “?random” to the end, and using the posts that came up to inspire each sentence. Enjoy!)
Once upon a time, there was an vizier that looked suspiciously like my brother. The vizier was trying to escape the services of Kublai Khan. An outsider had moved into his room, so he had been forced to live in the dusty Rec Room. The newcomer had won the hearts of everyone in the land due to his smooth ‘n smarmy nature. So the vizier turned to the only person he could trust: Richard Nixon. Nixon then turned to the only person he could trust: Monterey Jack! Sadly, Monty had gone tubing at a cabin in Big Cottonwood Canyon, so Nixon and the vizier were on their own. In addition, this charming stranger had brought a couple of homies, who eventually got jobs as his Guardians (in the top right corner).
Nixon’s first plan was to get a scandalous picture of the newcomer driving a Nazi car with a Ferengi. Sadly, this was foiled when the car was accidentally sent into a mirror universe and replaced with a time-travel pod. It was time to pull out the big guns, and Nixon and the vizier sent out a request for help to the one man that could do the job: Josh Reese. However, Josh was too busy playing in the snow and listening to sound effects records to be of any use. Things were beginning to look bleak: the newcomer had all the appeal of both Ron Weasely and that werewolf Jacob kid from Twilight that I refuse to learn his full name. He was damaging their style, Kyle! With his Latin flavah! And the vizier and Nixon were just plain creepy! In a nutshell, they were running out of time and options. Then the vizier finally got an idea of his own: Give the newcomer toe-fungus! Then his appeal would drop to the level of a suicidal snowman! So Nixon and the vizier got Ken Jennings to drive the Weinermobile up to the palace to distract the newcomer while they infected him. It worked! Within days he had all the appeal of a hardcore Trekkie! So the vizier finally got his room back, and eventually settled down with Nancy Pelosi, while Nixon turned into a ladybug. The newcomer reunited with his estranged father, who had been trapped in subspace, and everyone got some Teriyaki Stix and lived happily ever after.
The end.
The silliest thing I’ve done in a while
So I finally got Wordbuilder installed, which is a program that comes with the EWQL Symphonic Choirs library, where you type in words and play notes, and you get a choir singing it. It took a long time to get working correctly (and there are still are a few bugs), but this ended up being the result. It’s got some weird quirks, in more ways than one, but it’s fun.
Enjoy!
Android Song: In-depth
The Android Song
Those who’ve been around me during the past month or so know that I’ve put a ton of time and effort into making the new Poison Ivy Mysteries show, Death: The Final Frontier, or May the Corpse Be With You, the best possible show it can be. This has included writing three pieces for it, all of which I am extremely proud. I don’t wish to self-aggrandize here, but I do want to show how much effort I’ve put into these songs, and how much one may be able to pull out on more than a cursory hearing. Specifically, let’s take a look at one of the songs I’ve done. “The Android Song” is sung by, well, the android. The whole concept of the piece is to prove how superior androids are to humans, and it does so on a fair number of levels.
The piece works thusly: After a short introduction, the android asks different groups in the audience to perform simple dance moves: conducting, doing the wave, doing a quick country-type dance step, etc., during certain points in the music. When the audience inevitably screws up, the android deadpans how tremendously inferior they are. Robots wouldn’t screw this up, after all! What the audience may not know (or may know at least on some level) is that the deck is stacked against them from the start! There are, of course, the obvious reasons why the audience screws up: they’ve never heard the song before, most of them probably aren’t performers, and the condescending android certainly isn’t boosting their self-esteem. But there are some deeper reasons why some of them just can’t quite pick it up.
First of all, the phrase length is in flux. The first time the four audience sections are heard, sections one and three are only four measures long, while sections two and four are eight. The second time, sections one and three are still four, and section two is still eight, but suddenly, section four is nine measures long. The way the song goes, the change is hard to notice unless one is actively counting, but it is enough to screw up anyone trying to dance to it even if they got the dance down pat the first time. The third and fourth time the sections are heard, they all are four measures long, without warning. Also, the time between the sections is nearly a constant eight measures, but in some cases is twelve, four, or even none. And the last time, all the sections are overlaid on top of each other, making the entire audience have to do their parts at the same time! No wonder the android is so smug; he’s screwed the humans over before they had a decent chance!
The trance-like nature of the piece doesn’t help the audience’s coordination either. Even though there’s a constant beat, the low, warm bass, and pulsating fx make it more difficult to concentrate. Audience members can easily lose track of where the song is going, so when their section suddenly comes up, they’re unprepared, letting Android make another snide comment. Fortunately, the piece is so fairly unfair, the movements so silly, and the android so deadpan, that the audience ends up laughing at itself in a self-deprecating manner (not to mention laughing at their friends who are also screwing up) and it turns into a really fun moment in the show.
On a somewhat-related topic, the piece also contains a fair amount of homages and familiar techniques, some of which may be readily apparent, others less so, and I’d like to point out a bunch of them for my loyal blog audience. First, there are a lot of shout-outs to a piece that directly influenced many techno and trance composers: “In C” by Terry Riley. This was an important piece in the American minimalist movement, which stressed repetition, slow harmonic movement, constant drones or pulses, and consonance. Not only do I borrow these ideas from minimalism to create the morphing sound that permeates this piece, but I borrowed some elements directly from In C, to wit: the “pulse” that appears around 0:38, and the rhythmic sixteenth note patterns in the vibes that start around the one-minute mark (motives 11, 39, 17, 43, and 53, as shown on this score of “In C,” to be specific). The piece even ends in the exact same way as “In C,” with motive 53 repeating until it fades into nonexistence.
Second, each audience part gets its inspiration from radically varying sources. The first one, and probably the most obvious reference, is a nearly direct copy of the famous motive from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor. This is a stealth pun, as the android is trying to make the audience look pathetic, and what better way to do that than play a bit of what is commonly known as Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique? The second audience part actually comes from the first draft of the android song, which in turn was inspired by a piece I found on OCRemix called “But the Future Refused to Change” which is itself a remix of a bunch of tunes from the RPG Chrono Trigger! Quite a convoluted path for a simple eight-bar phrase! The third part just sounds like lasers, ’cause techno songs have lasers and/or sirens in them. And the fourth one seems a bit out of place, as it’s suddenly a country/western fiddle bit in this techno song. However, it came about after I heard the new soundtrack for Starcraft II, which is a blend of sci-fi and Southern (at least the Terran themes are). One day I hope to write stuff that’s as awesome as that. I’m getting there!
In any case, this piece was a lot of work to write, but also a lot of fun, too, so everyone should come see the show to see it in context!
