...it begins...

Tomorrow is the first day of September, and with that, I begin writing my next band opus for drumset soloist and wind orchestra, entitled "Sticks & Stones". I've been thinking about it for months, but as of tomorrow, it's time to get some ideas down on paper...

Tokyo Kosei

Here is an excerpt from an email from Takeshi Ide, of the world-renowned Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra . The Tokyo Kosei is one of the finest wind orchestras in the world. It looks like they've got a date to play a concert featuring the music of BCM... December 17th!

Dear BCM members!
How are you doing?

We will play your pieces in our concert at 17 Dec.
Following is our concert programme.

Stampede/Steven Bryant
Sleep/Eric Whitacre
Chunk/Jonathan Newman
Chaos Theory/James Bonney(E.Guitar Solo Katsumi Watanabe)

------------

The Nutcracker Suite/Pyotr ITchaikovsky edit. Duke Ellington
The tunes from count Basie (Basie Straight Ahead,Lonely Street, etc.)

...

Best wishes,

Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra
Takeshi Ide

JUST MARRIED

Jim & Nicki - 8/27/05 - Traverse City, MI

perspective

So you want to create music and sounds for video games? You know all your arpeggios, and tremolos, and stereos? Gee, that's great. What do you know about memory management, data compression, tight editing, looping, downsampling, streaming, and load-on-demand?

Allow me to explain: I recently created my first bank of background sounds for one level of the new Mortal Kombat. Being the eager rookie, I did my best to create killer effects, yet deliver them in as small and concise of a format as I could come up with. The bank I ended up with was TEN TIMES the size that was allowable. Time for some schoolin'... after two days, I have hacked, slashed, squashed, and thrown out enough bytes to finally allow the game to not choke on all my audio data... but it was NOT PRETTY.

Let me give you an example of parallel situation:

You hear a knock at your front door. You open it. Luigi Braggadocio, the new artistic director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, is standing in the doorway. He's offering you elephant bucks to commission a new full symphony for the NY Phil to perform during their upcoming concert season. He's offering you the latest and greatest tools and technology to do the job (ummm... must be a really nice pencil...). He says he wants it to totally kick ass (those are my words, not his). You are speechless -- it's rather short notice, but how could you possibly refuse such an amazing opportunity?!?

He says there's only one condition -- "you've got to give it to us in this format" -- and he hands you a cocktail napkin.

Right about now, you're thinking that a drink might go reaaaally well with that napkin...

trio update

I've been in communication with my "eclectic" string trio (violin, classical guitar, electric guitar) -- they're learning the final fine points of the music and should be ready for their performance this weekend. There will be one brief rehearsal on Friday, and that will be the first time I'll hear all three parts together.

As I think I've mentioned before, I would describe these pieces as "chamber world-jazz". It's been very interesting to work on this piece, as I have had to keep this variety of musician's skills in mind, in order to create the most effective piece. For example, the classical guitarist is good at reading music, while the electric guitarist is better left with some basic guidelines (chord changes, etc) and allowed to do his thing. The violin needed to be voiced lower, to provide a better blend. Consequently, I avoided the violinist's high E string, which also allows for a warmer, richer sound. There was also the choice of what kind of electric guitar sound to create. After much discussion, we've decided to go with the very clean, natural tone of a hollow-body electric (for the uber-tweaky: a Gibson ES-175 into a Roland Jazz Chorus amp).

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

You may have noticed that I never talk about politics or my political views on this blog. You've probably also noticed that I don't talk about religion, or my religious beliefs.

But there is a point where a line is crossed, and I can't keep my big mouth shut.

To put it simply -- what part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you understand, Pat?

Hair of the Dog

For the folicularly-inclined reader, I have this news to report: I got a haircut.

As you might have guessed, it's shorter now than it was before it was cut.

Au Revoir Le Pavillion

Anyone need an extra dose of destruction? They're demolitioning Le Pavillion, the recital hall at my alma mater, the Cleveland Institute of Music. You can watch updates of the destruction by CLICKING HERE...

It's a real mixture of feelings as I watch this... my first solo recital (no memories whatsoever), my junior recital (BAD memories), and my senior recital (ahhh... good memories) were all in that hall... me and Alan Bise wired the control room for recording in that hall... I shared the greatest concert laugh of my life with most of the audience in that hall (during a guest artist's concert, an old man fell asleep and began making these low, gutteral (quasi-sexual) moans... no one woke him up, and he kept getting louder, and louder, and LOUDER)...

So long, Pav...

Mr. Fastfinger

If you've got the time and a reasonably-fast connection, you've GOT to go check out Mr. Fastfinger. It was designed by a Finnish programmer/guitar shredmeister named Mika Tyyskä, and he did a KILLER job on it. Take your time and really explore it -- it's a very cool user interface. It's entertaining, it's educational, AND it's extremely fun to totally rock out with some crazy-sick mutant guitar licks, even if you've never played guitar before!

