All of your presents are in my house...all of your dinner is in mymouth...

Far too long, yet again, but for once I am truly proud of what I have achieved.

Some weeks ago I set myself the goal of having a CD of my music complete by Christmas. Its been a hard and long ride...too hard to even stop and blog about, but I've done it. 9 Tracks coming in at around 40 minutes. Some are tighter than others and perhaps a little better, but that's OK.

I suppose a lot of this has been more of an exercise in editing and fixing and ideas than real piano playing, at least in the later stages, but that comes with the territory.

So here is kevinplaystheblues:cloudedmelody



Intro Song.

Anthony & Alf.

Insensibility - Stupor VS Coma.

Clouded Melody for the Ocean.

Clouded Melody for Microelectronics.

Forest Feet.

Ballad for an Australian Vampire.

You're Top 12.

Ok, so maybe ambient isn't the best way to describe this stuff after all, Warwick.

Of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without a finally mixed and mastered version of my Christmas single going up as well!



So there you have it!

Now of course I need some ideas for the new year...maybe work on being actually able to play this stuff live?

Guess who's coming soon?

Pretty busy here and there. The band is taking up a fair bit of my time, but I have been working on a few things:

This is a little pop thing I came up with. Needs a lot more work. I've got some lyrics, but I doubt its something I'll run with.

This is a little jazz thing I came up with. Did the lead first and then tried to figure out chords. Paul has helped me with a more appropriate progression, and I'll work on that this weekend.

This is just me double tracking a fuck around on my synth. I like some bits there. Its pretty grating, but I should work on this to play live.

Finally Thelonius Monk's 'Blue Monk'. Only worked out the first bit, and then solo'd over it. I need to work it out in full, but I quite like some of my soloing here.

The Spiral Architect...

Its been disgracefully long since I put anything here. Disgracefully long since I started this blog to have so little to show for it. At least this time though, I haven't been really slack.

Lessons have been going well with some good progress on the Ben Kweller and the Jazz side of things. At home, I've been working on a few ideas and had a jam with Emmet the other day trying to get some guitar on board. I am not sure it all grabbed him that much, but we'll see what comes of it all...

Tune Up.

So I've been working on a Miles Davis song called Tune Up - fast bop, I am told. Anyway, its fraught with odd timings and weird notes that were really messing with me. It should have been a really good challenge to my sight reading, but I couldn't even get to that stage - it was just going nowhere.

I relented and sequenced the track, putting note names down where I needed them...which, funnily enough, was everywhere. I was a little embarrassed taking them to the lesson, but I think its worked out well in the long run. On that note, jamming with Emmet was interesting - he wasn't actually able to tell me what notes he was playing when I wanted to play along - self taught and all in his ear. For those of us without such fine aural skills though, I think there's something to be said for decent practise and reading.

So here's a run through of tuneup at about 155BPM, breaking down into a jam after 16 bars. Paul showed me how it progresses across a few scales - I need to find out if its actually changing keys or what.

And then here I am trying it at about 200 or 220BPM. Its a bit harder to hold it at such a tempo, but it introduces some fairly interesting ideas that don't really come at the lower tempos.

In both cases, changing instruments was the death of my. Probably should have cut that crap off? Listening to the originals is a real ear opener though - they must be up at about 300bpm...or maybe 150 at double time. Still, it sounds completely different to what I've come up with. I did try it at such high tempos, but it was a ridiculous mess.

Top12

This track is operating under the working title of Top12 (actually I think its top12_piano version III at this stage, but that's academic at this point). It was inspired not by, but while watching Australian Idol. In fact, I worked on the last iteration during the footy on Friday - volume down of course. Maybe I should rename it to TV.

It was born out of the electric koto sound you can now hear a little less, and has developed from there. I was really conscious of my tendency to rush through the ideas very quickly so I've worked hard on drawing out the intro - Jing thinks to much so, but Emmett thinks I should stay on it further. Either way the rest of the song needs to be drawn out to some extent. My only concern is perhaps that the song contains too many disparate ideas. How will I bring these hooks together? Time will tell I suppose...

Skipping points include:

• 1:20 Intro develops
• 2:00 Piano is introduced
• 2:20 New melody ( should be piano only - I think that synh is too waily)
• 3:20 Introduction of new, angular line...new drum beat...piano ostinato...

Anthony and Alf

So I have named this song
after a friend's paternal issues. I'll admit it started more in a search for a name for names sake, but I am now working to have the feel follow my perception of events. Maybe I should just change the name. I only started working on this track on Saturday, but its actually a rehash of an idea that's been floating around for a while. I think I initially came up with it playing piano during lunch when I worked at UC.

I've gone for a bit more of an ambient feel now, but the piano is still quite dominant. The MIDI fucks out for a couple bars at some point...2 minutesish I think, and its live recording at about the time of the positive change, so timing is a bit off - made evident by the delay.

So I haven't been slack in playing. Just blogging. I wish I had more time for both, though.

This was supposed to be on Friday...

While I was posting the last entry, I was doing some back referencing to the various things I have been doing, but ended up getting distracted.

Initially this came up as a dissonant piano thing, but I've been doing a lot of those, so I decided to try an electric piano with some delay and tremelo.

I like it. I need to space it out though, like I mentioned previously. Let it breaaathe.

I've done another version here. Double the speed and with drums:

I like this one too. Maybe for later in. I need to stick with this one, not let it die like the others. Something to take to a songwriting partner. Now I just need one.

...and at my feet it fell

I am a very frustrated piano player.

I don't take enough notes at my lessons and go to practise what I've learnt and find I am using the wrong backing chrods in BiB. I am silly.

Also, I just can't get motivated at the moment. There's lots to do, I jsut find myself doing other things. I am not losing interest, just drive to practise. I'll try and hit into it this weekend. Do some pentatonic blues, that I can't record. Maybe I should set up the recording?!

Anyways, to avoid this being just a total rant, I thought I'd figure some pop songs out, or at least the intros to them. Can you pick it?

One.

Two.

Frustrations!

Here's something I came up with today. I don't really think it has that much potential, but perhaps that is because I haven't found a way to introduce it yet. I really like the melody, but I have this inkling its actually from somewhere, and that I will soon realise this. Anyway, its called Clouded Melody I

Initially I banged it up on piano like this:

That's the Jinger's favourite, but I was also fiddling around with a bit an EP sound, banged on some distortion and applied a swing.

The EP experimentation also revealed this dreamy sound that I threw some electronics on.

I am not sure which, if any, have real potential. I am a bit frustrated to decide, I suppose. This is due to my main idea at the moment, Sadness in C, being uncommitable. For starters, its not really that sad anymore, but regardless of that, whenever I record it, it goes to shit. Last night I did a pretty nice version but forgot to record. Today I sat at the piano at work and took it to a new level, but again, no recording. I think the problem is that it lacks any structure - just a few ideas, the transitions between which are fudged at best. I think the piano at work gives a bit more of the sound I want, so tomorrow I'll probably take an edirol in and see what happens...