well, i've got all my documents in order. tomorrow morning at 11:00 am. at least it'll be nice out....
i'm
going to have to bring up the ms thing. i don't know if there's some
kind of test for it. it may be the best way to do this. i mean, i can
handle some muscle spasms and stuff but i've recently been getting the
classic difficulty swallowing, and i think i'm really better off getting
it diagnosed. if i can get them to take me seriously...
it's an mri...
Sunday, January 11, 2015
detroit has a serious wild dog problem, but i'm not aware of one here and getting across the river would be rather difficult.
City of Windsor naturalist Paul Pratt said he hears reports of coyote sightings from everywhere in the city, even downtown. Coyotes took down a deer in the woodlot behind his LaSalle house about a month ago.
They’re mostly nocturnal and largely go unnoticed, Pratt said.
“If you have small dogs or cats, you shouldn’t let them out at night unattended, even if you’re in a built-up area.”
He said there are more coyotes in Windsor now because there’s more wildlife in Windsor – skunks, feral cats, groundhogs, possums and deer.
“There’s all this wildlife, something’s got to eat them,” said Pratt. “We have coyotes.”
City of Windsor naturalist Paul Pratt said he hears reports of coyote sightings from everywhere in the city, even downtown. Coyotes took down a deer in the woodlot behind his LaSalle house about a month ago.
They’re mostly nocturnal and largely go unnoticed, Pratt said.
“If you have small dogs or cats, you shouldn’t let them out at night unattended, even if you’re in a built-up area.”
He said there are more coyotes in Windsor now because there’s more wildlife in Windsor – skunks, feral cats, groundhogs, possums and deer.
“There’s all this wildlife, something’s got to eat them,” said Pratt. “We have coyotes.”
i'm pretty sure i've heard them rustling around where i can't see them. with all the cats and the skunks around, it seemed like a matter of time. but it took the snow to reveal them: very clear canid tracks coming up across the front lawn, right to the door and across the other way. right where the cat that's been following me around sits, actually. relatively large, at that - if these are coyote tracks, it's a big coyote. may be one of those coywolves...
i suspect that may be the last i'll see of that cat.
it's said they're around, and you'll rarely see them. they know they can't really take you down. but there's kids around here. and it's enough to be a little bit more cautious about going out at night.
i haven't set up my new blog yet, and i have my meeting on monday. this post will eventually self-destruct. but, for now i'm going to post on the results of my meeting in the comments of this post. i suppose if there's no posts here by tuesday, that's bad news.
i suspect that may be the last i'll see of that cat.
it's said they're around, and you'll rarely see them. they know they can't really take you down. but there's kids around here. and it's enough to be a little bit more cautious about going out at night.
i haven't set up my new blog yet, and i have my meeting on monday. this post will eventually self-destruct. but, for now i'm going to post on the results of my meeting in the comments of this post. i suppose if there's no posts here by tuesday, that's bad news.
existence (vst mix) (for thru)
this was a piece i wrote up in the fall of 2001. i can't remember exactly what the root of it was, but it had something to do with a voice-leading assignment for what was the equivalent of a course in music theory 101. the root of the piece may consequently come from what was presented to me. i can't recall exactly - but i believe the assignment was to build the different voices up.
my negative relationship with music theory is stated throughout this page and was well established well before the end of 2001. i had an interest in the music theory course for the purposes of deconstructing the theory - in the context of writing, specifically, and not performing. i actually have one of those classic stories - i failed this course. it is actually the only course i have ever legitimately received an F in. hey, if einstein can fail math, i can fail music theory.
the story actually revolves around sight-reading aspect of the course, and specifically it's vocal content. there were three aspects of the course (theory, vocal sight-reading and african drumming which i'm thinking was meant to be a rhythmic component but was really just a ridiculous waste of time). i really wish they would have let me sight read on a guitar, or even a piano, because i'm just simply not a talented singer; i've never had aspirations to become one, and i had a lot of problems controlling my vocals. even with that being said, the reality is that i had a very low level of _interest_ in this. i probably could have passed the course if i spent less time on abstract algebra and more time singing in the mirror, but i just couldn't be bothered...
