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April 2006 Archives« March 2006 | Main | May 2006 » April 29, 2006 - General LedgerIf the big ledger sheets I have are too complex for your needs, I now have simple general ledgers available! 2 Column ones are for simple Credit / Debit... 3 columns are for... hrmm... I'm not sure - but they were requested. 8.5 x 11 only. One color scheme only. April 28, 2006 - Dvorak PolkaGraph Paper with Bolded Major Axes Well - not by default, but it is an option now. There's a checkbox that makes all your Cartesian dreams come true... if you dream of an origin roughly in the center of the page. April 27, 2006 - Ghosts, Ghosts, Writers, Christ, Norway, NorwayAtmospheric Video Animation Project The Naked Novelist Podcast (coming May 1) Web Cards Norway TV... thing...
April 22, 2006 - Cranky GeeksHoly Mother of Cranks! I just subscribed to the Cranky Geeks podcast after hearing about it on TWiT. The opening title is ME! Hilarious! This is cool - I was having a bad day up to now. Thanks John C. Dvorak (dvorak.org/blog)! Wow. That's an old piece with bad samples. I almost should redo it... but I have a feeling they want the cheese. Email me if you want a new one, John! "...we're going to try to be as cranky about it as possible. If that polka music doesn't do it for you - nothing will." April 20, 2006 - Mega-MusicsTen new pieces of music. Ten. In a single update. Tis crazy!
These are all pieces I pulled out of the score I recently completed for "Nosferatu". Noble Race The montage of scenes where Hutter and Orlock race back to Ellen. The piece in the soundtrack proper is changed slightly from this excerpt - here I restored a final crecendo near the end which doesn't work in the film. It incorporates all the main themes from the film - but only rarely in counterpoint. There seems to be some problem with the tymp in this mix... I'll leave it as an exercise to the editor to figure out how to de-emphasize that in your own film. Spider's Web Tritone (Locrian) theme in harpsichord for the Knock character. This theme is found throught the score - but this is one of the only parts that I could pull out as a stand-alone piece. Dawn Hit Just a lush string chord. In the score, it is heard as "the cock crows" in the film. I put it online because it would be easy for people to use in a large number of applications. Overture A piano piece that sets the stage to Noferatu. A hideous life-sucking vampire horror movie? Nope. A love story about self-sacrifice. So - a love story with a tragic edge. You should hear that within the first 20 seconds. On a technical level, I do an altered chord to give your brain a bit of a jolt (A Major in the key of C Major). It works because it acts as a dominant to the D Minor... blah, blah, blah... theory, theory, theory... Village Dawn After Hutter goes to sleep at the local Inn, he gets up to a happy happy day. Well... not totally happy - but happy enough. This is a very simple happy tune... but something is wrong. It is in 5/8 time. Hrm... too subtle? Probably - but I'm not going to crank on the tympani. If it sets you off just a bit and you don't know why - that's PERFECT! If it passes unnoticed... that's fine, too. Awaiting Return Hanging out on a beach waiting for the return of a husband? Have I got the piece for you! This is based off of Holst's "Thaxted" which is used earlier in the film when Hutter's journey begins. And so, while waiting for the journey to end - here it is... but in romantic piano style (as tends to follow Ellen around). March of the Mind I forget why this piece exists. Hey! Give me a break, I speed-wrote this whole pile of music in under a week! Midnight Meeting Oh! Oh-ho-ho! This is my favorite! Se we have a couple of vampire themes, and a couple of living people themes in this soundtrack. So... what happens if you smash them all together in a fuge? THIS! mwahaha!!! haha... ha... heh? Dance of Deception Pipe organ peppy and dark tune. In the film, it occurs at the docks - where it looks like Orlock is just playing with the silly mortals. This is the original improvised sketch that I was unable to improve on... given the time constraints. Land of Phantoms Not really music... just plain creepy-sounding percussion. This occurs when Hutter is given a ride in the Phantom Carriage. This might be a bit over-the-top. The music is actually more creepy to me than the film. Yay! There's my initial thoughts on these pieces. And yes, I stand by my interpretation of Nosferatu as a love story. April 17, 2006 - More Weddings, and a mysterious PodcastThree new piano solos Continue Life, Spring Fields, Midsummer Sky. Theme, stingers and bridges Enigma for a podcast. The piano solos were commissioned from photographer.se to be used in slideshows. They were expected to be "happy, with a sense of expectancy". The result? "Spot On". Yay! So - I can't make any more of these anytime soon. :-) (I still have 2 sketches that I didn't produce, but they were the weakest of the bunch). As for "Enigma". That one was interesting. I received a request to do the theme music for a puzle-based podcast. "Upbeat and mysterious". Well... those elements are tough to mix... so I decided to try. What you hear is the result (plus a few strings). The track is not one continuous piece - It was meant to be chopped into 6 parts of varying length to be used in different segments. April 14, 2006 - Weddings; Damnation; Charles Bronson; ArizonaWebsite: New stuff to Sweden!
