The rules of troubleshooting...

Just a quick one before I head to bed.  Yeah, I did it.  I opted to try and work late at night instead of working on changing my bed time routine.  The crappy thing is that I might have been productive if I hadn't needed to troubleshoot some problems first.

I was about to sit down and tinker with some piano ideas using my MIDI controller through Logic and one of my piano samplers but the stupid M Audio Axiom keyboard that I use has this problem where, all of a sudden, when you turn it on, two notes (usually an augmented fourth apart, i.e. C and F#) just don't work.  So, before, I had found that all you had to do was just turn the thing off hold down the offending keys and then turn it back on and hold them down for 30 seconds.  Okay, so a lot of trial and error and reading forums led to that and I'm still not even sure if what I did was what worked to fix it or if it fixed itself or if some random hit of the keys jostled the electronics and put something back in place.  It's ineffable.  Because this time around it's A and D# that aren't working and my fix that I was so proud of is not working either.

I needed a win tonight so, I shifted gears (all while still sipping my glass of wine) and started to work on a hunch about what was wrong with my looping software Mobius.  This is going to become one of my favorite rules of troubleshooting: "Ask yourself what has changed since the problem started."

Duh.  I got a new audio interface about a month or so ago and hadn't yet tried it out with my guitar setup and, over the past few days, I was tinkering a little and noticed a problem with Mobius.  Usually the screen will animate, so you know what state it's in, whether recording, overdubbing, playing back etc. But this time around when I'd tap the buttons on my pedal, it would move and freeze and only when you interacted with the program again, whether clicking on the screen somewhere or tapping another button, would it actually update.

So this is a problem when you're performing because you want to know what's going on and what state it's in, and whether the pedal tap you just executed actually did anything.

But, when I had that eureka moment about the change in my audio interface, I decided to try the old audio interface out.  Sure enough, it worked fine.  Well, sort of.  It worked fine as a standalone but I usually use it in MainStage, Apple's live performance software that allows me to add all kinds of effects and have multiple channels that I can mix live.  In MainStage it was having the same problem.  So I had to tinker more and I think I've found a workaround but I have to test it more.  I basically have to go through a series of weird steps to get it to work correctly, which is frustrating enough but then add in that normally, I have to turn things on in a certain order and sometimes have to restart the computer so that one piece of software will recognize all the bits of hardware I have plugged in.

So, anyway, I feel somewhat accomplished tonight but it's all still underscored by the fact that my jobs are still coming so few and far between that when I go to dive into my work and dust off certain programs and pieces of hardware, I realize that I almost always have to fix some problem before I can even get started.    That is pretty frustrating.  All I wanted to do tonight was play some keyboard and riff a little.  Now I have to wait until Friday morning/afternoon when I can bang on my piano and think something up.

Happily, said piano was most recently banged on by the inimitable Crystal Bright just this morning before she left, showing me a new piece of hers.  Perhaps she will have imbued it with some of her creative energy.

Before I forget though, here's a little riff that I was toying with the other day and put up on SoundCloud.  Enjoy!

Molecules...

Well, the rest of my day after that last blog in Philly was really fun.  So fun I forgot to blog about it.  I decided on the Eastern State Penitentiary for my afternoon activity.  I opted for an immensely informative guided tour and, after it was done, walked around a little on my own, saw Al Capone's cell, learned about the tunnel escape and took a ton of pictures.

Afterward Virginia and I met up and had a bite at, you guessed it, the only place I eat in West Philadelphia: OCF.  Luckily, she had to be somewhere relatively near where I had to go for Darcy's dance performance, so we opted to walk it, a good 4 1/2 miles, because that's what we do when we're together.  Funny, I avoided taking public transit for most of the weekend, except for one bus ride to Center City Friday night.  Cabs are really cheap there compared to NYC as well, so it was tempting, a lot of the time, to just take a cab.  The walk was much preferred though.  I got to see (and smell) a lot of the city I might not have seen had I taken the bus.  Seriously, South Street in Old City was buzzing with activity and smelled strongly of cheesesteaks. 