Fifths
I was bored this morning waiting for Nate to come in to where I’m doing my internship, so I made this music up. It turned out all right, so I thought I’d share it. It’s more of an atmospheric thing than a song or anything, but it’s something you can get lost in (or put under some sort of tense, industrial scene in a film).
Enjoy! Try to find a beat! I bet you can’t find a consistent one, even though the tempo never changes!
EDIT: Apparently my host doesn’t want to cooperate at the moment, so the link may not work. Keep trying, and I’ll fix the problem as soon as I can.
Not just a cop-out! Robots!
I know that I kind of dropped off the face of the blogosphere recently, what with my weekly “52 Weeks” project not updating for more than a month now. The reason is that I’ve suddenly become a lot busier, getting an internship working with Nate Drew on various music projects. It’s been a lot of fun, and it’s nice doing what I love on a basically professional level, but it’s been time-consuming as well, so I haven’t had as much time to put into this blog as before.
BUT!
I’m not without music I can present here, so I’ve decided to post something from the upcoming Poison Ivy Mystery show: Death…The Final Frontier! In this sci-fi show, the android sings a song about how he is superior to humans, blah blah blah. I wrote a draft of it using one of Nate’s synth libraries called Atmosphere. Unfortunately, when we upgraded to a newer version of Logic, the Atmosphere library didn’t work anymore, so the completed version of the android song sounds nothing like the first draft. So, I figured I’d post that first draft here for all to enjoy and to whet the appetite for this awesome upcoming show, even though the final draft is radically different.
Obviously it’s not finished since it just kind of ends. For some reason it kind of reminds me of that Funk in D project I did back in the day (albeit with much better sounds). What do you think?
52 Weeks – Week 15 – “Action” Theme
I know I skipped a week, so sometime in the future I’ll do two in one week to make up for it.
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music:
“Action” Theme
I’ve actually already done a post on this piece, but it wasn’t all that in-depth. The first project in my 2008 film scoring class was to write a theme, then develop it into three versions that would be appropriate for scenes in a movie: the “main” theme over the titles, the “action” theme during an action sequence, and either a “love” theme or a “death” theme. This, of course, is the “action” theme. It sounds a bit like a car chase from some sort of ’70′s cop movie (complete with a jump over a raising bridge in the middle in slow motion) which is pretty cool.
This piece was also important in that it was the first time I’ve really been able to pull off an electric guitar without it sounding obviously fake, using just some sounds found in Logic Pro 8. Some members of the class even wondered if I recorded an actual guitar in this thing (which I didn’t). Since then I’ve written a lot more songs in that style (mostly for murder mystery shows), using the principles I first discovered while working on this little ditty, and it truly is one of the first professional-sounding pieces I’ve ever done that I wouldn’t be at least somewhat embarrassed to show to potential clients. Not bad for a 75-second music cue!
Coming up next week: the Battle Music from RR: The Game (a different RR game than before)!
52 Weeks – Week 14 – What’s Going On?
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music, presented in three forms:
“What’s Going On?” from Travels
CD Version
Live Version
MIDI Version
(For those not familiar with Travels, this may help.)
To quote from my Travels memoirs:
Another personal favorite. This one dispenses the washed-out feeling we’ve had since A Dangerous Sign and sinks its teeth right back into the meat of the story. Accompanied by a rock organ instead of a distortion guitar, this one has a much more low-key feel than ‘A Dangerous Sign.’ The beginning of this song is the happiest time for Marco during the entire show, and it’s a bit jarring to hear the beautiful string lines turn minor and sour right before the rock section. The oboe there also adds a bit of emotion. The MIDI file is a rockin’ one, as is the tape, but the CD loses a lot of the heavy bass that I love on this song.”
A funny thing happened when I orchestrated this show. The first five or six songs I really put a lot of effort into and tried to make sound awesome. Then the reality of having thirty-five or so songs left and only two months to do them in became quite apparent and a lot of the rest of the orchestrations didn’t have nearly the time and care put into them. This particular song, “What’s Going On?”, is one of those early pieces. There’s some counterpoint, some nice harmonies, a sax solo that didn’t actually work in real life — good times. The song is the first time we’re finally introduced to the core conflict of the show: Marco Polo’s idealism vs. the realities of the Mongol Empire. Since this is three songs before Act I ends, I’d say that’s a bit of a pacing problem, but once it’s introduced it makes for a compelling drama for the rest of the show, Marco’s whining notwithstanding. This is also the first piece I did where I gave the two main characters a distinctive instrument to represent them musically: an oboe for Mei Hwa, a clarinet for Marco. I used this same motif in a few other pieces, although sadly, by the end of the process I didn’t have the time to make it work throughout the entire show.
This piece is one of the four that actually sounds like a rock opera (not counting reprises, the other three are “Who Is This Stranger?”, “A Dangerous Sign”, and “Who Do You Think You Are?”), albeit a little more low-key than any of the others. Interestingly enough, this song showcases perfectly why I both really enjoy and bash the CD recording: the string part at the beginning is gorgeous, while the rock part doesn’t work at all. I guess that’s what happens when you record in a choir room instead of an actual studio, or at least when you don’t correctly mike the rhythm section, especially the drums. Ah, well, still a fun song.
Coming up next week: the “Action” theme from my film scoring class!
52 Weeks – Week 13 – The Sewer
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music:
The Sewer
The origin of this piece actually requires a bit of backstory. In 1999 I became a part of the online Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers community, with its main seat at the Acorn Cafe. It was a fun place to discuss random things about the TV show and collaborate with fellow Ranger enthusiasts (and it was completely PG-rated). After posting a MIDI file I did of the opening theme song to the show, a few people asked me to do some music for their various RR-related projects. One such project was an RPG starring the Rangers made by a fellow Cafe member named Hermes. It was called “Rescue Rangers The Game: The Future Will Never Be the Same,” and sadly, I don’t remember anything about the plot, or who some of those extra characters are on this poster for it:
The game itself never saw the light of day, but I did write a few short pieces for various locales in the game. Our subject today was one such piece, written for the sewer level. It doesn’t really have much music: it’s more of an ambience track than anything else, but it’s still kind of fun and creepy.
Coming up next week: “What’s Going On?” from Travels!
Best of the Decade!
There seem to be a slew of “end-of-decade” remembrance blog posts cropping up, so I thought I’d do my own. But instead of just doing a general overview of each year, I thought I’d categorize each year. First, a general overview of what I did. Second, the best picture from that year. Third, the best song I wrote that year. Fourth, the best blog post from that year (for years that have blog posts for them). And finally, what I learned from that year. Onwards!
