[omloflump]

Consider it expected, my dear Maxwell. I have roughly fifteen albums' worth myself, but the battle between my inner whore and inner critic is still raging, and I shudder at the thought of my prefacing comments.

[Hammerite]

merry christmas
and here it is.
and as i say, it isn't that good at all.

all recorded, edited/massacred, and mixed using GoldWave, w. music made through the use of the Creative keyboard

link: http://www.sharebigfile.com/file/436...orted.zip.html

[Squinky]

So, I wrote a little piece over the last couple of days. It's slow and slightly jazzy, sounds vaguely MIDI-like because I don't have anyone to play instruments for me, and contains absolutely no singing. I'll likely be using it as background music for a future game.

I Couldn't Find The Words

[portabello]

Suffering from a very inconvenient bout of insomnia, I rediscovered my laptop's original media folder. Some of its musical contentes are here for you to judge and belittle.

Here are a pair general midi sequences which I am somewhat proud of:
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/midi.zip

Here is a recording of the output of a semi-random beatslicing thing I made in Pure Data and the original patch.
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/randomslicer.zip

Here is a somewhat ambient thing I made in Audacity using only a short clip from some speech I found on the internet as the only sound source:
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/drone.zip

Here is some spanish-ish sounding music I wrote for a class project. Its the sheet music, Sibelius score file, and a really messed up sounding midi version (which is at way to slow a tempo, leaves out a guitar part, and makes the other guitar's glisses sound like butt)
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/final.zip

Here is the beginning of a funky last minute final project for another class which was quickly discarded in favor of a really hacky bullshit (and easier to finish at the last minute) techno song instead:
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/ccsfinalalpha.zip

And finally, here is a unfinished ambient/disco piece based on the ever boring iiV7I chord progression.
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/iiV7I.zip

And since these are all hosted on a single geocities, my bandwidth will probably be exceeded on the off chance any of you care enough to download any of the last two tunes.

[RLacey]

Anybody interested (hah!) in the music from Christmas Quest 2 can download it all...

Intro Medley (We Wish You a Merry Christmas; Deck the Halls)
Good King Wenceslas
Silent Night
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Past Three O'Clock

Enjoy. Possibly.

[portabello]

Originally Posted by RLacey

Anybody interested (hah!) in the music from Christmas Quest 2 can download it all...

Intro Medley (We Wish You a Merry Christmas; Deck the Halls)
Good King Wenceslas
Silent Night
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Past Three O'Clock

Enjoy. Possibly.

I really like your arrangement of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Great stuff!

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by portabello

Suffering from a very inconvenient bout of insomnia, I rediscovered my laptop's original media folder. Some of its musical contentes are here for you to judge and belittle.

Here are a pair general midi sequences which I am somewhat proud of:
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/midi.zip

Those are so adorable!

Here is a recording of the output of a semi-random beatslicing thing I made in Pure Data and the original patch.
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/randomslicer.zip

Eh. It's fast, but much too random and awkward to keep your interest. The ending sort of works, but it comes out of nowhere and don't you think it's a bit clichéd?

Here is a somewhat ambient thing I made in Audacity using only a short clip from some speech I found on the internet as the only sound source:
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/drone.zip

I don't get it. What happened on October 15th? The atmosphere is nice in the beginning, but it's built on mystery. As soon as you can clearly hear what's being said and exactly how the audio file is being chopped up, that's lost and you don't have anything to replace it. It could have gone someplace great, but it sounds like you lost interest before you could get anywhere near there.

Here is some spanish-ish sounding music I wrote for a class project. Its the sheet music, Sibelius score file, and a really messed up sounding midi version (which is at way to slow a tempo, leaves out a guitar part, and makes the other guitar's glisses sound like butt)
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/final.zip

All I'm going on here is my guess of how it's supposed to sound based on the MIDI, but my impression is that it's just an imitation of every other piece of music in the style. This style doesn't suit you.

