True music previews are starting to come online now. These are very small mono previews (about one tenth the size of the big downloads).
Everything should have a preview available by January 21st (about 6 hours after this posting).
Cheers, all!
January 13, 2009 - 3 Pieces: Soundtrack Tuesday!
The Whip The Whip (Extended Version)
This theme was designed for "The Whip" podcast, located at http://www.thewhip.us. Its an intense, driving hip piece. Starts off with an awesome drum roll, and then continues all the way through with rocking guitar. Great for show openers. Voice over friendly! The Extended version is also provided which adds three more minutes to the middle section of the piece, for any of those longer applications that you might need.
News Theme
A bright, driving piece originally created as a news theme. Short piece, great choice for a news theme. It is reminiscent of television news themes using bright, bold horns throughout, with a short fade out at the end.
January 12, 2009 - 3 more pieces!
Dirt Rhodes
A slow blues piece with prominent kit. Great to use as a backdrop for a scene since it has a long fade out at the end. Great, "cool" sounding piece.
With a Creation
An experimental piece designed to emulate a keyboardist playing with her robot.
To the Ends
Starts bright, then descends into darkness by the end. Has a definite "Lord of the Rings" style riff. Fades out a lot darker than its entrance.
January 10, 2009 - Musical Mother Load
Vulcan
A mysterious piece featuring a disjunct flute melody juxtaposed with two lower warbling flutes. Also featured are triangles, bells and low drums. The texture stays constant throughout. This piece sounds otherworldly and could work underscoring intergalactic travel. It could also be used as world music. The plodding drums could represent marching or travel.
Smooth Move A simple grooving dance line. Smooth bass line accompanied by high hat and snare. No fade out at the end. Could underscore dancing, spy movement, or somebody being cool.
Basement Floor
This is a suspenseful and driving piece fueled by slap synth bass and processed percussion. Beeping and high-pass percussion keep the piece moving throughout. Chorus enters at 45 seconds in. Phasing, reverb, delay and reverse used extensively. Bass drops out for the last 25 seconds to just leave the percussion. Sounds like a secret mission.
At Launch
Here is an epic journey of military might and spirited adventure featuring brass, marching snare and timpani, and lush strings. Alternating between the suspenseful and uplifting, this piece invokes visions of preparing for battle or flying through a stunning natural panorama. Marching snares and rising chords in the low brass begin the piece as a Harmon trumpet and flutes offer a delightful melody. A short chorale begins 20 seconds in. At 58 seconds the piece becomes more suspenseful and at 1:28 the snare pauses while full brass, strings and timpani take over. The last 35 seconds of the piece feature a large chorale and uplifting flutes.
Snowdrop
A somber solo piano improvisation featuring a repeated melodic tone with arpeggiated shifting chords in the bass. About 45 seconds from the end is an uplifting moment. Reminiscent of Chopin's Raindrop Prelude. This work looks out a window on nostalgia, regret, and peace.
Divertimento K131
This is an arrangement of Mozart's Divertimento (K131) for bells, harp, chimes and celeste. It is light and bouncy, with an accelerando around 45 seconds in. The work is played two times with a slight ritard at the end of the entire piece.
Dark Star
Dark Star is a orchestral fanfare featuring a rising motive led by the brass and strings. The piece builds gradually and finishes with a full orchestral climax. Chords shift along side of changing orchestral textures. The melody is carried by the brass at the beginning and end with the strings and bells sharing the melody in the middle. This piece depicts triumph.
Spider Eyes
Spider Eyes is an eerie soundscape created with distant high strings, dissonant non-percussive piano textures, and alternately tuned bells. This piece features much sustain and space as dissonance decorates silence. Bells blow in the wind through the first half of the piece and low morphing strings are featured in the second half. It could underscore a child walking through a dark forest.
Dreamy Flashback
This piece features repetitive triplet arpeggi and a lydian scale to invoke a dreamy feel. Pizzicato strings, harp and bells add to the piece's mystery. The pattern is a continuous loop with two arpeggiated chords. It begins and ends abruptly. It could underscore a flashback or a whimsical journey through a gumdrop land.
Frost Waltz (Alternate)
Here is alternate take of "Frost Waltz." It features arpeggiated bells and strings oscillating gently between minor chords. Bells give way to high strings 30 seconds into the piece. At one minute staccato strings give the piece a more mysterious feel and 30 seconds later sustained strings smooth the story. The last 15 seconds feature solo bells. It could underscore an underwater journey or a child flying through an enchanted forest.
Gustav Sting
A grooving sting featuring percussion and low staccato strings. A high-pitched click drives Gustav as he darts through his spy-like adventure.
Greta Sting A somber orchestral sting with a gentle rising motion. Greta is sad today. She met defeat.
"Yet Another Travel Show" is actually the title of the show. It is a pretty neat and expansive production that includes some longer edits of interesting events that would be atypical in a network TV travel show. I think they are used to great effect. The music used is quite familiar, too. :-)
January 04, 2009 - Secret Project
I've been working on a secret project to get even more music out to people in an even better way - through the Public Domain.
Many people already confuse Royalty-Free music with the Public Domain, so I did not want to keep them both on one site.
The new site, FreePD.com will allow for more interaction - user accounts, and even the ability for other people to contribute music into the Public Domain. I've been taking some of the older pieces off of my main site to get it started, and there are dozens more that I still need to post there.
So, if you're looking for a specific piece of music - it may have a more liberal license, namely - none.
January 02, 2009 - What Happened to the Previews!?
In truth - the "Preview" function was not a preview at all. Each time someone previewed a piece of music it would actually download the ENTIRE really big file. So, I'm in the process of doing everything the "right" way - and it is going to take some time.
So, while I get the "real" preview going - I just pulled off the fake preview workaround.
I'd like to say when it will be back, but I really don't know how long it will take. Don't feel bad to just download everything (as far as the website was concerned - it was what you were doing all along!)
January 01, 2009 - Album Art Selected!
Congratulations to Aidan Keith-Hynes of Starlight Productions for the album art to be included in my mp3 files!
Thanks to everyone who submitted art as well! I got a lot of very neat pieces (some of which I may use for special releases in the future).