2000
To celebrate New Year’s of the new millenium, Kjersti and I were at the Bawden’s house with Lyndee and Carina Jensen. At midnight, to do something memorable, I threw myself headlong into a snowbank in the front yard! Sadly, the snow was quite old and more ice than snow, so I just kind of bounced off and rolled on the ground.
The decade started off with Travels! For me that means skipping every other day of school to orchestrate music! ~Forty songs in two and a half months! It burned me out! But still, even to this day, it is the largest single work I have done, even when you consider that I didn’t actually write the show, just orchestrate it. Soon after that, I graduated! Yay! 2000 is also when I worked for three days at the Utah Fun Dome, quit because it sucked, then spent the rest of the summer and Fridays in the fall working at some filing system installation place with Chuck Fields as the computer guy. I’d do such grand things as jiggle the mouse when the boss’s screen saver would come on and he’d freak out, thinking he lost his work. Both hilarious and sad! Mostly I just got paid to surf the internet. Then finally, in the fall, I started my first semester at BYU. This was back when the people I went to school with were still my age or older, not like now when everyone on campus (undergrads, anyway) is younger.
Best Picture
From Concert Choir Tour 2000 in Disneyland. I look like I’m ten, for some reason.
Best Piece of Music
Hard to decide, since I’ve got all of Travels to pick from. But I think I will go with the orchestrated version of “Lightning” on this one.
Best Blog Post
Where do I go from here? Still kind of my major concern.
Lessons Learned
Even though I have limits, when pushed, I can accomplish quite a bit more than I previously thought possible. I also need a fairly large recharge time, though. Also, don’t live forty minutes away from your college classes.
2001
The first six months of this year found me living in Deseret Towers at BYU. This was the first time since I was an outcast student in middle school that I had a chance to forge my own identity instead of taking the one that my older siblings gave me, and boy, did I choose a geeky one. Eight-player Starcraft matches nearly every night, an ongoing campaign of Dungeons and Dragons which was incredibly fun (I was the only Good-aligned character to survive the entire campaign, and I was a gnomish bard. That’s not supposed to happen, but it did!), Super Smash Bros. tournaments — man, it was a lot of fun. There were, of course, some angsty moments when I was quite lonely, but since that’s been a factor in pretty every year of my life I’ll just mention it right now to get it out of the way and move on. Sadly, during Spring term I ended up contracting shingles and missing the last third of the term, which sucked. The rest of the year was spent at home, prepping for a mission, doing shows in Midvale with Annelise, and generally being really bored. I got so stir-crazy that, during the last three weeks of the year, I burst forth with crazy creativity and produced the Josh Reese Christmas Carol.
Best Picture
It’s-a Halloween!
Best Piece of Music
II – Endurance. Explanation here.
Best Blog Post
Probably my thoughts on 9/11
Lessons Learned
Shingles sucks. Also, when I make my own friends and live my own life instead of the one I think my family would most want for me, I end up generally happier, if only for the fact that it’s my own choice. You know, it’s better to choose to live in your own trailer than be forced to live in someone else’s mansion. And finally, don’t be an art music composer, unless you have a lot of old money, are somewhat insane, or plan to teach. Or a combination of those.
2002
On January 1st, 2002, I was set apart as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, going to the Barcelona Spain mission. This made it quite easy to track my two years as a missionary, since it really was just two calendar years, straight down the line. After spending about five weeks in the Provo MTC, learning Spanish, listening to the Lord’s anointed, and drinking a lot of orange juice, they shipped us off to the MTC in Madrid. There I learned that I sure didn’t know Spanish, and that Spain, like much of Europe, is full of weird juxtapositions between centuries-old architecture and teenage street punks with tight sweaters and nice shoes.
Into the mission field I went next. Trained in Granollers, a small town north of Barcelona known primarily for its obscurity, and windiness. To Lorca I was then shipped, where I spent six months eating fruit, talking to Ecuadorians, and suffering from dysentery. Lorca was also known for being one of the two most southernmost points in the mission. Considering the amount of time I spent both here and in Cartagena (the other most southern point in the mission), I’m convinced that for some reason both President Bowen and Watson wanted to keep me as far away from the mission home as possible. Finally, on my birthday, I moved to Elche, a land of palm trees and shoes.
Best Picture
In Lorca we lived above a dollar store (or a Euro store, I guess, although then it was a 100 peseta store) called “Zarahemla.” This was obviously owned by a member (the elders’ quorum president, in fact).
Best Piece of Music
I didn’t write any music during this time. although I did make a wacky tape with Elder Linford when I was sick for a month. Probably the best of that was “After Dark,” which was the name of one of the demo songs on the keyboard they used for church in the Orihuela branch.
Best Blog Post
I was on a mission; I didn’t have a blog.
Lessons Learned
Where to start? Besides the wonderful spiritual lessons I learned, which were many and awesome, I learned that, although countries are different, cultures are different, and people have different customs, under it all people are people no matter where you go, and we have way more in common than we have differences.
2003
Still on my mission. The year started still in Elche, still a land of palm trees and not much success, although my companion and I were featured in a short film entitled “Lies.” Don’t worry: the lies weren’t about the gospel or anything, it was us saying “We don’t want to take much of your time!” Then it was off to Palma, which, speaking from an objective viewpoint about the area, was the best area of my mission. It was on the island of Mallorca (or Majorca for you English speakers), off the coast in the Mediterranean sea, and it was absolutely beautiful. This also meant we just ran into a lot of tourists (especially the area my companion and I covered, which was the old part of town with all the cathedrals and forts and touristy stuff) and the work progressed slowly. Still, what a wonderful place. If I had enough money, I would totally go there for my honeymoon. This is also the period of time in which my father passed away, but being so far away from it all and still having to continue the work, coupled with a lot of ambivalence over my dad’s and my relationship, made that event far less traumatic than maybe it would’ve been.
I then got moved to Cartagena in May, where I would spend almost the rest of my mission. Even though it came fairly late in my mission, Cartagena was probably the defining moment of my mission, and speaking from a subjective viewpoint, my absolute favorite area. This was mainly because I grew quite close to the people we worked with, specifically the Sanchez and Nadal families. If I were to go back to Spain just to visit people, I would spend most of my time here.
The year ended in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, a suburb of Barcelona and the first time since Granollers that I was anywhere near Barcelona itself. I celebrated New Year’s by eating 12 grapes at midnight, which is the tradition over there.
Best Picture
This doesn’t do justice to the beauty of Palma, but it’s one of the best pics I have (I didn’t take a lot of pictures on my mission, as it was in the age before ubiquitous digital cameras). One day I’ll convince Nate Winder to go there, and then you can see a lot of wonderful pictures.