Anyway, Darcy's dance performance was at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Old City, right next to one of the oldest buildings in Philly, a church, that, when it was built was the highest structure in the 13 colonies for a number of years (I think I heard one of the guys there say 40 years, can't remember).  The dance actually started out in the courtyard of the church and featured video projections of footage shot in the Redwood Forest in California, as well as music composed by Andrea Clearfield, featuring field recordings from the Redwood Forest, violin and didgeridoo.  The music was emanating from a couple of boom boxes, some nestled in the bushes, others carried by the dancers.  One dancer recited poetry through a bullhorn by Quintan Ana Wikswo with themes of destruction of natural habitats and the ills of colonialism.  After the courtyard, the dancers led us up to a space on the third floor of the neighboring building, a dark theater space with no fourth wall (we were standing around the dancers as they performed) and sheets hung from the ceiling.  Overall, I thought it was a pretty compelling piece and really enjoyed the dancers' performances. 

Here are a few pics taken in Old City and around the Church.  That night we cabbed it back to Darcy's apartment where her new roommate had a house warming party of sorts in full swing, complete with wine and a spread of gluten free food (she's gluten intolerant, too).  Met some nice people, had some good food and conversation and then slept it all off.  After one more breakfast at OCF, I snagged a cab to the train station and headed back to NYC for my performance. 

It went really well, by the way.  Only, I forgot to hit record.  MC took video of most of it and I ended up with some extra time last night to re record it at home and edit it a little.  Just posted it to soundcloud too.



The audience enjoyed it and gave me some good pointers, all stuff that I was thinking was wrong with the piece, i.e. there wasn't enough of a build (I still don't think there is). I can't remember what else right now but I have since come up with a few more critiques like the fact that it's kind of long right now but as the song congeals a little more, I will be able to scale back the length of it and still effectively cover all the things I want cover.  There are essentially four different loop layers each with harmonies and syncopated counter melodies built into them, so the overall number of layers tops something like 10-16 depending on which harmonies I play.  The only real ramp up in the intensity of the piece comes with the introduction of a sixteenth note pulse drone on the lowest guitar string, which, when I recorded this version, I layered harmonies on top of.

I solo melodically over the cacophony of layers at least a couple of times throughout and only the first one on this version was pre composed.  The rest were improvised.  The distortion effect on the backwards loop is something I'm still toying with a little.  It's still kind of unpredictable because I've been recording it silently and not fading it up until it's been effected with the reverse function and the distortion patch that I'm using from Native Instruments.  I'm using my controller to change one of the parameters which, as far as I can tell is a sub audio control wave (for those of you who know anything about sound synthesis).  Anyway, once it's up in the mix, I am getting some wicked awesome sounds.  Later in the piece I even slow it and another one of the actual loop tracks down by half to get some even cooler contrast to the rhythmic drive of the piece.

In later versions of the piece, I'm going to focus on ways to ramp up the intensity even more, possibly exploring drones with syncopation in them.  Syncopation is lovely.  Anyway, I hope you all enjoy the piece.

The rest of MC's salon was great.  She danced, Morgana Rose danced, Gilbert-Michel Rolle, the tenor, a Swiss man actually from MC's hometown, sang a few French Renaissance pieces a capella, Lacy and I did three songs scattered throughout the performance and lastly a man whose name I can't recall now came and gave us an impromptu poetry reading.  Lost of wine and good conversation followed and then I went home ate dinner and watched Breaking Bad's finale.  Great ending!

I'll keep updating as I record new versions of the song, Molecules, and I will even be writing some more and trying them out on you guys and also performing again at the next Marie-Christine Giordano artists salon.  By the way, I still don't know exactly why the piece is called Molecules. 

Also, as the week goes on I've been working a lot more on the recording of Amanda Brecker's song, "Another Day in the Life."  It's going well and tomorrow we'll finish up recording backing vocals and vocal effects and hopefully, I'll manage to record the two guitar interludes.  Updates on that as well once it's finished and mastered. For now, it's back to work!

Four years!

I wanted to write this blog a whole lot earlier in the day but I guess it's just a mark of how busy I am that I couldn't even make that happen.  Not that it was all work.  I did accomplish a lot today, in terms of music mostly.  Lacy and I rehearsed all afternoon but I also finished submitting my entry for the remix contest I've been talking about and even managed some errands, most notably finally taking my stuff to Goodwill to donate.  Later on I had dinner with a friend at my favorite gluten free pizza shop (even got a gluten free beer on the house when they found out I was gluten free...think it was the owner who I was talking to, himself gluten free for 8 years) and then I went to Brooklyn Raga Massive at Tea Lounge in Park Slope to meet a friend whom I knew would be there.