i really disapprove of the way the course was designed. i was interested in learning about music theory, and needed the course as a pre-req for more advanced courses, which i never ended up taking. i still don't fully understand why i had to pass a singing exam to take further composition courses. the best answer i got was that the school didn't want graduates who couldn't pass a singing exam, but i was at no point enrolled in a b. music so it's a pretty weak response.
anyways, this was a voice-leading assignment that i perverted into something mildly atonal and then built up into something else. you can hear it if you listen, except that it's all "wrong". i'd have to sit down and analyze it to come to a more detailed exposition on it's "wrongness", and i'm not going to, but it's not hard to hear how "wrong" it is, either.
i was clearly listening to a lot of glass at the time, but this goes beyond his medievalism. i'm using so many "wrong" notes that it's ultimately just chromatic - although there's no tone rows or anything that's formally serialist about it. it's not meant to abolish the structure so much as it's meant to just flaunt the rules. that gives it an almost satanic feel, in the context of a vocal piece using "forbidden" intervals.
but, looking back, i think that what the piece really explores is existential anguish. i was in the second year of a math degree (after switching from physics after switching from software engineering) and really had little idea where i was going with it. i was considering switching into music and probably would have had i not failed the singing exam. the thing is i actually knew i was going to fail the course at that point, and was just feeling lost as a result of it. i ended up in math as this sort of default choice, vaguely thinking i might end up teaching somewhere but not having any real interest in it...
so much choice, so few options. i suppose that this is how i expressed what i was feeling about this reality at the time.
i can't remember the exact way this happened, but i believe the piece was initially written for voice (as a voice-leading assignment) and then expanded into further voices and then converted into a composition for nine instruments. i've picked halloween as the date, but that's symbolic - it was around then, anyway. it would have been around december that it was put aside, because i don't remember working on it after i moved.
this version was created in october, 2014 by mixing three separate vst mixes together: the choir mix, a string orchestra mix and an arranged mix.
written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 3, 2014.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/existence-4
my negative relationship with music theory is stated throughout this page and was well established well before the end of 2001. i had an interest in the music theory course for the purposes of deconstructing the theory - in the context of writing, specifically, and not performing. i actually have one of those classic stories - i failed this course. it is actually the only course i have ever legitimately received an F in. hey, if einstein can fail math, i can fail music theory.
the story actually revolves around sight-reading aspect of the course, and specifically it's vocal content. there were three aspects of the course (theory, vocal sight-reading and african drumming which i'm thinking was meant to be a rhythmic component but was really just a ridiculous waste of time). i really wish they would have let me sight read on a guitar, or even a piano, because i'm just simply not a talented singer; i've never had aspirations to become one, and i had a lot of problems controlling my vocals. even with that being said, the reality is that i had a very low level of _interest_ in this. i probably could have passed the course if i spent less time on abstract algebra and more time singing in the mirror, but i just couldn't be bothered...
i really disapprove of the way the course was designed. i was interested in learning about music theory, and needed the course as a pre-req for more advanced courses, which i never ended up taking. i still don't fully understand why i had to pass a singing exam to take further composition courses. the best answer i got was that the school didn't want graduates who couldn't pass a singing exam, but i was at no point enrolled in a b. music so it's a pretty weak response.
anyways, this was a voice-leading assignment that i perverted into something mildly atonal and then built up into something else. you can hear it if you listen, except that it's all "wrong". i'd have to sit down and analyze it to come to a more detailed exposition on it's "wrongness", and i'm not going to, but it's not hard to hear how "wrong" it is, either.
i was clearly listening to a lot of glass at the time, but this goes beyond his medievalism. i'm using so many "wrong" notes that it's ultimately just chromatic - although there's no tone rows or anything that's formally serialist about it. it's not meant to abolish the structure so much as it's meant to just flaunt the rules. that gives it an almost satanic feel, in the context of a vocal piece using "forbidden" intervals.
but, looking back, i think that what the piece really explores is existential anguish. i was in the second year of a math degree (after switching from physics after switching from software engineering) and really had little idea where i was going with it. i was considering switching into music and probably would have had i not failed the singing exam. the thing is i actually knew i was going to fail the course at that point, and was just feeling lost as a result of it. i ended up in math as this sort of default choice, vaguely thinking i might end up teaching somewhere but not having any real interest in it...