Best Piece of Music
Once again, being on my mission, I didn’t write any music. So instead I’ll give you a piece of music that some other missionaries made up about the mission that year, full of inside references.
Best Blog Post
No blog this year either!
Lessons Learned
Oh, heavens! This was when my testimony of the gospel solidified. Whenever I have doubts, I think about Cartagena and the miracles I saw there (which were nothing flashy, just mostly changes of heart), and I know that the gospel is true. Also, Alfonso Sanchez once told me, as we were in a hospital emergency room waiting for doctors to treat one of our investigators, that I had a certain capacity to love people that he had rarely seen in missionaries, which is one of the kindest things I have ever had said to me, and one of the reasons I love Cartagena and its people so much. After pondering out what exactly it means to me, I think it means that, instead of loving a lot of people broadly, I love a few people very, very deeply.
2004
This year started off with a triumphant return home from Spain, and an immediate dive into BYU-Idaho. I chose to go here mainly because Ben and Kjersti were already there, which really turned out to be both a really good decision and a really bad one, as will be explored in the “Lesson Learned” section. I started being the piano man for the improv troupe “Comic Frenzy,” which was a lot of fun, and then worked on the running crew as a “tree-pusher” for Into the Woods, a position which was portrayed in a documentary.
During the summer I moved back to Riverton. Most of the summer was spent spinning my wheels, but I did spend a lot of time with Nick Greer, of all people, working on the Pimp Lando DVD as well as a DVD of stuff I’d done in high school. He was very generous and supportive, letting me use his equipment and so on with no expectation of recompense. Good guy, that Nick.
In the fall it was back to BYU-I, where a lot of time was spent getting ready for Fiddler on the Roof, which was performed in 2005. I played the Russian constable who drives everyone out of town. Also, I did sound for nearly every other show done that semester (well, OK, just one show: Over the River), but it was fun!
Best Picture
Striking the set of Into the Woods. I am a sweaty, sweaty man.
Best Piece of Music
I didn’t really write much music while at BYU-I, since I was living the theatre life that Ben and Kjersti were living. So I’ll pick this song from Pimp Lando 7: Don’t Cry For Me, Pennsylvania, sung by a vampire.
Best Blog Post
I’ve only got one entry from 2004, so I guess I’ll pick it.
Lessons Learned
While being a younger brother to Kjersti automatically earns a person a bit of prestige no matter what (since if there’s one thing Kjersti knows, it’s how to promote people), life in Rexburg felt like a regression from the lessons I learned in 2001. BYU-Idaho was certainly someone else’s mansion: I was somewhat well-known, at least among the drama crowd, and I got a lot of good experiences out of it, especially on the tech theater end. But it all felt like a sham, especially since none of the people that Ben and Kjersti were friends with felt like my good friends too (with the possible exception of JD Taylor, but that’s mostly because JD is pure awesomeness in a can). As a result, I wasn’t very happy, much to the befuddlement of Ben and Kjersti (well, OK, mostly Kjersti). I guess the main thing I learned this year was just a reinforcement of what I learned in 2001: I need to live my own life!
2005
Still at BYU-Idaho, I performed in Fiddler on the Roof and also did sound for Our Town. It was also at this point where I got within a hairsbreadth of having my first girlfriend, but that’s a complicated subject that I’m still not willing to discuss on an open blog. It was also at this point where I knew that I needed to get out of the shadow of my brother and sister and become my own person, so at the end of winter semester I left Rexburg for good. I decided to go back to BYU and apply for the Media Music program, but in the interim period I got a job with my brother-in-law Mickey Murphy working for Title One, a title insurance company. I was once again living at home with my parents in Riverton, but since I was working full-time instead of just waiting for my mission it was much more bearable than it was in 2001. In the fall of 2005 I took a few token classes at BYU, but mainly I was just working and saving up money to be able to survive in Provo until I was eligible for pell grants.
This was also when I attended the singles’ ward in Riverton, which at the time encompassed most of Riverton and Bluffdale and all of Herriman, so it was basically the entire southwest corner of the Salt Lake Valley. This also marks the first time I actually pursued one of my famed one-sided crushes when I dated Holly Fuellenbach, but it didn’t end well, as she wasn’t really interested. Oh, well. I have not purchased flowers for anyone since then.
Best Picture
Part of a photo scavenger hunt I did with Casey and Holly and some other people from the singles’ ward. What kind of name is Vanderkooi?
Best Piece of Music
This is when I wrote what is arguably my most famous song: Mr. Jones, Where Are You?
Best Blog Post
This is the year I actually started this blog (as opposed to just entries in my journal), so there’s more to pick from. Probably most important for me was the story of Kim Isom.
Lessons Learned
When I played the Russian constable in Fiddler, I tried to play him as a sympathetic character, hoping to get some depth out of an otherwise one-note personality. I hope I succeeded, but this is also when I learned that I’m actually not that good of an actor. Oh, sure, I can be pretty funny sometimes, but that doesn’t really mean I can act. That’s why I haven’t really been in any shows since 2005. I instead turned my focus to music instead of drama, and I’ve found I like it more, although I still enjoy doing the odd improv show here and there.
Also this year I learned of the glory of financial independence, something I haven’t much tasted since. Cooooolleeeeeege!!! *shakes fist*
2006
The first eight months of 2006 found me doing a job that I adored: pulling old house deeds from various county courthouses in Northern Utah. I liked this for a few reasons: 1)a lot of my coworkers back at the office were pregnant and kind of um, witchy, 2) I love driving in the mountains, especially if I’m getting paid for it, and 3) I didn’t have to deal with customers. Sadly, the position doesn’t exist anymore, due to counties getting their records online, or I would go back in a heartbeat. Oh, well. I also got involved again with Hunt Murder Mysteries, doing sound for them. Although working with the Hunts themselves is an, um, interesting experience, I had a good time doing some of the shows, especially More Mystery on the Moors. I convinced Casey to try out for that show, and not only did he make it, but went on to do a lot more work for the Hunts and even met his future wife! How about that!
In early 2006 I was accepted into the Media Music program at BYU and made preparations to move back to Provo in the fall. I had also secured my friend Steve Porter a job at Title One, so we made plans to live together. He had already graduated, but needed to get married before he could continue doing what he was trained for and wanted to do: teach seminary. So in the fall we moved to Bountiful Court, an apartment complex in which we stayed together for nearly three years, where Steve even met his future wife! How about that!
It was also at the BC that I realized that I was now older than the average college student (turning 24 that November), a feeling that’s just gotten worse. Oh, well. The car I’d been driving since I knew how to drive finally died, so I got my grandma’s old car, which I’m still driving today.
