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Wed. Sep 21, 2005

Sound Inflictions 5 and 6

The rules have changed. I used to be able to claim I wasn’t making a song, um, I was merely mixing parts others had made into a, er, construct. Yeah. But due to a birthday present from my Accommodatin’ Darlin’, I am now able to create all kinds of new noise all on my own … and, yes, Dear Listener, inflict it on you.

The first four MP3’s I inflicted upon you were all made from the Apple Loops that come with Garageband and a few I downloaded, which I found a bit limiting. I spent a small amount of time playing around with what has surely got to be Apple’s finest oxymoron, “Musical Typing.” Using it allows you to use your typing keyboard to “play” a virtual musical keyboard. Sort of. In a way. But not a good one.

It did allow me to explore Garageband’s software instruments enough to realize I needed a real keyboard. Well, maybe not a real one (Susan has an upright piano, but it has no mouse or timeline, so it just confuses me), maybe a cheap 37 key USB keyboard. And my honey got me one. It’s great!

I did mention I have no musical training whatsoever, didn’t I? To find middle C on the keyboard … I had to use Google. Once I’d found it, there was no thunderbolt of knowledge, or even a little light bulb going off. I only knew I was about to make a song that was going to be in the key of that white key … right … thar’.

So I did.

As was pretty true of “Half Inch Tacks,” my first infliction, this “first” song is me trying to rev this new thing up and see what it can do. Which results in the kitchen sink approach … just throw it all in there and see what happens.

So I did.

The result is “Rookie Boogie” (3:32, 4.9MB). There’s 14 tracks, three of which are drum/percussion loops, and the rest are software instruments pecked out on the keyboard by my own trembling fingers.

I say “trembling fingers” because in my haste to hook up the keyboard and make some noise with it, I merely accepted the Garageband defaults for a new song … in C, at 120 beats per minute. Whoa, rookie say, too fast!

So for the second (gulp) song, I slowed it down to 95 beats per minute. Not that this inspired greater feats on the keyboard (it’s more like “feets on the keyboard”), it just made for less trembling. And my song construction skills are still very primitive, as you can almost hear Robert Plant in the background, plaintively asking “has anybody seen the bridge?”

When mixing this second one, I was reminded a bit of the signature musical signal in Close Encounters of the Third Kind ... if the aliens had shown up and only known three chords, and could only play them very slowly.

So here’s “Partial Encounter” (3:42 5.1MB). 14 tracks, four of them drum/percussion loops, the rest all me and my GarageKey.

Previous MP3’s can be found on the download page. Also, I first thought it would be very self-indulgent for a rank amateur to ramble in my blog about what this “process” has been like for me. But then I came to my senses and realized that rank amateurs rambling on subjects about which they have no expertise isn’t self indulgent … it is blogging! So I may have more on this later.