Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2 is one of my favorite pieces (me and everyone else). I was reading about it last week and listening to some performances, including Horowitz (I like what he does starting at about 4:10) and Jung Lin (check out the section starting around 5:00). I also came across a reference to Friz Freleng’s Rhapsody in Rivets, a cartoon that sets the construction of the “umpire” state building to the melody, which I had to watch. Hungarian Rhapsody might be the #1 piece of classical music for cartoons, because Rhapsody in Rivets led me to (in chronological order), Mickey Mouse, an orchestra of animals, Bugs Bunny and a mouse, and Tom and Jerry — all of them playing Hungarian Rhapsody, and all sharing similar gags. Rhapsody in Rivets has some great visual interpretations of the music, like the guy running up and down the ladder (4:20, 4:50), the diggers (4:10), the hammerers (5:20), and the bricklayers (5:30, 6:15). The Mickey Mouse cartoon probably tops the list for surrealism, when the piano and stool boot Mickey off the stage and the piano starts playing itself with its front legs while the stool dances (starting around 1:35). And then of course there’s Victor Borge’s take, which is sort of like a Tom and Jerry cartoon but with real people.

 

“It is necessary for you to understand the functions of the controls and selectors of the Juno-60 perfectly to fully enjoy the advantages of the unit. Some setting examples are shown in this manual to make it easier for you to master how to operate the Juno-60, but you are the one who creates the sounds. Please find out your own setting and new ways of playing.”

 

The Univox is probably my all-time favorite preset drum machine. I had one a long time ago and more or less accidentally produced this track. But in the great “I have a computer now!” purge I foolishly sold it. Well, I managed to find another one in terrific shape from a retired guy who was the original owner and used to play shows with it back in the day. Actually, his machine was the Roland TR-55, and his father used the Univox. Nora and I had to drive out to the hidden enclaves of Bonney Lake in the pouring rain to get them, but they’re both mine now, and they will be handed down to the NLP when I am gone.

 

A dumb “meme” that I couldn’t resist doing: using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat a song title.

1. Your Artist: new order
2. Are you male or female? the him
3. Describe yourself: someone like you
4. How do you feel about yourself: doubts even here
5. Name one thing you are not: true faith
6. What is the best advice you have to give: every little counts
7. The first thing you think of when you wake up: leave me alone
8. If you could go anywhere, where would you go: all the way
9. Your favorite form of transportation: 60 miles an hour
10. Your best friend is: mr disco
11. Your favorite color is: everything’s gone green
12. What’s the weather like: sunrise
13. If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: blue monday
14. What is life to you: regret
15. Describe where you currently live: rock the shack
16. If you could change your name, what would it be: krafty
17. Your favorite food is: temptation
18. How I would like to die: dream attack
19. My soul’s present condition: in a lonely place
20. How would you describe your love life: world (price of love)

 

New track I recorded last night.. somehow drifted from rearranging the studio into making a nice spacey acid track. 303, 808, 909, 727, and a really key loop from my Hammond Auto-Vari 64.

Dragon

 

Elusive
An old-timey style track, with lots of 303 and 808 and a little 909 and that’s pretty much it.

 

Nora's storm mix. I wanted to make a mix of songs that I've been sampling for Nora's music, so I put them together with some more (somewhat) soothing music, and layered them with a storm recording for that soothing ambient effect.
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Kubla Khan, another piece of music for the fourth trimester. This one is a little more melodic, less ambient than some of the others, with some poetry in the background.

Spurred on by Ben's cover of "Summertime", I started working on a cover of "All Through The Night" (I love the Ella Fitzgerald version on the Cole Porter Songbook CD). But it didn't really come together for some reason. Instead, I did this creepy remix of Miss Otis Regrets. However, E and I ended up deciding it's too creepy to soothe infants to sleep.

I just did a remix of Don Henley's "Dirty Laundry". The song has a great opening groove, and I basically took that and some other bits and made a minimal 100bpm track.

keph sent me some music for nora's collection: jack is lost, reveal, and my favorite, a cover of summertime (I've had "your daddy's rich and your mama's good lookin" stuck in my head all week).

Tom made Nora a lullaby, which I added to her album. Thanks Tom!

We've been listening to her music regularly, especially in the middle of the night. It does seem to soothe her, and it works pretty well for us. The KLF's "Chill Out" was one of my big inspirations, and it kind of works the same way for me, though I wouldn't say my Nora songs have as much depth of ambient sounds in them.

rich: now that i'm over music and am all about bitches and money, i should become a music critic

Three new pieces of music for the fourth trimester. E and I worked on wish you were here together. It has trains, lots of wind, and a clip from one of E's favorite songs. Persuasion is a bit different from the others I've done so far, partly because it doesn't have swooshy white noise stuff (I have some noise-based drum sounds going instead) and it has samples from a favorite movie instead of a song clip. Finally, I added an old song of mine, One Breath, that fits in nicely.

Dylan did a song for Betty's fourth trimester too. I just did another as well. This one features thunderstorms, subway trains, and some orbital.

When I posted the last one I forgot I was going to explain about my ocean waves patch. In here comes the sun, I'd done the standard synth waves patch: a low-pass filter sweeping up and down, occasionally playing with the lfo rate, depth, or cutoff. It's pretty nice and does suggest the ocean. But when we were in hawaii, I took a walk on the beach one night and tried to listen to the waves and figure out how to mimic them with a synth.

I ended up making a patch where each keypress is a single wave. Each wave has a gradual build (when the wave is coming in toward the beach), which is a low-pass filter opening. Then there's the crash where the filter's all the way open and you get the full noise, then a high-pass filter sweeps up and it fades out with high-frequency noise (like the wave washing itself out against the sand). I randomized the pan position of each wave, and use velocity to control the duration of the build and crash segments. I was pretty happy with the result, though it was much simplified from what I originally planned -- I don't have a hardware synth with enough modules, and the software I had started having trouble with the more complex pieces.

I added a couple more songs here, and Kent did a track as well. My new ones are here comes the sun and black mountain side. yes, I'm putting samples of songs I like into my betty tracks (and the first one I did was ceremony).

it would be cool if some of you wanted to make fourth trimester tracks too. all it takes is some whooshy white noise, maybe something resembling a heartbeat. throw in a soothing sample from a favorite song, heavily processed. and don't be shy with the noise -- it's supposed to be pretty loud (people often use appliances or radios tuned to static). it's fun!

A book we've been reading argues that babies are born not entirely ready and that their first three months or so are like a "fourth trimester". Therefore, the author says, to calm your crying baby, simulate the sensations of the womb. One of these sensations is the constant background white noise of being inside the womb -- which is why shushing, appliance noise, etc can help calm a baby. For fun, I spent a few hours today making some noise-based womb music. Aside from various noise sources and some of those wavestation sounds I love so well, I slipped in a pretty loop from one of my favorite songs. The first is the finished track; the other two are some bits of noise I recorded while assembling it. I plan on making a cd of stuff like this to try on betty when she arrives.

untitled 72/01
jupiter waves
juno phase

My remix of Scott's The Paperwork Explosion, from his album Manhattan Research, Inc., which is basically soundtracks from a bunch of commercials and "THE WORLD OF THE FUTURE!" type short films. There is some awesome stuff on there, and also some just weird (e.g. the track "Don't Beat Your Wife Every Night").

Also, by the way, I rerecorded Attack of the Tooth Fairies because the levels were too pegged. This one sounds a little better.