Music

The Greatest Birthday Playlist Since the Dawn of Playlists and Birthdays

OK, maybe it’s not that good. But I like it.

I play this playlist every time there’s a birthday at the Blake abode. Yesterday was my mother’s birthday, and while she lives in her own abode, I felt it was good timing to share.

I want to add more birthday-themed songs to it, but at the same time I really like how it plays right now. A 16-minute set of shorter songs with comedic relief interspersed among full-length songs to celebrate someone’s life.

Hope you dig it!

 

Ten on the Tenth – Revised Edition

Yesterday the new rules/guidelines for Ten on the Tenth were posted. This is a site for music fans to come together to share and discover music around a given theme each month. When does it happen? On the tenth of every month. Everyone shares ten songs. Hence the name!

Ten on the Tenth had its inaugural run last month, January 10th (scroll down to the comments to see everyone’s lists). We had a great turnout, especially considering I came up with the idea exactly five days earlier. But not everyone that wanted to participate got a chance. It turns out not everyone can drop everything to put together a list of 10 songs within 24 hours. So, I decided to loosen things a bit to allow people more of an opportunity to play.

So the short version is that I’ll announce the theme on the 8th of every month to give people a couple of days to think about it. Then, I’ll open things up on the 10th, when everyone can post their 10 songs within the given theme. Instead of only 24 hours, you’ll have 48 hours, until the morning of the 12th. So if you missed playing last month, now you’ve got more of a chance to play this month. Now don’t blow it!

Oh and in case you missed it, The Comics Observer launched yesterday! Tomorrow I’ve got a special article posting about a unique hybrid of a play and graphic novel.

What does a nightmare sound like?

I was very intent on creating a specific musical soundtrack for the video that posted yesterday, Pants: A Nightmare. So, as a little behind-the-scenes exclusive, I’ve posted the music I wrote and recorded for the sketch video. It’s at my Acoustic Roundtable profile which I nearly forgot existed. I’ve posted the final music that was used in the video as well as an earlier demo-type version.

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, although I’m constantly frustrated by the limitations of my musical abilities. Even so, the overall effect, and several specific moments, achieved what I was going for. So I’ll consider this a success, and keep learning.

I actually thought about putting this up on iTunes to sell, but I doubt I could get away with charging 99 cents for a 40-second atonal instrumental.

For those that care about this kind of thing: I used GarageBand to record this. There are three tracks of guitars (2 with some kind of distortion effect). These were recorded live with my nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, a pretty clean, folkie sounding instrument, so I was pretty happy with how dirty and electric-ish I could get these. There’s a vocal track with the ambient vocals effect – I think I did just one take, maybe two. The rest are instruments imitated by GarageBand that I played with my keyboard or mouse – two horn parts (high and low) and strings.

What do you think? Ever have a nightmare sound like this?