Today marks my four year anniversary in New York City...well, yesterday, the 7th.  It's 1am as I'm writing this.  When I first got here, being as settled as I am now in my routine and having friends whom I could just call up and have meet me wherever, was as far from reality as anything.  I knew no one, except a handful of college friends and my cousin, and had no full time job to fund such social excursions as I find myself in these days.  You could say I've come a long way but it was all, of course, inevitable.  I had to find my stride.  I remember the few times I did go out back then I'd see people who had it all together, it seemed, sitting around a table with their friends, drinking and having fun at the neighborhood bar that they all seemingly lived close to, and I sat over there wondering when I would feel as stable as they all looked.  Granted, I had no idea what their lives were really like but I knew what mine was like and I felt I had such a long way to go before I could be as comfortable as they looked.  I called it Life Envy.  Now, thinking back, who knows if they even had it together.  The point is, I still don't feel like I have it fully together, though always on the cusp, but either way, I know how to relax and have a good time.

Brooklyn Raga Massive is a gathering of musicians who play South Asian music, mostly Indian with the occasional jam session thrown in a the end.  My friend Robindra, whom I know from college and who I just recently discovered lives several blocks away from me, introduced me to the evening.  Tea Lounge was a favorite spot already but now we try to make it as many Thursdays as we can.  Tonight was amazing though.  A couple of Indian singers highlighted the night while one of the best dulcimer players I've seen tore up the stage near the end of the night.  We closed the place down and headed home not too long ago.

Now, I'm reflecting on my day.  Lacy's and my rehearsals are going really well and the both of us cannot wait to get in the studio with the other musicians in Philly next weekend to start going over the set list.  I can't tell you how excited I am to be playing with a live band again.  My roles in this concert will be pretty diverse too.  Doing guitar parts, keyboard parts and mandolin even on one song.  The concert in Manhattan will be awesome as well.

In addition to that, I'm psyched about finishing the remix ahead of the deadline.  Here's the link to my finished submission.



I wanted to write more about it in their submission form but was limited to some 365 characters or something like.  Basically, I took one listen to the song, "Golden Arrows" and decided that highlighting the syncopation in the guitar part was the way to go.  I wrote a whole new drumline with more emphasis on said syncopation but one of the first things that struck me before I even did that was this nice vocal ad lib part in between the first verse and the second verse where the singer just sings the word "Arrows" a few times.  I sampled it and had it open the song, and then brought it back, slightly sliced up, during the guitar solo and other parts of the song as an almost percussive highlight.  I messed with dropping certain parts out of the mix during different parts of the song to give it a more dynamic range, added some neat effects to both my drums for the bridge leading up to the interlude and the existing keyboard part there to give the whole section a spacier feel.  Ultimately, until this morning, something was missing.  I ended up experimenting with running the existing rhythm guitar part back through Guitar Rig with some effects, and played around with an LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator) on one of the parameters and came out with that triplet rhythm you hear in the guitar part now.  That sold me and I realized it was done.  Or as done as these things can be.  :)

I suggest listening to the original version here, and then listening to mine again.  Regardless of whether or not I win the contest, it was such a fun process that I hope to do something like this again soon. 

Meanwhile, I think I've had a pretty awesome four year NYC anniversary but I am tuckered out and should have been in bed a while ago.  Oh, and there's apparently a blizzard happening tomorrow so that'll be fun.  More updates to come in the next few weeks as we prepare to rock Philly and then come back and rock NYC.  Oh, and btw, I got another VO gig! Good night all!

New music uploads...

I finally decided tonight to go ahead and upload the tracks I recently finished mastering to my sound cloud page.  Wanted to give you all a chance to listen to what I've been working so hard on.  This is, of course, only the beginning.  I've composed about 12 new tunes since August as well, all of them in various stages of completeness, and all of them which will eventually go to the licensing agency as well.  

The tracks.  

Black and Blue are songs that I wrote for Steve Pitre for the Insiders1 Promo that he produced last year.    I liked the idea of making them sister songs and the color blue came to mind almost immediately when I thought about what to name Blue.  Black followed rather obviously.  The versions I just posted contain some new material not on the versions on the promo.  Black got more keyboard parts that I almost cut completely from the track originally (just developed them a little more).  Blue got some guitar parts with a wash of delay effects that had not previously existed.  