so much choice, so few options. i suppose that this is how i expressed what i was feeling about this reality at the time.
i can't remember the exact way this happened, but i believe the piece was initially written for voice (as a voice-leading assignment) and then expanded into further voices and then converted into a composition for nine instruments. i've picked halloween as the date, but that's symbolic - it was around then, anyway. it would have been around december that it was put aside, because i don't remember working on it after i moved.
this version was created in october, 2014 by mixing three separate vst mixes together: the choir mix, a string orchestra mix and an arranged mix.
written in the fall of 2001. rendered, remastered and remixed in late september and early october, 2014. this render is from october 3, 2014.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/existence-4
the walk (vst mix)
this was written as the introductory walk scene to the first rabit is wolf single; this vst version is exclusive to this collection..
written late 2001; re-rendered through vst on jan 10, 2015.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-walk-2
written late 2001; re-rendered through vst on jan 10, 2015.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-walk-2
Saturday, January 10, 2015
lol...
so, i just tried to do a lossless compress on that last track, and it won't compress. if you know how this works a little...
what it does is it looks for strings of zeroes, which represent empty space in the wave file. now, what that means is complicated but "empty space" is intuitive - it's data that's not filled in, or is filled in with zeroes to be precise. it then combines strings of zeroes together, cutting down on the amount of bits required to store the data. what that means is that - and this is different than an mp3 - that the amount you can losslessly compress a sound by depends on the complexity of the sound. a recording of the creek outside your house will have more empty space than a recording of a symphony, and will compress much better.
so, if i run my symphony through the lossless compression and i'm only able to compress it by 1%, that means i've got data in 99% of the possible places there could be data.
that's a dense track...
so, you think you got a phat track, yo? see how far you can compress it. if your track is really phat, you're looking at 70%. but 99%? that's fucking ridiculous.
so, i just tried to do a lossless compress on that last track, and it won't compress. if you know how this works a little...
what it does is it looks for strings of zeroes, which represent empty space in the wave file. now, what that means is complicated but "empty space" is intuitive - it's data that's not filled in, or is filled in with zeroes to be precise. it then combines strings of zeroes together, cutting down on the amount of bits required to store the data. what that means is that - and this is different than an mp3 - that the amount you can losslessly compress a sound by depends on the complexity of the sound. a recording of the creek outside your house will have more empty space than a recording of a symphony, and will compress much better.
so, if i run my symphony through the lossless compression and i'm only able to compress it by 1%, that means i've got data in 99% of the possible places there could be data.
that's a dense track...
so, you think you got a phat track, yo? see how far you can compress it. if your track is really phat, you're looking at 70%. but 99%? that's fucking ridiculous.
the intersection of two identical particles moving in completely opposite directions (vst mix) (for thru)
ok...
so, to understand this piece, it's necessary to go back to 1998.
i was working out primitive sequencer parts for the first inri demo and it just sort of crossed my mind that there was really nothing stopping me from composing symphonies except for a lot of music theory. well, if i could write electronic music without training, why couldn't i write symphonies without training? i mean, the score writing program exists in front of me. it was just a question of experimenting with it. i could do it myself...
...but i actually already had a pretty hefty disdain for music theory by the age of 17. i'd managed to come across a music history textbook that traced the deconstruction of western theory from beethoven through to schoenberg and this, combined with my experiences as a guitarist, was enough to prevent me from taking it seriously. the perception i had was of modern composers viewing music theory sort of like how biologists viewed creationism. i use that analogy fairly frequently. it just didn't strike me as relevant.
now, i've softened a bit over time to a view that music theory is best understood in terms of the underlying physics. this renders the theory useless, but upholds the basic relationships between tones as physical, mathematical realities. the thing is the next step of abstraction is understanding that these mathematical objects can be arranged and analyzed in any arbitrary way, and the conventional theory really *is* a fallacy akin to creationism. so, i still hold to the general thesis. this is actually the first serious example of me putting that disdain for the idea that music should have a theory into real action. i remain adamantly of the view that art is not a realm where theories should exist or be viewed with anything other than scorn. theories are rigid, formal things; art is informal, chaotic.
so, it's 1998. i have a scorewriter and a very basic soundcard and i want to bullshit a symphony out of it. i did this by composing a single brief melody by randomly mashing notes into a scorewriter. i then took that melody and pasted it over top of itself at differing speeds (64th, 32nd, 16th, 8th, quarter, half, whole notes). i then took that, cut it off near the end of the half notes and pasted it over itself, backwards.
that might sound like it's going to sound awful, but it actually sounds quite lovely. one could analyze it quite easily, but it's creation is beyond the realm of any rules of construction.
which is where art belongs.
