Elevon

With this post I was planning to go over one or two of my early efforts and explain how I got going on this music thing. But I just posted a new one to archive.org, Elevon, and thought I'd talk about that since it was fresh in my mind.

Setting out with Elevon, I was looking for a quieter, minimalist sound. But it does reflect my basic MO -- dink around with a couple of chords or a scale with various instruments until something starts to work. In this case I was drawn to E-flat and F elevenths (hence the name, Elevon, which is actually an airplane part). I found a nice bass sound/riff at pretty slow tempo (78 bpm) and worked up a drum part.

Then fishing around for melodic instruments, I tried this software recorder. I liked the woody tone and the sustained line I came up with in the middle of the chords but it wasn't working as a lead instrument. I had just picked up Apple's Symphony Orchestra Jam Pack which came with a software Steinway. I tried that and, boy, I liked the tone. So combined the notes of the two chords into a scale and started playing up and down on it against the bass/drum rhythm. For whatever reason, it just wasn't sounding right.

A couple nights later, I'd had a little wine and was feeling a little melancholy. So I sat down to the keyboard and hit record. The lead solo just came out, nothing fancy but it worked in my estimation. So I built the song around that. I worked hard to give the drums a natural feel so it didn't sound too loopy.

Then I thought, how about a key change. So I worked up a funky bass line using C-sharp and B elevenths and a piano riff using a portion of the chords. My idea was to have the recorder blow a solo over that. Try as I might, over several nights, and with help from my friend Greg, a real keyboard player, I couldn't make it work. We tried to replace the recorder with a cello. Greg laid down some nice lines (he thought the piano solo needed a melodic counter point), but nothing really sat well with me. (I concluded the piano solo had to stand on its own otherwise it's flavor was lost.)

Anyway, I ended up using the recorder riff I started out with, just adjusted to the new chords. The end of Elevon sounds a little smooth-jazzish. This struck me as a good time to fade it out.

Mixing the song, I didn't have to do much. I had to separate out the kick drum and turn it down because it was too strong. I used some EQ on the bass to tone down the low end which was making the song a little muddy. I added a touch of reverb to the instruments (very little to the piano) and bounced to AIFF.

Introducing Harmsichord

It's kind of a silly pun/name that I thought of years ago when dreaming about becoming a rocker. I don't dream about that any more. In fact, the idea of being a rocker doesn't seem all that attractive. For one thing, since I'm a drummer, lugging my drums around to different gigs does not appeal. But I do love to play.

And, as it turns out, I love creating music.

My current excursion into music making began about a year and half ago when I bought a Mac (iBook) which came loaded with GarageBand. I was greatly intrigued but mixing and matching the canned loops wasn't all that fun for me. I wanted to create and record my own stuff. So I bought a keyboard, amp and other gear and went to work. I've since upgraded to Logic and I have a home-studio growing up in my basement.

This blog is about my efforts to make music and resulting experiences. It's been a blast and I've learned a lot. I'm still very much an amateur and I harbor no great ambition to become a professional. I'm also something of an amateur philosopher and my Zen/Taoist leanings influence my approach to creating music. This stuff will come out in the course of the blog as well as opinions about music, technical aspects of the craft, and whatever else.

Posting daily here is probably unrealistic but I do intend to post at least once a week. If there's anybody but crickets out in the audience, I hope you enjoy.

P.S. I'll be posting links to my music (and other folks' stuff too) at archive.org. If you're in hurry you can type "harmsichord" in the site's search field and see a list of songs I've posted.