A Million Shades of Blue I wrote back in 2010 but knew I wanted to send to the licensing agency as soon as I started thinking about which pre-existing tracks I could repurpose.  I wrote the song one day starting from a riff that I came up with while playing around with new sounds in my Native Instruments synths (FM8, Absynth and Massive) and, as often happens, I didn't come up with a name for it until a few days later.  I was walking home from a friend's party at around 5am with the song running through my head and my eyes wandered up to the sky.  It being a little under an hour until sunrise, the sky was displaying this amazing indigo color that faded to black the farther from the eastern sky you looked.  The phrase "A Million Shades of Blue" passed through my head and I knew immediately that that's what the song was supposed to be called.  I can't remember if I wrote the keyboard part for this one before or after the name arrived.  It used to be played with just the Absynth patch, that screaming sound you hear underneath the keyboard.  I added the keyboard on this remix to give the melody more definition there and dropped the Absynth down in the mix to get rid of the muddiness I was hearing.  

Song for the Awakened was written all the way back in 2004.  I've always enjoyed the groove of this song and was particularly proud of some experimentation I did with truncating the groove before it could finish the measure and restarting it but not doing it the same in all parts.  I found that the phrases in each instrument could fit together in all kinds of different ways if I just let go of all conventional time signatures.  The mix on the old version troubled me greatly and I had to get ruthless with it.  This was one of the milestones during this project that I blogged about a few weeks back.  Getting a handle on the mix and actually liking the song again was a great boost to my confidence.  All it took was realizing that I had three instruments playing what one could handle and that there were large chunks of the song that didn't need both the keyboard and the guitar part to be fighting for attention.   Can't remember where the name for this song came from.  Think I was re reading passages in Radiant Mind at the time and the thought of being "Awakened" resonated with me a lot.  

Daresay was a favorite from the 2004 batch and I think it actually got released with Windy April and Pastel on iTunes a while back but I didn't really promote that incarnation of the Automatic Head/Disrupt moniker.   Daresay was a tune that I wrote in Fruity Loops entirely but this version used some sampled harp from Kontakt and my own guitar playing to spice it up.  Plus I used Kontakt to splice my own drum line up and create a breakdown drum part that I actually liked this time (vs. the old version that I felt I could never get right).  I wrote a blog a while back on my main page about how to do this with Kontakt and have used the technique a few times now.  Currently using it with the remix contest I'm working on, in fact. 

The last one I want to talk about was another new one from 2010 called Sleepwalking With You, a track written with Fruity Loops and transferred to Logic.  Another of the batch of tracks for the licensing agency that I had trouble with and then got ruthless with.  This one, not so much with the mix but with the decision to add other instruments.  I had written piano parts and several guitar parts that all got chucked one day when I just started using distorted guitar and the trademark backwards effect that I got from the Grain Delay box in Guitar Rig 5 and used on the score for "The Life."  That eureka moment sent the song into overdrive and made it among the first that I finished.  I can't remember why I chose the title Sleepwalking With You...maybe just that it sounds dreamy, like you're half awake, and the phrase sounded funny to me when it passed through my brain.  Now that I listen back with the distorted guitar it sounds like it might be, not sleepwalking, but a night terror.  But it does sound sort of mournful and wistful like you're dreaming about someone you've lost or that is not in your life anymore.  

That's about as deep as I'm going to get about it.  For now, I hope you enjoy listening to the tracks and that you've enjoyed this little insight into my compositional process.  Take care! 

Masters, licensing, upcoming concerts and nostalgia...

Just finished in the studio with my man Julian over at On Air Mastering yesterday.  The tracks sound great and I was incredibly eager to push through my copyright registration and send them off to Parma Licensing.  So, naturally, I took care of that right away.

They've received them as of this morning and should be reviewing them soon.  So, now I wait.  I'm truly excited about the opportunities this could open up for me but not without a healthy dose of impatience.  Healthy because it's motivating me to devour this list of other music licensing sites.  The idea being to spread my music out over the internet to get more simultaneous exposure.  After all, my contract with Parma is non-exclusive.

The article, which I can't remember how I stumbled on it...might have been one of the LinkedIn forums that I'm on, has been invaluable and whoever spent the time compiling the information, I thank you.  Now, I'm just trying to parse it all out and figure out which ones are worth my time.  Some do not offer royalties on placements, others require a minimum upload that I can't fulfill at present, while still others have a crappy payout split.  The list isn't necessarily exhaustive but I may just pick two or three good ones for now and delve into their terms and conditions and start making profiles if they're worthwhile.

So, that's keeping me busy.  But so is Lacy's music, which is nice.  We're trying to rehearse much more now because we're gearing up for a few shows.  I'm getting extremely excited about that actually.  Now, we have three shows planned, two of which are the CD release parties.  And I have my Behringer pedal cooperating with Mainstage and my Mainstage concert set up so that I can flip through the sounds for each song as well as turn on and off some of the effects with my foot.   All that remains for me to do is to get Mobius (my software looper) set up so I can start doing some of my own things with looping and layering.  Gah, I love playing live!