Here is the beginning of a funky last minute final project for another class which was quickly discarded in favor of a really hacky bullshit (and easier to finish at the last minute) techno song instead:
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/ccsfinalalpha.zip

And finally, here is a unfinished ambient/disco piece based on the ever boring iiV7I chord progression.
http://geocities.com/dominguezaudio/iiV7I.zip

I'm sorry you never bothered to finish them. And as predicted, I can't download them.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Squinky

So, I wrote a little piece over the last couple of days. It's slow and slightly jazzy, sounds vaguely MIDI-like because I don't have anyone to play instruments for me, and contains absolutely no singing. I'll likely be using it as background music for a future game.

I Couldn't Find The Words

Enjoyable at first, but it gets tedious. Mainly because of the repetitive drums, though maybe it would be better if there were a real drummer playing them. Overall, though, not bad. As background music in a game, it's no classic but I've definitely heard worse.



By the way, how do you guys do all this fancy MIDI/digital stuff?

[Squinky]

Thanks for the critique.

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

By the way, how do you guys do all this fancy MIDI/digital stuff?

In my case, I use a keyboard and Cakewalk Music Creator.

[RLacey]

I enter notes manually into Sibelius.

[portabello]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Eh. It's fast, but much too random and awkward to keep your interest. The ending sort of works, but it comes out of nowhere and don't you think it's a bit clichéd?

Its a lot more interesting if you see the source code and can fiddle with all the different paramaters. Its more of a proof of concept thing that an actual piece of music.

I don't get it. What happened on October 15th? The atmosphere is nice in the beginning, but it's built on mystery. As soon as you can clearly hear what's being said and exactly how the audio file is being chopped up, that's lost and you don't have anything to replace it. It could have gone someplace great, but it sounds like you lost interest before you could get anywhere near there.

Its all just simulacra in a musicological sense. It was written on an older computer and didn't couldn't really handle any more tracks towards the end. But you are indeed right. It loses its focus after the audio clip is heard relatively untouched. I guess this was also more of a proof of concept thing.

All I'm going on here is my guess of how it's supposed to sound based on the MIDI, but my impression is that it's just an imitation of every other piece of music in the style. This style doesn't suit you.

This was more an excercise in writing out music straight from my brain to paper without being able to play it first. It would probably would sound better with real instruments.

I'm sorry you never bothered to finish them. And as predicted, I can't download them.

No apology necessary. Thank you very much for taking the time to critic those that you did listen to. It is greatly appreciated.

Originally Posted by Squinky

So, I wrote a little piece over the last couple of days. It's slow and slightly jazzy, sounds vaguely MIDI-like because I don't have anyone to play instruments for me, and contains absolutely no singing. I'll likely be using it as background music for a future game.

I really like the melody, but I don't really like how its played. In small group jazz you would almost never hear someone play it in such an exact manner. Its kind of square. I would love to hear a version where the melody was performed instead of just sequenced in.

I actually like the melody so much that I made my own version of the tune: http://www.geocities.com/dominguezaudio/ICFTW.zip

By the way, how do you guys do all this fancy MIDI/digital stuff?

Cakewalk home studio or PA9 (when doing straight up Gmidi)
Logic Fun (a cheezy freeware version of Logic, also for straight up Gmidi)
Audacity (for audio editing)
Sibelius (for making handwritten scores look presentable)
Cubase SX (for non Gmidi sequencing with VSTs and audio and stuff)
Pure Data/Max Msp (for audio programming stuff: building synths, generative music, interactive music, etc.)
My only real bit of hardware (other than soundcards and instruments) is my Korg microKontrol midi controller.

[MoriartyL]

Thanks a lot!- I'll look into all this software. By the way, portabello, I can't access "ICFTW".

[portabello]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Thanks a lot!- I'll look into all this software. By the way, portabello, I can't access "ICFTW".

Yeah, I messed up the link. It should work now.

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by portabello

I would love to hear a version where the melody was performed instead of just sequenced in.

