Why is it that taking a shower tends to prompt the onset of ideas?

That is exactly how “The Politician’s Wife” came to life.  Taking a shower suddenly prompted an idea for a melody line, and almost instantly, the lyrics sprouted in my mind.  About an hour later, the intro and the core of “The Politician’s Wife” were essentially completed, with the end of the composing and the Vocaloid Editor work completed in the morning and the mixing done during the early afternoon today.

This is a rather basic piece in terms of its composition: just a piano and a singer (Vocaloid Miriam).    I can easily envision this piece being performed as part of a musical about a politician’s downfall, or even in a lounge (perhaps with Bowie Grant at the piano?).

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A short but I hope uplifting piece, this is my first foray into using the recently-released Dream Voices sound library from Camel Audio.  Playing with the various presets, I found that I really love the Dying Angel pad preset, and it then made sense to add the Gothik Church organ from www.soundsforbeats.com to help support the voices.

While this is certainly not nearly as complex as some of my more recent endeavors, “The Angel’s Return” is definitely one I like

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As often happens with my music, “Dark Glory” is the result of pure experimentation.  In this case, I was playing around with some electric bass sounds, and one thing led to another, and soon, the experiment became a song.

It took quite a while for me to determine what was a fitting title for this one, and once I had a title in mind, I had a very difficult time trying to decide what would make for fitting cover art for it.  I looked around on deviantArt and on Fotolia for some ideas/inspiration, but nothing seemed to truly fit.  I ultimately sent a copy of the then-current version of “Dark Glory” to my artist friend in Germany, and to one of our mutual friends, in the hopes that one of them could help better pin down an appropriate cover art concept.

Ulrike came through, as she often does – with a very minor change to her original draft, the cover art was complete!  That was then the catalyst for me to finish mixing “Dark Glory” and ready it for release.

One of the interesting things about “Dark Glory” is that I was not particularly happy with my original (placeholder) kick, so I started brainstorming about how to change it and on a whim decided to try Taiko drums; fortunately, Garritan World Instruments has a number of such drums available, and I ultimately used three of them.  While in the mixing stage, I also added a few pads in Alchemy Player to add some texture in certain segments.  Otherwise, the vast majority of the instruments used are from www.soundsforbeats.com.

Overall, “Dark Glory” is definitely a favorite for me, and is certainly a piece I will be listening to a lot in 2012 (the year is still young)!  “Dark Glory” is will now available on Bandcamp.

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Spring 1995, I was studying in Paris and was fortunate enough to have a piano in my room.  While I was in Paris, I went to a music convention at the big exhibition hall site in southern Paris and bought several things, including a blank music composition book.  I happened to find that book again recently and it brought back memories of sitting at the piano in my room, composing.  Several of those pieces became part of my repertoire for the next five years of performances.

I decided to try my hand at bringing some of those 1995 compositions “up to date.”  The first of those is “I’ll Remember You,” which I entered relatively quickly into PrintMusic and began to tweak.  Vocaloid Miriam provided the limited vocals I had envisioned in 1995, and now, seventeen years later, “I’ll Remember You” finally feels truly complete.  With just the piano and limited vocals, it feels very Enyaesque to me, and I believe that adding the violin and the harp for the updated version really helps to flesh out the piece even more.

Ultimately, I decided to release both the 1995 and 2012 versions of “I’ll Remember You.”  Both are available as an album on Bandcamp.

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This is definitely a good music day, which is exactly what I needed from a day off!

After completing and posting “The Call of the Challenge” and spending some time with the Computer Music issue which arrived earlier this week, I began experimenting with the Plastic Pop library from Applied Acoustics Systems and developed “Strange Friend.”  This is admittedly a rather simple piece, but the two presets, Epée and especially Marianen, give this piece a true character of its own.

For me, various visions come to mind with “Strange Friend,” most of them revolving around a young child’s imaginary friend; My Neighbor Totoro particularly fills my mind, especially revolving around the soot sprites in the attic.  Images of aliens also come to mind.

Thanks to the unique characteristics of both instruments used, the only audio processing needed were a cathedral reverb for the Epée, two instances of Blue Cat’s Widening Gain to better place each instrument in the stereo field, and volume automation at the end to ensure a good fade-out.

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