The first show is this one, performing at Caffe Vivaldi with the inimitable Tania Stavreva, who is in the process of completing her debut classical album (about which I'm so excited for her!).  That should be a good show.  Lacy and I are playing electric, too, so it'll be different from our open mics.

Next up is the Philly CD release party on the 17th of February at L'etage on Bainbridge and 6th in Philly, followed a few weeks later by the NYC CD release party on the 28th of February at Drom on 6th and Ave A in the E. Village.  Some of the players from the album have signed on to play with the band already so we're almost at a full band for this.  Both of us are really excited to rock out and can't wait to bring the new tracks to life.  Also being featured at both parties will be the premiere of the video for the song "Old Languages," directed by my good friend and colleague Mohammad Maaty.  So, if you can make either show watch out for that.  It's pretty awesome, I must say.

Now that all that's out of the way.  Some thoughts.  Just the other day, I received a piece of mail from my brother that was a rare memento he had dug up from the days of my first high school band, Buggstar (one g, two r's, no spaces).  A hand written history of the band by yours truly.  I read it back to back cover to cover (okay it was about five sheets of notebook paper), and I actually got a tiny bit wistful.  Just reading the way I talked about things back then, life seemed so much simpler.  It was before my dream of having a career in music had ever been tarnished by the harsh realities of the world.  And I talked about it as though it was a sure thing, as though nothing could stop me.  It was great to remember that I thought that way at one time and that somehow despite everything that came in way between now and then, I somehow got to where I am now.

It also made me miss my old band mates, hence the wistfulness.  We had such good times back then.  Throughout my parent's garage in boxes and probably amongst my brother's things are all these notebooks filled with songs and set lists and lyrics, chronicling our entire journey just about.  That was my first experience playing with other musicians.  It really came down to me, my brother and Jeremy, our singer...oh, and the six drummers we went through.  We recorded a bunch of stuff too, which is still around, on demo CDs and cassette tapes.  Cassette Tapes!  Boxes and boxes of cassette tapes.  I used to have a four track recorder that I would use to overdub tracks onto our demo recordings and come up with all kinds of stuff. While it wasn't the height of my composing career, I still like to go back and listen to them sometimes.  The songs were complex for what we basically were: a garage band.  But, nonetheless, I figure, what the hell?  Why not?

Here's one of my favorites from my sound cloud page.  Guitars: Tim Daoust, Vocals, Rhythm Guitar: Jeremy Shaner, Bass: Paul Daoust, Drums: the elusive Russell Foley...where are you kid?

Wherever you Go...

Yesterday morning, the choir at the Brookly Unitarian church premiered my choral piece, "Wherever you go." The choir did a terrific job despite having only seen the piece for the first time that morning at rehearsal. Luckily, my director brought his handheld recorder so we were able to get a recording of the performance and the last run through in rehearsal. Here is the recording from the service:



It is a live recording so be prepare to hear all sorts of chatter and bumps in the background. Adds to the character of everything.

Seriously, though, I feel incredibly blessed to be a part of this choir and this church. And I'm incredibly grateful to them for lending their talents to the realization of this piece. I was positively giddy all morning getting to hear the piece performed by performers of such a high caliber. Hope you all enjoy the recording!

More musings later on on what turned out to be a very musical weekend. Now, it's back to work. It's been a long night, what with the news of Bin Laden's death!

Music for sale!!!!!!!!

Good evening. Barreling into my third year in New York and remembering something someone said to me when I was just shy of three months in the city. "It takes you three years to get set up here, that's generally the rule." I'm feeling like I may live up to that some days.

This comes as I'm right on the edge of really starting to market my voice over career (waiting on that shining new website and all the fancy integration of my entire web presence that is coming soon, complete with a new blog containing audio and software tutorials and product reviews). And, in addition, I'm finally getting closer to making the live electronic music project a reality. By closer I mean that I'm getting to a point where I've defined in which direction(s) I'm going to go with it, how the new stuff is going to sound/be performed and what I'm going to do with the old stuff. So, I decided to release three of my best out of the old songs under the title "Disrupt," an album title I've thrown around for years and under my own name as opposed to any of the silly monikers I had similarly thrown around during those early years. The tracks are Pastel, Daresay and Windy April, all written from about 2002 to 2004. The album is now available on Indabamusic.com and will be soon on iTunes. I'm embedding the store everywhere I can, including here:




Also, it's on Myspace and as soon as I figure out how to do it, it will be on Facebook. It's of course, eventually going to go on my main webpage as soon as that's up as well.

