To be honest, Kate's birthday was a little while back now. But what's important is the fact that for her birthday, she treated herself to a brand new Brian Riggins tune.
I'll admit, it was tough to write a song about Kate that felt right. It's hard enough writing a song about a friend, but...even harder when you're not sure how exactly to reflect that friend's personality or individuality in the song--which was really my primary goal.
I'm pretty pleased with what I came up with, even if my influences are pretty on my sleeve here.
And, just for the record, Workbot is a technical term.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Tool Review: Noteflight
When I was thinking over the problem of words-matching-music, I decided it’d be great if I could learn how to notate music. And doubly so if I could do it while I was at work. One google search later, I was on the homepage of Noteflight.
There’s a free version of the site (which I’m currently using) and a more robust, super-cool looking paid version. I’m thinking of investing in the paid version, but it’s still too early to tell whether I’d make good enough use of the features. A basic breakdown of what I dig about the service:
-You can input anything you’d see on a score. I don’t know what a fermata sounds like, but it’s in there.
-You can input your lyrics below the music, too
-Files can be private or shared
-You can output the files in MIDI.
That last one is a HUGE one. If I can learn enough about how to write my ideas down, I could export the parts right into Garageband, and that’s all kinds of exciting. The biggest downside to the program is that the input is difficult. It’s easy to add a note, but that note replaces the following beats in the score, which screws me up. Finally, because the program is geared towards people who know exactly what they’re doing, it’d help to be more music-literate (my fault, not theirs).
In short: if you read music and could use a tool to keep track of notation and share it among others, Noteflight is something worth looking into. I’m very interested in how the ‘pro’ version works. If you’re interested in seeing what it’s like, there’s the aforementioned free version and also a working demo (no signup required) here.
Though this is a little messy and hard to do.
(Jeff Buckley - Night Flight [Led Zep Cover])
There’s a free version of the site (which I’m currently using) and a more robust, super-cool looking paid version. I’m thinking of investing in the paid version, but it’s still too early to tell whether I’d make good enough use of the features. A basic breakdown of what I dig about the service:
-You can input anything you’d see on a score. I don’t know what a fermata sounds like, but it’s in there.
-You can input your lyrics below the music, too
-Files can be private or shared
-You can output the files in MIDI.
That last one is a HUGE one. If I can learn enough about how to write my ideas down, I could export the parts right into Garageband, and that’s all kinds of exciting. The biggest downside to the program is that the input is difficult. It’s easy to add a note, but that note replaces the following beats in the score, which screws me up. Finally, because the program is geared towards people who know exactly what they’re doing, it’d help to be more music-literate (my fault, not theirs).
In short: if you read music and could use a tool to keep track of notation and share it among others, Noteflight is something worth looking into. I’m very interested in how the ‘pro’ version works. If you’re interested in seeing what it’s like, there’s the aforementioned free version and also a working demo (no signup required) here.
Though this is a little messy and hard to do.
(Jeff Buckley - Night Flight [Led Zep Cover])
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Let's Get This Party Started
I’m proud to bring you the first of the Songs About You Demos, Christopher B. Daley.
Chris was the receptionist in my office. He’s moved to another job now, but I texted him impulsively one night, thinking he’d be interested in this songwriting project. He was, and I immediately started in to write a song about some stuff we had discussed.
He spent some summers doing theatre in a semi-rural part of Indiana, so that was my starting point. From there, the song got away from me a bit. I feel a little guilty, because I’m not sure the song is about Chris in the way I’d like it to be. I wrote something that I know resonated with me, and I think it’s about feelings that he and I have both felt. I hope it resonates with Chris in the same way. I’m very interested in finding out.
Chris was the receptionist in my office. He’s moved to another job now, but I texted him impulsively one night, thinking he’d be interested in this songwriting project. He was, and I immediately started in to write a song about some stuff we had discussed.
He spent some summers doing theatre in a semi-rural part of Indiana, so that was my starting point. From there, the song got away from me a bit. I feel a little guilty, because I’m not sure the song is about Chris in the way I’d like it to be. I wrote something that I know resonated with me, and I think it’s about feelings that he and I have both felt. I hope it resonates with Chris in the same way. I’m very interested in finding out.
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