Notescast

Fanfare for the Slug

Made last week in response to a prompt about making a soundtrack for a slug documentary. I went for something descending and textured.

I came up with one of these fantasy quest riffs.

The second piece was a lot harder. The piano had a high ring on a low C#, but he didn't let it bother him.

The real challenge was that he decide to improvise the middle section. Let me tell you, even improvising at home with no one listening is rough. I've never improvised live, myself. The guy got stuck a few times, but he never bailed.

Incidentally, I remember Pantera jamming at a show. They got in trouble, then it all came crashing down, and they did stop completely. They were probably super drunk, though.

The piano recital went pretty well. I didn't record it well, but I at least recorded it OK.

This is Dance Intermezzo. I thought he got a lot of feeling out of the high parts.

Intro

This week's prompt was to make something epic. I made an intro track, of the sort that '80s albums used to open with, but with just-intonation-based harmonies that went well off the 12-TET grid.

Several things went wrong:

- I wrote a program to make the synth harmonies and thought I might be able to play them on the fretless guitar. Ha! It was like trying to stand up inside a rotating ice orb.

- I thought I’d be able to easily add drums later, but I didn’t realize my program played a little more slowly the further it went on. It’s a little less noticeable when it’s fast, so I cut the slow part.

- Mixing synth horns and guitars with distortion turns out to be really hard. Respect to Bathory and Celtic Frost’s engineers!

Anyway, I wish it had been grander, but I ran out of time and cut it down to the bit that worked.

And to show they’re not snobs, the high school orchestra does a solid Indiana Jone.

Even the 7th and 8th graders played an adult-level Entrance of the Queen of Sheba.

There was also a performance of a Vivaldi concerto for two cellos. At least one of them was a freshman. They nailed it. No one in my high school was anywhere close to this.

I went to the middle school and high school orchestra and was a genuinely blown away. There was a high school quartet that played this Ravel piece without a conductor. The rhythms are really tricky, and there’s tempo changes all over. This recording is shitty, but they sounded great.

Organ Engine

The Junto prompt was music for takeoff.

I was just on a plane this Saturday, and I noticed that it’s an experience packed with low pitches and noise. So, instead of taking the pitch of this pipe organ sample upward, I had it drop as the piece went on. (Pitch up is the usual metaphor for elevation up.) I made the chords bigger as it goes along, too, once again, using the tonality diamond.