Grant
December 23, 2018
Weekly Post: Sunday 23rd December 2018
Merry Christmas Peeps! Here’s hoping we all have a good one.
I don’t think I’ve achieved my monthly goals but I refuse to beat myself up about it. Onward and upward I say.
Lots of music was made and that’s the main thing
Here is an EP I made this week. I hope you enjoy it.
Grant
December 16, 2018
Weekly Post: Sunday 16th December 2018
Today I posted the eighth edition of the Totally Fictional Radio Show and it’s a selection of the tracks that I made this week, so I guess it’s a good summary of the current mix of my musical journey. Part groovescape, part beatscape, part soundscape.
Grant
December 10, 2018
Weekly Post: Sunday 9th December 2018
This week I returned to the Totally Fictional Radio Show. I last published one in November 2017 so it’s been a while. My big depression of that time caused me to doubt myself too much to carry on with it but I’ve reconsidered.
I gathered 11 tracks from my November output and presented them as a show fronted by the fictional Trudi McBoody on the fictional radio station FCKU. For those who don’t know it’s a conceit that began with a track in 2015 called Give Me All Your Money and which is still slowly evolving. Basically Trudi presents my music as if it’s from a group of regular contributors The Totally Fictional Team which represent different aspects of my music making. Sort like the different characters in my head. Trudi herself has been a developing character over that time as have the various persons.
It’s fun for me and a chance to present my tracks in a different, extended format.
You can check out the show here…
Grant
December 3, 2018
Weekly Post: Sunday 2nd December 2018
Well that was a busy month. A completely ridiculous 83 tracks posted. The weird thing is that it didn’t feel rushed or difficult, it all just flowed out.
I competed Novembeat 2018…
I’m so happy with this set of tracks that I plan to release it as an album on Bandcamp, minus the ones which use samples from a film, just in case it leads to trouble 😉
I also completed National Solo Album Month. You can check that out here if you like…
Plus a whole swathe of groove jams, plus an assortment of other stuff. Phew. That’s five and a half hours of music so I don’t imagine anyone will listen to it all but it is available here…
Because releasing stuff into the world is what it’s all about… maybe.
This month I plan to:
a) experiment more with my live performance ideas,
b) check out some other apps which I own but haven’t got to grips with, because the way of working which they have may surprise and delight me.
c) sort out the mastering of my Autumnal Grooves album which I want to release officially for sale, before Christmas hopefully.
d) record the words/lyrics/poems that have built up over the last few months.
There is more but if I concentrate on those for December it should keep me pretty busy. Let’s review my progress at the end of the month.
Cheers folks, keep on keeping on.
Grant
November 25, 2018
Weekly Post Sunday 25th November 2018
This month has turned out to be my most prolific ever. 54 tracks posted to SoundCloud already, 16 Jams unpublished, and numerous tracks on the way. I just can’t seem to stop, it’s an obsession. Most other activities seem tedious just now, I turn to playing around with sounds and for some reason things flow.
Enjoy it while it lasts I guess.
Working this intensely is a wonderful experience but I wonder if I’ll crash and burn like I did in February. I hope not, perhaps it will just fade back to some sense of normality.
Most of the tracks are from my ‘NovemBeat’ series made with Korg Gadget and my ‘Groovebox Jam’ serious made using Groovebox by Ampify/Novation. One involves carefully crafted short pieces and the other longer looser compositions and this juxtaposition is endlessly fascinating at the moment.
There are other tracks emerging as well although my idea of doing some longer form ‘suite’ or ‘symphonic’ style pieces is proving difficult to realize just now. Never mind it has stimulated my thinking and will bear fruit some time I’m sure.
Here is one Groovebox Jam and one NovemBeat track to illustrate the different approaches…PS they both sound like me I think 🙂
Grant
November 20, 2018
Weekly Post: Sunday 18th of November 2018
Ha ha, I forgot to post on Sunday and today is Tuesday. Oh well never mind, I obviously haven’t developed the habit. Better late than never.
Novembeat is going well, 20 tracks in 20 days and no sign of flagging. In fact I do find this sort of intense work on one app or one idea very fruitful. I’m still using just Korg’s Gadget app for this project, and mainly the Bilbao Gadget loaded with my own samples, concentrating on beats and vocal snippets.
Using primarily homemade samples is a great way to develop a personal sound and feel. In fact the kind of sounds I try to make are influenced by the use I make of them. It’s a sort of feedback loop.
Before this week the vocal snippets have been either my own voice or my ‘Trudi’ character which I make with a combination of the apps Text To Speech and TwistedWave. This week I have been including samples from the Beatles movie ‘A Hard Days Night’ specifically George’s solo scene. I doubt it’s legal but since I won’t be making any money I hope it counts as fair use or something.
The interesting thing that comes up with this way of using voice and text is the question of meaning; is the voice just a part of the rhythmic layer, one more beat element? Can we separate our listening to words, even discrete or partial words, from our brains meaning and sense making apparatus. Should the random conjunction of words and meanings be embraced? Or should a form of sense, even just the appearance of sense, be sort after? All of these methods have emerged in the series so far, as well as in previous tracks. I haven’t made up my mind if one approach suits me more or not.
