Old Man Shouting At Clouds - What Genre Is That?

 

Posted this on Social Media this morning after recording that 57 second music clip using 7 string drop tuned guitar. A bit on that here:

It carries on from a previous post on OUR STRANGE MUSIC.  That is an expression Mattias IA Eklhund uses about his very odd (by Western Standards, but not by 5,000 year old Southern Indian standards) time signature and his harmonic lead wiggley wiggley he does. 

But this post was brought on by this RANT - OLD MAN YELLS AT METAL video: 

I agree with him that some young guys saying what he is doing "isn't metal" is rubbish. Metal has evolved into a zillion branches, and some young guys may only be familiar with some of the most recent.

This is probably mostly wrong but an attempt at such a family tree:

HP42 goes and plays a bunch of clips of recent metal, and I must say, most don't interest me at all.  Metal has changed from memorable riffs of LIVING AFTER MIDNIGHT, PARANOID or even ENTER SANDMAN, to be more about a rhythm played on a downtuned guitar playing against the kick drum.

Recent stuff seems more extreme version of what LAMB OF GOD did. 

In my music+comic at the top of this page, I think you could describe what I am doing as simple ROCK&ROLL, with a metal, downtuned guitar tone and double pedal kick drum. But then the synth stuff probably makes it go to Industrial something something.  I guess that is one of my styles that doesn't sound like someone else, and that is fine by me!

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Social Media Lost It's Shine?

Seems that way to me, on this November 11 2024.  

For years the shine has been coming off social media, as algorithm changes meant you don't actually get to see posts of friends any more and the pushing of advertisements and disinfo increased.

Seen others on X saying they lost many 100s of followers after the US election, as the disinfo bots got turned off.   I don't have as many followers as they lost, but did loose a handful, but that makes no difference to me at all.  

I am still on Mastodon, BlueSky, X, Instagram and Facebook, but there came a point some time ago where posting anything just became a waste of effort. Seemed, may, be 2 people would see anything I posted on X or Facebook, but more often 0, as the post vanished into the timeline before anyone even noticed it.  BlueSky, Mastodon and Instagram have always been a why did I bother at all, and Mastodon doesn't have anything but the most trivial posts of others 99% of the time.  Posts I have no interest in engaging with. 

BlueSky seemed to originally be populated with old Twitter "thought leaders/head geeks" with a following of some kind.  They are now pushing starter packs with themselves as the must follow people.  Have to say though, I have yet to learn anything worthwhile uniquely on BlueSky. 

There is a lot of Over Sharing, and tend to see that as an American thing, like being loud, but most isn't interesting in the least. We all have our own "small happiness" , like a nice cup of coffee or warm raison toast with just the right amount of cinnamon, but if that is the only thing you have to post, I don't want to see it!  

Instagram  is now solely for seeing posts from our daughter or on our grandson. 

Twitter was once a more interesting place. For many of the early years I would write a post, then delete it without sending most of the time. Has been a way to connect with similar minded people. Or find out about events I am interested in. 

The paid blue tick scam has impacted X a lot, but as long as people and businesses, remain X only and post about events they are producing, it will remain useful.  

X has never a place to get any interaction with an offsite link to my art or a music post.  A post with such a link may have gotten a like, 💗, but no one ever left their time line to check something out, unless it was that one acquaintance.

Will probably still post about my art and music, but it is the making of it that remains my focus, not the promotion. 

One thing being on Social Media showed was which Americans supported the Felon Rapist, even if they didn't directly say it and just poo pooed Climate Change or some such issue over time betraying their RWNJ leaning, while even saying they don't want to discuss politics. Useful to keep in mind to avoid... 

I few years ago I thought Blogging was completely dead. but the changes to Social Media have revived it to a degree, even if I am the one that comes back and reads these posts.

Have to include the Vloggers too. There are so many 30 minute videos that should have been a half page blog post now.  YouTube is all about how long views watch, so the padding, drink cup off coffee now, to extend that makes for a poor experience a growing amount of the time. And the AI generated drivel is even worse. Many reviews are all just Astroturfing what ever the product is. 

Some want to be "real people" talking about what ever it is, but I don't find they add anything. 

UPDATE: Nov 15 2024

Musk had new T&C for X come into effect Nov 15, and that seemed to force a mass Exodus from X to BlueSky, and things have definitely picked up on BlueSky. But the whole "time line" thing speeding past is still so much worse than a forum with topics.  The whole character limit means posts are by design, just short passing comments. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Our Strange Music

 

Our Strange Music was expanded from a 58 second thing did a couple of days ago for a short animation. No Singing. No Speech either.  Starts with a synth swoop up, has a weird guitar riff in the middle and ends with a sweep down. No Bass and no guitar solo. 

Isn't a standard song structure at all.  Has a few repeating melodic phrases, and variations. Actually doesn't have any place to put words or singing. But that is okay this time.

Guitar is all 8 String, and one riff is in the bass guitar region. Did consider putting some synth bass thing in it, but didn't come up with anything worthwhile.  Playing with low 8 string riffs and coming up with something interesting is a recent endeavor. 

