Dear Photograph

This blog is fairly brilliant.

San Diego

Old Pictures

When I updated my OS to Snow Leopard this weekend, my iPhoto suddenly started functioning again, revealing many pictures that I had totally forgot existed. Here are some favorites.

May the Fourth Be With You

It's been a few weeks since I have had a day to sit down and work on some music. This version of "Event Horizon" stemmed from a change of the bass line in the bridge, which is where you will probably notice most of the differences. In general, the mix has been altered and some slight instrumentation changed. Whether this makes the song any better is yet to be heard, because my ears are a bit burnt out at the moment and I need to walk away. I thought it would be as good a time as any to post and get some feedback. Overachievers can compare the new version to the previous version posted on the Facebook page.

Also, I thought I'd give you a look at the extra gear I have jammed into my workspace. Please note the Game Boy sized, hand-held sequencer just below the monitor and the camouflaged keytar on the bottom tier of the stand on the right, trying so hard to fit in.

That's what the inside of my head looks like.

MainStage

I've been using a lot of my Spring Break to finally create the necessary performance files for Maybe Bomb. I'm going to try to put this as simply as possible:

I create all my songs using the built-in synthesizers of Logic, a music-making computer program. This makes manipulation and control during the writing process ideal. However, because I build the sounds in the computer, I can't just store them to a keyboard to use them live. So, in order to actually play the sounds, and not just have the recordings play them back, I need a computer to access those exact sounds.

Initially, I thought I was going to need to run Logic live and try to use the program to both play the recorded backing tracks (because there is no way I'm going to be able to have enough people to perform all of the tracks) and play the rest live (an enormous risk, considering how taxing the program is on my computer as it is). MainStage, however, has really opened the possibilities for performance.

At the moment, I'm figuring out what sounds should be played live, by whom, and if a single keyboard should play multiple parts. In the picture above, you can see how the middle keyboard has four sounds that can be played simultaneously. The left side controls two sounds in unison while the right side controls two completely different sounds in unison. Something as simple as this is huge, and it just scratches the surface of what the program offers.

An additional bonus of using the two programs simultaneously is that it (theoretically) promises a perfect performance mix. If I set the levels of the individual tracks to be where there are on the finished songs, they should sit exactly where they belong in the final mix live. That's the plan anyway.

This video about the way that Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails utilizes the program really opened my eyes to the possibilities that MainStage offers.

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Pictures from Ireland

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Washington

The year is hedging towards the halfway marker and I still have a lot to do in regards to my New Year's resolution. But with the end of the Washington trip comes the end of the school year, and summer will leave me with lots of time to focus on finishing up more music. Recently I've been listening to a lot of older material (about a year or two left forgotten) and I've noticed that I'm in a much different place musically. In order for to get the album where I want, I'm going to need to come up with a lot more entirely original material. Exciting and daunting. The good news is that the lyrics and vocal melodies have been coming fairly easily lately, though in a strange twist of fate, the music remains elusive; where I used to be able to start up a few decent loops in a day, I'll now bang away at the keys with nothing to show for it.

While I try to come up with something new, here are some pictures that I liked from the trip. The architecture of the buildings amaze me every time. The National Cathedral is unbelievable.

Memorial Day Weekend Camping

Are the chords cutting through yet?

School has been busy lately. I'm currently searching for a new book to teach to the seventh graders next year, with a few prospects in mind. If you have any ideas, don't hesitate to share. While I haven't been sitting in front of the computer and writing music lately, I have been driving around with "Pit Stains" virtually on loop, working on vocals. I'm shooting to finish up a vocal demo this weekend.

While we wait, here's a picture of a bubbles in front of a door.

Dotted Lines and Whispers

I'm going to get over myself and start posting songs with vocals. As I may or may not have mentioned, these are demos, and there are going to be vocal issues, particularly with rhythm and pitch. If I feel the inevitable mistakes don't get in the way of giving you a decent impression of where the song COULD go, I'm not going to kill myself trying to get the perfect take.

What was "Hundred Year Nap" is now Dotted Lines and Whispers.

The picture seemed appropriate, seeing as it's my spring break and it's been snowing.

I think I'm going to try to get some vocals on an old one, "Sunday After Frank," that I wrote long before I started the blog. It's one that I've always felt had something worth uncovering in it. We'll see.

24 Degrees

Rehearsal for "24 Degrees", a percussion piece for Kurt's senior recital.

Hundred Year Nap

New song in the works. For starters, all it is is a verse and chorus, as usual. I like the percussion parts in the chorus; I've been having fun layering those up lately.

Hundred Year Nap.