Made up words and made up music...

A little blog-ulation for a Friday evening. I've been working on the dancer's piece this week a good bit. Experimenting mostly. First with recording scenarios, i.e. am I going to use the piano, am I going to get it tuned one more time, or am I going to use Native Instruments Akoustic Piano, a rather fine piece of software sampling that still doesn't quite match the sound of a live piano even though it's sample library includes samples of some of the best sounding pianos out there. Also, should I record the piano close-mic-ed? Or should I mic the room and capture everything that way?

Turns out the room sounds just fine with a little noise reduction and possibly some EQ and I didn't need to drag the computer itself out in the living room by just setting the mic up right outside my bedroom door. (Incidentally, this gave me a great idea for something to try when recording voice over stuff...shutting all the doors to the bedroom and bathroom and setting up the mic directly outside my door in order to cut down on room noise and to deaden the sound hang towels or some other kind of sound treatment from the doors...more on all this later.)

Another decision of mine, somewhat more difficult to make and that I'm somewhat closer to making after a week of trial and error, is whether or not to notate the entire piece and strictly adhere to the original improvisation and all the ideas therein or to simply use those ideas as guidelines for a new improvisation. Leaning toward the second one. I'm slightly worried that I might be cutting corners by not notating the piece but I'm not sure how much it would help me to have notation in front of me when I redo it. When I record it, after all, I'm not going to be sight reading the piece, I'm probably going to have most of my ideas memorized and will be focused on the more emotional aspects of the performance as opposed to be precise about what the notes I played before are.

This is the kind of piece that I want to have feel completely natural and not contrived. And in its original state, performed on the fly, straight out of my fingers is when it sounded the best. I admit that I'm not going to get that exact performance. It may be better in some respects, it may be worse in others. It might contain new elements, it may lack elements I had thought were awesome but it's all about how it's going to flow together.

I've even considered scoring it to the picture of the dance as that might make for some interesting gut responses and hopefully that would even come out out in my performance.

The other things is length...I just watched my latest take against the one video I have of the piece (volume of the temp track turned down, of course), and it's working except, it times out too soon.

At any rate, this has kept me busy but in my down times and when I need to stop thinking about it for a while, I've taken to composing little blurb type things using my sequencer and simultaneously getting some practice with it and my soft synths. It's been quite rewarding...maybe I'll even post a few tidbits.

It occurred to me, though, that these little "blurbs" could become tracks I could put up for licensing on some of the sites I've been researching. Plus, they could be forming the basis for my new electronic music project, still in the works.

In addition, to the music, as some of you may know and as I may have mentioned, I'm taking voice over coaching sessions at a studio in Midtown and am actually enjoying it quite a bit. Eventually, I'll be getting my business started there and picking up gigs on the side. I'm actually also planning on making it a component of my music business. A sort of one-stop shop for voice over and backing tracks. It's my idea, don't anybody steal it!

Anyway, I'd better get some rest. The perils of being the new(er) guy at work mean I have to do the swing shifts, night shifts, then morning shifts (earlier and earlier as the week progresses) and then overnight shifts and then a mediocre version of a weekend that really only lasts a day and a half. But at least I have time to write music. At least.