Best Picture
I apparently didn’t really take many pictures in 2006. So here’s me dressed as some sort of professor in my bathroom hallway.
Best Piece of Music
Although I did write Phrustration this year, I didn’t actually turn it into its awesome version until ’08, so for this year I’m going to have to go with Magic Trick for a Vase.
Best Blog Post
I think the Marc Chagall post sums up a lot about me, although the Distant Stars post is a close second.
Lessons Learned
Staying at home working is fun, for a time, but there comes a moment when a person has got to get out of his comfortable rut and work on his dreams. That’s what going back to college was for me. I think I finally learned how to better get along with Kjersti this year. She moved home to do her student teaching, and so this was the first time she entered into a social environment where I’d already established myself (the singles’ ward) and not the other way around, so I didn’t have that feeling of “they just think I’m cool because Kjersti talks me up, but wouldn’t give me the time of day otherwise” that I did at BYU-I. Also, college sucks the money right out of your wallet.
2007
2007 set the pattern for the next two years. In January I got my job at BYU Vending, where I’ve spent nearly every weekday afternoon since. I was still plugging along in school, but getting fairly burnt out, and not doing as well as I should have been. The bright spot in this was my involvement in the BYU Men’s Chorus, which was a lot of fun and also meaningful and if I had the time and health I’d do it again. This was also the first summer (besides my mission) that I didn’t spend at home in Riverton, electing instead to continue my job in Provo. I also took a trip to Vegas with Billy and Casey, which was a ton of fun, and a trip to Walt Disney World with Kjersti and Ben, which oddly enough, wasn’t nearly as fun, but more on that later.
Living at the BC was fun, and Steve made a lot of friends.
2007 is also when I started to feel confident about my professional music-making abilities, and my music output greatly increased, getting close to high school years (well, not counting Travels) in terms of pieces produced. Also, this is the year that our improv troupe, Absoludicrous, really started taking off, even facing off against some sort of Happy Pirates in December.
Also, Billy got married.
Best Picture
This was taken during the Vegas trip. I don’t think I need to say why it’s the best picture of the year.
Best Piece of Music
The piece I’m most proud of is “Can You Find It?”, but since that’s just a clone of a They Might Be Giants song, I guess I’ll go with “Never Had a Girl.” Oddly enough, the song mentions that I was 25, and it was the week before I turned 26 that I finally got a girlfriend. Eerie!
Best Blog Post
A lot of good ones to choose from, but I’m going to have to go with The Meaning of Tarantella, which was my own personal interpretation of a song we sang in Men’s Chorus that year. A close second would be The Visitor, where I finally figure out how I felt about my father and some other issues that I’d been having. (Odd that all these “close seconds” seem to revolve around DS9.)
Lessons Learned
Going on trips with Kjersti and Ben aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, especially with the previous issues I’ve outlined regarding those two. I think it would be funner if I went with a different group. Well, OK, it still would be fun to hang out with Ben, too, but not to be tied to hanging out with him. By the way, I think the moment that crystallized the way that I feel about hanging out with Kjersti’s friends occurred on this trip. It was Saturday night, and I had been horrendously sunburned at the beach earlier that day. I was in a lot of pain. Kjersti and Ben had to run inside to some store for about half an hour, leaving me in the car with Amy Harper, Kjersti’s best friend. Who completely ignored me. The whole time. Except once when she asked if I was OK because I was making painful noises, and I said, “No,” and she didn’t say another word.
Please let me make my own friends. Your friends are your friends. I don’t make you hang out with those D&D geeks I was friends with in 2001, so don’t bring me across the country so I can spend time with people who pretend I don’t exist. Thank you.
Moving on, I also learned that the Lord calls who He sees fit to be the elders’ quorum president, even if said person is a quirky redhead who certainly didn’t fit the stereotype.
2008
More of the same. School, vending, yadda yadda. But hey, Ben got married in May, which was pretty neat! I also put on my Junior Recital in April, which is the performance I am most proud of. It was a ton of fun to do, everybody there enjoyed themselves, and Casey damaged some school property by smashing glass against a desk! What’s not to like?
I also became fairly good friends with Amanda Knight that summer, then promptly destroyed that friendship by trying to take it a step beyond. D’oh! However, later that year, I finally did have success when I started dating Suzie! That lasted a month! But it was certainly a whirlwind of a month!
Also, Casey got married.
Best Picture
A whole slew of redheads. We’re not going extinct!
Best Piece of Music
A ton of really good ones to pick from here, due to my junior recital happening this year. Since I already mentioned Phrustration, I guess I’ll go with a tie between Junior Recital and Backseat Driver.
Best Blog Post
This is when my blog transitioned from “personal posts about my life” to “random stuff that I want to post” due to it gaining more readership. Still, there are a few gems in there, so I think I’ll go with “Embrace the Impossible,” although probably more people would be interested in my tryout for American Idol.
Lessons Learned
Given the opportunity, I can put on a damn fine show. It’s getting the opportunities that is not my strong suit, or even my weak suit. It’s just not really a suit I hold. Also, I can have successful relationships! Successful in the fact that they happen at all, not that they continue for any long period of time. Also, the physical parts of relationships suck without a good social/emotional/personal foundation. Hey, my church leaders were right this whole time! Who knew?
2009
Still more of the same, although the ending was now in sight. Still going to school, still working at vending, still not able to get out of the cycle! I did date Sarah in February, but it was a wash, since she found out that she didn’t really like me as more than a friend. For some reason we tried it again in May, but surprise, surprise, it still didn’t work! There was no chemistry whatsoever! Which means I still haven’t been able to hold on to a girl for more than a month!
2009 was also the year that Poison Ivy Mysteries, Annelise’s murder mystery company, started up, and I spent a lot of my free time writing songs and doing sound for her. This is, of course, still going on. In fact, today I wrote part of a disco for the new show opening in January!
Having lived in the BC for three years now, I decided it was time for a change, since all the people moving in were fresh out of high school. So I took my good friend Johnathan’s advice and moved into Alta Apartments, where I’m still living today. Turns out there are a lot of 18-year-olds here too, but there is also a higher percentage of older people. I kind of gave up on the social scene in the fall, but this winter I’m determined to make up for that!
Also, Steve got married.
Best Picture
Yes, I did grow a mustache. No, you didn’t see this.
Best Piece of Music
Besides the year of Travels, I have produced more music this year than any other in my life. Therefore, there are a lot of good ones to choose from. I’ll have to go with my top three, for very different reasons: Miss Me, Testin’ the Mic, and Misfile, which is what I finally decided to name that Factor X song, although I still haven’t come up with lyrics.