...excepting the algorithm i used, of course. i suppose it's more reich than schoenberg, but kind of more xenakis than either.
in 2001, i ran the midi file through my soundblaster live!, which as primitive as it is, has a much nicer wavetable in it than the primitive soundcard i used in 1998 and 1999 (i don't remember what it was). i also slowed it down by about 20 bpm and allowed the full file to "intersect", which let it breathe more.
why? well, i was writing a lot with scorewriters at the time and was just experimenting with the old file, really. but i was also finishing up what would be the only year i would spend in the math-physics department, and thought it sounded like i would imagine intersecting particles *should* sound like. i was generally interested in finding ways to combine science with music then - an interest that is present in older tracks as well and that has stuck with me. i may explore these themes further in time. one of the ideas i really wanted to accomplish was a physical modelling of the universe, to actually simulate the music of the spheres, as pythagoras imagined it. i think i underestimated the complexity of such a task....
of course, i never expected the music of the spheres to be tonal. and i wouldn't expect the sound of particles intersecting to be musical, either. but, we can take some artistic license. if intersecting particles are to make a sound, it OUGHT to be something like this!
written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001. slightly rearranged and re-rendered at the end of july, 2014. this render is from july 24, 2014.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-intersection-of-two-identical-particles-moving-in-completely-opposite-directions-4
so, to understand this piece, it's necessary to go back to 1998.
i was working out primitive sequencer parts for the first inri demo and it just sort of crossed my mind that there was really nothing stopping me from composing symphonies except for a lot of music theory. well, if i could write electronic music without training, why couldn't i write symphonies without training? i mean, the score writing program exists in front of me. it was just a question of experimenting with it. i could do it myself...
...but i actually already had a pretty hefty disdain for music theory by the age of 17. i'd managed to come across a music history textbook that traced the deconstruction of western theory from beethoven through to schoenberg and this, combined with my experiences as a guitarist, was enough to prevent me from taking it seriously. the perception i had was of modern composers viewing music theory sort of like how biologists viewed creationism. i use that analogy fairly frequently. it just didn't strike me as relevant.
now, i've softened a bit over time to a view that music theory is best understood in terms of the underlying physics. this renders the theory useless, but upholds the basic relationships between tones as physical, mathematical realities. the thing is the next step of abstraction is understanding that these mathematical objects can be arranged and analyzed in any arbitrary way, and the conventional theory really *is* a fallacy akin to creationism. so, i still hold to the general thesis. this is actually the first serious example of me putting that disdain for the idea that music should have a theory into real action. i remain adamantly of the view that art is not a realm where theories should exist or be viewed with anything other than scorn. theories are rigid, formal things; art is informal, chaotic.
so, it's 1998. i have a scorewriter and a very basic soundcard and i want to bullshit a symphony out of it. i did this by composing a single brief melody by randomly mashing notes into a scorewriter. i then took that melody and pasted it over top of itself at differing speeds (64th, 32nd, 16th, 8th, quarter, half, whole notes). i then took that, cut it off near the end of the half notes and pasted it over itself, backwards.
that might sound like it's going to sound awful, but it actually sounds quite lovely. one could analyze it quite easily, but it's creation is beyond the realm of any rules of construction.
which is where art belongs.