When I have a memorable melodic phrase, something I want to hum to myself, it needs to be repeated, BUT NOT TOO MUCH!  So instead of the same phrase have similar phrases, and use those as well.

The way this is now, there isn't any room for singing, and to make way, would replace some of the melodic lines with vocals sing the same melodies. Probably not coming back to do that here though.  

Is it interesting?  I think it is interesting enough. 

And the next day we came back and turned it into this, Looks Like It's Ganna Be a Good Day with a few lyrics:

Looks like a great day

Looks like a great day

I hope its ganna be a good day.

Looks like a great day

Looks like a great day

I hope its ganna be a good day.

  Trying to have a positive feel about it. Much better for my mental health.

So is it a song? Not really, Has some vocals, but more a spice to that part of the track. Maybe makes it more uplifting, as the words indicate that too.

But is it really just a different version of one of the previous 4 tracks we did? In a way it is, as they are all this same Lydian/ tempo project I have been working with.  They all don't sound like the same song though, but do have a very consistent style and approach.

Have put this, and two other recent tracks in an EP here: Three in Lydian @ 143BPM on Bandcamp so you can make up your own mind.  As an artist, you want to find your own style/ voice, and I think this is mine at the moment. It doesn't sound like someone else.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The Wrong People

 

The Wrong People on Bandcamp, the track above, is the now the forth version, with a few changes.  The only comment I got about another track on this Album, is it ”sounded like a slow jam”.  That comment would be based on his musical taste, their frame of reference, and have no idea if that is Meshuggah or Garth Brooks. But all these tracks are derived from jammed improvisations I do. 　　

Found inspiration in the Sabine Hossenfelder video on Election Systems this morning for a new Spoken Words album track. I didn’t pronounce Machiavellian correctly, if Dictionary is correct, but is a word I have never used before, and don't remember it ever coming up in conversation, unlike Narcissist. 

 

We are in long shirt weather in this part of Kyoto now. 

I will now listen to this 1,000s of times for things I think I need to change. Do those edits and remix, possibly record new parts, and then listen to that another 1000 times. As it is now:

I repeat that a few times, then abandon it.  So I expect the track will be different tomorrow, or in a few days time. 

The Wrong Type of People become Politicians. Well, maybe 99% of them anyway. They have the same characteristics as the typical CEO. And the words in this are just about that, and not elections, impending or not. 

Sabine's video covers research that randomly selected citizens, like jurors in the legal system,  have very good outcomes under some test cases. Also that approach is hated by everyone asked.😄

The episode of  THE ORVILLE  - Majority Rule, on a democratic governing system rather like likes/ dislikes in Social Media. The society has no actual authorities or politicians, just a system of voting by the general public on everyone's behavior in real-time. As you can imagine that is also terrifying!

I expect in another 1000 years, the earth, countries and the governing system may not be recognizable to someone from our time...

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Coffee & Rock is Joyous

 

The track is also part of the Bandcamp Spoken Words Album. 

This maybe the first time I put my real self in a video and thumbnail, rather than a cartooned version. I probably will not do it again.

It was a really wet Saturday afternoon yesterday (2024/11/2), and I pulled up my current Reaper template project and recorded the first version of this track with my Ibanez RG 6 string. Took all of 5 minutes for the playing. Editing the much long improvised rhythm guitar and melodic takes into a track took much longer. Take 8 & 16 bar sections and copy and paste it together. Usually have to cut out lead bits to give space to even hear the rhythm guitar. But this one is all about the CHUG of rhythm guitar part, as in the opening 8 bars. Love the Guitar Pinch Harmonics too.  

Came back on this sunny Sunday morning and added the 16 bar melodic synth part to the center section to add a little more interest in something that is really quite repetitive even if has that rock aggression I love. Used it unquantized as I played it. There is a fine line between "feel" and "sloppy" but think this is "good enough". Doing this for myself anyway.

I visit a local café alone about once a week and put in my JBL ENDURANCE RUN 2 headphones, have breakfast, sip coffee and listen to music from my phone or mp3 player.   It is a joyous thing for me. Unlimited refills with a comfortable table and not too crowded.

I don't use SPOTIFY, but take my music with me. I rip all my CDs to hires mp3s using dBpoweramp, and have done for many years. SPOTIFY is a pox on the music industry and I do not use it.

I only recently discovered Devin Townsend and listened to these albums in detail recently at a café. 

But if I have just made my own new track, I could have it on continuous repeat listening for things in it "that annoy me or start to feel wrong".  Part of my track release process. After I have uploaded a track to Bandcamp, I may revise and upload it 4 or 5 times before I give up and just abandon it.  I never try and make anything Perfect though, that is a complete waste of time, and end up with it is what it is.  

it is what it is being a product of who I was at that time with that amount of enthusiasm and skill for doing whatever it was.. 

