So the day after previous post I got vote results and came in 20 out of 22. I didn't expect to do well as I said but it was still surprisingly bad. Depressed me in that I think it was better than that. Wife and nephew (who has written a ton of music) agreed. Most entries were very EDM and it seemed like they showed that they're narrow minded. But, anyway, possibly it influenced me to spend money. Maybe not. Hard to say. Anyway I bought Komplete 12 which includes Massive X and a ton of other good stuff about ten days ago. I then redid my OSC 134 entry with Massive X,
I slept as never before.
And I edited up what I had called "Reasonable" but changed to Roller Rink. It's improved. Though still a tad bombastic and repetitive at the end.
And then I wrote two more. Rucker Park which was supposed to be EDM. Didn't work out that way but every time I hear I think it's actually really pretty good. And Quiet Peace Enfolding. I love the smooth flute sound in it from Massive X. It's in 12/8. I was hoping to write 3 songs a month. 36 songs in a year is really pretty good. (If they're any good.) I'm very easily going faster than that, though the quality still needs to get a bit better. I do feel like these recent ones are my best ever. Now I'm having some success with a trancelike song. Trying to be influenced by Paul Oakenfold.
Want to write borderline ambient stuff in weird time signature and also trance/EDM type stuff. Have recently written a 7/4 (I slept as never before), 5/4 (Roller Rink) and 12/8 (Quiet Peace Enfolding). They're all really decent I think...?? That's my one genre. Stuff that soothes. Not really ambient. But on the slow side. And I think I'm going to get the hang of trance/EDM it looks like. Stuff that gives energy. But that will surely be slower. I need to have patience with it and not get bored of songs and move on too quickly.
Thursday, April 16, 2020
I for one am enjoying the pandemic. So far.
Thinking back on the previous 6 songs I posted. Neptunus, Real Life Caricatures, Stray Monsters, Cooperative Time Travel, Twilight Race and Flying Sebastians. Neptunus is really damn good. Vote results are today. It may not do that great in the voting as that competition is about complexity and making tons of good instances from a free vst. I didn't really have that many unique instances. But I created a hell of an atmosphere. And now I have found that for high pitched smooth (non-piercing) strings, what I made in cheeze machine 2 sounds better than bazille (130$), Hive2 (150$) and Minimonsta (1?0$) at least. So I have saved it as a template and added it to one more or less completed songs and am now using it on another.
Real Life Caricatures is pretty good though I suppose kind of dark. Not what most like. Cooperative Time Travel is ok. The others not quite as good. There is something missing but I can't easily put my finger on it. And I need to be able to determine what. I guess Stray Monster might be the weakest. But I might be influenced by some asshole ridiculing it. I enjoy listening to it. But it doesn't fit in any existing genre. It's out on its own. And that's a problem I guess for most listeners. One issue I think is that especially for instrumental music I do generally need a lot more instances. This isn't rock music. Without vocals it seems you need to compensate with a ton of different musical "voices".
Submitted for the next OSC is "I slept as never before".
I Slept As Never Before
Has a poem with it Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver. I like it a lot. For this month (April) could use any one synth. Just had to have birds in it. Again I didn't pander to what I assume is most likely to do good. Instead went with what most generically makes sense with bird song. Birds don't combine that great with 30 different synth sounds. So what I wrote is simple. I guess not as good as the previous month but I really like it. But I'm having to think of the poem a bit to do so. Others probably aren't thinking of the poem as they listen. It's in 7/4 time which is a first for me. I find the melody very iconic and memorable. Timeless.
So then right after that in just a couple days I knocked out a piece in 5/4. Something I hadn't done before. Having trouble naming it.
Reasonable
It's very happy and when too happy I automatically dislike. Happy equals sappy to me. Thing about happy in music is that what we equate as happy is really just the most simplistic sound ratios. This is in 5/4 though which adds complexity. But still it's bombastically happy. And it was so easy to write. Thus making it feel very simplistic. I could go back and add chords to turn it slightly less happy. I suppose. Or I could learn to not ridicule the concept of being really happy. For the latter how I name it could play a role. At first named this "Free at Last" as I was thinking of my poor nephew who is trying to survive till his freedom. (Which could be any day as I've offered to let him live at my house or could be one more year.) But when I think of that title I immediately think "Lord god almighty, I"m free at last!" and it feels like a parody. So then trying to think of synonyms for free....
...I think I'll just name it Reasonable. Though it sounds pedestrian it's actually one hell of an ideal that almost no one I personally know has succeeded in obtaining.
