MUSIC+COMIC on what and why I have been doing these.
My original use of my own original heavy instrumental music was as the soundtrack to my illustration sample videos. The first of those got some 50k+ views and the last one, years later before I gave up, had maybe 5 views. Google moved to promoting longer form content “more like TV” so my 3 minute music videos got sidelined. They have since changed multiple times and revised what is “best for them to promote”.
After retiring and moving back to Japan 2019 I did my JUST THINKING comic strip series weekly during COVID and a bit after. Just one of those things I wanted to do. If something strikes me as interesting and better for just a comic, I still do these sometimes.
I had moved from drawing pages like my TerraForm comic, to vector based pages as in my WHERE THE SMOKE COMES OUT and that made the process a whole lot faster. But that is possible as I am not doing emotionally charged stories with complex characters, but mostly a host character talking to camera ala GRAND DESIGNS or TOPGEAR, explaining something.
Four years ago I started doing short videos with comic characters and speech balloons, but 2024 sometime I started on YouTube Short/ X/ Instagram, square under 60 second animations with the current MUSIC+COMIC format. Had used MOHO Pro Ver 12 to do some animated music videos, and rediscovered that real animation was far too time consuming even with computer based tools, and a comic book was more for me. A comic strip with 3 to 4 speech balloons with my original music and very limited animation, that uses a lot of photo images and cartoon characters is the approach I have come too. Something I haven’t seen others doing, but was the way POINT AND CLICK RPG games were done originally.
They are a vehicle for me to make original music and a comic at least once a week. Done for my own entertainment. I sometimes feel the music is all the same, but I also think that of Ola’s SWOLA too 8^).
Ola Englund starts his SWOLA videos with this weeks original minute music piece. Partly to force himself to make music, and partly to demonstrate new guitar models. He also made the drum track available for others to do the same, and he would judge them as a segment on one of his channels. Some of us need goals to motivate us, and it helps me too.
I have received no comment at all on the format of these. I have received comments on the subject of a music + comics though.
I know of a few musicians that regularly post music clips on YouTube and Social Media, such as Jeremy Wentworth and Phillip Jackson. I have to admit I don’t listen to most of them recently. Once you have heard a dozen or so, they all start to sound the same. I would think others feel the same about my MUSIC+COMICs, but the comic part is always different!
The music in this is mostly the F# DORIAN mode. It is here on Bandcamp. It combines CHUG guitar, BOOPIE-BLOOPIE synth sequence, metal drums and synthesizers. Trying to do “my own original style”, which I think comes out being rock.
I do like to CHUG, as Ola says. I have found having a 7 string in a DROP tuning is my go to instrument, and has been for a while. I haven’t found my 8 string gives me any more usable low notes over the 7. It has a few more notes, but the sound of those doesn’t have the same punch. A 6 string with a pitch shifter would work too, but that BOSS fixed pitch shift pedal costs more than I paid for my 7 string guitar.
I think the last 3 of these MUSIC+COMICS have actually been pretty interesting, but feel I need to change. The format isn’t right, and I’ve only been thinking of finishing them, not working out how they could be better. That shorts are at the mercy of Googles algorithms, and whatever that is this week, as to what gets pushed to the SHORTs stream, and for how long, to people who are just filling in time and don’t care what shows up is not a great place to be either.
I don’t mind the music tracks, and feel that in the 60 seconds they have enough sections and variations that work. The mix is fine too. I think anyway.
That the limits for short videos went from 1 to 3 minutes on X and Youtube has also made the 60 second format I came up with obsolete. This may be more the style going forward:
But we will see. Drawing actual 8 frame comics kind of feels what I want to do, at least for awhile.
The last versions of CorelDraw and MOHO Pro I bought were via the HUMBLE BUNDLE websites, around $25 each for perpetual one time license fees. A Bargain.
Other Things
So had my first ever ZOOM meeting to join in the FAIRLIGHT INSTRUMENTS 50th Anniversary event in Sydney Australia, from here in Kyoto Japan:
Strange feelings. So long ago to me and there are still so many people that are fans of the machines and have renovated and using them!
Since doing the cartoon, was sent some pictures of the room!
Been told there is a WhatsApp group specifically for ex staff, but I don't use WhatsApp and don't think I have anything to contribute to such a group the the Facebook Fairlight CMI doesn't all ready do. My family uses LINE, and already have FB MESSANGER on my phone and don't need any more messaging apps.
I could have just used the Mic in the webcam, and listened over my JBL speakers, but I find using the Lavalier microphone on my collar to give a better sound without room tone, especially when slightly moving about as I do in a chair. I love the sound of my AKG headphones too, so that is what I did. I am in my studio anyway.
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology KYOTO JAPAN
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