My most frequented café is GUSTO here in Kyoto Japan. Will sometimes go to a Starbucks for a new Frappuccino thing or seasonal cake, but otherwise find that place nowhere near as comfortable. Starbucks coffee is just burnt, bitter and way over priced. I just don't get why so many want to sit in a Starbucks working or reading. I assume it is to be seen, or have a personality type that to be surrounded by bad coffee and noisy people makes them comfortable.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Spoken Words Album

 

The Spoken Words Album on Bandcamp has recent spoken word, ambient 8 string and heavy guitar tracks. The tracks started out as under 60 second bits of music for animations on recent thoughts.

What motivates people? What are their goals? Are some of the questions I ask myself, and when I look on social media, I see many of the worst type of people mixed with many just getting on with their uncomplicated lives. 

See so many people on social media that look to me as if their sole goal is to be "famous". Which mostly comes down to lots of followers on social media and sites like YouTube, with usually the lowest common denominator material. Hate and Rage, but extreme trivia too.

But The Dunning-Kruger effect rings so true. The loudest and most confident ones have the least ability or knowledge. Mr.Beast must be a very lucky imbecile..

I never set out to cure cancer, but I did contribute to the development of music production systems and instruments. In many ways I see music and art as one of the things that "saves lives". Gives many the strength to cope with things in their lives.  

But imagine if there were MORE people with the motivation and ability to fix the big problems the world has?

The previous post here was on the video Motivation, and the scam much of the Wellness Industry is.

Everybody needs Motivation, and maintaining it isn't easy for anybody. Even if you are doing something everyday you love, you get tired of doing it and need a break sometime. When you have to cope with the difficult things life throws at you it is even more an issue. What do you do to charge you motivation battery?

These tracks aren't conventionally structured songs at all.  Part of the attraction to me I guess. Goals Project in Reaper looks like this:

This started with the central clean guitar parts and the spoken word. Using lots of ValhallaDSP Delay and SuperMassive to make it more "ambient" and to contrast with the heavier start and end sections. Those are metal sounds, but don't see them as metal,  maybe punk is closer. Loud brash and very unsophisticated. 

Yet I find the section at end of the ambient-ish bit almost beautiful.

Revised Goals Short:

This again, just used the Lapel microphone I have on the desk for FB Messenger and Zoom calls.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Motivation: Not a Life Coach Scam

 

Was playing around with a clean 8 string sound with the SUPERMASSIVE reverb after watching a Devin Townsend Ambient guitar piece. What I did struck me as being "Life Coaching" video like. Relaxing, so added the strange spoken words. I refrained myself from adding "discount coupons", as it would give the game away too quickly.  

As I didn't want it to be LIFE COACHING at all, added the ROCK & ROLL, and the up tempo distorted guitars.  That feeds into the animation were the serene screens lead to the MEGACURVE LOGO. I wonder if it is still too subtle that it is a joke playing with the genre?

The "Wellness Industry" contains many scammers.  LIFE COACHING was started by a financial planner in the 1980s in the USA, who found his clients didn't need therapy, but he he found could sell them something else they didn't need! 😂   

Supplements, tablets with no medically proven effectiveness, are the same deal.  But did you hear about the Benikoji supplement by Kobayashi Pharmaceutical Co. that killed a 76 people and destroyed the kidneys of others in Japan in 2024?  It isn't all a joke.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Synthesizers Are Just Cool, And So Is Distorted Guitar

 

Synthesizers Are Just Cool, And So Is Distorted Guitar. The track we put on our Bandcamp this morning.  

We also made a YouTube video using an idea I stole from Benn Jordan on X.  2 old music lovers  listening using just 2 frames to make the animation, rather than just the album cover. Will see if it gets pulled, and will do just a record cover version then.

Been listening a lot to the 3 tracks already released from Devin Townsend's POWERNERD album. My track here isn't like that, far more musically unsophisticated, power chords and single note melodies, but I LOVE the sounds!

I started with the JBASS parts and just expanded it from there.  I normally start with rhythm guitar or a bass sequencer. The spoken words are inspired by Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells track, where instruments are introduced, by John Cleese in the last version.  I am not doing that here, but that is where the idea came from.

I have been putting the SAMPLE&HOLD preset in the Surge XT VST on everything recently, and here too. Just love the sound. 

The track is 3 minutes, but it isn't a song. More of a soundtrack clip of a feeling about the title. 

As you can see it is made from 8 bar sections. I always start by laying out a really long drum track, then adlib parts with that on different instruments, and copy and past my track together from that. I may , or may not then re-record better parts after listening to that 10,000 times.  

This animation was made in MOHO Pro 12, like most of my stuff. Done at 1280x720 12fps.

Uses 2 Ricks interview frames. Grabbed a short section of the YouTube interview with OBS, then saved a few frames from VLC. Selected frames with most extreme head movement, but didn't spend any time on it. Moving the front most frame off screen gives the head bobbing effect. The frames are also slowly zoomed in and out. I just eye balled the beat, and copied and pasted sections, so it goes out of time sometimes, but few will watch the video far to notice anyway, if things go the way they normally do.  

Just listening to a Devin Townsend Vpodcast about his Synesthesia and creative motivations.  Expressing how he feels at that point in his life though music.

