Notescast

Wild Wilds

Per this prompt about making background music for a board game, this is a soundtrack for Magical Athlete, a game that takes a bunch of very, very simple rules and creates this surprising emergent complexity from them, which in turn creates delightful drama. It also has a great sense of humor.

Accordingly, I took a simple riff and made some variations that do not line up until repeated a number of times. I arranged them in a way that builds up complexity in which I hope is a fun way. I did not want to create a serious Steve Reich vibe, as much as I love that stuff.

It uses a square wave, so it's chiptuney, which isn't ideal for background music, but then again, it worked for countless NES games.

Eventual Consistency

This is handmade phase music

I wanted to play physically for this one, so I got wrote bass and guitar parts. Unfortunately, I wrote a riff for the third little movement that was a bit more than I can handle, what with my not practicing (especially arpeggios) very often, so after trying all day (it’s surprising how you can burn time trying to get a take), I just went with what I had.

Still, I think the overall vibe is good, and I learned more about the logistics of physical phase music.

Oh, yeah, I should probably practice consistently. Maybe I'll do that...eventually. Ha! See what I did there?

There’s some confounding chords in the Link to the Past ending, apparently.

Cat Vortex

The prompt was to create a sonic zoo, so I took a 30-second sample of Oatmeal (a cat we’re taking care of) and repitched and stacked it using a web audio tool I wrote to do microtonal stuff. It sounds like many bewildered cats!

It got a little intense, so I threw in Dr. Wily saying “mrrp!” in breaks.

Cursed Minus Worlds

Prompt: Make music with three sounds: one you love, one you dislike, and one you consider to be neutral.

I thought about just picking three sounds that were short and arranging those samples rhythmically, musique concréte-style, but in the interest of stretching, I went with long field recordings of:

A Dave and Buster's-style arcade/bowling alley, packed with casino-like games laser-focused on exploitation.

Cicadas near Changgyeonggung Palace in Seoul

My kid trying out the piano sheet music for Super Mario 3 World 1 for the first time (he's only played the actual game once)

I had a really hard time fitting in the bowling alley recording. It's not at all rhythmic and has pieces of terrible music in it. I tried substituting this other really terrible field recording from the airport, but that didn't work, either.

I'm out of time, so here it is, as kind of an example of field recording emulsion.

Richards's Allotted Break Time

The prompt for this one was lunch break.

I wanted this to be a fun break time for Richards, for whom I imagine it's not enough, but he considers himself lucky to have a break at all in this capitalist dystopia. So, we've got to make the most of it.

The main riffs popped into my head while I was sleep deprived and walking through Incheon International Airport. I tried to leave the solos fresh and funny instead of following my instinct to try to make them "cool."

I also recorded a little audio drama, even though I personally hate all skits (except the Wu-Tang ones; they're the only ones that know how to make relistenable skits). I guess I could not resist the narrative compulsion.

I used designerchoices’s servo recordings and solbeatpros’s Sci-Fi Scanner Buzzing Loop samples to build the ambience for that bit.

Light Wants Out

In response to this prompt to use a light bulb sample, I arranged snippets from the sample by loading them into a software drum machine, then I played along to that on a guitar (with the gain all the way up on the amp) to try to sort of match the light bulb timbre.

Then, I also played along on a fly simulator I’m building, trying to imagine electricity trying to get out of a light bulb, and filtered out some frequencies to hollow it out a bit.

I periodically still try to find a third riff for this song. It’s sort of its own ritual now. It doesn’t matter if I come up with one; I just do it for its own sake.

Crack of Stones

I made sounds in two ways here:

1. Hitting two rocks together. One of them broke while I was playing them.

2. Lifting and dropping this milk crate full of rocks.

I looped the riff I recorded with the lifting and dropping a bunch of times, then I clipped out some sounds from hitting the rocks together and arranged them to be sort of in time with the lifting and dropping loop.

I then tried recording more hitting and tried layering but decided against my instinct to make it busy and full. There was great reverb in my backyard that my recorder couldn't quite capture, but it did get some nice crackingness.

Oh, yeah, this was in response to this prompt.

Train Has Joined the Chat

I live near train tracks, and sometimes I have to pause recording something because a train is going by.

So for this background noise prompt,I went out and recorded the train, then planned to write a song and record it while playing back the train recording. I ran out of time, sort of predictably, so I improvised three guitar tracks while playing back the train with a beat.

(Improvising with guitar pretty much happens any time I'm short on time.)

None of the guitar tracks were recorded while listening to any of the others, but I decided to keep two in anyway, to make it all a little more bewildering. The guitars are panned left and right, and the train gets the center.