...excepting the algorithm i used, of course. i suppose it's more reich than schoenberg, but kind of more xenakis than either.
in 2001, i ran the midi file through my soundblaster live!, which as primitive as it is, has a much nicer wavetable in it than the primitive soundcard i used in 1998 and 1999 (i don't remember what it was). i also slowed it down by about 20 bpm and allowed the full file to "intersect", which let it breathe more.
why? well, i was writing a lot with scorewriters at the time and was just experimenting with the old file, really. but i was also finishing up what would be the only year i would spend in the math-physics department, and thought it sounded like i would imagine intersecting particles *should* sound like. i was generally interested in finding ways to combine science with music then - an interest that is present in older tracks as well and that has stuck with me. i may explore these themes further in time. one of the ideas i really wanted to accomplish was a physical modelling of the universe, to actually simulate the music of the spheres, as pythagoras imagined it. i think i underestimated the complexity of such a task....
of course, i never expected the music of the spheres to be tonal. and i wouldn't expect the sound of particles intersecting to be musical, either. but, we can take some artistic license. if intersecting particles are to make a sound, it OUGHT to be something like this!
written june, 1998. reimagined june, 2001. slightly rearranged and re-rendered at the end of july, 2014. this render is from july 24, 2014.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-intersection-of-two-identical-particles-moving-in-completely-opposite-directions-4
the symphony of psilocybin induced madness (vst mix)
this is the vst update, for the second half of the thru disc.
the core of this was written in my parent's basement in the spring of 2001. planning on going to a rave that weekend, i had previously purchased a large amount of drugs; i was, however, forced to stay in due to having a calculus test that sunday (the rave was out of town). well, my parents were gone for the weekend, most of my friends were out of town and i had a massive stash of drugs...
it is quite literally a symphony of psilocybin induced madness and was written directly into an ancient, hacked score-writing program. while it has been labelled as a symphony of drunken confusion in certain contexts to get around certain social stigmas, this is inaccurate.
written early 2001. this render was completed on jan 10, 2015.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness-4
also available here:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/vst-mix-3
inri027 has been updated:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness
the core of this was written in my parent's basement in the spring of 2001. planning on going to a rave that weekend, i had previously purchased a large amount of drugs; i was, however, forced to stay in due to having a calculus test that sunday (the rave was out of town). well, my parents were gone for the weekend, most of my friends were out of town and i had a massive stash of drugs...
it is quite literally a symphony of psilocybin induced madness and was written directly into an ancient, hacked score-writing program. while it has been labelled as a symphony of drunken confusion in certain contexts to get around certain social stigmas, this is inaccurate.
written early 2001. this render was completed on jan 10, 2015.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness-4
also available here:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/vst-mix-3
inri027 has been updated:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness
track added to symphony 2 single
jessica
hi.
i'm contacting you because you purchased my symphony #2 single at some point in the past. i've added another remix to the single, which will also appear on the second side of the midi music project i'm nearing completion of. as you've purchased the single, i feel you're entitled to a free download of the track, which is up right here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/vst-mix-3
now, it would seem like the easiest thing to do would be to generate a download code, but bandcamp is demanding i generate one hundred codes at a time and that would simply be a waste of codes, as there would be no other reason for me to generate codes for a single track. so, rather, i'm going to provide you with the opportunity to request the remix in the format you'd like it in, and i'll email it to you if you'd like me to.
Alessandro
Hi! If possibile, I would like to recive the track in Alac format. If not possibile, an mp3 is fine too. Thank you very much! By the way, beautiful music!
jessica
aaaaaaaaaaaactually, it turns out that you should be able to redownload the record from bandcamp.
i couldn't find a way to convert directly to mp4 without installing itunes, which i'm just not doing. i'm pretty particular about software that phones home in that i don't like it. so, i almost sent you a zipped wave file. but here's the thing: this track is so dense that the zip file only compressed it by 3 mb (it went from 93 to 90 mb). the zip process works by finding zeroes. i guess there's not a lot of zeroes in this file. that's too big to send over email....
if it doesn't work let me know, but i think the easiest thing to do is download it from the source. hey, i'm still learning how this works, too :)
hi.
i'm contacting you because you purchased my symphony #2 single at some point in the past. i've added another remix to the single, which will also appear on the second side of the midi music project i'm nearing completion of. as you've purchased the single, i feel you're entitled to a free download of the track, which is up right here:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/vst-mix-3
now, it would seem like the easiest thing to do would be to generate a download code, but bandcamp is demanding i generate one hundred codes at a time and that would simply be a waste of codes, as there would be no other reason for me to generate codes for a single track. so, rather, i'm going to provide you with the opportunity to request the remix in the format you'd like it in, and i'll email it to you if you'd like me to.