Here I am just making something related to how I feel at the moment, with the skills and techniques I have at this point in my life. It Makes Me a Happy Camper.  Because I need to make something on a regular basis to not feel down. So it is for my own state of mind.  

I don't have any kind of audience for this music stuff, and it isn't my motivation.  A couple of curious friends, or new followers on a social media platform.  If people want to listen to music, it will be big artists they already know. Very different from my Car Illustration stuff... 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The X Experience

 

Wrote a different kind of song over the last day and a bit, and made this animated short. 

My Harley Benton R-458MN didn't have the intonation right on the 8th string, and I set out to fix that. It was really only okay up to about the 3rd fret with my half step down tuning, as the saddle couldn't be moved back far enough.

I had to change to a much shorter screw (cut and filed a 15mm M3 to 11mm) and removed the spring in the bridge on the lowest string, and use a shorter 15mm M3 screw on the 7th, too. Moved the saddle all the way back on the 8th. So now with the half step down tune intonation can be set correctly. Screws need to be shorter too, so they don't hit the string going over the saddle on both 7th & 8th with the saddles moved back.  To replace these saddle screws, you have to remove the rear screw attaching the bridge part to the guitar body.

I have it tuned (H>L) D# A# F# C# G# D# A# F. Why? I prefer the tone and the string tension with 9s with the half step down tune.

So this music started just checking out the newly improved intonation. I was also playing with the volume pedal and palm muting, so that on the neck pick up, you go from a very bass like tone (what you here at the start with just the drums) to a metal guitar tone. 

This change in distortion and tone in the piece was the new thing in this Lydian 140BPM piece.

I hadn't added lyrics to anything recently, and after watching the Beato Rick Rubens interview, thought something rap like ( BEASTY BOYS, RUN DMC)  isn't something I had tried.  And the experience on X has deteriorated greatly since RWNJ Musk took over, with the zillions of porn bots morphing into extreme US political mode.  So it didn't take any effort to come up with a few words for this. And maybe it isn't really rap, but that is okay, spoken word works for me.

I just used this lapel mic I have on the desk for FB Messenger calls.  Not one of the mics I have for singing.

The longer 2 minute WHY POST THAT? is on Bandcamp.  Pay whatever you want, including $0.

It isn't a traditional song format, as why would I care about that? Sections A, B, C, D, B.

Have also done the full YouTube video now in 1080p:

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Whole Freak Guitar Clinic at Music Bar M in Osaka Japan [2024]

Mattias's whole hour clinic video was put up 2024/10/11 18:30 by Zanshin, who held the event and are the distributors for his new line of guitars. The guitars are only entering production now in October, and aren't available yet.

I was there. Mattias is a great guitarist, songwriter, singer and maybe, even better entertainer. 

What is particularly cool about this video to me, is he calls out to me by name some 4 times 😍. At 9:15, then 23:44, 45:44 and 46:06. I guess it is one of the things he does, as part of his clinics, and I must say, it sure made me a happy camper.  I get mentioned by name 4 times during this, but behind that there is the story, that even though I was the first there, by about 2 hours, the organizers, NOT Mattias, weren't going to sell me a ticket to let me in, as I didn't know you had to get the ticket at the Music Messe exhibition hall across town... Mattias said I should hang around and "see what happens". I was allowed to buy the last ticket to the event, number 35, shortly before it was to start.

My whole interest in the 8 string guitar is from Mattias. Earlier this year I went to the guitar shops around Umeda Osaka to try an 8 string, and none had one. I ended up buying the Harley Benton R-458MN online. Don't really consider myself "a guitarist", so that seemed the most reasonable way to see how they are.

 A really interesting experience. Very worthwhile for me I think.  Would love a ULV8

but my limited ability doesn't justify the more than our car cost.  But such purchase decisions aren't rational like that.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The Pace Of Life

 

Before the OBon holidays, and getting sick for about 4 weeks, I was trying to do some piece of music and a music+comic every week.  Seems easy until something like illness gets you to break the routine.

For the last 2 weeks I seem to be back at it. The latest, off the cuff thing THE PACE OF LIFE is above. 

I set out to do a fast "metal" thing, and set 156BPM.  Much faster than I normally play with, and found down picking that verse riff hard and tiring. This is a better take, but hand was getting really tired even after only 4 verses of this!

The comic text is just the first thing that came to me making the animation. Being retired isn't a subject the mostly young interweb cares about, but I do these for myself.   

As I have gotten older, I get more random old memories hitting my thoughts.  Many are of just really embarrassing things that happened. This seems to be a very common thing among us oldies!

There were times I was so busy. Mostly 1981 till 2001 was most like that. 

In a Facebook group I am in, there was a question about the systems I was one of those involved in designing.  It was "what design compromises had to be made"?   But the thing is, I did those designs 40+ years ago, and remember little.  It was a very fast pasted time for me.  I also try and not remember all the "not great" things that happened in the past.  

I used to have a really good memory. That also meant I stayed upset about something for a really long time.  I am glad I can forget much of that stuff now.  I have tried to forget much that isn't relevant to me any more. Seems to clear up the mind for things that are important now.