Perhaps if I could find someone to play trumpet/cornet/flugelhorn for me. Or I could play it on the euphonium, an octave lower. We shall see...

Originally Posted by portabello

I actually like the melody so much that I made my own version of the tune: http://www.geocities.com/dominguezaudio/ICFTW.zip

Nice. A bit busy for the sort of soft background music sound I was aiming for, but I enjoyed hearing your take on it.

[omloflump]

All right, I’ll post something here.

This is a song a friend and I wrote three or four years ago. The chord progression is based on a Bach fugue, but the melody — which in turn was adapted from an old folk song — hides this resemblance, mostly due to the fact that it avoids the root notes and acts more as a counterpoint to the chords, which is why it may sound unusual on the first listen. There are some fairly tricky modulations in there, but the arrangement, which literally took a month to complete (although perhaps that was just because of our lack of skill), does a good job of disguising the somewhat unusual jumps.

Lyrically, I took my inspiration from the T.S. Elliot poem, The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock, particularly its depiction of unrequited love, and Wordsworth’s Lucy Gray, though I certainly didn’t ape them. An understanding of those works does assist the overall understanding of this one, but it is by no means necessary. I also made a point of using masculine rhymes for the male’s perspective and feminine rhymes for the female’s perspective. It’s a conceit, granted, but it works surprisingly well in practice, even if you aren’t aware of it. Nevertheless, we balanced it out by creating tension in the musical accompaniment, wherein the feminine section is underscored with a harsher, more immediate backdrop, while the masculine section is more reflective and gentle. All this may seem a tad weighty, but the ironic affirmation of the title goes a long way to rectify that, despite its seeming superficiality. And I think there’s a healthy amount of humour, too.

If you’re interested, the oddball rhyme scheme is:
ABC
ABCD
ABC
ABCD
for the first two verses, and:
AAB
AAC
AAB
AAC
for the last.

And I told myself I wouldn’t preface it!

Anyway, without further adieu, here it is.

[MoriartyL]

Um, that is meant as a parody of something.. right?

It's painful to listen to.

[MoriartyL]

Ah, I hadn't read the whole preface. Yes, you must think you're awfully sophisticated or something for laughing at people who actually do have intelligent things to say. Thank you very much for wasting my time with that trash.

[omloflump]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

Ah, I hadn't read the whole preface. Yes, you must think you're awfully sophisticated or something for laughing at people who actually do have intelligent things to say. Thank you very much for wasting my time with that trash.

Um... right. I was laughing at myself more than anybody (and certainly not anybody here), and I'm rather surprised it offended you. The song really was done four years ago. Oh, my innocent little four-in-the-morning joke!

[portabello]

Originally Posted by Squinky

Perhaps if I could find someone to play trumpet/cornet/flugelhorn for me. Or I could play it on the euphonium, an octave lower. We shall see...

A euphonium would sound amazing, especially if you transposed the peice up something like a third or fourth to better fit the horn's range. But, I meant more like recording the midi keyboard live (and possibly quantizing afterwords) as opposed to entering it in note by note. I think it would make the melody sound more natural. It would help keep it from sounding a bit rhythmically and dynamically flat.

[Trumgottist]

Originally Posted by Squinky

Perhaps if I could find someone to play trumpet/cornet/flugelhorn for me. Or I could play it on the euphonium, an octave lower. We shall see...

Or if you'd post it as a midi file, there may be a trumpet player in this forum that would see it as an excuse to play around with Garageband and a microphone to see if the program may be useful (in future game making or something else)...

Hammerite: File not found. (I guess it was there once, but it's not anymore.)

portabello: Well, you said it. Geocities...

RLacey: I only listened to your music with the built-in Midi of my MacBook, so it obviously didn't sound great, but I liked it anyway. Good King W. not so much, but the others I liked. Like someone else said, Emmanuel is particularly nice, but I think Merry Gentlemen is my favourite.