photo credit: hall.chris25
Tonights composerly session was spent reviewing what I had accomplished these last few days and looking again in my chest of notes for anything else.  I also upgraded some software and plugins,and generally tuned up things a bit for the eventual decision on when to compostrate this work.
Beginning, I just let the [...]

Continue reading " Waves "

photo credit: Roomic Cube
Feeling a bit under the weather tonight.  Short compositional treat at the piano, but really nothing much in new material.  Looked at some old with fresh analytical eye.  Last evening in bed, sketched out a brief outline of the sections and the tonal areas for the work.  Feeling pretty good about [...]

Continue reading " Fever "

photo credit: Wolfgang Wildner
Morning spent reviewing the opening phrases I had been working on; then, shifted gears and started taking a different tact – not scrapping but composing anew.
Worked on a bit of accompaniment.  Surprising how you have one idea and then you can’t seem to get it exactly what you want and you [...]

Continue reading " A Mind of It’s Own "

photo credit: the|G|™
Simple evening at the computer and paper.  Compositionally very tired and hard to concentrate, and ended up just tweaking a a bit what I had from the night before for about an hour.  I still don’t feel it’s final.  There are a few notes here and there that seem to move [...]

Continue reading " Steady "

Song organization is occupying most of my compositional time these days, as I try to get a handle around educating myself with the craft of song writing.  After fishing and perusing the billboards for what I thought were signifiant artists – artists who’s production was balanced and who emphasizes good writing / lyrics –  I have finally [...]

Continue reading " Composing Status "

photo credit: Blu_walkingshadow
I get annoyed at reading some  of my more conservative musician friends posts recently.  Specifically how they tend to marginalize the commercial music these days – dismissing it as contrived and career-calculated – where each aspect is controlled by an imaginary hierarchy of marketing teams.  Where music has no meaning outside of a holy [...]

Continue reading " On My Mind "

photo credit: Darcy Mc Marcy
Deeply into Jimmy Web’s songwriting walkthrough book Tunesmith, which although goes off on verbal distractions of unclarity, also rings with practical experiences and is also a good review of some basic tonal techniques in musical composition, and a good basis for guiding me through my own jazz memories.  
Reading a [...]

Continue reading " Contrast Thoughts "

photo credit: MUAZ BAHAJJAJJ
One of the cool things about dealing with words and music is the workflow is so much less complicated and portable than the usual trappings of instrumental writing I have for myself.  Within that personal world, I would always be thinking about the end result – the orchestration, dynamics, voicings, different [...]

Continue reading " Simple "