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Bellaby

A lullaby for Bella, my buddy Scot’s daughter, who is learning to play.

Bella

Bella –

This is a simple tune based on four notes which start at the very beginning and repeat through to the very end. Tracks layer one after another atop each other and then are pulled away in reverse order for a certain symmetry: the first on is the last to go.

A challenge: download the source file, do something interesting with it, send it back to me and I’ll post it here. Maybe we can start a sort of a musical conversation.

– Rick

Bellaby.mp3

Bellaby.band source file for Apple’s GarageBand

Wandering

This is a good example of a late night wandering. Usually these are one-time, one-person performances to an audience of one, me. In this case I hit the record button.

Wandering.mp3

Misconceptions

An oversight: I never posted the actual film that we, Go Woof, entered in the June 2009 48 Hour Film Project. Relatively speaking my part was small–I did the soundtrack–and I worked in the background, in solitude. I have already posted the soundtrack, albeit in pieces. Here they are in the order in which they appear in the film:

  1. BadFloat
  2. SubGroveBreath
  3. Shaman

At long last, here it is…

  • The film that the world, nay the universe has been waiting for…
  • Meg Ryan said, “Turning down the lead role was the worst mistake of my career.” But she said it about some other role.
  • Quentin Tarantino was heard to say, “Ahhha, come on, now that’s just sick.”  Shortly thereafter he ran screaming from the theater in terror.
  • Brad Pitt said, “This is one sorry-ass excuse for a movie.”  So I kicked his ass.  Okay, so that never actually happened, but I could kick his ass if I really wanted to.  Pretty sure.  If he was drunk.  And 60.  And a girl.

Without further adieu, the MOST AWESOMEST MOVIE EVER…

Misconceptions!!!

SubGroveBreath

I’ll release the tracks over the next several days, holding my favorite for last because I plan to expand upon it.

I just noticed that I never did this, i.e., I never posted my favorite track from the most recent 48 Hour Film Project, SubGroveBreath. I played with it for a couple of nights sure enough, but I didn’t make any recordings worth releasing. I find myself running up against the limitations of Garage Band and my laptop, so I’m dreaming of an improved rig with Logic Studio.

A few observations.

The percussion is tuned: it is in the same key as the other instruments. This is easiest to notice toward the beginning just as the breathy track comes in.

It is monotonous as hell. Which perhaps isn’t so great for you the listener, but that’s not always my first concern. I often find long tracks fertile for improvisational practice, particularly when the tempo is medium to slow. When a piece is fast I often break into well practiced riffs, and this is lazy. When a piece is slow, and when I’m in the right frame of mind, improvisation becomes…and I’m not really sure of how to say this…it becomes a quest for melodic and harmonic opportunity. You find a melodic line, maybe work in a harmonic line, perhaps something dissonant or even out of tune, bend a few notes, just to see how far you can take it.

So here it is, SubGroveBreath, for future expansion, or not.

SubGroveBreath.mp3

Shaman

This is the first piece that I recorded for our entry in the 48 Hour Film Project. The script called for a shaman or mystic which at first had me thinking about the sounds of the Middle East and South Asia, but lacking decent sitars or dulcimer samples I settled instead on a flute.

Shaman

Shaman

You can almost hear me wondering what to do with this theme as I tap the same key many times before wandering off. By fortunate accident my choice of flute as the featured instrument works, because the actor who plays the shaman comes across as something of a Neo Celtic/Burning Man/Techno Hippie. It took form on Friday night shortly after I had a look at the script outline. On Sunday morning the editors asked me to make it creepier, hence its reincarnation with layered under swells.

Shaman.mp3

48 Hour Film Project

The 48 Hour Film Project came to Seattle this weekend.  From their website:

The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours.

I composed the score for Go Woof Productions’ entry, “Misconceptions.”  Two evenings ago, on Friday night, all the teams entered in the competition received their assignments.  Ours was the following….

  • Genre:  Horror
  • Character:  Kristy or Kyle Brown
  • Profession:  Illustrator
  • Line of dialog:  ‘Wrong. Guess again.’

And then the clock started clicking.  The script writers produced an outline of the script on Friday night and a rough cut of the film was ready early on Sunday morning.  I composed most of the tracks on Sunday morning from my studio (aka living room) and sent them to the post-production team via the internet. 48 Hour Filmmaker: Seattle 2009 Initially most of the tracks were fragments, bare musical ideas, which were modified based on feed back from the director and editors such as “make this one creepier” and  “shorten this one to 45 seconds.”  Four pieces were included in the final production and I am impressed with the editors’ ability to integrate them into the picture under the intense deadline.

Join us for the Worldwide Premier of Misconception–THE MOST AWESOMEST MOVIE EVER–at 6:30 on Thursday, June 25, at the Harvard Exit Theatre.

I’ll release the tracks over the next several days, holding my favorite for last because I plan to expand upon it. For now take a listen to the creepiest piece. It is composed of one instrument played with a bit of finesse through a keyboard controller and layered together over three tracks.

Bad Float.mp3

Youth Released

Youth Without Youth

I found this fragment floating around in my head a few days after watching Youth Without Youth. It could be a complete ripoff of something therein, I’d have to listen to the movie again to know. I may expand upon someday, or not….

YouthReleased.mp3

Finch, Bondi & Izmir

The full version of Finch is composed of six tracks. This version is composed of two of the six tracks, Bondi & Izmir, isolated from the others. This is one way to go about preparing a piece for an alternate use such as a film soundtrack or mashup.

Finch.BondiAndIzmir.mp3

Finch

I caught a few notes of a birdsong last night. Couldn’t get it out of my head. Funny where we find the muse.

Finch.mp3

Hot and Cold

I run hot and cold: long hot nights working on projects until I’m surprised by the rising sun, followed by days or weeks of nothing at all. This clip is from my first experience with Apple’s Garage Band. I launched it for the first time one evening last October after getting the computer and keyboard communicating. I spent the rest of that night getting deeper and deeper into it. The result is a bit rough, but it doesn’t suck for a first time out.

Hot & Cold.mp3

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