In my slower paced retirement, that makes me a Happy Camper.  I can do things at the pace I want now.

Have made an extended version of the music as well, and put The Pace Of Life  & The Pace Of Life Extended as a 2 track album on  Bandcamp.  Pay whatever you want, including $0.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Releasing a Music Track & Stems under CREATIVE COMMONS Attribution-Share Alike License

Did that yesterday for my DIGITAL DUST EXTENDED track on Bandcamp.

I output the stems from my project, added a text file with the license info, as below, zipped that directory up, put on google drive, and made a shareable link.

To try and advertise it is free to remix, also made this YouTube SHORT:

Hello There!

I have licensed these DIGITAL DUST EXTENDED Stem files as 
CREATIVE COMMONS Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Adrian Bruce (Megacurve  Kyoto, Japan)   October 6 2024.
https://www.artandtechnology.com.au/

You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for any purpose, even commercially.
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit , provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made . You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

So why would I do that? 

"Digital Dust" was an expression I heard Rick Beato use to describe unreleased Music Projects sitting unused on Hard Drives.  I think it also applies to most personnel projects uploaded to Streaming sites and Bandcamp from people without any kind of following, such as myself.

The more common use of "Digital Dust" is it encompasses the residual data created through our daily interactions with technology. 

The most popular of my tracks I have put on Bandcamp have had, may be, 12 plays, and most of those haven't been played till the end. So the reality is my tracks on BandCamp are mostly just Digital Dust sitting on hard drives.  

Doesn't mean the tracks are bad, just the few acquaintances who bother to listen to something this guy they know made, don't care. 

They aren't followers for my music, but may follow me as  I designed a famous music production system in the 1980s, or I now live in Kyoto Japan, or they read the Science Fiction Desktop Production articles I wrote and the cool models I made in the 1990s in a UK magazine, or they appreciate the car caricatures or the comics I make.

The Digital Dust 59 second version was done for a music+comic YouTube Short, and that did all I intended it to. It had some 52 views, which is a massive hit for me 😀

So releasing the extended version under the creative commons license is an experiment to see if anything else interesting comes of it.  I expect that little will, as anyone after something like that to work on will not come across it, for the same reasons the original track do not get played.  

If someone was to make any real money from a derived work, good on them! That requires networking and marketing skills I don't have for music. Social Media, and the way people use it, the rage, the hate, but just as much, the utter popularity of utter waste of time nothingness trivia ( my kid sneezed, I like clouds, or I like my toast this brown) makes me ill. The only post type I can do that gets noticed at all is this 😣

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Digital Dust: Independent Music Releases

Another go at the 59sec YouTube vertical SHORT format for a music comic.  The soundtrack waveform vertically, with start at top, the playbar moving down the screen, and the comic happening in front of that. 

I had been making music and comics like this about once a week for a few months, until the OBon Holidays. Got sick after them, and took a few weeks to recover, and then more to recover my MOJO.

I put an earlier version on YouTube where it got some 51 views in 20 hours, and expect it will get few more.

It looks like YouTube turned off showing it to anyone after the initial hour.

I made a few small changes after that 1st version to make the one above. Nothing that would make deleting the first and reloading this one worth it though.

It is Ibanez RG 6 string DROP C#, Ugritone "Drums Against Humanity", Cabinet IR, Squire JBASS with humbucking Wilde Pickups, SURGE XT vst in REAPER DAW. Animation made in MOHO Pro 12. The "digital dust" floating down the screen was done with a particle system in combination with a few binary text strings.

I edited down the music to make this 59seconds. 

The streaming companies all seem to be a scam, when you look into it. Benn Jordan has more than a few X posts and videos about the main Streaming Services and their mode of operating with the major Record labels. Benn getting all his Spotify tracks deleted without warning, for no reason in just one thing showing none of the companies aren't on the level.

Have now put 2 versions of Digital Dust on Bandcamp as an album.  The 59sec animation version and Digital Dust Extended 3:20.  Naming the tracks Digital Dust will most likely prove to be very appropriate. 😀 The cover has a version of the cartoon on it too. Without any kind of following, which I don't have (and any I do have is related to my cartooning or what I did at Fairlight Instruments Pty Ltd in the 1980s), no one but a few friends will bother to play any music I put out, and mention on my Social Media.   

Have, for the first time, made this a Creative Commons, Attribution, Share Alike, to allow remixing. A download link to the STEMS .ZIP file is in the Bandcamp Album description.

What are STEMS?  They are a collection of wave files, each all the same length, starting at the same time, that are all the tracks in my project rendered out. Delay and Reverb are on their own separate tracks too. So if you load them all into a DAW, and play, you get a version on the track I released, except all the instruments haven't been panned. If you mute Delay and Reverb, and add your own sends to the tracks, you can make a completely different mix. The track is 4/4 at 130BPM. 

Trying to combine the JINGLE (music for advertising, short, simple, remember able), Synthesizer with METAL INSTRUMENTAL. It isn't a rock/ pop song structure. It was started to do a 59sec music comic, so wasn't planned as a "song".

