Forum:Illogicopedia drops some tunes

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Hello all. Life has been interesting for me for a while now, giving me a great excuse to slack off here. For one thing, I’ve been sick for 30 years now with a chronic intermittent condition that had flare up which hospitalized me many times. As it turns out, I’ve been experiencing a rare form of appendicitis. For 30 years. Now that it’s been removed, I feel like a new person. This time I had pneumonia and soaring high blood pressure as the bacon bits on my misery salad. I was lucky to finally get the correct diagnosis for my chronic problem, and competent doctoring and nursing addressed the other stuff.

Segue to music composition, something I’ve dabbled with since 1977. I’ve made 2 aborted attempts to produce tunes for public consumption. The second time I got so far as to render an mp3 of one tune, albeit of iffy quality in 2002. I’d been working on this again before I went into the hospital, and the day I came home I rendered 3 songs. I put them up for play and for sale at this site

Getting paid for my stuff is extremely cool, of course, but the real satisfaction comes from just having my music out there, available for folks to listen. I invite you to go have a listen, and if so inclined, even buy a song for a buck. I will say that I am a beginner at production, and I am aware that my mixing may leave something to be desired. I’m hoping to hear from folks who can help me improve the sound quality. I’d certainly entertain criticism of the music itself, but technical advice is the thing I crave. (kaizum me) 20:25, 22 Octodest 2017 (UTC)

YOU FORGOT TO SIGN YA POST ZIM!! ^danny!_Text 20:00, 22 Octodest 2017 (UTC)

Another Illogicopedian is on Bandcamp.

I myself do not put out music; I merely exploit Bandcamp's endless selection of obscure artists that I can discover and listen to for free. My username is Vanalden, and I'm probably now the only follower you have.

Upon listening to the four tracks you have put out (my favorite being "58"), there are certainly a few things that I would say about these songs as a music fan and as an aspiring drummer. Now, I am cognizant of the fact that you have limited access to top-notch production methods and other fancy things that could elevate the potential of your music. But as a drummer, I started to notice that there was something missing that would have been essential in unifying and therefore solidifying your wildly zany and experimental music: groove. You certainly had great things and ideas going on in your music that I liked, but I noticed that the drum programming was a bit sporadic and inconsistent, particularly the cymbal-work. When it comes to this type of approach to music, it is absolutely essential that there is still an element of this type of music that is solid and constant that pulls all of the other things together.
Now, I'll be honest: creating a good and unique groove is no easy task, but fortunately, there is an abundance of artists one could look to. For the music that you put out, it seems to me that utilizing a Motorik beat would be an excellent start. As the article in the link will describe, this beat was pioneered by a German krautrock band named Can. I think you can take a lot of inspiration from this band, Gruntled, primarily due to the fact that this band is very experimental and is a part of the era of music from which you also take inspiration from. I would suggest giving their album Ege Bamyasi a listen. You also ought to give Commune, a psychedelic worldbeat band, and Medeski, Martin, and Wood, an avant-garde jazz/funk band, a listen.
Setting aside the production value, I think you really succeeded overall in encapsulating the eccentric and surreal elements of experimental music from the 70s through the programs you utilized. The use of so many different soundscapes and instruments serve as an homage to your musical inspirations (Mahavishnu Orchestra, Frank Zappa, and the 70s overall) and prove to be just as bizarre and challenging as they are, too. There are moments, however, in which there seems to be a bit too much going on at the same time that sort of muddles the rest of the sounds (particularly the last minute-and-a-half or so of "58") and moments where the rhythm(s) can be a bit off or merely sound a bit off (the first two-and-a-half minutes of "Turbulent Crossing." I know that there is polyrhythmic bass, but as I have emphasized earlier, it may not sound solid without a groove).
When it comes to music, I am quite the optimist (except in the cases of Necrophagist, Cryptopsy, In Flames, Decapitated, and Possessed, all of which are death metal bands that are sorta in the gutter for various reasons), so I believe that in time you will be able to refine and improve the sound of your music. It may be difficult to acquire the means of creating a more refined sound (e.g., more musical instruments, a music studio, other musicians, a producer, etc.), but if you want to get serious with your music, than by all means keep on going.

P.S. I do not have my own drum kit. I can still provide you with any drumming input you may need in the future, though.
P.P.S. If I had money, I would buy "58."
P.P.P.S I got distracted throughout most of the process of writing the big block of words above, so I apologize if some of it sounds inconsistent and unprecise.
02:50, 23 Octodest 2017 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your well considered, in depth review. I am humbled to receive such so early after releasing my tunes. I will reread this, listen to your recommended musicians and check out everything you suggest. I know my stuff sounds amateurish, but that’s because I’m an amateur I’m guessing. It’s going to be folks like you who will propel me to stardom... shit, wrong fantasy... that will make me irresistible to women... damnit I keep getting distracted. Anyway, I already respected your musical tast as something much more than casual from our give and take here, so getting this feedback from you is precious. Cheers!

P. S. Of The Tao is the mp3 I did in 2002. I lost everything else, so I had to import it into LogicPro and bounce it. The quality is awful but I love the song (kaizum me) 00:29, 24 Octodest 2017 (UTC)

A question: Eine Kleine Tanzmusik is a tongue-in-cheek challenge to anyone who might be able to dance coherently to it. The original idea, of course, was Frank Zappa's with the Bebop Tango. Reading your ideas about a groove in relation to two others, I wonder what you think about this one; is there a groove and does it persist? Do you think it might confound most potential dancers? Will I suck the life out of you if I continue to bother you with this drivel? (kaizum me) 05:22, 24 Octodest 2017 (UTC)

Is there a groove and does it persist?

