Freestyling

Since I've been posting nothing but garbage of late, I thought it would be a good time to put something up that I'm semi-proud of for once. Here is a beat I made a few months ago.

The beat itself is nothing special, the highlight here is my improvisational keyboard routine. :P

My "solo" starts at around 20 seconds. It is basically me freestyling a synthesized guitar lead with my MIDI keyboard. This took me about 5 minutes of practice get the feel of the scale, but other than that I did this in one take and I'm pretty proud of it since I'm literally a retard at anything I do.

I did a bit of post playing quantizing because I'm not exactly Chopin. The end of the piece sounds kind of cool, I used a really cool synth called "Omnisphere" to create the wah-wah style guitar.

Here it is below.

Update

Haven't posted here in a year and a bit, I may as well write something in here while I'm waiting for people in Italy to wake up so I can bombard them with ads. (I'll explain below) Last year was probably my least productive year in terms of making music since I started. I did however spend a lot of time expanding my musical knowledge, taste etc. so I think that is just as valuable.

But since my last blog I've finished university and I am currently working as a direct response marketer. For those who don't know, if you've seen ads online, in the newspaper, magazines etc. for weight loss products, as seen on TV products, dating websites, surveys etc. online, there's a good chance I'm the scumbag who made ad whilst getting a cut of the action if the poor soul decides to buy "Hip-hop abs" by Shaun T.

Pros of this "job" are that you can work from home, which is good for me because I've never been a 9-5 type dude and never will be. Another pro would be the potential chedda, I guess there is a lot of monetary potential, but I just like making money without some Lumberg dude complaining about my TPS reports.
Cons I guess is the "isolation" of working long hours in solitude, which I'm used to anyway and is probably pro for me, but con for many others. Being your own boss can be a con, procrastination becomes a real problem sometimes. And thats about it. Oh and another con is trying to explain to people IRL how its possible to make $ on a computer while alt tabbing between work and COD Black Ops.

But the MAIN pro is, that I have found myself more time to make MUSIC and pursue other creative endeavors, which is very important to me.

Anyway, As for music, I may as well post something I did THIS YEAR. I consider myself my own worst critic and hate 90-95% of what I make. This is actually no exception but its the only one with a semi-interesting story behind it. I'll post some good stuff when I get my proper website going.

Of course you have heard the song above right? It's Kate Miller-Heidke's "The Last Day On Earth" I'm pretty sure its Australian, but anyway I heard it on a drive home and was kind of diggin' the vibe because it was pretty deep shit. In particular I loved one of the lines about "starts exploding" or some shit like that. Then I said to myself, I bet I could flip that mothersucker into a dope beat. So I went home, bought (downloaded illegally) the track and 1 hour later came up with this.

Not bad, I actually managed to make it sound pretty grimey and gutter with the classic boom-bap hip hop style with a spacey feel to it. I didn't use much of the sample and the execution is pretty meh. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped and I could probably improve on it, but I probably won't and just move on to the next project.

Well, that does it for my blog. I'm planning to launch a proper website though instead of this blogger nonsense. I've been saying it for 2 years but with the time I have on my hands now, I can probably do it.

Update

Not dead, but since finishing uni (for good) I've been messing around with some music stuff, here's something new I worked on. For some reason or another my work is sounding more and more polished every time I sit down and work on music without practice or thought, maybe the time away from it has given me fresh ears but who knows, maybe I should stick with it as the momentum is rolling. But anyway here's the product.

I sampled the intro from the ATLiens album by Outkast to make this beat while adding instrumentation, drums, chops etc. etc. Put a Jay-Z acapella over it and sounds quite nice. You might recognize why I used this certain acapella but if not just enjoy

Here's the instrumental. You can hear my instrumentation and shit a little better :)

More soon. 128kbps sucks. AND, just for fun or if you're wondering how the genius gets shit happenin', here is my workspace for this project, I'm not the neatest guy in the world as you can see.

