A bit early now, aren’t we?

Yes, yes we are!

Yeah, I wanted to do the update, before heading out the Christmas land, removing the cape of Arki.

So, here’s something that’s relatively suitable for the season: ORGAN WERK OPUS 525 IN C MINOR. No further explanation in needed.

Regarding the headline of this post, yes, I was thinking that tomorrow’s the big day, as well as the Tim Burton movie, but also the song: “The Night Before” is an early Beatles song, from the “Help” album and the movie. Great song and great guitar solo! I’m going to listen it right away.

Happy holidays everyone! See you next year.

The name of the game is EVERPOP. (A little joke there)

At first – just a second ago – I wrote the title on the tune with two o’s… And it made me much more amused than it really should…

Anyway, the tune is fun. It’s vintage alright, and I tried to make it sound as organic as possible. It has basically two parts that keep on repeating, with some variation on instrumentation.

Of the two parts, the theme 1 is definitely more dominant.

Smiley-smiley.

Also (overly) enthusiastic drum stuff! That is good.

Major is happy and minor is sad. Right? (Major and minor in music, that is)

No. It’s all in the context of the music and listeners brain.

You can fill a song with bright major chords and clear melodies, but if the tune’s beat is sticky and overall feel dark, and you spice the whole thing up with lyrics about loss & desperation, you get something that really isn’t happy at all.

The folk music of Balkan – on the other hand – is filled with minor chords and melancholia, but the rhythm in that music is very often so lively, that sadness is the last thing on your mind. (I’m counting out the lyrics here, because I only speak ‘n read Canadian & Cimmerian)

DUMMY IN THE HEAT features a lot of diminished chords & intervals, which are like double minors – two minor thirds on top of another. And the tune’s mood is hardly a sad one.

All in the context, man.

And your brain.

Let me presente ye, le canticle christmas – se: LA DI LA LAND.

It’s definitely something, I like to call “8-bit orchestral”. I quite recently got a new piece of software containing that kind of sounds, and making the tune was a perfect way to really get to know it’s secrets.

There’s bells and cling-clong and elves and magic in the air and stuff. (“The stuff” being 8-bit strings and flutes and bassoons and harps and whatnot)

Merry december folks!

Ok so, SMELL OF THE IRON was supposed to a real, tangible bass in it… It’s just… I made a demo bass track, which was nice to have there, when I was recording guitars… And when I was done recording ‘em, I noticed that I liked the synth bass track! It’s synthetic alright – much more than I intended – but it provided great balance to the dark & bassy guitars, that were after all the core of the tune.

So, that’s why.

Explanation accepted. You are forgiven.

Thanks man!

Coming up next week: Not metal!

“Thumb piano stuff”, I said to myself the other morning.

Then I did some googling.

I was already aware that thumb piano (or finger piano) is the same thing as kalimba, the latter being the official name of the commercially available product. Kalimba is of course based on the East & South African instrument Mbira (or ikembe).

Then I listened some authentic finger piano music.

What I got out of it was:

– Melodies aren’t very “melodic”, they just sort of float there
– No “strong” chordal stuff, meaning… lots of chords with major 3rd or 5th (interval) as a bass note
– Lots of repetition

Then I placed my hands on the keyboard and started messing around. Uncharacteristically for me, I barely used any quantization (making every note’s time exact). I wanted to keep the tune organic & lively.

So, that’s where FISH IN THE WATER came from.

ONE TRICK PONY is pretty much a one trick pony, because that’s what it is.

That’s it, thank you, goodnight everyone!

Ok, a few more words: The single-minded trickiness was just how it turned out to be. Adding stuff is not always the solution.

About the saying, this is the most obvious idiom I’ve ever googled. TL;DR, circus! That’s all you need to know.

From ponies to fishies…

“Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage” has been on my to-read-list for a while. Apparently, it’s an amazing (and horrible) tale of survival and… well, endurance.

I’ve been reading a few other boyish adventure novels as well, like Kipling and Verne, the stuff I missed out when I was younger. Great excitement & fun! (And horror)

To make things a bit more challenging & educational, I’ve been doing this sort of reading in english. Although, reading Kiplings “The Man Who Would Be King” in english was a little rough… Oldish language, endless historical references and long passages of freemason terminology made sure the reading experience was clunky, to say the least…

Anyway, ENDURANCE, inspired by “Endurance” (which I still haven’t read), powered by endurance.

End ur rants.

And then something that fits into the sub-sub-genre of “You know, for kids”:

SKIPPING THE ROPE

The music should speak for itself.

The genre in question is of course a quote from a movie called “The Hudsucker Proxy”. Wonderful little comedy film that is. Maybe not the greatest thing Coen Brothers put out, but still pretty good and super ok.

Balance is restored after the horrors of Halloween.

Here we go again: Spooky Halloween music part k: HALLOWED. Shoutout to Bernie Hermie, and the famous theme from the “Psycho”.

At some point of the production I started to feel the urge to add drum beat. Only with great determination I managed to restrain myself from doing so.

Then I had an idea: Why not redo this tune with the beaty stuff that had been harassing me. So, coming up: Just that!

That version of the piece… I think I’m going after more stuartgordony feel… Something like the theme from “Re-Animator”. You know, orchestral instruments on a silly 80’s beat.

By the way, the “Re-Animator”-theme is of course a blatant ripo… I mean, lovingly crafted reimagining of the “Psycho”-theme, so, that makes the circle very round.

Movie recommendation of the season: “Re-Animator” (1985) directed by Stuart Gordon.

This post contained five (5) colons. Now, that’s spooky!