PigLick on 17/7/2019 at 11:25
hey I liked it, but yeh its pretty bare-bones. Needs more melodic content, but thats just my opinion. I kept wanting a more solid chord change to the VI, which I felt you implied but never quite got down on it. The bit at around 0.27 was good but I wanted to hear that heavier in some way.
And also standard notation (sheet music) is very visual when you look at it, the shape of it actually represents the sound, so I agree with that Zappa thing
Gray on 17/7/2019 at 11:56
Quote Posted by PigLick
0.27
Yeah, that's where I wanted the guitar to come in, but I don't have one any more. I'm considering getting a new cheap one. Not that I can play it, just make the occasional chord/noise to emphasise a point in a song, like I just couldn't do there.
Gray on 17/7/2019 at 12:23
Quote Posted by Tocky
The piano is what needs to breakdown. Other than that a sinister voice singing a sinister low and sibilant song that builds to the breakdown. I like it. It has potential.
If you can do that, and you'd want to work on it, I'd quite happily send you the sound files required, track separated. I can not do that stuff myself.
Gray on 17/7/2019 at 23:59
I'd like to point out that I put a bit of effort into the production of 6-to-8, quite picky with sounds, but I lost energy for the arrangement.
With Mondays, I mainly focused on the drums, trying to keep them interesting, and hence failed on both production and, well, anything related to music. Sorry about that. But I wanted to make sure it was of a different style than the other one.
My next piece of crap will again have a different style, a cheap slow house beat, perhaps even mildly cheerful, if I can get it right.
demagogue on 18/7/2019 at 01:37
I think there are lots of different ways to conceptualize and visualize music, and all of them can be valid if they work for a person. But I think the different styles lend themselves to different ways of thinking, which means different forms of music. I find writing out music -- for me it'd start with a single sheet staff where I'll write the melody line and then put chord signs over it, basically a lead sheet -- makes me think about it almost like a math problem, where I'm thinking of the changes explicitly and what scales go over it. The big alternative for me is literally just letting my hands go on the keyboard and finding the lines, like a kind of muscle memory and intuition, and I'll just keep repeating a line and tweaking little bits here and there until it sounds set. Then I'll write that down. (I like a simple lead sheet just because my memory isn't that good and it's the most efficient way to get music to paper. And I like some guidance, even when I'll improv over it later.)
Interestingly one of the best thing, or anyway the most musically complicated thing I ever wrote (an (
https://soundcloud.com/user9513654/prelude-in-c-m) etude), I composed it in a midi editor, like literally placing down bars on a grid & stretching them out for the duration! I think because it was so detached from any physical or musical thing, there wasn't that bias and I was really thinking about it like solving a math problem. Stuff was coming out that I would have never just come up with on my own. So that's a thought too.
PigLick on 18/7/2019 at 04:51
Yeh, using a step sequencer to compose is really good for me, as you said its like a maths puzzle. I try to avoid writing on the guitar because I end up just letting my muscle memory do the work and everything starts sounding the same.
Gray on 27/7/2019 at 15:21
Back in the day, I initially found it quite difficult to work a step sequencer, but I now find it easier to get interesting melodies out than just using my hands on a keyboard. I've used trackers and recording sequencers, and every new method comes with new ways of trying to make what you hear in your head come out the way you hope. True, it is a bit like a maths problem, it's a matrix, and I can work with that. I just can't do everything I want to with it. I know perfectly well my limitations as a keyboard player, so I've been trying to learn new ways to achieve my goal. Turned out I'm not a guitarist either. I'd love to tinker around with a theremin, just for shits and giggles, but I can't possibly expect to do anything useful with it and it's out of my price range. I am quite keen to try out new controller devices, to help me break out of my G-minor problem, and they're getting cheaper and more accessible. Maybe some day I'll manage to make something that isn't crap.
Gray on 17/8/2019 at 16:42
I made another piece of crap that I'm not yet ashamed of.
This time, I was trying to do a fairly interesting house beat, but as always, I ran out of ideas and it didn't come out nearly as well as it sounded in my head before I forgot what the plan was.
Anyway, here it is. It's not great. Like the others, short and pointless.
(
https://soundcloud.com/user-188042036/primitivhus) Primitive House
[Edit]
The intent was to make it sound as if it was made on a C64, but the tools I had couldn't fake it well enough, so there's just a bit of that. Then I got distracted by the drum machines. Story of my life.
[Edit again]
Yes, I know, the first noise break should be two bars longer, and the following drum machine needs to be turned down a bit. I'll fix that for the next version.
[Edit yet again]
I'm ambivalent. On one hand, I know the song is shit. On the other, I'm really pleased with how the drums came out, and I've been playing it on a loop all night. But really, I made it to please myself and myself only, so I assume, mission accomplished? I'm not happy with the choppy edit, but damn, those drums sound awesome now that I dare to play them on the big speakers. :ahem: Sorry for this narcissistic nonsense. I'm just surprised and pleased that not all I do is utter shit. It feels pretty good that I can surprise myself. Perhaps it's not for you, but right now, I'm feeling pretty good about bits of it, you can point out all the flaws and I'll read them later when I no longer like it.
[Edit just once more]
I uploaded another bit of quick work called (
https://soundcloud.com/user-188042036/elephants-bounce-at-midnight) Elephants Bounce at Midnight, it started out as a mock-EBM track, hence the title acronym. This was fast work and not done well, but it entertained my sense of humour for a bit.