Shorts: The One Minute Show
April 06, 2006 - Porch Blues and Intractable JazzTwo new - and very very different pieces. Read more... it is a fun story. I don't recall how Intractible started... but it ended up sounding "cool". So I had to come up with a cool name for it. A name that people would convery the coolness - just by the title. So... what's cool... what's cool... ? Oh, originally, I had an alto sax on the lead line, but it turns out that a flugel is much more forgiving in this context. (it has a mushier attack characteristic) --- Ahhh... Porch Blues. Here's the story: It is 1:10am localtime, and I get an email from Australia. Hi Kevin, Well... no, I don't have one. I offered to do a piano solo, but he was thinking guitar and harmonica. Step 1) Record piano. Ok! Now I have a not-at-all porch-sounding piece of blues. They just don't make a good harmonica synth. I hunt around the house for a harmonica. Woohoo! I gots one! In the wrong key! G harmonica... ok, transpose the project to D. What step is this? 14? I finish it off with a couple of takes into the condenser mic (this is more step than you'd link because I have to reconfigure the entire computer's sound to switch from ASIO Midi to analog recording.) Delete remaining vestage of the drums; Add reverb; Mix Levels; Send Email; DONE! Elapsed time: 53 minutes. You've been such a cool guy, and your music has saved my movie twice now (I was Well... That was fun! Signed, April 05, 2006 - 23:20; PBS; Edison Death MachineSightings! Cinematic Featurette: Eleven-Twenty (23:20) Online Interactive Project: PBS's POV / American Documentary Feature Film: Edison Death Machine MIDI files are now available for several of the pieces, as well as "unprocessed" m4a file. Get them here (bottom of the page)! I should have learned by now just to offer everything up front. Not thinking these would be popular, I didn't bother linking the "raw" unprocessed versions of the pieces - leaving just a message on the page to email me if you want them. Well... email me, you did! I put up all the unprocessed ones I found, along with a few MIDI files that were requested. One person wanted to learn how to play the pieces, and another wanted to use them in a techno mix. If I come across any more MIDIs on the vast wasteland that is my hard drive - I'll put those up as well. Lessons learned: Keep better track of projects - even ones you think have little use. :-) April 03, 2006 - Ex-Mas, Sweden, RwandaFeature Film Trailer: Ex-Mas Eve Website: wedding photographers in stockholm sweden Online Video: Richard Bangs Adventures Two new piano solos are now available; Parting of the Ways, and Parting of the Ways Part 2. In the midst of several people requesting more piano solos, I decided to bring up a couple of long pieces today. I guess I haven't done many new ones in months. Typically, I try to get to the musical punch in a timely manner. I'm impatient that way. However - most of the time, these piano pieces are used as backdrops for very very long projects. While you could just grab a bunch of them - changing the style every 2 or 3 minutes can become jarring. These pieces have very long development times, and are assumed to be part of a larger whole... Parting of the Ways Parting of the Ways - Part 2
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