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... a plane!

Was momentarily distracted when I heard the extraordinarily loud rumblings of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds flying overhead... the Chicago Air & Water Show is this weekend, which means we'll be hearing a lot more of our jet-propelled friends for the next few days...

WACK.

Feeling rather creatively blocked today... never a good place to be, especially when I don't have the luxury of aimlessly wandering through my own artistic/psychological labyrinth... I've got more tunes for Mortal Kombat to create, and people who are waiting to hear them...

What am I going to do about it? Get over it. How? I'm not sure yet, but I'll figure it out... Why? Because there is no other choice.

Heh.

Ready? GO!

It can be a real challenge to find a way to share one's video-gaming, thumb-twitching joy with the one you love. Nic is by no stretch of the imagination any kind of video game fan. But after searching high and low, I have found one game she really likes, that we can play together -- Super-Bust-a-Move. It's not a complicated game -- it's basically Tetris on ritalin. But it's good fun and by adjusting the handicap (historically, in her favor) we could have some great competition.

Until this weekend.

It was a massacre. I mean it was a bloodbath. I had the handicap cranked all the way in my favor and she was still crushing me like a wee grape. After 20 rounds, I'd only won 3. And I think she was going easy on those three...

I don't know when I lost it... I don't know how I lost it... all I know is... I no longer have it...

How do you say "cool" in Chinese?

I got an email last night stating that there is a concert band interested in taking TranZendental Danse of Joi on tour to China!

ain't technology cool?

Man, I am having the greatest day -- technologically speaking, that is. I've just been digging into so much cool stuff I can hardly stand it -- I'm like an Amish person in a horse-and-buggy store!

First cool thing numero uno: I just set up my first piece of outboard gear in my studio -- an Akai S-5000. I know, I know, it sounds so 2003 to be raving about hardware when everything is software now... and up until today, I could brag that my entire studio was soft, virtual, and entirely digital, including the mix environment. So what am I so excited about, for crying out loud? It's all being controlled by my Mac by a program called AkSys. I can even load and save the Multi setups inside the hardware to and from my Mac too, all via one wee USB cable. I basically never need to touch this piece of gear again, ever. TOO FRIKKIN' COOL.

Cool thing number B: On a break, I started exploring the widgets on the Mac dashboard. For the unenlighted, the dashboard is this cool popup feature that instantaneously springs up dozens of mini-programs for you to gawk at, then when your boss comes around the corner, one click of a button and they all go away in a flash. So while this is of no interest to PC owners, it should add to your Apple-envy. You can download widgets if you CLICK HERE.

Some of them are extremely useful, like a UPS package tracker, or the internal heat of your CPU, or maps, or hotspot wifi locators, or even updated gas and stock prices. I do have the stock prices on my dashboard, so at a moment's notice, I can tell how my old employer is doing (DOWN -3.15 ha ha!), and how my new employer is doing (UP +.46 hee hee!).

I also can see the weather update, since I don't have any windows in the studio. It's sunny now. It was raining earlier. See, I wouldn't have known that before!

I also have regularly updating CNN headlines ("Oil surges to $66 a barrel"), movie listings (VERY cool), a thing that tells me what happened this day in history ("Gifford Pinchot was born..." evidently, it's been a slow day for history...).

I have my daily horoscope, which is always entertaining; and I have my bio-rhythm chart, which is always alarming. Apparently today I have totally bottomed-out physically, emotionally, and passionately... who knew?!? I DO! I HAVE WIDGETS!!!

I've got a graphic representation of the current phase of the moon we're in, as well as an ongoing game of 5-card draw (I'm down 50 bucks).

I also had a widget that spelled out guitar chords, but the voicing were stupid, so I took that off.

Gotta go get more widgets!!

wow... his thumbs must've been KILLING him...

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said on Tuesday.

The 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been playing online battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the southeastern city of Taegu, police said.

Lee had planted himself in front of a computer monitor to play on-line games on August 3. He only left the spot over the next three days to go to the toilet and take brief naps on a makeshift bed, they said.

"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a Taegu provincial police official said by telephone.

Lee had recently quit his job to spend more time playing games, the daily JoongAng Ilbo reported after interviewing former work colleagues and staff at the Internet cafe.

After he failed to return home, Lee's mother asked his former colleagues to find him. When they reached the cafe, Lee said he would finish the game and then go home, the paper reported.

He died a few minutes later, it said.

South Korea, one of the most wired countries in the world, has a large and highly developed game industry.

scenes from Los Angeles

As promised, here are pictures from last weekend!

We all met up at Redondo Beach Marina at 5 AM, then headed down to the fishing boat, the Spitfire. Here, Eric is securing his rod.