Ego

For people who think their shit doesn't stink.

So next time you're stressing about something, just remember you are nothing but a little worthless being!

PEACE!

4 Years

I haven't posted in about month and I haven't been doing much music so I thought it would be a good time to reflect about my musical journey :)

It's been about 4 and a bit years (maybe more) since I discovered probably my favorite means of creative expression through the creation of music. It started off when I was about in Year 12. I would spend countless hours just reading and learning about how it was possible to make studio quality music using only my computer. I would be studying the greats and cranking out my own beats on the eve of HSC exams until 3-4am. I guess it reflects on how well I did in school that year.

I believe it was time well spent as it gave me a hobby and passion which I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon, no matter how uninspired or lazy I can usually get.

This hobby hasn't taken me far, and I don't think it ever will, but I'm glad I found something that I love doing. I sincerly don't give a fuck if anybody hears my music or not, nor do I care what people think about it. I don't do this to "blow up" nor do I do it for any sort of monetary gain. Again I do it because the feeling of creating something you are proud of is very hard to describe.

I know I'm straying a little from the topic, but I don't think I've ever gone out in public without a Walkman, Discman, iPod etc. in my pocket since about Year 5 without feeling funny. During my time at uni I've had headphones on of some sort at least 75-80% of the time, WITHOUT exaggeration. I even have one bud in my ear during lectures playing DJ Premier instrumentals while I try to drown out the boring bullshit being "taught" to me that has done nothing but put me in $20k debt. Oh I guess it also grants me a piece of paper which makes me a more favored worker ant for the colony but that's another story.

The amount of hours that I've spent listening to music on the move is probably fucking ridiculous and I don't even want to think about such a number.

Back on topic - Here is the first beat I ever made. It sucks I know. At least its a proper 4/4 time signature which I had idea about back then. New stuff coming soon, maybe.

Inspired?

Funny, out of nowhere I probably pull out in my opinion some of the best shit I've ever created after weeks and even months of not even being able to think of a good drum pattern let alone a cohesive instrumental. I bet tomorrow I can't repeat it, so I'm deciding to make the most of it and stay up while the creative monkey crunk juices are flowing.

This piece I call "Inspiration." It's purely instrumental, It's a little fast @ 124bpm. It consists of a slightly off beat drum pattern behind some samples intertwined with a string section consisting of me and my crew of tiny musicians who fit in my keyboard playing very loudly during this hour. (6am)

I haven't listened to it anywhere except my headphones for the reason being that I started this at 2am today and finished it around 6am, so this is not the final version by any means I guess.

Start to finish please! (2 minutes and a bit)

I will probably wake up tomorrow and end up hating it.

Uninspired!

Firstly, I want to say if you haven't noticed some of my music is on the post below this one. More to come soon!

In terms of making music, I'm still in a really uninspired state. I wouldn't call it "writers block" or "(insert creative person's title here) block" because it's been going on for an extended time now, usually that shit goes away in a few weeks or wears off or whatever.

So instead of dwelling upon that fact I decided to be proactive and download some tutorials that might inspire me. My keyboard/piano skills are pretty much shit so I decided to download something for that.

So I decided to download an instructional tape called "How To Play The Piano Instantly" by John Derbin. (1994) Cool right? I mean the title conveys a promise that watching the video should provide "INSTANT" results! Plus not to mention that it had the most seeds for instructional torrents so it must be good right?

The download finishes and I fire up VLC player, low and behold this mug pops up on my screen and I was in a state of shock/awe.


I knew the tape was old (1994), but he seems to be stuck in the previous decade, even his fucking gear. I haven't watched the tape yet because my pride will not accept tutelage from such a character.

On a positive note though, from what I've flicked through he is an animal on the keys son! I've never heard "Mary Had A Little Lamb" with so much character and expression before!

The (cassette) tape and booklet still retails for about $25USD 15 years later online. He's "Twinkle Twinkle Little Starring" all the way to the bank bitches!

Later.