Category Archives: Music

Enchantment

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“Enchantment” is the first song from the upcoming “Equinox” album. It is also the first symphonic piece that I’ve done in a long time.

Video footage taken while visiting Mt Tamalpais (Marin County, CA), Municipal Rose Garden (San Jose, CA) and the Pulgas Water Temple (Redwood City, CA).

Here’s the backstory…

I had been wanting to do an orchestral/symphonic piece for many years now. Fortunately some of the tools available nowadays makes it possible to create something that sounds pretty compelling in terms of authenticity. 

This song started as a simple chord progression with me humming the melody. Here’s the original sketch:

Once I had decided that I was going to work on this song idea for the concert, I made a full chart with lead melody and chord progressions:

While working on pre-production of the song I watched two very helpful video courses on Groove3:

“Creating Realistic MIDI Strings”

“Creating Epic Cinematic Compositions”

The latter being particularly useful as I ended up mirroring a lot of the approach outlined in the course. 

Here are some of my notes that I referenced while bringing the track up:

  • Follow the “Rules of Harmony” (this video by Rick Beato was particularly informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuSKULck394)
  • Determine parts per section (e.g. Strings, Horns, Woodwinds, Percussion, misc.)
  • Create new alternate version in Logic per section (to free up CPU resources when using the virtual instruments)
  • Stack multiple virtual instruments per section w/ different articulations to create a fuller sound
  • Quantize, humanize then scale % of quantization applied
  • Use mod wheel to write expression automation
  • Bounce to align (if necessary) 


Parallel Processing

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In the past, I was pretty much an “all or nothing” type of person when it came to studying, writing, recording or performing. Meaning, I would exclusively focus on one area, say studying, for an extended period of time, at the expense of the other areas that are important to me. The great thing about that is you get really focused on a particular subject. The bad thing is all forward motion in any other areas stops completely.

For a long while, I had been wanting to divide my time between study and production. Ideally studying early on in the day with some sort of production later.

So one of my main goals for the first quarter of this year was to do exactly that. Once I got a workable schedule in place, I loved it. It was tremendously rewarding to see progress being made in so many different areas that interest me.

I think the key to allowing all of that to happen was to limit how much time I gave any one area of focus. That made space for everything else.

For my studies I continued with my 5 minutes per subject approach for a variety of subjects: ear training, guitar studies (music reading and chords/rhythm parts), bass, keyboards (scales and chords), songwriting/chord progressions, notation and vocal exercises.

Along with that I started incorporating online studies with courses on Lynda.com (Photoshop, Omnisphere, Battery, Performing with Ableton Live) and Groove3.com (Superior Drummer, Ableton Live 10 Explained, Creating Realistic MIDI Strings, Creating Epic Cinematic Compositions). These were super helpful in preparing for the album and concert.

I also began alternating days of focus. One day of new material, with the next being review of what I had already done. This kept everything very manageable and enjoyable. So much so that I looked forward to studying every day.

For songwriting/production I would do something similar by only allowing 30 minutes per song per day. This helped keep the songs new and interesting throughout the process. It also helped get me “unstuck” when I felt blocked. As soon as the timer went off I would move on to the next song and get positive momentum going again. By the time I came back to the song I was having an issue with I was in a different space and usually found a solution within minutes.

Take Away(s)

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There were a number of things that I took away from the 2019 Spring Concert, but perhaps the biggest thing I learned was the importance of rehearsing with the full system set up for more than one day. I think the ideal amount of time would have been about a week.

I did rehearse every day over the last month and a half, but always sitting down, without microphones/PA and playing at lower volume levels. Also, it wasn’t until the day before the concert that I had Ableton Live completely configured (audio files, MIDI mappings, sound patches, virtual instruments, etc). Up until then I was practicing with Logic Pro X – the app that I did all the production in.

Other things that I learned:

  • Really need to use chains in Live to switch between virtual instruments as selecting the desired track via MIDI mapping for MIDI controller focus wasn’t always reliable.
  • Use audio stems instead of “minus 1” tracks next time. Would be nice to have more isolation of tracks in the future (particularly synth basses and drums).
  • Should coordinate visuals better. This time was more like a proof of concept. Going forward I’d like to have them tailored to each song in Final Cut Pro and then triggered in Live, which could take a considerable amount of time to do. Need to allot for that. Perhaps 2 weeks or more?
  • Would be great to have extra time with everything set up to get extra footage for song videos (e.g. multiple passes of each song during the rehearsals, close ups of the gear/lighting, abstract images, etc.)
  • Clip for one of mics I planned on using was missing. Ended up using a condenser mic with a mic pre, which sounded totally different.
  • Both mic stands kept drifting downward when positioned over the keyboard. Need to repair or replace them.
  • Performing with mic stand positions (especially when singing while playing keyboards) was awkward at times.
  • Disable notifications on my laptop!

Most importantly, having the extra time to rehearse will make it easier for me to get into the flow of the music.