This one ends up being a little too simple, a little too repetitive, but does it have to be that way? Generally add more parts as time goes on, but this is a very sparse VAN HALEN, guitar panned left, mix. 

There is always the next one to work that out on.  

Or someone's remix derived from it will be amazing. We will see.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The DEEP PURPLE Return!

 

Their recent Equals One Album is the first Purple Album I've bought in decades. The new guitarist Simon McBride is way more classic Purple than Steve Moore was.

The track PORTABLE DOOR also cleverly covers my own disdain of X with its weird populist and trivia garnering large followings of under-achieving, loud, over-sharers and more than a few roleplaying for popularity, mostly for an unsophisticated, hick, JERKVILLE audience.   

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Megacurve - Best Of... maybe

 

I selected 11 tracks I have made over the last 14 years and called it The Best Of... a time machine for myself, brings back memories of what I was doing and being inspired by, at the time I made them.

Available on Bandcamp here for free download.

I have but together a PDF Booklet for this Best Of Album and is about the very long journey it has been, and some notes on the tracks, and their making.

Has 6, 7 and 8 string guitars, Jazz Bass,  synthesizers, ambient sounds and are all produced in the Reaper DAW.

We recorded a fair few tracks with our 4 track TASCAM Portastudio back in the 80s, but those have been lost to time. Don't even own a cassette player anymore,  and don't want one.  There was a time after that where we just used a midi D-110 synthesizer with a sequencer, but my 15years at Roland in Japan, "at a music gear company", was the time I was least interested in playing the guitar and making my own music. Just had to do something else in my spare time.  The release of Reaper in 2005, living in Sydney again, not being in any "music gear company", and having the time, rekindled the passion. 

Half of the tracks in this album have vocals and most of those were done in 2021. 

I had notes of what lyric lines could be in a song. I sang bits of them, rewriting as needed a verse at a time. I then listened back to that A LOT, so that the lyrics became a song I knew. Unlike the first time I tried to sing the lyric. I then re-sang everything, double and triple tracking the parts.  Before vocals they were all just instrumentals, without thought for vocals.  Normally you would strip out most of the melodic guitar or synth under the vocals, but I didn't do much of that here. Something else that makes these different.  Maybe this kind of detail, and the lyrics should be in the Album booklet?

What I have done most of recently is stuff for under 60seconds music comics, and and extended version of the latest of those is included as well, HOW YOU USE IT.  

If I came back on a different day, I would have chosen a few different tracks, but they are all on my Bandcamp page anyway, so this seems like more of a playlist than a best of album. 

At 65+ I am at the age were you see more than a few people you know pass away.  You just don't know how long you have left, and a BEST OF ALBUM was one of those things on I my bucket list, I can now mark off.   

There are 1,000s of tracks uploaded to the streaming music sites daily. Very few of those will get listened too, unless a major artist on a big label manipulating the playlists.  I know that my own stuff will be played once by  friends and acquaintances totaling 10 plays over a few months.   If the production was better (mixing, mastering, fewer playing mistakes etc etc) those numbers wouldn't be any different.  I haven't built any kind of general audience to get more than that, and aren't interested in doing that.  

I don't even try and charge anything for them, but can say some have paid for them, so that makes me a "professional musician" right? 😁    

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Music Comic: How You Use It

 

We had the OBon Holidays here mid August, and our son and his family visited us for some 5 days. Great to see our grandson again. Not so great we got sick after they left, possibly from grandson or son. My symptoms were mild covid. Cough, slight fever.  The medication I received for it was what you get for covid, and it took me almost 3 weeks to get over it.  The medication made me groggy, mostly snoozed.  I got to finally listen to Frank Zappa music during much of that.

Fine now I think, and back to normal programming...

I have been listening a lot to Ola Englund's Chug Projects and, as usual, Mattias IA Eklundh. Both are Metal, but Ola is of the much heavier, instrumental variety. Also looking over the TABs of some of their material.

I really love what they do. Been thinking I want some heavier tracks of my own recently. I have the drums and guitars and tone for it, but what comes natural at the moment is something else. The above is a music comic about it.  Yes, I know guitar has a missing "i" in it, but couldn't be bothered fixing it.

This started as a G Lydian practice thing. Just adlibbing.  I remember Allan Holdsworth in a guitar tutorial video where he had graphic printouts with all the scales, all modes on the fret board. Like this below I did for for 6/8 string guitar (the way I tune the 8). I do these in CorelDraw, they way I do my illustrations.

Of course he was about memorizing all of them, like he did.     

If this had a few fast arpeggios, scale runs and two handed tapping in a solo, it would far more "metal", but this is more slow simple melodic lines. It is how I felt doing it. 

Ola's Chug project is a way for him to force himself to weekly play guitar and make original music. My own Music Comics are like that too, but I don't have an audience waiting for mine. I do them for myself about recent thoughts.  I generally keep them under 60 seconds so I can just throw them on Xwitter, where almost no one sees them, and even if they do, the chances someone will stop scrolling and play them is very low. Doesn't matter though. The click thru on X is so poor, even compared to Facebook.