Best Blog Post
Slim pickings, actually, since I didn’t write a whole ton of stuff, posting instead some random stuff that I thought was cool (including the 52 Weeks posts). So I guess I’ll go with “Why do people listen to the music they listen to?”
Lessons Learned
There needs to be some physical chemistry as well as a good emotional/social/personal foundation in order for a relationship to work. Hey, all those pop songs were right this whole time! Who knew?
It’s also become increasingly clear that it’s time for a change. I have lived in the collegiate environment, more or less, for this entire decade! That’s a long time to be stuck in one phase in life, especially without a family of my own. I don’t know what’s waiting around the corner. My goals in life have changed more times than I can count (other than “get married and have a family,” of course) and it’s crunch time. So I guess the lesson I learned is that I need to learn some sort of lesson about this, and quickly.
———
Well, that’s it for this decade. Ups and downs, lefts and rights. I think the main theme of the decade is figuring out my identity, and while that’s not entirely solved, I think some good progress has been made. What wonders does the next decade hold? Hopefully all the things I hoped for this decade but didn’t quite achieve (marriage, graduation, etc.). I guess we’ll find out.
Onward!
52 Weeks – Week 12 – Bens! (And a new child, and 8-Bit Mars!)
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
(For this week, instead of picking an image from flickr, I uploaded this one of Ben’s yet-unnamed firstborn child, who was born yesterday. I figured, since the piece is called “Bens!” it would be appropriate.)
Today’s piece of music:
Bens!
This isn’t really a song. It’s barely anything coherent. I guess it would be best to describe it as more of an experiment than anything else. Sometime in 1997, when SaXon Geat was still in its formative stages, Ben wrote a bassline and some ear-splitting guitar chords that lasted all of fifteen seconds, then later I added a melody. Then I added a bass solo. Then I added another sort of B section. Then I repeated the first part, slower and shifted down a whole step. It was basically just a meandering thing that never really ended, so it has no form whatsoever, but it still has some interesting parts.
You may note that the MP3 featured here sounds like Nintendo music. That’s because recently I’ve been having some fun with making chiptunes out of old MIDI files, such as “Lightning,” or, even better, Gustav Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War.” I did it with “Bens!” because the sound quality of the original MIDI was so horrifyingly bad that to listen to it one’s ears might bleed. (If you want to subject yourself to it, you can certainly do so. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Because I did.)
Coming up next week: “The Sewer!”
52 Weeks – Week 11 – Endurance
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music: Mvmt. 2 of “Mixed Quintet? You Bet!” entitled
Endurance
This was the second part of the strangely-titled “Mixed Quintet? You Bet!” project from my freshman BYU year. The object of this particular part was to create something humorous, so I came up with this weird poem:
There once was a man from Nantucket
Who could hold his breath for over thirteen minutes
Here now is his story.
This man had a brother, who, try as he might
Could not hold his breath as long
So instead he decided to give up that racket
And now he’s written this song:
The older one went to the younger one day
And saw that something was wrong
He asked “Little brother, what’s the matter with you?”
And in return he heard this song:
The older one laughed and smiled and laughed as he said,
“Young one, there’s no need to fear!
For you are a cello player, you see,
And can play a note for a year!”
The younger one thought he’d try it out,
And so one note did he play
He played it year in and he played it year out
And he’s playing it still to this day!
The conceits were: the older one (the baritone player) actually couldn’t hold his breath very long, which is why he suddenly stops playing and starts wheezing near the beginning. Everyone else stops and waits for him to catch his breath, then they begin again! Hilarious! Then, when the younger one’s plight is heard in “this song,” the main theme of the work is played at varying dissonances: first a tritone, then a minor second. So sad! Finally, on the line “one note did he play” the cellist plays a note and holds it for the rest of the piece! The note is even still being held when movement 3 starts (which I may get to someday as part of this whole thing)! Ha ha!
Anyway, this was a fun piece to do. We weren’t allowed to talk to the performers about the piece, so I have no idea what was going through their heads, but it must have been a bit disconcerting, as the violin enters early after the second stanza, which is why you hear some guy loudly singing the actual entrance. That was our illustrious teacher, Mr. Murray Boren, who conducted all these pieces. I got some fun compliments on the tune from the other students in the class. Apparently they thought I’d be a good kids’ songwriter. You know, for kids! That’s as well as maybe, and who knows? Maybe I’ll end up going that way some day.
Coming up next week: “Bens!” Obviously a collaboration!
Why taking Jazz History is kick-a** during finals week
So it’s finals week. You make it to the BYU testing center, nervous but eager to get your test over with. But your last final isn’t on chemistry or advanced calculus or business or even English. No, you’ve taken jazz history this past semester, and it’s time to take the final listening ID test. You grab your bubble sheet and question booklet as the testing center worker also hands you an MP3 player. As you enter the testing room, tension fills the air. Hundreds of students around you are taking tests, scratching their heads in a desperate last-minute plea to pull off whatever grade they’re shooting for.
You take a seat. To your right is a girl trying to define some sort of chemical bond structure. To your left, a guy sweating and desperately punching numbers into a calculator to solve some sort of physics question. Ahead of you, a small freshman apparently trying to remember exactly which state nullified the tariff of 1833. These are not happy faces. These are faces of determination, desperation, concentration. Complex problems need to be solved; complex formulas need to be applied; obscure facts need to be remembered. Some of this strikes you as you take your seat, hoping beyond hope that you’ll be able to do as well these uber-serious fellow students of yours.
As you plug in your headphones you take special notice of the silence that permeates the air. Aside from pencil scratchings, calculator-button-pushing, and an occasional cough, the room is dead silent. Some of these students have already been here for an hour or more, some of them will still be here for another two hours. Sweating, writing, praying, all in dead silence.
But then your switch on the MP3 player.
BOOM, BABY!
Suddenly filled with energy, you note that the entire testing center atmosphere seems to have lost all of its anxiety. The test isn’t just surmountable, it’s now AWESOME!
What is the name of this piece? “Time Check!” BOOM!
Who was the bandleader? Buddy Rich! BOO-YAH!
When was this piece recorded? 1973, y’all!
The guy on your left is still frantically pushing buttons. A student takes a seat behind you, fully prepared to spend the next three hours writing a long-involved essay about human rights in South Africa. Meanwhile, you turn to the next example in your test!
When was this piece recorded? 1977! Aw, yeah!
What important jazz genre does it exemplify? It’s fusion, b**tches! (justified by the album that launched the fusion movement)
Who wrote it? Joe Zawinul! He was Austrian, but that’s not part of the question! DIG IT!