There actually is a groove (I'm sorry I overlooked it) starting at 2:12 with the use of the kick drum you introduce, which went along well with the clangy glass bottle sounds that you had going on throughout the entire song. From there, you intermittently bring in the kick and snare to sort of reintroduce the groove, and from there I could definitely see someone move to it. Hell, I was moving my leg to this song rather fervently and ended bouncing up and down slightly in my chair. Prior to this groove you created, though, I was still able to find the rhythm you used as the foundation of the earlier part the song, which was the shaker that maintained a steady 200bpm-ish beat from the beginning up to the 1:00 mark, which then comes back at 1:22. I know I emphasized having a steady groove, but in this song, the groove just knows when to step in and out. Kudos to your musicianship, Gruntled!

Do you think it might confound most potential dancers?

Probably, especially if they're bad at finding a steady rhythm in a song like this or are easily caught off guard by overlapping time signatures. However, I think people who dance to uptempo Latin music would fare far better in dancing to this than the average person.

Will I suck the life out of you if I continue to bother you with this drivel?

Of course not. I may not be a music expert nor a proficient musician for that matter, but I definitely know my way around general music talk on platforms that I may be knowledgeable in. Furthermore, I just love music all around, and in the miraculous occasion in which I can discuss music or provide my input on music, I am on it. Think of it as this way: foodies typically aren't prestigious professional chefs with Michelin Stars and two 5-star restaurants in Europe, but they're still valued nonetheless for their profound knowledgeability in all things pertaining to food and their willingness to provide an honest and direct opinion on the food they eat. Same goes for me, but with the music that I am familiar with.

Also, one more thing: I suggest that you actually start off experimenting with a Motorik beat. They are typically used in midtempo songs and do not change in their pattern at all, so... yeah.

One last thing: when I saw my suggestion for Medeski, Martin, and Wood, I suddenly recalled another somewhat unorthodox jazz band. They're called Yussef Kamaal, and this track of theirs is right up your alley.

07:12, 24 Octodest 2017 (UTC)

More great feedback, thanks much. Coincidentally I listened to another Yussef Kamaal tune last night, Lowrider, and it is awesome. I didn’t know if it was original or a cover of the old song by War. So is Strings Of Light; you’re right, of course. About my alley and such. Again, I will peruse it diligently.

Any thoughts you’d have on mixing would be cool too. Regarding your comment on my joking question about sucking the life out of you, I want you to know my official policy is to give anything you write about music at least 3 careful readings.

About drumming and your lack thereof; and you can tell me to bugger off if it’s none of my business. You don’t have a kit, but do you use software to make anything, or other percussion instruments? It seems to me that if you had the opportunity, cool stuff might happen. Have you dabbled with any other instruments?

So I had a financial windfall a while ago. Previously I was making headway with a barely decent PC using cheap audio components and Sonar as my DAW. I lost most of my work, which wasn’t really that much, in 2002. Music was in the backyard, 42 feet from the back burners. In 2009 I was given a hand me down laptop on its last legs, then a 10-year-old MacBook, neither of which could power my ideas. When we came into this money, I planned to set something up for production, but a life of being cheap because we had to be had me thinking I wanted something a bit better than minimal. My wife insisted I get the best I can manage on what we agreed was equal parts generous and frugal. Back in my coding/analysis days in the 90s, PCs made the most sense working with big data and information systems. Apple hadn’t yet evolved the platform and there wasn’t much in the way of software either. Thus, from 1992 until about 2011, I’d never touched an Apple product. Then my son bought me a used MacBook (have I mentioned my family is kind of a big deal to me? They’re better to me than I deserve.) and I never looked back.

So, we got an iMac i7 Retina 5k 17 inch with a terabyte solid state drive, 48 gigs of ram and 2 terabyte backup. A pair of ADAM powered monitors (model number escapes me) and pretty good Sennheiser cans for playback, and a Line6 KB37 to hook everything together and provide a 3-octave keyboard. I’m using Apple’s LogicPro for the DAW and the same son bought me Native Instruments Komplete, a software bundle of instruments, synths and apps, last Christmas. I also got an electric classical guitar, the instrument I took lessons for when I was a kid.

The weird thing about my musical ideas s that they start out as some phrases with a rhythm. Once I start assembling them in my DAW, the time signature or signatures are partly or completely abnormal. For instance, Turbulent Crossing started as one bar repeated on a kalimba and turned out to be 19/8. A song I’m working on now starts with one bar of 5/4, then 6 bars of 4/4, then one bar of 6/4, one bar of 5/4 then 6 bars of 4/4 and so forth for the first minute or so. No idea yet where it goes next. (kaizum me) 12:01, 24 Octodest 2017 (UTC)

About drumming and your lack thereof; and you can tell me to bugger off if it’s none of my business. You don’t have a kit, but do you use software to make anything, or other percussion instruments? It seems to me that if you had the opportunity, cool stuff might happen. Have you dabbled with any other instruments?

I do not use software, nor do I have other percussion instruments other than my practice pad. I have dabbled in another instrument, and that was the viola. Unfortunately, I haven't picked up that classical instrument in roughly 4 1/2 years. 19:47, 28 Octodest 2017 (UTC)