That having been said, I got really psyched about the live project (which it will be hereafter referred to as) last night as I was in Greenpoint at a club called Europa watching a trio of bands that I had only recently heard of. My friend Stephanie told me about two of them and invited me along to catch the show. Deerhoof was the headliner and opening were two groups: Buke and Gass (pronounced Byook and Gase) and Ben Butler and Mousepad. Buke and Gass was a duo that had modified instruments, one a guitar that had been turned part bass guitar and the other a baritone ukulele that had been turned into a guitar. Their style was therefore already pretty unique for that. I enjoyed their music the most, I think; it was both melodic and gritty and the singer's voice and vocal melodies were hauntingly beautiful. But I was surprised at how much I liked Deerhoof. Listening to their music on Grooveshark didn't excite me nearly as much as their live show which was high energy. A quartet of two guitarists, a drummer and a very short Japanese woman singing and playing bass, they commanded the stage for almost two hours. Ben Butler and Mousepad was a duo of drummer and keyboardist (the guy had a Korg sequencer keyboard that I've only seen one other time when I was graduate school at UNCG, hooked into a Mac laptop and was playing loops and wailing on the synth simultaneously). The laptop guy was Scottish and the drummer German, and both were charismatic and funny. Their performance was pretty awesome and quite high energy for two skinny guys from Europe. I haven't had as much fun in quite a while seeing a show and the whole experience got me psyched again even more for getting out and playing again. Here are some pics from the evening:

Deerhoof in Greenpoint

I apologize in advance for the suckiness of my phone camera.

The dance piece and some words about web design...

This afternoon, I'm brainstorming and researching for the new website. Which will be happening soon now that my logo design is done. In fact, my business cards should be coming via UPS any minute now. How exciting. They were supposed to be here Friday but there was a mix up. I had tried to rush the delivery so they'd arrive before the dance performance in Williamsburg this weekend. It wasn't a big deal though. I didn't have very many opportunities to network anyway.

The performance went off without a hitch, though. Of course, on my end there wasn't much chance for failure as the music was already recorded and there was no actual performing. Seeing the dance with the music and hearing it all on big speakers was pretty awesome. I'm pretty sure someone took video of the whole night. There were two main choreographers, one being the person I worked with and the other being my friend who introduced me to her. They performed a duet first that was choreographed for them and then Julia, my friend, showed her piece. Jahna, the one I worked with, had her three pieces performed after the intermission. Julia's was a long piece with about nine dancers and several changes of costume (incredible costumes, too...at one point, two of the dancers wore a dresses that were sewn together). Halfway through the piece, some of the dancers filtered through the audience and started to interact with audience members, myself and my friend Lacy included. That was bizarre but quite innovative I thought.

Jahna's three pieces were pretty awesome too, of course, I'm biased toward the first one which had my music. I enjoyed it thoroughly even with a few people rudely whispering through part of it.

Overall, this was a good experience, working with the dancer and I will probably be doing more of this kind of thing sooner or later. It's good after all to have many things on your list of things I have done and can do. For those who still haven't heard the piece here it is:



In other news, I may have mentioned here or posted on Facebook that I thought my Kombucha had grown mold but I was wrong about that and now am drinking the good stuff and, let me tell you, it is good. Well, good enough. It's not bubbly like the commercially bottled stuff but it certainly tastes like it's supposed to.

Beyond that, all this work on the website and waiting for the edit of the voice over demo is what is currently occupying my mind. I'll be sure to post as soon as the website's ready to publish so you all can see. There's going to be some major linkage between all my pages. I realized two important things in all my research and reading of articles: one is that there should be as few clicks to get to music as possible. You don't want anyone losing interest or, in the case of my parents, just not being able to find your music (Thanks, mom for directing my attention to that fact). Facebook is unhappily a culprit here as it's not that easy for someone to link to my music page. I had to put my own link to the fan page on my personal Facebook page near the top. Two is that there should be as little extraneous information as possible on the surface. I've seen so many home pages of website positively littered with content to the extent that you can't even see anything of value amongst the noise. Less is more they say. I've become fond of web page designs that have simple one short word links on the home page, music or sound instead of music portfolio, for example, or Buzz instead of Testimonials or Articles and Links.