Alessandro
Hi! If possibile, I would like to recive the track in Alac format. If not possibile, an mp3 is fine too. Thank you very much! By the way, beautiful music!
jessica
aaaaaaaaaaaactually, it turns out that you should be able to redownload the record from bandcamp.
i couldn't find a way to convert directly to mp4 without installing itunes, which i'm just not doing. i'm pretty particular about software that phones home in that i don't like it. so, i almost sent you a zipped wave file. but here's the thing: this track is so dense that the zip file only compressed it by 3 mb (it went from 93 to 90 mb). the zip process works by finding zeroes. i guess there's not a lot of zeroes in this file. that's too big to send over email....
if it doesn't work let me know, but i think the easiest thing to do is download it from the source. hey, i'm still learning how this works, too :)
Friday, January 9, 2015
hi again...
To: sirenssound@gmail.com
jessica
(pause)
sorry, hit send accidentally.
i'm the person that set up your facebook page back in 2011. i'm just wondering if you might be willing to review some of my tunes.
my bandcamp page is very large, but the following are records i've finalized over 2014 or will finalize shortly in 2015.
2000 release (completed january, 2014):
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything
2001 release (completed october, 2014):
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
2002 release (to be completed in january or february, 2015)
(two more songs to add):
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2
2004 release (to be completed in january or february, 2015):
(this will be a double, with sample-driven versions of the same material on the other side) http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa
Sheizaad TheSirensSound
Hi Jessica,
I hope you keeping well and that you had a great x-mas / new year. I am terribly sorry for the late reply but I am happy to say that I've had a chance to give the project a listen and wrote an entry here [ http://www.thesirenssound.com/2015/01/12/deny-everything/ ].
Excellent stuff dear.
jessica
(pause)
sorry, hit send accidentally.
i'm the person that set up your facebook page back in 2011. i'm just wondering if you might be willing to review some of my tunes.
my bandcamp page is very large, but the following are records i've finalized over 2014 or will finalize shortly in 2015.
2000 release (completed january, 2014):
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/deny-everything
2001 release (completed october, 2014):
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
2002 release (to be completed in january or february, 2015)
(two more songs to add):
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj-2
2004 release (to be completed in january or february, 2015):
(this will be a double, with sample-driven versions of the same material on the other side) http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/ftaa
Sheizaad TheSirensSound
Hi Jessica,
I hope you keeping well and that you had a great x-mas / new year. I am terribly sorry for the late reply but I am happy to say that I've had a chance to give the project a listen and wrote an entry here [ http://www.thesirenssound.com/2015/01/12/deny-everything/ ].
Excellent stuff dear.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
the time machine (vst mix) (for thu)
regarding this piece, my memory is blurry; yet, i have a vivid recollection of playing parts of it for my guitar teacher on a sunny day, where there was still snow on the ground. it's funny how we remember seemingly irrelevant details, but i guess the atmosphere of the performance is important because the performance is. that would date it to roughly march, 2001.
i switched the piece from classical guitar to piano halfway through writing it, and vaguely remember thinking that an impossible interval had something to do with it (a specific c# cannot be hit on a standard classical). yet, that doesn't change the fact that it's guitar music. the counterpoint is very guitar.
to further complicate things, i've long wanted to turn the piece into a jazzy idm romp. it has a kind of a jingly feel to it that belongs in the warp records sphere.
conceptually, the time machine aspect referred simply to the slowed down guitar chords at the beginning of the song. if you play it a certain way, it sounds like time is collapsing in on itself. or, so i thought, anyways. the various versions i have created here have made an attempt to take that idea to it's logical conclusion. it's a mix of the vision i had at the time and a bit of hindsight.
written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. final render completed on july 5, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-time-machine-5
i switched the piece from classical guitar to piano halfway through writing it, and vaguely remember thinking that an impossible interval had something to do with it (a specific c# cannot be hit on a standard classical). yet, that doesn't change the fact that it's guitar music. the counterpoint is very guitar.
to further complicate things, i've long wanted to turn the piece into a jazzy idm romp. it has a kind of a jingly feel to it that belongs in the warp records sphere.