The Reaper project:

This has Drums Against Humanity, uses their BLACK METAL midi pack. Guitar is just the Harley Benton R-458 8 string with a Metal Zone pedal and a cabinet IR called ML Sound Lab's BEST IR IN THE WORLD.wav

I didn't put a bass track on this.  Just one of the things about this not being a standard arrangement.

I also put it in our Assorted Bits Album on Bandcamp.

I find it interesting that the ingredients can be so metal, but the result isn't. It is all "How You Use It" that makes a difference.

And unless you misunderstand that I can't or don't do heavier stuff, I think this was pretty heavy:

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Freak Guitar Lab: Kintsugi

 

Kinsugi is the Japanese art of repairing things like broken ceramic goods with gold to keep them, useable, but also "a reminder to stay optimistic when things fall apart and to celebrate the flaws and missteps of life".

That is a wonderful philosophy.  

Last night Mattias uploaded his track Kintsugi to YouTube. He gives me a credit, but the video I took in Osaka of him is really such a small part of this video:

For the love of Japan I put together a tune called Kintsugi, celebrating imperfections and the impermanence of all things.

Filmed by Yogev Gabay (Sweden) and Adrian S. Bruce (Japan).

Much thanks to Keiichi Ishida and the crew of Zanshin Musical Instruments for everything.For more information about Freak Guitar Lab and the Ulv guitars, please visit https://freakguitarlab.com/ 

A really small part, must only be a few seconds.

Mattias brought this track to Japan in early May. He seems to work on many things at the same time in his Freak Enterprise, like recording tracks and videos, preparing for, then doing his Freak Guitar Camp, handling his online store, promoting his guitars, other clinics or performing.  Kintsugi is quite a complicated video to edit together, but he has done more than a few of similar complexity, so guess it didn't take him as long as it would me to do. From the little I heard of it in May to the release yesterday has been 4 months. Think it indicates just how busy he keeps himself  "being a modern, successful, musician in the age of streaming and social media". 

What a guy! 😮

Listening carefully I can hear a synth part or three in there as well as the Toontracks drums and guitars. The kind of thing I do too. Not as skillfully though!

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

A Creative Exercise: Music-Comics

 

For many weeks I have been regularly making some short piece of music that I can pull out an under 60 sec clip from to use as the soundtrack to one of my Music-Comics.  60 seconds is the limit to upload to X/Twitter, which is by far the simplest way of showing the 1 or 2 people that could possibly want to read/ hear them. Pretty sure most who view them have the sounded muted anyway. 

But I really do them as a creative exercise for myself. Making stuff keeps me a "Happy Camper" and these are not massively time consuming things to do.

Ola Englund: Sunday With Ola, weekly opening music was a way for him to force making music into his schedule, and sub sequentially release his CHUGG PROJECT albums.  This is something like that, but not as regular, or for any real audience.

The music is made in Reaper with guitars and synths I have, The video is all made in MOHO Pro12 from a small collection of stuff I have made to do these with.  Mostly all first take things.  Make something, release it, move on.  Getting the 8 string increased my output for a while, as I practiced and got used to it. I always record and practice into Reaper anyway.

Of course I like some better than others.  All depends on what comes to me as I do one. 

I originally started just making square format YouTube shorts, as that is what YouTube encouraged, but they are undiscoverable by anyone doing that, and how many people get to see them is up to YouTube putting one in 10 peoples feeds for some hours after being uploaded, seeing if any play them to the end to determine if they show it to someone else (and taking into account what your subscriber numbers are and some other random stuff). 

So YouTube is all a "why bother" situation for me. I am not a fan of the portrait or square format either. I just prefer square to portrait, and if you upload a less than 60sec video that isn't like that, it isn't considered a "short".  

So this is what a Short Format looked like:

The other problem with shorts though, is they are 99% garbage. That seems to appeal to the largest audience, but not me. 

So what is this Music-Comics about?

Just trying to combine my interest in making music, with my interest in comics, and my dislike of doing time consuming animation, and rendering. Hate waiting for rendering.  The comics are really fast and easy to do in MOHO. This being the project for the Cubism thing at the top of the page here.

I currently have the waveform of the music as the background, and show the red playbar a wave player has. 

To the front of that is just something I feel like saying today.  Like a 3 panel comic strip in a newspaper, doesn't take long to read, and could say something that makes you think.  As far as I know, nobody else has done this format before. 

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

Not going along with everyone else...

When I was a kid, the top of our street had a roundish area where several drive ways came and merged with the corner of a bend in a quiet road. Thanks to google street view I can show what it looks like above.

The 3 or 4 local kids would ride their bicycles around, and around, and around there.  During holidays I remember this activity starting early in the day, and going most of the days.  But, even as a kid, I found it entertaining for about 15 minutes at most. I don't remember there being any goal,  rules, or any kind of game associated with it to make it interesting.  It is what those kids did. They loved riding their bicycles. It wasn't just a tool to get somewhere that it was for me.  This was north shore Sydney where there were  no activities around, other than sports clubs,  churches or the pool/beach. And most of those were too far away to get too.

