I know it has been awhile since my last post. With every week that passed, the thought of having yet another failed blog weighed on my mind. So much so that the time period that passed started to seem so much longer than it actually was. When I went back and looked at the calendar, I started to feel less guilt for letting only four months roll by even when I experienced some significant musical milestones. What inspired me to wrap this up and click "Publish" is another music artist I follow, Andrew Tasselmyer, and his publication, Sound Methods. I know Andrew has a day job and a family (with twins!), so I can certainly understand why he would go a number of months between posting. I decided to offer myself the same understanding. Thank you, Andrew! I most likely will not return to a consistent weekly schedule, but I do have a number of musical projects in the works that I plan to share and the following updates show how I have been working up to them.
One of my songs, Oval, from the Somewhere - EP I released in 2022, was featured on a mixtape by NHAM, a magazine-style platform developed by a community of music enthusiasts primarily taking place in the fediverse. From what I can tell, NHAM is a flexible acronym used for many different phrases (e.g. "Network of Hope and Association in Music," "Nice to Hear About Music," "Nonpareil House, Acid, Minimal"). One thing that is certain, however, is that the leaders behind NHAM are very kind and supportive, and I appreciate being included in the mixtape! Thanks, NHAM!
I took part in Weekly Beats last year and toward the end of the year I started challenging myself to make tracks in time signatures other than 4/4. I ended up really enjoying that handful of tracks I made and I was wondering what it would have been like if I had discovered that technique earlier in the year. When I saw the prompt for Disquiet Junto Project 0694 (to take an existing song in 4/4 and re-create it in 5/4), I thought I would take one of my earlier Weekly Beats submissions from last year that I made in 4/4 and just add the extra beat as instructed. Here is what I came up with:
If you are interested in hearing the original version to compare, you can find it embedded below.
I performed live for the first time in almost 10 years! And for the first time ever as something other than a drummer! I have shared before that my friend Tim and I are putting together a band called Coral Ghost. One day he was telling me about his "yoga gig." He agreed to perform a live set of ambient guitar music during a candlelit yoga class. I loved that idea! I have been practicing yoga as part of my recovery from back surgery last year and I have been increasingly interested in the ambient music scene. This idea brought those two worlds together. Tim agreed when I asked if I could join him at future performance, so we prepared a live set consisting of some of my ambient tracks and some works-in-progress we have going for Coral Ghost as a band.
I performed on bass guitar and controlled recordings of music on my computer like a DJ set. I acquired my first bass guitar over the summer and did not have a concrete plan to learn how to play it. But I figured I could play along to slow ambient music one whole note at a time. Other than the computer and two guitars, Tim also brought along a MIDI keyboard. The performance itself had some hiccups. I could not get the metronome in my DAW to line up with the audio and I certainly could have practiced my bass parts more. But I was proud of myself for breaking out of my comfort zone and trying something new.
The candlelit yoga class we performed at takes place once a month, so we had the opportunity to go back and do it again. We were able to get together for one in-person rehearsal before the first show, but I was out of town and under the weather the week leading up to the second. So, we were only able to have a couple of meetings over Zoom to prepare for the second show.
Despite not playing music together in-person to prepare, we were able to smooth out some technical issues and I took more time to practice my bass parts. I still had some flubs, but overall I felt it was a better performance than the first one.
Tim and I agreed to return to perform the following month, but as the date approached Tim sent me a message saying he could no longer make it. He asked if I wanted to perform solo. I felt scared because I have never performed solo before, but it has been something I have wanted to do for a long time. I decided to commit and force myself further outside of my comfort zone.
I thought the performance went very well considering it was my first ever solo live performance. I was proud of myself for trying something new and achieving a long-time goal of performing my electronic music by myself.
After my solo candlelight yoga class performance, I released the set of ambient tracks I performed without the bass or electronic kick drum sounds I played live. These are all re-worked versions of tracks I created for the Naviar Haiku Challenge, Disquiet Junto and Weekly Beats. The tracks are available individually here or as a one-hour mix below:
Creating the Music for Yoga mix inspired me to create a mix of some of my previously-released tracks. I released a 5-song EP titled Somewhere in 2022 inspired by a minimal house playlist I was listening to at the time. I had recently re-committed to releasing my own music and the title refers to having to start somewhere. Then in 2023, I released a song titled Curious in a 3-song single, with the title referring to my commitment to remaining curious about music production. This mix brings those two releases together:
The featured image for this post is one that I took outside of my studio space. You can also see it on Pixelfed.