Synergy: when the whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Let's see if I did this right...

"Zero":

Now if all goes according to plan, this should be the first song released in 2010, assuming you live just next to the International Date Line*. So doing this now seemed appropriate.

Astute readers may recall that I previously did a song called "One," with the idea that said song was played by only one hand. That and this inspired me to try and write a song with only one note, total. I couldn't call it "One", hence "Zero". Then I was all (and notice I've abandoned all pretense of a formal tone by this point in the paragraph), one plus negative one is zero, and a song was born.

I went back and forth on which part should come first. Ultimately I decided the original chord (A major 7th, if you're interested) should go first, both because it gave the song more attack and because I couldn't get them to sync up right. There were volume issues and the program I used to turn them backwards didn't record or play things back well and I had to figure out how to do the effects and mixing properly. It was a nightmare, especially for a song that took ten seconds to record.

*If you think that doesn't count, you're an asshole I have a song coming up at midnight in my own time zone, assuming I can get it finished in time.

Anyway, Happy New Year. I'll see you again in eighteen hours, either resolute and triumphant or shamefacedly apologetic.

Downloadable Version:
Rerelease Notes: Mixing-- echo, louder ending, eq.

SotW 2.0

"Programming"

(Featuring Jonny Greenwood)

And so year 2 begins, after an inexcusably long hiatus. Remember a few weeks ago when I said I'd be done really soon? I'm a liar. And I wasn't even talking about this song then, so I'm like a double-liar.

As with a lot of other Songs of the Week, this one started with the title. I thought ,hey "Programming," that can mean a lot of different things. And so I went from there and tried to reference those different meanings in the song, so you get stuff from TV static, to computer-y blips and bloops, to out-of-context quotes about individuality* (the church bells, however, are just there to sound good).

That said, this is probably the hardest song I've done yet for two reasons. The first is that I'm a shitty piano player, and 90% of this song is done on synths, so there were a lot of retakes (especially for the electric piano part, which is the first time I've actually had to write something down before playing it). The other is that this song falls squarely into two genres I don't know much about, namely electronic music and jazz.

Most of the jazz influence has stripped away; originally the horn part was supposed to be more frantic and bebop-y, but I couldn't do it with the software, proving Mr. Greenwood has a point. The electronic parts, of course, stayed in. My total knowledge of electronic music goes as far as not just calling it all "techno"; I don't really know much about samples or synths or what subgenre this falls into. In some ways I think that works to the song's advantage, since I could just do what worked for the song itself, and it stands on its own more (which, of course fits the whole "technology and individuality" theme I was going for).

I was trying to find something that sounded futuristic, but familiar; ten years gone, not a thousand (or to put it another way, The Matrix, not Star Wars). The biggest influence was probably movie soundtracks, but I can't think of a specific movie. I'm working on a Soundtracking Your Life song that's similar, I might try and go into more detail there. There's a connection between all these sentences, and if you can actually make sense of all this, you get a cookie. The problem is, I wasn't thinking in words when I wrote the song, and I'm not sure how to translate. More later, but about something else.

*Speaking of which, is anybody else still watching Dollhouse? Somewhere in the last couple weeks, they went from "interesting but flawed" to "best show of 2009."

Downloadable Version:
Rerelease Notes: Some minor mixing stuff--fewer gaps, mainly.

"Variations on a Brushstroke"

I can't decide if I like the Windows 7 version of Paint or not. On the one hand, I can do stuff like this*:

On the other, it seems like they took out twice as many features as they put in, which is why I don't do the logos in Paint. At any rate, it's still good for doodling.

*Have I posted that one before? I feel like I might have, but I don't remember doing it.

ADDENDUM: Why is Blogger (which is owned by Google) an even bigger pain in the ass on Chrome (which is made by Google)?