But anyway, I will additionally post a blurb when I finally get the final edit of the voice over demo. For now, I'm excited because, as I typed this blog, I was in and out doing laundry and such and the cards came while I was down in the laundromat. Luckily, being it Columbus day, or Indigenous People's Day if you prefer, my cousin was home to sign for them. They look awesome!!!!!! But I will not spoil the surprise by showing you early what the design looks like. You'll see it when the web page is ready for publishing!

Meanwhile

New Music Tuesday....

That was intended to simply refer to what day of the week it is and the fact that I'm posting new music but I think New Music Tuesday, now that I've typed the phrase, should become a thing, like Opposite Day or Casual Friday.

These are the latest additions to my ever expanding library. They are just "jams" at this point and not complete songs. This first one, "A Million Shades of Blue,"



...the title came to me one Sunday morning when I was heading home after a particularly late night hanging out with my friend Will, talking music. We were up until about 4am and since he lives in Clinton Hill it took me until almost 5 to get home on the train. At this point, it occurred to me exactly how late I had been out as the sky was turning a deep royal blue. I know I'm normally up at this hour on Mondays and Tuesdays but never do I get to actually be outside looking at the sky. It was pretty beautiful. I guess you'll probably hear when the sun actually comes up in this piece.

Anyway, this one, I titled "Fun With Noises" because I was messing with, exactly that, noises. That it became a piece of music is just a cool bi product of that. There is definitely a need for a new name though. It evokes an emotion I haven't quite put my finger on yet.

Enjoy!

New (Old) Song and some thoughts...

So, I was digging through some files tonight, technically early this morning to some of you who won't read this until it's fully Sunday, sun up and all. Anyway, I found this little gem that I decided I like enough to post here. It's on the FB page as well.



Called it Sudden Rainstorm. I thought about that title though and it really seems more like one of those rainstorms that creeps in slowly and before you know it you look up and the sun is gone and the sky is a creepy dark gray, thunder rumbling louder and louder every second...you'll hear what I mean.

Anyhow, this is just to preface that I have been writing again, mainly in Fruity Loops and I may just get those pieces finished in the next few days and post them here and there. It feels good to be writing again, especially since I keep saying I want to try out Indaba. It's been slow going though. Earlier in the week I made a comment on the Facebook page about still not grasping the point of Twitter and was met with encouragement to give it another shot and tips on how to get the most out of it. Wanting to be smart about my online networking, I decided to do so. But I realized that there's something overwhelming about trying to find your way around a new social networking site. Indaba is no different. It doesn't help either that on top of Indaba and Twitter, I recently joined FourSquare and Yelp. FourSquare and Yelp, being that they require physically going out places to get the most out of them, can wait. I'm getting a little broke this month to be going out so much.

Anyway, Twitter and Indaba can only help my career. Yelp and FourSquare are, at best, distractions at this point. It can be frustrating, too, with so many distractions that I feel like I'm not getting near as much done as I'd like. The temptation to go out and do things in this city in the summertime is pretty impossible to ignore sometimes. Add to that the fact that every time I think my troubleshooting with this computer is over, I waste an entire day off trying to isolate problems when I could be recording, writing, or generally using the computer to be creative. Then, because it's so hard to get things going with a small amount of time, say, before work, I invariably end up waiting another week to get working again.

If only I didn't need a day job...which is probably the cry of every artist in the world who isn't already successful enough to support themselves solely with their craft. I could wish for more hours in the day but if I got them I'd use them sleeping or socializing, knowing me. But then, when one realizes that those two have become the default activities to spend free time on, one wonders if one's interest in becoming a professional artist hasn't waned considerably. I sure hope not. It's awful to think of something that was once my hobby and then became my passion could be relegating itself to the realm of the sometime aspiration of a whimsical teenager.

I suppose it's key to stop and remember why I do these things at all. Why I even bother. If I were one of those people who would answer that question with something trite like a wish to be famous or successful, then I'd seriously have to question myself. It's awful hard to base an interest in something on the desire for fame or success when you examine the notion of fame or success, whatever that might mean to you. It's simply a destination, one that you could get to by many paths. If I only wanted to be a musician to be famous (and not, say, to personally enrich my life through the creative process), then I might as well not be a musician specifically but should instead just find the thing that's most likely to make me famous. Some people resort to reality TV for this. I shall not stoop so low. For it is not fame that I want but the chance to create and collaborate. Supporting myself while doing it would be nice too, of course.