And the drums are too repetitive. I will randomly make them a bit less repetitive I guess.
I also wrote other stuff not as good. It's important to push yourself. Wrote some microtonal I wasn't quite happy with. Centrifugal. Asked on a microtonal group for feedback. 50 listens. Only a couple people said they like it. Of course I kind of like it. But when everyone else says they don't I feel a tad like I must be nuts and feeling like you're nuts, feels a lot like a collossal failure. Of course I only partially feel that way. Another part of me recognizes the problems with that. But the seed is there. Not necessarily growing but there. There was another worse microtonal. And then an attempt at industrial dub. I'm putting the microtonal on hold except for nuanced stuff (Young, Pythagorean). I will keep attempting industrial/trance/techno which I'm not good at. Next attempting to really use my TAL sampler.
Thinking back on the previous 6 songs I posted. Neptunus, Real Life Caricatures, Stray Monsters, Cooperative Time Travel, Twilight Race and Flying Sebastians. Neptunus is really damn good. Vote results are today. It may not do that great in the voting as that competition is about complexity and making tons of good instances from a free vst. I didn't really have that many unique instances. But I created a hell of an atmosphere. And now I have found that for high pitched smooth (non-piercing) strings, what I made in cheeze machine 2 sounds better than bazille (130$), Hive2 (150$) and Minimonsta (1?0$) at least. So I have saved it as a template and added it to one more or less completed songs and am now using it on another.
Real Life Caricatures is pretty good though I suppose kind of dark. Not what most like. Cooperative Time Travel is ok. The others not quite as good. There is something missing but I can't easily put my finger on it. And I need to be able to determine what. I guess Stray Monster might be the weakest. But I might be influenced by some asshole ridiculing it. I enjoy listening to it. But it doesn't fit in any existing genre. It's out on its own. And that's a problem I guess for most listeners. One issue I think is that especially for instrumental music I do generally need a lot more instances. This isn't rock music. Without vocals it seems you need to compensate with a ton of different musical "voices".
Submitted for the next OSC is "I slept as never before".
I Slept As Never Before
Has a poem with it Sleeping in the Forest by Mary Oliver. I like it a lot. For this month (April) could use any one synth. Just had to have birds in it. Again I didn't pander to what I assume is most likely to do good. Instead went with what most generically makes sense with bird song. Birds don't combine that great with 30 different synth sounds. So what I wrote is simple. I guess not as good as the previous month but I really like it. But I'm having to think of the poem a bit to do so. Others probably aren't thinking of the poem as they listen. It's in 7/4 time which is a first for me. I find the melody very iconic and memorable. Timeless.
So then right after that in just a couple days I knocked out a piece in 5/4. Something I hadn't done before. Having trouble naming it.
Reasonable
It's very happy and when too happy I automatically dislike. Happy equals sappy to me. Thing about happy in music is that what we equate as happy is really just the most simplistic sound ratios. This is in 5/4 though which adds complexity. But still it's bombastically happy. And it was so easy to write. Thus making it feel very simplistic. I could go back and add chords to turn it slightly less happy. I suppose. Or I could learn to not ridicule the concept of being really happy. For the latter how I name it could play a role. At first named this "Free at Last" as I was thinking of my poor nephew who is trying to survive till his freedom. (Which could be any day as I've offered to let him live at my house or could be one more year.) But when I think of that title I immediately think "Lord god almighty, I"m free at last!" and it feels like a parody. So then trying to think of synonyms for free....
...I think I'll just name it Reasonable. Though it sounds pedestrian it's actually one hell of an ideal that almost no one I personally know has succeeded in obtaining.
And the drums are too repetitive. I will randomly make them a bit less repetitive I guess.
I also wrote other stuff not as good. It's important to push yourself. Wrote some microtonal I wasn't quite happy with. Centrifugal. Asked on a microtonal group for feedback. 50 listens. Only a couple people said they like it. Of course I kind of like it. But when everyone else says they don't I feel a tad like I must be nuts and feeling like you're nuts, feels a lot like a collossal failure. Of course I only partially feel that way. Another part of me recognizes the problems with that. But the seed is there. Not necessarily growing but there. There was another worse microtonal. And then an attempt at industrial dub. I'm putting the microtonal on hold except for nuanced stuff (Young, Pythagorean). I will keep attempting industrial/trance/techno which I'm not good at. Next attempting to really use my TAL sampler.
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