Things that worked:

  • Practicing the songs regularly was a win for being prepared musically.
  • Using Ableton Live worked pretty much the way that I hoped it would.
  • The equipment set up and layout of the room was really good.
  • The contour of the concert provided a nice variety of styles.
  • Visuals added a lot of depth and dimension to the feeling of the space.
  • Using Guitar Rig for performance worked really well for maintaining balance of volume between instruments (vs using an external guitar amp).

Here’s a beautiful painting of the layout of the room that my wife made. I think it’s fantastic!

Road Maps

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I’m a true believer in “starting with the end in mind” as it can make all the difference in whether a project is completed or not. So when it came time to identify what I wanted to do for the 2019 Spring Concert I had a brainstorming session with my whiteboard:

For those that can’t read my scribbles, here’s what it says:

Spring Concert 2019
Location: Home Living Room
Duration: 30 – 60 Minutes
Theme: Spring, new life, budding, becoming, cycles
Genres: Acoustic and electric

TTD
Pre-Production:
Select Songs, Determine: length/arrangements/instrumentation/melodies/lyrics

Production:
Scratch Tracks, Determine tempos & keys, drums/percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals

Post-Production:
Editing
Mixing (template?)

Visuals:
Photos/videos (fractal generators?)

Prep for live performance:
Bounce tracks to RC 500 or to use in Ableton Live?
Determine live rig
Determine visual projection system & how to sync to music

Looking back I pretty much did everything listed on the board. Granted I ended up creating various spreadsheets to go into greater detail:

I also created an outline of how I would like the contour of the concert/album to be:

Here’s the translation:

Contour of Concert (Songs/Album)
• String Piece ( string quartet -> symphony)
• African Drums Piece
• Spacey Lead Guitar Piece (using the Dark Side and Freqout pedals) <- use “Thaw” for the inspiration and title?
• Piano Piece
• Electronic Piece (“Crushing Minimalism”?)
• Acoustic Guitar Piece (“Tempest”)
• Tibetan Bell and Bowl (perhaps to begin and end with or to use in the middle

All of which ended up being what I did for the concert and album. The String piece became “Enchantment”, the African Drums piece became part of the middle section in “Signs of Life”, the Spacey Lead Guitar piece became “The Thaw”, the Piano piece became “Frost”, the Electronic piece became “Signs of Life”, the Acoustic Guitar piece is “Tempest” and I used the Tibetan Bowl for the beginning of the concert.

Best Laid Plans…

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One of the things that I was hoping to do during the first quarter of this year was to continue my studies while making an album (and preparing to perform said album) for our 2019 Spring Equinox Concert. I estimated all the timelines needed for studies, pre-production, production, editing, mixing, concert prep and setup. I thought I had a reasonable plan.

I had a good run for most of the quarter, maintaining a daily study schedule of ~4 hours a day with ~4-5 hours of production/prep all throughout January and February. It felt really good to be making progress in so many areas on a daily basis.

That was until the beginning of March when I realized that I had exceeded the amount of time that I had allotted for pre-production and production. I was supposed to be editing and mixing when a majority of the songs were nowhere near being ready. I had a strong feeling that I could get everything done if I abandoned the study regimen.

So that’s what I did. Throughout March, I focused 100% on the production/editing/mixing of the songs with some concert prep along the way. This went on until the _very_ early morning of the Spring Equinox (3/23). I met my deadline, all the songs were finished but at the cost of not meeting my goals for other areas of development.

Looking to the future, I hope to return to my days of studies _and_ production. This time allowing more leeway for production either in the number of songs or as to when I expect them to be done. Perhaps I will spread things out over two quarters. One being dedicated to writing and pre-production of the songs with a concert of the stripped down/basic versions. The other being focused on production/editing/mixing and concert of the fully arranged songs. As of now this approach seems reasonable, then again I thought the plan for this past quarter was reasonable… We’ll have to try and see what happens!

Spring Concert 2019

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Well, the first quarter of 2019 has come to a close. Before it was over we had our first ever house concert – the “2019 Spring Equinox Concert”. All in all it was a great night with a bunch of firsts.

It was the first time that I:
– performed all new material, written for a specific event
– used Ableton Live for performance
– coordinated visuals (lights and video) to go with the music
– played keyboards live
– used my Gretsch White Falcon for performance

I’m planning on writing some additional blog entries covering the various aspects of what went into the past three months. A lot happened. Some of it according to plan, other parts not so much. I’ll be highlighting what I thought worked and what could have been better. That being said I think the first quarter of 2019 was a very rich and fruitful one. It was full of learning, creativity and growth. Looking forward to the next one.

Equinox

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Late last year my wife, Rachel, suggested that I do a house concert as I had been writing so much new material (50 new song ideas between October and December 2018). This morphed into the idea of doing quarterly albums/concerts based on entirely new music that I have never performed before.

The first of these albums/concerts is coming up rather quickly: March 23, just after the Spring Equinox. I have made really good progress so far, most of the songs are close to being finished. I’m estimating that production will be completed in the next six days, followed by five days of mixing. This will leave me with three days to configure/set up equipment and rehearse everything.

It’s been a very full and rewarding period of time taking these 50 songs and choosing 8 of them for charting/notation, writing melodies and lyrics, arrangements, pre-production, recording, editing, mixing and live performance all within 3 months. Very exciting times indeed!