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Grant
July 3, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary July 3rd 2017
Hi Peeps,
For the last few weeks I haven’t been making any tracks but I have been busy making and assembling samples for my drum apps.
Specifically for Patterning but DM1, ElasticDrums, iMaschine, and iSpark are also sample based and I have been having great fun both making samples and trying them out in each app and seeing what each can do.
Today I assembled 5 beats that I had made in Patterning using 5 sample kits, I loaded them into Auria and made this Beatscape. Then I made a video (which I also haven’t done in a while).
Great fun was had. I hope you enjoy.
Grant
May 13, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 13 May 2017
This is an older track; made last year and never posted, for some reason I decided it wasn’t good enough but listening to it now I really like it. There are lots of tracks still sitting around; some unfinished, some not very good, some good but for one reason or another passed over and awaiting their time in the sun.
As it’s title suggests I have posted this to mark my 500th post on Soundcloud.
Who would’ve thought 2 years ago that I could be so prolific? Certainly not me.
It was the discovery of the iPad as a musical tool which sparked off this unexpected plethora of creativity and for that I am very grateful. It’s not that I have ever stopped wanting to be creative, that has been a constant desire all my life, but for some reason the iPhone and iPad was the platform that I needed to overcome my personal demons and to unleash those silent parts of myself that were consigned to dark, dusty and hidden corners.
The other essential ingredient of course was meeting my wonderful wife Lene without whose encouragement and support I could never have beaten back my demons long enough to make anything. The demons still come knocking from time to time of course but she is still there to help me, as I hope I am there to help her.
I am not sure when I will post here again.
It is time for me to revaluate my musical options and explore the different avenues open before me. There is still much to do but I now feel that I will be better served pursuing those avenues without the pressure to produce finished products on a regular basis. It’s just a slight adjustment of perspective I suppose.
Anyway thanks for watching and listening and reading and following my journey so far. This is not the end but merely a hiatus after which I hope to return stronger than ever.
Peace out Tracklings 🙂
Grant
April 17, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 17 April 2017 (Horn Edition #11)
I’m getting more and more fluent with my horn writing and enjoying myself immensely with these pieces. Hope you find them fun too 🙂
Grant
March 31, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 31 March 2017
I have been playing guitar regularly again lately and am finding it hugely influential on the way I hear and think about music. Something essential of me comes to the fore when I physically play either guitar or bass; it’s present when I just use the iPad apps but seems to come to the surface when I hold these instruments, which after all I have spent countless hours and about 40 years playing (on and off).
Anyway Gadget has been updated with the possibility of adding audio tracks, both vocal and guitar, and I have been exploring the new options this opens up in app. Previously any tracks with guitar or vocals have been made in Auria which is certainly superior in sounds and options and versatility but having everything in Gadget makes it easy to sketch ideas etc in one place.
Probably the best option would be to import each track from Gadget to Auria for finishing but that is for another day. This track is all Gadget.
I began by jamming 7 tracks of guitar along to the drums, slowly building up the (admittedly simple) idea. The horns where also built up by playing the guitar, this time triggering the midi in Gadget by way of MIDI Guitar. This required quite a bit of editing because it wasn’t very accurate but I think yielded good results so I will continue to try this out. I tried singing the vocal but ran up against my inability to sing well, so I ended up doing it as a spoken word, just keeping the last bit of singing which is reasonably in tune and made a good backing I thought.
Anyway I’m really happy with this, I hope you enjoy it.
Grant
March 22, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 22 March 2017
I discovered this track from Feb 2016 lying around in one of my folders and decided that I really like it. I was making a lot of Abstract Soundscapes at that time and I have been thinking about making more stuff along that vein.
One of the disadvantages of loving lots of different genres and styles is that I can never decide where to put my energies or what is truly me.
The basic assumption of course is that the music that I make will be better the more ‘authentically’ ‘me’ it is. The problem is that I’m not entirely sure where, or what, or if such an ‘authentic’ me might be found.
The concept of authenticity I often find problematic anyway; it’s usually used by people who want the power to define and limit others, have you noticed how the people who claim to be ‘keeping it real’, never actually are. Also, whatever it is that you are talking about, the closer you look at the boundaries between the authentic and the inauthentic the more grey areas you see, till everything becomes a blur and a blend.
So, if I look at the world and doubt the usefulness or the ‘truth’ of the concept how can I still apply that concept to myself. And if there isn’t an authentic me, what is there? An inauthentic me? Or is that a false dichotomy?
Ah the thoughts that pester…
Grant
March 15, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 15 March 2017 (Horns #10)
Still feeling unsure of myself and my direction but I had a lot of fun today jamming this horn arrangement. Drums and bass set up in Gadget, just a repeated 4 bar thing, then 3 passes per 4 bar segment jamming along in a different octave each pass. I played the notes in with my Korg NanoStudio Keys controller.
So it’s not really an horn ‘arrangement’ as such. More a series of 4 bar jams arranged together (of course I did them with the intent that they go together).
Anyway it’s a really fun way to work so I think I’ll do some more and maybe refine as I go.
Grant
March 13, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary Monday 13 March 2017
This last week has seen a few Gadget and iMaschine tracks plus quite a bit of guitar playing but I’m feeling lost again. This often happens after I finish something intense; in this case the FAWM series of tracks. I then seem to go through a rough patch filled with self doubt and ennui.
I wish that I new how people keep up the self confidence thing.
This piece sounds a little like how I feel at the moment: lost, uncertain, melancholy, slight panic with moments of calm. Made with iMaschine and Dedalus.
Grant
March 5, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary Sunday 5 March 2017
This is an addendum to yesterday’s Gadget fun. Here i’ve used iMaschine 2 to make a quick track (about  2 hours or so) and I’ve used the same vocal sample as yesterday plus adding some of my own guitar and a beat from my Teenage Engineering PO-12.
Typically I will sit down with a coffee after walking my dog first thing in the morning and make some music. If I’m feeling tired or uncertain I can just fire up one of these two apps and have a play…
Grant
March 4, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 4 March 2017
I intend to carry on with the words and guitar experiments that I spent Feb pursuing and already have some new tracks building but I cannot express how much fun I have just sitting down with Gadget on my iPad and playing around, a track nearly always emerges…
Grant
February 28, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary Feb 28 2017 (FAWM#5)
The aim of FAWM is 14 songs in the month but I have stopped at 11. I am happy with this collection though and 11 songs is a pretty good album length I think.
I didn’t achieve my goal of writing in a more ‘song’ style because I just couldn’t get that to work. I have some unfinished bits but the whole spoken poem in a musical setting seems to work better for me. That’s a useful discovery anyway 🙂
My other goal of using more guitar in my iPad music has worked quite well though, I intend to keep that up.
Here is the final collection of songs which I feel makes a nice album. I hope you agree.