Speaking of intensely using one app, I have another ongoing series at the moment using the app Groovebox. It began in August and has developed into an almost daily obsession. This app does not allow me to include my own samples but uses included sound packs with the ability to alter those sounds but not to design and save your own. The sounds included are very high quality though and I have yet to purchase them all, finding lots of inspiration in what I have so far.
Each app has it’s own way of doing things and each takes me to a different place and gives me very different results. I get very different results in this series for example than my Gadget tracks and also from my series made with iMaschine. This is fascinating to me and leads me to reflect on what aspect of myself and my musicality each app brings out, and exactly where it is that I stand among it all, where the commonality is.
Thanks for listening to my ramble.
Here’s my Groovebox playlist for you to sample…
Grant
November 11, 2018
Weekly Post: Sunday 11th of November 2018
Hello World,
I’m being optimistic there, which is not like me 😉
My new idea is to post here once a week, on Sunday’s I think will work, and give some thoughts and info on the state of things work wise. Or perhaps just a summary of the week. Or a best track of the week… Or something.
Today I’m going to summarize my current projects:
Live Performance – Lots of my work is collaged over time, pieces built and assembled in a DAW, usually Auria in my case. Other tracks are ‘jammed’, meaning built and performed in one session, often in one app like iMaschine or Gadget, or managed in one app like AUM. One aspect that I haven’t explored much with the iPad is live playing and I am currently building a ‘Performance Tree’ with this in mind. Something that could go on stage and be the focus for a live show. I envision one or two mike stands, one or two ipads, two iPhones, plus a few peripherals, percussion bits, guitar (or something) etc. I’m slowly gathering bits. Here is an early look…
Related to this of course is building up a way of working that can be used with this. I’m thinking of LaunchPad for loop controlling, a looper for adding live loops, plus some apps that are designed around screen manipulation like TC-11 for instance. But we’ll see…
Release An Album – Nearly 800 tracks on Soundcloud plus many others unposted and I’ve never had the courage or the get-up-and-go to officially release anything. I can’t afford to pay someone to master stuff and I’ve no real interest or patience to learn that stuff myself. However I did make a collection of tracks in August that I want to release so I’m going to try and push myself to get it together.
Novembeat – I’m not sure how long this has been running, I just came across it this year. It’s another one of those social media things that try to get people creating. Others include FAWM (February Album Writing Month) and Jamuary both of which I have participated in before, and National Solo Album Month (see below). I don’t tend to engage in the social side too much but I find them useful as a focusing tool. Novembeat is making a beat a day for the month of at least 16 bars. I am focusing it even more by using only Korg’s Gadget app and mostly using the gadget Bilbao loaded with my own samples. So far I’m very pleased with the results. You can check it out if you wish at…
National Solo Album Month – Write, record, and release an entire album this month. The write and record bit isn’t a stretch for me at the moment, I made 43 tracks in October for instance, but I struggle with the release bit as I mentioned above, but I’m giving a go. To make things more interesting and challenging I have conceived the idea of making this a one track album. A sort of “symphony” if you will. A multipart track lasting 30 minutes or so with various inter related movements, or moments perhaps. I envision a mix of spoken word, soundscape, beatscape, and smooth downtempo EDMmish stuff. But it’s only now beginning to take form so we will see how it develops.
There are other projects hanging around or ongoing but that list will do for now 🙂
Enjoy your week peeps.
Grant
October 30, 2018
Hello World October 30 2018
Hello Peeps,
If there are any peeps out there 😉
It often feels like I’m alone yelling into the abyss but I guess yelling into the abyss is useful for it’s catharsis if nothing else. Perhaps I should change the name of this Blog to ‘Yelling Into The Abyss’.
Anyway, Hello again. It’s been a while I know. It’s not that I haven’t been working, in fact the last few months have been very productive and I have a number of projects on the go; it’s just that I’ve been unsure of the future or direction of this blog or the place it might have in my process.
Today I decided to start posting again and see if or how it develops.
So, here is todays piece. Yesterday and last night was the first snow of the season and this feels like my homage to the beginning of winter.
Grant
December 1, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 1st of December 2017
My intention this month was to write lyrics, I joined the November Album Writing Challenge and hoped to write at least 30 odd minutes of Spoken Word/Sung pieces but alas although I wrote 5 texts, I failed to find a setting for all but one of them. No matter, their moment will come.
However, though I failed at my intention, I did manage to make 24 tracks of various kinds this month and here they all are if anyone is interested. I think I will call this pseudo album ‘Words Are Hard”.
Grant
November 24, 2017
Grant’s Music Diary 24 November 2017
Tumbleweeds abound here lately.
It’s not that I haven’t been working, just that I’ve been a little discouraged of late. Not to mention a little lacking in direction; or perhaps it’s just lacking in energy. My head is always full of music, so perhaps I’m just in a period of gestation. Soundscapes, Beatscapes, Synthscapes, Spoken Word pieces; all swirling around in my imagination crowding around for my attention, and me a little bemused and unable to focus.
Anyway here is a Beatscape that I made yesterday which gives me joy. May it give you some too.