Three Instrumentals

Songs are really more my thing, but from time to time I enjoy writing instrumental music. Here are three examples of instrumental pieces that I wrote over the past year.

ONE


On April 2nd my sister asked me to write music for a short (1.30) video. She sent me a .mov file and I wrote music to compliment the mood and timing of the images. I wanted an energetic yet minimalist feel. Something that felt both mechanized but also organic. I started by noodling on my acoustic guitar. Then I took those wave files, chopped them up and looped them. It's the loop which starts at the beginning and continues throughout the song. I added drums and a little synth and sent it to my sister to get her comments. Here's what she said...

It works really well with the video. I feel it the most around 16-36 seconds, when the synth tone comes in. I feel like the ending should be more melodic swell, less drums. It should pull the audience's heartstrings

...it wasn't quite right and I couldn't see how to fix it, so I restarted...

TWO


I ignored my sister's feedback about melody and swells and instead went back to work on my original vision of hyperactive minimalism and a combination of mechanistic and organic sounds. I wanted to turn the music around quickly so I decided to work entirely in midi. I began with a pizzicato string sound and a piano patch playing arpeggios. Then I punctuated the images in video with horns and percussion from logic's asian kit. There's also a ticking clock sound and a FM synth sound.

I like this version much better. I find it much more interesting, though ultimately neither version was used.

the ideal environ for writing music

THREE


I made this piece while riding Amtrak around the country with my wife. I was working on it as we were crossing the continental divide on our way from Chicago to San Francisco. I had brought my MacBook Pro and a very small midi controller and I spent much of the day working on music while Deirdre read.

I don't think I had any particular inspiration or reason for recording this music. I may have thought I would use it for a song. I can't remember. In any case, I wrote it and forgot about it until a couple days ago when I stumbled on the file and decided to post it to TWT.