conceptually, the time machine aspect referred simply to the slowed down guitar chords at the beginning of the song. if you play it a certain way, it sounds like time is collapsing in on itself. or, so i thought, anyways. the various versions i have created here have made an attempt to take that idea to it's logical conclusion. it's a mix of the vision i had at the time and a bit of hindsight.
written early 2001. drastically rearranged in june, 2014. final render completed on july 5, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/the-time-machine-5
stuck in the middle of an alley closing in on all sides (vst mix) (for thru)
this is one of the tracks that i can't date well. i do, however, remember working on it during the winter, which means it must have been late '00 or early '01. i'm going to consequently deduce that it must have been what i was working on over the 2000 christmas break and date it coming out right after it.
actually, i have another reason to date it in early '01 rather than late '00: the introductory piano part was recorded live into my notation program on my dx100, which i was given over christmas (maybe a little before; it was a cheap garage sale pickup) to act as a controller for my recently broken jx-8p, that i had tried to take apart over the summer to clean a sticky key (a common problem with mid-80s roland analog synths) but failed and left keyless. it's still keyless. yet, the dx still drives it....
that introductory piano part formed the basis of the track, which built itself up fairly quickly. somewhere, i lost the nwc file by saving it as midi, which ruined all the formatting. it's been sitting on my drive ever since.
thematically, the track is meant to orchestrate a feeling of claustrophobia with society pushing down on you too hard. it's meant to transmit a feeling of existential dread. at the time, i really felt stuck with life in general and not sure how i was going to get out of it..
written late 2000 & early 2001. initial instrumentation and render completed mar 7, 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. final render completed on may 3, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides-5
actually, i have another reason to date it in early '01 rather than late '00: the introductory piano part was recorded live into my notation program on my dx100, which i was given over christmas (maybe a little before; it was a cheap garage sale pickup) to act as a controller for my recently broken jx-8p, that i had tried to take apart over the summer to clean a sticky key (a common problem with mid-80s roland analog synths) but failed and left keyless. it's still keyless. yet, the dx still drives it....
that introductory piano part formed the basis of the track, which built itself up fairly quickly. somewhere, i lost the nwc file by saving it as midi, which ruined all the formatting. it's been sitting on my drive ever since.
thematically, the track is meant to orchestrate a feeling of claustrophobia with society pushing down on you too hard. it's meant to transmit a feeling of existential dread. at the time, i really felt stuck with life in general and not sure how i was going to get out of it..
written late 2000 & early 2001. initial instrumentation and render completed mar 7, 2014. minor instrumentation changes to facilitate a small wind section were implemented in late april, 2014. final render completed on may 3, 2014. as always, please use headphones.
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/track/stuck-in-the-middle-of-an-alley-closing-in-on-all-sides-5
this thing has always been difficult to mix, because it's just a wall of fucking sound roaring at you - structured chaos to be sure but it's just loud. it's almost there, though.
i can't claim any specific improvement over the 2006 version. i mean, there's a reason i skipped over this last summer; i didn't think i could improve upon it. it's different, sure, but it's not really "better", and i'm not expecting that it's going to be. this is not an update on the final version. but it needs to be done for the thru project.
i mean, it's interesting, no doubt, but in a pretty geeky way that's only going to appeal to any segment of the fan base that also produces...
i can't claim any specific improvement over the 2006 version. i mean, there's a reason i skipped over this last summer; i didn't think i could improve upon it. it's different, sure, but it's not really "better", and i'm not expecting that it's going to be. this is not an update on the final version. but it needs to be done for the thru project.
i mean, it's interesting, no doubt, but in a pretty geeky way that's only going to appeal to any segment of the fan base that also produces...