But during the holiday weekdays, mid morning, maybe it was 10AM, but I really have no memory of that, they showed this great science show Watch Mr. Wizard on TV.  

I loved it.

But I was alone in that interest. I remember saying, I'm going home to go watch Mr .Wizard ,  while the other kids were intent on their going around, going nowhere activity, and them saying something like "you're strange to watch that".

I didn't know of any other kid around me that watched it or cared.  But I found science cool!

I see on wikipedia it was popular.  Just not in the backward place I lived.

It was just another thing in my early life, that showed me that fitting into a crowd,  could be such a dumb waste of the opportunities available.  It seems many people are content to just "be". What drives them, and gives them contentment does not align with my own way of thinking at all.

There are some 33 million on X, (Twitter), but it seems to me, only around 1000 do anything at all actually worth posting about. Such a tiny fraction! The rest are busy with their going around, going nowhere, many with millions of followers, thinking the few that aren't  going around, going nowhere,  like them, are strange.

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology

The Pale Blue Dot: Music Video & Comic

 

Blue Dot, a 1280x720p 12fps video. Mostly instrumental with simple 2D animation. More in a bit.

This is using the awesome UGRITONE drum VST picked up for $10 in their closing down sale, and also uses a few bars from their Black Metal midi pack, got for $2. 

In the same sale, I also got AMPENSTEIN, but in these tracks I only use the graphic EQ and IR Player on guitars and bass. Distortion is a Waza Craft Metal Zone they are recorded with. 

I have found the guitar tuner in this is great, and so much faster than my KORG pitchblack portable.

This is the first recording using the Harley Benton Fan Fret 8 string. Started as an exercise in the Lydian Mode getting used to the neck, but loved the rhythm and lead guitar parts I was getting while playing with the drums.  So extended that out to a 3+ minute track.  A bit simple and repetitive maybe, but suits me.

This also used my Squire JBASS that I put WILDE humbucking pickups in, and this was the first time I recorded the bridge pickup only sound. Couldn't do that before due to HUM. I like the sound I get here playing with a pick.  I am not actually a bass player. That is okay, as I don't really think I am a guitar player either. Music is core to my life, but guitar isn't.

The Blue Dot lyric was just an off the cuff thing during recording a vocal, and the first time to put that Megaphone sound to use.  Kept thinking of that Gorillaz track "Feel Good Inc." , and that Steve Wilson used that sound a lot too.  So only three sentences, but it is an unconventionally structed track anyway, bound to be played by, maybe, 10 people. I will play it a lot more than that, so really do it just for myself.  

The reaper project:

The most right-ish guitar part has Valhalla Space Modulator on it and that meant for MONO compatibility that part level had to be increased more than it was in the first release. For MONO, the bass had to be reduced a bit too.  Without those the changes, when played in mono, the bass was over powering and the lead almost vanished. This was one of several changes we made in the versions that replaced the initial Bandcamp upload.  It seems everything is fine UNTIL it is released. I love that Bandcamp lets you replace the file anytime you like. 

The track on Bandcamp is here.

It is a simple thing, with simple parts. My whole goal is to be able to hum the parts, so simple, memorable is actually a thing I try for. 

I have bought the latest "Grow Your Own Mustache"  and expect, eventually, I will be incorporating some more complicated things into my guitar playing. 

Have been playing the non-stripped tracks quite a bit, getting familiar with the material, to know where I want to go with it. The "Native Hue Of Resolution" is where I think I will start. 

But not today. Or even tomorrow.

I am a fan of Japanese POP ARTIST Takashi Murakami, particularly SUPERFLAT and his use of color, and have presently revisited my color comic and added some Murakami inspired color textures to a couple of panels, and combining the music and this look was interesting. 

My IN THE NEXT DIMENSION comic is based around Multiverse Archeological Exploration and investigation, which looks at lost and destroyed civilizations and planets.

And thinking of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot this morning, and how fragile it all looks. It seemed to fit together. Like a future history piece. It also made me think of how I could represent the infinite number of universes (more pale blue dots), that lead to THAT universe, to THAT galaxy, to THAT planet. 

The expanding universe and the distances between solar systems is so vast, it is impossible that any intelligent life could visit us, or us, them. There is no credible UFO evidence, even though there must be an infinite number of intelligent civilizations such as ourselves in the universe.   Even at the speed of light the distances are just far too great. 

IN THE NEXT DIMENSION takes the approach that changing dimensions, and travelling via other dimensions bypasses all that.  There is no evidence that this is possible, but makes these stories possible. Some of the lifeforms capable of that may not even recognize any life on our Pale Blue Dot.

Doing this has given me some ideas on some more comic panels. Maybe a series of POP ART Postcards that are the pages of a comic? A mockup of such a thing in a Postcard album:

 

I haven't seen that done before, but it probably has been done somewhere.  Postcards are 100x148mm (はがき) size and still a major thing for New Years in Japan, with lots of options for printing quantities of photo or plain graphic cards around. 

The music video was directly made in MOHO Pro V12. Images mostly made in CorelDraw, the way I make my comics.  

We can be found at ArtAndTechnology