The next few examples fly by as you get more into it! John Coltrane! Chick Corea! Ornette Coleman! Modal improvisation! Postbop pentatonic solo techniques! And, of course, MILES DAVIS?!? Each answer seems to flow right out of you, doing these pieces justice. You’re excited! You’re pumped! You’re going to pass this test, and you’re gonna do it in style!
Finally, the last example plays, you answer the last question, and you turn the MP3 player off. The girl on your right is still drawing molecular bond diagrams, the student behind you has barely started the first paragraph of an essay, and the guy on your left is still working that calculator. Each of them are furiously working, filled with anxiety and stress. They have to solve complex, impersonal problems while in the hated testing center. But you got to listen to Buddy Rich!
Suck on that, business majors!
52 Weeks – Week 10 – Prologue/Overture
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music, presented in three forms:
“Prologue/Overture” from Travels
CD Version
Live Version
MIDI Version
(For those not familiar with Travels, this may help.)
To quote from my Travels memoirs: “This was the first attempt at orchestration for the show. It was started mid-December of 1999 at Nate’s house when we were still trying to figure out how to work the whole process. This was even before it was decided that I do the orchestrations. It was mostly finished in December but touch-ups and other work were applied later before I printed it.”
And also from the overview in that same document: “When I first really started helping Nate in December of 1999 during my senior year of high school it was because I knew a lot more about Finale than he did. It had been decided for a while that I was to direct the pit orchestra, but the decision of who was doing the orchestrations wasn’t made until near the end of December. We had finally finished the first piano reduction for 1. Prologue/Overture at Nate’s house when I started playing with the orchestra parts to it. I asked Nate if I could also orchestrate the rest of the show, and he said something like, ‘Sure, whatever.’ Little did I know what I was getting myself into.”
Ah, the beginning of Travels. As was noted above, this piece I orchestrated at Nate’s house while he was still trying to figure out Finale. I’m not even sure that we had a firm instrumentation down at that point (for example, I wrote a guitar part for it before it became clear that we weren’t going to end up having a guitar player for the show).
Being the prologue, this piece was special for a number of reasons: it laid out the basic tenets of the plot, those being that the entire show was a flashback of Marco’s travels, that something horrible happened to Marco personally that he didn’t want recorded, and that now he’s been put in jail somewhere with a writer named Rustichello who’s writing everything down. Also this is one of only three pieces that has spoken dialogue in the entire show. In fact, according to Nate, all the spoken dialogue in the prologue comes directly from the actual book of Marco Polo’s travels itself. There’s not much to say about the music itself. It’s given a sort of regal, even martial feel with the staccato horns, snare drum, and steady beat, with a B section taken from a later piece in the show (“12. In These Mountain Tops”).
The overture is just a paraphrase of the main theme of the show (“6. Travels”) with a harp arpeggio at the end seguing into the second piece (“2. Day After Day”). This theme plays at various time skips or commencements during the show: here, when the show flashes back; during song #6, when Marco actually begins his travels; at the end of the first act, when Marco decides to change things (and we move to several months later when act 2 starts); at the end of the escape song before we return to the “present” Marco in jail, and finally to close out the entire show. That’s a lot of ground to cover for one theme. I’ll speak more about it if/when I talk about the song “Travels” itself.
Also one random note: this song let my brother Ben answer a Final Jeopardy! answer about a famous explorer who dictated his story to a prisoner in 1298. Ben was just playing along at home, but still, it was pretty neat.
Coming up next week: Mvmt. 2 of “Mixed Quintet? You Bet!” entitled “Endurance”!
52 Weeks – Week 9 – New
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music is:
New
As I’ve mentioned before, I wrote a lot of songs for SaXon Geat. During high school it was the instrumentation I used for virtually every song I wrote before Travels. This particular one, while not one we ever performed , rehearsed, or even gave an official name to, is still one of my favorites. I’m not quite sure why, but I think it has a bit of that “factor X,” which I believe is related to the major 7th chord in the first measure of the main theme. In any case, it feels like it’s got a bit more feeling behind it than some of the other stuff I wrote around the same time.
At first I wrote up to 1:12, and then let it sit for a while. When I came back to it I ended stealing the melody of the bridge from the ending credits theme to Chrono Trigger: “To Far Away Times,” which is still one of the most sublime pieces of music I’ve ever heard, despite its SNES 16-bit sound-chip origin. Then I closed it up repeating the main theme.
I remember playing this for Nate back in the day, and he liked it so much he ended up incorporating the short line played at 0:54 into Travels, during the song “No Better Timing.” Oddly enough, “No Better Timing” was the one song I never even tried to orchestrate (well, besides “The Parade,” but Nate never even wrote that one down), but even so I suppose I had a little influence on it, which means I had a hand in every single song in that show, except “The Parade.” Just thought I’d throw that out there.
Coming up next week: the “Prologue/Overture” to Travels!
52 Weeks – Week 8 – Dun dun dun!
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music is:
Dun dun dun!
A funny thing happened after high school. During most of my high school career I had written for two basic formats: SaXon Geat, and Travels. Consequently, I had a good amount of experience writing for both a pit orchestra and a ska band minus guitar (yeah, yeah, I know). Now, all of the SaXon Geat stuff I’d done hadn’t been under a deadline or under any pressure or even really for a client (since none of my songs actually got performed by the band anyway). However, both Travels and the stuff I wrote for assignments during my first year of college were obviously under more constraints, both in terms of creativity and time. So somehow, whenever I wrote anything that wasn’t for a specific purpose (to blow off steam, to explore musical ideas, etc.) I defaulted to writing another SaXon Geat-type song, i.e. writing for a rhythm section (bass, drums, keyboard), and a brass section (trumpet, trombone, tenor and alto sax), even though the band itself had long since been disbanded.
“Dun dun dun!” was one such piece. It never really had an official title, and was just something I wrote for no particular reason during the summer of 2001. While not a particularly inspired piece, it still possessed a fair amount of energy driving it, even in this early MIDI incarnation. The bass was a better sample than usual, it had a synth lead, and some strings were used for a pad (which is something I actually do a lot, I’ve noticed; even in my most recent work.) The sounds had a certain fluidity that built upon each other and created a smooth, driving, groove experience. All except the brass sounds. Since I still always wrote a part for the brass, we’ve got one here, accenting the off-beats of beats three and four. However, since the brass sounds I had at the time were atrocious, they seem to interrupt the flow the music is trying to create rather than add to it. The result is a potentially awesome sound ruined by this “eeh-eeh” every measure. Hopefully, I learned my lesson. If memory serves, this was the very last piece I wrote with that instrumentation thrown in there as a throwback to SaXon Geat days. All the songs I’ve written since then that have a brass section have had one because I wanted that type of sound in the piece, not simply because they were there by default, and I think it’s improved my compositional techniques.