My point is that being famous is not a very lofty goal...Paris Hilton is famous (and for what?) Instead, to be able to express myself creatively and enjoy doing so is a good enough goal for me. To continue doing it and enjoy doing it despite the pressures of other responsibilities. If I make money, awesome. If not, at least I kept it up.

Anyway, back on the topic of Indaba, I really like the idea behind this site and am seriously going to be uploading music and considering spending a good amount of my "music time" on Wednesdays on tinkering with the features, maybe connecting with other musicians. The thing is, with a site like this, there are so many uses. Collaboration, hosting, networking, meeting potential band mates. All these things and I can't think of which to use it for. I'd love to jam with some people soon. I thought about it recently. Just having some friends over and gathering around the piano and improvising. I'd also love to get my chops up recording and getting input from other musicians, possibly collaborating. We'll see.

For now, I need to sleep. A comment on the weather though...Fall is almost here, I can taste it. Favorite season of the year, hands down. I mean, I wore a jacket last night! In August! Gonna go for now. Enjoy the music!

Happy Birthday me and some musical jibber jabber...

Yes, I had to work on my birthday. But honestly, I had a great day spent with friends and I still get to celebrate on the weekend so it doesn't bother me that I had to come straight after dinner, or that I had to sleep until 3 yesterday afternoon after having worked an overnight shift the night before. Life goes on.

At any rate, I tried a fantastic gluten free restaurant on Bleecker Street called Risotteria. If you're Celiac or gluten intolerant you have to check this place out. Apparently it's pretty well known in Celiac circles and nationwide as well. The food was fantastic. Risotto was a centerpiece of the menu (I had a bowl of such with parma ham, fontina and arugula, which was on special) but they also had gluten free (and regular pizza). Oh, and these incredible gluten free breadsticks the recipe of which the waitress had no problems divulging (tapioca starch, potato flour, rice flour, sea salt, gluten free yeast, xanthan gum and tap water). Of course she didn't give us the proportions. The restaurant also has gluten free beer and a decent wine list along with gluten free baked goods (the coolest of which was a gluten free twinkie, called a winkie).

The room was small and we had a bit of a wait for a table but it was no problem at all to get the four of us seated in a timely manner. We did have to stand outside for a bit but once the bar cleared out we sat there and munched on their breadsticks.

In other news, the first take of the music for the dance piece was well received however the dancer told me she doesn't think that it's a fit for this particular work. I was preparing myself for that possibility and I'm not really surprised. The whole time I worked on it I realized certain incongruities between certain aspects of the dance and the music, mainly tempo related, but I kept going with it trying to fix some of those aspects along the way. And, sure enough, tempo was where it missed the mark. So I may need to start from scratch, which doesn't bother me at all because I still have this piece of music that at least two people have listened to and liked and that I may finish and eventually even submit to some electronic music festivals. Even more exciting is the fact that since this piece is not for anybody anymore I can tweak it to my heart's content and put things back in that I had originally thought didn't work. Here's the piece:



Interestingly enough, this afternoon while I was hanging out with my friend Lacy who came up from Philly to deliver some software to me, the topic came up of how long to work on a "work for hire" piece of music before showing it to the director/choreographer. I've had this question come up because, on film projects, I've always been worried about wasting time on an idea that was not what the director wanted. But I've also not wanted to show them something that was unfinished lest they be unimpressed or not be able to understand where I was going with an idea. I suppose the answer is that, where deadlines are more lax or nonexistent it's probably okay to bring a piece to relative completion before risking having it rejected because at least then, you have an established piece that you can do anything with. However, in a case where you have a deadline and you don't want to risk putting a lot of time and effort into an idea that misses the mark, it may be better to come up with ways of making something sound complete or at least getting the basic jist of the piece together, not worrying so much about making it perfect, before sending a sample to the director to see if you're on the mark before proceeding. But sometimes it's hard having to explain to the director that what you are sending is not finished and it may sound different, they don't always understand that. It's a bit stressful, also, when a director expects you to just know exactly what he wants after one meeting and to crank it out as though you were some kind of music factory, no questions asked. I've had first meetings with directors that will leave me with more questions or even if I don't have them right then, something always comes up later. And, those times, it's not always easy to communicate these questions through email, or by putting the phone up to your speakers. I'd be intersted to hear what other composers out there do in these situations, especially where you have a deadline and you aren't certain what you are composing is what the director wants. I suppose these things come with experience and that the main thing is getting as far inside the director's head as possible as early as possible. That might sound funny out of context.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the music. Happy that I'm able to show you what I've been working on. Stay tuned for more!