Gray on 19/8/2019 at 22:32
I made a new thing. I'm sorry. Honestly. But hear me out first, so you'll know
why it's bad. There was a plan.
This time, I broke all of my rules*. This doesn't mean the music is any better, in fact it's probably worse. Much worse. Let me elaborate:
Number A) This is probably the first time I wrote a song for a specific purpose. In this case, something to keep my rhythm when I'm out walking. I walk for exercise. 106 BPM is a pace that suits the length of my legs. With this new FitBit toy, I try to do 10,000 steps or more per day, 30,000 is my personal best so far. It helps to have a steady beat to walk to, and I'm running out of songs in that tempo range. Yeah, first world middle-class piddly-ass problems, I know.
2) I decided to forego my usual G minor whiny crap and try to do something in a major key instead. This doesn't make it good either, but it reflects how I feel about sunshine. It has to be in a major key, I'm just crap at writing for one. I wanted the song to evoke a sense of sunshine, and walking. Maybe it doesn't do it for you, but I wrote it for me. Selfish bastard. The idiotic simplistic bassline is supposed to mimic steps.
C) It is
extremely repetitive, this time on purpose. Usually, I try to vary my songs a bit, but since this was written for one purpose only, I did
want it to be repetitive and lengthy. The only things that change are the LFOs and FX. If you can be arsed to listen, once you've passed 45 seconds, it doesn't get any better, just more of the same. And again. And yet some more. And again. Until you want to punch yourself in the face. Or walk away. Oh, hey, that's the point of the track. Walking.
5) I've used a sample. Every lame hack wannabe dweeb sooner or later has to sample Clyde Stubblefield's excellent "Funky Drummer" (the James Brown track). Usually I don't sample, but this specific sample was the very birth of this idea. I needed something to walk to at a suitable tempo, so I got Funky Drummer on my phone and tuned it until I found a pace that suited me, which turned out to be 106 BPM. I've not used the sample much, it's mostly garbled and hidden by FX and other drum machines inspired by it, but it's there. Thank you, Clyde! Thank you for all your wonderful, underrated work. Sorry James didn't pay you more. I also used a sample of Dustin Hoffman "Hey, I'm walking here!", but it didn't fit right so I took it out again, it was too aggressive and didn't fit the tone of the track. It's not in the current version, although I kept it in the title. I may dig out another "hey" sample by someone else later if I can make it work, there are loads of them, there's at least one "I'm walking here" meme, probably more. I'm considering using the Rick & Morty thing if I can find a clean version. It was in the bit where it all goes quiet, and the beep was supposed to imitate a honking taxi horn, or mask the noise in the sample. It just didn't work.
D) I only used two chords. Usually I use one, or four. Never tried two before.
Nine) I'm so tired I'm shit at counting, which should be obvious by now.
4) I'm sure there was a four somewhere. Maybe I dropped it on the floor.
F) The final rule I broke was that I know this is NOT good but I decided to share it anyway. Very
not good. But, just in case there is someone else out there that can use it for the same purpose, or some other purpose, and finds it useful, it's here, free. Just don't say I didn't warn you first. It's not good.
Anyway, here it is:
(
https://soundcloud.com/user-188042036/walking-in-the-sunshine-hey-im-walking-here) Walking in the Sunshine (Hey, I'm Walking Here!)
* Um, I broke most of my rules. I don't have an actual list. There's just stuff I don't usually do.
qolelis on 26/8/2019 at 16:30
I felt like I needed to elaborate on what I said earlier about being more of a technician: I'm a technician putting sounds together rather than a musician having to deal with technology, and also more of a programmer than a composer and more of a knob twiddler than a performer -- and by that I mean that I'm neither a composer nor a performer; I just create whatever crap I create, because I need to create something lest I perish. I aim high, though, probably because I don't know any better.
Anyway, I thought your walking in the sunshine thing was pretty enjoyable actually. Feels like it does exactly what you intended it to do. I can easily see myself listening to this while cooking or baking etc... You probably hear everything wrong with it, but I honestly don't (for whatever that's worth) -- except maybe the first breakdown that felt a bit unnecessary (in my humble opinion, of course).
Det primitiva huset has potential (more than you might admit?), but it also reminds me of a lot of my own material; many individually great themes stitched together to form something that is not as great, but could be. The intro, like the first 40 seconds, has a nice ambient feel.
Also, fuck it: (
https://soundcloud.com/qlyrkz/dunkla-salar-by-qlyrkz-1) my (
https://soundcloud.com/qlyrkz/litrat-5b-pop-2) old (
https://soundcloud.com/qlyrkz/saktmod2-lovepotato-slow-remix-by-qlyrkz) crap. Sound quality is most likely shit, because reasons (might want to be careful with the levels so as not to attract horny cats slash angry neighbours (or is it the other way around?), or make small children cry); working on fixing that. I'm kind of happy with them otherwise (unlike the remaining 99 percent of what I've stitched together).
Just saw that Reason 11 is soon to be released. I just upgraded to 10 (after having stuck with 3 for a long time, because reasons), so I'm going to skip this one. Also doesn't have a lot of reasons for me, personally, to upgrade. One thing I would like to see in the sequencer is flow control tracks (e.g. looping and skipping), because I do that manually a lot, and also a way to automate the loop markers. Marker tracks would be nice too instead of having to use muted audio tracks like I do now. Etc...