The piece is still fun to listen to, despite the horrible brass sounds (and the fact that it’s basically just a 50-second loop).
Coming up next week: “New,” yet another untitled SaXon Geat-esque work!
52 Weeks – Week 7 – Phrustration
Explanation of the 52 Weeks Project
Today’s piece of music is:
Phrustration!
Of all the more “serious” pieces I’ve written, this is definitely one of my top three or so. “Phrustration” was originally written for my final project in a music theory class, proving that I could write a modal piece: in this case, the Phrygian mode. It was just a piano piece, with a person saying, “Frustration!” every so often and screaming and breaking glass near the end. Phrygian mode + Frustration = Phrustration! I originally planned to do it with Casey coming in and breaking a bottle, but he bailed on me literally in the last minute, causing me to grab some random girl from the class to do it instead (with no bottle break), which didn’t work nearly as well, but whatever; I passed the class.
A year and a half or so later, I brought this piece back and orchestrated it to present at my junior recital. It was the first real project I worked on using Logic Pro, the program I’ve used nearly exclusively since then. For the recital I once again brought Casey back (this time he showed up, too!), and we worked out a whole routine where he was sitting at home trying to do homework or something, but increasingly frustrating things started happening: he broke his pencil, he spilled his drink all over his homework, he couldn’t find anything to watch on TV, he got his foot stuck in the wastebasket, he asked a girl out on the phone only to find out she got married, etc. etc. Near the end he was supposed to smash a picture frame against the desk and scream. Now, I had dubbed in the glass breaking sound on the track and taken out the glass from the frame to make sure Casey didn’t injure anything in the auditorium. However, he replaced the glass before the number and actually smashed it against the desk sending glass flying everywhere. Now, keep in mind that this was in the Maeser building on BYU campus, and the first row of audience members is maybe three feet away. Luckily nobody was hurt, but it kind of brought everyone out of the moment when suddenly they have to fear for their safety. And for the rest of the night Casey was trying to clean it up while I continued with the recital. So, in short, both times I’ve performed this in front of an audience it really has been frustrating.
In any case, I love the Phrygian mode. It’s extremely dark, the second darkest of all the church modes, but it’s not so dark as to lose a sense of finality, as the darkest mode, the Locrian, does. The Locrian mode may imply a sense of loss, spiraling into madness and uncertainty, a despair so deep that it is not understandable. The Phrygian, in contrast, portrays the same level of despair, but without any of the madness. It is a final hopeless loss, one that can be understood but from which there is no escape. The lowered second (which is the difference between the Phrygian mode and the plain ol’ minor key)is what really drives the despair home. In a minor key there can be victory: a villainous victory, but a victory nonetheless. But in the Phrygian mode there can be no victory, not for the protagonist anyway. The opposing forces have overcome him, and he is aware of it all, but unable to surmount any of it. In a way that makes this piece and the one I just wrote last week sort of companion pieces if you will. In this one he is driven to the depths, but in the other he finds redemption and can soar once again.
It was also with this piece that I learned a lot of tricks I hadn’t quite been able to master to make my pieces sound more realistic, especially with the cymbal rolls, orchestral swells, glockenspiel, and harp glissandos. I’m still working on the brass, but I think the rest of it sounds real enough that people don’t automatically say, “That sounds like a video game!”
Interestingly enough, this piece was featured on my last 52 weeks project as well (the one that only lasted four weeks).
Coming up next week: “Dun dun dun!” (And no, that’s not just a dramatic introduction of next week’s piece; it’s the actual name.)
Into the ether
All right, I’m sick of this. I’ve been doing these “52 weeks” posts for, what, seven weeks now, and not a single comment. Not. One. I already know these songs, people! I’m not doing this for myself! I want to get feedback! But since nobody’s said a word, I’m going to assume that either 1) people have stopped reading this blog, and it’s like the old Angelfire days again, where I can post personal things without fear of repercussion, or 2) nobody besides myself actually cares about my music. And I don’t mean in the “I care about you, Jeff, so I care about the things that you do” way, but in the “I am actively involved in the consumption of the product you produce” way. You see the difference? One shows a love (or obligation) toward the person, one shows an acceptance of the music itself. And only the second one will help me believe that I can make a living doing this. Since I’ve gotten no feedback, though, I guess I can’t. Because nobody cares about it. Let me reiterate: I’m not saying nobody cares about me, but that nobody cares about my music. At least not enough to add one little comment in nearly two months’ worth of posts on the subject, which, let’s face it, takes a minimal amount of effort.
This especially hurt with the piece I posted last Tuesday. I may not have entirely conveyed it, but that piece was my favorite I’ve done all year, and a true expression of the essence of what I’m trying to convey to the world through my music. Well, if the world doesn’t give a damn about the song that best expresses who I am, what does that say about me? If the song that means the most to me doesn’t even arouse a single person to make the smallest of comments, even when I post it on my Facebook page too, then what the hell am I doing here? Obviously I’m incapable of touching the chords of other people’s hearts, no matter how hard I try. And that’s the reason I got into music in the first place. And that just reiterates a point I’ve tried to make several times, with varying amounts of success: that I’m a different breed of person, and so hard to understand sometimes that most people have just given up trying, which is a major factor why I’m 27 and still single and haven’t been able to hold onto a girlfriend for more than a month.
Now, I fully expect to get a few, “No, it’s OK, Jeff, I still think you’re awesome” comments on this post. If I’m lucky a few of you may go back to those earlier posts and comment “Sounds good!” But I don’t need anyone’s pity. I don’t need this to be like when I was in elementary school with no friends and one day I burst into tears in front of the whole class and during the next recess a few people thought it was their duty to be nice to me, a duty which, once fulfilled for a recess, left me in the same place: friendless. If you’re not going to be sincere, I don’t need it. All the “You’re a good guy” comments would seem hollow. Actions speak louder than words. But if you are going to be sincere; if you are willing to take the time to listen to what I’ve got to say through what I write, and most importantly, stick with it because you like the music (or alternatively, you don’t like it and are willing to tell me why, which would be even more important), then I’ll keep making those posts. Otherwise I’m done posting music here. This blog will just become somewhere that I post funny Youtube videos once every six months or so. But that’s OK; it won’t be a big loss. One can’t disappoint an audience that doesn’t exist. (And hey, if the reason I’ve got no comments is actually that nobody’s reading this blog anymore anyway, then nobody will read this rant and nobody will feel guilty! It’s a win-win!)
Look Who's Talking!