Welcome to my 50th post on the Hybernation Music blog. Wow. Can it really have been five years ago that I decided to take the blogging plunge with my inaugural blog post. Yes, is was May 12, 2006.
I just want to say I quick "Thank You" to the (few) folks who take the time to read and listen, and occasionally comment, either here or on Facebook. Speaking of Facebook, it's hard to believe that Facebook was barely even around back in 2006 (it was, it just hadn't gone viral yet). I joined Facebook (as myself) about a year after starting this blog, in April of 2007 and didn't have a clue what to use it for. So my first post was: "Visit my blog at http://hybernationmusic.blogspot.com". LOL. I say "it's hard to believe..." because so many people I know, including myself, use Facebook now as a primary mode of communication!
I created a "Fragile Forest Page" on Facebook in January of 2010, sort of as a companion to this blog. Lately when I finish a track, I first post it there and then later, if I feel like it, I blog about it here. In fact, the Fragile Forest facebook page now has over 70+ "followers" (or "friends", or "likes" or whatever the heck they are calling it these days) so I suppose more people listen to my music there than here!
Anyway, I have decided to make more of an effort to blog every piece of music I work on here. Facebook is hard to navigate and go back and review old posts, due to all the clutter there. This blog is concentrated Fragile Forest, and it's my musical diary. I just need to make myself be more consistent with it.
Tonight, have a listen to these two piano solos. These are the two final pieces I mentioned last time I blogged in this post, which I have revised with a hyperlink to the future.
The first one is called "Searching" and it's actually part three of the "serious music suite" I wrote between 1979 and 1984. At one time I called this song "Song In Search of a Continuing Daytime Drama" since I felt that it was a bit on the sappy side, and the initial arrangement DID actually sound a little like "Nadia's Theme" (the theme from "the Young and the Restless"). In that original version written in 1979, I didn't play the arpeggiated left-hand part...I played simple quarter note triads, similar to "Nadia's Theme". I believe that it was a bit later (very early eighties) after I heard Keith Emerson's soundtrack to the horror film "Inferno" and that spurred the idea for the left-hand part. I remember being in Youngstown, Ohio when this happened, traveling with a top40 band. Isn't it funny how the mind retains some completely trivial bits of detail?
This recording was performed last year before I got the iMac, and was recorded into Cubase on the PC. The interesting thing about how I did that recording was that I played the entire piece to a metronome against a strict tempo, with no slowing down or speeding up. Then I went in a manually created all of the tempo variations you hear after the fact. I did this because I intended on orchestrating the piece and I wanted everything to line up perfectly on the bar markers, but then I later decided NOT to orchestrate after all. It was just too much work for someone who knows almost nothing about formal orchestration.
A few months ago I exported the MIDI file, with the tempo information intact, and then imported that into, you guessed it, Apple Logic Pro 9 on the iMac. I then constructed what I feel is "the perfect piano" sound....or at least as perfect as I can get at this time:
- Native Instruments Kontakt 4 playing SampleTek's mega piano called "Seven Seas Grand" (a Yamaha C7)
- IK Multimedia's new compressor called "Black 76 Limiting Amplifier"
- Nomad Factor's EQ plugin, the "PulseTeq EQs"
- Waves IR-L convolution reverb using their impulse response file that is an actual recording of the Ryman Auditorium from the 7th row.
So, first for tonight, here is "Searching":
The second solo piano piece in the suite, which was the last piece I wrote and was always meant to be the last one before the reprise, I am calling "Unnamed" because I cannot for the life of me remember what I used to call it. I probably have the old title written down an a piece of paper somewhere...I'm just not sure. I'm also not sure if I've even recorded it before. If I did, I probably recorded it on a Fender Rhodes electric piano....that is the way I first envisioned it. For this recording, I chose to use the exact same Piano sound as I did for "Searching", thinking this would give the suite a little bit of needed cohesiveness.
So, to end the night (and perhaps put you to sleep, this one is pretty mellow), here is "Unnamed":
1 comment:
Really nice stuff. I really do enjoy listening to your music. Thanks for sharing it with us!
Perhaps "Unnamed" could be "At Journey's End"? No, I'm sure your title was much better when you remember it.
Thanks again!
Clay
Post a Comment