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
so, that was a relatively long break. it's ok, i think i needed to come at some of this stuff with a fresh perspective. but i'll be seriously back at it this afternoon.
i knew that copying information off facebook would get tedious and time consuming if i were to start it, and that is indeed what happened. my only real justification is that i was sick.
i've actually cleared off five years of facebook comments. it's left a lot of incoherent conversations on other people's profiles. but it is actually done. and that blog is not likely to come back up for a while, which i think is also positive. what's left on my personal page is a sort of a cv. feel free to sort through it if you'd like.
i have four more profiles to wipe clean (two music review profiles, a political link dump and this) but they're going to come together very slowly over many weeks - an hour or two a day until it's complete. this profile is slated to be shut down last. it could be up to six months.
for now, i'm going to be adding to the following single this afternoon by creating a vst mix:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness
this vst mix will also appear on the second half of the 2xcd thru collection:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/thru
i knew that copying information off facebook would get tedious and time consuming if i were to start it, and that is indeed what happened. my only real justification is that i was sick.
i've actually cleared off five years of facebook comments. it's left a lot of incoherent conversations on other people's profiles. but it is actually done. and that blog is not likely to come back up for a while, which i think is also positive. what's left on my personal page is a sort of a cv. feel free to sort through it if you'd like.
i have four more profiles to wipe clean (two music review profiles, a political link dump and this) but they're going to come together very slowly over many weeks - an hour or two a day until it's complete. this profile is slated to be shut down last. it could be up to six months.
for now, i'm going to be adding to the following single this afternoon by creating a vst mix:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/the-symphony-of-psilocybin-induced-madness
this vst mix will also appear on the second half of the 2xcd thru collection:
http://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/thru
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Sunday, January 4, 2015
you know, for once, it'd be nice to see a parody of existentialism that doesn't miss the point altogether (and i'm not sure how he's characterizing the statement about artistic integrity as randian except by wording it in a bizarre way, although i'll admit i ran into a few people at occupy that tried to merge worker politics with support for ron paul - and were promptly made fun of).
see, it doesn't matter if he gets through college and gets a higher paying job or if he takes the job as an office temp (although reality is that he'll be lucky if his college diploma gets him a paying job in an office, that's where mom's social standing plays a role). whether he's making $50/hr or $10/hr, his life will still lack meaning. he'll still be forced into employment he has no interest in. the point is that the effort and the social standing that comes with it doesn't make a difference in an individual's happiness.
nor is the doctor's ferrari anything more than a temporary alleviation of the deep emptiness that defines his existence.
it would be easier if more people realized all of this, as building a movement to create a system that provides meaning would actually become possible. alas, we're instead persistently driven into the false promises of illusory happiness that consumer culture provides for us.
now, if you'll excuse me, i am going to ponderously play a single chord on an out of tune guitar for an hour as i meditate on the purposelessness of capitalism.
see, it doesn't matter if he gets through college and gets a higher paying job or if he takes the job as an office temp (although reality is that he'll be lucky if his college diploma gets him a paying job in an office, that's where mom's social standing plays a role). whether he's making $50/hr or $10/hr, his life will still lack meaning. he'll still be forced into employment he has no interest in. the point is that the effort and the social standing that comes with it doesn't make a difference in an individual's happiness.
nor is the doctor's ferrari anything more than a temporary alleviation of the deep emptiness that defines his existence.
it would be easier if more people realized all of this, as building a movement to create a system that provides meaning would actually become possible. alas, we're instead persistently driven into the false promises of illusory happiness that consumer culture provides for us.
now, if you'll excuse me, i am going to ponderously play a single chord on an out of tune guitar for an hour as i meditate on the purposelessness of capitalism.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
uploading nothing to say to youtube
so, the track switched on wednesday but i was too sick to say much about it. maybe it's sort of fitting.
this is the last track on cassette demo #2 and will be up until the end of january. the demo material will then cycle around for a bit, but i won't post that here. that means this is the last youtube update on this page until the beginning of may, when the feature switches out of my mid 90s punk phase and into my late 90s electronic phase.
hopefully, i'm out of my sophomore slump by then, too.
i actually expect to be a good ways into the discography by may - perhaps as far as 2006.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ37S6tpDJ4
this is the last track on cassette demo #2 and will be up until the end of january. the demo material will then cycle around for a bit, but i won't post that here. that means this is the last youtube update on this page until the beginning of may, when the feature switches out of my mid 90s punk phase and into my late 90s electronic phase.
hopefully, i'm out of my sophomore slump by then, too.
i actually expect to be a good ways into the discography by may - perhaps as far as 2006.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ37S6tpDJ4
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