Time to fish. My good buddy Alan Bise came all the way from Cleveland to be with us. Thanks dude!

In true dramatic form, David reels in a big one!

The Grand Poobah, Master of Ceremonies, and all-around-Good-Time-Charlie, Mr. Jim Dooley -- the mastermind who put this whole plan into action.

We were reeling in fish like CRAZY. According to the boat log, we caught 110 sand bass and 9 barracuda! Here's Kaz and his biggest sand bass...

... and here's Ceiri and the Captain with one of Ceiri's barracuda...

... but my buddy Brandon was more fond of the bait.

By about 1:30 PM, we'd all bagged our legal limit, so it was time to chill. Here's Ernie Lee (who co-wrote "Swarm" with me) and Kit Casey (who co-wrote "Slow Decay")...

... and here's David and Eric, hard at work on "Paradise Lost".

The whole afternoon, we had visits from Pelicans and Seagulls. There were also a few Sea Lions who followed after us, snacking on the extra bait that was thrown into the water.

David managed to pull in a gorgeous Bonita Tuna, so the crew sliced it up that instant and we at it like sushi. Truly incredible.

The big group shot: Al, Tim, Ernie, Brandon, Kit, D, me, King Dooley, Kaz, Dread Lord Whitacre, and Ceiri.

That night a few more people came over to Dooley's place and we staged a full-blown Texas Hold-Em tournament... I managed to make it to the final 5...

... along with the one woman cool enough to hang with the guys, Angie C (who also co-wrote "Vox Angeli" with me).

Evidently, Kit didn't like me taking pictures of his wife. That's the last thing I remember about the evening...

rhythmic riddles

The trip to L.A. was AWESOME -- I'll be putting some photos up, hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm writing fight music for Mortal Kombat.

Because so much of the MK stuff has an Asian/ethnic flavor to it, I wanted to work in a mixed-meter groove, but not lose the "common touch" -- that classic, four-on-the-floor, 4/4 time that our Western culture has deemed the ONLY time signature for popular music.

So I've come up with this pattern for the A section:

7/8 (divided 3,2,2)
9/8 (unusually divided 3,2,2,2)

and for the bridge:

12/8 (the classic 3,3,3,3)
2/4 (umm... 2,2...)

Go ahead and clap it out. Ees moy phunki.

So here is the question: in spite of these wacky odd/mixed meters, why does this still feel "comfortable" to the average listener?

And for you smarties out there, here's the bonus question: the bridge of my tune (12/8-2/4) shares the same groove as the transition from pre-chorus to chorus in what 80's bubblegum pop-rock tune?!?!?

Goin' Back Ta Cally

After I finish a little fight music for MK, I'm headed out to my old stomping grounds -- Los Angeles... going out for a lost weekend with the guys... let the knuckles drag a little bit... gonna do a little deep-sea fishing, and play a little poker... I'll try to post a few pictures, if there are any fit to print...!

juuuuuuuust right

Today I scored my first non-interactive scene, or NIS, for the next Mortal Kombat. An NIS is like a short movie the player watches that further propels the plot of the game-story. I've gotten comfortable with the sound palette of MK, so now I just needed to use those colors to paint in the music for that scene.

Film scoring has always been my first love, and it was so great to get back to it -- it seems like it's been a loooong time since I've scored anything to picture. The trick is to balance the psychology and emotion in the scene, without stealing the show from what's going on onscreen.

I played it for the sound lead, and after listening to it twice, he said it sounded great.

BULLSEYE! Now let's see how I fare on the next one...

on the other hand...

Today I was writing ambient music for Mortal Kombat 7 -- y'know, just stuff that plays while you're wandering around one of the Realms, not killing anybody or anything. I was really frustrated with what I was coming up with, so I played it for another composer (Vince Pontarelli -- you may've heard that name before). He liked what I was doing but agreed that I was on the wrong track. He played some of his ambient music from a previous game. Waaaaaaaaaay more artsy. And quite a bit more fartsy too. In fact, it bordered on contemporary bleep-bloop music from Hell -- it was good, but it was SERIOUSLY abstract.

OK, so I guess sometimes you've gotta be subtle too...

Why I love Austria.

NICE.

Blitz Blitz

Long day helping out with a promo video yesterday for "Blitz: The League" -- I'll definitely post a link when it's up on the 'net. Funny thing was, I was doing all this cutsy, subtle, artsy-fartsy stuff with the mix and sound design, so when the lead designer heard it, he was like "umm... cool. Now you've gotta make it WAY over-the-top". I followed his lead on the mix, and ended up running even farther with it than I'd originally intended. What ended up coming out was waaaay cooler than what I'd started with.

Subtlety be damned -- these are VIDEO GAMES!!!