Dunno if I will have time to make videos when I am in school, so… this might be the last one for a while.

Here’s yet another piece of my goddamned music.

Hmmm. Not sure about that Phrase B on the main instrument. It’s not nearly as pretty and harmonious as the two repeats of Phrase A and the one instance of Phrase C. Otherwise, though, it’s a pleasant mixture of the funky and the ethereal.

Maybe stopping making videos for a while will be good for my music. Give me more time to just fiddle around with things until it’s all as groovy and together as I want it to be.

Next up, an experiment : music, a slideshow, AND captions!

Guess I was just filled with inspiration that night.

Looking at it now, it was as I feared. It’s too much to take in all at once. That’s why I gave up on text captions for funny pictures. Whether you do them before or after the picture or even during, it ruins any sense of comedic timing to try to read the caption and take it what it is referred to.

And I am all about the timing, baby.

And now, a crappy talk :

I swear, I had a whole lot more material of higher quality about the subject before I started talking about it. I got my main points across, but I feel like I missed a bunch of stuff.

I know, I know, I am too damned hard on myself. I figure, in the beginning at least, every artist has to find out how hard they can be on themselves and still produce/learn, then dial it back one notch. The conflict between our high standards and our growing skills is what fuel the next project, then the next, and so on.

The secret is to keep producing.

Up, some funky stuff :

Dedicated to the big pickle hater in my life.

I do wonder about those people. The ones for whom the smell of vinegar is wired directly into their disgust center, and provokes a reaction similar (but not identical) to how humans react to urine or feces.

Surprisingly, I really have no theory for that. Some slight but vital mutation in the ammonia receptors in their noses? I dunno. It just strikes as both strange and sad that we have people who react so violently to something so common.

The whole world eats vinegar!

And now, the sad truth about traffic :

Car are about flow. The pleasure of driving is in continuous flow. Traffic ruins flow.

I have had most of those thoughts in my mind for a long time, but it was the realization that human population patterns are essentially random that pulled them all together into a theory of traffic. Nobody is going to start telling people they can’t move someplace because it has reached its peak traffic capacity.

The people already living there might want that, but freedom of residence is too deeply ingrained to budge an inch.

And now, the best piece of music I have done lately, IMHO :

I mean, that sounds like it could totally be the theme to a TV show.

Getting the images was trickier than usual. I wanted the sort of freaky, alienating imagery you’d see in the opening of an X-files type show, but that’s a bit more than a simple Google Image Search can provide.

So I had to just try various adjectives and see what came up. It was a lot of work but I like the results.

I love that super pissed off looking alien in the suit. Holy shit, Zagzorp, who bent your wookie?

More music, this time with a heavier sound :

What can I say. I really like the flute. And I have a ton of really good flute sample.

As was recently pointed out to me, it’s that third sample where I tend to mess up. I am very good at matching basslines to beats, but beyond that, my judgment is apparently impaired.

Oh well, I am learning by doing. If I keep at this, I am bound to get better at it. And if not, whatever.

It’s not like I am expecting to have a career in music. I just do it for fun!

Next up : guess what? More music!

This time, I set out to experiment with chords. Ones I make myself, not samples of chords. I wanted to see if I could create some of those extraordinary effects you get when you start with a simple chord in full sustain then shift one note to change the chord in ways that make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I didn’t quite get there with this piece, but I am definitely going to try again.

Next, I talk about major issues of great national importance.

Wacky Lay’s flavours! I love these flavour competitions. The flavours are always impressively complex and realistic. And I love trying new stuff, which would surprise the hell out of my siblings.

Amongst my group of friends, I’m the adventurous eater. Magine.

The other two are the Montreal Smoked Meat and Butter Chicken. Not too keen on either of those, but compulsive thoroughness knows no mercy, so I will get around to trying them both eventually.

I have nothing against smoked meat. I just don’t trust meat based chip flavours after my run in with the cheeseburger flavoured Doritos man years back. Those things really messed me up.

And I have never liked butter chicken. WAY too rich.

And finally, music.

Somewhat successful. Don’t you love that bassline that it starts on. The volume balance is off though, so the climax is a lot louder than I intended. (That’s what SHE said!)

Plus that electric piano riff is just gorgeous. I should try my old method of song generation again, which was to get together all the samples I love and try to make them work together.

Or use them as movements in a symphony. I dunno.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.